The swirling, broken current changed to a strong, steady flow. It seemed now that she was being carried down a great pool in the dark. The river had not yet succeeded in killing her: she had a respite while it prepared for a second attempt. A particle of courage returned to her. She was Maia of Serrelind, not a drowning goat. If Lespa had lost sight of her, if the water had betrayed her, if the demon was going to kill her, at least she would make it as hard for him as she could. In her first panic she had thought of nothing but keeping afloat. Now, in this breathing space, she was able to recall that however dark and wide the river, the opposite bank must lie somewhere to her left.
She turned on her belly and as best she could began to swim in that direction.
Yet in such a current her strongest efforts were puny and futile. Each stroke with her left hand seemed all-con-sumingly arduous, like trying to hoist herself up a rope with one arm. Each stroke with her right hand instantly swung her downstream, struggling to turn and commence the whole weary task again.
She felt herself beginning to fail. Already in the forest and the swamp she had been tired, before ever she began this losing fight with the water; and even had she not been tired it would still have been beyond her. As the force of the current strengthened again she abandoned all attempt to swim steadily across it, merely drifting passively and then suddenly snatching a quick stroke or two, for all the world as though hoping that the demon might not catch sight of her in time. She must be in midstream-now-of that much she felt sure-but still her half-blinded, water-filled eyes could make out no trace of the opposite bank.
Suddenly pain ripped down the length of her right thigh. Something jagged had pierced her, torn her. Clutching at the place, she was instantly pulled under, mouth and throat full of water, choking; kicking to get her head above the surface. She came up to find herself drifting backwards, and as her eyes cleared saw flash past her in the gloom a glistening, humped, irregular shape, solid amid spatterings of gray foam. An instant later it was followed by another. She was among rocks. It must have been a sharp rock which had gashed her.
Even as she realized her danger the shape of another rock as big as herself came rushing towards her out of the blackness of the river. There was turbulent noise all around her now-a jagged expanse of broken water, roaring and booming. It was like being among a herd of stampeding beasts.
Thrusting out both hands, she clutched at a pointed, uneven projection of rock and clung to it amid the tumult, seeking no more than to hold herself where she was. Now that the demon had driven her into a trap from which all her strength and skill as a swimmer could not save her, now that her death was certain, her only thought was simply to survive the next moment. Soon she would not have the strength even to retain her hold on the smooth, wet stone. There was no pain along her thigh now, but the
water, in the gash, felt very cold: she must be losing blood fast.
It was then, as she hung swaying to and fro at the end of her clenched fingers, that she suddenly glimpsed a glow of fire in the dark. Far off-what did "far off" mean, in this welter where she could move no way but deathward?- yet it was real, it was not her fancy. It was downstream of her and on her right. It was not a lamp or torch, but the redness of a burning fire; and for an instant-or so it seemed to her-she could hear voices. With all her remaining strength she shouted; listened, then shouted again. There was no reply. Yet the fire burned on. And if she could reach it she would live and not die.
She let go of the rock, giving a strong push with her legs, lunging away, thrusting herself as hard as she could across the current in the direction of the fire. Instantly there appeared another rock, low in the stream, almost level with the surface, split and fissured. The water poured over and through it. Trying to cling to it, she could find no hold and was swept onward.
Then began a nightmare of scraping and jarring, of grabbing, of seizing and losing hold, of gasping and choking and an endless succession of heavy, horribly painful blows, as though she were being beaten with stone hammers. Sometimes she clung, sometimes she knelt, sometimes she fell. Once, in struggling, she kicked a rock and screamed with pain, sure that she must have broken her toes. Yet surely the fire was nearer?
As often as her head went under the water resounded far and near with the chattering of stones. She was bemused now, no longer capable of thought, mindless of past or future or of where she had come from. She had never done anything in her life but struggle and writhe in this howling, rock-strewn darkness, the fanged mouth of the water demon, to be bitten small and gulped down into the Valderra.
A voice was shouting: her own voice or another's? In her own mind, or the voice of some bygone victim, some water-ghost wailing in the cataract? Why must she go on suffering, why could she not submit herself to the river and drown? Yet she could not, but still gulped and fought for air, no longer swimming, becoming nothing but flotsam tossed and battered from rock to rock. Looking up suddenly, she saw the fire quite plainly. It was level with her;
and it must be close, for she could actually make out the shape of a blazing log. There were-O Lespa!-there were men beside it; men standing secure on dry land, not thirty yards away!
Next moment her head struck heavily against a rock. For a moment she felt a dizzy, sickening pain, and then nothing more.
At first she was aware of nothing but pain. She did not wonder whether she was dead or alive, whether she was on dry land or still in the river, whether she was alone or with others. Pain, lying over her body like thick mist, blotted out all else. She knew only that she was covered in pain from head to foot. She could feel, like a kind of spring from which one particular pain was welling up and flowing out, a great contusion, tender and throbbing, across her right temple. One forearm, too, was horribly painful, as though it had been scraped and torn up and down with a grater. She could feel the wound in her thigh throbbing and as she moved that leg, a sudden agony from her toes shot up it, making her cry out.
There were voices near-by, but it was as though she were hearing them through the thickness of a wall. They were Tonildan voices, but she could not make out what they were saying. How could she be in Tonilda? A voice spoke close to her ear, and as it did so she remembered the river, the rocks, the fire. A moist finger was rubbing her lips with something bitter and strong. She recognized it: it was djebbah, the raw spirit the peasants distilled from corn. Tharrin had once given her some, and had laughed when she choked on it.
She opened her eyes. She was beside a fire-that very fire-yes, it could only be-which she had seen from the river. She was wrapped in a cloak and lying on a rough blanket. Her thigh was tightly bound up-rather too tightly. A soldier was kneeling beside her, supporting her head on his arm. Three or four more soldiers were looking down at her.
So she had crossed the river! An enormous sense of achievement and satisfaction rose up in her. The pain was still very bad-the worst she had ever known-but now she could endure it. She was among friends: she was not going to die in the river.
"Lespa be praised!" she whispered aloud.
The soldier supporting her, a big, burly fellow, said, "How you feeling, lass?"
"Bad," she moaned. "Reckon I'm bad!"
"Have a drop more of this. It'll kill the pain-deaden it, like."
Little by little Maia's circle of awareness was growing. The light of the fire made it difficult to see much beyond, but she could hear the river close by, while on her other side stood two or three huts, one with a stack' of spears piled against the wall. The man supporting her head was wearing the badges of a tryzatt.
"All right, lass," said the tryzatt. "Just try'n take it easy, now."
"What-what happened?" she asked, "You pulled me out?"