Chapter 6 #4
The ground between the steading and the annex was strangely icy.
The snow which must have melted in the fire had frozen hard again.
Sereh pushed open the door, and it swung inwards easily.
Arrow nipped past her feet, nose to the ground, cautiously sniffing the entire place.
She gave no whine of concern, so Sereh followed her in, dumping the backpacks on the floor.
It appeared sheltered and reasonably sturdy, but she tested the structure just to be on the safe side, leaning hard on the door frame. Satisfied, she pulled the door closed behind her.
Complete darkness descended. Arrow yelped in surprise.
‘Sorry, girl.’ Sereh reopened the door a fraction and rooted about in her borrowed backpack looking for Erann’s heatstone.
She found it and placed it on the floor.
A dull orange glow appeared. Sereh pulled the door shut again.
There was a wooden lock, which she slipped through the holders to either side of the door.
She was taking no chances. She didn’t fancy being the live part of a wolf feast if they chose to return.
That done, Sereh dragged the by now excruciatingly heavy backpacks to the back wall and, leaning against it, slowly sank to the dry dirt floor.
Her thoughts were a mess – images, hopes and realities all tangled up together.
Deep down, she grieved for her only childhood friend and her young family who’d perished during the Long Night.
Had they starved to death? Had the snows kept them trapped and unable to reach their annex?
There was no sign any herd beasts had lived within for some time.
Had Estrith’s family succumbed to the most feared of deaths, trapped within their steading, while outside, the Long Night winds moaned, and the frozen conditions precluded any chance of escape?
Selfishly, no sooner had she thought all this than her mind circled back to her own problems. What was she to do now?
Where would she go? Who could she turn to?
She sought her freedom from Rankil, but it seemed impossible now.
She cried great, hacking sobs. Arrow slid up to her and pressed her flank against her. Sereh pulled the warm wolf’s body towards her and cried into her white, grey and black fur.
After what seemed a long time, her grief quietened. Arrow looked at her with sorrowing yellow eyes and curled on her lap, as much as a full-grown wolf-dog could, anyway. Sereh’s stomach rumbled. She hiccupped an embarrassed laugh, even though Arrow didn’t seem upset by her grief.
‘We need to eat,’ Sereh muttered, just to hear the sound of her voice.
Pulling open Erann’s backpack, Sereh extracted another pot of curdled blood and more peat cakes.
She stood, unsteadily, and walked to the glowing heatstone.
She pulled up some very dry animal bedding from the corner of the annex to make a pitiful fire.
It would do to warm the curdled blood, and then she’d sleep.
She didn’t want to risk going outside for wood or turf from the burnt remains of the steading.
It was too dark, and fear the ravaging wolves would return kept her inside.
The evident presence of the wolves was a worry.
It was rare for them to come close to where people lived.
Normally, they kept to the colder, less accessible Odedahraun range and fended for themselves there.
If they’d come all this way to forage, there could be no food for them in the Odedahraun range.
That meant the wolves were desperate for food, while it appeared Estrith and her family had also most probably starved to death. Why was food in such short supply?
Her meal was barely warm but she could wait no longer.
She and Arrow ate quickly and silently, Arrow licking her share from one of Erann’s wooden beakers.
Sereh found it hard to chew the peat cakes, even when dipped in the curdled blood.
So much had changed since she’d last eaten.
Now she found herself forcing the food down and purposefully didn’t think of what it had looked like when it’d come back up again earlier.
Arrow didn’t share her despair. She happily munched through her meal, before curling up next to Sereh, ready to sleep.
Sereh stroked her wolf-dog affectionately.
She’d fed well that day. The last few days had been hard on her, as used to deprivation as she was.
Rankil had treated his wolf-dogs poorly, even while he relied on them to hunt down small animals to feed the cookpot.
While during the Long Day, Arrow had happily slept outside, as winter set in, he only allowed them to sleep inside the tunnel of his steading, claiming they needed to keep away from his herd beasts.
But then he always was cruel, Sereh thought.
She forced down the last scraps of food, pulled the fur from her backpack and settled down to sleep on the hard wooden floorboards.
She was certain she wouldn’t be able to sleep, her mind too full of all she’d seen today, and yesterday.
But, in only a few heartbeats, her eyes fell shut, and she fell into a welcome dreamlessness.