shlimazl (n.) someone who is perpetually unlucky.
Two drowning people can't save each other. All they can do is drag each other down.
Khalore Angelo knew this, and yet she reached. The water was a living beast around her; it roared, and it struck her like a brick of concrete, battering the air from lungs, forcing water down her throat. They were above water for only a single second, waves beating them, and then they were under, and the darkness was drawing them down. They may as well have had anchors tied to their ankles for all that they could fight it; it felt as though they might sink and sink and sink, and never again see the sky. She kicked, forcefully, and broke the water again – everything was grey. The mist pressed in so close she couldn't see more than a foot in front of her. Where were the druj?
She had to get out of here.
And still she reached.
Underwater again. She felt like she was being forced down by hands from above; no matter how she struggled, she couldn't raise her head. Her lungs burned. Her pack was pulling her in the wake of the boat as Halkias and Zhuk tore away from the reef, and before her she could still see the shadow that was Ghjuvan Mannazzu. He was reaching too; she wanted to shout at him, tell him that two drowning people can't save each other. Her lungs were burning; her heart was burning. It was all she could think about, even as she reached.
If she saved someone – gave her life for theirs – wasn't that sacrifice? Wasn't that her purpose? All she was good for?
This was a good reason to die.
God, if only her heart didn't hurt.
Ghjuvan's hand locked around her wrist like a vice. Would he pull her down? They twisted, as they had been taught, his other hand finding the strap of her bag, her fingers wrapping tightly around his collar. This, Khalore thought, this was how people dragged you down. And that wouldn't be so bad, of all the ways to go: they said that drowning was peaceful.
But the water beneath them was dark and full of shadows. She wasn't sure they would get the chance to drown.
They broke the water again. She gasped, deeply, trying to flush her lungs of that horrible deep agony, and exhaled in a rush as a wave hit her again. Ghjuvan's hand behind her neck was enough to keep that wave from shoving her head back under – she was able to keep, for a brief moment, her equilibrium, and suck in a more measured inhale, one that didn't just purge the fire behind her ribs but lent some fresh strength to her limbs, enough that they could try to move away from that enormous stone thing that was still occupying most of the horizon, a druj without eye or movement.
Under again. She kept the air trapped between her teeth. Her clothes were weighing her down. She felt, in this moment, if Ghjuvan let her go, that she would simply sink – straight down, arms out, and go willingly into the dark. She was tired. She was so, so tired. Yet still, they just kept kicking.
Movement in the water next to them. They shouldn't splash, she thought, shouldn't agitate the water… and they were above water again, air and oxygen, and Ghjuvan was saying something she couldn't hear. He was her lifeline; she could only make sure they were not separated. She had the energy for nothing else. Her eyes stung; her gasps were ragged, choked out in the moments between waves.
No. This didn't make any sense. She thought, the water was so still just a second ago. She thought, it looked like a mirror, it was so flat. She thought, there was wind, but no waves. She had to squeeze her eyes shut; they burned too much.
So what was…?
There was someone shouting nearby. She couldn't hear what they were shouting, but it was… it was ragged, edged with panic, but it was not the broken call of someone trying to speak despite the water. Shore, she thought, someone on shore was calling. What were they saying? Ghjuvan's arms were very tight around Khalore's. What were they shouting?
"Ghjuvan!"
Had she passed out? Abruptly, she was aware of something under her shoulder, something hard which yet gave way under her arm. Was this…. sand, she thought, sand, and opened her eyes. They were in the shallows – that made no sense, she thought, they had just been in the deeps, the water stretching so far beneath them – and Ghjuvan was hauling her from the shallows like he thought they were still at risk of drowning, staggering through the low water. They were in the shallows, and Khalore was lying on her side, Ghjuvan still pulling her by the collar; they were in the shallows, and Khalore could have put her hands flat on the bottom and pushed herself into standing; they were in the shallows, and that made no sense. Had she passed out? Her head spun. She was coughing up salt water – yes, that was to be expected – so maybe…?
She twisted onto her knees and retched salt water onto the sand. Her shirt sleeve was crusted with sand and the black mucus which had dripped from the druj. Her head was spinning from lack of oxygen; she felt like the ocean had bruised her ribs.
And yet, when she glanced behind herself, the water was flat and totally still, like a lake on a windless night.
Who had been calling them? Perhaps Mielikki, for there, where the land met the water, Mielikki was bent over the prone form of Azula, her ear next to the smaller girl's mouth as she listened intently for breath. Azula was very pale, and totally unmoving; she may as well have been dead. Khalore thought, quite bitterly, that looks restful.
She staggered to her feet, unwilling to allow her own weakness to hold the others back. Ghjuvan only released her collar when she was standing, and moved to fall onto his knees next to Mielikki, holding Azula's wrist tightly in search of a pulse. Khalore could only stand there, feeling for where her pack had been on her shoulder, and turn, searching the water, for where their bags might have fallen. This was she could be useful; she could get their supplies, if there were still supplies to get. Maybe they had been sacrificed to the ocean, as Khalore nearly had been, before Mielikki had called their name.
No – or maybe it had been Ilja who had done so, for he was moving down the bluffs towards them. The sand on which their tight knot had assembled was hedged in by short, sloping cliffs dotted with boulders; and beyond that was grass; and beyond that were… trees? Khalore shook her head. Was this really Illéa? It seemed so… mundane. The sand underfoot was a pearly gray, the rocks a pale yellow, the grass a warm green. Tiny starfish, perfect and pink, stirred around Khalore's ankles. Everything was as it might have been at any stretch of coast in Old Kur. How could this be the island of monsters? It was a beach.
And where were the others?
Azula had turned over onto her shoulder, and, just as Khalore had, retched salt water onto the sand beside her. Ghjuvan had an affectionate hand on her head, and was speaking softly; Mielikki had sat back on her heels, and was watching the ocean with a thoughtful expression, looking relieved. Those mists were still drawing so tightly around them; Khalore could no longer see that enormous stone thing, or the boat from which they had leapt. Halkias would be fine – he was a Champion, after all – but those things that had attacked their boat….
She walked down to the edge of the water, to pick up her bag where it had fallen. Not the enormous weight to which Sauer had accustomed them, but weighty enough to comfort Khalore that they were not heading into this totally unprepared.
A grey-green shape was bobbing across the water, just out of the grey grasp of the fog. One of the packs belonging to the other Warriors? Khalore started across the sand, but was shortly arrested by Ilja's hand upon her shoulder. "Seriously?" the Chariot said, almost derisively.
"Someone has to get it. I don't mind being the person who goes back in-"
"There's something under the water," Ilja said, in a tone that allowed no argument, and Khalore did not ask how he knew this.
She just watched as the bag sank.
"We have enough supplies," Ghjuvan said, gruffly. Ghjuvan had held onto his pack, and Ilja had brought one ashore also. Three lots of supplies between five Warriors? It was doable, although Khalore couldn't say for how long. If this was Illéa… how far to the Schreave capital? And what waited for them between there and here?
"Fine," Khalore said, and sat down on the sand. Could those druj in the water advance onto the land? It might not be long until they found out. She thought of those shear-like jaws. She didn't think she wanted to find out.
And Hyacinth…
Ilja and Ghjuvan were quietly discussing whether to light a fire. Khalore couldn't see how they couldn't – in wet clothes, they wouldn't last the night. Was there night here? Maybe it was night already. The mists were so strong, she could not even see the sky. The whole world was shrouded in that same silvery half-light of fog.
"Light it," Ilja said, finally, and Ghjuvan turned to his pack to find his flint.
They were clearly settling in to wait for the others, though the water was so flat and the fog so thin that Khalore thought it was impossible they might have still been in the ocean and not noticed. But she thought it likely the others would find this entirely too cynical a pronouncement, and so she kept her mouth shut; she just helped Mielikki as she pulled Azula to her feet, the smaller girl shaking from the cold and exertion, and the three of them moved slowly towards the nearest outcropping of rocks, where they could change from the soaked uniforms they had travelled in.
The clothes in their packs were sensible and plain – softer than Khalore had expected, wool and cotton, and warm. They were not as severe as the uniforms they had worn for so long as candidates, but more casual, the kinds of clothes her twin might be wearing now, somewhere in Irij. They clung to her wet limbs; she felt that she was still deeply cold, despite the mildness in the air. But thankfully, by that point, Ghjuvan had a fire lit, and they could retreat back onto the beach to collapse beside the warmth. Ilja was lying back on the sand, his eyes tightly shut; Ghjuvan was staring into the fire tiredly, looking like he was contemplating murdering the first person to speak.
Khalore thought she could handle that. "What's the move?"
"We're not," Ilja said tightly, "moving."
"We can't stay here-"
"Of course we can."
Ghjuvan said, dully, "you think the druj don't like the beach?"
"They seem to me like the skiing sort, actually." Ilja had not moved; he had his arms crossed tightly across his torso. "We're at no more risk here than anywhere else on this island."
Azula said, "If we move anywhere else, we risk losing the others."
Khalore didn't want to say they had already lost the others. She didn't want to say it, but it was true. Pekka was dead and Kinga was as good as. Hyacinth – devoured by the druj or drowned, it made no difference: she was gone. Ina and Zoran… well, maybe they had washed up on some other stretch of this island's coast. Khalore's cynicism did not allow her to believe it, but she could certainly think it. "You don't think we should go looking for them?"
"We have a fire here," Ghjuvan said, sounding like he was begrudgingly agreeing with Ilja. Khalore felt, frustratingly, like she wasn't smart enough to keep up with the calculations the two were making, trading off security for safety - but it was clear that Schovajsa had won this particular argument. She could just nod in agreement with her friend as he added, "there's more chance of them seeing us than vice versa."
"That flash of light," Mielikki said, somewhat dreamily, as was her wont. "What do you think that was?"
Ghjuvan said, "I don't know, Zorrico. I've never seen a human being swallowed by a monster before."
"Really?" Mielikki looked at the water. It was darkening now; so the sky could get darker. This was night setting in around them. "Oh."
There was silence for a long moment before Azula said, softly, "do you think they're okay? The others, I mean."
To Khalore's surprise, Ilja did not sound like he was lying when he said, "Zula, I pity the druj who try to take them on."
In the end, they stayed there all night.
And in the morning, when no other Warrior had washed up upon the beach, they doused their fire, packed their rucksacks, and began their journey into the woods. This was Illéa, ahead of them lay the Schreaves, and the Warriors were here to complete their mission.