Chapter 12: A River in Flood

There was no time. Tarek grabbed Tavi by the arm and pulled him along as he waded out into the Ix. His brother yelped in protest, and then the ground fell away beneath their feet. There was nothing to do now but swim and hope that Shad would have a hard time hitting them at this distance. He clenched his right hand tight on Tavi’s arm as they both bobbed southward at a goodly clip.

Tarek heard another shore-bound shout over the rush of the water and looked back to see Shad stumbling through the water by the treeline, arrow still on the string. The wounded, addled hunter pulled up short and let his arrow fly in a single smooth motion. The shaft splashed in the water a pace downstream of Tavi.

“Swim!” Tarek shouted to his younger brother. “We have to get farther away from the shore.”

“This is insane!” Tavi protested. “We’ll drown!”

“We just have to get a bit downstream and then we’ll head back to the trees,” Tarek assured him. “A fingerspan of swimming, that’s all. You’ve done that more times than I can count.”

“Not in the Ix!”

Tarek couldn’t argue with that. The water in the great river was so much colder than the streams and gentle river-lets they were used to that his fingers were already starting to feel numb. The thought of swimming to the far side was laughable. He hoped that Shad was as hurt as he looked – they wouldn’t be able to return to shore until he tired of the chase and let them go.

Another arrow broke the water’s surface two hands from Tarek’s face, and he flinched. “Come on!” he shouted to Tavi. “Follow me out! Another hundred paces into the river and he won’t be able to get anywhere near us.”

He let go of his brother’s hand reluctantly, but they’d both need all their strength to get out of the crazed hunter’s range. He pushed at the water with his arms and legs like a frog, trying not to think of the shore getting farther and farther away. He turned to check on Tavi every few heartbeats to make sure they weren’t drifting apart until finally the younger boy splashed at him and told him to stop.

Then suddenly there was a third head bobbing in the water alongside them. “Swimming in the big river is not smart,” Pahtl informed him.

Tarek lost the rhythm of his stroke as he coughed and choked from surprise. “I know! What are you doing out here?”

“What?” Tavi called.

He stopped swimming and faced his brother, letting the current pull them. “I was talking to the otter,” he explained over the sound of the water, gesturing to the creature. “He’s a friend.”

Tavi’s eyes went wide as he caught sight of the animal. “You can do that?”

Tarek had a sudden idea. “Pahtl, can you swim to the other side of the big river?”

“Of course!” the otter said proudly. “I am one of the water people! No river can stop me, not even this one. I think.”

“Then I have a game for you.”

The otter writhed in the water, unspeakably happy. “Tell me!”

“We’re going to race to the other side, but my brother and I are going to hold onto your fur as you go.”

Pahtl cocked his head. “Is that a fair game?”

“Yes!” Tarek assured him. An errant wave hit him in the face, and he spit out the water. “We’re not water people, so you have to help us.”

“Helping is good…” Pahtl said dubiously. “Will it be fun?”

“You’ll be the first of the water people to cross the great river.”

The otter perked up at that. “Will I?”

“I’m sure of it.”

The russet-colored creature spun in a tight circle. “Then no one can stop me! Even with you both holding me I will still win!”

Smiling, Tarek drifted close to Tavi. “He’s going to pull us across the river. Hold on to his fur.”

Tavi pulled away from him. “You used blood magic on an otter? Why would you do that?”

“We can talk about it later!” Tarek said, spitting out a mouthful of water. “We have to get across the river. He’s enormous, and very strong.”

“He’s an otter,” the young boy said. “This is a bad idea.”

“It’s better than getting stuck with arrows,” Tarek countered. “Come on.”

Pahtl swam close, and with a hesitant grimace, Tavi buried his hands in the fur along his left side, while Tarek attached himself to the right. He felt a pang of doubt, but a glance to the trees showed Shad still shadowing them. His arrows weren’t coming as close now, but who knew how long he’d keep chasing them? They wouldn’t be safe until they crossed the river.

“Here we go!” cried Pahtl. “I will be the first!” His long, thick tail thrashed in the water, and they surged out farther into the river. The otter’s power was truly incredible. He fought against the current with not only his own weight but that of both humans, as well. Tarek could feel the strength in his tail as it brushed against his leg and sent great gouts of water streaming past their feet. Behind them, Shad faltered and fell to into the water. Despite everything, Tarek hoped the old hunter would recover. Just because he’d turned against them now didn’t erase all the kindnesses he’d shown over the years.

The river got colder and swifter, but Pahtl was singing to himself as he pulled them along. The tip of his tail kept bumping up against Tarek’s calf at the apex of its stroke, and though the water numbed the contact, he could tell that by the time they crossed he’d have a splendid bruise from it. He tried to turn his hips so that his legs would stay out of the way, but when he did so, suddenly the drag from the water increased.

“Stop that!” Pahtl hissed. “You are bad at swimming.”

“Sorry,” Tarek grunted, spitting out water. His grip on the otter barely kept his face above the surface.

Tavi looked at him like he was crazy and immediately away again, clinging tightly to Pahtl’s other flank. He was shivering, and his face looked bloodless. Tarek wanted to bundle him up in front of a fire and let him sleep for a whole day, but until they reached higher ground, all such thoughts were useless.

Time passed, the alternating pulls of the river and Pahtl’s tail demanding most of his attention. With his face so near the water’s surface it was impossible to tell how far they had yet to go. The far side of the river might only be a hundred body lengths away, but it could just as easily be five hundred or more. Pahtl had stopped humming and Tarek thought his grunting, gasping breath was growing louder and more labored. It was hard to tell over the ever-present rush of the river. Tarek tried letting go with one hand and using it to stroke through the water.

“Don’t,” Pahtl growled, his voice strained.

“I thought it might help,” Tarek said.

“It doesn’t.”

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Tavi was shaking harder, and Tarek began to worry that his hands might slip. “Can you swim faster?” he asked Pahtl.

“No! Stop talking!”

Tarek complied, fear rising in his heart. We shouldn’t have done this. Should I have turned around and attacked Shad instead? The Catori side of the river was likely even farther away than the Yura side. He knew it was pointless to worry, but he couldn’t stop himself.

Pahtl huffed, spraying water into the rain. “I don’t think this is fun anymore.”

“It is, it is!” Tarek insisted. “I’m having so much fun! The first water person to cross the great river, remember? You’ll be the greatest ever.”

“Already am,” Pahtl groused, but he kept pulling. Tarek bit back a sigh of relief. Pahtl was kind and playful, but extended effort apparently wasn’t something otters went in for.

“You sound mad,” Tavi said flatly. “Talking to yourself.” His brother said the words without inflection, avoiding his gaze over the otter’s back. His lips were turning blue.

“My madness is getting us to the other side of the river,” Tarek said.

“The Yura side,” Tavi replied. “So much better to die over there.”

Another unknowable span of time passed as they struggled against the current. “No more,” Pahtl suddenly announced. “I’m done.” His tail fell still in the water, and they were immediately pulled downstream.

“No!” Tarek cried. “Keep going!”

The otter shivered and struggled against the command. “Don’t want to.”

“You have to! Do it!” There was no way they could swim the rest of the way under their own power.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Pahtl’s tail began to thrash the water again, pushing them athwart the river’s current.

“Don’t like this,” Pahtl muttered. “Hate this.”

“I’m sorry,” Tarek replied. “But we’ll die without your help.”

The otter said nothing more, simply grunted another heaving breath and kept going. His tail wasn’t hitting Tarek’s calf nearly as hard as it had before. When Tarek used a hand to assist with the swimming, Pahtl didn’t object.

“Use a hand to help swim,” he told Tavi. “He’s getting tired.”

Tavi grimaced, but he did as Tarek asked. Together they swam, the otter still pulling, the humans assisting as best they could. No one said anything. The movements of all three grew sluggish and labored. Tarek had never been so weary in all his life. There was nothing ahead but gray water.

Perhaps ten body-lengths later their forward progress stopped. Pahtl coughed, sputtered, and went still, his head slipping under the water. Fumbling at him with numb fingers, Tarek tried to pull him back up, but the creature was limp and unresponsive.

“Help!” he said to Tavi.

Together they got Pahtl’s head above the water, but now they were coursing downstream with no land in sight. Tarek’s heart clenched. If I’d have known we were going to drown in the river, I’d have stayed to fight with mamah and tata no matter what he said.

“We have to let him go,” Tavi said wearily.

“No!” Tarek protested. “He tried to save us.”

“It’s drown holding him or drown swimming for shore,” Tavi said.

Tarek looked down at the unconscious otter. His russet fur looked black in the water, and his white mustache markings were as silly as ever. “I’m sorry about this,” he said. He looked to Tavi. “All of it.”

Tavi dipped down in the water and kicked his way back to the surface, spitting out water. “I know.”

He was just about to let Pahtl slip back under the water and down to his death when he glanced downstream and saw a shadow. “What’s that?”

Tavi turned and peered through the rain. “That’s impossible.”

A hill rose out of the river a hundred paces away. It rose symmetrically to a peak more than a man’s height out of the water and was perhaps three body lengths across. They were drifting right toward it.

“There aren’t any islands on the Ix!” Tarek protested.

“At least we know it’s not ants,” Tavi replied. They both laughed, and Tarek could hear the hysterical edge on both their voices.

They maneuvered themselves so they’d fetch up against the rocky-looking green outcropping, but as they drew close Tarek felt no earth underfoot. He grabbed desperately at the slick, rocky surface as he bumped up against it, and found a rounded ridge a handspan under the water. He and Tavi hauled the still-insensate Pahtl onto its sloped surface and scrambled atop it themselves. The rock was slick with moss and warm to the touch, and after so long in the icy water, it felt like paradise.

“My leg went underneath,” Tavi said shakily as they climbed up to the peak, pulling Pahtl after themselves. It was the only flat spot on the island. “There’s nothing there but water. Have you ever seen a boulder that floats?”

Tarek reached down and touched the greenish, slippery rock. What he’d taken for divots in the rock appeared to diverge and meet at regular intervals, making segments of its surface. “What is this?”

A splash in the water near the edge of the rock caught his attention, and he looked over just in time to see a scaly, clawed leg the size of his torso sweep through the water and descend out of sight. It looked like a caiman’s foot, but webbed. A terrible suspicion took hold, and he looked to the other side of the rock’s slope. A few heartbeats later, he saw the same thing. Another huge leg. Attached to the rock.

“Tavi…” he whispered, turning to his brother.

Tavi didn’t look at him. His eyes were danger-wide and fixed on something behind Tarek. He pointed wordlessly.

Turning, Tarek saw a massive green head rising out of the water not far from where they’d climbed atop their “rock.” It rose up on a neck as long as he was tall and craned back to look at them. The head itself was bigger than any animal he’d ever seen. Its bony crest was as high as his head and the bottom of its jaw reached to his knees. The perfectly black eyes that blinked at him were bigger around than his outstretched hand, and its blunt, beaked mouth looked big enough to cut him in half.

Tarek couldn’t take his eyes off it. “We’re riding the Land’s biggest turtle.”

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