Wasteland

20

As she was pulled under, Kahlan sacrificed some of her air to blow out the mouthful of clawing, clinging bugs. She could see ghostly, glowing green light below from the sphere that Richard had thrown down.

The thing compressing around her legs suddenly spun her around, over and over, making her dizzy and nauseous. Then it began whipping her around under the water like a rag doll. She was helpless to fight against the power of it.

Kahlan thought of her two babies. At the thought, terror for them, more than for herself, overwhelmed her. This wasn’t only attacking her; it was trying to kill them as well. She tried to swim toward the surface, but each time she did, the thing that had her by her legs tightened forcefully and yanked her back under. It was hard to keep her eyes open to see because the water burned. Things under the water, some hard, some squishy-soft, bumped against her as she was flung helplessly about.

She saw torn parts of bodies suspended in the water as she was dragged past. She saw an arm still attached to a shoulder with a couple of rib bones and dangling flesh. A hand, the tissues where it had been ripped off at the wrist waving gently in the water, floated past her face when the thing that had her paused for a moment. She also saw other, unidentifiable meat with patches of skin or hair drift by under the water. She just wanted air.

Desperate to get away, Kahlan pulled the knife at her belt. With all her strength, she bent herself over to reach the thing that had her legs. Every time she stabbed it, it tugged her, jerking her straight as it dragged her through the water. As the thing thrashed, spinning and pulling her around in dizzying loops, she briefly broke the surface of the water.

Gasping in air, she saw Richard dive off from the doorway above. She heard him hit the water just as she was violently yanked back underwater so hard she feared it might rip her legs off. She wondered if that was what had happened to the disembodied limbs she’d seen floating in the turbid water.

With the way the thing sharply whipped her around, Kahlan again began having trouble telling up from down, and even more trouble holding her breath. She was exhausted, making it more difficult all the time.

Each time it slowed, giving her some slack, she frantically swam for the surface. She managed to break above the water for just long enough to gulp in another breath before the coil around her legs tightened painfully and submerged her yet again. It almost seemed as if it wanted her to get a breath to keep her alive so it could continue to play with her, like a cat playing with wounded prey, encouraging it to try to get away so it could pounce again.

As she was pulled back down with frightening speed, she suddenly felt Richard’s hands grab on to her. He dragged himself downward along the length of her, clutching at her clothes hand over hand to pull himself down far enough to reach the muscly body coiled around her legs. She saw that he had a knife between his teeth. The powerful thing that had hold of her effortlessly dragged them both through the water, Kahlan feet-first, Richard, holding her leg with one hand, face-first, as they were both twisted around and around.

As the snakelike tentacle flexed, tightening painfully, she saw Richard start to hack away at it with his knife. He stabbed the fat gray tentacle over and over. With each stab she could feel the thing flinch and twist, its powerful muscles constricting more each time.

Since it still wouldn’t release her, Richard sawed at it with his blade, trying to cut it off her. The blade opened great, gaping wounds, but the creature pulled away before he could finish cutting it off her. Gouts of dark blood poured out, filling the water with inky clouds. Richard clung to her leg and kept stabbing away, over and over and over, desperately trying to get it off her.

Then he was gone, shooting toward the surface for air. In what seemed like only an instant, he was back with renewed determination, hacking away more furiously than ever as Kahlan could feel herself going limp, her vision dimming from lack of air.

At last, with the slimy tentacle slashed and cut nearly in two and bleeding profusely, the pressure on her legs flexed once more and then finally relaxed. Richard kept cutting and stabbing until it finally fell away, freeing her legs. Once it did, with him helping her, Kahlan swam for the surface. She broke above it, her lungs burning, finally able to gasp in air, bugs clinging to her face and hair. She didn’t care anymore. She just wanted to be able to breathe.

Richard surfaced beside her, gasping for air along with her. “Let’s get out of here.”

Kahlan wondered how, but she didn’t have the energy to ask.

With an arm around her, under hers, Richard helped her swim over to the side. He hooked the baldric with a hand. “Can you climb up.”

Kahlan was gulping air, too exhausted to answer or even swipe the crawling bugs from her face, nearly too spent to tread water enough to stay afloat. She shook her head.

“All right,” he said. “I’m going to climb up. As soon as I start up, put your arms through the baldric, like you did with Shale. Once I’m up, I’ll pull you up after me. Do you think you can at least do that much?”

Kahlan nodded, unable even to say “Yes,” unable even to use her fingers to rake the hard-backed bugs from her face.

She managed to grab the dangling leather strap with a hand as she watched him climb up the baldric and leather belt until he reached the doorway and then drag himself the rest of the way out. He immediately turned around, his head and arms hanging over the edge, water and big black beetles pouring off his hair, to grab the leather belt.

“Put your arms through the loop. Kahlan—you have to put your arms through so I can lift you. You won’t be able to hold on, otherwise. You need to loop it under your arms.”

Kahlan tried. Her arms wouldn’t respond to her wishes. She was so spent from fighting for her life as she was being dragged under the water and whipped around when she tried to stab the thing that her arms felt as heavy as lead. She tried, but she couldn’t lift them.

“Kahlan! Put your arms through!”

She felt numb. It was starting to seem unimportant. She didn’t even have the strength to claw at the bugs trying to crawl their way into her nose. She tried to blow them out, but that didn’t work. She just wanted to drift into eternal sleep and not have to fight any longer.

“Kahlan, do it for our children!”

She looked up at his face in the dim light. “What … ?”

“Put your arms through. You have to do it to save the twins!”

The twins … that thought sent a searing jolt of panic through her. She couldn’t let them die before they had even been born just because she was exhausted. That was no excuse.

With a final effort, she struggled awkwardly to flop her arms through the loop of the baldric, finally lunging up enough to hook it around her under her arms. That was all she could do. The big black beetles scurried up her arms and up the baldric.

As she hung limp in the leather strap, she could abruptly feel herself being lifted. Water and bugs sluiced off her body. The toes of her boots dragged slowly up the stone wall as she was pulled up clear of the water. She could hear Richard grunting with the frenzied effort of pulling her up as fast as he could. In her mind, she was helping him, but her body wasn’t actually doing anything useful to help.

The loop of the leather baldric lifted her until she saw over the threshold of the doorway. Richard gave another mighty pull, lifting her another few feet, then managed to get first one arm around her, then another. Once he had her in his arms, he straightened to lift her up and out. He fell back with her through the doorway, hugging her tightly to him, him on his back, Kahlan sprawled atop him.

What looked like hundreds of fat black beetles fled off them both and scurried across the floor, going for cracks in the stone walls at the sides of the hallway.

Kahlan could feel his heavy breathing and her own as she clung to him, thankful to be alive. He had saved her. He had saved the twins. The terror leaving her body left her trembling.

After she had recovered for a moment, she pushed away and frowned in confusion. “Who held the scabbard for you to climb back up? Did Shale wake up and hold it?”

Richard sat up with her. “No.” He gestured. “I saw that something had to have ahold of you because you kept being pulled under with such force. I put the blade through the metal loop where it attaches to the scabbard, then I stuck the sword in the stone floor for an anchor point. After that, I tossed the rest of the baldric over the edge and jumped in. I was hoping it would be long enough. Fortunately, it was.” Then he said, “By the way, here is your knife back. You managed to stick it in that thing.”