Just as she was starting to head for the surface again, she spotted Shale’s hand. Kahlan grabbed the arm floating motionless in the water and with all her strength swam upward toward the light.
She broke the surface just as she was running painfully out of air. She pulled in lungful after lungful of air as she worked to paddle with her feet and one arm, trying to keep Shale’s face above the water. Wooden chunks of the broken door, covered with the beetles, floated nearby. The big black bugs crawled up onto Shale as if she were an island. Kahlan spat out more of the fat beetles.
“Breathe! Breathe! Shale! Breathe!”
Kahlan thought that the sorceress might have gasped in some air and spat out some water, but as the light faded, it was hard to tell.
And then, the fire above was completely extinguished, leaving them alone in the dark, dirty water with the big beetles crawling all over their faces. The sound of Kahlan’s splashing echoed around her. It stank so bad that she was reluctant to breathe in the air, but she desperately needed it.
“Richard,” Kahlan cried out. “Richard! Help!”
He suddenly appeared in the doorway up above. He was on his hands and knees, peering down into the darkness.
“Here,” he called down. “Catch this.”
He tossed a light sphere down toward her. Kahlan held Shale’s head above water with one hand and struggled to keep her own head above the surface, having to swipe the bugs away from her mouth and eyes as best she could. The sphere wasn’t what she needed. She let it splash down close by and sink.
“Shale’s unconscious!” Kahlan called up. “We’re in water! I can’t hold her up much longer!”
As the light sphere Richard had tossed down sank, it lit the water under her with eerie green light. When it did, Kahlan saw a long dark shape glide silently past.
“Richard!” Kahlan yelled, on the ragged edge of panic. “Help! There’s something in the water!”
Once he realized the situation, Richard pulled the baldric off over his head. Gripping the empty scabbard in one hand, he leaned out and held the rest of it down toward her.
“Grab hold!” Richard called down.
Kahlan turned over and backstroked with one arm to try to pull Shale closer to the dangling loop of leather that was the baldric.
Splashing the water as she reached for it, she missed it over and over as it swung back and forth just out of reach. She suspected that up in the hallway lit by the light spheres, he probably couldn’t see down where she was and didn’t realize that he wasn’t holding it still enough.
When she finally reached the vertical wall below the door, she managed to hook an arm through the baldric. The fat black beetles scuttled up her arm and onto the baldric. For a moment, she simply held on and panted from the effort of keeping Shale’s head above the churning surface of the water. Large, floating mats of the hard-backed bugs collected around her. Kahlan had never felt so dirty in water before.
“Can you put the loop of the baldric around her?” Richard called down. His voice echoed around the empty space above the water. “See if you can put her arms and head through and I’ll pull her up.”
With great effort, Kahlan managed to slip the broad leather baldric over Shale’s head and then, one at a time, under both arms so that she finally hung limp in the sling. As soon as she had the loop of the baldric around her, Richard pulled up on the scabbard, taking up the weight of the unconscious woman. Slowly, hand over hand, he pulled the scabbard up, lifting Shale’s dead weight. Water and big bugs sluiced down off her. Finally, Richard was able to get a hand on the baldric. Once he did, he was able to grab it with both hands and lift. He managed to pull the unconscious sorceress up to the doorway’s threshold and drag her in.
As soon as Richard was able to pull the loop of the baldric off her, he lay back down and, holding the scabbard, lowered the loop of the baldric down to Kahlan.
Kahlan frantically reached for it. Bugs tried to crawl up her nose. She had to swipe them away.
As she reached for the baldric again, the slimy thing under the water coiled around her legs and abruptly pulled her under. She only had time to gasp in half a breath. It filled her mouth with wriggling bugs.
20
As she was pulled under, Kahlan sacrificed some of her air to blow out the mouthful of clawing, clinging bugs. She could see ghostly, glowing green light below from the sphere that Richard had thrown down.
The thing compressing around her legs suddenly spun her around, over and over, making her dizzy and nauseous. Then it began whipping her around under the water like a rag doll. She was helpless to fight against the power of it.
Kahlan thought of her two babies. At the thought, terror for them, more than for herself, overwhelmed her. This wasn’t only attacking her; it was trying to kill them as well. She tried to swim toward the surface, but each time she did, the thing that had her by her legs tightened forcefully and yanked her back under. It was hard to keep her eyes open to see because the water burned. Things under the water, some hard, some squishy-soft, bumped against her as she was flung helplessly about.
She saw torn parts of bodies suspended in the water as she was dragged past. She saw an arm still attached to a shoulder with a couple of rib bones and dangling flesh. A hand, the tissues where it had been ripped off at the wrist waving gently in the water, floated past her face when the thing that had her paused for a moment. She also saw other, unidentifiable meat with patches of skin or hair drift by under the water. She just wanted air.
Desperate to get away, Kahlan pulled the knife at her belt. With all her strength, she bent herself over to reach the thing that had her legs. Every time she stabbed it, it tugged her, jerking her straight as it dragged her through the water. As the thing thrashed, spinning and pulling her around in dizzying loops, she briefly broke the surface of the water.
Gasping in air, she saw Richard dive off from the doorway above. She heard him hit the water just as she was violently yanked back underwater so hard she feared it might rip her legs off. She wondered if that was what had happened to the disembodied limbs she’d seen floating in the turbid water.
With the way the thing sharply whipped her around, Kahlan again began having trouble telling up from down, and even more trouble holding her breath. She was exhausted, making it more difficult all the time.
Each time it slowed, giving her some slack, she frantically swam for the surface. She managed to break above the water for just long enough to gulp in another breath before the coil around her legs tightened painfully and submerged her yet again. It almost seemed as if it wanted her to get a breath to keep her alive so it could continue to play with her, like a cat playing with wounded prey, encouraging it to try to get away so it could pounce again.
As she was pulled back down with frightening speed, she suddenly felt Richard’s hands grab on to her. He dragged himself downward along the length of her, clutching at her clothes hand over hand to pull himself down far enough to reach the muscly body coiled around her legs. She saw that he had a knife between his teeth. The powerful thing that had hold of her effortlessly dragged them both through the water, Kahlan feet-first, Richard, holding her leg with one hand, face-first, as they were both twisted around and around.
As the snakelike tentacle flexed, tightening painfully, she saw Richard start to hack away at it with his knife. He stabbed the fat gray tentacle over and over. With each stab she could feel the thing flinch and twist, its powerful muscles constricting more each time.
Since it still wouldn’t release her, Richard sawed at it with his blade, trying to cut it off her. The blade opened great, gaping wounds, but the creature pulled away before he could finish cutting it off her. Gouts of dark blood poured out, filling the water with inky clouds. Richard clung to her leg and kept stabbing away, over and over and over, desperately trying to get it off her.