The arrival of the floodwaters was heralded by great ks of ice that came battering against the wooden bridge of grave dirt boxes like storm-borne icebergs ramming anchored ships. Ice shattered, wood splintered; a regular drumming that beat out a warning, announg the great wave that followed the outriding ice.
Dead Hands and living slaves scurried back along the coffin bridge, the Dead』s shadowy bodies losing shape as they ran, so they became like long, this of black crepe, squirming and sliding over rocks and boxes, throwing human slaves aside without mercy, desperate to escape the destru that came r down the river.
Sabriel, watg from the tower, felt the people die, vulsively swallowing as she seheir last breaths gurgling, sug water instead of air. Some of them, at least two pairs, had deliberately thrown themselves into the river, choosing a final death, rather than risk eternal bondage. Most had been knocked, pushed or simply scared aside by the Dead.
The wavefront of the flood came swiftly after the ice, shouting as it came, a higher, fiercer roar than the deep bellow of the waterfall. Sabriel heard it for several seds before it rouhe last bend of the river, then suddenly, it was almost upon her. A huge, vertical wall of water, with ks of i its crest like marble battlements and all the debris of four hundred miles swilling about in its muddy body. It looked enormous, far taller than the island』s walls, taller even thaower where Sabriel stared, shocked at the power she had unleashed, a power she had hardly dreamed possible when she』d summo the night before.
It had been a simple enough summoning.
Mogget had takeo the cellar and then down a winding, narrow stair, that grew colder and colder as they desded. Finally, they reached a strange grotto, where icicles hung and Sabriel』s breath blew clouds of white, but it was no longer cold, or perhaps so cold she no longer felt it. A block of pure, blue-white ice stood upon a stoal, both limned with Charter marks, marks strange aiful.
Then, following Mogget』s instru, she』d simply placed her hand on the ice, and said, 「Abhorsen pays her respects to the Clayr, and requests the gift of water.」 That was all. They』d gone back up the stairs, a sending locked the cellar door behind them, and another brought Sabriel a nightshirt and a cup of hot chocolate.
But that simple ceremony had summoned something that seemed totally out of trol.
Sabriel watched the wave rag towards them, trying to calm herself, but her breath raced in and out as quickly as her stomach flipped over.
Just as the wave hit, she screamed and ducked uhe telescope.
The whole tower shook, stones screeg as they moved, and for a moment, even the sound of the waterfall was lost in a crack that sounded as if the island had been leveled by the first shock of the wave.
But, after a few seds, the floor stopped shaking, and the crash of the flood subsided to a trolled roar, like a shouting drunk made aware of pany. Sabriel hauled herself up the tripod and opened her eyes.
The walls had held, and though now the wave ast, the river still raged a mere handspan below the island』s defenses and was almost up to the tunnel doors oher bank.
There was no sign of the stepping-stohe coffin bridge, the Dead, or any people—just a wide, brown rushing torrent, carrying debris of all descriptions. Trees, bushes, parts of buildings, livestock, ks of ice—the flood had claimed its