under the surface – a punctured lung. His breathing hitched as he flailed to get away from her, dropping his sword so that he could use the arm to swim. She let him go, partly because her ribs were hurting like buggery and it hurt to breathe, partly because she’d had her fill of killing people, but mostly because in the light of a lamp she could see three more men coming her way, plus the man holding the lamp had the gun in his other hand and looked like he was ready to use it again now his comrade was clear of her.
She had no choice. It was dive or die.
The lamp shone dimly through the water, making it a little easier. It showed up a thread of blood too, though she couldn’t be sure if it was hers or her attacker’s. Didn’t really matter. All that mattered was holding her breath, holding on. Telling herself this wasn’t like the last time; no, it was worse because she had no Vocho to pull her out.
She dragged herself down to where she’d felt the gap, water rushing through like it had nowhere else to go, trying to pull her with it. It had to be the way. A hand grabbed her foot, but she kicked it off, asked the Clockwork God for some help here, please, and let the current drag her in.
Chapter Twenty-three
Petri swam down after Kacha, his heart beating so hard he thought it might burst the air out of his lungs. He followed a trail of blood into murky depths where all colour was leached clean by darkness. The waterwheels loomed over him, cutting off the faint light of Eneko’s lamp above as he was pulled ever onward by the rushing water.
What did she think she was doing? Bakar had blocked the sluice gate years ago. He’d done it himself, not trusting anyone else to know the details of his escape route. All anyone knew was that he’d found the waterwheels, figured out the clockwork, found the Clockwork God’s heart and heard his words, and then, once prelate, had made sure no one else could leave this tunnel except through the grille into the Shrive. Alive at least. Only he had access to the wheels, though plenty of people had ended up in the Shrive after trying to find them from above. He came down here once a month to check the wheels and sometimes brought out the corpse of some hapless soul who’d drowned while trying to find the secret. At least he said that’s where the corpses came from, though Petri had begun to have his doubts.
All of which meant Kacha was heading nowhere except to a watery end.
The guards with him gave up but he kicked harder, reached out and had her foot for just a second, and lost her again. The water rushed faster here, pulling him along whether he wanted it or not. Bubbles obscured everything, though the grating hum of the wheels to his left seemed far too close.
The force of the water caught him by surprise, tumbled him over and slammed him into something soft – Kacha. It took him a second to get his bearings before he realised they were hard up against the grate of the sluice that fed the wheels. This was where Bakar had escaped and what he’d blocked with dense mesh so no one else could do the same. The water felt solid here, a cold, slithering mass that held them to the mesh no matter how they tried to fight it.
Egimont could see her dimly in the bubble-lit darkness. She ignored him and thumped away at a corner of the mesh, her movements jerky, panicked. He felt the first flutterings of it himself – from here there was no way out except through that mesh. The water was too strong to fight back up to the surface, and his head was starting to buzz with the need to breathe. Kacha stopped thumping and started on the mesh with a knife, sliding it under the edge and yanking. He found a corner she’d lifted and yanked with her. He felt more than saw her surprised look, but they pulled together, and just when Egimont thought he had to breathe, had to or die, the mesh gave way. He was pulled through, snagging his tunic on the mesh so that he ripped it off and fell through the centre of the waterwheel.