Mountains of Shadows - 6

The torrent slowed our progress. It was almost impassible. We tied the rope around Altrus's waist and anchored it while he crawled from submerged boulder to ledge, the white foam breaking over his back and shoulders. Several times I was sure he was about to be swept over the cliff, and that the girl and I would be forced to haul in his broken corpse, but somehow he held on against the weight of the water.

When at last he was safely on the other side, he tied his end of the rope to a boulder and I did the same on our side with our end, pulling the rope as tight as I could pull it in the process.

"You go first," I told Martala.

The girl bent her head nearer to mine - the roar of the surging water made it almost impossible to hear each other I repeated myself, and she nodded.

I extended myself out from the bank,