Free Tyler's Dream by Matthew Butler

slowly pulled off his boots, secured them to a buckle on his pants, staggered reluctantly over, and took hold of the ghatu’s shoulders.
    “No. Not there. Here,… and here.” Tyler wrapped his arms around Varkon as tightly as he could. This was without doubt the most reckless thing he had ever contemplated. And to think: a few days ago he had been hesitant to break a window! Now he was hopping into a deadly cold stream on the back of a ghatu.
    “Is this the best time to do this, Varkon?” asked Tyler as he watched the scarlet horizon, the first sign before the impending night.
    “Another miserable word, and I’ll drown us both.”
    And with that Varkon fell forward into the water.
    Varkon turned out to be a far worse swimmer than he had claimed, and Tyler was forced to let go of him immediately for fear of drowning them both. He cursed the ghatu and half considered turning back before quickly deciding against it. To retreat to the bank and risk being found by a search party was nothing more than suicide.
    After blowing out air from his cheeks, Tyler kicked as hard as he could with the intention of swimming straight ahead, but the river had other ideas and pitched him along mercilessly, just as he had predicted. His arms were beginning to tire; already he must have travelled further down the stream than he had walked all afternoon. Hopefully Varkon could swim better than he had at first demonstrated.
    As Tyler kept his face up from the water, he realised the opposite bank was looming surprisingly close ahead. He gave one last, fantastic effort. The tug of the current lessened, and the pebbly bank rose up under his feet.
    He coughed up a lungful of water, dragged his half-drowned body onto the shore, and collapsed onto his back, his chest heaving. As soon as he could, he rose onto his elbow, teeth clattering, to look for Varkon.
    The ghatu was striding along the bank while dripping wet, a huge grin plastered across his face. “ Ha , we made it! You see, child? I told you we would.”
    “What h-h-happened t-to your grand p-plan of carrying me on y-y-your back?” Tyler said through chattering teeth.
    “I confess it was only to get you into the water. But it worked, didn’t it? It worked .” Varkon bellowed this last comment loudly like a conquering giant as he strode the last few paces to where Tyler lay in a dejected heap. He reached out one shovel-sized hand to help him up.
    The stream had pulled them a long way downstream. Varkon thought that more than made up for any distance they did not travel during the night and set about making a fire not far from the water. Tyler had worried about the light, but Varkon was in too good a mood to care. “Anyway, you’ll need the heat,” the ghatu said, and he was probably right. Tyler had been shuddering violently and had turned a worrisome shade of blue. Varkon had forced him to strip off his wet clothes, so he sat quivering and naked in the dark. The ghatu too had thrown off many of his own garments, but he didn’t seem as affected by the cold. Instead, he explored the nearby darkness for firewood and soon had a large fire blazing merrily. Tyler lay out his clothes to dry beside the flames and began to feel much better; he even asked for another krus . Once he was fully clothed again and warmed, he realised that the success of the day had caused Varkon to become far more talkative.
    “And that one?” Tyler asked, pointing to a part of Varkon’s tattoos that curved across the left side of his chest. It was an image of a many-leaved tree engulfed with dark flame. The great number of birds that had been roosting within the shelter of its branches had taken to the sky.
    “My first kill,” said Varkon with pride. “I lit a fire at the base of the tree, and as the birds scattered, I shot an arrow straight through the neck of one.” He tapped an image of one of the flying birds. An arrow was sticking through its neck, spraying many black drops of blood. “It was a