[mark12_30]

Night surrounded him and the water was deep. Yet not so. Beneath him was solid ground. Yet still not so; the solid ground was beneath not him, but his mount. Powerful muscles surged beneath him; long strides bore him forward. He looked for Echo's flaxen mane; reached out to stroke the faithful horse; yet something was not right.

Seaweed brushed past his face. Reaching up to brush it away, he realised it was a tentacle. Shuddering, he swiped, but the water slowed his hand.

Do I ride the currents or the solid land?

The tentacle groped for him, and he moved in slow motion as he reached for his sword. He wore none. The knife, then. He drew, and slashed; all was black about him as before, but he knew by the taste of the water he had wounded it.

His horse tossed his head, and gave a thunderous neigh. In the distance, he heard a stream falling like silver in the sun. He called out to her, but his words were swept away in the current. HIs horse's voice was not; Echo thundered again and again, and the sound of the stream grew louder, nearer.

Baffled, he touched his horse's mind.

Be still, Echo.

The horse whinnied again, almost a scream.

Echo!

The answer came not from a horse, but from a man.

I will echo your voice no more.

Seaweed drifted against Amroth's face and mingled with his hair, tangling; it began to pull him backward. He reached up to brush it away; the tangles held. He slashed at the seaweed with his knife, and found tentacles again. The horse surged forward, he fell off backwards, and as Amroth sank, he heard the splash of his horse's hooves as he entered the stream.

Trespass.

Wrath burned within him. He fought the seaweed, the tentacles, but to no avail. And only now did he know that he could not breathe. He heard his horse's hooves splashing in the shallows of the stream, heard him snorting and pawing, and then the horse's neck bent down to take a drink.

Darkness took him, and he knew no more.