Chapter 8
SEREH
Sereh woke, stiff and cold. Arrow was awake but quiet at her side, keeping her warm as best she could, and Sereh ran her hand over the wolf-dog’s nose, earning herself a lick from Arrow.
Last night’s fire having long since burnt out, and even the heatstone no use in the slowly growing grey light of dawn, Sereh peered around her, making sense of her surroundings. Abruptly, her fears of last night returned, and she strained to hear the howls of the wolves, but there was nothing now.
‘Are they gone?’ she still whispered, and Arrow’s silence assured her that the answer was yes.
Eagerly, Sereh grabbed the ladder and swung it back into position, before gingerly climbing down, wishing her body didn’t ache so much. Arrow jumped to the floor, evidently not wanting to endure the indignity of being carried again.
Moving to the door, Sereh removed the wooden lock, opening it just a crack. Sure enough, sunlight blinded her. Good, it was daytime. The wolves would be long gone. Opening the door wide, Arrow streaked past her before she could even think to restrain her.
‘You’re welcome,’ Sereh mumbled, following Arrow out. She found the wolf-dog sniffing the tangled remains of the steading. Sereh decided she didn’t want to look inside again. She didn’t wish to feel the burn from last night’s meal as it reappeared.
Instead, Sereh returned to the annex and retrieved her backpack and hoisted Erann’s onto her back.
As she did so, something tumbled out of Erann’s backpack.
Face creased with confusion, she picked it up and found her fingers unwrapping the package containing his journal, then almost reverentially running her hands over the worn soft brown cover and creamy silk pages inside.
She flicked through the journal, noting the neat columns of numbers filling the fifty or so pages. The only indication of the age of the writing was the faded ink at the front, brightening as she neared the last written page.
‘What is this?’ she mused once more.
Sereh flicked back to the beginning of the journal, noting the four columns of numbers, and then again to the back, a thought percolating.
She was right. At the back of the journal, there were only two columns of numbers on each page. Intrigued, she sank to her knees on the cold floor and slowly scanned the pages in turn, starting from the back and working her way forward.
Page after page showed the same strange pattern: two columns of numbers, each column bearing almost exactly the same numbers as the last. As she neared the middle, she found that both columns settled neatly with 175 on each side.
But when she flipped towards the front, the balance shifted. One column began to climb, while the other dropped. Then, with only a few pages from the start, the pattern changed again. This time there were four columns of numbers, each, give or take a few numbers, being about ninety.
What did they mean?
Sereh flipped to the back page again and noted that here the pattern reversed: the numbers on the left-hand column climbed slowly, while those on the right fell. Whichever way she looked at these columns, the totals always came out about the same.
Around 350, give or take a few.
The numbers intrigued her. But why fill so many pages with them? Perhaps it was some sort of counting exercise Erann had learned as a child. Or maybe it was a game he still played.
Suddenly she knew exactly what she needed to do. She stood, gathering her things.
‘Arrow, we’re going to find Erann. Then we can ask him about the journal. He’ll know what it means. He must.’
Sereh pushed aside the quieter truth – that she had nowhere else to go aside from Rankil’s – and seized on the plan that was forming.
‘We’ll go to Erann’s steading. I know where it is. I’ve been there before. Surely it won’t take us long to get there.’
She pushed the journal inside his pack and felt a twinge of guilt.
‘And then I can return his backpack too. Hopefully he reached Rankil’s steading safely, finished what his business was there and is now on the way back to his home.’
She looked around her. ‘But first we have a job to do.’
Stepping from the annex into the shell of her friend’s home, eyes focused only on what needed to be done, she got to work.
Using Erann’s heatstone, she quickly kindled a fire.
In the windless and frigid day, it caught fast and soon tore through the brittle wooden frame.
The snow on the roof hissed as it melted, steaming as the flames took hold.
When it was burning well, Sereh paused. She murmured a few quiet words of remembrance she recalled from long ago.
‘Thor,’ she began, ‘I ask you to keep Estrith and her family safe in the afterlife. As your hammer shields Gods and folk alike, may you protect this family, in this world and in whatever halls await beyond. Grant them peace, courage, and reunion with their ancestors.’
She looked out at where Thor now hovered on the horizon, the planet glowing red in the growing daylight.
‘And, Thor, if you hear this prayer, perhaps you could keep me safe too.’ The planet seemed to wink at her.
She turned and walked away with the scent of burning flesh sharp in her nostrils and hope blooming in her heart. It was time to find Erann.