Excerpt from According to Crow

The water was colder than I expected, and it splashed around my knees. I cringed with every step, thinking that the noise was loud enough to wake the dead. We waded a good fifty feet in when I heard shouting and splashing behind us.

I stepped into a hole on the bottom, and sunk up to my neck. The cold seized my chest, and I could hardly draw a breath. Caleb's hand dragged me out. "Watch where you're going."

We seemed to be walking forever. I started to think that we had lost direction in the dark, and walked along the river rather than across it. The sickening ooze of the bottom sucked on my bare feet and squeezed between my toes; my heart beat so fast that I feared that it might burst. The horsemen were gaining on us—I heard their cries almost behind my back. The bowstrings twanged, and an arrow splashed a few feet away from me.

"Thuraya," Caleb called. "We could use some help from the Goddess just about now.”

Thuraya sang what seemed to be a children's rhyme:

When I break the earthen crock
On the rubble thrice I knock.
Ask the Goddess of the Deep
For her children weep.

The river bottom sloped upwards, and a tremendous shudder of thunder split the sky. A lightning bolt lit the river, and I turned to see our pursuers, frozen in the moment. The darkness resumed, more complete than before the flash, and the rain started falling—no, pouring. I did not even try to ponder what connection it had to Thuraya's song, and concentrated on planting my feet in the muck as firmly as I could. The wind blew the rain in horizontal lashes that whipped my face. The water level was rising faster than I would think possible. The river around me churned, and the waves hammered at my chest, trying to topple me. I heard a scream behind me, and furious splashing. I picked up my pace, and walked straight into the sheer wall of the Merani bank.