The Water-Bones of Callow

Callow Arch was raised to outlast empires and winter spates: a five-story limestone fortress seated on a sheer rock needle in the throat of an impassable river gorge. But when twin flash floods smash both timber approach spans into splinters in a single afternoon, the surviving garrison finds itself marooned above sixty feet of boiling cataract. Winch-tender Garret Vane watches the churning brown torrent turn milky and fever-warm, while mason Norris Claver discovers that the ancient mortar between the foundation blocks is weeping sweet water and softening into living silt. The river goddess has revoked her pact of stone. As damp river-reeds take root in salted grain barrels and sentries wake with cold river stones wedged beneath their tongues, the water begins to mount the spiral staircases, claiming the living as suitors for the depths below.