by E. J. Godwin
The thought of going out into that wind again was especially discouraging. The moment they forced themselves up, however, Tenlar dropped to the snow, pulling Telai with him.
He pointed to the north. She peeked around the boulder and saw six or seven dark forms silhouetted against the relentless white. Plumes of snow flew forward at their approach. At first she wondered if a group of travelers had gotten stranded somehow, but one look at Tenlar told her otherwise. If they were Hodyn, how had they escaped the vigilance of Enilií?
One of the dogs saw the approaching men and began howling. Tenlar jumped to silence the animal, but it was too late. One by one the other dogs took up the chorus, and the Hodyn stopped short. Tenlar swore and released the dog, staring at Telai.
The enemy caught sight of them and fanned out for the attack, drawing their swords. Telai and Tenlar reached in their coats for the weapons they had hoped to never use on this journey. But there was no choice. One Hodyn escaping to report would doom Ada’s last hope.
The Master Raén leaped from cover with a shout. The dogs yelped and growled, straining against their harnesses to join the attack as the Hodyn bore down upon them. There was no need. In scant seconds the grimly effective technology of another world split three men in half with one sweeping pass. Two more caught the edge of it, and screamed in horror as the wind splattered blood into a fine mist from their severed arms. The last one used his comrades as a shield and headed for the shelter of the boulder, but Telai was ready for him.
She grimaced and squeezed the trigger. There was a loud pop like a melon bursting, and the soldier’s skull flew backwards in a pink spray.
The snow beneath the struggling forms of the survivors slowly darkened. Telai crouched trembling by the rock, dropping the laser to the snow as if it were diseased. The thought of such power in enemy hands terrified her. If one laser could cause this much butchery, what fate lay in store for them at Ekendoré?
The confrontation was over so fast, the impact of it so strong, they failed to notice a growing hiss in their ears. Then one of the sled dogs broke free at last, and was in such a frenzy over the attack that it snapped at Tenlar’s leg. Due to his thick clothing it did no harm, but it surprised him, and he spun around.
He stared overhead. Telai copied him. A massive white cloud was descending, blotting out the cliff. It looked so incredibly soft.
“Run, run!” Tenlar bellowed, and floundered toward the sleds, Telai close behind. In a panic they fought to set their teams right again, for the dogs had tangled their harnesses in their excitement.
The hiss deepened to a rumble. Telai finished first, her team less tangled, and ran to help Tenlar.
“No, no!” he cried, shoving her away. “Leave it! Your sled!”
They lunged back, and together leaped onto the runners. “Run!” she shrieked, forgetting the proper command. The dogs needed no urging, however, and she almost lost her grip as they sprang into motion.
A shout sounded behind her, and she looked back. Tenlar was being dragged through the snow, one hand locked around the end of the runner where it curved upward. She tried to bend down and reach him, but the dogs were frantic in their speed. He vanished within seconds, and one glance overhead froze her heart.
“Tenlar!”
Telai brought her arms up across her face. The avalanche slammed into her from behind and tossed her, head over heels, like flotsam on a tempest-torn sea. The force of it was merciless, suffocating, carrying her farther and farther, until she thought it would never stop.
At last she slowed and came to a jarring halt. She was completely buried, how deep she could not guess. She could scarcely breathe, and her entire body felt like it was covered in bruises. Terror engulfed her. But she fought to master it, and in time realized the snow packed around her was light and porous. Diffused sunlight shone above her head. She was close to the surface.
She started digging feverishly, then slowed as common sense prevailed. Frantic movements would only exhaust her limited supply of air. She worked methodically, digging a little, then moving the snow to either side. Her sight adjusted to the darkness, and the patch of light grew stronger, a beacon of hope.
Her arms ached, her head spun from lack of air, forcing her to rest more often. She knew she was close to passing out, to falling asleep for the very last time. It took all her strength of mind to keep from surrendering to wild impatience, from clawing madly and releasing her fear in a scream.
A thick layer of snow fell on her face, and when she shook it off the sky shone bright in her eyes. She rested again, taking in deep breaths of blessed air. Then she struggled out of her snowy tomb, caked from head to foot.
The light blinded her at first. Yet once she got used to it there was nothing to see, only a vast, unbroken slope right up to a point high on the eastern wall of the pass. The tall boulder was nowhere in sight. If the avalanche had caught her even a few seconds earlier, she never would have seen daylight again.
With a wrenching blow she realized Tenlar’s fate. She fell to the snow and pounded it over and over with her fists. It flew away like chaff. She could not accept that his life had ended so quickly, so needlessly. Long minutes passed as she crouched in the bitter wind, Ada suddenly a land of desolation, all its magnificence and beauty gone. She longed for a companion—anyone—to rescue her from the vast, oppressive loneliness.
But there was no one, and if she was to survive, she needed to act soon. The struggle in the snow and the lack of air had drenched her body with sweat, and she shuddered with the first stages of hypothermia.
Telai forced herself up, tottering in the gale. It was vital that she find her team, or at least her sled, by nightfall. She dug in the area from which she had emerged, lowering her head into each hole in an attempt to hear whines or faint movements. The sun crept toward the high western wall of Crooked Pass, and the short winter day began to decline. Everything she needed was on that sled: food, clothing, even a small supply of firewood for an emergency. But her laser lay buried beneath a hill of snow.
At last her persistence revealed a narrow leather strap looping above the surface. She pulled and dug, dug and pulled, and out came the snow-plastered head of a dog. With a few yelps and whines he struggled free; his efforts helped the others wriggle out, and one by one they all emerged, freezing cold and none too healthy, but alive.
The sled was another matter. The combined strength of Telai and the dogs, all weakened, could not free it from the packed snow, forcing her to cut the harnesses. In the meantime the day was waning fast, and she feared none of them would survive the bitter night.
But the effort returned some warmth to her body, and the dogs, loyal and well trained, never left her. They sat close, screening her a little, licking and biting the snow and ice from their fur and between their toes. Telai inspected them all. For the most part she found only welts and scrapes from their tumble with the sled; yet one dog limped heavily, and growled and nipped at her when she pressed against his haunch. As the sun turned the snow a pink pastel the animals settled down, indifferent to the catastrophe they had survived, and dug their usual burrows for the long night ahead.
All except Slink, that is, her team’s leader. He sat alert, ears erect, sniffing the air. Perhaps he had scented more Hodyn, but nothing she saw held any threat.
Though the wind had dropped, it still whistled about her in brief, swirling gusts. She trudged wearily to the half-buried sled to rig some sort of shelter, but the persistent Slink distracted her. Still alert and restless, he whined anxiously, attention fixed upon the darkening slope.
Telai scanned the bitter landscape. Her eyes saw nothing, ears heard nothing beyond the cry of the wind.
In an instant her heart was leaping. “Slink! Find, find!”
With a gruff bark the dog sprang forward. She leaped for the sled, wrested the spade free of its bindings, and followed him up the slope. It was difficult to keep up with Slink, who was already far ahead, roaming back and forth with his nose to t
he surface. Dared she hope?
Inch by inch the dog homed in on the source. Telai caught up, desperate to help, yet could only stand and wait in mounting frustration. The sun had fallen well beneath the high cliffs by now, the sky was darkening, and she feared night would fall before she could find Tenlar.
Slink gave out a bark. Telai fell beside him and started digging, careful not to plunge the spade too deeply, hoping with all her might that Tenlar was still alive.
To keep the hole from collapsing she was forced to angle it down the slope, forming a trench. Each layer was packed harder than the last, and her arms grew weaker by the minute. Suddenly the snow erupted beneath her. She fell back, startled. A body struggled free. Slink backed off, panting clouds of moisture into the air, while Telai cried out and reached down to help her comrade from the snow.
It was not Tenlar. It was Beggar, his lead dog, the one who had broken free before the avalanche. The dog licked her, whining with gratitude, but Telai slumped back in despair.
Beggar struggled in the loosened snow, and Telai broke from her spell of grief to help. Sobs shook her as she yanked on his forelegs, fury at the cruelty of nature: she did not have the strength to pull him out.
The animal yelped pitifully, and she collapsed against the side of the hole again. He kept turning his head toward his hindquarters, as though trying to chew or bite on something, so she struggled back to her knees and groped about.
Her gloved hand found the last remnant of his harness, a leather strap drawn tight by his efforts to climb out. She dug her feet in the snow and hauled back with what strength she possessed, hoping to break it free from whatever it was caught on. But it was no use.
Telai searched her clothes for a knife, keeping her grip in one hand … and three distinct tugs yanked the strap back into the snow.
For an instant she hesitated, wondering if she imagined it. Then she dove in, abandoning the shovel, digging as if she had gone mad. She stopped only to pull twice on the strap, and cried out in joy as it tugged three more times in response.
She worked at the snow like a frenzied rabbit, her lungs sawing air from the effort. Slink tried to help, but the other dog blocked his way. Beggar proved to be a hindrance to Telai as well, for his struggle to escape kept collapsing the walls of the hole.
The snow turned sodden and less packed, easier to dig. Foot by foot she burrowed, until a hand shot out and groped in the air.
She gripped it with newfound strength, tears freezing against her cheeks. An ashen, blue-lipped face emerged, a snow-soaked head of hair, a crooked smile more like a grimace. Then another hand broke free.
It was still holding a laser.
6
Bitter Mornings
No greater pain exists for a commander
than the necessity of leaving his friends behind in peril.
- Bannlef, Master Raén of Enilií
A TINY CAMPFIRE glimmered beneath the west wall of Crooked Pass, two huddled figures and the dogs curled beside them casting long shadows over the drifting slope behind. Telai knew there was little chance of any rescue out of Enilií before their strength gave out or they ran out of food.
Tenlar was too exhausted to speak, other than of the need for warmth, food, and rest. These Telai provided for him. His sled, his sword, and all but one of his dogs, were gone. The fire soon reduced their short supply of wood to embers, and though the wind had dropped the relentless cold troubled his sleep. They both needed a long rest, preferably with shelter, but the tent was on Tenlar’s sled, buried deep.
The top of the cliff blazed gold with the dawn. Telai roused herself to extract the remaining supply of food from her half-buried sled. She fed the dogs well and prepared a cold but large breakfast, for they all needed their strength to reach Enilií. Afterward Tenlar sat motionless, his red, swollen face barely recognizable as he stared at the dead fire.
“Caleb Stenger’s weapon saved my life.” His hoarse voice was rife with bitterness.
Having finished with her chores for now, Telai sat beside him to listen to his story. “I still can’t believe you’re alive. Your feet got caught in Beggar’s harness, didn’t it?”
“Damned dog,” he muttered, but Telai smiled: he was rubbing the animal’s ears.
“Well, I never would have found you if it hadn’t been for Slink.”
He shook his head. “Telai, I’ve known fear in battle—but nothing like this. The snow was packed so hard it was like being encased in stone. I couldn’t even breathe properly. So there I was, not knowing whether you were dead or alive, or if anyone could save me. I almost went mad with it.”
He swallowed thickly, winced at the resulting pain, then continued. “I don’t know how I managed to hold on to the laser when the avalanche hit. But I thought I might be able to use its heating powers to melt the snow around me.” He shrugged. “A wild chance, especially since I wasn’t sure which way to shoot.”
“I was disoriented, too, at first,” Telai said. “But I was close to the surface, and had a faint light to guide me.”
“Well, my idea solved both problems at once. I pressed the contact of the laser, and felt a cold trickle running down my hand.” He changed positions with a groan.
“Take your time,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The hint of a smile turned his cracked lips. “Not tired of my company yet?”
“Not until Slink gets better at conversation.”
Tenlar grinned wider, then gasped as his lower lip split open.
“Sorry,” Telai murmured. She dabbed at the thick blood with a tattered cloth she kept inside her coat. “I never did learn when to shut up.” His eyes so close to hers were filled with memories, but she pretended not to notice until the bleeding slowed and he resumed his tale.
“I used the laser to melt a space around my head and shoulders. Water pooled around me and soaked my clothes, so I had to stop for a bit. But at least it gave me a little more room to breathe. Then I changed my aim and held the trigger long enough to form a tunnel a few inches wide.”
“I must have been half blind not to see that,” Telai said.
“No. Remember what Caleb Stenger told us? You can’t see it when it’s used to heat things like that. But I wish I’d thought of it. A few regular shots and you would have found me a lot sooner.”
“I think you did pretty well, under the circumstances. Besides, you might have brought down another avalanche on our heads.”
“Or sliced you in two, for Orand’s sake! Anyway, I felt a draft against my skin, or thought I did. So I made another hole, then lay back and hoped for the best. I was too worn out to do much more. Besides, there was too much snow to burn through.” He coughed suddenly, a raw, wheezing effort that put a worried crease between Telai’s brows. “I never felt happier in my life than when I felt that leather thong tug on my leg,” he said. “I wouldn’t have lasted much longer.”
“You still need help, though. Your face is frostbitten, and that cough sounds terrible.”
“Is any part of my skin black or dark?”
“No. But you should keep it covered, especially after we get started.”
“I will. Another meal or two and plenty to drink should take care of my cough. We should get below the timberline—we need shelter and firewood. I don’t think I’ll be able to walk or stand for a while, but I can ride.”
“I’ll get everything ready,” she said, and rose to her feet.
“I don’t understand it, Telai. Seeing Hodyn near Udan or Ekendoré would be no great surprise. But this far west?”
She scrutinized the brilliant landscape. “I don’t understand it, either. How did they get past the Raéni? I can’t believe they’d miss a set of tracks leading all the way from Dernetondé.”
“Well, we’ll solve that puzzle later. We need to get moving, especially if there’s any more Hodyn in the area.”
Digging the sled out of the snow proved to be long, hard work, but Telai refused to let Tenlar help. She clear
ed a sloping trough away from the slide, then led the dogs over and retied the harnesses. At her first command they only stirred a little, stubborn and uncooperative, but after a few stinging cracks from the whip they yelped and strained forward. She detested such treatment, but their survival was at stake. With her own strength added to their efforts the sled pulled free of its grave, shedding clumps of snow as it emerged into the sunshine.
The dog with the injured haunch whined and lowered to the snow. Telai had no choice but to let him ride with Tenlar. She finished packing, helped settle Tenlar into the sled, then after erasing the signs of their stay resumed the journey to Enilií. The team pulled well for such a heavy load, not to mention having survived an avalanche. After a few minutes of anxious hauling they cleared the slide and headed toward the northern end of the gorge.
They passed the timberline before noon, and by evening had ridden well out of the bitter winds of Crooked Pass. It was a relief to bivouac within the dense shelter of the woods, and to have a roaring fire and a hot meal. There were no tracks anywhere to be seen, Hodyn or otherwise, but Tenlar had already decided to approach Enilií with caution.
♦
As the following day wore on Telai noticed a slow change to the forest, at once both familiar and unfamiliar; the trees stood farther apart, with their branches well-groomed and the snow-covered ground beneath clear of debris and undergrowth. The road widened, plowed and well-used. Soon the travelers emerged from the woods into a vast open area, acres upon acres of cherry orchards, and fields thick with brambles that in summer were laden with the famous raspberries of Enilií. But it was winter now, the air still and quiet with the approach of night.
A host of white chimney plumes rose in the distance, lit by the city’s emerging lights. Where the road passed the southern border of Enilií stood the remnant of an ancient battlement, scarred by centuries of frost, with an open gate beneath. It looked odd all alone and surrounded by houses and fields, but long ago, during the threat of Hodyn invasion, it had formed the main gate of a towering wall around the city. Following the establishment of Ekendoré and Udan that threat had faded, and the walls became a needless burden, for winter storms piled huge drifts about them. So they were torn down, the gate left as a monument to the past, and folk trusted their safety to the vigilance of the Raéni.