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Standard disclaimer.
The violent cold brought Arthur back to awareness, pulling gasps from the bottom of his lungs.
He rubbed his wet face and tried to hoist himself upward, but foul-smelling river water was gushing steadily into the train compartment, or what remained of it.
Climbing over splintered glass and wreckage, he maneuvered to the gap of the shattered window and stared through the brass bars.
It appeared, that the locomotive had plummeted over the wing wall of the bridge, and taken three railway carriages with it, leaving two remaining vehicles, poised on the embankment above.
Nearby, the broken bulk of a railway carriage, had settled into the water like a felled animal.
Desperate cries for help swarmed through the air...heartbreakingly so.
Turning, Arthur searched frantically for Mr. Harcourt, shoving aside planks of teak, until he found his friend's unconscious form beneath a chair, that had broken free of the floor.
The water had just begun to close over his face.
With superhuman strength, he hauled him upward, every movement sending an excruciating stab of pain through his chest and side.
"Harcourt," he said roughly, shaking him a little. "Wake up. Come to. Now!"
Mr. Harcourt coughed and let out a ragged groan.
"What happened?" he asked hoarsely.
"The train derailed," Arthur replied, panting. "The carriage is in the river."
Mr. Harcourt rubbed at his bloody face and grunted in pain.
"I can't see," he said.
Arthur tried to pull him higher, as the water inched steadily upward.
"You'll have to move, or we'll drown."
Indecipherable Welsh phrases tore through the air, before Harcourt said in English,
"My leg is broken."
Cursing, Arthur shoved more debris aside and found a brass window bar, that had broken from its rivets.
He crawled over another seat and reached upward for the locked side door, on the downstream side of the current. Gasping with effort, he used the brass rod as a makeshift crowbar, to pry open the door.
The diagonal tilt of the carriage made it difficult work. And all the while, water rushed in, swirling up to their knees.
Once the lock was broken, Arthur pushed the door open, until it swung free and thudded against the outer side of the vehicle.
Poking his head out, he calculated their distance from the riverbank. The water appeared to be no more than hip deep.
The problem was, the extreme cold, which would finish them off quickly. But they couldn't afford to wait for help.
Coughing from the smoke-glazed air, Arthur ducked back into the carriage. He found Mr. Harcourt, pulling shards of glass from his hair, his eyes still close and his face scored with a mesh of bloody scratches.
"I'm going to pull you outside and guide you to the river's edge," Arthur said.
"What's your condition?" Harcourt asked, sounding remarkably lucid, for a man who'd just been blinded and had his leg broken.
"Better than yours."
"How far are we from solid ground?"
"About twenty feet."
"And the current? How strong is it?"
"It doesn't bloody matter. We can't stay here."
"Your odds are better without me," came the calm observation.
"I'm not going to leave you in here, you ass-witted bastard." Arthur gripped his wrist and pulled it across his shoulders. "If you're afraid you'll owe me a favor after saving your life..."
With effort, he towed him towards the open doorway.
"...you're right. A huge favor."
He set a foot wrong and they both stumbled. Reaching out with his free hand, he grabbed hold of the doorway to secure their balance.
A lacerating jolt pierced through his chest, momentarily stealing his breath.
"Christ, you're heavy," he managed to say.
There was no reply. That's when he realized, that Mr. Harcourt was fighting not to lose consciousness.
With every excruciating breath, Arthur felt the stabs in his chest lengthen, into an unbroken shrill of agony.
His muscles locked and spasmed.
Too many complications were piling up... the river, the cold, Mr. Harcourt's injuries, and now, whatever was causing him such pain.
But there was no choice, except, to keep moving.
Gritting his teeth, he managed to tug Harcourt upward and out of the carriage. Together they splashed into the water, which caused Harcourt to cry out in agony.
Clutching him, Arthur struggled to find purchase, anchoring his feet into the gluey river bottom.
The water was higher than he'd estimated, reaching well over his waist and for a moment, the shock of cold paralyzed him.
But he concentrated, on forcing his locked muscles to move.
"Harcourt," he said through gritted teeth, "It's not far. We'll make it."
His friend replied with a succinct curse, making him grin briefly.
Laboring against the current, Arthur waded towards the reed bed at the riverbank, where other survivors of the accident were crawling out.
It was hard, exhausting work, the mud sucking at his feet, the frigid water sapping his coordination and shutting down all feeling.
"My lord! My lord, I'm here!"
His valet, Simmons, was standing at the river's edge, waving to him anxiously. It appeared, he had climbed down the escarpment, from the derailed carriages, still poised on the bridge.
The valet plunged into the shallows, gasping at the bone-chilling temperature.
"Take him," Arthur said brusquely, dragging the half-conscious Harcourt through the reed bed.
Simmons locked his arms around the other man's chest and pulled him to safety.
Right at that moment, Arthur felt his knees give out, and he staggered among the reeds, fighting not to collapse.
His exhausted brain worked, to summon his last reserves of strength, and he lurched towards the bank.
He stopped, as he became aware of frantic, high-pitched cries. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw that passengers still occupied, one of the compartments of a flooded carriage, which had landed in the river at a diagonal tilt.
They hadn't been able to break open the locked door. And no one had gone to help them.
The survivors who had made it out of the water, had collapsed from the cold.
Rescuers were only just now, beginning to arrive, and by the time they made it down the embankment, it would be too late.
Without giving himself time to consider it, Arthur turned and sloshed back out into the water.
"Sir," he heard Simmons call out.
"Look after Harcourt," Arthur said brusquely.
By the time he reached the carriage, he was numb from the waist down and struggling through a haze of confusion.
Through pure force of will, he fought his way into a compartment of the carriage, through the space in a wall, that had been torn by the force of the accident.
He went to a window and gripped a brass rod. It took immense concentration to make his hand close around it properly. But somehow, he managed to wrench it free of the wall, and waded through the carriage, to plunge back into the river.
As he used the bar to pry at the door of the locked compartment, Arthur heard screams of relief from inside.
Suddenly, the door opened with a protesting groan of metal, and passengers crowded the opening.
Arthur's bleary gaze, took in a frail looking woman, holding a squalling baby, two weeping girls, and a boy in his early teens.
"Are there any more in there?" he asked the boy. His voice was slurred, as if he were drunk.
"None alive, sir," the boy said, shivering.
"D'you see those people at the side of the river?"
"I th-think so, sir."
"Go there. Take the girls arm-in-arm. Keep your sides to the current...that way, it'd be less for it to push against. Go."
The boy nodded and plunged into the river, gasping at the intense cold, that reached up to his chest.
And the frightened girls followed with shrieks, clutching at his arms.
Together, the trio moved towards the riverbank, steadying one another against the current.
Turning to the terrified woman, Arthur said tersely,
"Give me the child."
She shook her head wildly.
"Please, sir, why..."
"Now!"
He wouldn't be able to stay on his feet much longer.
The woman obeyed, weeping, and the child continued to wail, as he curled his little arms around Arthur's neck.
His mother gripped Arthur's free arm and stepped from the carriage, letting out a shrill cry, as she plunged into the water.
Step by step, Arthur hauled her through the river, the weight of her skirts making progress difficult. He soon lost all sense of time.
He wasn't quite certain where he was, or what was happening. He couldn't even be sure that his legs were still working, because, he couldn't feel them.
At the moment, the baby had stopped crying, his hand groping curiously over Arthur's face, like a migrating starfish.
And Arthur became vaguely aware, that the woman was shouting something, but the words were lost, amid the sluggish pulse in his ears.
There were people in the distance...hand lamps...lights dancing and bobbing in the smoke-blistered air, still he kept pushing on, impelled by the dim understanding, that to hesitate even for a moment, was to snap the last thread of consciousness.
His mind registered a tug at the child in his arms. Then, there was another stronger pull, and he resisted briefly.
Scant awareness set in, as the child was gathered up by strangers, while others had come forward, to help the woman through the sludge of reeds and mud.
Losing his balance, Arthur staggered back, his muscles no longer obeying his commands.
Then, the water snatched him instantly, closing over his head and dragging him away.
As he felt himself carried by the current, his brain hovered over the scene, observing a slowly spinning form...his own...in the inky water.
He couldn't save himself, he realized, with dazed surprise. And no one was going to save him. He had met the same untimely fate, as all the Pendragon men...leaving far too much unfinished...but he couldn't even bring himself to care.
Somewhere in the rubble of his thoughts, he knew that Will would manage without him.
Will would survive.
But Gwen...
She would never know what she had meant to him.
That pierced his failing awareness.
Dear God, why had he waited, assuming he had time at his disposal?
If he could have had five minutes to tell her...bloody hell, even one minute...but it was too late.
Gwen would go on without him. Some other man would marry her...grow old with her...and he...he would be nothing but a faded memory.
If she remembered him at all.
He struggled and flailed, a silent howl trapped inside. Gwen was his fate...she was his. He would defy all the hells...
But it was no use...the river bore him steadily away into the darkness.
Something caught at him just then..tough, sinewy bands twined around his arm and chest, like some monster from the deep.
Then, an inexorable force wrenched him painfully backwards and he felt himself gripped and held fast against the current.
"Oh, no, you don't," a man growled close to his ear, gasping with effort.
The secure grip tightened around his midriff, and he began to cough, spikes of agony driving through him, as the voice continued.
"You're not leaving me to manage that bloody estate on my own."
Stay safe!