The mud shelf held.
Iven pressed his heel into its root-bound edge while Orret steadied the boat behind him. Dawn had not yet reached the far bank. Above the reed shelf, the sky was the color of unpolished lead.
Across eighteen paces of water, Cadan’s rear sentry stood beside the engine with his gun under one arm.
Iven waited until the man turned toward the canvas passage.
Then he moved.
Turbine drove through his planted feet in two clean impulses. Reeds fell away. The water passed beneath him in a dark blur. He reached the pontoon’s rear crossbeam with his knees bent, his left hand catching the gantry’s sound upright as his boots struck wood.
The sentry shouted.
Iven’s plate met the rising muzzle before the man could level it. The first shot struck its sloping face and went out over water. Iven stepped past the barrel, struck the man’s forearm with his spanner and drove him against a rope coil.
