Chapter 23 Sage
Sage
As Sage’s leg buckles beneath her, so too does her pretense—to the bard, and to herself.
She is not all right. Pain radiates from her right knee like a knife wedged into the joint.
With her leg stretched awkwardly in front of her, Sage gently prods the knee, then clamps her teeth to stifle a cry.
It’s swollen beneath her breeches, she can tell.
Whatever half injury she’s been slogging along on worsened considerably when her boot lodged in the rock, perhaps a partial tear becoming a full severing.
And now, there’ll be no pretending it away.
Araphi crouches beside her, dark eyes frantic with concern. “Sage? What’s wrong?”
“Just…an old problem I should’ve taken care of,” she admits through gritted teeth.
“You, ignoring your own needs?” Araphi presses a hand to her breast in mock surprise.
“Glad to see your spirits haven’t been dampened by drowning.”
“Nearly drowning. I’d not have drowned when I had the pocket dimension.”
“Unless the merchant sold you a false artifact, suspecting you might not survive the adventure to demand your jewelry back.”
Araphi presses her lips together, looking crestfallen at the thought.
“But you did well,” Sage rushes to say. “You got us out of the river, Bard. You did well.”
Araphi’s flush of pleasure, clear even in the dark, starts a fire kindling inside Sage.
Then the reality of the situation in which they find themselves sets in.
Though they may have been saved from imminent death, they’re both sopping wet, with a likely storm looming; the frosted air is riper than ever with the smell of snow.
And judging by the position of the distant mountain peaks and the few stars that struggle to pierce the thick cloud cover, they were carried miles downriver by the swiftly moving current before Araphi opened the pocket dimension.
Doubtful they could make it back to the temple before the weather turns, or before hypothermia claims them, or before Bramble’s had the chance to concoct a believable lie about them stealing the tooth, turning the party against them.
They have no horses, no tent, no dry clothing, not so much as a blanket to build a lean-to.
And Sage’s compact is gone, left behind with her pack.
Perhaps a less pressing concern than hypothermia, as Margot could be of little help to them in the Northlands, but she feels lonelier without it all the same.
Shoving that aside, Sage insists around the chattering of her teeth, “I need to find us shelter. And…I need your help.”
“I wish I had my healing kit,” Araphi mutters, shivering violently, “but it’s back with my lute and all my other supplies.”
“We’ll have to manage.”
At a torturously slow pace, they make their way downriver, Sage’s arm slung across Araphi’s shoulders so the bard can bear most of her weight.
With every other step, her bad knee throbs, the joint locking into place.
Perhaps it’s her imagination that even above the clacking of her teeth and the menacing wind, she can hear the grind of bone against bone—her ears are exceptionally sharp—though certainly, she can feel it.
When Araphi’s boot sinks deep into a drift unexpectedly, pitching them off-balance, the leg gives way entirely and they both tumble into the snow.
By the time they’ve extricated themselves, they’re exhausted.
Darkness creeps relentlessly upon the edges of Sage’s vision, like barbed wolves circling a clearing.
But still Araphi carries her without complaint, her words slurred with fatigue as she mumbles, “Not much farther, I’m sure. You’re doing well, Ranger.”
It’s the fuel she needs—not Araphi’s words so much as her hope.
They stagger on, weaving through the woods where the pines keep the worst of the wind at bay, but with the river never long out of sight to stay on a steady course.
When Araphi trips over a buried tree root and nearly sends them both sprawling a second time, Sage is on the brink of admitting to herself that they’re better off cobbling together some kind of shelter with their remaining scraps of consciousness rather than pressing forward.
The landscape is too flat to build a bivvy shelter against a slope or beneath a ridge edge.
They could dig a pit by the riverbank where the drifts have accumulated, build a snow grave big enough for both of them to squeeze inside, and lay some downed branches atop themselves.
But they’ve nothing to shovel with. And while it might ward off the worst of the cold and the snow, storms in the Northlands can pile up enough snow to bury a horse overnight.
Besides which, Sage can barely summon the energy to lift her boots, or to stop her chin from drooping toward her chest, never mind to dig…
Then the freezing wind shifts slightly, and carries with it the whisper-faint scent of days-old ashes.
Sage lifts her head and looks west.
It’s a risk to leave the sure path of the riverbank for what could be an abandoned camp (or an unfriendly one, if it’s occupied), but the air is only getting heavier.
Beside her, Araphi’s steps have become one perpetual stumble forward, ever at risk of pitching them over.
When Sage nudges the bard onto a different heading through the trees, Araphi turns at once, trusting Sage to lead.
It’s more than she deserves, but Sage will have to trust herself as well.
After pushing through the low, bristly branches of snow-coated pines, they see it at last like an impossible mirage.
A crude log cabin—little more than a shack of the kind often built for bunking down on a hunting route.
It smells of a hearth fire that’s gone unlit for some time, but looks secure enough, the weathered logs well-sealed with clay and pitch.
The first snowflakes drift down to cluster in Araphi’s dark hair and coat her eyelashes. “Can we go in?” she asks.
Sage ought to scope the place out with an overabundance of caution, traverse the perimeter before entering.
But her leg is deadweight beneath her, and she can hardly think for freezing.
So she grips Araphi’s shoulder with the last of her strength as she admits, “We’d better.
I don’t know how much farther I can go.”