Boldness in the Blood

Previously

…It was then, in the deepest silence, that he heard it. A faint, almost imperceptible trickle. It was so soft, so delicate, he thought for a moment it was a figment of his desperate imagination. But it persisted, a whisper of sound against the overwhelming silence. He moved towards it, his heart pounding with a mixture of hope and trepidation. He found it in a narrow gully, almost hidden by a tangle of dried vines. A small seep, no larger than his cupped hands, where water, impossibly clear, oozed from a crack in the rock. It was not a gushing spring, not a life-saving river, but it was water. Pure, cool, life-giving water. He knelt, his knees protesting, and reached out a trembling hand.