Chapter 2
SEREH
‘By the Gods,’ she sobbed, unable to mask the fear in her voice, even from herself.
‘Where are we?’ she demanded from Arrow, although the wolf-dog couldn’t answer, and the words could barely reach Arrow above the howling wind.
‘We’re lost. We’ll never make it back tonight.
’ Her words rushed from her, sped on their way by the fierce wind and blinding snow being flung into her face.
Helplessness dragged at her feet. Her earlier tears had restarted.
They and the snot from her running nose stuck to her face.
Even Arrow whimpered as the wind blew relentlessly against the pair of them.
Sometimes, it felt as though she took two steps forward, only to be driven back another four.
‘Where are we?’ she sobbed once more. ‘Where can we go?’ Stopping briefly, but bending low against the wind’s might, Sereh flung her hand over her eyes, as though that might help her determine where she was and where she could go.
‘There’s nowhere,’ she admitted, trying to still her sobs from the wave of defeat engulfing her, as her shoulders shook.
‘If only we’d stayed with the baby,’ she whispered, not truly wishing to admit to herself how desperate their situation was.
‘Then, we’d have met our death together.
’ Muttering the words aloud made them more real, and only the feel of Arrow beneath her hand made her stand tall and continue to move onwards, or what she hoped was onwards.
She’d barely made it halfway home when the deep violet of night had taken all light from their surroundings. Now she was stumbling around in the dark.
‘What you doing, girl?’ she called to the wolf-dog, lifting her voice in an effort to combat the wind. ‘Are you trying to follow our previous trail?’
Against the onslaught of the wind, Arrow had her nose close to the ground. But surely the wind and fresh snowfall had obliterated their trail.
Sereh followed her, hoping the wolf-dog would take her to safety, but doubting that there was anything Arrow could do. She simply wasn’t prepared to sit down and wait for the cold to claim her. Not yet.
She could see nothing against the blackness of the night.
‘Be careful, girl. We don’t want to fall from a peak,’ Sereh cried.
While it might be a less painful way to die than freezing to death, she didn’t want to try it.
She could think of nothing worse than having the ground give out unexpectedly below her feet.
The constant presence of the ground gave some small comfort as she continued to battle her way onwards.
Arrow’s whimper reached her ears from ahead, barely discernible but unmistakable.
‘Arrow.’ Sereh tried, but the wind whipped the words right out of her mouth.
She staggered forward, hand outstretched.
Arrow continued to whine until Sereh reached her.
Only then did Sereh realise Arrow must have turned away from their previous path because now the wind buffeted Sereh from the side instead of from ahead.
‘Where are you going, girl?’ Sereh mumbled but was resigned to simply following the wolf-dog.
Arrow had been a puppy when Sereh had entered Rankil’s steading. They’d bonded and grown together, both forced to serve an ungrateful and often-times cruel master.
Arrow suddenly stopped short, and Sereh only just prevented herself from walking into the back of her. Beneath her hand, Sereh could sense the wolf-dog sniffing, body tense. Letting out a small whine, Arrow resumed her path, leading Sereh onwards to who knew where.
Abruptly, Sereh felt the howling blizzard stop, and could breathe again. It was dark within whatever they were within, yet somehow not as dark as it had been outside. A faint luminescence, which appeared to be coming from the walls, allowed Sereh to see they were inside some sort of cave.
‘Good girl,’ Sereh gasped, still holding tightly to the wolf-dog’s neck, before allowing herself to sigh with relief as she turned to face the outside.
Out there, everything was black. She couldn’t even see where they’d been walking only moments before.
Grateful to be out of the wind, Sereh slumped against the bare rock face at the back of the small cave.
She slid to a sitting position, releasing the straps of her backpack as she did so.
It clattered to the ground. She peered back towards where they’d entered the cave, but there was nothing to see, even now.
‘Arrow,’ she mumbled to the wolf-dog, who joined her, lying at her feet. ‘How did you manage to find this sanctuary when it’s so dark?’ Once more, there was no reply from the wolf-dog aside from a contented little sigh.
‘We’re safe,’ Sereh exclaimed, aware, out of the wind, she felt warmer too, evident in the way the frozen tracks of tears and the snot from her nose were starting to run once more. ‘That’s all that matters.’
The how would have to be discovered when daylight returned.
The pair sank into an uneasy sleep, only lessened by the warmth of the one against the other. In her dreams, Sereh was sure she heard a baby cry.