And Sturm, to his credit, did not rail against the hardships of the unlooked-for storm, but accepted the challenge and deferred, with a solemn and graceful courtesy that contrasted oddly with his youth, to Tanis's leadership.
Well, we've certainly been diverted now, the half-elf thought, settling his pack and stamping numb feet in the snow in a vain effort to urge into sluggish circulation the blood that surely must be near frozen.
"Come on, Sturm. The sooner we get back, the happier we'll all be. Tas's promise to stay behind will only hold for so long. Were you inclined to gamble, I'd wager you anything you like that though we've a long trudge ahead of us, it is Flint who is beset with the worse trial."
When they stepped out into the rage of the storm again, Tanis thought that were wishes to be granted he would forsake a mule's strong back and ask instead for a dog's finely developed instinct for finding home. The wind had erased any tracks they'd made coming into the stand.
Flint glared out into the night, thinking, as Tanis had, that this was to have been an easy trip. It had been a journey of only a few days to reach Esker. The wealthy headman of the village had welcomed them eagerly and been well pleased with the pair of silver goblets he'd commissioned the previous summer. The goblets, with their elegantly shaped stems, gilded interiors, and jeweled cups, were to be a wedding gift for the man's beloved daughter. Flint had labored long over their design, obtaining the finest jewels for their decoration and the purest silver for their execution. His client had been well pleased with them and not inclined toward even the ritual dickering over their cost.
Aye, Flint thought now, they were beauties. And like to cost us our lives.
The weird, atonal wailing of Tas's shepherd's pipe keened through the shelter, rivaling the whine of the storm, drawing Flint's nerves tighter with each moment that passed. It never seemed to find a tune, never seemed to settle into anything he recognized as even remotely resembling music.
"Tas!" he snapped. "If you're bound to fuss with that wretched thing, can't you at least find a tune and play it?"
The piping stopped abruptly. Tas got to his feet and joined Flint near the door. "I would if I could. But this is the best I can do."
Before Flint could protest, Tas began to play again. The awful screech rose in pitch, splintering his temper, never very strong where Tas was concerned, into shards as sharp and hard as needles of ice.
"Enough!" he snatched the pipe from Tas's hand. But before he could fling it across the shelter, the kender leaped up and caught it back handily.
"No, Flint! My magic pipe!"
"Magic! Don't tell me you're going to start that again. There's no more magic than music in that thing."
"But there is, Flint. The shepherd told me that I'd find the magic when I found the music. And I'd find the music when I wanted it most. I really do want it now, but I don't seem to be able to find it."
Flint had heard the story before. Though the circumstances and some finer details varied from one telling to the next, the core of the tale was always the same: a shepherd had given Tas the pipe, swearing that it was enchanted. But he wouldn't tell the kender what the magical property of the pipe was.
"You will discover its use," he'd supposedly said, "when you unlock the music. And when it has served you, you must pass it on, as I have to you, for the magic can be used only once by each who frees it."
Like as not, Flint thought, the instrument had been acquired the same way a kender comes by most anything. A quick, plausible distraction, a subtle movement of the hand, and a shepherd spends the next hour searching for his pipe. He probably should have counted himself lucky that half his flock hadn't vanished as well!
"There's no magic in this," Flint said. "More likely there's a flaw in the making. Give over now, Tas, and let me wait in peace."
With a sigh that seemed to come straight from his toes, Tas went back to where he'd been piping. He dropped onto the frozen dirt floor and propped his back up against his pack. In his head he could hear the song he wanted his pipe to sing. In some places it was soft and wistful. Yet, in others it was bright, almost playful. It would be a pretty tune, a song for the snow. Why, he wondered, couldn't the pipe play the music?
The blizzard raged, shaking the walls of the little shelter. Night now held the mountain in its freezing grip. It occurred to Tas that Sturm and Tanis had been gone much longer than they should have been.
Likely, he thought, drifting with the memory of the tune he heard but couldn't play, it only SEEMED that the waiting was long. Probably Tanis and Sturm had only been gone a few hours at most. It would take them that long to get to where the trees were, find the wood, and fill their packs. He was certain, though, that if he'd been with them, it wouldn't take nearly that long to get back. And three could carry more wood than two. Tanis's reasons for extracting his promise seemed less clear to Tas now. He wished he had gone with them!
It might have been the cold that set him to shivering deep down in his bones. Or the sudden strange turn that the storm's song took. Whatever it was, Tas found that his music had faded and left him.
The wind roared and screamed. The snow, falling more heavily now than it had in the afternoon, was like a gray woolen curtain. Frustrated, Tas laid aside his pipe and went to stand by the door.
"Doesn't the wind sound strange?"
Flint did not answer, but stayed still where he sat, peering out into the storm.
"Flint?"
"I heard you."
"It sounds like… I don't know." Tas cocked his head to listen. "Like wolves howling."
"It's not wolves. It's only the wind."
"I've never heard the wind sound like that. Well, once I heard it sound almost like wolves. But it was really more like a dog. Sometimes you hear a dog howling in the night and you think it's a wolf but it's not because wolves really do sound different. More ferocious, not so lonesome. This does sound like wolves, Flint, don't you think? But I've never heard of wolves hunting in a blizzard unless they were really starving." Tas frowned, remembering a story he'd heard once. "There was a village way up in the mountains in Khur that was attacked by wolves in a blizzard. I didn't see it. But my father did, and he told me about it. He said it was really interesting the way the wolves came down after dark and stalked anything that looked like good food. And he said it was amazing what wolves consider good food when they're starving — "
"Will you hush! And while you're at it, stop imagining things that aren't there!" Gritting his teeth against his anger and the fear that the kender's tale of starving wolves and blizzards fanned, Flint climbed to his feet. He was stiff and aching with the cold. "If you must do something, come help me start a fire."
"With what. Flint?"
"With those old boards and — " Flint thought of the blocks of wood in his pack. He sighed heavily, regretting the loss of his whittling wood. "And whatever I have in my pack."
"All right." But Tas lingered at the doorway. It WAS wolves howling, he decided firmly, and not the wind. In his mind's eye he could see them: big, heavy-chested brutes, gray as a storm sky, eyes bright with hunger, fangs as sharp as the blade of his own small dagger. They would leap across the drifts and slink through the hollows, pause to taste the air with their noses, howl in eerie mourning for their empty bellies, and lope on again.
His father had also told him that the big gray wolves could be almost invisible against a snowy sky. Lifting his head to listen, he thought the howling was closer now. He wouldn't have to go very far to get just a quick glimpse of the beasts. Forgetting his promise to Tanis, forgetting the uncooperative pipe, Tas decided that he simply had to see — or not see — the wolves.
Checking to be sure that Flint was not watching, Tas grinned happily and slipped out into the storm.
"Tanis!" He was but an arm's length behind the half-elf yet Sturm could see Tanis only as a vague, dark shadow. He hardly heard his own voice, bellow though he did above the wind's scream, and he knew that Tanis had not heard him at all. He c
aught Tanis's arm and pulled him to a halt.
"Listen!" Sturm shouldered his pack to an easier perch on his back and moved in close. "You're not going to tell me again about how that's the wind, are you? Those are wolves!"
They were indeed. The fiction of the wind had been partly for Sturm's sake, partly for his own. Tanis abandoned it as useless now. "I know! But we have to push on, Sturm! We can't let them get between us and the shelter!"
"Run? You want us to run?" The thought of fleeing from danger sent a spasm of disgust across the youth's face. Beneath that revulsion, though, was an instinctive fear. It was not hidden, Tanis saw, as well as Sturm might have hoped.
Tanis's humorless laughter was caught by the wind and flung away. "I do! But the best we can do is slog on. There is no shame in this retreat, Sturm. We're no match for a pack, and Flint and Tas won't appreciate our courage at all if they have to consider it while freezing to death."
Though carefully given, it was a reprimand. Sturm recognized it and took it with considered grace. "I'm not accustomed to flight, Tanis," he said gravely. "But neither am I accustomed to abandoning friends. Lead on."
Sturm, Tanis thought, seeking his bearings, you're too solemn by half for your years! But, aye, I'll lead on…
And that was another matter. How far had they come? Tanis could no longer tell. He was storm-blind now, hardly able to keep his eyes open for the merciless bite of winddriven snow and ice. The bitter wind had battered at their backs when they'd left the shelter. As long as it roared and screamed in their faces, clawing at their skin, tearing at their clothing, he could be fairly certain that they were moving in the right direction. He did not like to think what might happen should the storm suddenly change direction.
Likely someone would find our bones in spring and wonder and pity. Putting aside the grim thought, Tan-is hunched his shoulders and bowed his head before the storm's blast, protecting his eyes as best he could. His legs were heavier and harder to move with each step. His neck and shoulders ached beneath his burden of wood. And the wolves were howling closer.
It only seems a never-ending journey, he told himself as he waded through still another drift. Before the night was much older they would be back at the shelter. Then the storm could tear across the mountains, then the wolves could howl until they were hoarse. It wouldn't matter. Tanis could almost hear Flint scolding and grumbling about two young fools who couldn't come right back, but must linger to catch their deaths in the storm. Beneath it all would run Tas's chattering and incessant, never-ending questions. Their miserable burdens of fuel would feed a crackling fire to thaw hands and feet they could no longer feel.
Thinking to share the encouragement with Sturm toiling silently behind, he turned, squinting into the blinding snow.
"Sturm! Soon!" he shouted.
Sturm looked up. Ice rimned his hair, long streaks of white scored his face where the cold had bitten. "What?"
"Soon! We're almost — "
It might have been instinct that made Tanis slip immediately out of his pack and reach for his bow and quiver. Or it might have been the look of wide-eyed horror on Sturm's face. He never heard the wolf's roar, or the slavering snarl of its mate. He only felt the heavy weight where it caught him behind the knees and drove him with all the force of its hundred pounds face first into the snow.
His bow was beneath him, his dagger still sheathed at his belt. Fear raced through him like a hot river. He shoved his chin tight to his chest and locked his hands behind his head, protecting his neck and throat. The wolf's hot breath, stinking of its last kill, gagged him. Powerful jaws snapping, unable to reach his neck or throat, the wolf fastened on his shoulder, worrying at the thick cloth of his cloak, tearing through it and his leather tunic to lay his flesh bare to dripping fangs. Its eyes were gleaming green fire, its mouth a roaring crimson maw.
Bucking and kicking, his mind empty of all thought but survival, Tanis heaved onto his back. His head still low, he freed his hands and found his dagger. The wolf rose up, scrambling to regain position, belly exposed for an instant. Tanis gripped his dagger hard. The icy air stung in his lungs. He thrust upward with all his strength. The blade drove into the wolf's belly to the hilt. Gasping hard, he dragged until he struck breastbone. The beast fell away, dead as it hit the snow.
Shuddering, locked for one painful moment in the rictus of fear, Tanis lay on his back. Sweat froze on his face, nausea churned in his belly. His breath, ragged and hurting, sounded like the pumping of a bellows. Dark blood pooled, steaming in the freezing night.
Behind and above him another wolf roared. That challenge was followed swiftly by deadly snarling and then a shocked scream of pain. So horrible was the sound that Tanis could not tell if it had come from the lungs of man or beast.
Sturm! Coppery, musty, the stench of fresh blood filled the air. Tanis scrambled to his feet. The storm wind blinded him, tore at him. He couldn't see!
Though he'd always wielded his blade well in practice bouts with a confidence seldom disappointed, Sturm had only blooded his sword once and that against a human opponent whose moves could, to some extent, be gauged. Could he have gone against a wolf who would charge in under a sword's reach with the desperation of a predator starving?
Sliding in the freezing snow, Tanis ran to where he imagined the scent of blood was strongest. He crashed to his knees and, cursing, regained his feet.
"Sturm!" he howled. He thought in that moment that no blizzard wind could sound a cry as desolate. "Sturm! Where are you?"
Tanis found him sitting in the snow, bending over drawn up knees. The second wolf lay sprawled behind him, its head nearly severed from its neck. Beside it, slick with rapidly congealing blood, lay Sturm's sword. Tanis slid to his knees beside his friend. The rest of the pack had to be nearby! They had to get out of here!
"Sturm, are you hurt?"
The boy braced and straightened. The leather of his tunic had been shredded by the wolf's fangs. A trail of blood and ragged wounds whose edges were even now freezing white showed Tanis where fangs had raked from collarbone to breast. His hands trembling, the half-elf tried to gently separate leather from freezing blood. A hiss of indrawn breath, Sturm's only protest against the handling, made Tanis wince for the pain he caused.
"A moment, lad, just a moment longer. There." The leather came away, and Tanis heaved a long sigh of relief. The wound was ugly and long. But though he had dreaded to see the white glare of bone or the dark shadow of exposed muscle, he did not. Working with hands made awkward by the cold, Tanis tore thick strips of cloth from his cloak and made a bandage.
"If we can bless the cold for anything, it's that it will prevent you from bleeding overlong. Can you move your arm?"
Sturm lifted his shoulder, tried to reach. He managed a grim smile. "Yes," he said, his voice rough with the effort not to groan. "But I'll not be lifting a sword for a time."
Tanis shook his head. "The gods willing, you won't have to. Sturm, we have to go on. Those two cannot have been hunting alone. Can you walk?"
For an answer Sturm got to his feet. He stumbled a little, but righted himself quickly. The hard gleam in his eyes told Tanis what he needed to know. But when he made to reach for his pack, Tanis stopped him.
"No. Leave it. We have to get out of here. It will only slow us down."
"Tanis, we need the wood."
"DAMN the wood!"
"Tanis, no! The need for fire is still the same. And without a guard fire, won't we have to face the rest of the pack at the shelter? I can drag the wood."
Sturm was right. Tanis snatched up his pack and shouldered it with a snarled oath. He retrieved Sturm's sword, wiped it clean on his cloak, and helped the youth to scabbard it. An arrow lay ready against the bow's string. Don't rush! he told himself. Get your bearings now!
But that was not so easily done. The wind no longer pushed from any one direction, but seemed to bellow and thunder from all four. Tanis cast about him, searched the snow to see if he could tell by the
tracks where he'd been standing when the wolves attacked.
There was no sign.
"Which way, Tanis?"
"I–I can't tell. No, wait. Up, we were moving up the hill." He squinted into the wind. "There! That way."
Behind them, silent phantoms in the night, the rest of the wolf pack moved in to do a starving predator's grisly honor to fallen comrades.*****
Flint roared curses into the screaming wind. That wretched, straw-brained Tas! If there was a god of mischief and deviltry, he would be no god at all but a kender! He'd not turned his back for a moment! But a moment, he thought bitterly, was all it took to send Tas out into the snow. What had he been off after? Tanis and Sturm? Likely not. That would have been too sensible a motive to ascribe to a kender.
"Tas!" he shouted, flinging up an arm to protect his eyes against the wind's teeth. "Tas!"
The surest way to die, Tanis had said, was to scatter all over the mountain. "Well and fine, and here we are," Flint snarled, kicking furiously at the snow drifting past his knees. "Scattered all over the mountain. If I had half the brains I curse that kender for NOT having, I'd leave him out here to freeze as a warning to the rest of his empty-headed kind."
Then he heard, mourning above the wind, the howling of the wolves he'd thought to deny. Fear shivered through the old dwarf. They were close now. He hunched his shoulders against the wind.
Wolves! Aye, and likely hungry enough not to turn aside from stone-headed kender or young idiots who can't hie themselves back from a simple wood-gathering trip in decent time…
"Tas! Where are you?!"
The snow erupted right at Flint's feet. Scrambling for balance he slipped, tried to catch himself and, tripping over a snow-mantled boulder, tumbled into a drift.
"Flint! Wait! Flint! Where'd you go?"
His long brown eyes ablaze with laughter, his face bright with merriment, Tas leaped into the drift, narrowly missing Flint's head. Tugging and pulling, then shoving and pushing, he got the dwarf righted and on his feet again.
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