I windmilled my arms frantically, recalling the times I had seen people swim and hoping that going through the actions would somehow give me control over the current that was dragging me southward to death. Several times I went under, and thinking too fast, I recalled the legends about going under for the third time. How many times had it been? Six?
Another swell of water rolled over me.
Seven?
Through the glaze of river water and sunlight I saw a hand over me, large and extended somewhere up in the air I was longing to get to. My head surfaced for a moment, long enough to hear Ledyard cry out, “Here, boy!”
Then came the dark and marbled green of the water, and the sense of coming unmoored, of being carried by the current.
It was not too bad, really, this floating. It was for a moment like emerging from a deep and immensely satisfying dream, or returning there. I could not figure which, and soon I ceased to bother with figuring altogether.
Was this what the fish saw, looking up?
The light, green and then gold where the sunlight broke upon it?
Was this the last vision of the drowned, before the weeds entangled them and made them cold?
I did not care, relaxing, enjoying the movement and light, preparing to forget all of them: Enid and Dannelle, my brothers and Sir Robert and . . .
Bayard.
Who pulled me by the hair from the current, up into the cold and into the painfully bright light where it hurt so much to breathe that I felt dizzy and sick.
He draped me over the saddle, pounding on my back as he did so, and I coughed water for what must have been an hour.
Above the water, in the dry land of harsh air and duty and of thinking too much, I forgot the current and the dangerous dreams of the river. Bayard set me gently on the southern bank of the Vingaard: I wondered about Sir Robert, the Ladies di Caela, my brothers, remembered Bayard who had drawn me from the water and from certain drowning.
Remembered the rest of our party.
Who had been halved by the river.
There is, in the easternmost fork of the Vingaard River, a sudden surge in the midstream current even more powerful than the steady undertow which is the constant bane of the rivermen and of those who foolishly try to cross.
“The Vingaard Drift,” the rivermen call it, and when they can, they defend against it by poling the boats across as you would a barge, by dropping anchor when the Drift is at its worst. There is no prophecy that accounts for it, no way to predict its rise and its fall. Indeed, few know of it beyond those who make the river their living.
It so happened that the Drift had chosen to rise at the moment we crossed, sweeping many of us from our saddles into the merciless current. In the moment after Bayard-caught me up from the tide that rushed around him, the huge, struggling form of Sir Ledyard followed in my wake.
“When I reached for him,” Bayard concluded, his voice shaking from loss of breath, from struggle and something more deep and disturbing and sorrowful, “he drew his arm away. Drew his arm away, Galen, shouting that we should save ourselves, that he would right himself downstream.”
From somewhere around Bayard I heard the sound of weeping. Brithelm, no doubt, though I could not see through the water and the memories of the water now covering my face.
“Sir Robert? Sir Ramiro?” I asked.
“They have gone to follow the path of the river, hoping for a sand bar, a downed tree, anything to which our friends might cling.
“We have no hope, Galen. By now they are deep into the plains of Solamnia. In the country of the brave and the innocent. May Sir Ledyard find the seas at last.”
“Receive them all to Huma’s breast,” rose a familiar voice behind Bayard. Alfric stood beside my protector.
“This blanket stayed dry, Weasel,” he muttered, tossing a rough wool coverlet over me. I do not mind saying that I wept a little while after Sir Robert came heavily back from downstream and from a luckless search. The Drift had swelled, had knocked a full dozen of us, mounts and armor and weapons and all, tumbling into its dark and rushing midst. It was a tangle of limbs and blankets and outcry, Sir Ramiro told me, when he returned from the search covered with mud and river weed. Squires and Knights had tumbled southward until they were lost from sight in the strong tow of the river.
Bayard was right. We had no hope of finding them.
I wept for Ledyard, whom I would never really know, for the dozen or so drowned with him, and for the gap-toothed blond squire upon whom I had wished outrage too easily and too unluckily. I began to wonder if this, too, was the Scorpion’s doing, if his hand was at the reins of the river, guiding the rise of the Drift at the worst possible of times.
The way ahead of us was cloudy, what awaited us at Chaktamir, dark and obscure. Sir Robert sat wearily beside me, armor tolling metal on metal, the hour of sadness.
“It’s terribly early, I know,” he began. “All of us mourn, all of us are still. . . taken aback at the events of this morning.
“But another life depends on our quickness, our determination, our knowledge of the roads. Remember that Enid may be somewhere ahead of us. We must take up pursuit before something terrible happens to her in the eastlands.
“So take courage. Where do we go from here?”
His eyes were intent upon the east, the rushing sound of the river behind us and ahead of us the plains of eastern Solamnia as they rose and roughened into the tough little country of Throt—a thicket of roads and not-roads, paths and waterways, any of which the Scorpion might have taken with his priceless spoils. We chose one path among all of these—straight to the pass of Chaktamir. Bayard rose in the saddle, shielded his eyes, and made out a copse of vallenwood on the eastern horizon that seemed to be a landmark of sorts. Heavily and wearily we traveled east.
With the copse directly ahead of us. Bayard turned in the saddle and called back to the rest of the party.
“We go southwest from here, crossing two roads and a wheat field. Then we come to another road, which we take due east, keeping the Throtyl road to our left, the mountains to our right.”
“And soon we will reach Chaktamir?” Sir Robert called back.
It seemed that Sir Robert knew little of the lands east of his holdings. Bayard rode back to us frowning, shaking his head.
He explained, politely but briskly, leaning across Valorous’s neck.
“I’m afraid that the pass is still five days’ hard ride from here, Sir Robert. On the day after tomorrow we should pass through the Throtyl Gap into Estwilde, then two days more until the road forks, the southerly branch leading to Godshome and Neraka beyond, the easterly toward the pass itself.
“Eventually we will reach the foothills of the Khalkist Mountains, and following this same road, we will climb steadily, almost a day’s journey, until we come to Chaktamir, seated high in the land that once belonged to the men of Neraka and now is no creature’s.
“It is there, Sir Robert, that the Scorpion will wait for us. And there your daughter will rest—unharmed, I pray—awaiting us also.”
Their heads moved closer together, and the two men exchanged words in private. Alfric leaned far over his saddle to try and catch what was being said. He heard nothing, evidently, and tried to right himself in the saddle.
But midway back to the upright position the weight of his armor took over, and he dropped from the saddle, face first onto the rocky ground. Brithelm helped my red-faced brother to his feet, while Alfric fired questions at Bayard.
“How do you know this?”
“I’ve been to Chaktamir before. Ten years ago . . .”
“So he has been to Chaktamir before!” Alfric exclaimed triumphantly. “You heard him say that, Sir Robert! Now I ask you: why in the name of Paladine should we let ourselves be guided by somebody who is suspiciously familiar with the places that the Scorpion goes to?”
Ramiro leaned his ampleness back on his long-suffering horse and laughed.