Shadow of the dragon. Owner

By EDGARS AUZIŅŠ

Every dragon needs a Shadow to stay human and rule.
The Diamond Dragon claims that I am his Shadow. Threatens never to let go. He even chained me with magic, and now I am his prisoner.
But the magical chains that bind us work both ways. Without the Shadow there is no Dragon, as they say in the Borderlands. To find happiness, I will become master not only of the Dragon's domain, but also of his heart. If I have to stand up for everything I hold dear, I am ready.
And may the magic sword help me!
THE STORY OF THE DIAMOND DRAGON

• Language: English
• Publisher: EDGARS AUZINS
• Release date: May 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224439928

EDGARS AUZIŅŠ

Dzimis 1989. gada 22. decembrī. Absolvējis Rīgas Juridisko koledžu. Profesijā nav strādājis, bet apguvis programmēšanas prasmes un pašlaik ar to nodarbojas. Kopš 2022. gada ir personīgā uzņēmuma vadītājs, kas nodarbojas ar transporta pārvadājumiem, kā arī programmēšanu. Dzīvnieku, īpaši suņu, mīļotājs. Born 22 December 1989. Graduated from Riga College of Law. Has not worked in the profession, but has acquired programming skills and is currently working in it. Since 2022 he has been the CEO of his own company, which deals with transport transport as well as programming. Lover of animals, especially dogs.

Book preview

Prologue

Waking up in the dark alone with a naked handsome man in a collar, I decided that this was a cruel joke. I was kidnapped and dragged to an industrial zone for some murky purposes.

I was ready to fight with everything that came to hand, defending my life and honor, but it turned out that I was in another world, where magic and dragons are the norm. The only problem is, I don’t remember at all how I ended up here and why I had a real sword in my hands, and a magic one at that!

With the help of this sword I managed to get out of the cave. I found myself in an abandoned castle completely alone, except for small intelligent flower dragons and a huge spider that hunts at night.

My memory is like puzzle pieces scattered in the grass, and each new one only confuses me even more. But the incident helped me remember everything and even more. Now I know exactly where my heart was going and I will do everything possible and impossible to return to my daughter.

Chapter 1. Swim for life and death

I ran as I had only run once before - saving my own life, which I remembered only about half an hour ago. My lungs burned, the muscles in my legs began to beat, but I flew faster than the wind along the road to the sea.

If only I could make it in time! If only the boys realized what danger they were in and thought to run away!

There was a lump in my throat, because the brats decided to please me with these stupid shells, damn them! I won’t forgive myself if...

I had never been to the ocean, but from videos on the Internet I knew that if the sea recedes from the shore at an inopportune time, this is a sure sign of a tsunami. And the further the water recedes, the more powerful the wave will hit the shore. The part where I went to swim was a bay called Dragon Tongue. In such places, a tsunami can be much more dangerous and the waves can reach a height of a good five-story building.

But how long will it take for the sea to return?

I do not remember...

The large difference in altitude and remoteness gave hope that the water would not reach the castle under any circumstances, just to have time to return...

Somewhere in the middle of the way the guys caught up with me. Pir and Gan seemed to realize that something out of the ordinary had happened, and rushed after the crazy Shadow of the Dragon.

- What happened, nyera? — one of them asked a question while walking.

By this time, circles were swimming before my eyes, and I had almost no breath left. And the pain in my side was so merciless that I had to slow down, but I continued, breathing heavily, moving towards the sea at a fast pace. It was not so easy; I had to constantly squint and duck from powerful gusts of headwind.

- The sea... It will return now... It will wash everything away. The boys are there... We must save them! — I barely had enough breath for this abrupt phrase.

- How will this wash everything away?! Yes, this has never happened in our area! - Pyr remarked good-naturedly. You don’t have to be afraid, njera.

It often storms in winter, but in summer... Gan echoed him.

At this moment we reached a place where the overgrown road fell down to the shore, and a picture monstrous in its uncanonical beauty was revealed to our eyes. The sea receded very much, completely exposing the bottom of the bay as far as the eye could see. From here it looked brick red, probably from algae or coral. In addition, I managed to notice a dozen skeletons of different ships, reminiscent of half-decomposed skeletons...

And some were relatively fresh, which stood out among the others with their novelty and caught the eye.

Yoyo... said Gan.

Your... Pir swallowed the curse. He said we should have drowned it further away.

Having confirmed the guess that this was the same Drakh slave traders, the guys, without saying a word, looked at me and confusedly muttered in unison:

- Sorry, nyera.

But I ignored their apologies, because somewhere out there - in the sea, where the bottom level dropped sharply, rapidly rising, a giant wave was already heading towards us. Very, very soon she will be here - just a matter of minutes...

Along the path upward, the frightened boys Macedon and Silan ran towards us, screaming and waving their arms.

- Here! — I had a little time to catch my breath and was about to rush towards them, but Pir held me back.

- I won’t let you in! It was not enough for the Shadow of the Dragon to die!

The guy pulled me back with the tenacity and strength of a caterpillar tractor, but Gan walked towards the boys instead of me. I have to give it my due, the village boys ran much better than me. Very soon Gan was next to the boys and picked up little Macedon under the armpit. He simply took the older Silan by the hand and pulled him back up the mountain.

The sea roared menacingly, the wave was already crushing the skeletons of ships in the bay, rapidly growing higher and higher. I clearly understood that we would not have time to get far enough to protect ourselves from the elements. While Pyr was pulling me in the opposite direction, my brain was working at its limit in search of a solution, and my eyes were darting around.

What did they advise in those same videos that Agrippina watched tons of? Climb higher and grab onto something strong and solid? It’s better to go up to the top floor of a reinforced concrete building and huddle in a corner, and preferably choose a room without windows...

All this quickly flashed through my head, but there was nothing suitable here, except...

- To the forest! Quicker! - I screamed and, in turn, pulled Gan towards the trees about fifty meters from the road.

The forest was quite old, the trees were powerful and tall, some with trunks several girths long. They descended in a thick strip almost to the very shore. There was still hope that this strip separating us from the river flowing into the bay on the other side would work as a breakwater. Maybe at the same time they will at least a little hold back the water and what it brings with it?

All sorts of debris and debris posed no less danger. He'll hit you in the head with something heavy and that's it - your chances of survival will tend to zero.

- Into the trees! Fast! - Gan barked at the exhausted boys, throwing them higher.

They climbed obediently. Silan is quite deft, but Makedon no longer has any strength left, and Gan, immediately catching up with him, literally dragged him up the trunk.

- Nyera Lina, you know how...

- Doesn't matter! Give me a lift! — I had already decided on the choice of tree and, grabbing the branch to which Piran’s strong hands had thrown me, I began to climb up as quickly as I could.

It turned out to be not so difficult. There was a branchy tree - it was such a joy to climb it. Climbing up is always much easier than descending later. I remembered a suitable incident from my own biography. Once at the shelter, I climbed higher than everyone else on a dare, and then sat there for about an hour, unable to get down. We had to call rescuers. Naturally, I was later punished, and my sister was very upset and tried to intercede for me, but with the same result.

I wonder what happened to my poor Marinka?..

We managed to climb approximately to the middle of the trunk - up to the fourth floor at a glance, when a blow of monstrous force shook the earth - a gigantic wave hit the shore. Screaming, I grabbed onto the branches with all my might. The crash was so loud that it was easy to go deaf. It was not visible from here, but I guessed that this sea was crushing the trunks of the trees growing closest to the shore.

The first wave did not reach us, but the second, even larger and more terrible, was already in a hurry after it.

- Nyera! Nyera, let's go even higher! - somewhere beyond the edge of consciousness demanded Pir, who was climbing after me, but I was numb from horror and all I could do was watch the approaching elements with wide eyes.

The trees that we climbed in a hurry were located almost from the very edge of the forest. Only now I realized that this was a big mistake. The water wall that was approaching the shore was too clearly visible from here. It seemed that she was in no hurry and was moving slowly and majestically, but in reality it was just an illusion...

A new gust of wind almost tore me off the branch. Pir helped me hold on; the guy pressed my whole body against the rough trunk and yelled in my ear:

-Grip tight, nyera! And pray to the Progenitor Dragon!

His shout helped me get ready on time. Following the advice, she grabbed the tree trunk, pressed herself against it and grabbed the branches when a new wave arrived. The tree creaked, but did not give up - after all, we were much higher along the shore, and here the wave lost its impact force.

The icy water reached the level of my chest, but did not rise higher. Branches, sticks, some kind of debris, everything was dragged downstream. Something hit me painfully on the arm. Screaming, I released my grip, and I was saved only by the fact that Pyr held on tightly. We were beaten and pounded, the forest groaned like a hundred ghosts, and our fingers began to cramp from the cold, but the stream did not stop pressing.

God, how I hate the cold!

I no longer understood how much time had passed. It seemed like an eternity that I had been standing chest-deep in the water, resisting the current and imagining all the horror that would have befallen us if we had not managed to rise in time.

And suddenly something happened.

The Piran behind me made a guttural sound and disappeared. It immediately became much more difficult to hold on; my legs were torn off the branch on which I was standing, and for some time they fluttered like a banner on a flagpole. I had to try hard to wrap them around the tree trunk. Having established myself more or less reliably, I looked over my shoulder and saw how the guy was choking a little further away, every now and then going under the water with his head. He managed to grab hold of a branch sticking out from below, but the pressure of the water was such that he simply did not have enough strength to go back to hide behind the trunk.

- Feast! - I screamed. - Give me your hand!

I tried to lean back and, using only my legs, to reach the guy, but in vain. Almost falling, she grabbed the tree again. The idea was initially stupid; I was unlikely to be able to stay in place, and even pull the hefty big guy up against the current. Pir understood this too. He shook his head negatively, and was immediately covered by a dirty stream again.

A little more and he will be carried away! Something had to be done urgently!

She turned her head, looking around, but everywhere you looked there was only boiling water, tree trunks sticking out of it and no hope. Only the castle built on a hill mournfully watched our suffering.

A thick piece of snags turned from somewhere on the side and hit Piran in the shoulder, and he, unable to resist, unclenched his hands. The water immediately picked him up and, spinning him in the stream, dragged him downstream.

- No! Feast! - I screamed in horror.

And suddenly Silan swam past, screaming and floundering. I even gasped in surprise. Looks like there was a disaster on the next tree too! Frankly, I understood that I would soon follow them. She held on with all her strength, but her body, numb from the cold, was constantly exposed to blows. Of course, I was covered by a tree trunk, but my fingers, which were particularly affected, suffered. In addition, every now and then something swam from the side, breaking through the forest belt - something like the snag that carried Pir away.

The river behind the forest became a rut for the wave. Water can rise very far along it. But she turned there at the creek where the nets stood, and she could only hope that the inhabitants of the village, which was located higher in the hills, would not be harmed.

A! — I screamed when they hit me in the side like a battering ram.

My vision darkened, my hands unclenched on their own, and at the same moment the dirty water washed over my head. I began to flounder, not paying attention to the pain in the bruised area. Swimming in such a stream turned out to be completely different from swimming in a calm river or pond. I could barely stay on the surface and managed to gasp for air, but I was dragged at an alarming speed and tossed around, like a grain of sand in a glass, every now and then covering my head.

Dragon Progenitor and his Shadow, help me! I must return to Zlata! - a thought flashed when I once again went under water...

Something painfully pulled my hair, tearing out a strand, and immediately caught on the bottom of my shirt, dragging me along with it. It dragged me backwards, and somehow twisting around, I reached for the surface in desperation. I managed to take one more breath of air before I was underwater again. It was impossible to open my eyes due to the various sizes of debris, but, twisting around, I felt with my hands a rather thick and short branch, which I grabbed.

Clinging with my hands, I also felt the trunk from which the branch was coming off - it was a whole tree trunk! Thick, no less than the one on which I recently sought salvation. I was incredibly lucky that in an incomprehensible way it only touched me briefly. Damn such a colossus with all its weight, that’s all. My adventures in the Dragon Reaches would have ended, but now it was my chance of salvation.

All this flew through my thoughts while I, with all my strength, climbed onto the trunk, clinging to the flexible branches. Luckily for me, the tree didn’t spin, and I managed to climb up quickly. I straddled him and fell onto the trunk, pressing my cheek against the wet, rough bark, breathing heavily and trying to cope with the pulsation in my ears.

For a few moments I simply tried to hold on, allowing the current to carry me somewhere forward, but soon I realized that the speed of the water was slowing down, and the tree trunk was beginning to turn to the left in a large arc. Sitting up straight, I began to look around.

The reality was that the power of the tidal wave was slowly exhausted, the water could no longer rise further up the mountain. Its lower layers seemed to have begun to retreat and were returning to the sea, and if my rescue trunk was dragged along behind it, that would be it.

I was shaken sharply - the makeshift raft touched the bottom, and I turned around. The shore was only three meters away, and for one second I almost decided to jump off and try to swim across it, but it immediately increased.

Four meters, five... Seven... Everything is useless. I looked at the ground with longing.

If such a colossus is dragged, then it will drag me down once or twice.

The fragment on which I sat, as if on a horse, was six meters long. The tree was uprooted and broken like a match. At the end farthest from me, the trunk was torn apart, like a brush, and I was sitting closer to the butt, and what I took for branches when I got out of the water were nothing more than fragments of roots. It seems that this thickening worked for balance, preventing the barrel from turning over.

There was a pattern in the movement of the water; all the garbage, turning around, moved towards the cliff on which the castle stood. That is, before it didn’t look like a cliff, but now that the water went around it from the side I could see, it did. The rock here rose to the height of three or four storeys at a glance, and my tree was heading towards it slowly and inevitably. Other garbage turned around there and departed in the opposite direction - towards the sea.

I turned my head, trying to figure out how to get out, but nothing better than a magic sword came to mind. But the Cleaver was still charging, and now I really regretted not checking it.

Stupid! It was necessary to run not to the shore, but to the dungeon. If the sword had been restored, I would simply have asked him to help the boys out. On the other hand, there was the opposite possibility, that the sword was not yet ready. Then I wouldn't have saved anyone.

There was still hope that Gan and Mak were luckier than us.

- Lina! — a short cry barely made it through the roar of the elements.

Silan waved his hand at me from the water! I only heard him because we were quite close. The boy guessed to grab onto some snag and now tried with all his might to row in my direction, but where was he!

- Strength, hold on! - I yelled.

She moved to the very edge of the trunk - closer to the root, but she still couldn’t reach it, and the boy was already beginning to be carried to the side. A little more and we will be lost in this whirlpool again.

In desperation, I began to sort through the protruding roots, hoping to find some longer one. And this one turned up! Pulling him out of the water, she threw it like a rope to the boy. She missed, but tried again and again. On the fifth attempt, Silan managed to catch it, although I had to let go of the snag, but I still managed to pull him out.

- I'm here! I'm cute here! Everything will be fine!

I hugged the boy tightly, who was trembling no less than I was, but immediately had to let him go when he started coughing feverishly. Managed to swallow it, poor fellow.

I was feeling terribly sick myself. I drank this salty, dirty slurry for a lifetime, and probably got a concussion in such a whirlwind. It is still unknown what makes you sick more.

- There's a Feast! - Stopping coughing, the boy pointed his finger somewhere forward and, cupping his hands like a megaphone, yelled in a breaking voice: - Piran! Feast!

It didn't last long, and he started coughing again.

- Where is it?! — I asked with irritation.

I couldn't see anything. Silan pointed his finger again, and only now I noticed that another smaller piece of driftwood had been nailed to the same rock under the castle, and next to it in the water, appearing and disappearing, some light spot was swaying. Silan’s vision was sharper than mine, I would not have realized that he was a person.

Then our tree began to unfold and be nailed to the rock, and there was no time for contemplation. When the trunk hit a rock, I had to urgently jump into the water to avoid crushing my legs. We swam side by side, holding on to branches and roots. It was terribly uncomfortable and scary, and all my strength was spent trying not to get carried away, which was quite problematic. Still, it’s better than being crushed.

- Lina, we stopped! - Silan suddenly said.

- What? — I didn’t realize it right away.

- Looks like we're stuck! "The boy immediately climbed back onto the trunk. - Get out, nyera! - He extended his hand to me.

I could barely climb back up and fell on my stomach, I was so exhausted by these adventures. Meanwhile, the tree turned perpendicular to the rock and dangled from side to side, but did not float anywhere else, unlike numerous small and large debris.

- Are we caught on something? - I suggested.

- Looks like it! - Silan agreed with me.

No matter how tired I was, there was no time to lie down. Straightening up, she began to look for Piran with her eyes. The noticeable snag near which we saw him was not found in the same place, but the guy was there - lying face down on the water surrounded by small debris. His body swayed lifelessly on the waves, a deep bloody scratch crossed his back.

Something inside me snapped unpleasantly. I didn’t really know this man, but he tried to help me and ended up here because of me too. I don’t want him... I forbade myself to even think about the bad, and said out loud, more to calm down:

- He was badly hurt. Probably unconscious.

Silan didn’t really believe me, he just shook his head sadly. Quite like an adult.

It looks like he’s drowned, nyera, the boy looked at me as if he was personally to blame for this.

Until we get it out, we won’t know for sure.

I decided not to count the guy among the dead without being one hundred percent sure of this. There were about five meters to Piran, but when the trunk once again swung forward, we found ourselves a little closer.

- I'll swim!

Before I could react, Silan grabbed that long flexible root and slid into the cold water. In a few strokes he found himself next to the victim - the current helped him. Fortunately, here, right next to the rock, it was much slower.

— His leg got caught on something! - the boy shouted.

-Can you unhook it? - I was worried.

Silan did not answer me, continuing to tinker with Piran. He laid his head on his shoulder, then turned the guy onto his back. The salt water held the surface well, making this task easier for him. The outflow noticeably increased, and the trunk on which I remained hardly moved back and forth; it remained with its butt turned towards the sea, only swaying slightly.

- I will help!

I didn’t really want to get into the water again, but the boy clearly needed help to cope with a strong young man who was larger than him.

- Nyera, no! Better help me pull.

On command, I pulled the root.

- Let's pull! — the boy shouted strainedly and kicked with all his might.

We somehow pulled the piran onto a tree trunk, which required incredible effort and ingenuity. They laid it lengthwise, securing it at least between the branches so that it would not fall off. Only I still didn’t understand whether he was alive or not.

I had never before provided first aid to drowning people, and my knowledge on this matter was vague. I managed to read something when I went to the village with Zlatka and Gapa, but somehow it was already forgotten as unnecessary...

It seems that you need to clean your mouth and nose and perform artificial respiration? And cardiac massage?

Stupid stills from cartoons popped into my head, where the characters were pressing on the chest of a drowned man, and tall fountains of water were bursting out of his mouth. Not exactly the instructions that would be useful to me now, but I had to do at least something.

There was a catastrophic lack of space for maneuver; the victim had to sit directly on his stomach. Holding onto a broken branch with one hand so as not to fall, she put her ear to the guy’s chest.

He died... Silan exhaled sadly and blinked frequently.

- Wait a minute! — I hissed at him.

Due to the constant roar of water and the noise of the wind, it was impossible to hear anything.

- Lina! - Silan suddenly screamed heart-rendingly. - Lina, hold on!

I barely had time to straighten up and grab with my other hand, at the same moment we were shaken violently. The tree on which we were saving ourselves rose from the opposite end and hit the water with force.

- A! - we screamed at the same time.

Having flown up about thirty centimeters, I landed with a flourish on Piru’s stomach, and the guy’s mouth opened slightly. He opened his eyes, saw me and coughed. At the same time, another tree trunk flew past - a colossus no smaller than ours. I was sitting with my back, so I didn’t understand what exactly happened, but it looked like she had just crashed into us. To my relief, we remained in the same place, but we were rocked and tossed so that I could not continue the actions to save the drowned man.

Nyera... the guy’s weak voice did not immediately break through my inhibited consciousness.

- Feast! You are alive! - I could not contain my joy and, leaning over, impulsively. hugged him.

I told you, he’s alive! — Silan declared authoritatively from behind. - What will happen to him, such a bully? Almost tore his intestines when they pulled him.

Unable to bear it, I straightened up and laughed, feeling salty drops running down my cheeks, this time hot.

Chapter 2. According to merit and reward

The Dragon and Shadow had been trying since the very morning and, leaving the castle, I dressed as usual in such hot weather - a looser white shirt and thin, tight-fitting pants. I suspected that it was not customary here to just wear them, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to pull skirts over them. For me, a man of my time, it was already good. But now my dirty appearance embarrassed the local guy. It’s a gift that he just returned from the other world.

Piran was fidgeting under me.

Nyera, let me get up..., pale as death, he suddenly blushed.

Only now did I realize that I was still sitting astride him, and I was wearing a shirt, soaked to the skin, that followed all the contours of my body. The thin underwear underneath didn't hide them much either. Oops...

Yes, of course, I hastily got off Piran and moved a little back. - How do you feel?

- It took a lot of beating, but he seems to be alive.

Pyr sat down, hardly tearing his eyes away from me, and tried to look behind himself. As expected, he did not achieve the result and reached out with his hand.

There’s just a big scratch there, I prompted. - But it's okay.

Okay, the guy breathed out with relief. I thought he would rip my skin off, but the Progenitor Dragon had mercy, it hurt me, he grinned, mentioning some dangerous moment and, glancing sideways at me, became embarrassed again.

Under this gaze of his, I suddenly also wanted to cover myself. No, I was calm about the pants, but the breasts... Arr!

You’re lucky that your foot caught on the wicker, otherwise it would have been carried away, and remember what their name was, Silan importantly intervened in our conversation. - I barely freed you.

I got caught on purpose, that’s why I rowed here.

What Piran said surprised me. We were washed here by the current, but how could he choose a direction in such chaos?

- How did you manage that? And why did you row exactly here?

There’s a cave right below us, Pir pointed his eyes somewhere at the water.

- Cave?! — Silan was sincerely surprised.

I didn’t remember anything like that either, but how many times had I walked along the path past to the sea and back.

- Yes. Gan and I used to climb there when we were younger. This was our secret place.

I didn’t know, Silan frowned as if this fact offended his boyish pride.

- How were you supposed to know? Now it’s forbidden for little ones to go to the castle," Piran grinned, looking at the boy with the superiority of an older man.

- Nobody walks like that! — Silan was indignant and immediately corrected himself: That is, we didn’t go. Earlier.

Gan and I were a little older than you, when we bet on who could climb the highest along the wicker, and that’s how we discovered the cave. It is not visible from below - the slope is overgrown.

- What kind of vine is this? — I made a stand, having heard this name several times already.

It’s either a bush or a loach with a flexible but strong woody stem. By clinging to the stems, you can easily climb any slope," Piran explained.

The Lozovitsa can withstand even an adult warrior in armor without problems, Silan hastened to interject, restoring the authority of the know-it-all. There’s just a ton of this willow grass here in the mountains! The metal covers entire slopes like a net. Its roots go deep into the stone and cannot be pulled out. But if you cut and split the stem into fibers, and boil it thoroughly in the juice of drunta, the resulting ropes are such that Drakhs can be towed.

That’s right, Piran nodded in agreement, confirming his story.

- You say it can’t be pulled out? — I clung to the most important thing.

- Well, yes.

- What if our tree is properly attached to this vine? Maybe we will be able to escape, what do you think? The water is accelerating, and at any moment we can be carried out to sea.

We began to figure out how to do this, and meanwhile the flow accelerated, and the trunk of our tree turned parallel to the rock. Various-sized snags rushed past every now and then. Two, quite large ones, collided with our watercraft, moving it almost a meter forward, and each subsequent blow could tear us off our anchor.

It looks like one of the branches got caught in the shoots on the slope, suggested Pir. We need to find the free end of the whip and tie ourselves to it.

This could work, Silan’s eyes sparkled with joy. "You can intertwine several roots with the shoots of the vine and pray to the Progenitor Dragon. Are you good at diving, Nyera Lina? - he finished unexpectedly.

- I?..

Before I could answer, Eel Feast slid into the water, taking one of the long roots with it.

- Piran! He almost drowned and just came to his senses! — I was indignant, looking at him helplessly.

Oh, don’t worry, nyera Lina, Silan waved him off. Pir is the best swimmer in the village and knows better marine science than most. He dreamed of becoming a sailor, but only... Why do you think he and Gan went to drown the Drakh? — Without finishing, Silan changed the subject.

I just shook my head in disapproval, but deep inside I exhaled with relief. If I could dive, it was only forced. Almost like today - with an axe. And the moment to study did not seem right.

Quite a long time passed before Piran's head appeared above the water, and Silan and I were already starting to worry. Grasping the branches, the guy was in no hurry to get out. Having caught his breath, he said:

I found the end of the vine, but it would be nice to have a couple more, just to be safe.

-Can you still dive? - Silan reached out to him and, taking the end of the first lash, began to wrap it between the branches.

- I can, but the current is accelerating. I'm not sure anything will work out. Oh, if only there was a little more time, otherwise we are holding on to only one branch and one root.

Taking a deep breath into his lungs, Piran dived again and almost immediately emerged from the opposite side of the trunk with another vine.

- I was lucky - with that first one I pulled out, but I won’t climb again. It blows away a lot.

He climbed up the tree and with joint efforts, we secured ourselves in place. The water bubbled and foamed. The tree trunk below us shook and hit the slope. All that remained was to pray that the vine would endure and the soil would not be washed away. We wouldn't want tons of rock to fall right on us.

Forgetting about embarrassment, we huddled together and trembled under the gusts of wind. The sun, so bright just recently, had long since disappeared behind the clouds