The morning passed in a blur: breakfast, reassurances from a very hungover Ron, a brief trip to the documents tent to collect everything, and then the chaos of the drydocks.
Harry stood with the rest of his regiment while they waited for their turn to board one of the sandskiffs in the fleet before them. Normally Harry would be intrigued by the concept of boats that were meant for earth instead of water, but his curiosity was dampened majorly by the nausea building in his stomach. Behind them, Kribirsk was waking up and going about its business; ahead was the strange, shifting darkness of the Fold.
Looking out at the skiff's deck, equipped with little more than a sail and a rickety railing, Harry's thoughts filled with several variations of the same thing. There is nowhere to hide. Out on the open deck, the Volcra could pick them off one by one with relative ease. It did not look like a one in nine chance—it looked like a one in two.
At the mast of each skiff, flanked heavily by armed soldiers, stood two Grisha Etherealki, the Order of Summoners, in dark blue cloaks. The silver embroidery at the cuffs and hems of the robes indicated that they were Squallers, or Wind Makers, for those of peasant superstition. They were there, Harry assumed, to fill the sails and get them across the Fold as swiftly as possible.
Soldiers armed with rifles stood lined between more Etherealki, though these had red bordered on their cuffs that indicated they could raise fire. The only line of protection between them and the Volcra.
At a signal from the skiff's captain, the Senior began to herd them onto the deck to join the other passengers. Then he took his place beside the Squallers at the mast, where he would help them navigate through the dark. The Senior had a compass in his hand, but it would be of little use to him once they were on the Fold.
Harry looked around and caught sight of each head of red hair just to reassure himself that they were there. Neville and Ron stood together in the movers section, next to Charlie, who stood with the twins in the trackers' section. While Charlie Weasley had a knack for training any animal he came across, the twins had a knack for findingthem. Harry doubted that there was anything they couldn't find—whether it be an animal, a person, a secret road, or lost treasure—given enough motivation.
Over by the generals was Bill, who waved at him as they locked eyes. Harry smiled back and turned his eyes onto the crowd of people who had just paid for passage through to find Molly and Arthur. He had only just found Ginny within the tailors when the crew from below shoved their skiff into the Fold, then hurried backed away, as if the dead, gray sand would burn their feet.
The Squallers raised their arms, the sails filled with air, and they were in.
At first, it was like drifting into a thick cloud of smoke, but there was no heat, no smell of fire.
Harry's ears popped and he tightened his grip on the railing. He chanced a look back over his shoulder, only to find that the shore had been swallowed up by blackness.
The living world had disappeared. Darkness fell around them, black, weightless, and absolute.
They were in the Fold.
It was like standing at the end of everything. Harry was...exhilarated.
It was so, so odd, but his fear had evaporated as quickly as the sunlight had. There was a certain calmness to the shadow. Harry breathed in through his mouth, and the taste of surety, oneness, clung to the back of his throat like syrup. His fear for the others became almost nonexistent; he could protect them.
And wasn't that a wild thought? That he, Harry, a little scrawny orphan boy, would be able to do anything in the face of danger, should it arise. As incredulous as that thought made him, there was something in his chest, something small and hidden and struggling, that whispered, 'I could...I could do it...' Harry shook his head and smothered it, his trepidation trickling back into his veins as he did so.
There was nothing but silence on every side of him. The gentle rasp of the skiff across the sand barely reached his ears, and he could hear Dean's slightly panicked breaths beside him. He grabbed Harry's wrist in a crushing grip.
"Listen!" He whispered, voice hoarse with terror.
For a moment, all Harry heard was his continued ragged breathing and the steady hiss of the skiff. Then, somewhere out in the darkness, there was the faint but relentless flapping of wings.
Harry gripped Dean's arm with one hand and clutched the hilt of his army issued knife in the other. He searched wildly around for a glimpse of his family, but it was no use. There was nothing but darkness. The sounds of rifles being cocked and arrows being notched had Harry holding his breath. They waited and listened to the sound of wings beating the air, growing louder as they drew nearer. Harry thought he felt the wind stir against his cheek as they circled closer, closer.
"Burn!" The command rang out, followed by the crackle of flint striking stone and an explosive gust of air as rippling plumes of Grisha flame erupted from the skiff.
Squinting in the sudden brightness, Harry quickly looked over the surface of the deck and counted heads of hair. Only then, did he turned his attention to the monsters.
Volcra were supposed to move in small flocks, but there were not tens, but hundreds hovering and swooping in the air around the skiff. Harry had heard stories of creatures called Inferius, that were made from the corpses left to rot in cursed battlefields and sunken into the sea. He remembered looking at the pictures of gaunt, gray, decayed flesh and hollow eye sockets, claw-tipped hands and backwards legs. He was reminded viscerally of those pictures now as he stared at the Volcra.
They looked like Inferi with wings, a cross between a corpse and a harpy, the razor-filled mouth stretched wide and lipless to both sides of their skulls. The sunken sockets held the embers of hellfire within them.
Shots rang out. The archers let fly and the shrieks of Volcra split the air, high and horrible. They dove, and Harry watched in numb horror as a soldier was lifted off his feet and carried off into the darkness. Shaking his head, Harry went to run towards the cluster of red hair on the other side of the skiff, his heart in his throat, when Dean caught his wrist and wrenched him back.
"What are you doing?" Dean hissed, eyes wide with fear.
"Let go!" Harry bellowed over the screams of the nightmare surrounding them. "I need to get to them. I need to protect them!"
"With what?" Dean shouted in return as he effectively tugged Harry down behind a stack of barrels next to the railing. Harry whipped his head around to glare at Dean, but it faltered when he registered the petrified expression on his friend's face.
Harry turned his head back to look helplessly out over the skiff as the light flickered and spluttered, the Grisha tiring out as they continued to fight against the writhing, winged beasts. All around them, pandemonium: men shouting, people screaming, soldiers locked in combat with the massive monsters trying to wrench them over the side. Harry lost sight of his family.
Then a cry rent the air beside him, and Harry choked on a breath as Dean's arm was yanked from his. In a searing flash of fire, Harry saw him clutching the railing with one hand, his eyes wide with terror as he screamed. Harry's heart stopped as he saw the glistening gray arms of the Volcra wrapped around Dean, its talons already buried deeply into his back, already wet with blood. Dean shrieked and his fingers slipped from the railing.
Harry lunged forward and grabbed his arm tightly. "Hold on!" Then the flames vanished once more, and in the darkness Harry felt Dean's fingers pull from his. "Dean!"
Though his friend's screams faded into the sounds of battle behind him, Harry felt them ring loudly in his ears, over and over again as he stood numbly at the edge of the railing, his hand outstretched as if he could pluck Dean right back out of the air and replace him right beside him.
Harry was wrenched from his shock by a gust of wings as another Volcra set upon him. He careened backwards, his knife abruptly in his hands as he slashed blindly in front of him. The beast lept forward, the firelight highlighting its horrible, ember eyes, and for a moment, in the wash of red, Harry thought he saw hell.
A flash of powder at the corner of his eye, and a shot cracking right past his ear, and the Volcra stumbled as it yowled in rage and pain.
"Move!" It was Charlie, his face streaked with several shades of blood. He grabbed Harry's bicep and shoved him behind himself, even as the monster recovered and started back towards them.
Charlie was hastily trying to reload in the firelight, but the beast was too fast. It rushed them, reared up, and slashed its talons across Charlie's chest. He screamed and went down.
"Fuck!" Harry shouted, eyes wide with panic. He whirled on the Volcra and took it by its injured wing to stab his knife right between the slimy, muscled flesh of its shoulders. It screeched and bucked free of his grip, and he fell backwards, his skull meeting the deck hard. It lunged at Harry in a flurry of rage, wide jaws unhinged as if to swallow him whole.
Another shot rang out.
The Volcra stumbled a fell in a grotesque heap, black blood pouring from its mouth. Harry jerked his head up and saw George lowering his rifle, his freckled face pale and tight.
Harry dropped down beside Charlie, who had turned alarmingly white as his tunic became soaked with scarlet. Harry's hands fluttered over his chest uselessly.
"Charlie, oh saints, Charlie—"
"Harry!" Fred's voice was distant, foggy.
The sounds of crackling flames, gunfire, and the horrid squelchs of something feeding made it hard to hear anything called from across the deck. But Harry could hear nothing over the ringing in his ears. He wondered dazedly what he had done to warrent such a punishment; when he had specifically prayed that if someone had to die, that they would take him instead, take him apart piece by piece if they must. But which saint, which God did he piss off enough to not only ignore his plea, but to do the exact opposite? Harry Potter, with the blood of two men on his hands—two deaths—would recieve no salvation from the hands of the Saints today.
A shaking, scarred hand gripped Harry's tightly and pulled his attention back to the man he admired most out of the Weasleys, bleeding out beneath his palms.
"Harry," Charlie rasped out beseechingly. "Harry, more are coming, you have to move."
"No. No, I'm not leaving you." Harry answered fiercely even as his glasses fogged up with tears. This couldn't be real, it just couldn't...
"Harry you have to go help the others. They need you. I'll be all right. It's just nature, is all; everyone needs to eat." Charlie smiled weakly.
Harry choked out a laugh that sounded more like a sob. That was just such, such a Charlie statement that he couldn't help but feel his sadness clear. Because of course he was defending the monsters that had torn his chest open. It was part of what Harry admired so much about Charlie—he tended to see the good in everything.
Charlie let out a sigh and let his head fall back. He squeezed Harry's fingers reassuringly and closed his eyes. "Go, little one."
And just like that, the absence of Harry's sadness was flooded with anger. The skiff had stopped moving, and the bouts of Grisha flame were growing weaker. No, this was not the end. He refused to let it be the end. "No," He retorted sharply. "I am not leaving you here to die!"
With that declaration, Harry felt something crack in his chest. He blinked, and then excruicating pain sliced through him as jagged teeth dug into his shoulder.
The world exploded in white.
Shouts of alarm and cries of relief sounded in unison with the terrified shrieks of the Volcra as they hurriedly swooped up and away. Harry let out a cry himself as light crashed across his vision. It filled up his head, blinding him, drowning him. He felt the Volcra release its grip on his shoulder and scramble away, just before he felt himself slump and hit the deck.
Everything went black.