by Rob Scott
The warmth of last night’s roaring fire was a dim memory now as Steven, unable to move his limbs and increase blood flow to his extremities, was struggling to stay warm. He was beginning to wonder if he were freezing to death; was this how it felt?
Their path had levelled out sometime earlier in the day, and Steven could hear the sound of a river nearby: they had finally reached the valley floor. Although he still had no idea who held him captive, or how one person could drag him along so effortlessly, he was a little consoled by the thought that they were traversing the same route he and Mark had mapped out. Maybe their paths would cross and his companions would be able to spirit him away from his anonymous guard.
His heart sank when, between breaks in the trees, he caught sight of heavy clouds presaging more severe weather. He had to do something . As loud as his still-sore throat could manage, he shouted, ‘Hey, you big bastard-’ he wasn’t sure if that was derogatory in Ronan, but what the hell, ‘-you bastard! Show yourself, you jackass!’ That word definitely didn’t have a Ronan translation so Steven used English and hoped his tone would make his point. He struggled to free his hands once again, and as before he felt pain blaze across his shoulder and ribcage. This time he ignored it and twisted violently, but found that not only were his arms and legs secured, but his head was lashed firmly in place as well. He had overlooked the thick leather strap across his forehead.
‘Shit,’ he cried in a frustrated rage. ‘Shit, Mark, where are you? Goddamnit! How the hell can I have been so stupid? I’ve seen enough sodding movies-’
The gurney stopped.
Steven’s heels rested quietly in the snow and he tried to anticipate what would happen next. Terrifying images flashed through his brain: he would be thrown, still lashed in place, into the freezing river, or run through with a sword, or ripped, limb from limb, and fed to a pack of ravening grettans…
The stretcher was lowered to the ground.
As he strained to see, Steven felt cramp building at the base of his neck and was forced to relax and try to will the pain away. In the seconds that followed he heard the sound of something being tossed to the ground nearby, then unhurried footsteps. He started shaking, cold and fear combining to rob his limbs of strength; if he were not so dehydrated, he knew he would have lost control of his bladder. He was helpless.
Steven gritted his teeth and awaited his captor, but at the sight of him, the shock was too much for Steven to bear. He burst into unexpected tears.
‘Lahp.’
The Seron warrior grinned a crooked smile, gave a grunt of genuine concern and patted Steven gently on the chest.
‘Lahp hep Sten.’
‘Lahp, oh Lahp.’ He was so overwhelmed he could scarcely speak. ‘Oh yes, Lahp help Steven. You have helped me, you have saved my life.’ Overcome with emotion, pain and fatigue, Steven laughed out loud, a disconcertingly maniacal chuckle.
‘Thank you, Lahp. Thank you, thank you, thank you-’
‘Lahp hep Sten.’
‘Yes,’ he said again, gaining a little control, suppressing his tears, ‘yes, Lahp hep Sten.’
The Seron had been huddled in the underbrush when they had first met, and Steven had no idea how large and powerful his new friend really was until now. Looking up at him, Steven estimated that Lahp would stand a full head and shoulders taller than Mark: he was perhaps a shade over seven feet tall, barrel-chested, with enormously powerful arms and thighs. Steven suppressed a grin: next to Lahp, he was a puny dwarf. No wonder the Seron had been dragging him up and down the steepest slopes of the Blackstones so effortlessly, even with his injured leg.
Lahp drew a wineskin from a large leather pouch at his belt and offered Steven some water. For the first time since he had awakened, Steven realised how thirsty he was. He drank deeply as the Seron held the skin carefully for him.
‘Thanks, Lahp,’ Steven said, smiling, ‘Lahp, can you untie me? I have to move. I’m too cold here.’
The giant considered Steven’s request for a moment, peering into the distance as if the correct response would babble by in the river. He turned back and answered, ‘Na, na, na,’ shaking his head furiously to help make his point. ‘Grekac ahat Sten.’ He placed one hand gently on Steven’s injured leg.
Steven felt nothing. ‘Yes, Lahp. I understand; the grettan hurt my leg, but I must move about. I am cold here.’ He pantomimed shivering, aware that it wouldn’t be too long before his teeth would be chattering for real. ‘It’s too cold. I cannot feel my hands or my feet.’
‘Na.’
‘Lahp, I promise I will not run away. I will not move far. I just have to get some blood flowing through my feet.’
‘Lahp a Sten Orindale,’ the Seron countered, pointing northeast along the river.
Steven smiled again. Mark had been right. The river did flow through the mountains to Orindale.
Falling snow was collecting in his eyebrows and lashes and he blinked them away before trying again to convince the Seron to untie his bonds. ‘Lahp, I know you are taking me to Orindale and I thank you for saving my life, but I will not make it to Orindale unless I get warm. So, please untie me. Let’s make a fire and both warm up, and we can continue later today or tomorrow morning.’ Using his eyes to gesture towards his leg, he added, ‘And I must have a look at my leg as well, Lahp. Please.’
Begrudgingly, the Seron drew a hunting knife, gave a long sigh to show he was giving in against his better judgement, and sliced through the leather thongs holding Steven’s injured body in place.
Steven slowly brought his hands to his face and felt his cheeks and mouth. He ran his fingers through his hair: his beard was thicker now, and his hair had grown quickly. He longed for a steaming hot shower, and then a long, long soak in scalding-hot bath… shampoo, and soap, and bubbles, a razor… and a comfortable bed near a blazing fireplace.
His shoulder ached fiercely, but despite the pain, he planted his palms on the ground beside the gurney and lifted himself to a sitting position. Lahp, worried, tried to support Steven’s lower back with one of his enormous hands. Steven was absurdly grateful for the help.
With Lahp’s aid he levered himself so he was sitting upright and took stock of his condition. His ribs hurt, but less than they had. They were bound tightly with a length of cloth that looked as if it had been torn from a blanket. His shoulder was stiff and cramped, but when he raised his elbow he could feel the dislocated joint had been expertly replaced.
Turning his attention to his legs, Steven flinched as he brought his healthy foot up under his body. He made no effort to stand but spent some time rubbing feeling back into his thigh and calf. Wiggling his toes, he felt the familiar sting of wintry cold, but he was heartened to see that the limb responded so well despite having been immobilised for several days in the freezing cold.
He blew several warm breaths into his hands, steeling himself, then reached down to unwrap the blanket around his injured leg. Methodically, like an archaeologist unravelling an Egyptian mummy, he removed the blanket bandages that wrapped his leg from ankle to thigh. He felt strangely detached, as if he were viewing the scene from behind glass, but even so, he gasped as the full damage was revealed. All of a sudden he was back in the real world, swallowing hard to keep from throwing up. It was far, far worse than he could have imagined, even in his worst nightmares.
His leg was a putrid mess of brown, rotting flesh, moist and dripping. In shock, he touched the horribly discoloured skin and nearly passed out when it stuck to his hand and a fistful of noisome tissue came away.
He fell backwards in the snow, screaming, and Lahp quickly pushed one hand down on Steven’s chest and grabbed his left wrist with the other.
‘Querlis, querlis,’ the Seron warrior said, ‘querlis! Lahp hep Sten.’
Fighting to regain his composure, Steven cried, ‘What’s happened to my leg?’
Releasing his grip, Lahp pulled several pieces of the rotting flesh from Steven’s hand and repeated, ‘Querlis.’
‘Qu
erlis?’ Steven echoed, still shaking, ‘what is- What are you talking about?’ Now he examined the contents of his fist more closely, and found that instead of a handful of rotting flesh, he was actually holding dark-brown leaves.
‘Leaves,’ Steven said, nearly weeping with relief. He could have kissed the Seron. ‘ Leaves. They’re just leaves.’
‘Querlis.’
‘Querlis,’ he agreed, then asked, ‘So what is querlis? Why is it all over my leg?’
He painfully hauled himself up so he could see Lahp had entirely encased his lower leg in the damp brown leaves. As he peeled the layers away to examine the wound he asked, ‘Is it some kind of medicine? Is it healing me?’ Lahp nodded, but Steven didn’t notice. His exposed injury had answered the question.
Though the leg was pale, and thinner than the other, that was the worst of it: the limb was intact. The bones that had been snapped like twigs by the angry beast appeared to be set. Where Steven had expected to find irreparably damaged, badly infected flesh, he saw only long thin scars running the length of his calf, as if the grettan had run its claws from knee to ankle. Each wound was meticulously sewn up with crisscrossing stitches. Steven ran his hands along the limb gently, as if to reassure himself that the relatively healthy-looking appendage really did belong to him.
‘Lahp.’ He looked up at the Seron warrior. ‘Did you do this?’
‘Lahp hep Sten,’ he repeated like a mantra.
‘You did, Lahp.’ Steven shuddered as the full implication of his situation sank in. ‘You saved my leg.’
The big man laid a huge hand on Steven’s shoulder. ‘Lahp hep Sten.’ Then he pointed excitedly along the river and said, ‘Lahp a Sten Orindale.’
‘Right, Orindale – but first, we need a fire.’
Steven rested against a pine trunk while Lahp quickly built a gigantic campfire; the heat was intense, but Steven welcomed it. The Seron ran back and forth to the river to fetch several skins of water as Steven finally sated his thirst, then he wrapped the injured leg back up in a fresh layer of querlis leaves. This time Steven thought he could detect a slight tingling sensation as they began their work, a warmth that penetrated his skin and soothed his muscles.
Feeling drowsy, he wondered if the leaves contained a mild opiate; though he endeavoured to stay awake, to watch out for his friends and to learn more about his new companion, it wasn’t long before he was fast asleep.
Lahp patted him on the shoulder and drew the cloak back over the sleeping man.
Steven awoke to the mouthwatering smell of roasting meat and the crackle of hot fat spitting in the flames. Lahp had positioned two thick steaks on a rock at the edge of the fire; all of a sudden Steven felt ravenously hungry. He couldn’t remember when he had last eaten.
Lahp gave Steven a crooked grin. ‘Grekac,’ he said, pointing at the slabs of meat.
‘Grettan?’ Steven was taken aback. ‘You eat grettan?’
‘Sten a Lahp grekac,’ he said, and made a show of gesturing at both of them as if proud of the fact they would finally share a meal: travellers and friends.
‘I don’t know if I can eat grettan, Lahp.’ Steven felt his stomach tighten; he was starving, so maybe he could eat grettan. ‘I guess the last one did make quite a production out of eating me!’
‘Na grekac,’ Lahp grinned again and tapped Steven’s leg gently with the end of one stubby finger. ‘Sten grekac.’
‘This is my grettan? The grettan that attacked me?’
Lahp’s smile grew even wider.
‘How did you kill it?’
‘Lahp na.’ He shook his head emphatically before pointing at Steven. ‘Sten.’
‘Not me, Lahp. I didn’t kill the grettan,’ Steven said wryly, ‘I passed out. It was still very much alive then.’ The fire burned bright, crackling away comfortingly.
Lahp stood up and walked over to the stretcher and picked up Steven’s hickory staff. ‘Sten ahat grekac.’
Steven hadn’t even thought about the staff; he found himself pleased to see it again. It looked like that length of wood really had saved his life.
They were still many days’ travel from Orindale, but Lahp planned to build a raft to take them down the river once they had passed through the northwest end of the valley that Steven, in a moment of sentimentality, had dubbed Meyers’ Vale. He was quite sure old Dietrich Meyers had hiked through many a similar valley in the Tyrol as a young man. The keys to the known world. Was that where all this had started? Ghosts of dead bank tellers, gigantic ravenous beasts, life-sucking demon creatures and the threat of evil’s ascendancy in Eldarn…
And where was Hannah? Malagon had told him she was lost and alone in Praga. If that were true, was that what he was supposed to work out from Lessek’s dream?
If Hannah was in Eldarn, he hoped she had discovered a way to blend in, to bide her time while searching for a way back to her own home. He was little good to her now; embarrassingly, he envisioned her waiting for him when he arrived in Orindale. She would have mastered the cultural differences, charmed a small army of Pragans into assisting her, chartered a ship and sailed the Ravenian Sea to Falkan to rescue him. Her arms folded across those exquisite breasts, she would shake her head at him as his raft floated aimlessly into the city. That would be a sight.
Steven smiled as he remembered the faint aroma of lilac that drifted about her, the delicate line of her neck that, already perfect when she looked directly at him, grew nearly impossible in its beauty when she turned away.
‘Lahp.’ He was afraid to ask the question. ‘Lahp, do you know where my friends are?’
‘Na.’ He chewed a piece of grettan, then gestured up the mountain behind them. ‘Lahp fol Sten Blackstone. Sten hep Lahp. Lahp fol Sten.’
Steven had helped Lahp – probably saved his life – so the Seron had followed him through the Blackstones, shadowing him until the grettan attack. When Steven left his friends in the forest to search for Hannah, Lahp had moved ahead as well.
‘I want to wait here,’ Steven said, more a request than a command. ‘I believe they are coming this way.’ There was no response, so he tried again. ‘Maybe just for a day or two.’
He expected Lahp to argue with him and was surprised when the Seron merely nodded in agreement.
Warm, well-fed – the grettan was surprisingly tasty once he’d overcome his initial reluctance – and comfortable, Steven let his head fall back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes. Slowly, he tried to bend his leg, to lift it from where Lahp had it wrapped so thickly in the coarse blankets. After a few moments, he felt it respond. It would not be long before he was walking again.
Always do a little less than you know you can and in the end you will go much further. Steven planned on sticking to the runner’s rule; tomorrow he would bend the leg all the way, maybe even try to stand, but tonight, he would bundle up near the fire, tuck his embarrassed tail between his legs and hope for an opportunity to beg forgiveness from his friends.
He saw the hickory staff, leaning against a tree. He had no idea how he had managed to kill the grettan. ‘Maybe I’ll pick that up again tomorrow as well,’ he said. ‘Hold on, Hannah, we’re coming.’
The patch of grey moved back and forth across the darkness, a thin film superimposed over an obsidian night. Curious: for no light existed here, only cold and darkness.
And then cold began to give way, little by little. His legs were empty vessels, his torso a shell, his arms hollow, and all cold, cold as ice, cold as the breath of the Fimbulwinter, cold as Death… but his arms were growing warm and his chest moved in a ragged breath. Still cold, though… he could not see, except for the grey patch that moved across his field of vision, but where there is no light, there is no sight.
No grey should exist here, but there it was again, and there should be no warmth in this bitter chill, but the impossible warmth intensified as the cold dissipated. He was growing warmer, from the inside out. His empty legs filled, flesh and bone encroaching on the empty space,
stinging as the frigid cold was pushed out from bone and sinew and flesh.
His torso next, as air filled the shell, and arms close behind as his body took shape and substance.
He was warm, warmer than he could ever remember being, and still the grey patch floated just out of reach, out along the edge of his vision.
Mark Jenkins woke with a cry. Night had fallen. He closed his eyes again, expecting to open them to inky darkness, but there was the dim grey patch. Not hallucination, but real, almost tangible, a shade lighter than the night, it floated there. Mark felt around himself. He still wore his pack and was sitting against the pine tree he had chosen. This was supposed to have been the perfect place to die, but he appeared to be alive. He needed to take stock.
He was buried almost to the chest in freshly fallen snow. Wrapping an arm around the tree, he hefted himself to his feet and brushed snow from his clothes.
But there was something amiss.
‘I should be dead,’ he said, staring into the night. ‘I might have been dead. Might still be dead. Oh God!’ He thought he heard someone approaching and snapped to silent attention, but after several seconds he decided he was alone. All he could hear was the softly falling snow, the creak of weighted branches and his own frantic breathing.
‘How did I get so warm?’ he asked aloud, then added, ‘This can’t be right. It must be something-’ He turned in a circle, his eyes straining to search the forest as he called, ‘Gilmour, are you out there?’ He brushed the snow from his pack and mused, ‘It must be him. He must have found me and cast some kind of spell down here… unless-’ He thought for a moment, then slowly, as if afraid of what he might see, Mark closed his eyes. There it was, a light grey patch of colour, brighter with his eyes closed than open. What was it? Should he keep his eyes closed – or open his mind? That was it!
‘Open your mind, Mark,’ he commanded. ‘This will make sense if you open your mind.’ He remembered falling asleep once at the wheel; as his car drifted he had heard a voice crying to him as if from across a summer hayfield. It had saved his life that night. Now Mark was strangely convinced that if he relaxed and listened carefully, he would be able to hear Gilmour, for it had to be Gilmour who sent the life-saving warmth that had awakened him from what would otherwise have been eternal sleep.
