“Do not be ashamed of your fear or regret its presence, Jeffrey, for it speaks honestly of the burden you carry. Open your spirit so it may have its say then find a new home. You will succeed.”
Jeff left Valholm under dark skies, fading into the abrupt whiteness of a snow flurry. Some days later, the outpost materialized from a howling snowstorm. The leader of the outpost, Folget, tactlessly waved it away with a laugh as he walked with Jeff to the stable.
“This is merely a promise of what will come. Soon it will start to snow!”
Feeding Cynic and covering him with a blanket, Jeff stomped snow from his boots before entering the lodge used for meetings. Later, eating a hearty meal of stew near a roaring fire, the wind moaned around the lodge like a dying soul. On the occasions when it rose to a high-pitched shriek, Folget and others in the lodge looked away rather than meet Jeff’s eye. He tried to block it out, but could not avoid the thought that the wind was a living thing and calling to him.
Halric had passed on what he knew about northern tribal connections to Jeff, and this information was amplified next day in talks with Folget. By that evening Jeff had a workable sketch of the surrounding area, villages prominently marked. He also took copious notes on landmarks. Before he left the hall, Jeff made sure Folget understood that Cynic was to be taken back to Valholm and a warmer stable by the next courier.
Lighting a torch, Jeff trudged to the stable through drifting snow. Gusts tore streams of sparks from the torch, and he had to lean into the wind to keep his balance. Inside, he found a niche that would hold the torch. Circling Cynic’s neck with his arms, Jeff rested his cheek against smooth hide.
“Take you care, my friend. I will miss you terribly.”
Cynic nuzzled Jeff’s shoulder. “My thoughts will ever be with you, horse-brother. My heart cries out at your peril, but understands that you must attempt this journey. I will await you in patience and greet your return with joy.”
The stable was a flimsy affair, its loosely fit planking rattling and shaking with the wind’s force as Jeff held on to Cynic. Some time later Jeff kissed Cynic’s neck and released his hold.
“Farewell, my brother.”
Picking up the torch, Jeff crunched his way to the lodge where he would sleep. It was pitch black and eddies of hard-driven snow stung his face like needles. He felt very alone and frightened in a way that went to the core of his being.
For many hours, Jeff lay awake listening to the storm’s frustrated wail as it tore at the lodge. He reviewed the facts that made his trip necessary, found arguments to defeat each of them, and finally whispered, “Why me?”
He had not volunteered to be dumped on Aketti, Jeff reminded himself. He was related to the Alarai, but only distantly after seven generations. Dammit, he desperately thought, why couldn’t one of them do it? Why me?
That night as he tossed and turned in his furs, Jeff confronted the difference between facing death in a sword fight thrust on him suddenly and deliberately choosing a path that he had come to believe would kill him. He fought it, but reason and anticipation told him he didn’t have a chance. It was a bitter night of regret and rejection, yet there was no escape. He would go, and likely he would die.
Dawn was no more than black becoming gray. Feeling drawn and tired, Jeff prepared himself for departure. After a large meal and a brief round of farewells, he walked out of the post without looking back under a brooding sky spitting occasional snow flurries. Shortly, the forest swallowed him up.
Chapter Seventeen
A Terrible Judgment
Jeff huddled near a fire. Two days out, the forest’s whispering quiet felt like it was crushing him. Packing up, he turned back toward the outpost. As he went, Jeff fought a no-holds-barred battle with paralyzing fear. It was several hours before he found enough will power to halt the retreat.
Unable to move one way or the other, face gray as the sky, Jeff fought it out. It was well into the morning when he set his feet in motion toward the west. There was no going back. He was probably going to die on the trail, but his life was finished if he returned to the outpost. It would just take longer. This was his task, and he would do it.
A week or so later, standing high on a stony foothill squinting his eyes against the glare of a westering sun, Jeff feasted on the sight of wood smoke coiling into the sky. Although no more than thin tendrils of blue emerging from the carpet of forest far below him, the smoke was evidence of life. It was a wonderful sight.
Jeff trudged into the village after dark amid surprised shouts and suspicion. He was hustled in front of the chief, but she was more intrigued than hostile. When he removed his hat, what Jeff now thought of as the Alarai Effect took hold and the reception warmed. He gathered that the chief thought he must be either crazy or sent from the gods to be on the trail in winter. Jeff had expected and was asked to recite his adventures at the communal meal on the second evening.
His tale was received with all the tumult anyone could have hoped for. Later, when talking with the village elder and chieftain, Jeff discovered that they too had heard rumors, and not only of the Salchek. It seemed that his first encounter with the warring tribes had been widely reported. The elder was familiar with the location of the moot grounds and the chief promised to bring warriors.
Before leaving next morning, Jeff swore powerful oaths with the chief to the enthusiastic acclaim of those who had gathered to see him off. He left after procuring directions to the nearest village, thinking grimly, one down and forty-nine to go.
Week by week, Jeff made his way west through heavily forested foothill country and ever deeper snow south of the Bora Mountains. Fear slowly subsided as he adjusted to the wilderness and traveling alone.
Passing over razor-backed ridges and through low passes, new vistas of snow-muffled forest and valley opened to his eyes in unending variation. So terrible were the Boras’ presence that he only rarely threw quick glances at them.
Jeff’s concern that knowledge of the Alarai and Salchek would fade as he moved west proved groundless. What he had not figured on was the incredibly complex interrelatedness of the tribes. In short, they enjoyed a rumor mill second to none.
He stayed an average of two days in each village, meeting with leaders during the first and mixing with the rank and file on the second. An important part of each day was recording landmarks that would see him to the next village. He was tempted to stay longer on numerous occasions, but it was hard enough to leave after only two days.
Temperatures dropped steadily as fall faded into winter and Jeff moved west. Although snowstorms became more frequent, they tended to be short-lived. Still, over three feet of snow had accumulated and called for continual use of snowshoes. Of an evening, he checked the bindings with obsessive care and repaired the day’s damage perched close to a fire.
After one particularly difficult day that included rocky terrain, he wondered how long it would be before he destroyed a snowshoe. He thrust that thought aside and bent to the task of keeping them going for another day. The forest was silent and the air heavy with the promise of snow when he put the second snowshoe down and slipped into his sleeping bag.
When Jeff awoke he found it hard to breathe, and tent walls bulged against the sleeping bag. He dug his way out to emerge into a raging blizzard. The storm confined him to the tent for three days and Jeff struggled into the next village totally exhausted. Digging deep, he found the determination to leave after two days in spite of the chief’s worried entreaty to remain longer.
No one in that village or in villages that followed questioned whether he was crazy or a god. They considered him to be something of both with Hero thrown in for good measure. After many repetitions, his speech, or Telling as villagers referred to it, was memorized and polished to such a glow that it succeeded in inciting to riot every group that heard it. As Jeff learned more of Alemanni motivation, his oaths also improved in delivery and the power to compel.
Shuffling through six inches of new snow one day,
head bent into a snowstorm and feeling very lonely, Jeff distracted himself by trying to figure out how long he had been on the trail. Without a calendar there was no precise way of knowing, but days were still getting shorter. That meant it was still fall. Probably late November. The worst of winter lay ahead.
Jeff was picking his way down the backside of a rugged, hog-backed ridge that was thickly grown with stubby evergreens. He grabbed a branch to stop his motion when a large deadfall materialized out of the snowstorm. Jeff felt so tired that he couldn’t muster more than a resigned shrug. At that moment, all he wanted was to run across a deer before it became dark. He had not seen a deer in weeks.
Tightening his belt another notch, Jeff belayed himself from tree to tree and skirted the obstacle. He remembered what it felt like to have a full stomach but seemed to have passed beyond the ferocious hunger that had been his constant companion. Villages were now quite far apart and deep snow burned more energy. That night he chewed a stick of venison jerky and dreamed of the real thing.
Cloud cover and snow were gone when he got up, leaving an icy blue sky and deceptive sun that gave little warmth. As the day progressed, a massive high-pressure system from beyond the Boras finished moving in. Wading through powder snow up to his knees despite the snowshoes, Jeff stopped to catch his breath. The crest of the hill he had been climbing for what seemed an eternity was still a long way off.
“No feeling in my cheeks at all. Temperature must have dropped.”
Wrapping an extra fold of woolen scarf around his face, Jeff stepped out again. The risk of frostbite was always there, but he was more concerned about breaking a leg. He was dead if that happened. Topping the crest, Jeff noticed his fingers were hard to feel and beat his mittens together trying to get some circulation going.
“What’s going on?” he wondered, viewing a clear sky. “Sun doesn’t get very high, but it can’t be that cold.” He wriggled his toes and felt immensely relieved that he could feel them. “Those boots have been a godsend.”
Consulting his notes, he scanned the countryside. Landmarks were his only hope of finding the next village. They were there. He grunted with relief and heard a popping crackle. Confused by the sound at first, his heart started to race when it happened again.
“You idiot,” he muttered, “that’s the moisture in your breath freezing the second it leaves your mouth.”
As the implications sank in, he felt fear that was only a step away from panic. “Dammit to hell, should have noticed that hours ago. That’s why I’m so tired. Not enough food to hold off hypothermia.”
The foothill he was standing on towered over its neighbors to overlook an immense bowel-shaped valley. The terrain curved down and away so far that trees on the bottom appeared like blades of grass. The Boras rimmed the valley to the north forming a gigantic wall of gray stone and ice. In their size, they seemed to be the beginning and end of all things. They were magnificent, but Jeff saw no beauty.
He searched for the giant eagles that were often to be seen drawing lazy circles in the sky. There were none aloft or any other birds. For the first time Jeff noticed there was absolutely no breeze. Holding his breath to listen, he heard no sounds at all. The land was deathly, oppressively silent. He rushed downslope at a panic-driven pace.
“I’ve got to get to the next village before nightfall!” He nearly fell headlong and abruptly stopped. “Cut the shit, Jeffrey. Run anymore and you’re dead. Use your goddamed head!”
Dark blue shadows streaked the land when Jeff began to dig into a snow bank. He had hollowed out a good-sized hole before the futility of what he was doing sank in. Breathing hard from his effort but still shivering, he rode out another swell of panic.
“Okay, I’m not even sweating after all that work and temperatures might drop as low as fifty degrees below zero tonight, maybe more. My bag is only good to ten below, and even with everything in the pack piled on and buried in the snow it just isn’t going to fly. Not with the hypothermia I’ve already got going. Make a fire, then set up camp.”
A mockingly glorious sunset of greens and gold was fading to dark blue when Jeff abandoned his hole and hurried to gather twigs and small tree limbs. Hands shaking with anxiety, he set up the twigs and reached for his flint and wad of punk. Nothing—his fingers were numb. He tried to control his hands by sight but dropped the flint over and over again. When he did hit flint on steel, he was unable to direct the sparks onto the punk.
Wishing desperately for matches that were long gone, Jeff began to realize he might die that night. Blue was turning to black speckled with stars, intensifying the oppressive stillness. The only thing he could hear was his own breathing.
“The stove fuel!” Jeff tore through his pack. He pulled the aluminum bottle out. “It might work. It has to!”
He intended to pour only a capful, but his arms were shaking so that fuel sprayed on snow as well as twigs. “Please, please,” Jeff mumbled and attacked the piece of steel with his flint. It was no good. Those sparks he managed to land in the right spot would not ignite the fuel.
“I don’t want to die! Not like this! There has to be a way to start a fire!” The wish for matches that had passed through his mind flashed back.
“One chance, that’s all your going to have,” Jeff whispered. His lips did not want to work and his cheeks were as dead as a lump of clay.
Fumbling a cartridge from the pistol he tried to wedge the slug out but could not.
“Oh, damn it. I have to get it out!”
Jeff opened the cylinder and clamped the shell between it and the receiver. Gripping the slug with his teeth, he twisted the revolver. The revolver moved and the slug between his teeth held firm. His relief was so profound when the slug popped out that he nearly dumped the gunpowder. Bending far over to see, Jeff let the gunpowder trickle into the nest of twigs.
“One chance, one chance.”
The larger moon sailed above the horizon lending a fairy-tale aspect to forest and mountains while Jeff repeatedly tried to get a spark. His arms and hands were like sticks of wood and would not work together. He stood there for some time staring at the pile of twigs but seeing nothing.
“And so it’s over. I can rest.”
Kneeling down with bowed head, Jeff let go of hope and the need to live. Freeing his spirit to begin another journey, steel and flint dropped to the snow in a gesture of final surrender. Pale moonlight set the valley a-glimmer with pure whites and dark greens; illuminated mountains that no longer threatened. The moon sailed higher, nothing moved. All was silent.
Trees surrounding the kneeling figure whispered. Sighing gently, a warm breeze tugged at Jeff’s clothing. Frost had covered his eyes and melted to run like tears. A squirrel stirred in its nest, moved by thoughts of spring’s tender shoots. Somewhere, a bird called out a tentative query. Then, as before, nothing moved. A new silence of contemplation and terrible judgment rested on the land. And so he kneeled there, and so he was judged.
A jagged splinter of fire burst into life over Jeff’s head, flamed to white incandescence and plunged into the nest of twigs igniting the gunpowder. Gone in one brilliant moment, the gunpowder lighted the stove fuel in a slower flare that burned long enough to set the twigs afire.
Staring at the flames from a great height, Jeff smiled at the yellow tongues that waved so cheerfully in the florescent whites and greens of the night. How beautiful, he thought. I wish I could take it with me, but it’s so far away. Can I take it with me? Please? I’ve worked so hard.
“Yes, you have.”
Jeff awoke to his surroundings feeding sticks into the fire, which had grown large enough to shed considerable warmth.
“It’s burning! I must have hit one good spark into the twigs!”
Swept by a renewed desire to live, Jeff stumbled around in the trees collecting deadfall wood until he had accumulated a tall pile. Building the fire up to a good blaze, he opened his coat to soak up as much heat as possible. He had set the pot on to melt snow when he he
ard an explosion and a large limb crashed down nearby.
“Shit!”
Staring at the limb, Jeff gained new appreciation of just how cold it was. The sap had expanded explosively when it froze, severing the limb. Some time later his face and hands throbbed to life. Chewing a shred of jerky, he sipped hot water and listened. The land was so still he could hear a distant popping like fireworks as more trees shed limbs.
He nodded off several times before unpacking the tent. The thought of going to sleep was terrifying, but there was no choice. Rolling large hunks of wood into the fire, he set his tent up with the mouth facing the fire and crawled into the sleeping bag.
Jeff awoke shivering violently. Teeth chattering, he crawled out of the sleeping bag and from under every warm item he was packing. The fire had burned down, leaving a deep bed of coals. He tossed wood on and new flames sprang to life. When the shivering stopped, his brain began to churn through options.
“All right, time to face it. Somehow you’ve managed to live through the night, but how much food is left and how far to the next village?”
His heart sank when he pulled out the single stick of jerky that remained. Jeff located his notes and wearily trudged uphill. The landmarks were there; he had located them the previous day. It was the distance to the next village that mattered. A sense of desperation fought to take over again as he viewed the terrain and consulted his notes. The nearest village was at least thirty miles away. It was too far. He would never make it.
As he tried by force of will to bring the village closer, his gaze fell on the line of mountains towering into the sky. Anger boiled up.
“Screw you. I’m not going to give up now.”
By the end of the day he was exhausted beyond anger. He had fallen three times, twisting a knee the first time and hitting it against a tree the third. When Jeff stopped to make camp every step was agony. That night he finished the last stick of jerky.
Exile to the Stars (The Alarai Chronicles) Page 33