Jumping Fish

From atop the wall, Isidro and Puck watch the mob tighten around the bound Casca while Isidro hunts for any means to reach her. Puck spots Jerome, Nina, Serpico, and Farnese clambering down the shattered Tower onto the parapet. Jerome keeps a grip on Nina and pretends loyalty to the Holy Iron Chain Knights to fool Serpico and Farnese, but Isidro blows the act by cheerfully hollering for help. The knight snatches Nina by the waist and flees for his own skin, and neither Serpico nor Farnese bothers to pursue.

Below, Casca is cinched fast to the tall stake, rigid with fear as memories of the Eclipse flood back. Satisfied that all is ready, the airborne Mozgus commands the crowd to light her. Guts, still trading blows with the spirits at the Tower's crown, sees the kindling catch and knows she has only moments. He throws himself at the mass ahead of him, which has merged into one colossal blob.

Isidro and Jerome improvise a rescue. They wedge a long plank out over the wall's edge, Jerome bracing it while Isidro, a rope knotted at his waist, poises on the end like a diver. For the second day running, the boy plunges earthward and lands beside Casca. He slashes her ropes with his dagger and clamps his arms around her. Nina then heaves a heavy stone tied to the rope's far end off the wall, and its weight yanks the pair skyward, clear of the flames and back onto the parapet.

Having tracked the whole maneuver, a furious Mozgus dives to seize Casca, but Isidro shoves her flat and the inquisitor overshoots. Mozgus rights himself just off the near-vertical surface of the Tower and begins to speak, only for the onlookers to fix on a small dark shape descending above him. Guts, at last through the blob, tears straight down the barely-tilted wall and skewers Mozgus on the Dragon Slayer.

Jerome's false allegiance collapses and he flees with Nina. Mozgus orders Casca burned. Isidro bungees down on a plank-and-rope rig, cuts her free, and Nina's counterweight stone hoists them both to safety. Mozgus's dive to recapture Casca fails, and Guts sprints down the Tower's face to impale the inquisitor.

Published in Young Animal issue 16 on August 11, 2000, this twenty-one-page chapter takes its title from Isidro's plunging rescue. It delivers the climactic turn of the Albion sequence, converting the group's improvised teamwork into Casca's survival and opening Guts's direct duel with Mozgus.