Funeral Games by Christian Cameron, Cameron

didn’t turn his head to look. His whole concentration was on Coenus. He was close - closer - he reached out a hand and tried to pull the man up, but he was twelve and Coenus was the biggest man he knew.
    Then Philokles was up with him, and Theron, swimming alone without a horse, and they cut Coenus free before he drowned himself and his horse. Theron pushed the Megaran’s head and shoulders into Satyrus’s arms and he pulled hard, eliciting a low scream of pain from the big man. And then they were swimming.
    Satyrus looked up and found that they were halfway across. But the current had moved them, and they were no longer at the narrows. He set his shoulders and concentrated on keeping Coenus alive.
    Time passed slowly. His shoulder hurt, and every other moment he thought that the dying man might drag him into the water. He was afraid for Thalassa, who made harsh noises though her mouth and nostrils, coughs and hacks almost as if the horse was attempting to curse.
    There were leaves and logs in the river, deadwood floated away by the spring rains in the high ground to the east, and once a dead sheep, bloated and stinking, passed them as they swam on. The point was so far behind them that even from his perpsective just above the surface, Satyrus could see the Bay of Salmon widening away. They were almost as far from the other shore as they had been when they slipped into the water. Even with the powerful aide of the horse swimming beneath him, even with his arms wrapped around her neck, Satyrus was tired.
    Coenus was a dead weight. Satyrus thought that the man’s cold body still had life in it, and he passed several minutes trying to find a sign of breath. He wasn’t sure. When he looked up, the stone farmhouse that marked the end of the Maeotae territory was in sight.
    He looked around for Melitta, and she was right there at his side, holding on to Bion with one hand and pushing against Coenus with the other, swimming strongly but with lines on her face like an adult. Their eyes met. She gave a push, probably all she had strength for, and Coenus went a finger-breadth higher on Thalassa’s proud back.
    ‘Poseidon, Lord of Horses,’ Satyrus said.
    She swam more strongly, and Satyrus tried to sing the hymn, and Melitta joined in, two thin voices singing, whole words left out as the singers struggled to breathe, but Thalassa seemed to relish it, and her ears went up, and she moved faster. The stone house on the shore was closer.
    ‘I think - he’s - dead,’ Lita panted.
    Satyrus thought of the dead girl. He shook his head.
    Thalassa’s legs kicked hard. They were half a stade from shore, but suddenly she rose out of the water, stumbled, scrambled and pushed, and she was walking. Satyrus could see the drowned meadow beneath her hooves, the mud billowing away from her steps in brown-black clouds. She managed a few long strides and then she slipped and fell and they all went down in a splash, Coenus and Satyrus underneath, but Satyrus had his toes wrapped in her saddlecloth and when she came up in deeper water he was still clinging to her and he had Coenus wedged with desperate strength against her side.
    Theron was there, and Philokles, pushing against his sides, and Melitta with an arm around Coenus’s neck, holding his head clear of the water. He wasn’t dead yet, because he was spluttering.
    The marshy bank was just a few long strides away. Melitta let go of Coenus and she and Bion were first up on to the bank, followed by two unridden horses. Then Thalassa pushed herself up, one giant lunge to plant her hind feet on the mud and a struggling leap almost straight up, with the weight of a boy and a big man, and she was up, front feet scrambling over the edge. Satyrus lost his seat and slid free to fall on grass, and Coenus fell on top of him in a tangle and moaned.
    Philokles and Theron climbed the bank under their own power. Satyrus had been kicked at the end and he lay, just breathing, with waves of pain running