The crack boomed through the valley like a clap of thunder directly overhead. Somma started sobbing fearfully, and the colonel stretched his hand and gently patted the general’s shoulder. Shouts and screams roared from the road as the soldiers turned and saw the dam crumbing and the water breaking through. For a few moments, the only danger was a huge torrent of water streaming through a hole in the dam. Soldiers started running in every direction, but none of them could outrun what was about to happen. Not even the fastest horse could outrun the deluge that was soon to be upon them.
With another series of loud cracks, the dam ruptured with an explosive force. The huge trees that had made up the dam flew through the air as a solid wall of water burst into the valley. The water roared as it smashed into the ground and swept downstream, tumultuous waves destroying everything they touched. Rotti watched carefully as the flood headed downstream. The center of the riverbed was the first to fill, and the deluge carried some of the huge trees downstream like giant battering rams. Anything in their path would be instantly crushed. The colonel was not concerned with them. He was more concerned with the huge trees that had been thrown to the sides of the stream by the dam explosion. Those trees were not yet in the stream of flowing water, but they would be as soon as the flood widened a little bit more. They were the missiles that would kill the soldiers still on the road.
He watched as the flood widened at an alarming pace. He knew that the entire valley would be underwater long before the lake was empty, but he was unprepared for the swiftness with which the valley filled. Within mere moments, a solid wall of water stretched across the entire valley. The colonel watched it coming towards him with a sense of dread.
“Give me your hand,” Rotti said to the general, “and grab the tree with your other hand. What ever you do, do not panic. It will be scary, but trust in me. We will survive.”
The colonel glanced over his shoulder and saw the wall of water about to hit. He turned his face away from the flood and shouted for the general to hold his breath. The water hit like a solid brick wall, and the colonel felt himself get lightheaded as he smashed against the tree that he was tied to. Within an eye blink, he had gone from standing next to the road to being entirely underwater. The force of the water tore at him, trying to sweep him downstream, but the rope held him fast, so fast that it felt as if the rope would rip right through his chest and split him in two. He wanted to scream in agony, but he could not. Objects began striking his back with increasing regularity, and Rotti suddenly felt like a fool. The tree he had chosen was sturdier than he had anticipated. Instead of falling easily as he had hoped, it held firm, and showed every intention of continuing to do so. That meant that he and the general were tied at the bottom of the flood with no chance to escape.
Suddenly, Rotti felt the dead tree lean into the flow of the water, but his lungs were already screaming for air. He did not think he would survive even long enough to reach the surface, and he thought about the poor general who had put his faith in him. It was then that he realized that he no longer held Somma’s hand. Rotti’s world started to go dark just as the tree was ripped from the soil. The dead tree shot through the water like an arrow and burst into the air before slamming back into the tumultuous foam. Rotti’s eyes rolled back in his head as he gasped for air. His lungs screamed for more air, and all the colonel could think about was breathing. Waves crested over his body, and water flowed into his mouth. He coughed and gasped as some of the water found its way into his lungs. The colonel lost all sense of time.
When his breathing was somewhat under control, he opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the wild, raging water. What had been a peaceful river the previous fall now had massive confused waves like the sea in the midst of a terrible storm. Everywhere he looked, people and horses were thrashing in the water, and hundreds of trees were floating downstream. The water itself was murky brown, and huge waves rose unbidden with little sense of direction or purpose. He glanced to his right and saw the general. Somma appeared dead, but Rotti had to be sure. He reached out and grabbed the general’s wrist. He felt life still flowing through the general’s body, and his lips curled upward in a slight smile. They had both survived the first challenge.
Colonel Rotti pulled himself to the general to make sure that he was breathing. The back of General Somma’s uniform was shredded, and his forehead had a nasty cut, but the colonel could detect no other damage. He raised his head up and looked around to get his bearings. The dead tree that they were using for a raft had found its way to the center of the channel. While the whole river was racing towards the sea, the center channel was moving much faster than the edges. The colonel turned to look behind him. The root structure of the dead tree appeared intact, and it gave the colonel an idea. He pulled on the rope in an attempt to reach the roots, but there was not enough play in the rope. He pulled the knife from his sheath and cut the rope. Working frantically in case the dead tree rammed some other debris and threw him into the water, he pulled the rope from Somma’s end until he had retrieved the entire coil. He then retied the free end of the coil to the rope tied around his chest.
Colonel Rotti slowly dragged the general’s body to the root cluster and leaned him against the roots to keep his head up and away from the surface of the water. He then positioned himself next to the general and began to think of how the wild ride was going to end. The river was now much wider than it had been the previous fall and there were steep banks on both sides. Leaving their raft and swimming to the riverbank was not an option, and not just because of the general’s fear of water. Swimming in the river right now was a dangerous gambit. The hundreds of floating bodies nearby attested to that. The current was far too strong, and the flow was littered with trees and other deadly debris. He wondered if he could in some way maneuver the tree as if it were a raft. It was fairly steady in the water, not pitching or rolling as it might have. The colonel turned and stared at the roots, looking for something he would use as an oar or tiller, but the roots were thick and massive. With just a knife, he was not going to be able to cut through any of them. He sighed and returned his gaze forward.
“We are alive,” General Somma said with a sense of wonder.
“So far,” Colonel Rotti said with a grin. Despite the precarious situation that they were in, he was thrilled to hear the general’s voice. “The next trick will be getting back to dry land.”
“How did you know that the dam would burst?”
“I saw the oxen pulling it apart,” answered the colonel.
“I don’t understand,” frowned the general. “The Alceans destroyed their own dam just to flood us?”
“It is worse than that, General,” sighed Colonel Rotti. “The Alceans built that dam just to destroy us. That is why it was built so crudely. It was never meant to last. I should have suspected the truth when I first saw that chain attached to it.”
For several moments, neither of the soldiers spoke, then the general looked the colonel in the eye with shock on his face.
“That means that the Alceans knew that we were coming this way.”
Colonel Rotti nodded. “And they have known for a long time. Even such a crude dam would take a long time to build. They must have started that dam just after Kerk and I passed through here last fall.”
The dead tree shuddered and screams rang out nearby. The colonel stuck his head up to see what was going on, but he could not see the front end of their raft. Moments later, fresh-killed bodies floated by on both sides in swirls of blood, and Rotti understood the screams. Some soldiers had been unfortunate enough to get in the path of the racing dead tree. The incident caused the colonel to ponder about the stability of the tree. When he had run the rope around it before the dam burst, he had noticed a large branch on the opposite side, and he assumed that the branch was now acting like a keel, giving the raft some sense of stability, but what would happen when men tried to scramble aboard, especially if they all chose to climb up the same side? The colonel decided to prepare for such an event. He gathered the slack coil of rope between the general and himself and pulled his knife again.