Silas gritted his teeth, his mind racing through a brutal calculation. If they stopped to pull him out, the current would push the barge directly into the Spearhead Rocks. If they kept moving, the boy was dead.
Kaelen looked at Silas with pure horror, but obeyed. They pulled hard on the heavy oars, fighting the pull of the water as the barge scraped violently against a submerged boulder. The sound of splintering wood echoed through the canyon. Water began to seep through the floorboards.
"Keep rowing!" Silas commanded, his voice cracking. "We cannot stop! If the Flame goes out, the whole kingdom dies with him!" Dreadful River Free Download
"Riders on the right bank!" yelled Kaelen, the crew's scout, pointing a trembling finger toward the jagged cliffs.
They had no gold left for upgrades, their hull was compromised, and morale was shattered. But ahead, through the fog, Silas saw the faint, glowing blue marker of a riverside merchant camp. They just had to survive the rapids to reach it. Silas gritted his teeth, his mind racing through
Silas didn't need to look. The whistling of primitive arrows already filled the air. Bandits. This stretch of the river was notorious for them. They didn't want the flame; they wanted the supplies, the wood, and the gold Silas used to keep this floating death trap together. "Shields up!" Silas roared. "Brace the hull!"
As the arrows finally stopped raining down, a thick silence fell over the gorge, broken only by the roar of approaching rapids. Silas looked down at his map, then up at the darkening sky. Night was falling, and the river's most dangerous inhabitants only hunted in the dark. Kaelen looked at Silas with pure horror, but obeyed
Two of his remaining crewmen scrambled to hoist heavy wooden shutters along the starboard side. Arrows thudded into the thick oak with sickening force. One found a gap, catching a young deckhand in the shoulder. He screamed, tumbling backward toward the churning water. "Man overboard!" Kaelen cried, reaching out a hand.