The surface reflected the night sky, and for a moment Mathias had the illusion that two moons were out.
More woodland stretched away from the bank on the far side.
The ground rumbled again. All of the trees around him began to sway.
Mathias looked back over his shoulder.
A giant, sorrowful face was encroaching into the moonlight. The rays fell on its nose, its cheeks, its jaw, its eyebrows─
Mathias jumped before he saw any more.
Wheeling his limbs in the air, he tried to hit the surface as far from the bank as he could.
He was overtaken by an almost painful cold.
Confusion. He thrashed desperately in the water, afraid of drowning. The bag was getting in the way. Yet it was the presence of the same that helped him regain his composure.
He needed to deliver it to Bernhardt.
They needed to return over the wall, together.
He could hold his breath for a while. People didn’t die so easily.
Forcing his tense body to relax, but taking firm hold of the bag, Mathias gave himself to the current.
Still underwater, he opened his eyes. Visibility was better than he’d expected. The water seemed roughly as deep as he was tall.
A multitude of bubbles escaped upwards. It felt like being inside a cloud of white vapor, the steam that erupted from a Titan’s wounds.
The current was faster than it had appeared above the surface. Mathias could feel himself being carried away like driftwood.
I can make it, the Titan won’t get to me now.
As soon as the relief hit him, he heard a loud dull sound. A sudden rush of water shoved him forwards and carried him farther downstream.
Mathias’ disorientation reached its peak.
The current swept him around to face upstream. The water was dark and cloudy. Bubbles mixed with dirt, blocking the view completely. As this began to clear…
Impossible.
…the Titan’s face appeared from inside.
Its sorrowful eyes were trained firmly on Mathias. Prone in the river, “shallow” for its huge frame, the Titan stretched its arms forwards, flattened its palms, and drove the water backwards on either side.
It closed the distance between them in a mere moment. Before Mathias knew it, the creature’s nose was there before his eyes, close enough to touch.
The Titan flexed its shoulder muscles. By the time Mathias glimpsed this, its hands were already closing in on either side. With a motion similar to when it had parted water, the Titan clamped its hands around Mathias’ torso.
He gagged from the pressure.
The Titan came up so it was free of the current from the waist upwards. Mathias was wrenched out of the river.
He tried to breathe but ended up swallowing water and retched violently. Fine particles of sand clogged up his mouth and nose. He lifted his face, his breathing ragged.
Moonlight shone over the Titan. From the drenched hair clinging to its sorrowful features water cascaded down to its shoulders.
“Ahh….” I didn’t make it. So, what, Titans can swim?
He could think of nothing more. There was no reliving of old memories. There was only the staggering awe of the sight before him.
Out of nowhere something landed on the creature’s immense shoulder.
It was about the size of a person.
No, it was a person. A man, tall and shockingly thin.
Backhanding some sort of pole, he brandished it high above his head. As he did, the Titan turned its head to look at him. The man brought the object down, stabbing it deep into the Titan’s eye.
Its head jerked backwards. A huge cloud of steam gushed out of the socket, and the hands holding Mathias dipped. He was pulled back into the river, and water rushed into his nostrils and mouth again. He shook his head and struggled, desperate for fresh air.
The Titan’s grip eased a little. Mathias squirmed, and his face just barely broke the surface. The man from before kicked off the Titan’s shoulder, took lightly to the air, and fell out of Mathias’ line of sight.
The Titan’s hands opened fully. Once again, Mathias’ head dipped back into the stream. He needed to get away but couldn’t summon the strength.
He floated to the surface and began drifting.
There was an almighty crash of water, and a huge wave rolled into him. Apparently the Titan had collapsed into the stream and was thrashing. Mathias kept sinking and resurfacing. His vision began to blur, then to turn black. He couldn’t hear anything. His senses were failing.
That man. The man just now…
He had the sense that time had passed─a second, a day, even a whole year. The world slowly regained its colors, sounds, and smells.
There was pressure around his upper body. Did the Titan have him again?
There was the sound of water, and of heavy breathing mixed with it.
The pressure and sound receded.
Then, his chest felt constricted yet again. He was being tugged at his shoulder and by the collar behind his neck.
He was hauled upward and tossed into the air; he felt the coldness of the wind, he crashed into grass and root, and he rolled over on the ground, facing up at─
“Well, well, look who we’ve got here,” a familiar voice came from above.
Mathias blinked. It seemed as though someone, most likely the man who’d launched the surprise attack on the Titan, had grabbed him and pulled him clear of the stream. Whoever he was, he was standing with his hands folded over his stomach and peering down into Mathias’ face. Water dripped from the extremities of his overgrown hair and beard.
“A coincidence indeed!”
The image came finally into focus: Bernhardt, standing in the light of the moon and grinning ferociously.
“Bernhardt…” No other words came out.
The man’s voice was the same, but his appearance was utterly transformed. It was just as Amanda had said. He was so scrawny he looked like a different person. His hair and beard were overgrown, and while he had always looked stylish, he was now wrapped in what looked like dirty rags thrown together around the waist and shoulders. And yet his skin was clean. He must have been using the Night Harvests to cleanse himself.
His wrists were locked in black, heavy-looking metal restraints. The iron rings were joined by a chain no longer than twenty centimeters. Had he launched his surprise attack on the Titan and hauled Mathias out of the tributary despite such a handicap?