Anyway, enjoy!
P.S. - It is a sort of 'cliff hanger', so prepare yourself.
Freezing Dive
Crack
The terrifying sound echoed through
the solitary, winter gripped forest.
Everyone froze in dread as a long
crack crawled across the ice from where the brave knight stood in the
middle of the frozen river. He turned his head back to his companions on shore
with a look of helplessness, and then, with a crash, the entire river of ice
fell away beneath him and he disappeared into the raging river.
“Sir Isador!” The knights all cried
in unison “Someone must help him! Someone dive in after him!” Some of the
knights began to strip off their cloaks and armor, but she knew that by the
time they removed their armor they would be too late to help the drowning
knight. Sir Isador needed help now. And as the guide to the group, she, the mute
girl, felt responsible for the life of the knight.
She threw her elk furs to one of the bewildered
knights, charged forward, and dove headfirst into the rapid rushing water.
The freezing water shocked her and bit
her skin like a thousand cutting razors. The current of the river swept her
away as if she was a pebble and it pulled her under with its icy fingers.
She thought she had gone blind until
suddenly, a dark, blurry image in the mass of foggy blue water caught her
attention.
“Isador!” her
thoughts screamed at her like the roar of the river in her ears.
Closer to the bottom of the plunging
river and struggling against the water, the knight was being swept away as
quickly as she was with the current.
She angled herself toward him and
began to swim downward.
The river did its best to try and
push her out of control, but she was able to use its currents to reach the
drowning man.
The knight spun in all directions,
flailing his arms and legs, trying to get his bearings, and swim for the
surface, but to no avail.
She reached out and caught him by the
arm just before it struck her face.
He clamped onto her with both hands
and stared at her with wide desperate eyes. His face was pale and his eyes were
dark and devilish looking in the icy water.
She grabbed him by the elbows and
kicked her feet, trying to propel them both upward, but nothing happened. She settled
to the bottom and hit the sandy riverbed with her feet to launch them upward,
but neither of them moved. She tried to push him up, and when that failed she
tried to pull him up with her. As soon as she pulled against his weight, she
realized what was wrong.
“His chain mail! It’s too heavy! He won’t float! He is heavy as a rock!” instantly she began to tear his
chain mail off.
He understood what she was doing and
began to pull his arms out of the heavy mail and his wool padding.
“Air. I need air!” she turned him loose and raised her head as she zipped upward.
She broke into the open air with a
heavy gasp, her lungs feeling cold and small would barely take in any air. She managed
to take in several gulps of air, then dove back under the raging waters.
She kicked her feet and gripped at
the water to push herself down to the bottom where she could see the knight “Oh no! He’s not moving!” she reached
out and grabbed him by the shoulder of his heavy chain mail just as the current
began to sweep her past him.
He reached out sluggishly and grasped
her wrist with a weak grip, giving it a gentle shake as if to say ‘Farewell’.
“Oh
no you don’t!” she pulled herself down closer to him, pinched his nose and
planted her lips against his, pushing the air from her lungs into his. He
opened his mouth and sucked in what oxygen she had left.
She grabbed his chain mail shirt and
pulled it up over his head along with his heavy woolen clothes.
He crawled out from under them then
grabbed her hand as they left the armor behind and shot upward toward the
surface.
They both hit the open air with a
gasp then the knight lulled back under the water.
“NO!”
she gasped and pulled him up by the arm as his hand released its grip on her.
She wrapped her arm around his thick
chest and leaned back in the water as she tried to raise his head to keep him
from drowning.
A sudden crack on the back of her
head caused lines of pain to wriggle across her vision, dazing her and almost
making her loose grip of the knight. A slab of ice, with the stain of her blood
on its sharp corner, floated its way around her head until she wrapped her free
arm around it.
She pushed the floating ice underwater
and leaned against it as she pulled the knight up and laid him on top of it,
trying desperately to keep his head above the water.
When they were settled on the floating
slab of ice, her eyes began to darken as her freezing, fatigued body grew numb
and her lungs refused to take in air “Please
give me strength” She prayed.
A limb from a fallen tree over
hanging the river suddenly snagged her by the top of her dress, nearly yanking
her and the knight out of the water.
She let go of the ice and quickly
wrapped her free arm around the branch then tried to pull the two of them out
of the water. As she struggled against his weight, the knight became tense and
his strong arms wrapped around the branch, and he pulled himself up out of the
water.
She grabbed the branch with both
hands then, as she felt her resolve to live slipping away. The knight was safe.
That was all that mattered. She might as well surrender herself to the river’s
icy embrace.
Before she let go of the branch
however, a strong arm suddenly wrapped itself around her waist and pulled her
up onto the trunk of the tree.
“Come on girl….almost there.” Sir
Isador croaked.
She grasped the half drown knight
around the arm and the two of them helped each other off the tree to the snow
covered ground.
They landed on the frozen ground with
a hard thud, both barely able to breathe.
The snow felt strangely warm and she
curled up, feeling that she could go to sleep right where she was at.
A freezing hand grabbed hers and
clenched it tightly, brushing her icy fingers with a quivering thumb.
She opened her eyes a crack to see
the knight smiling at her weakly as he held her hand “You are strong.” He
gasped as his eyes slowly drifted closed.
She smiled back and closed her eyes,
returning a gentle squeeze to his hand.
As the sound of the world faded, and
the gentle whinny of horses echoed far away in her mind, one final thought crossed
her mind as consciousness left her:
“I
hope the other knights find us soon… or we shall freeze to death where we lie.”
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