Free Warlock of the Witch World by Andre Norton

too hard, requiring such effort that I sat panting heavily between my attempts to free myself from that other garment.
    Thirsty . . . water . . . I needed water . . . Once more I hunched along, the gravel bruising and cutting my hands as I crawled, and came to the river. My hands went into the flood.
    Out of the water arose a nightmare to front me!
    It was fanged; a great gapping mouth stretched wide and ready to snap me in. For that moment I saw only the mouth and the teeth within it. I threw myself back and away, wrenching my wound so that I lost consciousness.
     
    “—awake!”
    “Kyllan?”
    “Awake! Dussa, let him wake!”
    Cool wetness on my face. But that frantic cry did not ring in my ear; it was in my mind.
    “Kyllan?”
    “Wake you! If you would live, wake!”
    Not Kyllan, not Kaththea. This was not the known mind touch. It was a thin, keening voice which hurt my brain as some sounds hurt the ears. I tried to flee it, but it held me fast.
    “Wake!”
    I opened my eyes, expecting somehow to see that monster from the river. But instead it was an oval face of pale, fair coloring, and around it tendrils of spun-silver hair dried, to spring into a floss cloud.
    “Wake!” Hands on me, pulling me up.
    “What—who—?”
    She kept looking over her shoulder, as if she also feared what might emerge from the river. Her anxiety was plain.
    But to me it had little meaning, and when she looked back to me she frowned. Her thoughts were as sharp pointed knives to prick my swimming brain into action.
    “We have little time. They make a bargain—with you for payment! Do you wish to be given to those?”
    I blinked. But the urgency of her mind touch stirred within me the instinct for self-preservation that will keep a man going even when his conscious mind has retreated into non-thought. Clumsily I tried to answer to her tugging, somehow crawling to the river as she pulled and pushed me in that direction.
    Then I remembered and tried to jerk out of her hold.
    “Thing—thing in there—”
    Her grip tightened and she thought at me fiercely. “No longer. It will obey me. You must get away before they send for you.”
    So determined was her will that it overrode my small spark of rebellion and I lurched on. Then I was floundering in the water.
    “On your back—over on your back.” she ordered.
    Somehow I did find myself on my back, and once more I was drawn along, my head held above the surface. We were headed downstream. My companion swam, but also used the current to aid our flight. For flight it was. My immersion cleared my thinking enough to let me know that we were in danger.
    Then it began to rain; huge drops struck the surface about us. The clouds were at last loosing the burden with which they had so long threatened us. I closed my eyes against the beating, and I thought my companion’s apprehension heightened.
    “Must—must get ashore—before the floods come. . . .” I caught her hurried thought. Then she called a call so high in pitch it faded from my mental grasp. Shortly after, there was a burst of relief from her mind. Then followed her orders.
    “We must go under water here. Take a deep breath and hold it when I say so.”
    My protest did not register with her. So when her order reached my mind I filled my lungs as best I might. There was abrupt darkness about us. We were not only submerged beneath the water, but must also come under some other roofing. There is a fear in this for my species, and perhaps I felt it the more since I was helpless. Did she realize I must breathe—breathe—now!
    Then my face broke water, my nose and mouth open to the air. I gulped that in, and with it a strong animal scent, as if we transversed a burrow, yet water still lapped about us. It was dark, yet my companion advanced with confidence.
    “Where are we?”
    “In a runway to an aspt house. Ah, now we must crawl. Hold to my belt and come—”
    Turning from my back was a task which left me sweating again, but turn