Heirs of the Fallen: Book 02 - Crown of the Setting Sun (5 page)

All at once, a powerful current pulled him under. He kicked at the force, and though his calves plowed through the water, it held him firmly in its grip, dragging him down into the crushing dark. Pressure mounted and a painful popping noise sounded in his ears. His lungs burned for want of the last breath he had been denied, but there was none to be had. Slow fire rapidly spread from his chest into his arms and legs. The darkness before his eyes came alight with sparkling flares. The bright pinpoints faded soon after, devoured by creeping gray spiders … a few at first, then more and more. As the gray swarmed over his vision, it also sank into his mind, subduing his panic, replacing it with a resigned calm.

His mouth yawned wide, involuntarily preparing to draw a breath, and then the swirling current slammed him into a wide mass of moss-slicked rock. The last of his spent breath burst from his chest in a flurry of bubbles, but the same currents that had threatened to drown him, now carried him up, rolling him over slimy stone.

Thrashing feebly, Leitos cleared the surface, waterlogged and retching. The gray spiders of looming unconsciousness quickly retreated. He clawed his way onto a mass of rock until he lay half-in, half-out of the water. The river toyed with his legs, trying in vain to drag him back. Leitos pulled himself a little farther up onto dry ground, then collapsed.

He remained where he was for a long time, chest heaving. His wits and strength came back slowly, harried by vague thoughts of the hunting
Alon’mahk’lar
. But even that threat failed to rouse him completely. He had been on the run, fearing for his life at every turn, less than one full day and night, yet he was so exhausted that the thought of pushing any farther made him want to weep. He remained where he was, praying that no searching eyes would find him.

A chill crept over his skin, but he was too worn-out to do anything more than acknowledge that he had never been so cold. With that thought drifting in the back of his mind, his eyes closed, and he lost all awareness and concern.

When he awoke, he found he had curled into a tight, shivering ball, and the river was a beast roaring around him. The sky to the east showed the first gray hints of the coming dawn, but it was still too dark to clearly make out his surroundings.

River
, he thought with a measure of coherency, realizing it was not the first time his mind had named it so. Adham had spoken of rivers, telling that they flowed down from high mountains, emptying into either lakes or salty seas. They were filled with all manner of fish and snails and other things to eat, and had banks frequented by any living thing that needed water to survive. While Leitos had only ever seen a river in his mind, without question he had jumped into one. While delighted that he had escaped the slavemasters, it mystified him that so much water could exist in an otherwise bone-dry land.

He sat up and peered through the lightening gloom, gauging the distance to either bank was only a hundred paces away. It might have been a mile, for all the good it did. His grandfather had mentioned that as a youth, he enjoyed swimming in a cool pond or mountain lake during the heat of the day, but such a skill could hardly be passed on when surrounded by countless leagues of sand and rock, where the greatest source of water Leitos had ever seen was that held in clay cisterns.

Thinking of water, how thirsty he had been, Leitos cautiously edged to one side of his slab of rock, and used a cupped hand to bring the river to his lips. In the faint morning light, it was silty, reddish brown, like the land around him, but it was sweet on his tongue. So sweet, and there was so
much!

He gave up using his hand and plunged his head into the endless, gurgling surge, gulping the delicious, cool wetness until he feared his belly would burst. With a deep, satisfied sigh, he splayed out on the rock. Indifferent to his chilled skin, he slept again, taking comfort that if he could not leave his sanctuary, then neither could anyone or anything reach him, especially
Alon’mahk’lar
, who feared water.

Leitos came awake with a start and jumped to his feet under blazing sunlight, searching for the danger he felt but could not find.
A dream
. He relaxed, knowing that the
Alon’mahk’lar
cudgel he thought was about to crush the life from him was but a vision from beyond the waking world.
Just a terrible dream.

Dream or not, he took the opportunity to survey his surroundings, now basking in the full light of day. By all accounts, he had slept nearly to midday, and felt refreshed. The first thing he discovered was that riverbanks were not banks at all, but sheer cliffs. Over ages, the river’s mighty flow had undercut those stone walls.

Tilting his head, he saw just how far he had plunged the night before, and his mouth fell open. Taking into account that these particular cliffs could be higher than the one he had flown off, he glanced upstream. As far as he could see, which was a good bit since the river here flowed mostly straight, the height was fairly uniform.
A hundred paces
, came his stunned thought,
maybe more!
Interspersed along that stretch of river, water exploded over boulders and flat bastions of stone similar to the one upon which he stood….

Imagining himself plummeting so far made his knees weak, and his insides churned at the sure knowledge that he must have just narrowly missed slamming into any one of those rocky knobs. He plopped down on his rump, shuddering deep within himself. After a moment, he shook that off. It was far easier to push aside his certain brush with death than it would have been just the day before. In that short span, he had faced death many times over.

Again taking up his study of the deep gorge, it took no time to determine that getting out of the rocky corridor would be no easy task.
But at least I have water
. Of course, that did next to nothing to appease the hollow grumbling in his belly. Before all else, he needed to find food.

He scanned the tongue of stone upon which he had washed up. It rose out of the river, long and narrow, perhaps ten paces wide and two score long. It was lower on his end, and sloped upward to a rounded pinnacle at the other. Over its length, several pools of mossy water suggested that, at times, the river flowed higher than it did now.

He walked to the nearest oblong pool, its surface alive with skipping waterbugs. Large fat ones paddled amongst tufts of bright green moss below the surface. He barely noticed the insects. His attention was on his scraped and scabby toes, which were clean for the first time he could ever recall. As if he had never seen them before, he slowly held up his hands before his face, rolled them over and back. The sun-darkened skin from his knuckles to his shoulders, from his toes to his chest, was free of grime. Entranced, he cautiously raised his forearm to his nose, delighted to find that instead of smelling like dirt and sweat, he smelled like the river.

Tears glistened in his eyes, brought on by a mingling of joy and sorrow in his heart. He wished Adham was at his side to share in this experience. His sorrow soon gave way to gratitude. His grandfather had paid with his life to give him freedom, but until now, Leitos had not truly understood the depth of that sacrifice.

His growling belly arrested his thoughts and, with a silent heartfelt thanks to his grandfather, Leitos knelt down to get a closer look at the pool.

The waterbugs skipping over the top of the pool were small and quick, while those swimming through the dazzling green moss below were the size of his thumbnail. Having eaten plenty of beetles, he did not hesitate to make an attempt at catching a meal. Capturing either type proved harder than he envisioned, but after several failed efforts, he perfected his skill.

For an hour or more, using a cupped palm, he herded them into the other waiting palm, quickly clutched his fingers around their wriggling bodies, then brought them to his mouth. With great relish, he gobbled them all. The surface bugs tasted slightly bitter and salty, while the plump ones burst between his teeth with a sweetish flavor he found delightful.

In the course of his hunt, his fingers occasionally came up holding clumps of moss, which he ate as well. The moss was slimy, and it tasted like the river. Despite needing to drink to get it down, to his tongue the moss was just as tasty as the waterbugs. He found snails in an even larger pool, and ate those as well. Their shells crunched around squishy, gritty meat, but overall they were palatable. Taken as a whole, the varied flavors proved to be the finest meal to ever pass his lips.

With his belly full, Leitos made another thorough search of the cliffs now shading the river. Of enemies, there were none to be seen. Birds by the hundreds flitted over the cliff faces, or skimmed the few placid eddies in the river.

Sure that he was safe, Leitos sprawled on his back against the sun-warmed rock. Night would fall in another few hours, leaving him cold again, but for now a sense of peace fell over him and he dozed, contented.

L
eaving his refuge proved more difficult than Leitos imagined. The second day, he decided he needed more rest and food before he set out, so he hunted and devoured an abundance of waterbugs, moss, and snails. He savored every bite, then slept.

After waking, he investigated other pools and found the deepest held a few finger-long, silvery fish. As his shadow passed over them, they flashed out of sight under a submerged tree limb as thick as his waist. He had never tasted fish, and decided he wanted to.

He pondered the water, the obstacle to his next meal. Until he had splashed into the river, he had never seen so much water. But this pool was not the river, and other than being wet, it was different in all other regards. The water in the pools was warmer, it did not move, and was nowhere near as deep and treacherous as the river.

Without thinking, he sat down at the edge and slipped his legs into the pool. Its sides were slick with moss and silt, and shaped like a shallow bowl. If something went wrong, he could easily climb out. The river might be dangerous, but the pool was not. He eased himself into the water, and while it was far warmer than the river, it stole his breath as it climbed above his waist, then to his midsection, and finally all the way up to his neck.

Leitos stood still for a time, marveling at the peculiar sensation of buoyancy. It was not weightlessness, but close. He took a step, pushing off with his toes, and seemed to soar before settling back. Forgetting about the fish, he walked around the pool, gliding through the water. After two circuits, an idea came to him.

With an unconscious grin, he cautiously dunked his face, eyelids and lips firmly pressed together. After a moment, he opened his eyes. All was blurry but recognizable. He exhaled through his nose, and a blast of tickly bubbles rolled over his cheeks and past his temples. When he needed air, he raised his head, took a breath, then bent again to look under the water. He did this over and over, never growing weary of the bubbles, or the floating sensation.

After a time, he grew emboldened. Taking the deepest breath he could, he leaned forward and lifted his legs. For a brief but terrifying moment, he sank. Only the knowledge that he could stand whenever he needed to kept him calm. With his heartbeat thumping in his ears, he floated to the surface and hung there. Looking down at the bottom of the pool, alive with flashes of blurry silver, his arms spread wide, he felt as if he were flying. Marveling, he forgot himself and laughed. Water gushed into his throat, and then he was splashing about, coughing and gagging. Only when his toes scraped bottom did he remember that he could stand.

Eyes bulging in panic, he scrambled out of the pool as if it were a bath of poison, and flung himself onto the rocks. After he cleared his lungs, his fright passed. He lay panting, naming himself a fool. Nevertheless, it was a good while before he mustered the courage to return to the water, but return he did. He simply could not resist.

Much of the day passed in the pools, and in that time he discovered that he could control himself imitating the movements of the surface-skimming waterbugs. He began slowly at first, swishing his hands back and forth, and propelling himself forward by tentatively kicking his legs. Over time, he found that if he did both, in just the right way, he could raise his head to draw a breath without having to put his feet on the bottom.

Soon after, his thoughts turned to the waterbugs that maneuvered below the water. With his confidence higher than ever, he dove under, then let buoyancy take him to the surface. He did this again and again, assuring himself that he would always rise. Once he had convinced himself of that, he went under, pressed his hands together, pushed them forward, then spread them and swept them back toward his hips. Arrow-straight, he glided on one breath to the far side of the pool.

He stood up, looking around, smiling broadly, and feeling like all the world had changed. He knew it had not, not really, but it felt different, and that difference swelled his heart with a sense of expectancy and hope. Leitos set his mind on the fish he had observed while he taught himself to swim.

At first he chased them, diving and swimming after, but they were far too swift. Next he stood still, trying to snatch them when they came near, but that proved futile as well. When his belly began to rumble, he gave up on delicacy and thrashed his arms and legs wildly, driving the fish into the shallowest end of the pool. From there, he used his hands to push them, one at a time, onto the rocks.

By the end of the day, he had managed to collect a dozen fish. He ate them raw, washing them down with frequent drinks. Afterward, with the gorge lost in deepening shadow, he sprawled out on his back until darkness fell, then watched the stars long into the night.

When he awoke, the sun was shining in his face.

After making a quick meal of waterbugs the third morning, he climbed to the highest point of his refuge, looking for an easy path to dry land but finding none. The river rushed by, splashing and spraying over submerged rocks, or parting around larger boulders and islands similar to his. As he tried to convince himself to plunge into the river, he remembered the way the powerful currents had dragged him deep below the surface. Swimming the river would be nothing like the pool. It was not lost on him that he
had
to make the attempt at some point, for he could not live the rest of his days on a rock. Moreover, he had made his silent vow to Adham to seek out the Brothers of the Crimson Shield. And because Adham was the only kin he had ever known, he meant to hold to his word ... just not this day.