Chapter 42: Legacy

The water felt cold as ice. It churned and roiled, throwing him against the hard, sharp rocks on the bottom of the river, or dragging him across the tall cliffs on its sides. White cascades of foam and bubbles streamed across his face as he desperately tried to keep his head above the surface.

It was mostly in vain.

The current was simply too fast, the power of the river too strong. His body was too old and too weak.

Themur didn’t regret his choice to dive in after the boy. Even if there had been time to think, he would have done the same. For 160 years, he had murdered and slain in Mardocar’s name. Men, women, and children. They had all been nameless victims of his patron’s bloodlust.

If he could just save one, it would be worth it.

No, he thought. It was worth it even trying to save the boy.

His limbs numb from the cold, he struggled to propel himself forward, despite not being in control of his orientation. Now and then, he managed to get his face above water long enough for a desperate breath, before the river dragged him under again.

There!

For a moment, he saw a small hand sticking up through the frothy whitewater, just beside a large rock a bit ahead of him and to the right. In the darkness of the night, lit only by the stars in the cloudless sky, he quickly lost sight of it again.

The boy could be unconscious, or already dead, shaken and crushed by the violent stream. There was no way of knowing.

Or he could still be alive, terrified and alone.

Waiting to get rescued.

Themur kicked with his legs, trying to brace himself against the cliff wall to increase his speed. The river carried the little body away just as fast as it transported the former Knight downstream, and if he didn’t gain on it, he’d never reach the child. Every second longer his rescue took was one more during which the boy’s head might smash against a rock, or his side be pierced by jagged, floating debris.

Then the eddies carried the child to the left, into a small pool of slower water behind a rocky outcrop. Themur stayed to the right, keeping to the fast-flowing part of the river until he passed the rocks.

Turning himself sideways, he fought hard against the current. But his legs slammed into the outcrop, the impact slowing him just enough to let him catch hold of a large boulder and divert his course into the calmer pool to his left.

The pain was intense. For all he knew, one of his legs might have broken from the impact. It no longer moved like it should, and every time he tried to kick against the water with it, sharp spikes traveled up the tibia and made him wince in agony.

When he eventually managed to get his head above water again, he saw the currents threatening to grab the young boy once more. With a final push from his lone working leg, Themur propelled himself forward and grabbed the tiny body with his right arm, just before the river would have carried him away into the faster-flowing waters to their right.

Holding on to the unconscious boy, he frantically tried to keep the child’s battered head above the water. A wheezing sound to his right caught Themur’s attention. At first, he thought it was the frothing of the river slushing against the rocks, but then the white tendrils crisscrossing the surface coalesced and rose out of the stream beside him, forming the semblance of a face that sneered at him.

“Let the boy go, and we’ll carry you to shore,” the water spirit gurgled menacingly.

But the temptations of the fallen held no sway over him anymore. He no longer saw any beauty in their kind.

“Leave,” he ordered the evil spirit between strained breaths. “We both belong to the Word. You have nothing to gain here.”

Half expecting an argument from the lesser so-called god, he was surprised to see it simply vanish, melting back into the current below, as though Themur’s words were final. But while the spirits inhabiting the stream had turned out to be less of a danger than he had initially assumed, the physical threat of the river still remained. With each passing second, the raging waters threatened to pull them both under.

Help us this night, Word of Heaven, Themur prayed in silence. Seven small words for the One who listened to his heart.

For what felt like an eternity, but probably lasted less than half a minute, the two of them drifted downstream at the mercy of the torrents, Themur on his back and the boy held tight against his chest. Protecting the little body as best he could from the violent onslaught of the waters and the sharp rocks along the riverbed, he knew he had only minutes—at most—before his strength would fail and they both drowned, sinking to the bottom of the murky waters, lost and forgotten by the living.

Gasping for air, Themur felt disoriented. For a moment, he thought he saw someone else in the river, swimming beside them.

Not a water spirit, but someone looking like a man.

He shook his head, blinking to clear the water from his eyes. That was impossible.

When he opened them again, there was no one there. Just him and the boy, being carried downstream at alarming speed.

And next to them floated a large log.

With a final effort from numb muscles, he kicked forward and grabbed the tree trunk with his left arm, hoisting his body on top of it while taking care not to crush the boy against the rough wood.

For a moment, he could rest a little.

His strength slowly returning, Themur used his feet to steer the log toward the shore. The cliff sides were lower here, and ahead of them, to their left, the riverbank gradually turned from sheer stone to uneven, rough pebbles.

The trunk shuddered as it crashed against a large rock lodged in the bottom of the stream. The impact slowed it down, allowing Themur to feel the riverbed with his remaining good leg. Without releasing his hold on the flotsam, he jumped off, and with all the strength he had left, he pushed the log toward the shore, still clinging to the boy.

When the water was shallow enough that he could safely wade without fear of being dragged away once more, he let the trunk go. Carrying the limp child in his arms, he stumbled onto the shore, too weak to go any farther.

He just wanted to rest.

* * *

Leaving the collapsed bridge, they followed the river downstream. Dina, carrying the two infants, walked in the front, and the six older children trudged slowly behind her.

The night was dark, and the roar of the water intruded on her thoughts. In her mind’s eye, all she could see was Themur and the boy being swept away in the distance. She wanted to call out to him, hoping to hear his voice return with news that he was alive and well, that everything was fine. But she was afraid doing so would unsettle the children even further.

How could everything have changed so quickly?

She had thought they were safe. Most of them had already crossed the bridge, and the fight was over, with Pelam and Soria surrendering. All that remained for them to complete their mission was to bring their two targets to Terynia and let the Empire handle the rest. Then she, Relaila, and Themur could leave all this behind and carve out new lives for themselves, somewhere far from anything to do with gods and emperors.

Of course, she didn’t know they’d all stay together, but after everything they had gone through lately, she kind of had imagined they would. Even before things changed, Themur—Sir Themur—had been the glue that held their team together. With his status and commanding presence, he had been the mediating factor between Relaila and her. And afterwards, his understanding of them and willingness to protect them had made her heart embrace the old man.

He was their friend. And now he was gone, swept away from their lives before her eyes.

By now, the trail they were walking had started to descend, as the high cliffs surrounding the river near the bridge gave way to a lower, rocky bank scattered with pebbles and driftwood.

Eventually, the path leveled out onto a grassy plain just to the left of the stony riverside. The water was calmer here, and the roar of the current less intense. Dina paused to gather the children, making sure they were all in good shape. One little boy needed a hug, which she happily gave, ruffling his unruly black hair in the process. In return, he gifted her a weak smile.

Walking past the beach area, she almost didn’t see him.

At first, she thought it was just another piece of dark driftwood, brought in by the river and deposited on the bank to dry.

Then she saw it move, and over the rumble of the stream, she heard a groaning sound.

“Stay on the grass,” she hurriedly told the children. “Don’t go near the water.”

Pointing to the two oldest, she asked them to keep an eye on the infants, then carefully laid the babies down on the grass.

“Themur?” she shouted, her heart filled with an equal mix of fear and faith as she rushed toward the limp body the river had washed ashore.

Hope rose in her again as she turned him over and saw the boy lying next to him. The child had been badly hurt by the river. His body was cold and he wasn’t breathing, but when she checked his wrist, she thought she felt a slow, weak pulse.

As long as his soul hadn’t left his body, he could still be healed.

* * *

With the path across the river gone after the bridge had collapsed, Relaila was forced to guide the children in her care south through rough terrain. At first, they tried walking along the high, rocky cliffs on the western side, but it soon became too difficult and dangerous for the small ones in the darkness.

As they left the escarpment overlooking the raging waters below, they crossed inland into the forest. She wasn’t sure the landscape here was much easier to traverse. While there were no sharp rocks or large boulders to navigate, the underbrush was dense and heavy, and the hike remained slow and exhausting.

Leaving Larean behind to face Pelam and Soria alone was harder than she would have expected. Even though she had hunted him for weeks, she hadn’t really known him for more than a few hours.

But during that short time, she had seen that while he was young, naïve, and even a bit clumsy, he also had a heart larger than anyone she had ever met. He was someone who saw a person and instantly gave them his loyalty, deserved or not. A man who pretended to be both selfish and foolish, yet had willingly chosen to risk his life to save her and the children.

To Relaila, that was something she hadn’t experienced in a very long time, and it had earned the Nimean Fire Breather a fond place in her heart.

Now he was just as lost to her as Themur was. Two people she had come to trust and admire, taken from her in the course of one terrifying night.

She was sad. Sad and exhausted. But for the sake of the three young boys and girls with her, she had to keep up appearances.

What she really needed to do was find a way to cross the river and reach the side where Dina and the others were. Relaila had hoped to encounter another bridge further downstream, but with no path leading in that direction, she now held little hope of that.

There was, of course, still the possibility that the river slowed ahead, and if it wasn’t too deep, they might be able to cross it on foot.

No, she corrected herself silently. She might be able to cross it, but the four-year-old boy and six-year-old girl walking beside her would never make it to the other side alive.

Half an hour later, she began to hear the rumbling murmur of the river again. She had expected it on her left, but instead it came from ahead. Either the stream had turned right, or they had lost their bearings and gotten turned around. Whatever the reason, they soon found themselves once more on the riverbank.

Now much further downstream, the waters were calm and flowed slowly over the sandy riverbed. Gone were the sharp rocks and whitewater up near the bridge.

Not far from where they stood, Relaila saw a faint light in the distance. Asking the children to stay away from the water’s edge, she brought them with her and walked toward what turned out to be a dirty oil lantern, hanging high on a rough pole outside a small cabin next to the river.

And in the shallow water before the building, an old fishing boat lay tied to a wooden dock.

The fisherman and his wife were not exactly in the best of moods when she roused them, but once they saw the children and heard what had happened back in Grainsel, they were more than happy to help. While the woman heated some leftover porridge for them, the husband readied the boat.

It wasn’t in good shape, Relaila had to admit. She would never have dared to take it out onto the open sea. But here, on the slow portion of the river, the bank was never more than twenty men’s lengths away, and in these calm waters she felt safe enough. After all, they had few other options.

A quarter of an hour later, she and the three children found themselves safely on the opposite shore, watching the fisherman return home with his boat. They were all tired, and both the girl she carried and the little boy at her side were crying from exhaustion, but she felt they had no choice but to keep moving. Shushing them gently, they resumed their journey, this time upstream, hoping to meet up with Dina again.

Here on the eastern side of the river, they no longer had to cross open terrain. The trail from the bridge continued along the bank, allowing them to quickly walk northward again.

Soon, they began to hear voices in the distance.

Voices—and laughter.

Stepping out from the shadows of the night onto the beach, they found Dina sitting next to Themur, tending to his broken leg. In the grass beside them, the other children were either sitting or sleeping, worn out from being awake most of the night.

The sun would soon rise. Against all odds, every one of them was still alive.

Warmed by the presence of her friends, Relaila smiled.

Despite everything, there was hope.

With the Word, there was always hope.

Author's Note

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