Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(125)

Marie, Anastasia, and Rowan couldn’t even get close to the docks.

“We’re too late!”

Anastasia scoured the docks—what few vessels were left were already crammed with people, and more tried to fight their way on. Scythes were swinging blades left and right to cut down people trying to climb onto overcrowded crafts.

“Witness the true heart of humanity,” Scythe Curie said. “Both the valiant and the depraved.”

And then from the water of the eye, which was now roiling like a pot set to boil, a whale launched from the water in a full breach, taking out one of the docks of the marina and half the people on it.

“That’s no coincidence,” said Rowan. “It can’t be!” Now, as he looked, he could see the entire eye was heaving with sea life. Could this be part of Goddard’s endgame?

At the sound of beating blades above, they all looked up to see a helicopter. It bypassed them and swooped out over the eye, toward the council complex.

“Good,” said Scythe Curie. “It’s going to save the Grandslayers.” ?They could only hope that it wasn’t too late.

? ? ?

Nzinga, who feared the water as much as she feared the sharks, was the first to see their salvation come from above. “Look!” she shouted as the water lapped at her feet and a reef shark brushed past her ankle.

The helicopter dropped lower, hovering in the center of the council chamber, just above the surface of the churning water.

“Whoever that is, they’re getting lifetime immunity if they don’t already have it!” said Kahlo.

But just then, Grandslayer Amundsen lost his footing and slipped from his chair into the water. The response from the predatory fish was immediate. The reef sharks pounced on him in a feeding frenzy.

He screamed and grabbed at them, knocking them away. Peeling off his robe, he tried to climb back to his chair, but just as he thought he might actually be all right, a larger fin surfaced and serpentined toward him.

“Roald!” shouted Cromwell, “Watch out!”

But even if he saw it coming, there was nothing he could have done. The tiger shark launched itself at him, clamping around his midsection, and took him under the water, thrashing in a furious froth of blood.

It was terrible to behold, but Frida kept her wits about her. “Now’s our chance!” she said. “Go now!” She took off her robe and dove into the water, swimming at full force toward the helicopter while the sharks were distracted by their first kill.

The others followed suit; MacKillop, Hideyoshi, and Cromwell struggling to help Nzinga. Everyone else jumped from their positions, following the Grandslayer’s lead. Only Xenocrates held his position . . . because he realized something none of the others had. . . .

The helicopter door swung open, and inside were Goddard and Rand.

“Hurry!” Goddard said, leaning out onto the strut, reaching his hand toward the Grandslayers swimming toward him. “You can make it!”

Xenocrates just stared. Was this his plan? To bring the Grandslayers within an inch of their final demise, and then rescue them quite literally from the jaws of death, winning their favor forever? Or was something else happening here?

Supreme Blade Kahlo was the first to reach the helicopter. She had felt the sharks brush past her, but none had attacked yet. If she could only get up onto that strut, and lift herself out of the water. . . .

She grasped onto the strut, and with her other hand reached toward Goddard’s outstretched arm.

But then Goddard drew his arm back.

“Not today, Frida,” he said, with a sympathetic grin. “Not today.” He kicked Frida’s hand off the strut, and the helicopter rose skyward, abandoning the Grandslayers in the middle of the flooded, shark-infested chamber.

“No!” screamed Xenocrates. Goddard hadn’t come to rescue them—he came to make sure they knew the author of their destruction. He came to savor the meaty taste of his revenge.

While the pulsing beat of the helicopter blades had intimidated the sharks enough to keep them away from the center of the chamber, once the helicopter was gone, they obeyed their biological imperative and the reprogramming of their nanites, which told them that they were hungry. Insatiably hungry.

The swarm descended upon all those in the water. Reef sharks, tiger sharks, hammerheads. All the predatory fish that were so impressive when filling out the view of a subsea suite.

Xenocrates could do nothing but watch as everyone was taken down, and listen as their screams dissolved into the churning of water.

He climbed to the very top of his chair. Most of it was underwater now, as was most of the council chamber. He knew his life would be over in seconds, but in these last few moments he realized there was still one victory he could have. There was one thing he could deny Goddard. And so, rather than waiting any longer, he stood on his chair and hurled himself forward into the water. Unlike the others, he did not remove his robe—and, just as in Goddard’s pool a year ago, the weight of his gilded robe pulled him down to the bottom of the council chamber.

He would not allow himself to be killed by sea predators. He was determined to drown before they had their way with him. If this was to be his last act as a Grandslayer, he would make it victorious! He would make it exceptional!

And so, at the bottom of the flooded chamber, Xenocrates emptied his lungs of air, breathed in the sea, and drowned exceptionally well.