Chapter 9
The River
Sahar stared down at the muddy hoof prints
leading into the rushing waters of the swollen river. A river she
would have to cross to continue the race. It was either that or
admit defeat and return back to the check point with her tail
tucked firmly between her legs. That she would not do. She had too
much to prove, for herself, her family, her tribe, and any other
woman competing in a man’s world.
She unclasped her otter skin cloak and
stuffed it into her saddle bag, her teeth chattering as the
sleeting rain soaked her tunic through. She glared at Aleksandr,
sitting astride Zolotoy beside her, as if he were to blame for the
skies opening up and letting loose the torrent of rain that had
turned the hard-packed mountain path into a running rivulet of
slick, sucking mud that had taken another two horses down, leaving
the field of riders down to ten and four men and her.
“What do you want to do?” Aleksandr asked as
he pulled his short sword from its sheath on his back, wrapped it
up in his cloak and tied them up with his bedroll. “Cross or not, I
get my one hundred gold pieces either way.”
She sent Lasair plunging into the river and
gasped aloud as the bone-chilling water swirled up to her waist.
Panic, pure heart-pounding panic, flooded her senses as Lasair swam
for the far shore, fighting against the river’s swift moving
current. She gripped Lasair’s mane in both hands and squeezed her
legs tight to keep from being swept off the struggling mare’s back.
She fought to keep from squeezing her eyes shut as the image of
Ommar’s frightened face came unbidden as he was carried farther and
farther away from her outstretched hand.
She heard her words, her oath to Ommar before
his hand had been ripped from hers, only they were being spoken to
her in a deep, grounding voice.
“I have you. I have you. I won’t let you
go.”
She looked from the bronzed hand holding onto
Lasair’s bridle to Aleksandr’s strong, determined face, and the
panic coursing through her veins receded enough that she could take
a full breath and nod her head in acknowledgement. He grinned in
response, the rain running down from his sodden hair to his flash
of even white teeth, and then his eyes widened.
“Munir,” he yelled out over the roar of the
raging waters. “Look out, upriver.”
She whipped her head around in time to see
Munir and Kedar no more than ten feet upriver from them, get
broadsided by a branch the size of a tree trunk. Kedar let out a
high, frenzied whinny that was cut short as horse and rider went
under.
“Muunniirr!” Her cry stolen by the wind, she
clutched tight to Lasair’s mane as Zolotoy surged ahead, pulling
them out of the log’s careening path. She untangled her fingers
from the mare’s mane, twisting on the saddle to jump in after
Munir, and felt Aleksandr’s iron grip on her arm.
“Can you make the shore?” he yelled.
“But, Munir.”
He took her hand and wrapped Zolotoy’s rein
around it. “Hold on,” he told her. “Z will guide Lasair to the
shore. I’ll get Munir.”
She glanced wildly from Aleksandr to where
Munir had gone under and still hadn’t surfaced. “Go,” she said.
“Save Munir.”
He squeezed her hand. “Whatever happens, my
tigress, do not let go.” Then he pushed off of Zolotoy and was
being swept downriver.
Sahar held on tight to Zolotoy’s reins with
one hand and Lasair’s mane with the other, gripping the mare’s
sides with thighs numb from the cold and chafed from rubbing as the
two horses fought their way to the shoreline. She clamped her jaw
so tight that no more than a groan escaped her lips as a thick
branch tumbling past scraped her lower back. She glanced downriver,
and saw Aleksandr’s receding head bobbing above water, but she
could see no sign of Munir.
At last, Lasair’s hooves hit river bottom and
she unwound Zolotoy’s rein from around her hand as both horses made
the shoreline. She slid off of Lasair and fell to her hands and
knees in the muck, sobbing and gasping as the horses hung their
heads, sucking in and blowing out great breaths of air. She slapped
the muddy ground with an anguished howl, once again unable to do
more than stand by as another river took the lives of men, good men
trying to protect her. How would she ever face Halah after making
her cousin a widow before she even became a bride? How would Sahar
ever face herself knowing Aleksandr had died for her?
The arrogant bastard had called her a spoilt,
proud princess, and he was right, she was. It was her pride that
had kept her from admitting the real danger she had put herself and
them in. Her stubbornness had sent them headlong into the river.
Because she was the spoilt princess, to be protected at all costs,
they would pay the price with their lives.
But he had called her a tigress too.
His tigress.
Throwing her head back with a guttural growl,
she stood and wiped her muddy hands on her breeches and then she
jumped up onto Lasair’s saddle, grabbed Zolotoy’s reins and swung
both horses to head downriver. She was a tigress, curse it, not
some mewling kitten. She was a woman strongly built and fully
grown, no longer the little girl who could do no more than watch
helplessly as someone she cared for was swept away to their
death.
Aleksi let the current take him downriver,
keeping his gaze on Sahar until she made the shoreline, and then he
turned and stroked hard for the floating object he hoped and prayed
was Munir bobbing near the outcropping of rocks downstream.
The object lifted its head and flailed an
arm, and Aleksi stroked harder, ignoring the numbing chill of the
water. His arms and legs were as heavy as water-sodden logs, and
his chest was on fire, but he kept on. He had grown up swimming in
the ice-cold rivers of his homeland, and had swam the width of the
Mother River when he was ten and eight, a feat more men had drowned
attempting than had succeeded. Aleksi was a strong swimmer, always
had been. He’d not drowned then, and he was not going to drown now,
nor would he let Munir.
Another three strokes and he reached Munir,
who was struggling to keep his head above water. Aleksi grabbed him
by the leather straps of his sword’s harness, rolled him over onto
his back and swam them to the rocks rising up in the middle of the
churning river. He swallowed several mouthfuls of water before he
managed to push Munir into the rocks, wedging him between the two
largest and shuffling his own booted feet onto a slippery semblance
of a ledge.
“Munir?” His face was ashen and his lips had
a bluish tint to them. “Munir,” Aleksi yelled. “Munir, wake up.
Wake up,” he yelled louder. Munir’s head slumped down, and Aleksi
stuffed his feet deeper into the rocks as he fought to keep Munir’s
mouth and nose above water. “Munir,” Aleksi yelled at the top of
his straining lungs. “Halah needs you. Come back to Halah.”
“Halah?” It was no more than a whisper above
the roar of the river, but to Aleksi it was a call to battle.
“Yes, Halah. Think of Halah. Open your eyes
and help me get you to shore and you will see your Halah
again.”
Munir’s eyes fluttered opened and focused on
Aleksi as he fought to keep his grip on both Munir’s tunic and the
slippery rocks beneath his feet. “Aleksi.”
“Welcome back, my friend,” Aleksi grunted.
“Now let us get to shore.”
Munir’s eyes opened wider as he took in the
water surging around them, and then his face paled even more.
“Kedar?” he whispered hoarsely.
Aleksi shook his head. “I haven’t seen him,”
he said, shifting his hold and his stance. “Right now, you and I
must get off these rocks.” He glanced across the span of rushing
current they would have to navigate to make the river’s bank. “Can
you swim?”
Munir lifted his left arm and grimaced. He
tried to lift his right arm and cursed through grit teeth. “I
cannot move my arm,” he said. “My shoulder, my ribs.”
“What about your legs?”
Munir flexed and shuffled his legs between
Aleksi’s and the rocks.
“I’m not certain,” he said. “I don’t feel any
pain, but I don’t think there’s any strength left in them.”
Aleksi’s arms and legs were quickly losing
strength as well, but he could think of no other way to get Munir
safely on land than to swim with him hanging on to his back, which
would be difficult enough with two good arms.
“I’m going to turn around so you can wrap
your arms and legs around me,” he told Munir. “We will have to swim
for it, probably drift downriver some before we make good
footing.”
Munir shook his head. “No,” he said. “I can’t
let Sahar find both of us drowned. You swim to shore. I can hold on
until you get help.”
Aleksi eyed Munir’s pale skin and blue-tinged
lips. He wouldn’t last long before the chill made it impossible for
him to hold on. He didn’t have the strength to fight the current,
and Aleksi had no idea if any of the other riders were close enough
to be of aid.
“I’m not leaving you here,” Aleksi told him.
“If I did and you perished, Sahar would burn me alive.”
Munir laughed, and sputtered, and coughed up
bloody spittle.
“Hold on,” Aleksi ordered. He turned,
scraping his fingers on the rocks as he adjusted his grip while
carefully rotating his booted feet on the precarious shelf in slow,
excruciating increments. “Take hold of my sword harness,” he said,
and felt Munir grab on. “Now wrap your legs around my waist.” He
nodded as Munir’s legs wrapped around him. “On the count of three,
we push off.”
“On three,” Munir echoed.
Aleksi took a deep breath and blew it out, if
he pushed off too early, or if Munir could not hold on, they were
doomed. “One,” he said, “two—”
“Wait.” Munir pulled back on Aleksi’s
shoulder. “Look to the shore.”
“Hang on,” Sahar yelled, as she pulled the
horses to a stop.
Aleksandr and Munir were wedged into the rock
outcropping, but were being buffeted by the water swirling and
raging around them.
“Hurry,” Aleksandr yelled. “I can’t hold on
much longer.”
Sahar jumped off of Lasair, the mud sucking
at her boots. “Thank you, Ratter,” she murmured as she grabbed the
rope from her saddle. She glanced up and down the shoreline,