The Goblin's Heir

Chapter Fifty Nine: Currents

There was nearly a wall of bodies and debris across the expanse of the Thames. We could easily climb it and cross the wide river were it not for the hole at its middle where the waters ran too deep and too swiftly to pile the corpses. There we would need to swim to the other side of the macabre bridge. Looking at the paling faces around me, it was a plan that clearly did not sit well with my companions. It was cold. The river's waters would be absolutely frigid. Cerise had the Hollow's blessing, but Hughes and I were quite human. We possessed a human's brittle form. We could freeze to death. We could drown. We could be swept out to sea. There were a great number of ways he and I could die just to cross the river. 

"Mama," Magni fidgeted with the satchel in which the seed was nestled. He eyed the rushing waters fearfully. "I don't know if I can swim."

"I will carry you, Princeling. Worry not." Ari said, squatting ahead of him, offering her back.

"How will you swim?" Magni asked.

"I will manage," Ari smirked over her shoulder at him. "I am stronger than I might appear. I pray you will remember that when the time comes."

"Still angling to be goblin queen, Ari?" I rolled my eyes as Magni hopped onto her back. With his nearly emaciated form, he looked like a child against her relatively larger frame.

"Apparently that desire was not entirely due to my design for I have yet to lose it. Most of it is just me and perhaps the copious amounts of greed Knut instilled in me. What woman does not want to be a queen?"

Hopeless. Completely hopeless. I would've laughed at her had I not had other more important things on my mind. "I'll go first, then Ari and Hughes. Cerise, take up the rear." I moved ahead with the others making a line behind me. We crawled across the first stretch of piled debris, flesh giving way sickeningly beneath our hands and feet. The stench alone was near unbearable. Out of the five of us, Ari of course took it the best. Her expression never faltered, unfazed by the disgustingness of it all. Hughes came in at a close second, having seen his fair share of atrocities and gore. Cerise, Magni, and I, however, knew we'd never get the stench out our noses. 

Do you think Snorri or one of the other winged ones would come if you called?" Cerise asked from the back, making a cringing face as she stepped forward onto a woman's chest. The weight of her body pressing down on her chest forced air from the woman's body. The corpse made a sound like a whimper, pitiful and pained. The voice of the dead, rising from pale flesh.

"We can't risk being spotted. We're smaller and less noticeable on foot." I answered. What I wouldn't give just to fly my way to Thorns as I'd done before. It was tempting if only to avoid taking another step through a rotting rib cage.

Things hardly got any better when we reached the point where the makeshift bridge gave way to the water. As the freezing waters lapped against my thighs I sucked in a sharp, shuttering breath as my senses all flinched. Behind me, I heard Hughes growl a curse. We waded a ways still finding large bits of rubble to brace our toes against.

"This has to be the most foolish thing I've ever done and I've done quite a lot of stupid shit in my day." Hughes huffed, angling his head back to keep his face above the rancid water. He held his gun over his head still as if there was any hope of the thing not getting hopelessly waterlogged before we reached the other side.

"We're about to top this, I'm afraid," I said, feeling nothing beneath my foot on the next move forward.

Here the current was quite strong, stronger than I'd anticipated. I could feel it pushing against me, moving me toward the endless ocean. No matter how hard I kicked it didn't seem to get me anywhere. I felt my legs sweep out from under me before I got to the half-way point. My hands reached for something, anything, seeking purchase. My fingers clawed, my legs kicked. My fingers dug into some tattered fabric, pulling a corpse up from the depths. It bobbed there before me, greying hair hanging in a gaunt face, one eye milky white, the other an empty socket. I made a small noise of disgust as I shoved the body away, biting my tongue to keep from screaming outright for fear of calling the goblin horde to the waters.