[piosenniel]

‘I don’t think I’m well healed enough to drag two of you out of the water!’ Rôg winced as he pulled Luindal back from the ragged edge of the ice, his left arm twinging at the effort. The waters of the bay lapped up through it, spilling out onto the already slippery ice and making any footing all the more precarious. ‘You need to get back there and organize the effort to haul Galhardir out with the rope.’ He looked down to where the rope seemed to be inching in slowly beneath the ice. ‘I don’t know much about the tides and even less about the currents in the bay. But I can see that the poor fellow is being dragged in even further. And hurry, there’s little time.’

Rôg pushed the Elf back toward where the line of pullers had formed. Even now they could both see how the rescuers slipped forward on the ice, unable to make any headway against the current’s pull on the man at the other end of the line. Luindal took off at a run pausing once to look back, but all he could see was the tip of a dark brown flipper as it slipped into the hole, then disappeared from view.

~*~

He’d watched the seals come up through their airholes on his trip in the earlier part of the year with his Lossoth guide Bear. Awkward seeming out of the water, their large bodies drug about with their flippers and the undulating flapping across the ice that served as their fastest means of moving, he now marveled at the economy of motion with which they could propel and maneuver themselves in the water. He’d taken a deep breath before he’d dived beneath the ice. He’d seen them do that, and now he knew why.

The air streamed out in a slow procession of tiny bubbles from his nostrils as he swam quickly down the rope, his back touching the line as he went along to keep him on track. Only a few short seconds and he had come to where Galhardir was floating, his body bobbing up and down against the roof of ice. The Lossoth’s eyes were closed and he did not respond to the Rôg as he poked his nose hard against him.

Rôg sunk his sharp seal’s teeth into the man’s sodden leather parka and began swimming back along the rope. The current was strong and the heavy clothes the Lossoth wore made it hard to move him against it. Luckily, those on the other end of the rope, now that the resistance against them had gone were able to keep the rope taut. Their efforts combined with those of the little seal brought the unfortunate Lossoth up out of the water and onto the ice. Rôg followed soon after, a decidedly bedraggled appearing and gasping seal.

A number of the Elves and Lossoth had picked up Galhardir and were transporting him back to firmer land. They’d managed, it appeared to get him breathing once more, and he could hear him asking about his nephew. Rôg scrambled back into man form and trudged back toward where the lines had been tied to the trees. Something niggled at the back of his mind. Something not quite right about something he’d seen earlier, but the image of it wasn’t clear and had become more muddled as he’d heard the shouts that someone had gone under.

He had little time to recall it into sharper focus before the confusing cries of the attack came to him . . .