“What is your plan, General?” The Princess finally asked.
Hadjar barely restrained himself from letting out a victorious shout. He had spent the past two days trying to convince the Princess to allow him to save her. Nehen would’ve probably laughed her ass off...
“Stupid General,” a faraway, ghostly voice said.
“Take a closer look, my Princess,” Hadjar pointed at the water. “What do you see in its depths?”
The Princess squatted down and looked. In the water, which was glowing with a gentle light, one that was slightly flickering because of its flow, she saw only her reflection.
“Me.”
The General sighed and sat down beside her. He suddenly put his hand in the water, and then abruptly pulled it out — not a drop had been left behind on his clothes. Hadjar’s movements had been so fast that they’d cut through the water. He was clutching a small fish in his calloused hand.
“Is that our dinner, General? To be honest, I’m really sick of the Grass, even with it being so precious.”
A spoiled little princess, Hadjar thought, but instead said: “This fish, my Princess, eats small insects. It emerges from the water to catch them.”
“And?”
“In the ten days we’ve spent in this cave, I haven’t seen any living beings, except for us. Consequently, this fish eats somewhere else.”
The Princess looked at the fish which the General had released back into the water.
“You do realize that the stream might pass through small cracks that this fish can swim past, but we can’t?”
“If it’s still not fully grown, yes,” Hadjar nodded. “But an adult specimen can be up to seventy feet in length.”
“Seventy feet? How many flies a day does that fish eat?”
“Flies are different, my Princess,” the General’s smile was a little frightening. “You can ask your brother. A ‘fly’ once almost sent him to the next world.”
Judging by Elaine’s face, she didn’t believe that Nero could’ve been killed by a simple fly. Of course, she was right. An ordinary fly couldn’t have done so. But a Green Metal Fly — a huge creature with a wingspan of ten feet — almost had. Hadjar conveniently forgot to mention that it had almost devoured him as well.
“How long can you hold your breath, my Princess?”
Elaine thought about it, then measured her pulse and sighed heavily.
“Normally, a quarter of an hour. But in this state… no longer than nine minutes.”
Hadjar nodded and walked over to ‘his’ corner. Throwing aside his cloak, he took out two... sacks. Yes, these things looked like sacks. Very smelly, translucent ones, at that.
“What are those?” Elaine was horrified, covering her nose with her palm.
“I made them from the gallbladders of fish that swam through here. We’ll fill them with air. That will give us five extra minutes each.”
Elaine sighed. Apparently, they had no other choice. This was her chance to go on a dangerous journey. Strangely enough, she’d dreamed about this for almost her entire life, but now that Fate had come knocking, she was frightened.
They quickly got ready. Half an hour later, they were standing together at the edge of the stream.
Suddenly, Elaine realized something. “Wait. I don’t remember you feeding me fish!”
“While you were sleeping, I ate more than just the Grass.”
The Princess didn’t have time to argue as she was pushed into the water. Hadjar jumped in after her.
Chapter 209
The cold water squeezed Hadjar’s chest like a giant’s fist. A strong practitioner could hold their breath for fifteen minutes without damaging their health. Last week, Hadjar had practiced doing just that. His personal record was 18 minutes and 43 seconds. That was more than enough to swim over twenty miles, even with the underground stream slowing them down. But what would happen if, after more than 20 minutes of swimming, they didn’t find another cave or grotto? Hadjar tried not to think about that.
He’d given both oxygen sacks made from the fish gallbladders to Elaine. She swam after him. Hadjar couldn’t see her face. The stream wasn’t wide enough for him to turn his head and look back.
If not for the peril, their little journey would’ve been an amazingly beautiful thing. As they swam through the crystal clear water, they seemed to fly over azure light that the Grass pinned to the stones was emitting. There was so much of the precious ingredient here that even the ore vein Primus had found couldn’t compare to its sheer value.
This light, bright enough to illuminate their way, was still dim enough that they had to squint and strain their eyes. They seemed to float above a path that had been determined by spirits. Sometimes, fish joined the siblings on their journey. The same kind that Hadjar had been eating for the past week.
Of course, he had wanted to feed his sister the fish, not just the Grass. However, it was rather difficult to feed an unconscious person hard, fried meat, which had to be chewed as carefully as old and stale beef. So, he’d had to squeeze juice from the Grass into her mouth.
Hadjar’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden acceleration in the stream’s flow. The stream became a spiral. This could mean only one of two things: there was either a cave or an underground pocket of air ahead of them that was causing the odd change. They’d been swimming for a rather long time. Elaine would most likely have to use one of the sacks soon. The fish had grown larger, so it was unlikely that the water had carried them to safety.
After checking that the rope he’d used to tether Elaine to himself was still whole, Hadjar drew his sword and prepared for battle. Water wasn’t his domain. It made his movements sluggish. The lack of oxygen disrupted his thoughts and slowed down his reactions. That’s why, when the stream pushed them into a huge, flooded cave, Hadjar realized that the battle wouldn’t be an easy
