I sliced the water cleanly in my dive, going deep to come up again a dozen feet out from the side of the crashed airship. The shock of the winter river seared my burns, sucked at my air. I fought through it, struck out for shore in the wake of the man ahead of me.
The ship had come down closer to the northern bank than to the southern, and it was to the nearest spit of land that the mercenary headed. That land was perhaps seventy-five tahng away, close to eighty yards, and the outlaw had a good head start on me. He flailed at the water rather than cutting it smoothly, though, and I had no doubt that I could close the gap. It seemed unlikely that I would catch him in the river. In the end, I did not.
He came to shore a few feet ahead of me and should probably have made his stand there whe
