Maia (Beklan Empire 1)

She let go of the rock, giving a strong push with her legs, lunging away, thrusting herself as hard as she could across the current in the direction of the fire. Instantly there appeared another rock, low in the stream, almost level with the surface, split and fissured. The water poured over and through it. Trying to cling to it, she could find no hold and was swept onward.

Then began a nightmare of scraping and jarring, of grabbing, of seizing and losing hold, of gasping and choking and an endless succession of heavy, horribly painful blows, as though she were being beaten with stone hammers. Sometimes she clung, sometimes she knelt, sometimes she fell. Once, in struggling, she kicked a rock and screamed with pain, sure that she must have broken her toes. Yet surely the fire was nearer?

As often as her head went under the water resounded far and near with the chattering of stones. She was bemused now, no longer capable of thought, mindless of past or future or of where she had come from. She had never done anything in her life but struggle and writhe in this howling, rock-strewn darkness, the fanged mouth of the water demon, to be bitten small and gulped down into the Valderra.

A voice was shouting: her own voice or another's? In her own mind, or the voice of some bygone victim, some water-ghost wailing in the cataract? Why must she go on suffering, why could she not submit herself to the river and drown? Yet she could not, but still gulped and fought for air, no longer swimming, becoming nothing but flotsam tossed and battered from rock to rock. Looking up suddenly, she saw the fire quite plainly. It was level with her; and it must be close, for she could actually make out the shape of a blazing log. There were--O Lespa!--there were men beside it; men standing secure on dry land, not thirty yards away!

Next moment her head struck heavily against a rock. For a moment she felt a dizzy, sickening pain, and then nothing more.

At first she was aware of nothing but pain. She did not wonder whether she was dead or alive, whether she was on dry land or still in the river, whether she was alone or with others. Pain, lying over her body like thick mist, blotted out all else. She knew only that she was covered in pain from head to foot. She could feel, like a kind of spring from which one particular pain was welling up and flowing out, a great contusion, tender and throbbing, across her right temple. One forearm, too, was horribly painful, as though it had been scraped and torn up and down with a grater. She could feel the wound in her thigh throbbing and as she moved that leg, a sudden agony from her toes shot up it, making her cry out.

There were voices near-by, but it was as though she were hearing them through the thickness of a wall.

They were Tonildan voices, but she could not make out what they were saying. How could she be in Tonilda? A voice spoke close to her ear, and as it did so she remembered the river, the rocks, the fire. A moist finger was rubbing her lips with something bitter and strong. She recognized it: it was djebbah, the raw spirit the peasants distilled from corn. Tharrin had once given her some, and had laughed when she choked on it.

She opened her eyes. She was beside a fire--that very fire--yes, it could only be--which she had seen from the river. She was wrapped in a cloak and lying on a rough blanket. Her thigh was tightly bound up--rather too tightly. A soldier was kneeling beside her, supporting her head on his arm. Three or four more soldiers were looking down at her.

So she had crossed the river! An enormous sense of achievement and satisfaction rose up in her. The pain was still very bad--the worst she had ever known--but now she could endure it. She was among friends: she was not going to die in the river.

"Lespa be praised!" she whispered aloud.

The soldier supporting her, a big, burly fellow, said, "How you feeling, lass?"

"Bad," she moaned. "Reckon I'm bad!"

"Have a drop more of this. It'll kill the pain--deaden it, like."

Little by little Maia's circle of awareness was growing. The light of the fire made it difficult to see much beyond, but she could hear the river close by, while on her other side stood two or three huts, one with a stack' of spears piled against the wall. The man supporting her head was wearing the badges of a tryzatt.

"All right, lass," said the tryzatt. "Just try'n take it easy, now."

"What--what happened?" she asked, "You pulled me out?"

"Jolan here got you out," he said. "We heard you shouting in the river, and he went in after you. It was a miracle you weren't swept away, only you were jammed in between two rocks out there, see?"

"Thank you," she said, trying to smile at the man towards whom the tryzatt was pointing. "I can't say n'more. Hope you're

not hurt." The man grinned and shook his head. His forehead was bleeding.

"How did you come to be in the river?" asked the tryzatt. " 'Twasn't no accident, was it? You in trouble? Tryin' to make away with yourself, were you?"

Now, and only now, Maia remembered everything-- Zenka, the Terekenalt night attack, her own desperate resolve. She tried to stand up, but at once fell back with an appalling spasm of pain up her leg.

The tryzatt caught her.

"Easy, now, girl! Nothing's that bad. You're not the first and you won't be the last." Suddenly he paused, looking at her sharply as a fresh thought struck him. "Did you throw yourself in--or did someone push you? Come on, now--what happened? Just tell us the truth of it."

"Easy, tryze," said one of the men. "The poor banzi's all in. Why not leave it till morning?"

"Ay, maybe you're right," answered the tryzatt. "Then we can--"

Maia clutched his arm. "Tryzatt, listen! You must take me to Rallur at once--"

"No, not tonight!" he said. "You just forget your troubles for a bit, lass, and go to sleep. We'll look after you, don't worry."

"No! No!" She was frantic. "They're your troubles! Lis-ten--"

"She's off her head," said the man called Man. " Tain't surprisin', considerin'--"

"Listen! You must listen to me!" But now her head and every part of her was hurting so badly that she could not even collect her thoughts, let alone talk. At last she managed to say, "I've swum the river from Suba." And then "King Karnat--"

"Steady, girl," said the tryzatt again. "No use tellin' us a lot of old nonsense, now. That's not goin' to make your troubles any lighter."

"Oh, please listen to me! I tell you, the Beklan army's in terrible danger! Those Tonildans south of Rallur--"

"Why, what do you know about Tonildans south of Rallur?" asked the tryzatt sharply.

Maia was trying to gather strength to reply when suddenly Jolan came forward, stooped and looked closely into her face.