Too Cold to Bleed

by D Murray

  A flare of pain shot through her knee, nearly buckling it. “Shitting hells,” she cursed, bending and rubbing at the corrupted joint. Tusk nudged her hand as she rubbed at the knee, his tail wagging. Up into the snow line for us. Shit.

  Nineteen

  Broken Things

  Something sharp jabbed into Kalfinar’s eyebrow. He raised a hand to slap at whatever stuck his eye.

  The thing jabbed again. This time a sharp pain flared in the flesh of his eyelid, and he felt blood rush into his eye.

  “What the–”

  The screech of a bird sounded, and wings beat away from him, wafting chill air about his face.

  He was alive. Damn, he was cold.

  The creature that tried to tear out his eye had flapped away and out of reach of Kalfinar's fumbling arm. He craned his head around to where he heard the bird make a throaty squawk. His neck and shoulders ached. He opened his eyes and saw the big bird, a northern skua, crane its head to one side. Its black eyes blinked cold and hungry at him and it took two steps forward.

  “Away!” Kalfinar grunted. His throat rasped on the word, dry and painful. The bird spread its mottled brown wings wide and flapped backwards, before turning from him and flying low along the beach. A black beach. The sand was fine, and black as ink. Kalfinar grabbed a handful of it, and brought it trembling toward his face. “What is this?”

  The fading sight of the bird in the distance drew his attention from the sand. The fuzzy image of the bird appeared to spread its wings, drawing up in flight and landing amongst rocks. Several smaller shapes, more birds it seemed, took flight, squawking their protest as they went. The cloudy image shifted, and Kalfinar blinked to clear his eyes. The image cleared a little, then some more. The skua jabbed its broad black beak at the rock, once, then again, before pulling free something that dangled from its beak. Kalfinar blinked once more, and the focus came. It was no rock that the skua sat upon, but a body. A body surrounded by other bodies, and debris. In the bird's beak hung a string of flesh with an orb at the bottom of it. Eyeball. “No!”

  Kalfinar tried to scramble to his feet, his hands digging at the black sand for purchase, but he was so cold, and had no strength. He fell back to the sand and watched as the skua swallowed the eyeball, then pecked at the body once more. Kalfinar closed his eyes and tried to wiggle his toes. He felt them, that was a good start. In his boots, he worked the toes, and then the ankles, spreading what warmth was in his blood about his frigid limbs. He tensed his leg muscles, flexing again and again. Slow and sure, the flesh began to feel like his own, with a little life flooding his muscles. He looked at his hands. He had lost his sealskin mittens and the flesh was turning blue from the cold. He worked his fingers, watching the pale, wrinkled flesh amongst the dark sand. He sucked in a shuddering, chill breath, then felt his lungs stab in pain before exploding in a fit of coughing. Kalfinar wheezed, rolled on to his back, and clutched at his chest. “Damn it.” He took small, shallow breaths, and eased himself over and onto his knees.

  The bird still pecked at one of the bodies in the distance. “Fucker.” Kalfinar growled the word, placing his hands on the sand before forcing himself to stand on weak and wobbling legs. Straightening up, he felt the stiffness in his body. Need to get warm. He looked about him. The beach was a long, shallow crescent of gently rising black sand. A tall, steep slope of black and grey scree rose up from the sand before giving way to a ragged wall of the cliff and teeth-like pillars. About the rock were small patches of yellowish and green grass. Either end of the beach was framed by large, blocky stone that edged out into the crashing grey waves. Stacks of stone rose out from the sea, narrow and gnarled by the cutting action of the waves and wind, and casting the look of splintered black bone about the bay. The ugly grey waves crashed in on the black sand, dragging up debris from the shipwreck to rest with the other remnants of their voyage.

  The skua still pecked at the corpse. Kalfinar shambled towards the bird, shooing at it with one hand, while the other rested inside the pocket of the sealskin parka he wore. The bird flew off, chittering in annoyance, and landed on a distant wedge of wood.

  Kalfinar approached the body, and noted there were three others about it. The one that had been pecked at was clearly dead. The eye had been torn from the socket of the old man, and the black leather patch that covered Dernis’ other eye was tugged to the side. The puckered old skin of the inner socket had been cut open by the beak of the bird.

  “Feast well with Woakie, Dernis the Spear.” Kalfinar fumbled with numb fingers to pull the patch over the gaping socket, and pulled the eyelid down on the other. He wiped at his own eyelid with the back of his hand, smearing the brine and blood away. He came to the next body. It was lying face down on the black sand, half covered in a torn rag of an oilcloth. Some rope coiled about one of the arms. Kalfinar knelt and turned it over. It was the guardsman who had been so paralysed by fear before the ship went down. “Damn it!” Kalfinar spat his curse and shook his head. He didn’t even remember the lad’s name. It was Corvin, or Carlvin, or something like that. “I’m sorry, lad. Sorry I got you into this.” His face in death was serene, no more a mask of terror. It looked for all the world as though he were asleep. But for the clammy, wax doll-like appearance of his face, he could well have been. “Another one for the conscience,” Kalfinar mumbled. “Rest, brother. And forgive me for any cause.”

  A larger body was stretched out several metres from the guard’s. A man of great height and breadth. Kalfinar scrambled to his feet and half ran, half fell down beside the body, rolling the man towards him. The shoulders turned and the head flopped back, revealing the bald and purple-scarred head of Jukster. Relief, then fear flooded Kalfinar. Where are you, Broden?

  Jukster’s eyes flickered a moment. Alive. Kalfinar slapped the man hard. “Jukster, wake up!” The big man’s eyes flickered again, revealing bloodshot whites, and then shut over. Kalfinar gave him another slap and grabbed him by the front of his sealskin parka. He hauled the dead weight of the big Pathfinder up and shook him. “Wake up, you big ugly bastard!” Jukster’s eyes flickered once more, then opened.

  “Boss.” The word spilled out of Jukster’s mouth like the hushed whisper of air from a pierced chest.

  “Can you walk?”

  Jukster's eyes swam and his heavy lower lip, blue and cracked, trembled.

  “You need to get warm. You need to get moving. Come on!”

  Jukster's eyes focused on Kalfinar. “What happened?”

  “Ship went down. Come on, get up.” Kalfinar ignored the confused look on the big man’s face and stood up, hauling on Jukster’s wrists. They were cold as ice. He came, though, grimacing as he stood, and swaying as he straightened up.

  “So cold. Where’s Murtagh?”

  “I don’t know. You need to move. Get your blood flowing. Go and see if there are any survivors at the end of the beach there. Murtagh may be there. Swing your arms, and kick your feet. Get the blood moving.”

  “Boss,” Jukster mumbled, and shambled off to the far end of the beach to inspect the debris for any more survivors.

  Kalfinar turned to the other body. It was another of the Pathfinders. The man had been young. According to Broden, he had graduated through Hardalen the first year he and Kalfinar had been posted there. Broden, where are you? He rested the dead man’s hands across his stomach and pulled the oilcloth back over his face. The skua wouldn’t be taking any more of them.

  A peal of thunder crashed out at sea. Kalfinar turned and regarded the heavy dark clouds that rested angrily on top of the violent grey waves that crashed onto the black sand of the beach. Be night soon. Need to make shelter. Need a fire. Need food. He looked about and saw the wedge of wood that the skua rested upon. The bird remained on its perch, distracted by something on the other side of it, and seeming not to notice Kalfinar’s quiet approach. He felt at the back of his belt and found the handle of his knife. Still there. Some mercy at least. He pulled the knife free of its sheath and turned it a
round so the blade rested between his fingers. The metal was cold, so cold it stung his already chilled flesh. He stood still a moment, eying the bird, and drew back his arm.

  He threw. The knife spun in the air. The bird turned, opened its wings and then tumbled backwards as the handle of the knife thumped into its head. Kalfinar ran over to the wedge of wood, came around it and stopped still. Valus lay by the fragment of wood, what appeared to be the remnants of a door from the ship. The body of the skua lay on her chest, wings spread and head twisted unnaturally. The blade handle must have hit it in the side of the head, for the eye socket was fractured and its eye was dislodged from its normal resting place. The carcass of the bird gently rose, then fell, then rose again. Valus was breathing. Kalfinar knelt beside the holy woman and touched the side of her face with the back of his hand. She was as cold as death.

  “Valus!” he called. “Valus, can you hear me?” He slapped her face. “Dedicant! Wake up!” There was no reaction. Kalfinar felt the cold wind on his side as it blew in from the sea, carrying with it briny sea spray and icy particles to sting the flesh. He stood, and pulled the remnant of the door free from the sand before wedging it behind him, deflecting the wind away from Valus.

  “Kal!” a voice roared over the crash of the waves and the whistle of the wind. He looked up towards where Jukster had gone, and saw the big man bent over a bundle of debris at the far end of the beach. “Kal!” The voice sounded again. Kalfinar turned, blinking to clear his eyes of the stinging salt spray. Movement pulled his gaze along the heavy black boulders that stretched out from the end of the beach and around the ragged headland.

  “Broden!” Kalfinar snapped to his feet, relief flooding him. He raised both arms and jumped up. “Over here!” Stupid. He can bloody see you already.

  Another man with a dark beard waved his left arm. It was the Northman, Ferdus.

  Kalfinar ran down the beach as Broden and Ferdus negotiated the boulders with careful precision. “You made it,” Kalfinar said, huffing as he arrived at the edge of the boulders. His lungs ached after the run. He swallowed the urge to cough. “You both all right?”

  “All right?” Broden snapped, his eyes fixing on Kalfinar’s. “All fucking right?”

  Kalfinar reached out to Ferdus and helped him down off the slippery boulders.

  “Oh, I just love the fucking sea, you know me, Kal.” Broden shook his head in annoyance and jumped off a massive boulder onto the black sand of the beach.

  “Any other survivors, boss?” Ferdus asked as he clapped a hand on Kalfinar’s shoulder in greeting.

  “So far, Jukster and Valus. Valus is still unconscious. She’s over where you saw me. Dernis is gone. One of the guardsmen, and the young Pathfinder we had at Hardalen a few years back.”

  “Fuck.” Broden tipped his head back and let loose a long sigh. “Fuck!” he roared, the noise echoing up the amphitheatre-like scree and cliffs that backed onto the beach. Birds flapped free from their perches up on the cliffs and turned about in flight.

  “Cookie?” Kalfinar asked.

  Ferdus shook his head.

  “He was below deck, with me,” Broden said. “All the lamps went out, and in the dark I could see nothing. We tried to reach the stairs to at least avoid being trapped and dragged under. But the water came quick. I couldn’t see if he made it out.

  “Damn it.” Kalfinar shuddered as the whisper clawed its way free of his clenched jaws.

  Ferdus cleared his throat to speak. “No disrespect, but we can’t stand around in this crying. We need shelter, fast. There’s a storm coming in.”

  Kalfinar looked about them, and then up to the scree. “The rocks?”

  “Aye, the rocks,” Ferdus agreed. “We can get a hollow dug out, high walls, maybe some of the debris that’s washed ashore as a roof.”

  “Can you find a place?” Kalfinar asked him.

  “Aye. I’ll sort it,” Ferdus replied. He nodded to Broden and turned on his heel, springing up the black beach and towards the steep slope of the scree.

  “One of us should stay with Valus while the other searches the beach,” Kalfinar said, scanning back in the direction Broden had appeared from.

  “We checked the bay around the other side of the rocks. Nothing there of note,” the big man said.

  Kalfinar looked back towards Jukster, and saw the big man was turned to face them. He waved in their direction. “He’s found something,” Kalfinar murmured. “Can you stay with her?”

  “Aye. Go. We’ll be fine.”

  Kalfinar ran off towards Jukster, running past the unconscious form of Valus. His legs loosened up as they warmed with the movement in spite of the icy wind that whipped the tops of the grey waves to froth. He saw the prostrate form of Lendal as he approached Jukster. “Is he alive?” he asked the big pathfinder.

  Jukster looked up, his jutting lower lip hanging blue and dumb from his open mouth. “Alive. Dunno how long for,” he replied. “Just cold meat.”

  “We’re all just cold meat! But with a little help, we can maybe change that.” Kalfinar looked at Lendal. A cut ran two inches through his hairline and into his forehead, spreading from the centre to the right side of his face. He rested two fingers on Lendal’s throat and waited for a pulse. “The blow to his head has him out. But apart from that, his heart’s strong.” Kalfinar turned to look at Jukster, who stared at him. “Get off your arse and carry him over to Broden and the others. Once you’ve done that, Ferdus could do with some help up on the scree sorting a shelter.”

  Jukster stared up from his seated position, his broad bald head flecked with sticky black sand. “Can you find Murtagh?” he mumbled.

  Kalfinar held the man’s stare for a moment, uncertain if the big man was close to tears. “I’ll keep looking. Go on.”

  “Boss.” Jukster stood and moved to lift Lendal. He hauled the unconscious soldier up onto his shoulder and set off towards the other end of the beach.

  Kalfinar stood and turned towards the black rocks that ran out to the sea from the edge of the beach. He set off at a run, keeping as warm as he could, and bounded up onto the first of the rocks. He sprang from one to the other, rising up onto the highest of them, and peered amongst them. Debris was scattered about between the slick stones. Shattered lengths of wood jutted from between rocks, and fragments of sail hugged the wet stone as the waves receded, then flapped into ghostly movement as the waves crashed back across. A fractured barrel rested between two ragged teeth of rock, the fresh water it once held now spilled and lost to the sea. Kalfinar picked his way towards the remains of the barrel, seeing its use as wood to burn. He waited a moment as the waves crashed onto the stone again, sending a wall of white spray up and over him.

  Kalfinar shuddered as the cold washed over him. He brushed his wet hair away from his face, where it stuck to his head and tangled with his beard. Kneeling, he reached towards the splintered staves of the barrel and grabbed hold. Fixing his foot against the opposite rock, Kalfinar strained and hauled the broken barrel towards him. “Dajda!” he shouted, letting go of the barrel and sitting back in shock. Hidden by the fractured barrel was the shattered body of Cookie. The former Pathfinder’s dead face stared up at him. The poor man’s head had been cracked open, his arm badly twisted, and a leg bent backwards in an unnatural fashion. Most likely by the wave action against the rocks, and hopefully after the man had drowned. “Ach, Cookie.” Kalfinar edged down the rock towards where the volunteer rested. “I’m sorry.” He smoothed Cookie’s eyes shut, and then unfastened the man’s belt, taking hold of the knife and pouches that hung from it. Kalfinar placed these up on the rock behind him, then leaned back to the cook and began pulling the sealskin parka he wore over his broken head. “We’re going to need this, my friend.” He slid the coat free, and then stopped. It sounded like the wind had changed direction, but only for an instant. A varying hiss of noise. He waited a moment, and then heard it again, a groan. He dropped the coat and stepped up onto the rocks. He looked about for a moment, the
n saw the boots sticking out from under a length of sail. Kalfinar leapt across onto the rocks nearby. He crouched down and hauled the sail out of the way. Beneath it lay the infantryman, Werlan.

  “Help me,” Werlan groaned.

  “I’ve got you,” Kalfinar said, straining to lift the sail out of the way. “You hurt?”

  “I don’t know. I just came to,” Werlan said with a wince. “I think so.”

  “Where?”

  “Shoulder. I think I got pushed up onto the rocks.”

  “Can you get up? Here, take my hand.”

  “Aye.” Werlan reached out with his good hand and grabbed Kalfinar’s. He grimaced, and strained to his feet, his legs wobbling as he stood.

  “Take your time,” Kalfinar said, though no sooner had the words passed his lips than Werlan fell over onto his arse.

  “Strength’s left me.” The man offered a feeble smile.

  “Left us all,” Kalfinar grumbled. “Just take your time, don’t rush it.” Werlan nodded and sucked in a deep breath, hissing in pain.

  “Shoulder?”

  “Ribs, too.”

  Kalfinar nodded and stepped back to where Cookie’s body lay between the rocks.

  “Who’s that?” Werlan asked.

  “Cookie. Didn’t make it.”

  “Dajda.” Werlan sighed. “Saved my life.”

  “Cookie did?”

  “Aye. Grabbed me when the boat went under and knocked the sense into me. Got me onto some of the debris. He was alive before the rocks.”

  “Fuck,” Kalfinar shouted, causing Werlan to flinch. “Can you make it along the beach there towards where the others are?” Kalfinar helped Werlan up onto the rocks and picked up Cookie’s sealskin parka. “Here, take this. Make your way up the beach there, and rest a moment. We’ll have a shelter, and before long we’ll get a fire on.”

  Werlan took the coat and pushed himself off the rocks. “What are you to do?”