“It”—Sander slid down to sit on her perch—”the thing did not look much like a man.”
“The creature is a water thing,” she agreed. “Listen!”
Above the wash of the sea waves, the gurgle of the river, they caught a sound, though distant—a croaking. Was the visitor they had sighted only the scout of a larger party? Perhaps for them to remain near the river was folly. Still Sander hesitated to move out into the dark.
In the end they decided that, with the fire and the sentry service of Rhin and the fishers, they might stay where they were. As Sander improvised a second torch to aid in hunting more wood, Fanyi brought from one of the belt pouches a thick rod about the length of her own palm. She turned the bottom of it firmly to the right and then touched a place on its side. Straightway there flashed the light that had transfixed him on their first meeting.
“This is a Before thing,” she told him with pride of ownership. “It was also my father’s. But he said that it has limited life and after a while it will die. However, now we can use it to advantage.”
Sander shook his head. “If it will die, then it should be saved for a time of greater need. Since you say these water things fear fire, fire we shall use.”
With Fanyi holding a torch he made a harvest of driftwood from some distance on either side of their camping place, piling pieces high, hoping this would last the night. The fire itself—unless there was warning of the water dweller’s return—they would keep low.
Once more they divided the watch. This time neither the fishers nor Rhin relaxed into deep slumber. Rather they dozed, rising at intervals to pad out into the darkness where Sander believed they were making rounds of the camp.
He himself listened for croaking. However, it had died away. Even when it was his time to rest, he kept nodding awake to listen and watch the fire.
With the morning he went down to the river, carefully judging the chance of crossing at this point. Fanyi insisted that what she sought lay beyond, north and now a little west. If they returned to land, retracing all the way they had covered yesterday, they would still have the river to cross in order to reach their goal, and it could well be patrolled, even back to the edge of the inner country, by the water creatures.
Therefore, dare they attempt to cross here and now?
The river current cut sharply into the new sea. Sander did not like the way pieces of wood he threw to test the strength of that current were whirled so swiftly past.
Secondly, he gauged the river depth with a long piece of wood. Close to the shore he thought it about thigh-high. Beyond that, he believed they might have to swim. And they would have to fight the current also in order not to be swept out to sea.
This meant going back upstream for a distance to allow some leeway. He knew the rivers of the plains. But, except in the spring when they were in spate, none of them had ever presented such a problem as this.
“Can you swim?” he asked Fanyi, when she joined him. His own prowess, he knew, was nothing to boast of. But at least, he thought, he could keep himself afloat by his efforts long enough to reach the other bank. Always providing their visitor of the night before, or his fellows, did not arrive to make things difficult.
“Yes, and you?”
“Well enough to cross this.”
“It will be better”—the girl echoed his own thought—”to cross here, I think. If we return we shall lose much time, and it may be more difficult farther back than easier.”
They prepared for the attempt as well as they knew how. Their bags were lashed high and tight on Rhin’s back; they stripped off their clothing to add to the burdens on the koyot. Staff in hand, Sander gingerly stepped into the water. The flood was chill and his flesh shrank from it. The tug on his body grew stronger as it crept upward from his thighs to his middle. Cautiously he probed the bottom ahead for a possible quick drop in footing that might be disastrous. Rhin plunged in beside him, a little downstream, and Sander could hear a loud splashing behind that told him Fanyi and her companions were following.
He had taken the precaution of bringing a hide rope from his stores. This was anchored to Rhin’s back pack, then looped around Sander’s waist, the other end in turn knotted to Fanyi’s belt.
Now the water was shoulder high, and he had to fight to keep upright in it. A sudden slip of his pole left him threshing without footing. Choking and sputtering, he began to swim clumsily. Within moments his body brought up against Rhin’s. The koyot fought to keep his own way, as both of them were borne downstream.
Fear grew in Sander. What if they could not break the hold of the current? Before starting, he had given Fanyi strict orders that, if he and Rhin were overborne, she was to slash the rope that looped them together so she would have a better chance for herself. However, the pull was still taut because she had not done so.
Rhin swam lustily, and Sander made some way beside the koyot, not daring to try to see how much closer to the sea the current had already dragged them. He floundered on, feeling as if he were as much entrapped now by the water as he had been by the forest net.
Finally the koyot found footing and plunged up and on. Sander swiftly linked a hand in the rope making fast the load the animal carried. A moment later one of his feet grazed an underwater rock painfully, and he scrambled on until he could rise once more.
Keeping that hold on Rhin, he splashed and fought his way up the opposite bank. The rope about his middle was so taut as to nearly jerk him backward. He slewed around and caught at it with both hands, fighting to pull it in.
Down in the river, Fanyi’s arms flashed into the air and disappeared again. Already she had been carried a little past the point where Sander and Rhin had found footing. Sander nudged the koyot with his shoulder, so that the animal added his strength to the pull.
By their combined efforts, Fanyi’s body curved around in the stream. She was at last being drawn up current toward them. Before Sander had time to think what might have happened if they had failed, she waded ashore, her mass of hair water-slicked against her head.
Down the bank toward them flashed the fishers. Of the whole party, they had made the smoothest crossing. Now they paused to shake their bodies furiously, sending drops flying in all directions. But Rhin had swung around to face the river, and he snarled.
Sander caught sight of V-shaped ripples cutting the surface of the water. He jerked the rope that still linked him with Fanyi.
“Come on!”
He began to run, pulling the girl along with him, very conscious of his present defenseless state. Rhin trotted abreast of them, but the fishers played rearguard, snarling at what traveled in the depths of the flood.
Sander did not pause until they rounded some blocks of stone that gave him a momentary sense of safety. Then he wriggled free the dart thrower from the burden Rhin bore, loosening the ropes in the process to leave the koyot also stripped for action.
Scrambling on Rhin’s back, he climbed from it to the top of the tallest rock. There he lay flat, to survey the back trail. By the morning light he had a clear view. Out of the water trooped a number of the same creatures as the one they had sighted before. There were perhaps a dozen of them, though they presented a slightly different appearance from the first one, as each wore over his body—or its body—a rounded carapace that might have been fashioned from some outsize shell. Their round heads were covered in the same fashion, and there were even plates strapped about the arms and legs. They had certainly come armored and ready to do battle.
Their weapons were long spears bearing wicked-looking barbed heads, designed, according to Sander’s craft-wise eyes, so that the barbs would break off in a wound. Their croaking sound was more hollow, perhaps because of their helmets, but they kept up a continual chorus as they hopped forward.
Although if they were river dwellers, they were able to handle themselves on the sea-desert, for they did not hesitate to advance. The fishers did not close on them instantly as they had with the forest people. Instead, Fanyi’s beasts wove back and forth, just out of spear range, threatening and hissing, yet retreating warily.