engulf him, to reduce him to a quivering thing that could do no more than cling to a rock face.
He would not go back, not to that. Even the dark oblivion was better than the Chasm. He did the only thing he could do. He let go of the rock wall and threw himself into the torrent.
The water boiled coldly about him and the current sucked him under. It buffeted and wrenched him, driving him against boulders that blocked its way. His leg was hurled against a rock and his back thudded painfully against another.
He was drawn down into the boiling depths. The current jerked and thrashed his limbs as if he were convulsed. His chest began to ache for breath. He hit another rock. Only his jerkin saved his back from being scored by its sharp edges. Another slammed against his elbow and he lost his feeling in that arm. His lungs became more desperate.
With a shock of reprieve he was suddenly thrust to the surface just long enough for a gasp of air and water before he was swept under again.
Heartbeat after heartbeat he was drawn down. The torrent roared in his ears and all he could see was the white of the water swirling about him. Then it was up again, but he did not break the surface this time. The current swept him over a precipice and followed him, crashing down around him as if it sought finally to bury him.
When he regained consciousness he was lying at the edge of the stream. The torrent had spent its fury in the waterfall and he lay in the shallows of a deep pool. The falls were still crashing down behind him and, at the other side of the pool, the water raced away in more rapids. But here it was calm.
For what seemed ages he lay there, not even sure that he was alive. The river had tried to kill him. Its fury was mindless but its intention was clear. He was yet to be convinced that it had failed. He was yet to be convinced that he wanted it to fail.
But he had seen the death of the pig. He had seen the darkness beyond the thrusts of the knife. The oblivion beyond the pain. He did not want to die.
Every part of his flesh felt bruised. He could not feel one arm. Blood ran from a cut in his forehead into his eye. His right arm ached when he moved it, but with it he dragged himself from the water and climbed onto its rocky shore. There he was able to examine the damage that had been done to his body.
The arm he could not feel hung limply at his side. He could not move it. There was a painful area on his left shoulder where he had been caught on a rock. His chest still burned from holding his breath, but his legs seemed to have escaped the worst of the rocks. He could walk without much difficulty.
He wondered how much more he would have suffered if he had not been wearing Althak’s jerkin and trousers.
Remembering his pursuers he looked around anxiously, casting his senses widely. Had he been seen? The cliffs rose about him on all sides here, confining the wrath of the torrent. They could be up there watching him. They would have their daggers drawn. He whimpered with fear.
But he could detect nothing of them. Some distance away there was the deer, but no people were about. As his awareness cleared he realised that he was still on the same side of the river, the same side as Grath and Althak. It made him feel cheated. Even so, he was safe, for the moment.
It could only be a temporary reprieve, though. They would have followed him to the river and to search the bank downstream would be obvious, even if the water confused Grath. He had to leave this place.
Above him the rocky cliff face loomed like despair. How could he climb with only one arm? The river had caught him, damaged him, and now it trapped him. He felt evil crowd around him: the mindless evil of the river, the deliberate evil of his friends. It stifled him.
Still, he lived. He refused the darkness that had swallowed the pig. He was determined to face this evil. The dragons knew of these things, they would not let him die, and he would not despair, he would not disappoint them.
Forcing his legs against their pain, he made his way to the cliff edge. It was not so high. Perhaps three times his own height, no more. Its grey walls were wet with spray from the waterfall, but they were cracked and wrinkled, offering handholds and footholds.
Gritting his teeth against the pain in his shoulder he gripped a hollow in the cliff and pulled himself up to a foothold. His left arm was still limp and numb, useless, but although his other limbs protested, he was able to reach his toes onto a ledge. Encouraged he hauled himself to the next and the next. He slipped once, catching his fall with the tips of his fingers and raking the skin off them. At last he grasped hold of a tree that clung to the cliff edge and pulled himself up to the top.
He was tempted to lie there for a while, to let his wrenched limbs recover from their exertion. But he gathered his resolve and climbed to his feet. He had to get away. They would be following him. The feeling was slowly returning to his left arm, and that brought only agony.
He could not run as he had done before. His legs were too bruised. He limped his way along the cliff edge, trying to avoid scraping his feet on the leaf litter. So he made his way down the riverbank, broken and battered, but determined to avoid death.
He still did not know why they had killed the pig, but something in his mind connected it with food. That thought revolted him. Surely they could not be that evil. For food was a novelty to Azkun, an unexpected and unnecessary pastime they indulged in. To take the life of another for mere food was incomprehensible.
And the river in its mindless attack was a manifestation of the same corruption. The work of the dragons was maimed with it. The only pure thing was fire.
He wondered why, then, had they called him to this place. He had expected paradise, but he had found horror and death. He had thought they called him from darkness into light, but this was not what he had hoped for. This was not what the dragons intended for him.
For the dragons were light. They were purer than the fire and more powerful than the mountains. He had glimpsed the little they had shown of themselves in the Chasm and it was awesome. His heart gladdened even to think of them. This world was tainted but it had not always been so, it need not always be so. For there were still dragons in the world.
But he did not understand why the corruption continued. Why did they not sweep down and cast out the taint on their works? Was it, perhaps, too deeply ingrained in the pattern of their creation? Could it not be so easily rooted out?
Somehow he felt that this burden was his own. The evil in the world could not be removed by power alone. It would require something more profound, something that, perhaps, they had called him from the Chasm to give. If so what should he do? He hardly understood the abomination, he had no answer to it. It surpassed him.
With night came terror.
The sun slipped behind the mountains and plunged him into gloom. The evening gathered about him like spectres that knew his name. Darkness crowded in like thick, black smoke. He felt it constricting his throat until he could not even cry out.
Blindly he began to run. But both ahead and behind the spectres loomed. Part of him cried out for fire and dragons, but most of him simply ran in terror. In the darkness he missed his footing and sprawled headlong. A tree caught his shoulder, twisting him so that he fell on his injured arm. The spectres seemed to pounce on him.
But he could not move. Arrows of pain raced up his arm. His legs had endured too much torment already. He could only release his terror in a stifled cry and cringe in the darkness.
In the enforced stillness of his fear he saw his answer. Fire! It twinkled like a fallen red star across the hillside, only just visible through the trees. Fire, pure fire! The mere sight of it drove back the spectres, though they still haunted the gloom around him. In the fire there was power over terror.
Still trembling from fear and pain and the distance that separated him from the fire, he clambered stiffly to his feet and limped towards it.
Menish cursed the pain in his leg that rendered him immobile as Hrangil dashed after Azkun. He could hear him shouting apologies to the man he thought was Gilish, pleading with him not to take offence at Menish’s attitude. Hrangil was too arrogant in his certainty. But Menish could not reach him to prevent him from making a fool of himself.
When Hrangil stumbled back into the small clearing around the fire his eyes carried a look of broken hope. He sat where Azkun had sat, across the fire from Menish, and avoided his gaze as if his King were his betrayer.
“He outran me,” Hrangil said at last.
