Directly below, the current ran fast and deep past the near-vertical base of the high bank where it descended almost straight down into the dark water. Just upstream from this was the beginning of the wide clear pool, into which the waterfall thundered in a continuous roar.
She was having considerable difficulty remaining upright in her saddle as she turned her mount away from the edge, and felt her head nod from an involuntary heaviness as she turned to look this way and that.
She realized that she must be quite a sight to them in her present condition, for her horse and her attire were all black, with the slick glistening red of a coating of blood upon the black stallion's muscular, corded neck beneath where the two arrows were embedded, and much blood also upon the front of her tunic where the stub-end of a broken arrow also protruded from her shoulder.
Scores of swords, bows, and spears were to be seen raised on every hand, but no arrows were nocked and no spearheads aimed her way, for she held no weapon herself and represented no threat to them or their leader Kadrug. Indeed, she could only regard herself as a natural target to them. Si'Wren resolved that she must not allow herself to be treated as just another conquest by this lunatic mob and their leader, Kadrug.
What if these, mad with lust, intended to take her?
Kadrug suddenly said loudly, "Who is this woman?"
Then, getting no answer but shrugs from the ranks surrounding them both in an irregular half-arc, he said directly to Si'Wren, "Woman, look at me!"
At this, Si'Wren lifted up her eyes, and regarded him eye to eye, well aware that the men surrounding both herself and Kadrug were no doubt prepared to commit any evil upon her person at the other's slightest word or nod.
"What is this child's fable I hear from those we captured, about a flood that is to destroy the whole world?"
To this, Si'Wren, by now in a state of complete and utter exhaustion, responded neither by word, sign, nor gesture, but only continued to regard him expressionlessly.