* Are we still strong enough to swim?*

* Maybe, for sure if we use the hound's essance*

I mentally connect more closely with the green Blue. I show him what I have already noticed now that the hounds are no longer in motion. On each hound is a slim copper collar, these are not mere wild spirits. We are being tracked by our enemies. We do not have time to wait for a yellow to digest this essence into a usable form. We must leave now before more enemies find us.

The essence that remains from the dead Coptos is quickly gathered up. I split it among the the Coptos strengthening those who have lost the most essence. Then the group gathers together. If we are being hunted then there is no choice, we will never make it to the land bridge before more dangerous enemies catch up to us. The gold Blue was right we will have to swim across the bay.

The group climbs down the cliff quickly, the soft stone proving easy to maneuver on. Quickly the group is on the small beach at the base of the cliff. The beach has shrunk a small but noticeable amount from when I last checked.

* why is the water higher?*

* The tide is coming in*

The violet tells me.

* The water will rise for several more hours and then retreat, we must be mindful of this while we move.*

I mentally nod before connecting with the green Blue. I spread the connect with the green Blue to all of the Coptos and mentally nod to him. I feel knowledge flow into my mind and then amplify it further so that it enters the mind of the other Coptos in the group. The knowledge shows me how to move my limbs in what could almost be called a crawling motion while in the water. Once the knowledge has been passed onto all of the Coptos. I turn and we advance into the water.

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The crawling motion works and the group begins to move away from the shore. The swim is simpler than it would be for a human, after all Coptos do not breath and thus do not need to keep certain parts of their anatomy above the water. All that is necessary is having one of the group survey the area every so often to make sure that we are still moving in the correct direction. This probably also helps with stealth by limiting of the group exposer above the water.

As we move through the water constant adjustments have to be made to keep the group together as currents push and pull the group in different directions. I pull the green Blue closer into the mental link and delegate some of the mental strain of managing the complex motions of the group to it. I also make a very small use of the Violet’s mental power. The Violet may be smarter than the green Blue, but its mental net is built with a focus on the demands of spell casting. The Violet’s coordination abilities are worse than even a copper Blue’s.

Slowly the sun moves across the sky as we make our way ever further out into the vast bay. I wonder what is going on back in the city we have left behind. I wonder what we will do once we have gotten enough distance between us and the central command. The tangled ball of orders sits in my mind, but I have to husband my mental resources for as long as we keep moving. On and on we go, eventually we reach the halfway point. The land on the other side is beginning to grow larger.

After a few more hours the group is about three fourths of the way to the far side. Around us I can feel, through the information coming in from the mental link, the currents beginning to shift. The tide must be changing. The shift only grows stronger as time passes till our progress has slowed to less than half of what it was. The gold Copto was right if we had started at the wrong tide there is a good chance we would never have made it across. I would have grown mentally exhausted and lost communication with the other Coptos allowing us to drift apart. Who knows where the scattered Coptos would have ended up, if they had ever been seen again?

Eventually we cross the last few kilometers of the bay fighting against the growing currents the whole way. There is no beach on this side of the bay, instead there are low spits of rock that raise up to a tree line creating a kind of flattened cliff. I have the group pull itself up onto a relatively flat rock then me, the green Blue, and the Violet collapse retreating back into our minds to recover from our mental exhaustion. We are across the bay safely. Hopefully we can now move forward without pursuit.