Page 20

Tomasz, with a violence that was almost beautiful, wrenched them both toward the surface. His shoulders flexed, the great chest expanding, as if the man could inhale the river itself. Alistair’s head broke water. He coughed, spat, howled. Tomasz’s voice answered with a string of curses, French and Polish braided together, a blasphemy and a prayer. The harness slipped further, but Tomasz’s right hand gripped Alistair’s thigh, pinning him against his flank.

For a moment, they floated, neither sinking nor swimming. Like a two-headed beast, each man struggled against the current and the other's weakness. Then, inch by inch, they made progress. Tomasz kicked and lunged, while Alistair's weight dangled, still somehow attached. The world narrowed to water, sky, and the next breath.

The bank was visible now. It was visible as a shape in his peripheral vision. It was visible as the destination that his consciousness began to focus on with increasingly desperate intensity. The opposite shore. Safety. The end of the current and the cold and the impossible labor of moving through water. It was still more than fifty meters away. The distance was indeterminate.

The current dragged them downstream. He felt it, felt the way the river was beginning to have its way with them despite the effort, despite the sheer commitment of muscle and will. They were no longer making a straight line to the opposite shore but were instead describing a long arc. They were being moved downstream even as they were being moved forward. Any progress they made came at a cost.

Another thirty meters. The bank was becoming more defined, real in a way that had not been true moments before. Tomasz's arms continued their work. The motion felt automatic now. His body learned it well. Alistair could tell he was pushing his limits, struggling to stay coherent, nearing his own breaking point.

Alistair made a different sound, one that was not like the terror-filled cries from earlier. This sound was almost unintelligible, beyond words. It was the sound of someone barely hanging on. They both seemed unaware of their bodies or what was around them. The cold and water were overwhelming. There was a desperate hope for it to end, for freedom, for the river to finally let them go.

Twenty meters now. The bank was real. The reeds were visible at the edge, a tangled mass that signaled stability. Still, the approach required enormous effort. It taunted them, demanding everything that Tomasz had remaining in his reserves of strength and will. His arms moved in the stroking pattern, slower now, more focused. Each stroke was agony. Each stroke required a deliberate decision to continue.

Alistair saw the individual reeds now, the texture of the opposite bank. He sensed the moment coming. Soon, the riverbed would rise again. They would be able to stand. The water would loosen its hold, letting them return to normal.

Ten meters. The current was still pulling at them, trying to sweep them away, providing resistance to every movement forward. Tomasz's swimming became almost mechanical now, something that his body was doing independent of his will, the only possibility available to a consciousness that was beginning to fragment at the edges.

Then Tomasz’s foot touched bottom. Alistair felt it just the same. It was sudden, unexpected, the most profound relief that he experienced since entering the water. The riverbed was there, real. It was solid, or comparatively solid. It provided at least some purchase, a point of contact other than the raging water. Tomasz stood. His legs had a tough time following the command. Moving from horizontal to vertical was a challenge. He used his massive, screaming thighs to pull himself back onto his feet, somehow keeping his balance.

The water still reached Tomasz’s chest, leaving Alistair half-submerged, though the riverbed had begun to solidify beneath them. With each step, the current loosened its grip and the depth receded. Tomasz staggered forward, his rubbery legs on the verge of failure; his muscles slow to answer. Feeling returned by degrees as he climbed out of the water and onto solid ground.

***

THE RIVERBANK BECAME earth. Tomasz clawed his way up it with the desperation of a creature that had nearly been claimed by the depths. His knees slipped in the mud. His elbows drove forward into gravel that tore through skin and drew blood that was immediately washed away by the water still beading off him. His breath came in ragged gasps. Each one split his chest, pulling air from his lungs with a violent force.

Behind him, above him, Alistair stayed secure in the harness. The officer's body was limp now. His psyche had surrendered its consciousness or hovered on the edge of it. Now he hung in the straps with the passivity of an inanimate object.

Tomasz's massive frame pulled itself across the mud and gravel. His muscles were operating now on something beyond will, on pure survival instinct. They moved with the singular purpose of getting away from the water, from the deadly current. Soon, the ground leveled out. The grass beneath him felt real, solid, and still.

Tomasz fell face-first, Alistair still strapped into the harness on his back. He used his body to support the officer's mass, even as he reached his limit. A deep, animal groan burst from him, a sound between a scream and a laugh. It came from a place inside him that went beyond words and conscious thought, his body's response to having endured the unbearable.

They lay like that for a moment. Or longer than a moment. Time lost all meaning, becoming impossible to measure. What mattered was the simple act of breathing—that they both were doing it. The miracle lay in the continuation of each breath, in the persistence of their breathing, and in the fact that they were both still alive.

After what might have been a minute or might have been an eternity, Tomasz rolled over. The motion required a level of effort that seemed impossible given the exhaustion that consumed him. But he rolled gently to his side, bringing Alistair with him, keeping the officer's body supported even as he attempted to shift position. He extracted a small knife from a pocket—how it had not been lost to the river, was something that Alistair did not examine. His fingers fumbled with the blade. They were struggling to maintain grip, struggling to perform the fine motor tasks that cutting required. But he managed it. He positioned the blade at the first belt and drew it across the leather.

Alistair slid off his back. The motion was gentle. Tomasz held him in one arm while he cut through the straps with his other hand, preventing the officer from falling to the ground. The smaller man's body settled onto the grass beside him, and a spasm of coughing convulsed his small frame.

With a sudden burst of strength, Tomasz tore off his soaked undershirt. He used it to wipe the water from Alistair’s chest. He cast the garment aside, then gathered the officer against his bare skin and folded both arms around him, sharing what little body heat he had left. Alistair coughed again.

They lay embracing in the reeds, their clothes damp, the earth beneath them damp, everything soaked through. Their breath mingled in the chilly air, rising in pale clouds with each slow exhalation. The sound was almost musical, almost gentle: two bodies drawing breath, sharing warmth, and continuing stubbornly to live.

Alistair's small body lay on the grass, his splinted legs stretched out before him. The fog of his breath was visible, a sign he was still alive. His eyes stayed closed, whether from exhaustion or unconsciousness. What mattered most was that Alistair was breathing. Tomasz lay beside him, his massive frame shaking from the cold and exertion. His dark eyes were open, fixed on the horizon, tracking the sun's position and the direction they would need to head when they moved again.

The river continued its work behind them. It continued to flow, to carry its debris downstream. It continued its indifference to the two human bodies that managed to escape its grasp. The sound of it was distant now, a background element rather than an immediate threat.

Time was moving irregularly. Alistair became aware of this as his consciousness gradually materialized from the gray place where it had been suspended. He was returning from the realm where drowning seemed both imminent and almost acceptable. His breath steadied. The violent coughing gave way to a normal breathing rhythm. His body was still icy cold, but the chill was no longer a piercing assault like it had been in the water. Instead, he found it to be a manageable sensation, one that he could absorb into the mix of feelings that made up his awareness.

Beside him, Tomasz's body remained a source of heat. The larger man squeezed the smaller man into his massive frame. The motion was almost unconscious. Tomasz's eyes were wide open, locked on the view ahead. Yet, his body moved on subconscious drive, following a deeper need to confirm Alistair’s presence, to hold him close.

Alistair's eyes opened. The view beyond the reeds came into focus bit by bit. First, the opposite bank of the river appeared, and the trees behind it. Then the sky. Golden afternoon sunlight had broken through the clouds and the tall grass along the bank swayed gently in the breeze. Somehow, despite so much death and devastation, beauty could still exist.

His fingers began to move, faintly and without purpose. Still trembling, they found Tomasz’s face and traced the rough stubble along his jaw. The sensation was extraordinary. The beard beneath his fingertips was rough and thick. It was the masculine texture of strength and endurance, a somatic reminder of their arduous journey through a devastated country. It was a testament to survival, written on the body of the hero who pulled them both from the water.

Tomasz turned his head. The motion was slow and deliberate, bringing his dark eyes to meet Alistair's gaze. The moment they locked eyes charged the air with tension. It captured everything: the sling, the fever, the nights together, and that moment in the sanctuary when restraint mattered more than action. No words passed between them. Their breathing filled the silence, uneven and close.

Tomasz lifted one massive hand and cradled the back of Alistair’s head. He drew him closer with a care that made the gesture feel inevitable. For one suspended instant, their faces hovered inches apart.

Then Alistair closed his eyes, and Tomasz kissed him.