Galvan demanded, leaping to his feet as limbs began to emerge from the roiling soil—a slim, bangle-sheathed wrist ten yards away, a muscular pair of nut-brown arms a few paces farther, and who the hell knew how many more beyond, just awakening to the presence of the heart and its No-Longer-Righteous Messenger. Its exhausted, 75 percent protectorless, shit-outta-luck-and-tricks, half-dead, waterlogged courier asshole. Galvan keened at the fake priest, staggered over and grabbed him by the sleeve, and brought them eyeball-to-eyeball, very well aware that he was wasting time they did not have, on questions that did not matter. “What happened to ‘they can’t cross the water,’ motherfucker? What happened to ‘if we can just get to the other side, we’ll be safe’?” The sweat was pouring down Britannica’s already river-drenched mug in sheets. “They didn’t cross,” he pointed out, looking more terrified of Galvan than of the Virgin Army.
