Hok began to shiver in the chilly water, and she decided to get moving. She shoved herself clear of the tangled tree limbs and gave Seh a tug.
Seh didn't budge.
Hok tugged on Seh again. He remained anchored.
Hok looked closer and realized that one of Seh's feet was hung up on something. Try as she might, she couldn't get him free.
Hok wondered what she should do next. She was quickly running out of energy. All this swimming was taking its toll.
As if in response, Hok saw a second boat approaching through the darkness and heavy rain. It was Cheen on the skiff, scanning the shore.
That's right, Hok remembered. The skiff had gotten hung up upstream. Cheen must have pulled it free and righted it. He's looking for us.
Hok lifted herself as high as possible in the water and waved one arm while still holding on to Seh. Cheen saw her.
As Cheen pulled alongside the tree, Hok saw Sum, unconscious on the floor of the skiff. “I am happy to see you,” Hok said. “My brother Seh is stuck. Would you please help?”
Cheen nodded and pointed to the shore. Hok knew exactly what he meant. He was going to run the skiff aground, then swim out to help. In no time, Cheen had done just that. When he reached Hok's side, he dove into the river's murky depths.
A moment later, Seh was free. Hok held on to him tightly and she began to swim as best she could toward the shore.
Cheen surfaced next to Hok and helped her get Seh onto the slippery riverbank. The rising river was quickly swallowing trees and eroding large chunks of the muddy shoreline. They wouldn't be safe there for long. Hok had to hurry.
Hok and Cheen laid Seh beneath a large oak, away from the water's edge, and Cheen went back to Sum, who was still unconscious in the skiff.
Hok needed to look at Seh's neck. She reached down to pull his collar back, and something stirred beneath it—his snake.
Hok jerked her hand away and grabbed a stick. She pushed Seh's soaking wet collar down and peered at his neck from several different angles. It looked like AnGangseh's poison dart hadn't sunk too deep. There was a small laceration, but the dart was not still embedded in the wound. This was good.
On the other hand, Hok was all too aware of potential complications from poison delivered by dart. A sticky residue was required to make the poison stick to the dart. That same sticky residue also made the poison stick to the wound. Hopefully, the river water and heavy rain had washed most of the poison away as soon as the dart struck.
In her mind's eye, Hok began to flip through a hundred different texts on poisons. She shook her head.
She was wasting her time. Even if she did manage to identify the poison, she had no antidotes. The best she could do would be to scour the area for herbs to help counter any side effects, though even that would likely be of little help. The only way to administer treatments to an unconscious person was to make a tea from the necessary ingredients and pour it down a patient's throat. She had no way of making a fire. She didn't even have a pot to boil water in.
Hok sighed and looked toward Cheen. He was standing over the skiff with his head in his hands. Hok could tell that he was crying.
Hok walked over to the skiff and looked down at Sum. It would be much more difficult to tell what was wrong with her. Whenever anyone had suffered a similar injury at Cangzhen, they had always waited until the person regained consciousness before attempting any sort of diagnosis. She could try to wake Sum up with special pungent herbs, but she didn't have any with her.
Hok placed her hand softly on Cheen's shoulder. “Thank you for helping me with my brother. I wish there were something I could do for your sister. If I only had a medicine bag with me, I—”
Cheen's body went rigid and he snapped his head up. Hok saw a glimmer of hope in his eyes. He pointed downriver excitedly. Perhaps he knew where to find some herbs.
Cheen pointed to Seh and motioned for Hok to stay next to the skiff. Hok nodded and watched as Cheen ran beneath the oak tree, carefully lifted Seh, and carried him back to the boat. Cheen laid Seh inside the skiff next to his sister and motioned for Hok to help him push the skiff back into the river.
Hok glanced downriver and thought about Tong-long and AnGangseh. They were out there somewhere. HaMo was, too. AnGangseh had said that they weren't interested in her or Seh, but she couldn't be sure.
Hok ran her hands through her stubbly brown hair. Anything was better than standing around in the rain, watching the river rise. Besides, she had to at least try to treat Seh and Sum. Both might suffer long-term damage if left unattended, or even lose their lives.
Hok helped Cheen push the skiff back into the swollen river and climbed aboard.
Hok watched Cheen skillfully steer the skiff downstream for hours through the heavy rain. By late afternoon, she still hadn't seen any signs of Tonglong, AnGangseh, or HaMo. She hadn't seen any other boats venturing out in this horrible weather, period. The only thing she had seen was li after li of swamped trees, and great mounds of mud sliding down the riverbank into the river. The mud had an increasingly yellow tint, and Hok knew the color came from a special mineral, one used to make explosive powder. It was the abundance of this mineral that gave the river its name—the Yellow River.