She’d arranged everyone into a single file. Yilenn was at the front, holding Tem’s right hand, who was similarly attached to Fala—who in turn caught Leroh’s hand in a vicious grip. Leroh reached out to hold his little sister’s hand, and saw Mantis on her other side do the same.
“This will be unpleasant, but you must remember to not breathe in any water, no matter what. That must be your main priority,” Yilenn began. She had to raise her voice to a shout to reach her terrified listeners above the clamor of the approaching army. “Before we’re fully submerged, take as deep a breath as you’re capable of, and hold it. We will go under for a short while, and resurface. Use that opportunity to take in another deep breath. Deeper, if you can. You will have to hold it for longer. If there is a problem, pinch the hand of the person in front of you with your nails, or pass the message along if your hand is pinched by another, until it reaches me, and I will stop. But we must try to avoid that. Keep your eyes closed and hold on to each other tightly—very, very tightly,” she finished with a long look for each person, ending on Mantis. Then she nodded and straightened her shoulders in preparation to dive. “Do as I do.”
She jumped in.
Or maybe poured in would be a more accurate description of her motion as she entered the water. Like a fluid merging with another, her body languidly flowed through the air and, in an instant, she disappeared into the river the way smoke dissipates in the Wind.
It was with this elegant movement that she pulled Tem along behind her, and he fell into the water like a dying dog. Leroh didn’t judge him, for he was also incapable of swimming, himself, and he had no clue how to dive into a large body of water without his limbs flailing for solid purchase out of instinct either. He reckoned they’d all look similarly ungainly as they, one by one, got yanked in by the person before them.
When it was his turn, Leroh caught one last glimpse of the frightful scene they were leaving behind. A sizable troop of mounted soldiers in brightly colored yellow, blue and white livery were almost at their heels, riding at full speed to catch up to them and detain them on the Sun’s orders. Five men at the front of the storming party raised a hand with palms facing outward, all the while still galloping in their direction. Leroh looked away just as soon as their skin began to turn a bright red in the first stages of another blast of decimating heat coming his way.
Fala dragged him sideways and down and, when Leroh first felt the shock of cold water on the skin of his legs, he hastened to fill his lungs to near-bursting with fresh air he knew he’d soon be longing for with desperation. Then he was fully submerged, and he remembered, not quite on time, to close his eyes, which started itching and stinging terribly upon coming in contact with the water.
Leroh’s senses were once again traumatized from all angles as he relinquished his eyesight, the muddled noise of the water stole his hearing, and the abrupt change of temperature leached away his body heat. All that was real in the world, in that moment, was a small hand with an iron grip hauling him forward and the surprisingly even stronger grasp of his sister clinging to him from behind. Fala’s bony shins and the tops of her feet kept brushing against Leroh’s extended arm, reaching down as far as his head at times, and that was alternately a little irritating and oddly reassuring, in a way. It also made Leroh overly aware of his own dangling legs, and the fact that he could possibly, and very easily, kick his sister’s head if he wasn’t careful. He drew his knees inward a bit to try to avoid that.
Despite having no way to tell if this estimation was correct, Leroh had the distinct feeling that Yilenn was swimming them down the river and along with the current. The water around him gave little resistance, putting him through less physical strain than he’d expected from the experience. It was no pleasure, of course; he was whipped and pummeled by the monstrous quantities of water he was traveling through, but it wasn’t as unendurable as he’d believed. Then, amazingly, much sooner than he ran out of breath, Leroh was guided up a short distance and his head broke the surface of the turbulent water.
“Deep breath now! We’re going low and long. Breathe in!” Yilenn instructed emphatically.
Leroh glanced at the shore on his left while his throat worked to inhale as much air as was possible. Not too far behind, giving chase and riding as wildly as before following the curve of the river, was Prince Arcos’s pursuing troop.
Yilenn had not swum fast or far enough to lose them.
Leroh thought that, at this rate, the best they could hope for was to get ambushed as soon as they touched land, wherever that may be. His heart skipped a beat and a replenished sense of fear coursed through his system, trying to send him into a panic. It was in that state that Leroh was pulled downward and into the unmerciful water again.
This time, he defied the discomfort to keep his eyes open. He was too distressed, too close to losing his grasp on his suppressed instincts for survival. He needed to see, at least, to try to regain a minimal sense of control though any sense other than touch.
All he could behold at first was a haze of light blue, his eyes burning and begging for relief. Yilenn continued to pull them forward for only a few heartbeats before diving deeper, and deeper, and deeper still. Leroh was horrified to realize that the light of day was dimming as they were brought further down into the depths of the river, and a new unwelcome discomfort joined all the others assaulting his poor human body: his eardrums began to ache with dull, increasing pressure. It was a most upsetting feeling, like his head was coming close to exploding. Leroh fought his rising terror and widened his eyes as much as he could, trying to take in any external stimulus that might offer some anchorage to the world outside of his frenzied mind.
In the much darker new depth, Yilenn did something unexpected. She turned them the other way around, and began to swim in the opposite direction, now against the current instead of alongside it.
This worsened everything.
It turned out that she’d been swimming rather slowly before. But now that they were out of sight from their pursuers and moving contrary to where they would be expected to resurface, she picked up the pace to the utmost limits of her inhuman body.
The tales of sirens and their uncanny proclivity underneath the mysterious surface of the water all came to the forefront of Leroh’s mind, and he was suddenly reminded of something he’d feared his entire life, something he’d unknowingly and unwisely lost his wariness of. Sirens weren’t people. They weren’t pretty women with tails, or even mere God servants. They were the pinnacle of the Sea’s power—an entirely different species, characterized by their extraordinary abilities and magical strength.
Yilenn carried them through the combating current like a needle threaded through soft cotton. The immense push of the water was nothing, a soft breeze, to her. This wasn’t the case for Leroh, or Teela, or Tem or Fala or Mantis, however.
Leroh’s ears and face were beaten relentlessly by what felt like a thousand tiny, frozen whips. His eyes, now decidedly closed, became cold in a way he hadn’t even thought possible. His extremities cramped and stiffened, and his fingers started to rapidly lose sensitivity. Then came the inevitable, and his chest began to hurt too. At first, the pain came from an unbearable need to relieve his lungs of all the trapped air he’d been holding, so, as slowly as he could, Leroh released the longest and most excruciating exhalation of his life.
And then he knew he truly was out of time, for the pain that came last was a desperate, animalistic urge to breathe in, whether it be air or water.
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In the end, all Leroh wanted was to open his respiratory tracts and draw in. In, in, in. For what seemed an immeasurably long, non-progressing void of time, that was the only thought he was able to hold.
Much later—or maybe scant instants—after truly and completely running out of the invisible, impalpable sustenance of life, Leroh’s face felt suddenly warm. It was an embarrassingly long moment before he realized what that meant. When he pried open his eyes and saw vivid images and colors instead of the inky, nondescript blackness he’d expected, he parted his lips and loaded his chest so full of air that he had to wonder whether one could die from breathing in too deeply.
They’d crossed the river. In the distance, Leroh could see the bridge they’d been riding for, left far behind now, nothing but a vague shape in the horizon. The only sign of civilization still discernible was the castle which, as was intended, could intimidate one with its looming prongs from much further away than any man-made construction ought to be capable of.
Yilenn and Mantis helped the rest of them when it came to exiting the greedy hold of the river, for the task revealed itself to be particularly challenging at a time when no one had any endurance left to spare. With numb limbs Leroh finally crawled out, grasping for tufts of grass and clumps of loose, wet soil. Mantis pushed him from behind with her strong, little hands on his lower back. The humiliation was irreparable.
Teela hauled herself up onto the floor of the forest after him, looking like a creature under the effects of deadly poison searching for a peaceful place to die. With Mantis’s help, she emerged from the water looking thrice as heavy as she’d gone in, and let herself fall to the ground bonelessly and wordlessly as soon as she’d made it far enough from the running water to no longer be at risk of being swept away by it. Not a sound escaped her. Her hair was plastered to her face and neck like cooking grease long ready to be discarded, and her eyes were closed, long eyelashes stuck together in spiky clusters brushing her flushed cheeks.
Tem was coughing violently, and Leroh was peripherally aware that Fala had bent down over her knees in a gesture of pure exhaustion at his side, but his mind was too occupied to consider anything other than the wellbeing of the poor, fifteen year old girl lying on the ground like a wrung rag. She was his responsibility. Since she’d been born, that had been the case.
Now there she was.
“Are you all right?” Leroh knelt and draped an arm over her shoulders, then wiped away some of the hair off her face. “Teela. Are you cold?”
“We have to move. We’re exposed here,” Mantis came and made to pick Teela up in her arms again, but the girl jerked back to life to push away from her touch.
Leroh gave the woman a beseeching look, one that he hoped could convey all the things he wished never to have to say, and extended his own arms to his sister. He lifted her off the ground and helped her to stand, which took a substantial amount of strength he didn’t know he still had left in him.
Mantis walked away without a word, taking the lead and guiding them further into the dense vegetation of the dark woods. Leroh paid attention to her for the first time since all the commotion, and noticed how truly dreadful she looked. Her complexion was paler than usual and her orange-speckled eyes were rife with desolation. There was a curve to her normally broomstick-straight spine, and as a whole her body appeared without her usual grace.
Looking at her just now, Leroh was struck by the horrifying realization that below the flimsy cover of her wet undershift, she was unclothed. This immediately made him bring his eyes down to his own state of undress, and blanch with yet another new negative feeling—one that only glazed the surface of the mountain of ignored emotions that needed dealing with.
Later.
Leroh walked on.
With the heat of a gloriously hot summer’s day, they didn’t need to suffer from the cold of their wet bodies and clothes for much longer. That was one thing Leroh couldn’t be grateful enough for. Had it been winter instead of the middle of the hottest season of the year, they might not have lived long after successfully ridding themselves of the Sun’s tailing men. They might have survived only to die soon after of a slightly different thing.
Once Mantis judged they’d walked far enough into the woods, she announced, “Here is fine. Rest,” and they all collapsed where they stood as if her words carried a spell that loosened one’s muscles on the spot.
Leroh didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t even sure if there was anything he should say, so he only slid closer to his sister on the itchy forest floor and put his hand on her upper arm. She’d fallen into a tight coil beside him and she appeared to be sleeping, but in reaction to his contact, she let out a nearly imperceptible whimper.
They slept, or pretended to. It was not entirely clear to Leroh whether he actually drifted into unconsciousness at any point, but whenever he tried to decipher the answer, it was consistently no. He was always, unfortunately, still awake.
Not long passed before the sound of movement made him open his eyes. It was Tem, who inched closer and closer until they were side by side, and gave Leroh a little familiar smile that warmed his heart as much as the weather had warmed his skin. “We’re alive,” he mouthed the words so as to not wake the others.
He shouldn’t have bothered, Leroh thought. He knew Mantis wouldn’t be sleeping, despite her closed eyes and slack posture. Fala wasn’t trying to look asleep at all; she’d sat with her back against the trunk of a tree and was keeping a watchful eye on everything. Yilenn didn’t appear any worse for the experience—which was to say: she looked awfully discomposed, but not physically as much as mentally, and she was decidedly not unconscious. And Teela wasn’t a fussy sleeper.
“Are you well?” Leroh asked, keeping his voice to a whisper out of politeness more than anything.
“Yes. How’s…how is she?” Tem gestured to Teela with his chin.
“It’s the horse. Let’s not speak of it,” Leroh shook his head minutely, hoping his friend would understand without further explanation. He shifted the conversation to a topic less miserable. “That was mad, back there. I think I nearly drowned.”
“Me too,” Tem huffed out a flimsy laugh and looked down. Then, his neck slowly became flushed. Leroh tried to act as though he didn’t notice, but his friend didn’t allow it. “I wanted to say, uh, thank you. I—”
“No. Don’t thank me,” Leroh stopped him, flushing also. “Please, just…just leave it, Tem. I’m happy you’re with us now, man.” He gave the other lad a good-natured push and tried for a smile that probably came out shadowed and insincere.
The truth was he wanted no gratitude or recognition; he was perfectly aware that he did not deserve any—that what he was due for, if anything, was a good, thorough beating. Tem’s words only served to make him cringe inwardly with the ironic and cruel absurdity of it all. They were still very much likely to die solely by Leroh’s whims to ‘rescue’ people he’d known would be dead all along. And Teela…
He couldn’t even think of what he’d done to Teela. What he might yet do, in fact, for they were now unquestionably on the run and still in grave danger. Who was to say she wasn’t headed for an even worse death than her beloved horse’s in this foolish quest to fulfill Leroh’s unreasonable demands? He’d be a fool to celebrate a success that was not yet conclusive.
Why had they even come here?
They’d been away, safe, together. They’d, by sheer luck or by his sister’s strangely prophetic stubbornness, avoided the fate that befell everyone else in their social proximity. And then they’d gone and gotten themselves involved in the heaping jumble of dung, regardless.
Mantis had told Leroh over and over that there was no saving the people of Pirn, and he’d not wanted to listen. He hadn’t let himself agree. His loved ones were dead. Dead. All, save one. And the price they would now pay for what they’d done, for the one thing recovered, was sure to render it all pointless anyway.
Why was he so stupid?
What rutting good did it do to rescue Tem if it resulted in them all becoming sought enemies of the Sun at the end of the day, Leroh wondered, hating himself more than ever before.
As if to accentuate his point, Teela squirmed in her sleep just then. Her face was lined with pain that, had Leroh not known better, he would have believed physical. But tragically, it was nothing so simple as a bodily wound or ache.
She would never forgive him for this.
That horse was the only thing his sister had truly cared about.
Leroh’s gorge rose and his chest felt tight. He almost wanted to shake her awake to beg her forgiveness then and there.
“What are we going to do now? Where should we go?” Tem snapped him out of his spiraling ruminations, and Leroh realized he’d been staring into the distance, empty-eyed and mute.
“We have to keep moving. When it’s quiet, I can hear them searching for us,” Mantis answered in his stead. Her eyes were still closed, but her hands were resting on her chest in an odd, unnatural way. “We’ll go to Renlym. There’ll be refuge for us there.”
