8. Chapter Eight #2
“Just don’t cross your legs,” Ty instructed. “Walk side to side, facing upriver, like Turner did. And if you feel yourself start to stumble, use me and Mahnin to steady you.”
Ena nodded in understanding, her nerves written across her face.
He wouldn’t admit it aloud, but he started to get a little concerned as they approached the freezing-cold water.
He’d seen how much effort it had taken Turner to cross, and he was a daemon with Iblis-given strength—not to mention significantly more body mass than Ena—but he suppressed it quickly, knowing that Ena was focusing on him.
He linked Ena’s delicate arm in his as he took the first few cautious steps into the water, being sure to stay slightly upriver to her, blocking as much of the water’s energy as he could.
She gasped as her legs hit the bite of the cold water.
“Fuck,” she said, gritting her teeth. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, that’s cold.”
Ty couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Yeah, it is,” he said, wincing at the icy slap against his bare skin. “My cock will be out of commission for at least a day after this, okay? So don’t even ask.”
Ena laughed a little at his joke, nervously, just as he’d intended.
With their next step, she gripped his arm tightly as the full force of the water hit them.
She stumbled back slightly as the river demanded to take her with it, but she held steady.
In her other hand, she had a white-knuckle grip on her horse’s reins.
Mahnin hesitated, jerking her head backwards and trying to flee back to the other side.
The movement caused Ena to lose her balance slightly, and Ty’s heart seized in his chest.
“Let go, Ena!” he said, catching her as she fell back slightly.
Ena dropped Mahnin’s reins, leaving the horse to her own devices. Thank Iblis, the horse didn’t flee, but she hesitated, clearly not happy with the pace Ena and Ty were taking, and preferring a slower one where she chose her own path.
“Good girl, Mahnin,” Ena encouraged, her voice shaking a bit after her almost-stumble, but trying to be reassuring to her horse. “You take your time,” she added as she gripped Ty’s arm tighter.
The water rushed around them, between them, pushing them apart, and Ty had a hard time catching his breath—it was so cold. But he kept moving, being the steady rock Ena needed as she clung to him in the river.
Ena’s steps were minuscule as she shuffled next to him, moving to the center of the river, and as they reached its peak, he felt her start to panic as the full force of the river came upon them.
“Fuck, Ty,” she said. “I don’t know if I can move. I’m gonna fall,” she said, her voice filled with terror.
“Just move an inch. With me, on three, okay?” he said.
He didn’t blame her—the full force of the water was terrifying, and he didn’t have a Knowing screaming at him like Ena clearly did.
Even he felt like one wrong move would send him down the fast-moving river, slamming into the jagged rocks dotted along it.
“One, two, three,” Ty counted as he shuffled one small step to his right, and Ena followed.
They did that again, and again, and again, as they moved slowly across the river.
Eventually, their teeth began to chatter in their skulls, the cold getting to both of them, and Ty started to fear for Ena and the baby. Hypothermia would not be good for her.
“Almost t-there,” he encouraged.
After about ten more minutes of shuffling across, thank Iblis, they came to the sand bar. Ty pulled Ena up out of the river, her body shaking from the adrenaline and effort it had taken to keep herself upright, and hugged her to him.
“You did it,” he said, relief pounding through him.
“W-we did it,” she said, laughing slightly in delirious relief.
Ena’s horse Mahnin followed a few steps after them, emerging onto the bank looking incredibly unhappy about what she’d just been led into, but she joined Turner’s horse companionably at the top, where it was munching on some woody ground plants that peeked out of the snow.
“Get Ena warmed up by a fire, would you?” Ty asked Turner, who had already begun to collect sticks to start one once he’d seen them cross safely. “I’m going back to get my horse.”
“Be careful, T-Ty,” Ena said.
“Always,” Ty said, his relief from having gotten her safely across creating a high in him so big, he was barely concerned about going back…
and across again. But there was nothing else to do.
He needed his horse, and Turner needed to stay here to start the fire for her, so he went back into the water.
The force of it was less shocking the second time around, but the cold had started to get to him. He couldn’t feel his toes by the time he got back to the other bank, where his surly horse awaited him.
He immediately led it back into the water, ready to be done with the Iblis-damned river and warm himself up, but it was not having it.
“Come on, boy,” he said to it encouragingly. “The others did it, you can too.”
He’d just gotten to the deeper part of the water, the horse following him, when he heard Ena’s warning cry.
“Ty!” she shouted fearfully, pointing upriver.
He looked up to see a giant log, almost the entire length of the river, barreling towards him.
Fuck.
Should he go back? He looked to his left, but they were almost a third of the way across now, and he didn’t know if they’d have time to get back either way.
The log looked like it was heading to that side of the river anyway, so in a split second he made a decision.
He moved faster, tugging the horse along with him as he tried to get across to safety.
He was at the center of the river now, the full force of the water crashing into him. His limbs felt weak from the cold and the effort of three consecutive crossings, and the horse started to panic.
“Come on!” he shouted at him above the roar of the river. “We need to move.”
The horse bucked his head backwards, and he released the reins. He didn’t want to abandon him, but if he kept pushing him, they might both be killed. Best to let him cross on his own like Mahnin had.
But then the horse stumbled, going down on its front legs, the water pushing it over, and instinctively, Ty reached for it, grabbing its reins and holding on with all his strength to stop it from getting swept away.
Not only did he not want the horse to die, but a significant amount of their food and clothing was in his packs. He couldn’t lose them.
“Come on!” he shouted, gritting his teeth against the onslaught.
“Ty!” Ena screamed.
And he looked up just in time to see the giant log as it slammed into him and his horse.
The blow hurt, but as he fell backwards into the water, his lungs filled with the icy cold, and that hurt worse.
He couldn’t breathe as he tumbled under the waves, losing track of which way was up and which was down.
He felt the horse’s reins tangle around his wrist, tugging him downriver as his head slammed into something hard, and the world went dark.