"Who, huh? We're waiting for more of your kind? Wonderful. Really. I can hardly wait to see what royal servants show up next.  A knight on a seahorse, perhaps? A jester? No, let me guess, an entire troupe of mages and jugglers."  

Perun thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers and conjured a sour, up-to-here-and-no-further expression meant to show the monster he still wasn't buying the show. It was the same one that, when he applied it on his own men, made them fidget and scout the shortest way to an exit. 

The monster paid no attention to him.

If it hadn't come to blows in the narrow tunnel, it wasn't going to now. His preternatural sense for violence, for the delicate balance of power in any given situation, told him the river monster wouldn't do him any more harm than he needed to. Why that was, Perun didn't know, but the shadow of a notion had already begun to show itself at the edge of his thoughts. 

If he, Perun reasoned as he surveyed the playing fish, had ordered an experience like this for someone else, there could only be one, maybe two, reasons for it. 

Best guess, he was attempting to scare and confuse the idiot into submission before forcing him into a deal entirely to his disadvantage, and Perun's advantage. That could be what this was all about. The monster had only showed him things, however. He hadn't been presented with an offer or a deal of any kind. 

Not yet.

The notion that someone was getting the upper hand on him caused Perun to unconsciously thrust his jaw forward, etching the sour expression even further into soft folds around his eyes and stretching the skin of his cheeks taunt. 

He had to get out of this river, get back to his rooms and get some sleep. Business didn't wait for anyone, and the day would start up again in a few hours. He didn't want to think what would happen if he wasn't seen by one of his bodyguards by lunchtime.  

"If what happens next is up to me," he said, in as light of tone as he could, "then I'm going back up there." He lifted his chin indicating the surface of the river. 

"You won't get far." 

"Oh, no? The surface is right there. What's to stop me just swimming for it? Two minutes and I'll be back up on dry land and out of this nightmare memory lane, or whatever this is. And if you're going to come after me for another wrestle, then remember the patrol boat. Let me tell you, I'd prefer a jail cell for the night to sticking around down here making conversation."

"Then go. Nothing is stopping you. You've already found out everything you were meant to here." 

Everything you were meant to. The words echoed around in Perun's mind.

Somebody was behind this. Stings were being pulled that he couldn't see the ends of, and that made him nervous. His hand rose to where his gun should have been. 

Perun looked from the monster to the surface and back again. There was only one way to find out exactly how anybody's plan worked: throw it into disarray and observe the scramble that ensued. 

He didn't know how to swim, not exactly, but he had seen it demonstrated enough. He'd be able to make the surface though a combination of floating and swimming movements. Looking around for something harder than mud to push off from, he found a small, flat rock and stepped up on it. 

With one eye still on the monster, Perun raised an arm over his head and then down in a swoop as he simultaneously thrust himself upwards, kicking his legs.  

He rose about a metre off of the river bottom before descending again and landing with a heavy thump. A cloud of sludge swirled up and around him, getting into his eyes and mouth. Waving it away in irritated swipes, he tried again, but managed nothing more than another awkward hop. 

Lift. He couldn't get any lift. It was as if he were trying to fly, only rising as high into the air as he could jump. 

With increasingly irritated grunts, he landed again and again, tangling his feet in the vegetation, smashing random bits of water-brittle rubbish and causing entire clans of carp to ease themselves into safer pockets of mud.  He'd be damned if he was going to give up. There had to be a method to it. 

Using a broken bicycle as a ladder, he climbed up and balanced with one foot on the saddle. Then, he leaped, whirl-winding his arms and kicking like a hanged man, only to come down again cursing and spitting some three metres further on.  

Perun looked back. He was much further away from the tunnel entrance than he'd really wanted to go, but still close enough to see the Royal Collector smiling, its triangular bone teeth as sharp as the babies'  even in the dim light. Its tail swished back and forth. Perun suddenly realised what it reminded him of: a dog's tail wagging in delight.

"I see you haven't got far," it called, a note of merriment ringing along with the words. "You could float up, but for that you'd have to have air in your lungs. And you don't."

Perun tried one more powerful lunge towards the surface, but his boots landed right back down in the sludge.  He let out another grunt and kicked at the floor sending up more swirling particles of filth. 

"Look, friend, I've had about enough of this. I'm tired and I want to go home. If I'm not home already and dreaming this after too many bourbons."

"Not a dream, unfortunately. Someone is coming for you, be pa--."

The monster snapped its head to the right, staring upstream. Perun looked in the same direction, but could make out nothing more than the faintly illuminated stretch of river bed they were in, and the blackness of the water beyond where the lights from above fell. 

The water began to quake. 

Schools of fish scattered as if an invisible grenade had exploded in their midst, some making for the bottom sludge, others attempting to dart behind the rocks of the shore, anything dark and protecting. 

Perun felt his skin contract as if it, too, were bracing to protect itself. A burning sensation followed, making it feel like a wildly-swinging, sparking electrical cable was repeatedly striking his body. He recognised the burning; it had saved him more than once from getting a club over the head, or a bullet in the back.

It meant danger -- serious and immediate danger -- was on the approach. 

Perun reacted immediately, racing for the entrance to the tunnel where the monster floated, utterly concentrated on the the change and shift in the water. It was hard going, his boots slipping in the mud and vegetation, hidden rocks tripping him, the trembling and inconsistent pressure of the water knocking him this way and that, forcing him to run in a tiring zig-zag pattern. 

He had made it some fifteen shaky meters when the drone reached his ears. It was an inhuman sound, halfway between the blended screams of a crowd, and the howling of wolves. 

An alarm siren? 

Perun slowed down, possible explanations tumbling through his mind in scattered, illogical procession, all fighting for attention. 

Did the National Axis have under-river submarine patrols? Were they sweeping the river bed?  Had something gone wrong above the surface that was shaking the water? A gas explosion? Bombs? 

And then it emerged into view, and Perun stopped mid-stride, rooted to the spot in horror and fascination, his mouth dropped open and his eyes wide. 

A tornado, a cyclone, a whirling cloud of brownish-grey, churning water that stretched across a third of the river was barrelling towards him. Inside it, spinning out to the edges and being sucked back in again, were. . . 

It was a dark, revolving cloud of children.  

A violent physical memory reached out of nowhere, clamping Perun in its grip.

Small, rough hands unwrapped the warm blanket he was swaddled in, only to thrust him into cold -- freezing cold -- water the next moment. The shock made him kick and scream, but choke as water rushed into his mouth, stealing the air from him.  

And then, the pull, the grab of something from below. The glowing eyes, the grin, that mixed with the cries of babies as they all seemed to reach out and pull him in with their tiny hands. Pull him in to where he swirled and spun with the rest of them on a carousel that never stopped. Joining hands with the others, and then letting go, joining hands and letting go. 

From where he was standing, Perun saw the faces of babies and small children whiz past as they sailed along the outer edges of the cloud only to be engulfed back in on the next cycle. He saw their hands as they held them out, their bare or shoed feet, some with bits of clothing on, some naked. All of them screaming; all of them howling. 

It was the thing from his memory.

Alive.

And coming for him.

He'd been in there once. The truth of the realisation flood his conscious mind and halted any other thoughts. He had been inside that cloud.  He had been--

Two huge, red eyes in the dead centre of the swirling water began to glow and crackle with the intensity of a wild fire. Another sound mixed into the cacophony of howling: a deep, rumbling laugh. 

Perun couldn't move. His body refused to leave the position of frozen horror it was locked in, refused to move to safety. Perun felt his muscles go limp. He was trapped, his mind unable to process anything but raw, electric fear.

The eyes had spotted him. The demon in the swirling water was coming to fetch him back again. 

A hard object rammed into Perun from the side, grabbing his body and ripping him off his feet. He thought he would fall, be thrown into the plants, but instead of going down, he found himself rising. 

Rising up towards the surface.  

The tornado was closing in, the howling deafening. The water had ceased trembling, but was now being forced into circles, into large eddies, that sucked in and threw out everything in its path like giant turbines. 

Only when the pressure on his lungs mounted and started to choke did his mind let go of the sight, allowing other thoughts in.  

"This is going to hurt," said a voice into his ear, as he spiralled with the water higher and higher. Perun jerked his head to the side, only to see the grim face of the Soul Collector only a handspan away from his own. 

"What's--" he attempted to say, but the pain in his chest caught the words in his throat, not allowing them out. 

They broke the surface of the water.

Rain spilled down from a black sky and only a few metres away, a embankment illuminated by a lone streetlamp rose up from the water like a cobblestone shore. Perun opened his mouth to take in a lungful of air, but couldn't. There was no way for it to get in. He was full of river water. His mouth opened and closed, but his lungs didn't respond.

The Collector let go of Perun and then grabbed him again in one swift movement. This time, he wrapped his arms around Perun's waist between his hips and rib and squeezed in violent jerks.

Brown water fountained out of Perun's open mouth. The Collector squeezed again, and Perun sputtered up more water, but was able to drag in air to replace it. His entire torso burned, his lungs, his guts, and he braced himself for another painful squeeze.

That didn't come.  

Instead, they began to sink. Something from below was tugging at them, both of them. The Soul Collector thrashed its tail like a fist punching, but it seem to only have a minimal effect. 

"Try to breath air," it growled and -- in one powerful heave -- it threw Perun like a limp, rag doll onto the stone-paved embankment.

Perun crawled up out of the water on his arms, vomiting up water and mud. Once he was completely out, he turned onto his side and looked back at the river. 

The water was boiling.

Whatever fight was going on under the surface, it was vicious enough to churn the water into white foam and counteract any of the force that was eddying the current.  

And then, out of the white water, a body appeared and began to spin.  A tiny, pale body, bobbing on the surface. On instinct, Perun snaked himself around and reached out, clawing and slapping at the water, attempting to grab ahold of the body without falling back into the churning himself. The water currents pushed the body away and then closer,  but after a few tries, Perun was able to grab its ankle, and pull it to shore.

The child looked to be not quite a year old, dressed in a long, white shirt meant for an older child. Its long, dark hair was plastered down over its face like seaweed, obscuring one eye. The other, visible eye stared flatly Perun for a few moments. 

Then, it slowly closed its eyelid, and seemed to stop breathing. 

What. . .the. . .hell was that? What's going on under the surface of the river? Who is this kid? Find out next Friday when Perun's adventure continues!