Chapter 6 #2
Feeling full for the first time since the first day of the Long Day, Sereh carefully repacked his backpack, wincing at the lingering heat from the heatstone, but unprepared to leave it behind. She hesitated for a moment. If Erann returned, she’d be gone and his backpack with her.
‘No, Sereh. You’ve wasted enough of the day hoping he’d come back.
You shouted for him. You looked for him.
There’s nothing more you could have done,’ Sereh said to herself firmly, or so she convinced herself.
With a heavy sigh, she slung the backpack over her shoulder.
It was heavier than hers, so she strapped it tightly across her back and slung her own over her chest, to wear on her front.
‘Come on, Arrow,’ she called, leaving the cave once more, strapping her snowshoes back on.
She found Arrow looking towards the north, as though she too now expected him to reappear.
‘He’s not coming back, girl. Come on. We’ve somewhere to be.
I don’t wish him any harm, and I do hope he makes it to Rankil’s before darkness falls, but I don’t think I like him all that much any more.
He’s not the boy he once was. Not, admittedly, that I’m that girl either, but he didn’t need to be so rude – leaving like that, without even saying goodbye…
’ Arrow reluctantly scampered to her side and then sniffed the air before loping onwards.
Sereh followed the wolf-dog carefully, eager to put distance between last night’s cave and wherever they made it to that day.
‘I know times have been hard for both of us, I get it, I do, but even so,’ she muttered to herself, carefully placing her feet and hauling herself upwards onto a thick slab of ice.
The wind blew in her face, and it felt even colder than yesterday, she realised, which was wrong.
It should be getting warmer, not colder.
‘He looks so much like his father,’ she continued. ‘I could have thought he was like Ramon, but he’s not.’ She thought back to last night. She knew he’d been pretending to sleep rather than speak to her.
She’d studied him surreptitiously last night.
Although he was the spitting image of his father – large, well-muscled, lightly bearded and blond – he carried his rotations heavily.
He seemed older than he was. It didn’t make him unattractive.
In fact, quite the opposite. She’d felt drawn to him despite his gruff manner and refusal to share his secrets.
Now, she needed to banish those thoughts. Erann was on his own. Just as she was.
She focused on the path ahead, suddenly conscious of just how long they’d lingered inside the cave, waiting for Erann. The sun was already as high as it was going to get and the temperature had barely risen.
Sereh gazed in wonder towards the sun. It seemed to be ineffectual against the ice and snow gripping her land.
While she accepted Vatna Jokull was one of the coldest places, stretching across much of the Eastern Quarter and down into the Northern one, she was certain the Long Day thaw should have been evident, if only through the trickling of the water as the edges of the glacier began to melt.
Instead, there was more snow, not less, as snowstorms had raged throughout the last four nights.
That didn’t seem right either. What was happening?
When would the Long Day become properly established?
With any luck, they’d reach Estrith’s steading today, even with the short amount of daylight remaining. The thought put a fresh spring in her step, and weighed down as she was, she made good progress over the ice-packed glacier.
As the sun began its fast descent, she and Arrow scampered down from Vatna Jokull to the flatter lowlands, which provided good pasture for the animals throughout the Long Day.
Just before she stepped free from the glacier, her eyes alighted on another cave.
She wished they’d not lingered so long in last night’s cave.
Once the light faded, it was going to be difficult to find Estrith’s steading even though she knew where she was now.
It would be even more difficult if, like for the past four nights, a fresh snowstorm blew in.
Momentarily, she was torn between seeking the cave for the night and carrying on regardless.
But her desire for friendly company and warm food spurred her on.
She was suddenly desperate to be with someone she knew and cared for.
She missed laughing with a good friend, sharing old jokes and stories.
Conversations with Arrow were usually somewhat one-sided.
Once Erann had regained consciousness, she’d hoped to share some of that last night, but he…
Well, the less said about him the better.
As the sky above turned deepest velvet as the sun set in a rainbow of magenta and amber, sending long shadows stretching towards her, like the claws of a wolf, Sereh saw what she hoped to find ahead.
A steading. With a cry of relief, Sereh ran forward, feeling the iciness of the glacier’s surface give way to snow-covered grasslands under her feet.
Her eyes ate up the sight of the steading.
Even from this distance, she could determine it was locked up tight against the continuing bad weather, but she couldn’t fault her friend for keeping the wooden shutters firmly in place over the windows.
At this time of the rotation, food and fuel were in scarce supply.
It made sense to keep the house closed up against the Long Night for as long as possible.
In a few short weeks, every steading would throw the shutters open to air them from the fusty Long Night smell.
She was looking forward to helping her friend with all the backbreaking work.
She wasn’t sure what Estrith’s husband would think of her staying, but Sereh pushed the thought away.
There was no point in ruining the day by worrying.
She needed to enjoy this for what it was – her chance of freedom and a better life away from Rankil.
She redoubled her efforts to reach the steading, her breath coming fast as she forced herself onwards, despite the ache in her calves and the stinging of the rapidly cooling air in her throat.
‘Nearly there,’ she gasped, ignoring how the twin backpacks dug uncomfortably into her shoulder blades.
She slowed now, picking her way across the snowy plain, peering through the growing gloom for rocks or depressions.
She couldn’t afford to stumble or turn her ankle now.
Not when she was so close to safety. She could almost smell whatever cut of meat Estrith was cooking.
Her stomach rumbled. Her friend had always been a good cook.
Panting, unable to go on without pausing to catch her breath, she looked towards the steading in the growing gloom, her stomach turning leaden, all thoughts of good food turning to ash in her mouth.
There was no smoke escaping through the smoke hole.
The steading looked broken, abandoned. The air smelled strange.
Now she could see more of the steading, the roof looked to have caved in in one corner.
‘Arrow?’ she called, her voice breathless and reedy. The wolf-dog was no longer at her side. A whine greeted her, as she caught sight of the glowing yellow eyes behind her. Her fears grew.
‘What is it, girl?’ she gasped. The smell of burning wood and meat permeated her senses. With an anguished cry, she ran the last short distance and crumpled to the snow-covered ground in a sagging, breathless sob.
The dark wooden steading was charred – only the annex remained. That was what she’d seen from such a distance. It hadn’t been the steading at all.
‘Oh, no,’ she gasped. ‘Oh Gods, no. Not Estrith and her husband and her beautiful children. Not now.’ She’d endured so much to get here, and it was all for nothing.
Arrow silently padded past her, sniffing warily, her rigid, curled tail between her hind legs. The smell of death and decay would be even stronger for her animal friend. Sereh staggered upright, conscious of the snow turning damp on her knees.
‘I must look. I must check,’ she announced decisively.
‘It might not be so bad. Maybe the steading caught fire accidentally, and everyone’s in the annex.
They must still be alive.’ But even as the words left her mouth, she knew she was lying to herself.
If anyone was alive, they’d have come to see who was making all the noise.
Even in the frigid conditions, she could strongly smell the unmistakable scent of decay from the bodies the fire hadn’t cremated.
Carefully now, afraid of finding confirmation of her worst fears, she pushed through the door hanging haphazardly off its hinges and stepped into what remained of the entrance tunnel. It stood forlornly, destroyed at the junction with the inner door.
Sereh took a breath and stepped inside.
The broken and burnt bodies lay where they’d fallen from their beds when the upper level of the farmstead had collapsed. The blackened beams of the half of the roof of the steading that had survived were gaunt and stark.
The half of the roof still standing groaned ominously under the weight of fresh snow on the grassed roof. In the increasingly dim light, Sereh stood, almost uncomprehendingly. What had happened here? Who could have set the fire and why, by the Gods, hadn’t they made sure it was done properly?