A Tale of Time

Part 3 - Chapter 1: The Black Arrow Part 2

Her feet slow down to a walk as she breathes heavily through her mouth. Her nose and eyes are scrunched in thought, trying to find anything that could be an indicator of the exact point. Helplessness begins to overwhelm her as she realises that she actually has no idea where the arrow has fallen.

The dragon flies overhead and she ducks but his flames burn the next street over. But it is a blessing in disguise. Just as she begins to rise, she spots a dark patch on the ground just a few meters in front of her. With wide eyes she marches over to it, kneeling down. It is blood.

Her fingers drift up to her pounding forehead. She pulls them back, and sure enough, her fingers are coated in both dry and wet blood. She moves around to the other side, mimicking the position she fell in. Her arm outstretches as it was before, and she pinpoints the exact spot that the arrow should have fallen in – if her memory serves her correctly.

Wasting no time, she walks to the edge of the water and looks down. It is black, a few chunks of ice still bobbing about. There is no way to tell if she is right – if it even is her blood but there is no other choice.

Pulling off her jacket, Gailien breathes heavily on the edge, preparing her body for the icy temperature and to hold her breath. There is no telling how deep the water even is, but if they built their town on it, then it shouldn't be unachievable.

She dives in headfirst, kicking her legs as soon as they touch the water. Her eyes are open, but they may as well not be as there is no light reaching the water. If it isn't for the natural instinct, she would have no idea which way is up or down.

The water is deeper than she thought, and her lungs start to strain even before she meets the bottom. Finally, her outstretched hands find the sandy-gravel lake-bottom. Her hands blindly search around. She lets her legs sink, using them to search as well but there is nothing other than small stones, sand and seagrass.

She searches until her lungs start to give in against her instinct to breathe. Tilting back upwards, she kicks off the bottom and surges towards the surface. The saltwater burns her open wounds on the front and back of her head, but she barely feels them. She gasps loudly as she breaks the surface, coughing up the water that has seep past her lips. But just as she begins to regain her breath, Smaug flies over her. Gailien doesn't see him, but she sees the line of fire coming her way.

Without time to even take a breath, Gailien dives back under the water. The air right above the surface becomes completely engulfed in flames as she waits a few meters below. The flames disappear with nothing to burn on the water and she kicks back to the surface once more.

A nearby boat burns high and her own jacket is already withering away. She could be wrong, it could be anybody's blood. Or not even blood. With no time to even catch her breath, Gailien dives once more into the watery depths. She focuses on swimming straight down, not letting herself drift to the side.

Her hand reaches the bottom once again and the blind search begins. Her hands run through the sand-gravel, her feet sweeping out across to cover as much ground as possible. Just as she thinks she is going to have to go up again, her finger brushes against something hard. Her head snaps in its direction but of course, there is nothing to see.

She races her hand over the area again and she nearly takes a breath in relief. Her fingers tightly grasp the metal shaft and her feet push off the seafloor. It takes her longer to reach the surface, weighed down by exhaustion; but she still has a long mission in front of her to go.

She claws at the wooden path, next to her burning jacket. She heaves her leg onto it, pulling the rest of her body and the arrow up. Her clothes are heavy, the thick, winter materials down a sponge to the icy water. Even with all the fire around, her bones shiver and she glares at her now useless jacket.