A Fray of Furies, page 15
part #2 of The Waking Worlds Series
He slept as lightly as a fat cat in a famine – a skill he’d been forced to perfect early-on. Street children were the favored prey of pimps and slavers. The slow and the sleepy were quickly culled.
He’d maintained the habit in Hammer Ham Nan’s orphanage, where the midnight campaigns could prove merciless.
His worry that luxury had lured him to rest on his laurels proved baseless: he woke, alert and ready, and shared a grin with the night sky. By the wheel of the stars, it was nearly time for his watch. He eased himself up.
Yoriana sat slumped by the dying fire, an unread book fanned across her knees.
Perfect.
He would circle, unseen, toward the pit–
The itch of imminent danger pricked up his back.
Sight ended just a few paces beyond the starving fire, where Yoriana sprawled like an abandoned marionette. His straining ears could make out only Neever’s light snoring. All seemed peaceful.
Yet, something was wrong.
Neever’s satchel had spilled his possessions. He recognized the drawstring bag that lay at arm’s length from the slumbering monk.
His ring breathed a warning.
The bag rocked once, then clumsily rolled over.
The fine hairs along his arms and neck writhed upright.
The orb rolled free to fetch up against Yoriana’s ankle.
She cast around blearily to find the Eye, staring at her from between her stockinged heels. Her shoulders shot taut, her eyes snapped wide and a terrified breath stuck crossways in her throat.
“Grab it!” he yelled.
She acted with admirable speed – for one who thought she was having a nightmare.
The Eye took off like a startled jackal. Yoriana, who’d just managed to close her hands around it, was jerked along. She screamed, kicking her heels as she was towed beyond the firelight.
Toward the pit.
“Neever!” he sprang.
A foot caught his jaw. Blinded, he tangled a hand in her sash.
“Don’t let go!” he advised.
“It’s slippery!” she wailed.
“Neever!” he screamed as the uneven ground grated at them.
And then the big-eared monk was there, throwing a coil of blanket over the orb.
Yoriana’s grip failed and the two of them were left in Neever’s dust, literally, as the monk skidded ahead on his heels.
“Help me hold it!”
He and the prone priestess scrambled over each other to comply. Together, they wrestled the Eye to a standstill.
“What do we do?” she strained, hands full of thick wool.
“Don’t let it reach the block!”
He was no mage. But when a demon’s disembodied eye went looking for the rest of it, denial seemed a good idea. His views on inherent monstrosity notwithstanding, he’d prefer it stayed dead.
Fighting the Eye was like tug o’ war against the mules. They gained no ground and the treacherous footing slid them closer and closer to the pit.
Despite all their efforts, the Eye peeked gleefully over its edge.
Dropping, he braced his feet against one of the planted stones.
“How is this happening?” he demanded.
“It must have consumed the campfire while we slept!”
“How long before it runs out of sizzle?” he hissed.
“I have no idea!”
He slipped. They were pulled over the edge and stumbled drunkenly down the slope.
“We’re not going to hold it!” Yoriana foresaw.
“Yes, we are!” Neever bolstered.
They found sure footing among the exposed bones of bedrock, halting the Eye within a hand’s span of the granite grave marker.
“We’ve got it!” Neever crowed.
As it turned out, a ‘hand’s span’ was too close: the fossilized claw crumbled free and reached for the orb.
Wool scorched away. They fell, swaddled in burning blanket.
Neever was first to his feet.
“Agh!” the monk cried as the heat rebuffed him. “Gloves!”
Yoriana sprinted away while he and Neever did what they could with scraps of blanket. The stink of singed wool filled the pit.
“Here!”
He snatched them from the air. Even through the thick layer of leather, the heat was unbearable. Grunting and sweating, the three of them pulled at the gorgon’s grip. But the long fingers were as good as welded to the orb.
A slow transformation was taking place. Like oil drawn up a wick, the Eye’s power was spreading: cracked and pocked flesh smoothed to a glossy dun, sparkling with mica.
“This isn’t working!” he yelled.
“Coward!” Yoriana cursed at his back as he ran from the pit.
With the two adherents left alone, they turned to prayer. If their goddess were listening, no doubt the fevered grunts and fervent groans were raising celestial eyebrows.
He snatched up the nearby lantern and smashed it atop their bed of coals. It caught on a buried ember. Shielding his own eyebrows, he thrust a pickaxe into the heart of the rudely awoken blaze.
‘…when the hero’s sword burned red hot…’
He couldn’t afford to wait for ‘red hot’…
With their eyes resolutely shut, the pair didn’t note his return. They did not see him raise the piping hot pick-axe high overhead. Didn’t see him take careful aim on their tangle of fingers.
Neever and Yoriana shot from their feet like corks spat from bottle necks. They landed hard, raising dust. In Yoriana’s lap, the transformation rounded a severed stump and stopped with nowhere left to go. He snagged the stony appendage and launched it from the pit. Its clattering landfall suggested it had found the wagon bed.
“You’re welcome,” he told the stunned priestess. She mutely accepted the splintered haft of his pick-axe, staring at the smoking end where the axe-head used to be.
“Wh– How?” she stammered at his back.
“Worked for Eris Bolk,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m starting to think there might be something to all this book knowledge…”
* * *
It was dark.
The bridge was breathtakingly cold beneath her. She glared down at it in annoyance.
Confusion slowed her steps. Where were her moccasins?
And what bridge was this?
She craned her neck but could not see beyond the arch of its back. Mist stole the sight of whatever river or canyon it spanned.
She shook her head, trying to clear it. Her thoughts were turgid, as though she’d only just awoken. Dazed, she cast around.
Something was wrong.
Who would build a bridge, bare of guide-rope or barrier? Beyond the stark drop-off was nothing but fomenting fog. As though sensing her regard, the white parted. Sucking blackness stared at her. The void drew her gaze, seeming to reach for her...
She stumbled.
“Careful,” a gentle hand steadied her. “The edge is treacherous. It would not do for you to lose your way at this juncture.”
Righting herself, she shook off the strange woman’s touch.
“My thanks,” she grumbled, staring.
The stranger wore summer buckskins, sewn with antler. Her temples were shaven in the Hillhopper style but her belt buckle was a circling pike, wrought in black iron.
“Are you Blackwater?” she demanded suspiciously.
“You are, obviously,” the woman smiled, eyeing her dark scales. She’d not realized she was wearing her armor.
“A Hunter,” the woman declared approvingly. “You’ll find yourself in good company here. There are many upon the bridge.”
The bridge, she recalled with difficulty.
“Where does it lead?”
“It is a bridge,” the woman smiled. “It goes to the other side.”
“What is on the other side?”
“That,” the woman laughed, “is a subject of much debate.”
It was a wonderful laugh, bright and clear as a spring pond. It struck an odd chord with her. The comfort it promised alarmed her.
“Where are we?” she demanded. “Where am I?”
“That is the nature of a bridge,” the woman sighed. “It is neither here nor there. Stuck in the middle, you are nowhere.”
Her skin pricked uncomfortably, “What are you talking about?”
“You must pick a side,” the woman advised. “I travel this way,” she waved a hand at the impossible distance. “I have come too far to turn back. But I can see that you have not. You may join me, if you wish. I would be glad of the company…”
Undisguised longing entered the woman’s voice.
“The road ahead is easy but long. Uneventful.” A slight hitch marred her smile. “Peaceful, some would say.”
Dark eyes, so like her own, turned on her in warning, “The road back is harsh and painful, filled with heartache and sorrow.”
Not to be contained, a bright smile cracked the serious mien.
“And wonderful uncertainty,” the woman added, winking.
They continued in step.
“You may have peace instead. But it comes at a price.”
“What price?”
“That depends on you: what have you left undone, Kassika Blackwater?”
Her steps slowed to a halt, “I never told you my name.”
The woman turned to face her, “No. But I have ears.”
At the woman’s silent urging, she cocked her head toward their backtrail. From impossibly far away rose an odd susurration. A multitude of whispers, burgeoning confusion.
“What have you left undone, Hunter?”
One particular voice strained to reach her…
…ka… sika… ka… si…!
“Bellem?”
“What have you left undone, Herald?” the woman demanded.
The lethargy that kept her from her memories fled.
She turned wide eyes upon the woman sharing the Ancestral Bridge with her. Who moved too quickly for her to react.
Two cold fingertips alighted on her brow with a thunderclap. Under her, the world tilted. The bridge unspooled beneath her, racing away into the dark. Her ancestor’s stoic regard sped away.
“Pick a side, Kassika Blackwater, daughter of Esse!”
She slammed awake.
The pain caught up a moment later. Violent shivers wracked her, jangling such a collection of injuries they melded into one, all-encompassing, bone-deep ache. It squeezed the air from her so she couldn’t catch her breath. She lay, curled in a miserable little ball.
Gritting what she hoped was still all her teeth, she let the shivers have her, knowing they meant survival. She lost a little time...
A slow, suffusing heat woke her. She concentrated on it, drinking it in with her skin and will alone. As her shaking subsided, it released her to a fitful doze...
When her eyes opened again, the world had shuffled into some semblance of sense. A small fire smoldered, almost on top of her, filling the small space with smoke. Her eyes roved over spidery roots, dangling from an earthen ceiling, almost within arm’s reach. The musty weight of wet furs pinned her to the ground. And at her back, radiating heat–
–the sweaty cleave of naked skin to naked skin, fevered heat and musky maleness…
Her throat closed. Her heart sped. Fear and panic bolted.
She ripped her way out of the wet pile, traitorous scream sticking in her throat. Twisting, she clawed and scratched at the oppressive body. Surprised hands fended her off. Her panic refused to be placated by the familiar face they fronted. The krin rolled away to crouch between her and the burrow’s exit.
She couldn’t retreat nearly far enough in the cramped confines. Coals scattered as she tried, putting her back to the bowed wall.
A forestalling hand reached for her.
“Don’t touch me!” she shrilled, shocked at the timbre and intensity of her own voice.
“I’m sorry! You were dying! I didn’t know what else to do!”
She stared.
For as long as she’d known it, the krin’s face had been a bestial blank. Now it was animate with an alien will, contorted into apology and embarrassment. Dull eyes had been polished to an intelligent sheen. From them, a young tribesman looked at her.
Looked at her…
She snatched up the nearest fur. It slapped wetly at her bare skin. The krin blinked, averting its gaze. The woodswoman in her read the animal signs, noted the placid stance, the way her own embarrassment was echoed in its cringing shoulders. Belatedly, it covered its nakedness with unsure hands.
Be the dominant, the woodswoman advised, not the submissive.
“You make with the trader speak?” she marveled.
“Yes!” Relief raised its eyes a notch. “I speak Common.”
It talked like a lowlander, its words clipped and flat, “How?”
“Is that not right?” it asked, seeming confused.
“How?!” she demanded, adding some whip to her voice.
It cringed but seemed genuinely at a loss. She changed tack.
“Where my things?”
Risking indecency, it pointed. Her longknife stuck invitingly from a soggy bundle at its feet. Moving with slow care, the krin crouched. She tensed as its fingers hovered near the waiting hilt. But it offered her her belt and accoutrements, arm outstretched, eyes averted. It flinched again as she snatched the lot.
The knife, nestling in her palm, lessened her nakedness in a way no winter cloak could match. Her breathing eased, enough so she could leave the blade sheathed.
“You undress me?” she growled, suppressing a gibber.
“I– uh…” The krin ducked, eyes hunting along the dirt floor. “Skin-to-skin contact… I mean, uh, proximity is the best way to, uh, transfer body heat… I mean, warmth in, uh, cold-temperature survival situations. You were wet, uh… That is, you were soaked. And you were freezing to death, so…”
She watched, amazed, as a blush crawled up the krin’s neck.
“I was hot,” it rambled. “I mean, my body temperature was much higher than yours so, uh, naturally… I mean, we had to... I mean, I had to…” An embarrassed glance skipped from her nakedness. “Aagh,” it groaned, squeezing its eyes shut.
“I mean,” it took a deep breath. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
She frowned. Its command of the trader tongue was even better than hers. Several words she hadn’t understood at all.
If not for the quiescent tattoo, wrapping its chest, she’d not have believed this was the krin. Ancestors, what was going on here?
“How we come here?” she demanded, glancing around.
A deep frown marred its face, “There was … water. Ice. So familiar… You were drowning. I dragged us ashore.”
“You make a fire?” she queried, pointing with her chin.
“There was flint and a striker in your pouch.”
And it knew how to use proper tools.
“Please,” it implored, eyes on her ear, “you’re getting cold.”
It was true. The fire was spent. The creeping cold had woken goose bumps on her skin. The fur she clutched was freezing to her.
She eyed the krin. Wan and whinging as it was, it didn’t seem a threat. She doubted anything that could blush like that could do her harm. But it was still a krin, even if it seemed to have forgotten.
“Turn you around,” she instructed.
It shuffled about obediently. The seal was broken above its spine. Four neat scars traced her fingers’ path, looking seasons-old.
“Sit there,” she continued.
It sat.
“Now,” she warned, “stay you still.”
It nodded.
Folly had her shaking her head. Cold shook everything else. Holding tight to her nerve and her knife, she eased herself down, back to back with the krin. Its heat engulfed her, even before their skins touched. She clenched her jaw, throttling the imperative to pull away. The freezing furs would be uncomfortable, but they’d help hold their combined body-heat close.
“Take,” she grated, handing it its share over her shoulder.
“Thank you.”
And manners as well.
She gave the flagging fire her attention, stoking it back up.
The krin had done exactly the right thing, difficult as that was to believe. She doubted she’d have had the foresight or fortitude to do the same. But she wasn’t krin. Evidently, the blood of the beast ran hot enough to defeat river ice. If not for that, they’d both be dead.
“My bag?” she questioned. “My bow?”
“This is all I found.”
Ancestors! Her mother’s lamp…
“My armor?”
“You were sinking with it on. Sorry.”
Gone to the river. She sighed her defeat. A faint musk of animal lingered in their den, distinguishable from the krin’s own.
“What sleep here? Before us?” she asked.
“Wolves.”
She started at that.
“It’s abandoned,” it reassured her. “The scent is very old.”
Ah. Her skin crawled. Hopefully it couldn’t feel that.
The flames were fighting a losing battle against the draft.
“We must to block the tent flap,” she instructed. “And find more feed for fire. Also, straight sticks, for to dry clothes.”
She felt it nod, “I’ll be right back…”
She almost yelped as cold rushed in to replace its absent back. In horror, she listened to it squeeze from the burrow, braving the snow in its skin. Scrambling to rearrange her covers, she let it go.
She’d underestimated how much its body heat had been contributing to the burrow’s warmth. She was soon shivering again, basically sitting atop the flagging fire. As its meagre blaze waned, her doubts burgeoned.
What if the krin wasn’t returning? Worse: what if it did return – wearing its true skin? Her ritual should have forced it from its human seeming. Instead, she’d conjured up a bumbling lowlander? And now she was wagering her life on the goodwill of a krin?
An armful of fuel, cascading to the floor, made her jump.
“Fszzt!” she exclaimed, lips gummed together by cold.
Cold-chapped skin steaming, the krin looked at her in concern.
“Was I gone too long?” It spied the cold fire. “Helia’s mercy!”
It went to its knees, arranging twigs and tinder. She didn’t even flinch as it fumbled her pouch from her lap. Her striker sparked.
He’d maintained the habit in Hammer Ham Nan’s orphanage, where the midnight campaigns could prove merciless.
His worry that luxury had lured him to rest on his laurels proved baseless: he woke, alert and ready, and shared a grin with the night sky. By the wheel of the stars, it was nearly time for his watch. He eased himself up.
Yoriana sat slumped by the dying fire, an unread book fanned across her knees.
Perfect.
He would circle, unseen, toward the pit–
The itch of imminent danger pricked up his back.
Sight ended just a few paces beyond the starving fire, where Yoriana sprawled like an abandoned marionette. His straining ears could make out only Neever’s light snoring. All seemed peaceful.
Yet, something was wrong.
Neever’s satchel had spilled his possessions. He recognized the drawstring bag that lay at arm’s length from the slumbering monk.
His ring breathed a warning.
The bag rocked once, then clumsily rolled over.
The fine hairs along his arms and neck writhed upright.
The orb rolled free to fetch up against Yoriana’s ankle.
She cast around blearily to find the Eye, staring at her from between her stockinged heels. Her shoulders shot taut, her eyes snapped wide and a terrified breath stuck crossways in her throat.
“Grab it!” he yelled.
She acted with admirable speed – for one who thought she was having a nightmare.
The Eye took off like a startled jackal. Yoriana, who’d just managed to close her hands around it, was jerked along. She screamed, kicking her heels as she was towed beyond the firelight.
Toward the pit.
“Neever!” he sprang.
A foot caught his jaw. Blinded, he tangled a hand in her sash.
“Don’t let go!” he advised.
“It’s slippery!” she wailed.
“Neever!” he screamed as the uneven ground grated at them.
And then the big-eared monk was there, throwing a coil of blanket over the orb.
Yoriana’s grip failed and the two of them were left in Neever’s dust, literally, as the monk skidded ahead on his heels.
“Help me hold it!”
He and the prone priestess scrambled over each other to comply. Together, they wrestled the Eye to a standstill.
“What do we do?” she strained, hands full of thick wool.
“Don’t let it reach the block!”
He was no mage. But when a demon’s disembodied eye went looking for the rest of it, denial seemed a good idea. His views on inherent monstrosity notwithstanding, he’d prefer it stayed dead.
Fighting the Eye was like tug o’ war against the mules. They gained no ground and the treacherous footing slid them closer and closer to the pit.
Despite all their efforts, the Eye peeked gleefully over its edge.
Dropping, he braced his feet against one of the planted stones.
“How is this happening?” he demanded.
“It must have consumed the campfire while we slept!”
“How long before it runs out of sizzle?” he hissed.
“I have no idea!”
He slipped. They were pulled over the edge and stumbled drunkenly down the slope.
“We’re not going to hold it!” Yoriana foresaw.
“Yes, we are!” Neever bolstered.
They found sure footing among the exposed bones of bedrock, halting the Eye within a hand’s span of the granite grave marker.
“We’ve got it!” Neever crowed.
As it turned out, a ‘hand’s span’ was too close: the fossilized claw crumbled free and reached for the orb.
Wool scorched away. They fell, swaddled in burning blanket.
Neever was first to his feet.
“Agh!” the monk cried as the heat rebuffed him. “Gloves!”
Yoriana sprinted away while he and Neever did what they could with scraps of blanket. The stink of singed wool filled the pit.
“Here!”
He snatched them from the air. Even through the thick layer of leather, the heat was unbearable. Grunting and sweating, the three of them pulled at the gorgon’s grip. But the long fingers were as good as welded to the orb.
A slow transformation was taking place. Like oil drawn up a wick, the Eye’s power was spreading: cracked and pocked flesh smoothed to a glossy dun, sparkling with mica.
“This isn’t working!” he yelled.
“Coward!” Yoriana cursed at his back as he ran from the pit.
With the two adherents left alone, they turned to prayer. If their goddess were listening, no doubt the fevered grunts and fervent groans were raising celestial eyebrows.
He snatched up the nearby lantern and smashed it atop their bed of coals. It caught on a buried ember. Shielding his own eyebrows, he thrust a pickaxe into the heart of the rudely awoken blaze.
‘…when the hero’s sword burned red hot…’
He couldn’t afford to wait for ‘red hot’…
With their eyes resolutely shut, the pair didn’t note his return. They did not see him raise the piping hot pick-axe high overhead. Didn’t see him take careful aim on their tangle of fingers.
Neever and Yoriana shot from their feet like corks spat from bottle necks. They landed hard, raising dust. In Yoriana’s lap, the transformation rounded a severed stump and stopped with nowhere left to go. He snagged the stony appendage and launched it from the pit. Its clattering landfall suggested it had found the wagon bed.
“You’re welcome,” he told the stunned priestess. She mutely accepted the splintered haft of his pick-axe, staring at the smoking end where the axe-head used to be.
“Wh– How?” she stammered at his back.
“Worked for Eris Bolk,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m starting to think there might be something to all this book knowledge…”
* * *
It was dark.
The bridge was breathtakingly cold beneath her. She glared down at it in annoyance.
Confusion slowed her steps. Where were her moccasins?
And what bridge was this?
She craned her neck but could not see beyond the arch of its back. Mist stole the sight of whatever river or canyon it spanned.
She shook her head, trying to clear it. Her thoughts were turgid, as though she’d only just awoken. Dazed, she cast around.
Something was wrong.
Who would build a bridge, bare of guide-rope or barrier? Beyond the stark drop-off was nothing but fomenting fog. As though sensing her regard, the white parted. Sucking blackness stared at her. The void drew her gaze, seeming to reach for her...
She stumbled.
“Careful,” a gentle hand steadied her. “The edge is treacherous. It would not do for you to lose your way at this juncture.”
Righting herself, she shook off the strange woman’s touch.
“My thanks,” she grumbled, staring.
The stranger wore summer buckskins, sewn with antler. Her temples were shaven in the Hillhopper style but her belt buckle was a circling pike, wrought in black iron.
“Are you Blackwater?” she demanded suspiciously.
“You are, obviously,” the woman smiled, eyeing her dark scales. She’d not realized she was wearing her armor.
“A Hunter,” the woman declared approvingly. “You’ll find yourself in good company here. There are many upon the bridge.”
The bridge, she recalled with difficulty.
“Where does it lead?”
“It is a bridge,” the woman smiled. “It goes to the other side.”
“What is on the other side?”
“That,” the woman laughed, “is a subject of much debate.”
It was a wonderful laugh, bright and clear as a spring pond. It struck an odd chord with her. The comfort it promised alarmed her.
“Where are we?” she demanded. “Where am I?”
“That is the nature of a bridge,” the woman sighed. “It is neither here nor there. Stuck in the middle, you are nowhere.”
Her skin pricked uncomfortably, “What are you talking about?”
“You must pick a side,” the woman advised. “I travel this way,” she waved a hand at the impossible distance. “I have come too far to turn back. But I can see that you have not. You may join me, if you wish. I would be glad of the company…”
Undisguised longing entered the woman’s voice.
“The road ahead is easy but long. Uneventful.” A slight hitch marred her smile. “Peaceful, some would say.”
Dark eyes, so like her own, turned on her in warning, “The road back is harsh and painful, filled with heartache and sorrow.”
Not to be contained, a bright smile cracked the serious mien.
“And wonderful uncertainty,” the woman added, winking.
They continued in step.
“You may have peace instead. But it comes at a price.”
“What price?”
“That depends on you: what have you left undone, Kassika Blackwater?”
Her steps slowed to a halt, “I never told you my name.”
The woman turned to face her, “No. But I have ears.”
At the woman’s silent urging, she cocked her head toward their backtrail. From impossibly far away rose an odd susurration. A multitude of whispers, burgeoning confusion.
“What have you left undone, Hunter?”
One particular voice strained to reach her…
…ka… sika… ka… si…!
“Bellem?”
“What have you left undone, Herald?” the woman demanded.
The lethargy that kept her from her memories fled.
She turned wide eyes upon the woman sharing the Ancestral Bridge with her. Who moved too quickly for her to react.
Two cold fingertips alighted on her brow with a thunderclap. Under her, the world tilted. The bridge unspooled beneath her, racing away into the dark. Her ancestor’s stoic regard sped away.
“Pick a side, Kassika Blackwater, daughter of Esse!”
She slammed awake.
The pain caught up a moment later. Violent shivers wracked her, jangling such a collection of injuries they melded into one, all-encompassing, bone-deep ache. It squeezed the air from her so she couldn’t catch her breath. She lay, curled in a miserable little ball.
Gritting what she hoped was still all her teeth, she let the shivers have her, knowing they meant survival. She lost a little time...
A slow, suffusing heat woke her. She concentrated on it, drinking it in with her skin and will alone. As her shaking subsided, it released her to a fitful doze...
When her eyes opened again, the world had shuffled into some semblance of sense. A small fire smoldered, almost on top of her, filling the small space with smoke. Her eyes roved over spidery roots, dangling from an earthen ceiling, almost within arm’s reach. The musty weight of wet furs pinned her to the ground. And at her back, radiating heat–
–the sweaty cleave of naked skin to naked skin, fevered heat and musky maleness…
Her throat closed. Her heart sped. Fear and panic bolted.
She ripped her way out of the wet pile, traitorous scream sticking in her throat. Twisting, she clawed and scratched at the oppressive body. Surprised hands fended her off. Her panic refused to be placated by the familiar face they fronted. The krin rolled away to crouch between her and the burrow’s exit.
She couldn’t retreat nearly far enough in the cramped confines. Coals scattered as she tried, putting her back to the bowed wall.
A forestalling hand reached for her.
“Don’t touch me!” she shrilled, shocked at the timbre and intensity of her own voice.
“I’m sorry! You were dying! I didn’t know what else to do!”
She stared.
For as long as she’d known it, the krin’s face had been a bestial blank. Now it was animate with an alien will, contorted into apology and embarrassment. Dull eyes had been polished to an intelligent sheen. From them, a young tribesman looked at her.
Looked at her…
She snatched up the nearest fur. It slapped wetly at her bare skin. The krin blinked, averting its gaze. The woodswoman in her read the animal signs, noted the placid stance, the way her own embarrassment was echoed in its cringing shoulders. Belatedly, it covered its nakedness with unsure hands.
Be the dominant, the woodswoman advised, not the submissive.
“You make with the trader speak?” she marveled.
“Yes!” Relief raised its eyes a notch. “I speak Common.”
It talked like a lowlander, its words clipped and flat, “How?”
“Is that not right?” it asked, seeming confused.
“How?!” she demanded, adding some whip to her voice.
It cringed but seemed genuinely at a loss. She changed tack.
“Where my things?”
Risking indecency, it pointed. Her longknife stuck invitingly from a soggy bundle at its feet. Moving with slow care, the krin crouched. She tensed as its fingers hovered near the waiting hilt. But it offered her her belt and accoutrements, arm outstretched, eyes averted. It flinched again as she snatched the lot.
The knife, nestling in her palm, lessened her nakedness in a way no winter cloak could match. Her breathing eased, enough so she could leave the blade sheathed.
“You undress me?” she growled, suppressing a gibber.
“I– uh…” The krin ducked, eyes hunting along the dirt floor. “Skin-to-skin contact… I mean, uh, proximity is the best way to, uh, transfer body heat… I mean, warmth in, uh, cold-temperature survival situations. You were wet, uh… That is, you were soaked. And you were freezing to death, so…”
She watched, amazed, as a blush crawled up the krin’s neck.
“I was hot,” it rambled. “I mean, my body temperature was much higher than yours so, uh, naturally… I mean, we had to... I mean, I had to…” An embarrassed glance skipped from her nakedness. “Aagh,” it groaned, squeezing its eyes shut.
“I mean,” it took a deep breath. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
She frowned. Its command of the trader tongue was even better than hers. Several words she hadn’t understood at all.
If not for the quiescent tattoo, wrapping its chest, she’d not have believed this was the krin. Ancestors, what was going on here?
“How we come here?” she demanded, glancing around.
A deep frown marred its face, “There was … water. Ice. So familiar… You were drowning. I dragged us ashore.”
“You make a fire?” she queried, pointing with her chin.
“There was flint and a striker in your pouch.”
And it knew how to use proper tools.
“Please,” it implored, eyes on her ear, “you’re getting cold.”
It was true. The fire was spent. The creeping cold had woken goose bumps on her skin. The fur she clutched was freezing to her.
She eyed the krin. Wan and whinging as it was, it didn’t seem a threat. She doubted anything that could blush like that could do her harm. But it was still a krin, even if it seemed to have forgotten.
“Turn you around,” she instructed.
It shuffled about obediently. The seal was broken above its spine. Four neat scars traced her fingers’ path, looking seasons-old.
“Sit there,” she continued.
It sat.
“Now,” she warned, “stay you still.”
It nodded.
Folly had her shaking her head. Cold shook everything else. Holding tight to her nerve and her knife, she eased herself down, back to back with the krin. Its heat engulfed her, even before their skins touched. She clenched her jaw, throttling the imperative to pull away. The freezing furs would be uncomfortable, but they’d help hold their combined body-heat close.
“Take,” she grated, handing it its share over her shoulder.
“Thank you.”
And manners as well.
She gave the flagging fire her attention, stoking it back up.
The krin had done exactly the right thing, difficult as that was to believe. She doubted she’d have had the foresight or fortitude to do the same. But she wasn’t krin. Evidently, the blood of the beast ran hot enough to defeat river ice. If not for that, they’d both be dead.
“My bag?” she questioned. “My bow?”
“This is all I found.”
Ancestors! Her mother’s lamp…
“My armor?”
“You were sinking with it on. Sorry.”
Gone to the river. She sighed her defeat. A faint musk of animal lingered in their den, distinguishable from the krin’s own.
“What sleep here? Before us?” she asked.
“Wolves.”
She started at that.
“It’s abandoned,” it reassured her. “The scent is very old.”
Ah. Her skin crawled. Hopefully it couldn’t feel that.
The flames were fighting a losing battle against the draft.
“We must to block the tent flap,” she instructed. “And find more feed for fire. Also, straight sticks, for to dry clothes.”
She felt it nod, “I’ll be right back…”
She almost yelped as cold rushed in to replace its absent back. In horror, she listened to it squeeze from the burrow, braving the snow in its skin. Scrambling to rearrange her covers, she let it go.
She’d underestimated how much its body heat had been contributing to the burrow’s warmth. She was soon shivering again, basically sitting atop the flagging fire. As its meagre blaze waned, her doubts burgeoned.
What if the krin wasn’t returning? Worse: what if it did return – wearing its true skin? Her ritual should have forced it from its human seeming. Instead, she’d conjured up a bumbling lowlander? And now she was wagering her life on the goodwill of a krin?
An armful of fuel, cascading to the floor, made her jump.
“Fszzt!” she exclaimed, lips gummed together by cold.
Cold-chapped skin steaming, the krin looked at her in concern.
“Was I gone too long?” It spied the cold fire. “Helia’s mercy!”
It went to its knees, arranging twigs and tinder. She didn’t even flinch as it fumbled her pouch from her lap. Her striker sparked.
