Brynne cried out when she saw the three men reappear. Forgetting her charge to keep the Capina Fair anchored against the current, she dropped the wooden pole and began calling frantically, ‘Is everyone all right? No injuries?’
Mark shouted back, ‘They’re fine, a bit shaken by whatever it was, but Steven managed to free them.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ Steven interjected.
‘Well, the staff then.’
‘Not the staff either.’ He kicked towards the Capina Fair, keeping the staff’s magic close within himself in case the creature emerged to drag them back beneath the surface. It wasn’t difficult: the magic surged, vibrant and deadly, just behind the thin veil of his consciousness, as if it knew that danger was still imminent: it graced him with the strength – or at least the illusion of strength – to see him and his friends through to safety. He shivered at the thought of all of them being pulled back to the underwater formation – what if the magic failed again? They needed to reach the raft as quickly as possible, and then they could work out what the hell just happened, because he was damned if he knew. He was cold and frightened, but worse, he had lost confidence in the staff’s power.
Meanwhile, the Capina Fair continued to drift downstream.
Swimming with the current, Garec realised they were failing to narrow the distance to the relative safety of the raft. ‘Uh, Brynne,’ he called, ‘you’re floating away.’
‘Rutting merchant-on-a-stick! Sorry!’ Brynne remembered the pole and quickly anchored the Capina Fair, halting its resolute flight from the haunted river bend.
They hauled themselves onto the deck, and Garec picked up a second pole. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he shouted, shaking a little as he pushed hard off the bottom.
Resting in the relative warmth of the sun-drenched logs that formed the Capina Fair ’s uppermost deck, Steven felt the magic exit his body, skimming across his already damp flesh to disappear back into the staff, the earth, sky, or wherever it went when it left him alone. This time, though, it felt different, and he imagined he could still feel a bit of it there, masking itself behind his regular heartbeat and breathing. He shrugged the sensation off as vestiges of adrenalin and gazed into the low foothills that lined the river along either bank. Immediately above them was a rocky ridgeline ending with a precipitous drop into a deep valley. The cliff was capped by a small grove of pine trees that looked so out of place perched there above the river that the image stayed with Steven long after they rounded the bend and passed out of sight. The fifteen or twenty pines grew at odd angles, stabbing outwards from the bedrock, a confusing collection of natural road signs pointing everywhere and nowhere at once. Without quite knowing why, Steven made a mental note of the landmark.
Twelve days later, they reached the mouth of the canyon.
THE RAVENIAN SEA
‘Get out of your boots,’ Brexan directed urgently as she struggled to pull her own off, ‘and your cloak, untie it. Just let it go.’ They had been in the water a very short time, but already the cold was beginning to affect them. Versen didn’t look welclass="underline" his face was drawn and pale, his eyes red, and his skin a cadaverous white. She struggled to keep his senses sharp despite the dulling influence of the frigid seawater. Versen’s fingers trembled as he endeavoured to loosen the thin wool ties holding the cloak about his neck; Brexan helped him.
‘You’re doing fine,’ she encouraged. ‘We just need to get moving again. We need to swim. It won’t be so cold once we start swimming.’ Brexan badly wanted to believe that, but she was dubious. She could feel the chill penetrating her bones: it would be just a matter of moments before she began to grow numb, to lose her senses and become confused. It was apparent the big Ronan wouldn’t be offering much assistance.
It would be up to her to generate a way to save themselves.
As he battled to remove his clothes, Versen could feel his legs failing beneath him. In his mind, he could see himself kicking hard and paddling with cupped hands to remain above the waves, but dipping his face in the water, he could see his limbs weren’t responding. His right leg turned lazy circles that did little to keep him afloat, while his left, painfully cramped in the cold autumn seas, pointed rigidly down into the depths and twitched involuntarily back and forth like a pendulum. His voice cracked as he said, ‘My legs aren’t working, Brexan. I can’t get them to move.’
‘Hang on to me,’ she said. She had no idea how she would keep them both afloat, but she was determined to try. She draped Versen’s arms over her shoulders. Her face resting against his, she grimaced. His skin was cold, colder than the water around them. Trying to remain positive, she said, ‘There, that ought to keep you out of trouble.’
‘No.’ Versen struggled to pull his arms back, but he lacked the strength. ‘I’ll pull you under. You should try to make it on your own.’
‘Ox,’ Brexan said gently, ‘we will either make it together, or we won’t.’ She knew the cold was dulling her consciousness, because the notion of failure had crept into her mind and she didn’t feel terribly alarmed at it, at the prospect of giving up, of simply laying back in the water and falling asleep. Shaking her head, she forced a moment’s clarity and turned her attention north. The Falkan Dancer was coming about in a long slow tack. It was nearly out of sight already, so there was no chance they could hail the vessel on its next pass. She cursed Carpello Jax, and wished she had driven the stolen knife blade deep into his flabby pink hide rather than just slashing him. That wound would heal; she should have killed him when she had the chance.
For a moment she thought she might have traded their current situation to be chained again to that bulkhead beneath the forecastle – being locked up in the dark, humid, stinking chamber had been difficult, but compared with their current plight, the manacles were a welcome alternative. She recalled the comforting sensation of feeling Versen’s legs entwined with hers, even though she couldn’t see him. But no, if they were going to die, at least they’d be free.
They were entwined again now. Versen’s arms lay across her shoulders, and his long legs continued to jerk spasmodically, kicking between her ankles, interrupting her efforts to tread water, and causing both their heads to dunk periodically beneath the surface.
The Ronan coast lay far to the east, two days’ swim away. Brexan nearly laughed. In another quarter-aven, both she and Versen would be a distant memory. She wondered if their bodies would sink or float in this cold water – as much as she hoped they would eventually be washed up on shore, she feared they would end up on the ocean floor. They would fall slowly, spiralling awkwardly down, and their bodies would come to rest in the deepest part of the Ravenian Sea, where the amiable reef fish feared to venture, where only the most primitive and cruel sea creatures scavenged for food. In an embarrassing fit of selfishness, she hoped the big Ronan would sink first; maybe then she wouldn’t find the journey as terrifying.
Brexan’s imagination frightened her awake, and with a sudden burst of adrenalin, she grabbed hold of Versen’s forearms and tugged. ‘C’mon, Ox,’ she entreated, ‘we have to swim. Kick your feet. Kick, Ox.’
‘I can do it,’ Versen mumbled, then choked out a mouthful of seawater. But he couldn’t. As his head began to loll forward, Brexan submerged briefly to free one hand and shove against his forehead, pushing his face out of the water and away from the waves.
‘Keep your head up,’ she ordered, ‘I’m doing everything else over here. You ought to at least hold up your own head.’
Versen didn’t respond to her weak joke.
Shivering uncontrollably, Brexan felt her muscles begin to cramp. The tightness seemed to attack her all at once; it felt like her body had been seized by an invisible sea god. She howled in frustration. Her strength was failing. She couldn’t support Versen’s weight any longer. She had to let him go, let him sink. If she wasn’t supporting him, she might stand a chance of swimming, if not all the way to shore, at least into shallower water where the waves might eventually carry her body up onto the sand. ‘Please, Ox, please,’ she pleaded between sharp breaths, ‘I can’t do it alone. At least tread water, please.’