Chapter 5 #2
‘It’s further than I thought,’ she gasped, wishing it was easier to move.
Time was of the essence if she was to help.
Arrow leapt past her in no time and raced to the small fissure.
Ears pricked and alert, Arrow sniffed the entrance and then disappeared inside.
By the time Sereh reached the cave, panting, legs burning, Arrow had reappeared.
Her breathing was calm and even, as Sereh staggered inside and collapsed on the hard, grey floor.
‘Are we alone?’ she gasped to the wolf-dog. Arrow’s only reply was to run back towards the person in the snow.
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ Sereh wheezed, remaining where she was, hands on her knees, gulping the slightly warm, stale air into her body.
She wished she had Arrow’s stamina, rather than feeling so weak and exhausted.
But she couldn’t stop now. She needed to start a fire.
She needed to warm Erann. She riffled through Erann’s heavy backpack, looking for what, she didn’t know, and, thank the Gods, found a genuine heatstone inside one of the many pockets.
She held it in her palm for a moment, enjoying the warmth, then scurried to the back of the cave seeking some detritus she could burn, blown there during the Long Night storms. Anything could burn if it was dry enough. Anything.
She scavenged around in the dark until her hand rested on an abandoned nest of some sort, as well as a lump of something that was distinctly animal-shaped, but was now very dead.
Perhaps the original occupant. She picked it up with the tips of her fingers and a grimace and hurried back to where she planned to build her makeshift fire closer to the cave entrance.
Never mind that it would probably stink when burnt, the fur would make the flames burn hot and fierce and would hopefully stave off the ice chills her snow-bound friend would be suffering from after his extended exposure on the glacier.
‘Why is Erann here?’ she wondered aloud.
She felt better for hearing her voice. It reminded her she was alive.
If she thought about the man’s condition too much, she’d panic.
He didn’t have much time left, she was sure of it.
She’d seen people in such a condition before.
They didn’t always survive. But where had Arrow gone? What was the wolf-dog doing?
‘Typical,’ Sereh complained. ‘Find him and then abandon me to tend to him.’ Speaking aloud stilled her trembling hands.
Fleetingly, Sereh hoped Arrow wasn’t trying to single-handedly drag him to the cave.
If she was, he’d gain even more bumps and bruises than he already had.
The glacier’s surface was far from smooth.
‘That’ll have to do,’ Sereh mumbled as the combination of nesting material and animal fur caught alight. She grabbed two wooden cups out of the man’s backpack and stuffed them with snow from the cavern entrance, placing them near the fire to melt.
Aware she’d done her best, Sereh hurried out of the cave and back onto Vatna Jokull. She trudged back onto the glacier, squinting against the too-bright glare. Almost immediately, she saw Arrow dragging Erann along the ground.
‘You can’t do it on your own,’ she shouted, hurrying to join her.
‘Good girl,’ she offered, a hand on Arrow’s neck.
She winced at the sight of Erann’s even paler face.
Either he remained asleep, or Arrow had hit his head on something, because he was, to all intents and purposes, unconscious.
Arrow looked so proud, Sereh didn’t have the heart to tell her how dangerous it was to drag him along the glacier’s uneven surface alone.
The wolf-dog’s strength astonished her. She’d managed to pull him almost all the way to the cave with no help.
Together, Sereh and Arrow quickly returned to the safety of the cave, dragging Erann between them, more carefully than Arrow would have managed alone. Even so, Sereh winced at the sound of his body dropping onto the cavern floor.
Quickly, Sereh stripped down to her underlayer of sheepskin tunic and trews and threw her cloak over his cold body, as soon as they were inside.
She turned to his backpack again and ransacked it for any spare clothing and furs, piling them around him as well.
She needed to get him warm. His furs were good quality, but even the best furs would only protect you for so long out on the glacier.
‘Come, lie next to Erann,’ she instructed Arrow, patting the ground where she meant.
Arrow would be the warmest until the fire truly caught.
Even now, they sat or lay dangerously close to the spluttering flames in an effort to absorb as much heat as possible.
She wrinkled her nose. The stench of burning fat and fur from the dead animal scorched her nose even as it ensured the fire burnt hotter, far more quickly than if she’d only had the discarded nesting material to use.
Sereh reached over to touch Erann’s face, surprised to discover he was warmer than she’d anticipated.
While his exposed face and hands were cold, when she felt them, the rest of him didn’t seem overly frozen.
There were no icicles in his clothing or hair.
His nose and mouth were devoid of any telltale signs of frostbite.
‘How have you managed to keep yourself so warm on the exposed and windy glacier?’ she asked, wondering if he’d ever be able to tell her. It would be good if he stirred, or showed some sign he was going to wake.
‘Now, what else do you have in here?’ She rummaged around in his pack to see if she could find the means to make something hot to drink.
Erann groaned and his eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. Still, it gave her a hope that he’d wake. Eventually.
She busied herself with the task. Outside, the daylight was growing muted.
The flames from the fire continued to leap, and for the first time since leaving Rankil’s stinking steading, she almost felt cosy.
Arrow growled, and Sereh’s eyes flew to the front of the cavern, poised as though for flight, but there was nothing there. Nothing at all.
‘What is it, girl?’ she asked the wolf-dog, but Arrow simply huffed and lay back down. Now, she busied herself with the task of going through Erann’s backpack. The heatstone had been a blessing. ‘What else do you have?’ she mused, her belly growling once more, matched only by Arrow’s.
‘Why don’t you go and hunt?’ she said to the wolf-dog, having reached over to run her hand over Erann’s face. He felt warmer now. He wasn’t shivering, but she was unsure if you could shiver while sleeping. She wished she knew more about healing.
‘Thank the Gods, we can make something to eat.’ Sereh pulled a small metal cooking pot clear from the backpack, and then turned at a gasp from Erann.
Whatever Arrow had done to him in her mad dash to get him to the cave had done him little damage because his eyes looked bright and clear. They were the same blinding green she remembered.
She was right. It was Erann Ramonsson – the boy she’d once known in her other life. Before Rankil. His confused expression quickly cleared as he too recognised her.
‘What are you doing here?’ they asked at the same time.
Sereh laughed with relief. Perhaps he wouldn’t die after all. He sounded far from weak. Or he did, until his laughter turned to a gasp of pain.
‘Oh, my head bloody hurts when I do that. It feels like someone’s trying to squash my head into my body.’
‘Sorry about that,’ Sereh replied. ‘Arrow’s just dragged you most of the way across the glacier alone. I doubt she was gentle.’
Arrow perked up at the sound of her name. Erann peered at the wolf-dog in surprise. A warm smile flashed on his face. Arrow lay flanked against him, on the side which didn’t feel the heat from the fire, her nose at his elbow.
‘So, it’s you I have to thank for saving me from wherever I was, is it? Well, Arrow, you have my heartfelt thanks.’ He reached across to ruffle her grey ears. Sereh laughed at Arrow’s pleased expression and wolfy grin. If the wolf-dog could ever be said to look smug, she was doing it right now.
‘So what are you doing here?’ she prompted Erann, returning to their first question to one another.
‘No, you first, tell me how you came to find me, wherever I am.’
Sereh felt her eyes narrow. How could he not know where he was? She hesitated and then said, ‘Arrow found you out on the glacier, as we were walking across it, towards the south.’
‘Where exactly am I?’ His gaze turned upwards, peering at the cave’s roof.
‘You’re in a cave, on Vatna Jokull. And you, why are you here? Where are you going so early in the Long Day?’
Erann’s face twisted in discomfort. ‘I have to go to Rankil’s home. I have to see Anya, the healer.’
Erann seemed caught up in some inner turmoil. He didn’t hear her small gasp when he mentioned his destination. Sereh was pleased she’d not mentioned Rankil now. Despite the events that had befallen them both eight rotations ago, she was sure Erann must know Rankil was her master.
‘I thought I was coming around Vatna Jokull and not over it. How in Valhalla did I get here?’ he muttered softly to himself.
Sereh was instantly intrigued. ‘You must have missed the markers. Where were you coming from?’