I called for help. If at any time I needed the Fair Folk to intervene, this was it. Not that they’d been much help thus far. I called out to them, to anyone that might hear, with a silent scream from deep in the heart. Help him. He should not die, not like this. Help me. For if I perish, so do my brothers.

The rain came. It came from a clear sky that turned suddenly gray, as the warm day was in an instant as chill as midwinter. A drenching, uncanny, druidic rain that blinded and deafened; that cut off each man from the world. It was like standing under a great waterfall; it was like being in the heart of a storm. I could see nobody, hear no sound but the roaring of the torrent as it thundered down, soaking me in an instant, turning the ground to mud under my bare feet. Then I reached out through the sheets of water, and a large hand took mine, and the two of us were running, stumbling, slipping through the mud, sprinting blind between bushes and brambles, gasping for air, our faces and bodies streaming, our feet making sucking noises in the wet earth. I could hear Red’s breathing this time; the labored, gasping sound of a man with a serious injury, who pushes himself too far. I thought he could not go much further; and then the ground gave way, and we were sliding, falling, down a steep drop, clutching at branches, crashing through foliage, bouncing off rocks that bruised and battered us, until finally we came to rest on hard, dry ground. The sound of our precipitous descent died slowly; small stones still fell from above, dislodged by our passing. Then it was quiet, save for the sound of the rain, and the two of us gasping for air.

“Are you all right?” asked Red eventually in an odd sort of voice. I blinked the water out of my eyes, used both hands to push back the saturated curls that were plastered to my face, tried to wring my hair dry. We were inside a cave; glancing up, I could see the narrow gap through which we’d fortuitously fallen into this sheltered space. The ground was hard rock. Behind us, a narrow passage seemed to lead to some larger cavern, but it bent around, obscuring further vision. I looked out the other way. Light streamed in through a curtain of concealing foliage; the rain, it seemed, had ceased as abruptly as it started. I moved toward the entrance.

“Careful,” said Red, grabbing hold of my shirttail as I passed him. I wrenched it out of his grasp, but went slowly, for the rocks became slick with water near the cave entrance. I peered out through the network of vines and creepers. And stood stock still in wonder.

“You have never seen the sea before,” observed Red quietly. I had not. Though my brothers had told me of the great expanse of wild water, and the myriad birds, and the light that glittered and changed and played on the shifting surface, nothing could have prepared me. Our cave was high up on a steep slope, that lower down became a sheer cliff, and I looked out over a vast distance, and the whole of the distance was water, water all the way to the horizon. The sky was hot blue; there was no sign of cloud. The rocks around me steamed gently in the sun. All trace of the sudden rain storm would soon be gone. Except maybe later, in stories. And our pursuers would be on the move. I turned back to the Briton.