Chapter 28 Down Is a Matter of Opinion

Jin caught the nearest tank before it hit his face.

The glass burst against his forearms.

Water slapped him backward. A silver body hit the counter and snapped its jaws at his throat.

He shoved the broken tank between them.

Teeth punched through the wooden frame.

“Don't feed it your hands!” Calder shouted.

“Taking that under advisement!”

Another tank broke against the wall. Calder tore a thick glove from a hook and caught the escaping fish behind its long fins.

The creature twisted, mouth snapping. Her arm jerked sideways.

“Dessa!”

She flung it toward the shelf. Dessa's cleaver came down across the fin before it could turn back.

The two other sprats skittered beneath the overturned furniture.

Calder braced the glove against her chest, breathing hard. One tooth had gone through the leather.

“The rear half,” she told Jin. “Hold there. Let the head be somebody else's problem.”

The chair behind him slid toward the door. So did his feet.

Outside, the lifted river hung in a trembling sheet between the quay and the huge open mouth. Six fleshy whiskers spread around its rim, each trailing a line of gold light.

Jin dug his heel into a crack between floorboards.

The pressure changed.

The fish on the counter dropped flat. The chair crashed down. The river fell with a roar that drowned the screaming from the quay.

“Mouth open, down points into it,” Dessa said. “Closed, down comes back. Usually five beats feeding, three swallowing. Watch the jaw.”

She shifted her cleaver.

Red light ran along the edge. The blade drove the captured sprat's fin harder against the shelf without cutting through the body.

“Cinderblade,” she said, seeing Jin stare. “And currently underpaid.”

The first sprat tore free of the tank frame.

Its mouth opened.

The broken glass between them lifted toward the teeth.

Jin jerked his face aside. Shards stung his cheek. He drove his knife into the soft crease behind the jaw and pushed until the point struck the counter beneath it.

The fish writhed around the blade.

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He twisted.

Silver scales loosened into light.

No time to enjoy it.

The adult opened its mouth again.

Calder caught a post beside the doorway. Her yellow waistcoat snapped toward the river. Beyond her, a stall broke loose and slid across the quay, scattering paper fish and cooking pots.

Kessa braced one foot against the doorjamb and drew her bow.

From the square came the twang of a heavy bow and a man's shouted count. Town hunters were already moving along the quay, driving people behind the fountain between feeding pulses.

Her arrow struck the nearest of the adult's whiskers.

The great head jerked.

The shop's chair shot past Calder and out through the doorway.

Jin followed it for half a pace before catching the counter.

The sprat Dessa had pinned lunged at his fingers.

She wrenched the hot cleaver sideways, dragging its head off line.

“That one's yours!”

Jin couldn't reach it without losing the counter.

He looked at the stone threshold. Three short paces away. The floor between it and the counter had cleared as everything loose went out the door.

He moved across it, one deliberate step after another, recording the approach to the stone. At the threshold he turned and walked back to the counter.

Dessa's sprat thrashed harder.

“Soon would be traditional!”

Jin got behind it and seized a fold of loose fin with his empty hand.

He set his feet on the recorded start.

It turned toward the movement.

He selected Braced Waypoint.

Three strides pulled him to the threshold with the sprat dragging behind him. His heel settled against the stone.

The little jaws opened.

Jin drove the knife under them and up.

His arm shook. His planted foot held through the wrench that would have pulled him out into the adult's feeding cone.

The sprat went slack.

He let the body go before his brace faded.

He put two into Strength, one into Agility and two into Endurance.

The adult's mouth closed.

Jin dropped to one knee on the threshold. The world settled back beneath him with a sickening lurch.

Two sprats remained.

One darted beneath the empty shelf. The other shot out of the doorway on the last of the falling water, its fins whipping against the stone.

Kessa stepped after it.

“Wait,” Calder said.

Too late.

The fish opened its mouth beneath the cooking stall outside.

A pan tore free, struck a support and knocked the stall across the doorway. Kessa jumped back into the shop as wood crashed between her and the quay.

“I said wait!”

“I heard you!” Kessa snapped.

Dessa grabbed Jin's collar and hauled him upright.

“Back door.”

Calder was already running that way.

They spilled into a narrow lane behind the shop. Jin pressed his back against a stone wall and looked toward the river.

The tiltjaw had hauled itself onto the quay with two vast hooked fins. Its belly dragged over the paving. The other fins held it steady while its mouth opened toward the festival awnings.

His weight lurched toward the far end of the lane.

He caught a window ledge.

Beyond the lane, people scrambled across the festival awnings.

One boy caught a ribbon.

The knot started to come undone.