It didn’t knock him off.
It did crush him against the rock, though, but not hard enough. Not with the damned stuff churning and moving behind him like wet clay. And then re-forming around his body, to the point that he left a fey-shaped hole behind when he lunged at us again, batted aside the broken oar Pritkin had grabbed, and jumped into our failing ride.
And promptly helped it fail some more.
Pritkin and the silver fey landed in the bottom of the boat, kicking and fighting, and we went into freefall. The little guard started wailing on his buddy again, but this time, it didn’t help. And I grabbed the side of the burning boat and braced for impact.
Which didn’t come.
Not because we caught again. But because Pritkin had grabbed the stick—or the staff or whatever the hell—and tried to get it against the fey’s neck. I think the idea was to throttle him between it and the bottom of the boat. But the creature was too strong, throwing him off and back into me, and then grabbing his end of the staff like he intended to punch it through both our chests.
But he didn’t.
Because it punched through his instead.
I sat there, seeing but not understanding. Unlike with a gun, there had been no recoil, and no sound that I could hear over everything else. And the whole fight had taken all of a few seconds. It literally took longer to tell about it than it did to watch, and humans aren’t built to comprehend things that fast; we’re barely built to see them.
Which is why I was almost as surprised as the fey when he looked down at the gory cavity that had been his chest.
And saw nothing there.
He toppled off the craft, spinning out into the void on a rush of wind, but not disappearing, not dropping. Or rather he was, but we were, too. And just as fast.
Until Pritkin slammed the staff through the watery patch he’d placed over the hole in the bottom, which was still sort of holding. And did something with the staff—I didn’t see what. But I felt it.
Because, suddenly, instead of being feet away from crashing into the base of the falls, we were airborne again.
Very airborne.
Like, whoa, airborne, I thought, completely incoherent while clinging to Pritkin and staring at the line of fey on top of the waterfall, who were staring at us as we rocketed past.
Going the other way.
Which would have been good, which would have been great, if there wasn’t a ceiling, like, right there and ceiling, ceiling, ceiling!
And I guess Pritkin saw it, too, although I hadn’t had time to actually form the words. Because he pulled the staff to the right and we banked—a little too abruptly. Make that a lot too abruptly, slinging us on circuit around the cave while being almost completely sideways. And would have sent us tumbling to our doom except that all of us were already bracing under the seats with our feet and holding on to the sides with our hands and generally had our butts clenched on the seats in cold, hard terror.
Which only increased when we sped by the rock wall and another fey jumped on.
I got a heel to his forehead, but I wasn’t wearing shoes and it didn’t help. Unlike the air screaming through a hole in the hull, which was hitting him in the face hard enough to blow his lips back from his teeth. And the broken edge of the paddle the guard was now wielding, which seemed to be doing some damage until the fey ripped it away from him and tried to impale him on it.
That left the fey hanging on to the boat one-handed, with his body flapping out behind him almost horizontally, which would have spelled doom to anyone who was remotely normal. He just proceeded to stab at the guard again, who was saved only by boiled leather armor and a sidestep. Which turned almost balletic when he rotated in a flash of motion—
And brought a thick-soled boot down on the fey’s remaining hand.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” I screamed, although no one could hear me. I couldn’t even hear myself, with the wind ripping the words away before they were out of my mouth. Like the fey, who suddenly went flying.
Right into the sheer cliff face that was jutting out just ahead of us. We missed it thanks to a quick swerve by Pritkin, but that cost us half a second. Which was all the fey needed to twist, get his feet under him, and catapult back onto the boat as we rocketed past.
And abruptly the little guard flew backward off his feet.
The fey had almost missed the boat—literally—falling against the outer hull instead of inside, and had snagged the guard’s neck to save himself and to try to strangle him at the same time. But the guard had other ideas, snagging the undersid
e of a seat with his boot and using one of his oversized fists to wail on the side of the fey’s head.
But it wasn’t working, and we were out of weapons—even the broken paddles had fallen out by now. And the fey had the guard in a headlock, so even if I figured out some way to send him flying, the guard was likely to go, too. But he was going to anyway if I didn’t do something, so I grabbed the little guy’s belt and pulled.
I wasn’t crazy enough to think I could overpower a fey warrior, but I hoped to tip the balance enough for the guard to do the rest. But I had only the one arm that worked, and even with both, the fey was stronger than me. A lot stronger. Hell, it felt like one of his fingers might have outdone me, because it didn’t seem like I was making a damned bit of difference at all.