Page 32 of Salt in the Wound

He breaks the surface.

The sound of gasping fills his ears.

Not his own, his own lungs are screaming but his attention is fixed entirely on the body in his arms and the sound it's making, a raw, wretched,beautifulsound: Indrie, coughing water, choking on air, alive.Alive.The gasping is weak and strangled and accompanied by retching as Indrie's body expels the seawater it's swallowed, but it's breathing, it's a body that is choosing air over water, life over surrender, and the relief that crashes through Eskil is more violent than any wave.

Indrie clings to him. Hands that were limp seconds ago find Eskil's shirt and fist in the fabric with a grip that's pure instinct, the blind, desperate hold of a drowning creature that has found something solid and will not let go. His face presses against Eskil's chest, his body convulsing with coughs, and Eskil can feel him shaking, not just trembling,shaking, his entireframe wracked with the cold and the shock and the aftermath of however many seconds he spent below the surface not breathing.

Eskil's grip makes the clinging unnecessary, but he doesn't say so. He locks one arm around Indrie's waist, pulling him flush against his body, and the feeling of the younger man against him, small and cold and trembling andalive, is something he will carry in his chest for the rest of his life.

He's not letting go.

The sea can take them both or it can take nothing. Those are the options. Those are the only options. Eskil has made his choice and the water can fight him for it and the water will lose because he has never in his life let go of something he was determined to hold, and he is determined now with a ferocity that eclipses everything, the cold, the exhaustion, the storm that's still raging above them, the waves that keep crashing over their heads and forcing them under.

He keeps Indrie's head above the waves. It's a battle, the swells are enormous, black walls of water that crest and break and try to tear them apart, and Eskil fights each one, turning his body to take the impact, using his mass to shield Indrie from the worst of it. Water crashes over his back, his head, fills his eyes and ears and mouth, and he spits it out and tightens his arm and keeps going.

The ship. He needs the ship.

He can see it now, or rather, he can see the lights, dim smears of yellow that appear and disappear behind the swells, agonizingly far away. The vessel is turning. Slowly, laboriously, fighting the storm and the current to come about, and Eskil can see a flash of red hair at the helm and thanks the gods for Bohdi. His second-in-command has taken the wheel and is bringing the ship around, and it's the most beautiful thing Eskil has ever seen that isn't currently pressed against his chest.

The turn takes forever. The ship is fighting the sea for every degree, the hull groaning, the rigging screaming, and Eskil treads water with one arm and holds Indrie with the other and waits. The cold is in his bones now, deep and settled, and his free arm is going numb, the muscles sluggish, and each kick takes more effort than the last. But the ship is coming. It's coming.

A rope ladder rolls off the side.

It hits the water twenty feet away and Eskil makes for it with the last reserves he has. One arm. One arm and two legs that are barely functioning and a current that's doing its best to push him in every direction except the right one. He swims, if what he's doing can be called swimming, it's more a controlled lunge repeated over and over, and the ladder gets closer in increments that feel like miles.

He reaches it. His hand closes around the bottom rung and the relief is so acute it's painful. He hangs there for a moment, just a moment, his forehead pressed against the rope, his arm locked around Indrie, and breathes.

Then he hauls Indrie up.

He maneuvers the younger man in front of him, lifting him bodily until Indrie's hands can reach the first rung. Indrie is exhausted. He's shaking so badly his fingers can barely close, and his eyes, when they meet Eskil's in a flash of lightning, are glazed and distant and not entirely present. He's in shock. His body is shutting down, conserving what little warmth it has left, and the climb ahead of him is vertical and wet and long.

But he grabs on. His fingers find the rung and wrap around it and he holds, and then he reaches for the next one, and the next, and he begins to pull himself up. The movements are slow, graceless, each one an act of will more than strength, but he's climbing. He's doing it.

Eskil waits until Indrie is far enough up the ladder that he won't kick him in the face, and then starts up as well. Hisarms are burning, not with cold anymore, with exhaustion, the deep muscular failure of limbs that have been pushed past their limit and are operating on nothing but stubbornness. His lungs ache with every breath, a raw, scraped feeling that suggests he swallowed more water than he thought. The ladder sways with the ship's roll and the wind tears at his wet clothes and each rung is a negotiation between his body, which wants to stop, and his mind, which will not allow it.

At the top, hands reach down. Several of them, strong and sure, grabbing Indrie's arms and shoulders and hauling him the rest of the way over the railing. Eskil sees the healer's body come over the side and onto the deck, limp and soaked, and one of the men, a well-meaning deckhand whose name Eskil can't recall through the fog of exhaustion, lays him out on the wet planks.

On the deck. On the wet, cold, storm-lashed deck. Face up to the rain.

Eskil gets his arms over the railing and hauls himself aboard with a grunt that tears from somewhere deep in his chest. He hits the deck on his hands and knees, water streaming from his hair and clothes, and he is on his feet in two seconds and crossing to Indrie in three.

He scoops Indrie into his arms.

The healer is barely conscious, his head lolls against Eskil's shoulder, his body offering no resistance, no tension, no indication that he's aware of being moved. He weighs nothing. He weighs less than nothing. He's cold and wet and limp and the shaking has gotten worse, a continuous tremor that Eskil can feel against his own chest.

He rounds on the deckhand who laid Indrie on the planks. The man is still standing there, looking uncertain, and Eskil's voice comes out as a snarl that cuts through the storm.

"If you want him to end up back in the ocean, you might as well throw him to the sea yourself."

The man apologizes. Eskil doesn't hear it. He's already moving, carrying Indrie across the deck toward the aft cabin, and the crew parts for him without being told because the look on his face does not invite obstruction.

Bohdi is at the helm. Eskil sees him as he passes, braced against the wheel, muscles straining, fighting the storm with the grim competence that has made him indispensable for twenty years, and their eyes meet across the distance. Bohdi's gaze drops to the limp figure in Eskil's arms. His jaw tightens. He gives Eskil a single nod,go, I have the ship, and turns back to the wheel.

The storm is still Bohdi's problem. Indrie is Eskil's.

He shoulders open his cabin door and carries Indrie inside. The cabin is dry, sheltered, the lamp still burning where he left it, and the sudden absence of wind and rain is disorienting after the violence of the storm. The ship still heaves beneath him, the roll deep and slow, but the walls block the wind and the ceiling blocks the rain and the air in here is warm, or at least warmer than the hell outside.

Eskil crosses to the bed and lays Indrie down.