Before the wave hit her friend, some instinct made Dak close her eyes.

When she opened them again, the rain still thrashed around her and the river still roared.

There was no sign of Tahlia.

Although she could not remember it, she had fallen to her knees, so she stood shakily as the rain continued its crushing fall. She peered through it at the river, with the round towering island in its centre, as the water tore through the gap between.

"Tahlia!" she cried, but she received no answer.

She looked about at the dark sodden landscape. On the southern horizon was a band of blue light, where the advancing clouds had not yet sealed off the sky. Dividing the band in two was the towering silhouette of the fortress.

She felt torn and numb by the indecision inside her as she looked up and down the river for a sign of her friend. She ran downstream and stared into the chaos of rocks at the island's western end, but there was nothing there except raging water and darkness. She hurried back up to the swallowed beach where Tahlia had been swept away, and stared up and down the bank again, but it was as empty as before.

She was about to turn and head back down the bank, when she heard a minute cry above the roaring of the river and the rain. She could not see where the noise came from, but as she scanned the far bank, she perceived the tiniest of movements. At the base of the outcrop of rock that narrowed the river downstream, in the thick remains of the tangle of driftwood that had survived the passage of the wave, something pale billowed in the water.

She looked closer and could see the ashen oval of a face, and two arms gripping the wood where the river met the island, the whiteness of a dress rippling on the turbulent surface.

"Tahlia!" she called.

A reply came from the distant shape, but it was faint.

"I cannot hear you!"

The voice came again, but the sound was still masked by the water.

She was at a loss as to what to do. The fortress was a good distance away, and by the time she returned with help her friend would be drowned. She was probably lost already.

She ran to the rock that jutted out into the river and tried pulling herself up its side. The red moss which covered it was sodden by the rain, but she eventually found a grip and pulled herself, her feet pushing and slipping, onto its rounded top, where she got shakily to her feet. Feeling her heart pounding at her chest, she walked carefully, one step at a time, along the rock's curved back until she was high over the river. The rain still lashed down, but she hardly noticed it now. The river was a bellowing force below her as she peered over the edge to see the outcrop of rock on the far side, and her friend caught in the broken tangle of wood at its base.

"Tahlia!"

She saw her friend lift her head and she called something.

"...I'm slipping..." were the only words she could make out.

Dak looked at the gap between the two rocks. It was at least two metres wide, and both rocks were curved and moss covered. Her mind told her that there was nothing she could do.

Below was the river, churning and grinding between the two rocks, and Dak was held in place by its power. She was used to the noise of the Workshops, and the white heat of her father's forge that could turn metal to liquid, but there nature's temper could be controlled with the turning of a regulator wheel on the barapane tank. The river below her was wild and uncontrollable, an unstoppable force of nature, and she did not think that she could bring herself to leap across its rushing darkness.

'You must be doing something.'

She took two steps back and was steeling herself for the leap, her heart banging like a hammer, when a quick movement upstream caught her eye. A dim figure was running towards her along the bank. She stared in disbelief, but could not see who it was. Before it reached her it sprang off towards the river, at the point where Tahlia had attempted to cross. A few rocks still broke the surface of the swollen waters, and the figure jumped nimbly from the bank onto the nearest. Then, without pause or deliberation, it sprang to the next and then onto a third before diving headlong into the deep water below the shallows.

The figure disappeared from sight for what seemed to be forever before surfacing, incredibly, near the far side of the river. It was caught immediately by the current and dragged swiftly downstream. Dak could see it swimming furiously against the force of the water, angling in towards the island, but the river surely was pulling too fast towards the narrow gap below her, where the water was squeezed into the powerful spout that shattered into the rocks below. Dak stood with her hands pressed to the sides of her head, unable to turn away as the swiftly swimming shape was pulled towards her.

* * *

In the river below, Tahlia closed her eyes tight as another wave slapped against her face. She gripped the pile of driftwood that had entangled her, but even beneath her frozen fingers it felt dead and fragile and ready to break apart at any second. As the surge of water pulled at her, she felt it move with her weight. She looked up again to where Dak still stood, but she saw that her friend was no longer looking in her direction. She was staring at something upstream.

Another wave swept over her head. More splashes scattered water over her face, and suddenly the tangle of wood where she clung lurched sickeningly down into the water. She looked up to see something crawling out of the river. Her heart gave a jump, but then sudden recognition dawned as she realised the figure was that of a boy. He pulled himself from the river and sat astride one of the thicker trunks of dead wood, his feet hooked underneath, and one hand firmly entwined in a clump of arch-weed that sprouted through the confusion of driftwood.

He leant out over the river, his other arm outstretched towards her. Tahlia noticed, through her cold and fear, that he had a dark narrow face, framed with a mass of soaking hair.

"You!" she spluttered.

"Take my hand," said the boy.

"Maddock!" came Dak's voice from above. "Is that you?"

"Yes," called the boy, but his eyes did not leave Tahlia's. "Quick. Take my hand."

Tahlia attempted to loosen her grip on the wood she was clinging to, but her hands were quite frozen.

"I cannot!" she said in a weak voice.

"You can do it, Tahlia," came Dak's voice again. "Please move!"

Instead, Tahlia clung tighter to the wood and stared at the boy, her teeth clattering together as the water continued to tug savagely at her.

"Listen to me!" Maddock shouted down at her.

"Listen to me, my lady!" Talia shouted back. "I am a lady of the Order, remember."

"You're a stupid little girl, is what you are!" replied Maddock. "Now will you do as I say or not?"

Tahlia glared at him, but did not reply.

"Stop being a fool, Tahlia," shouted Dak from above. "Stop being so prideful or else you will be dead."

"And who would care!" snapped Maddock.

That was enough.

Tahlia focused on the boy's hand, held so temptingly close. With an effort, she pulled her legs up from where they had been trailing behind her in the river's pull, and scrabbled to find some foothold beneath the surface of the water. She could feel nothing at first, but then her toe caught on something hard and seemingly solid. She took a firmer grip with her left hand, and then quickly, before her mind had time to change, lunged forward with her other hand, pushing with her toes as she did.

Whatever thing she had chosen as a foothold was not as solid as it had seemed. As soon as she pushed down on it, it disappeared from under her. Suddenly, her full weight pulling on it, the wood in her left hand broke with a wet snap and she was left holding onto nothing. The river caught her and pulled her back towards the narrow gap, where the water plunged away into nothing. She had no energy left to scream as she felt her stomach fall suddenly away.

Maddock's hand closed around her wrist and held fast with a surprisingly strong grip. She looked up to see his arms outstretched as one hand clung to her, and the other gripped the arch-grass, which was straining and pulling at its roots.

She quickly dragged her left arm from the water and grabbed another piece of driftwood that was wedged in the river bank. It creaked wetly, but held her weight. Together they pulled, and slowly she was drawn in towards the bank, until her feet found the mud of the riverbed and she got them under her. Maddock pulled her from the river, both of them panting with effort.

Tahlia collapsed on the soft muddy bank, shivering beside the raging river that had so nearly taken her life. After half a minute, she rolled onto her back and sat up.

"We should be on that side," she said, once her breathing had slowed.

Maddock sat heavily down on the bank beside her.

"You're welcome!" he said.

Tahlia looked at him sharply and he stared back. Then a smile slipped onto his face.

"What is it that you find so funny?" she demanded.

"I am a lady of the Order!" mimicked the Field-hand in a high voice.

"How dare you!" cried Tahlia, but her own lips twitched in a smile.

Maddock grinned too, and they both suddenly collapsed into laughter, but Tahlia's was soon broken by a fit of wet coughing, and her whole body suddenly started shivering uncontrollably.

Maddock got up quickly, his own laughter gone.

"Dak!" he shouted over the river.

"Yes?" came Dak's voice. Tahlia could just see her silhouette standing on the rocky outcrop above them.

The rain was not as strong as its first heavy fall, but it still beat down at a constant drumming on the plains and the river.

"Are you all right?" Dak shouted through the rain.

"We're fine. Go back to the fortress and get help."

Tahlia saw her turn to clamber and slip down the side of the rock.

"But who shall I be getting?"

"Anyone. Just hurry."

Maddock ran back past Tahlia and clambered up the riverbank. He started pulling at the soaking bushes growing at the base of the island's rounded bulk, as though looking for something.

Tahlia's body was still wracked with uncontrollable shivering, but as Dak turned to leave she raised her head.

"Dak!" she called weakly, but the sound still seemed to reach her friend, who stopped and came back to the riverbank.

"Yes?"

"Take my bow and quiver back. They should not be left in the rain."

She saw Dak searching up and down the opposite bank, before stooping and picking something up from the tangle of wet grass.

"I have them!" she shouted, before turning and running back into the rain.

"Don't you ever say please?" asked Maddock, appearing behind her again.

Tahlia looked up at him. His hair was plastered to his face and his clothes were similarly soaked, but he seemed to pay the cold no attention. She stared back at him and shivered.

"Never mind," he said, shaking his head.

He held his hand out to her.

"Can you climb?"

"Why?"

He took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

"Because we have to climb, that's why."