Again they rose with the sun and returned to the tree. They managed to cut through it by noon, and after lunch made their attempt to move it.
They had decided the previous night to leave nothing to chance and had made a set of harnesses for themselves from spare rope. They hitched their own bodies right in beside the chirras and Rolan and Tantris.
It turned out that it was just as well that they had decided to do so. Only when all six of them dug in and strained with all their strength did it move at all. All of them gasped and panted with the effort, and over-burdened muscles screamed out in protest, while the tree shifted fraction by minute fraction. It took until dark to haul it clear of their escape route.
As darkness fell, they dragged themselves back into the Station, nearly weeping with aches and exhaustion. Nevertheless, they rubbed the chirras dry and groomed their Companions, fed and watered and blanketed them. Only then did they strip off their own sodden garments and collapse on their bed. They were too bone-weary to think of anything but lying down—and their aching bodies.
Finally, “Do you really want supper?” Kris asked her dully; it was his turn to make it.
The very idea of food was nauseating. “No,” she replied in a voice fogged with exhaustion.
“Oh, good,” he said with relief. “Neither do I.”
“I can’t seem—to get warm.” It took an effort to get the words out.
“Me either.” Kris sat up with a low moan. “If you’ll get the tea, I’ll dig out the honey.”
“It’s a bargain.”
They’d left hot water for tea on the hearth, knowing they’d want it. Neither of them rose any farther than their knees as they dragged themselves to their goals. Talia poured water onto the herbal mixture, spilling half of it as her hands shook with weariness. Kris returned with the jar of honey in one hand, and something else in the other.
He put the jar down with exaggerated care, and Talia spooned three generous dollops into each mug. Fortunately, it was too thick to spill as the water had. She pushed one mug toward Kris, who handed her something in exchange for it.
It was one of the fruit and nut bars Kerithwyn had forced into them back at Waymeet. Talia felt sick at the sight of it.
“I know,” Kris said apologetically. “I feel the same way. But if we don’t eat something, we’ll pay for it tomorrow.”
She stirred the honey into her tea and drank it even though it was still so hot it almost scorched her tongue. As heat spread through her, the food began to seem a bit more appealing. As she finished the second mug of tea, she was actually feeling hungry.
Chewing the tough, sticky thing took the last of her energy, though.
From the look of things, Kris was feeling the same way. The third cup of tea settled the question entirely. She just barely managed to get underneath the blankets before she was asleep.
She woke with every muscle screaming an angry protest. She shifted position a little, and a groan escaped.
“I wish I was dead—I wouldn’t hurt so much,” Kris moaned forlornly in her ear.
“Me, too. But I keep thinking of what Alberich always told us.”
“Must you remind me? ‘The cure that is best for the sore body is more of what made it sore.’ Oh, how I wish he was wrong!”
“At least we have to go out long enough to see what we have to deal with beyond the tree.”
“You’re right.” Kris uncoiled himself slowly and painfully. “And we have to wrestle more wood inside.”
“And more hay.”
“And more hay, right. There’s this much, little bird. If you feel like I feel, you couldn’t project past your own nose right now!”
They helped each other wash and dress; there were too many places they couldn’t reach for themselves without their stiff muscles screaming at them. Talia managed to concoct porridge with fruit in it, making enough to feed them twice more, and tea as well. They would probably be so tired they wouldn’t taste either, but it would be solid and warm, and hopefully they wouldn’t be so tired tonight that the very thought of food was revolting.
When they opened the door, the glare of the sunlight on all that snow drove them back—for the weather had changed overnight, and the sky was cloudless. Without some kind of protection for their eyes they’d be snowblind in moments.
“Now what?” Talia asked, never having had to deal with this kind of situation before.
Kris thought hard. “Keep your eyes shadowed from above by your cloak hood, and I’ll see if I can rig something for the snowglare.”
He rummaged through his pack, emerging with a roll of the thin gauze they used for bandages. “Wrap that around your head about twice. It should be thin enough to see through.”
It wasn’t easy to see through, but it was better than glaring light that brought tears to the eyes.
The tree lay where they had left it, and beyond it was the pathway out. Somewhere.
It was possible to see where it went by the lane between the trees and the absence of underbrush. The problem was that it lay beneath drifts that from where they were standing never seemed to be less than four feet deep.
“Well, at least there’re no more downed trees,” Talia said, trying to be cheerful.
Kris just sighed. “Let’s get the shovels.”
The drifts were deep, but at least they were not as wide as the ones in their valley had been. Though the snow was seldom less than two feet deep, it also was rarely more than six. They shoveled and trampled until dusk, then brought in more wood and fodder, ate, and fell into bed.
Talia woke in the middle of the night feeling very cold. Puzzled, she huddled closer to Kris, who murmured sleepily, but didn’t wake. Despite this, she kept feeling colder. Eventually she moved warily out of bed; as soon as she did so, the chill of the air struck her like a hammer blow. She slipped her feet into her sheepskin slippers, wrapped her cloak around herself, and quickly moved to pile wood on the fire. When the flames rose, she could see the eyes of the chirras and Companions blinking at her—they had moved out of their corner and nearer to the heat.
“’Smatter?” Kris asked sleepily. “Why’s it so cold?”
“The weather changed again. The temperature’s dropping,” Talia said, thinking about how the wet snow outside must be freezing into drifts like outcroppings of white granite. “I think the luck-goddess just left us.”
9
When at last they slept again, it was restlessly; they woke early, and with a premonition of the worst. The icy chill of the Station did not encourage dawdling; they dressed quickly and went out to discover just how bad the situation truly was.
It wasn’t good, by any stretch of the imagination. The snow had frozen, thickly crusted on top, granular and hard underneath. The crust was capable of supporting their weight, and even the weight of the chirras unladen (providing that they held their pace to a snail’s crawl), but it would never hold the chirras with even a small pack, or the Companions. And as if that weren’t bad enough, it was obvious that their shovels were not sturdy enough to deal with snow this obdurate.
Both Heralds stared hopelessly at the rock-hard place where they’d left off digging the night before and at the now-useless shovels. Finally, Talia swore passionately, kicked at a lump of snow, and bit her lip to hold back tears of frustration, and reminded herself not to let anything leak.
“Look, Talia, we’re not getting anywhere like this,” Kris said after a long moment of silence. “You’re tired; so am I. One day isn’t going to make any difference to us one way or the other—for that matter, neither will two or three. I’m your counselor; well, I counsel that we take a rest, and let our bodies recover, until we can think of a plan that has some chance of getting us out of here.”
Talia agreed wearily.
Once back inside, she lit the little oil lamp and surveyed the shambles they’d made of the interior of the Station. “We’re obviously going to be here a while, so it’s time we stopped living in a goat pen. Look at this! We har
dly have room to move.”
Kris looked around, and ruefully agreed.
They began cleaning and rearranging with a vengeance. Working in the comparatively warm Station was by far and away easier than shoveling snow had been. Before noon, the Station was cleaned and swept and all was in good order.
“Had any ideas?” Kris ventured over lunch.
“Nothing that pertains to the problem. I did think of something that needs doing, though. Since we’re stuck until we can think of a way to handle that snow, we ought to do something about washing our clothing. The only warm things that I have left to wear are what I’ve got on.”
“There’s saddle-soap in the Station supplies to clean the leathers,” he said, thinking out loud, “and we could empty two of the barrels to wash in.”
“I brought more than enough soap for all the rest,” she told him. “And the Lord knows we don’t have to scrimp on water!”
“All right then, we’ll do it! I’m in no better shape than you—and I hate wearing filthy clothes.”
Under the primitive conditions of the Station, cleaning white clothing was not an easy chore. Again, however, it was easier than the digging and hauling they’d been doing, and a great deal warmer as well. Eventually every clean surface sported a drying garment.
“I never thought I’d want to see another set of student Grays again,” Talia said, sitting back on her heels and surveying her handiwork.
“I know what you mean,” Kris grinned, looking up from his last pair of boots. “At least the damn things didn’t show dirt quite so badly. How are you doing?”
“I’m done, since I did my leathers while you were washing.”
“This finishes it for me.”
“Well, I still have hot water left—enough for two really good baths. It’s too bad we can’t fit ourselves into the barrels and soak, but at least we can get really clean.”
“Good thinking, little bird. Although after all the soap and water I’ve been immersed in today, there isn’t much that needs to soak!”
Things began to take on a more cheerful appearance once they were clean, especially since they weren’t aching from the punishing cold and muscle strain of the past few days.
Talia combed her wet hair out in front of the fire, more than half mesmerized by the flickering flames and the movement of the comb through her hair. The Station had lost the slightly stale odor it had acquired during the blizzard, and now smelled of soap and leather—very pleasant. Bits of old tales began to flicker through her mind—unconnected images dealing with tales of battle, of all things. Battles, and how the Companions themselves used to fight alongside their Heralds. Or were those images unconnected?
“Kris,” she said slowly, an idea beginning to form, “the main problem is the hard snow and the ice crust. Our shovels aren’t strong enough to break it into pieces. But if we wrapped their legs to keep them from being cut, Rolan and Tantris could—like they were fighting.”
“By the Stars of the Lady, you’re right!” he exclaimed with excitement. “Not only that, remember how you wondered what good those huge claws did the chirras? They dig themselves hollows to lie in, in dirt or in snow. If we could make them understand what we wanted, we could have them dig out chunks of a size we could manage!”
“Havens, Rolan and Tantris can do that!”
Tantris snorted, and Rolan sent Talia a little mental caress.
Kris laughed. “All right, granther—” he said to his Companion, looking happier than he had all day. He turned back to Talia. “The Source of all Wisdom over there seems to think we’ll be able to work faster than we did before. He wanted to know why we hadn’t thought of this until now.”
“Well, you two wouldn’t have done us much good with the wet snow, now, would you?” Talia asked the two sets of backward-pointing ears. Rolan tossed his head.
“And the chirras would have made more of a mess than they’d have cleared. The snowdrifts weren’t stable enough until they froze,” Kris added, a little smugly. “So there.”
“Did he say anything else?” Talia asked, a little envious of Kris’ ability to Mindspeak with his Companion.
“He just told me he’s been worried about how hard we’ve been working—but then he actually ordered me to rest tomorrow. You’d think we were trainees.”
Talia shook her head ruefully, for there was no doubt that Rolan considered this to be an excellent idea. There was a distinct undertone to his mental sending of worry that both of them had been overworking.
“Rolan says the same. I don’t think I want to argue. Oh, Bright Havens, I hurt!” Talia stretched aching arms and shoulders. “This has hardly been the rest stop we were ordered to take.”
Kris groaned good-naturedly, stretching his own weary muscles. “If anything, I’m more exhausted than I was when we stopped, if that’s possible. I’m certainly a lot sorer.”
“Then I’ll make you an offer; want a backrub?”
“Do you?”
“Oh, Lord, yes,” she sighed.
“I’ll work on you, then you work on me. Strip, wench—I can’t work through four shirts and a tunic!”
“It’s only two,” she protested with a laugh. “And they’re summer-weight at that. While I was cleaning, I wanted to clean everything!” Nevertheless, she complied, stretching out on a pallet of blankets on the hearth. Kris seemed to find every last ache, and drove each one out with deft fingers. Soothed by the gentle hands, she drifted into a half-sleep.
He woke her by tickling the back of her neck. “My turn,” he said, as she lazily turned her head.
She sighed with content and rose to her knees, and slipped on a shift (blessedly clean, and warm from the fire) while he took her place on the hearth. She tried to copy what he’d done to her, and hunted for the muscles that were the most tense, and so hurt the most. Before very long she had him as soothed and relaxed as she was, and they basked in the heat of the fire like a couple of contented cats.
“I’ll do anything you ask,” he murmured happily. “Anything, so long as you don’t ask me to move. And as long as you don’t stop.”
She giggled at the tone of his voice as she gently rubbed his shoulders. “All right, then—tell me about Dirk.”
“Promise not to stop what you’re doing?”
“Surely.”
“Good,” he said with satisfaction. “Because it’s a very long story. For one thing, I have to start with his grandfather.”
“Oh, come now—” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Is this really necessary, or are you just trying to prolong the backrub?”
“I promise you, it’s absolutely necessary. Now, ‘once upon a time’ when Dirk’s grandfather settled his Steading, he lived on the very Border itself. He was quite ambitious, so he added a little more to his lands every year, and only stopped when he had as much as one man could reasonably expect to keep under cultivation with the aid of a moderate number of hands. By then the Border had been pushed back by him and others like him. So now that it was a safer place to live, he married.”
“Logical, seeing as he had to have produced at least one offspring to be Dirk’s father.”
“Quiet, wench. As it happened, their only child was female, but it didn’t perturb him that he would be leaving the Steading to her; he fully expected that she would marry in due course, and the place would still be in the bloodline. However, the gods had other ideas in mind.”
“Don’t they always?”
“First of all, it turned out that his daughter had a really powerful Gift of Healing. Now, this was as welcome as it was unexpected, since it’s hard to get Healers to station themselves near the Border. There’s always more work there than they can handle successfully unless they’re stationed with a Temple, and you know how Healers are—they’d rather die than leave something half-done. At any rate, Borderbred Healers always seem to feel they have a duty to serve where they were born, so there was little chance she’d end up anywhere else. Her proud and happy father sent her off to
Healer’s Collegium, and in due course she returned in her Greens. So far everything had gone according to expectation. However, being the Healer put a crimp in her father’s original plans for her. It seemed that the young men of the area were somewhat reluctant to court a person whose attentions could, because of her Gift, never be entirely devoted to any one person. And this despite the tale I told you about them. Healers are, after all, Healers first and anything else second.”
“Like Heralds, or priests. Look at us.”
“Point taken. At any rate, not even the rather substantial inducement of her inheritance could lure any of the neighboring farmers or their sons to the nuptial table. The old man began to despair of having his hard-won acreage remain in the family. Then there came the second twist to the plot. Late one autumn night there was a terrible storm.”
“I’ve had my fill of storms.”
“Hush, this is a required storm. In fact, it was the worst autumnal storm that part of the Kingdom had ever seen. It began after sunset, and lightning downed so many trees that it was completely unnecessary to cut any for firewood that fall. Freezing rain fell from the heavens in sheets rather than drops. There was so much thunder that it was impossible to hold a conversation and impossible to sleep. And in the midst of all this chaos and confusion, there came a knocking on the farmstead door.” Kris was very obviously enjoying himself to the hilt.
“A tall, dark, mysterious stranger, no doubt.”
“Who’s telling this story, you or me? As a matter of actual fact, it was a stranger; half-drowned, half-frozen, half-dead and very much bedraggled, but blond, and hardly mysterious. It was a young Bard, only recently graduated from his Collegium and starting his journeyman period. He’d lost his way in the storm, fallen into a river, and had all manner of uncomfortable things happen to him. When he pounded on their door, he was already fevered, delirious, and well on his way to a full-blown case of pneumonia.”
“I smell a romance.”
“You have an accurate nose. Naturally, the young Healer took him in and nursed him back to health. Just as naturally, they fell head over heels in love. Being a man of honor, as well as having his head stuffed full of all those romantic ballads, the Bard begged the old man’s permission to wed his daughter in true heroic style. He needn’t have worried, because by now the old fellow was beginning to think that any son-in-law was better than none. However, he made it a condition of his agreement that they remain on the Steading.
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