The effort of hauling himself up and out of the water, finally free to stand instead of struggle against drowning, left Sir a bedraggled, stumbling mess. He couldn’t see anything in the water through the mess of floating ice and arrows and spears. All he smelled was the dead water. All he heard was anger against him. If Riven or Taula still survived, they’d have to save themselves. 

He pushed himself forward again and his legs almost buckled beneath him when the ground was not where he’d expected it. He’d not noticed the edge until it was too late, and only narrowly avoided rolling down the steep slope by sitting back on his haunches and sliding down the first half until he could keep up with the momentum. Tail waving nervously behind him in some bid for balance, the large beast ignored the snow and stones scraping through his fur and picked himself up into a desperate, skidding run. Half bounding and half slipping and falling, he was swept forward by a rush of gravity and dislodged hill, and could spare only enough attention to avoid running full tilt into the city wall. 

He leapt the last dozen feet before the slope ended and crashed into the snowy fields, skidding for a brief moment on his chest and chin when he couldn’t find his footing fast enough. He stopped there, sneezing and snorting to get the snow out of his nose, trembling from both exertion and exhilaration, the adrenaline running through his body just then enough to give him the extra energy he still needed to reach somewhere safe. He took a moment longer to shake the water out of his coat in a heavy spray of algae and water drops and ice crystals and blood all mixed together, leaving a fine pattern on the snow. His fur sticking up or straggling down in thickened strands and silly little spikes that only added to his miserable appearance. 

Ears back and tongue lolling from an anxiously open mouth, he snapped at the arrows still in his flank and glanced once back up the slope he’d just come down before turning to limp towards the trees, gradually picking up the pace as he regained his breath. He cautiously skirted the edges of the city until the wall went too far off his course and then he slipped into a ground covering glide that, half a second later, turned into full out flight, tail tucked and head low, at a trumpet blast behind him. His running silhouette could be made out from the walls in between the veils of smoke until it passed beyond the first few trees. 

By the time he stopped, the anan was exhausted from fear and effort both and his face and throat were rimed with frost from his breath, while the air practically steamed around him from the heat he was giving off. Clumps of ice on the tips of a few soaked strands were pulling at his skin with their slight weight, and his whole body felt itchy. But when he dropped to the ground and eagerly started pushing his face and throat through the snow, rolling onto his shoulders to scratch and cool off, the two arrows still caught in his side bit at him. He yelped and jumped to the side with a snap of his teeth for the space that had hurt him, though of course nothing was there. Standing for a time, confused, he finally shook out his coat again and settled more carefully to rest and wait for his master to call him back. Though there was a tired, sore and miserable part of him that knew that would never happen now, he couldn’t help wanting it. 

So, head between his paws, battered, bloody and cooling too quickly to be fully comfortable, Sir licked his lips uncertainly and waited, listening through the wind in the trees and the faint noise still drifting from the city for a voice that wasn't coming.