Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [216]
A cry of dismay caught in my throat. Flecked with foam, the roiling brown water swept Imriel downstream into the struggling bodies of our horses, fouled amid their churning legs. With a wan smile, the soldier followed him overboard, letting himself tumble into the raging river. Amid the shouting and panic, one of the raft-keepers somehow lost his grip on the rope, and the force of the river tore it from the others' hands, the raft's surge sending the handlers on the far side staggering and reeling.
What would have happened if Joscelin had not lunged for the rope, catching it in his good right hand, I cannot say. His face was wracked in a grimace of pain, and his arm stretched taut in its socket. I cannot imagine how he held on without being pulled from the raft—but hedid. In seconds, the other soldier had grabbed his legs, anchoring him, and the raft-keeper regained the rope with anxious cries. Our craft was stable.
And Imriel had been carried twenty yards, his body now motionless, his head a dark spot on the surging waters.
It may have been hopeless, against that torrent, but he knew how to swim; I knew he did, he'd taught the younger children at the Sanctuary. Why was he not even struggling? I thought of how he'd been tangled amid the horses, their churning hooves, and felt sick at heart. In the raft, Joscelin got unsteadily to his knees, fumbling at the knot on his sling, making ready to go after him.
"Joscelin ..." I whispered.
He looked as sick as I felt. "I have to try."
That was when we heard the splash, and Jebean voices raised in fierce shouts of encouragement.
Kaneka's form cleaved the waters like a dark spear, long arms flashing in steady strokes, her legs kicking strongly, clearing the line of horses. Where the current was with her, she hurtled downstream; where it eddied and surged, she rode it with skill, drawing ever nearer to her objective.
"Pull," I said to the raft-handlers. "Pull!"
They did, at a frantic pace, no longer laughing. I daresay we crossed the Euphrate at record speed. By the time we reached the far shore, Kaneka and Imriel were out of sight. I stumbled onto dry land, ignoring my sodden skirts, and grabbed the reins of the nearest horse, snatching them from the hands of a startled Akkadian soldier.
"Watch him," I said to Joscelin, pointing to the second soldier on our raft. "And get Amaury."
Without waiting for his acknowledgment, I flung myself on the horse's back and wheeled, heading downstream. It was soaked and skittish and unsaddled, but if nothing else, I have become a passing fair rider in my travels, and I clung to its slick hide and urged it onward.
Around the second bend, I came upon Kaneka hauling Imriel out of the shallows.
Water ran off her dark skin in rivulets and she was panting like a distance-runner, her arms trembling with the effort. Imriel was dead weight, hanging limp in her grasp. I drew up the horse so sharply its forehooves sprayed dirt and dismounted at a run.
Together we got him ashore.
"Turn ... on ... belly," Kaneka gasped in Jeb'ez, dropping in exhaustion. "Get. . . out. . . water."
Imriel wasn't breathing. Following her instruction, I turned him onto his stomach, pressing rhythmically between his shoulders. A trickle of water emerged from his slack mouth, dribbling onto the soil. I kept pressing. Then, all at once, he drew in a choked breath, coughed, and spewed out half the Euphrate.
I sat back on my heels and breathed a prayer of thanks.
By the time Lord Amaury and the others arrived, Imriel's wracking coughing and spitting had subsided and he was alert, albeit dazed. Beneath the inky tendrils of hair plastered to his brow was a crescent-shaped bruise where a horse's hoof had caught his temple, a deep blue against his bloodless pallor.
"He's all right?" Amaury asked, dismounting and offering his cloak to Kaneka, who'd stripped off her garment before diving.
"I think so." I smoothed the damp hair back from Imriel's brow, shading his eyes to see if his pupils contracted,