by Dragon Lance
The group of mountain sheep spent perhaps an hour beside the water hole, each of the creatures slaking its thirst. Finally, with the ram still in the lead, they turned back along the tracks and reclimbed the mountain wall.
Sithas watched them until they disappeared from view. The magnificent creatures moved with grace and skill up the steep face of rock. They looked right at home here – so very different from himself!
A soft groan beside him pulled his attention instantly back to Kith-Kanan.
“Kith! Say something!” He leaned over his twin’s face, rejoicing to see a flicker of vitality. Kith-Kanan’s eyes remained shut, but his mouth twisted into a grimace and he was gasping for breath.
“Here, take a drink. Don’t try to move.”
He poured a few drops of water onto Kith’s lips, and the wounded elf licked them away. Slowly, with obvious pain, Kith-Kanan opened his eyes, squinting at the bright daylight before him.
“What … happened?” he asked weakly. Abruptly his eyes widened and his body tensed. “The giants! Where …?”
“It’s all right,” Sithas told him, giving him more water. “They’re dead – or gone, I’m not sure which.”
“Arcuballis?” Kith’s eyes widened and he struggled to sit up, before collapsing with a dull groan.
“He’s … gone, Kith. He attacked the first giant, got clubbed over the head, and fell.”
“He must be down below!”
Sithas shook his head. “I looked. There’s no sign of his body – or of any of the giants, either.”
Kith moaned, a sound of deep despair. Sithas had no words of comfort.
“The giants … what kind of beasts do you think they were?” asked Sithas.
“Hill giants, I’m sure,” Kith-Kanan said after a moment’s pause. “Relatives of ogres, I guess, but bigger. I wouldn’t have expected to see them this far south.”
“Gods! If only I’d been faster!” Sithas said, ashamed.
“Don’t!” snapped the injured elf. “You warned me – gave me time to get my sword out, to get into the fight.” Kith-Kanan thought for a moment. “When – how long ago was it, anyway? How much time has passed since —”
“We’ve been up here for two nights,” said Sithas quietly. “The sun has nearly set for the third time.” He hestitated, then blurted his question. “How badly are you hurt?”
“Bad enough,” Kith said bluntly. “My skull feels like it’s been crushed, and my right leg seems as if it is on fire.”
“Your leg?” Sithas had been so worried about the blow to his brother’s head that he had paid little attention to the rest of his body.
“It’s broken, I think,” the elf grunted, gritting his teeth against the pain.
Sithas’s mind went blank. A broken leg! It might as well be a sentence of death! How would they ever get out of here with his twin thus crippled? And winter had only begun! If they didn’t get out of the mountains quickly, they could be trapped here for months. Another snowfall would make travel by foot all but impossible.
“You’ll have to do something about it,” Kith said, though it took several moments before the remark registered in Sithas’s mind.
“About what?”
“My leg!” The injured elf looked at his twin sharply, then toughened his voice.
Almost without thinking, he used the tones of command he had become accustomed to when he led the Wildrunners.
“Tell me if the skin is broken, if there’s any discoloration – any infection.”
“Where? Which leg?” Sithas struggled to focus his thoughts. He had never been so disoriented before in his life.
“The right one, below the knee.”
Gingerly, almost trembling, Sithas pulled the blankets and cloaks away from his brother’s feet and legs. What he saw was terrifying.
The ugly red swelling had almost doubled the size of the limb from the knee to the ankle, and Kith’s leg was bent outward at an awkward angle. For a moment, he cursed himself, as if the injury was his own fault. Why hadn’t he thought to examine his brother two days earlier, when Kith had first been injured? Had he twisted the wound more when he moved the fallen elf into the shelter of the rocky niche?
“The – the skin isn’t broken,” he explained, trying to keep his voice calm. “But it’s red. By the gods, Kith, it’s blood red!”
Kith-Kanan grimaced at the news. “You’ll have to straighten it. If you don’t, I’ll be crippled for life.”
The Speaker of the Stars looked at his twin brother, the sense of helplessness growing inside him. But he saw the pain in Kith-Kanan’s eyes, and he knew he had no choice but to try.
“It’s going to hurt,” he warned, and Kith nodded silently, gritting his teeth.
Cautiously he touched the swollen limb, and then instantly recoiled at Kith’s sharp gasp of pain. “Don’t stop,” hissed the wounded elf. “Do it – now!”
Gritting his teeth, Sithas grasped the swollen flesh. His fingers probed the wound, and he felt the break in the bone. Kith-Kanan cried aloud, gasping and choking in his pain as Sithas pulled on the limb.
Kith shrieked again and then, mercifully, collapsed into unconsciousness.
Desperately Sithas tugged, forcing his hands and arms to do these things that he knew must be causing Kith-Kanan unspeakable pain.
Finally he felt the bones slip into place.
“By Quenesti Pah, I’m sorry, Kith,” Sithas whispered, looking at his brother’s terribly pale face.
Quenesti Pah … goddess of healing. The invocation of that benign goddess brought his mind around to the small vial his mother had given them before they departed. From Miritelesina, she had said, high priestess of Quenesti Pah.
Frantically Sithas dug through the saddlebag, finally discovering the little ceramic jar, plugged with a stout cork.
He popped the cork from the bottle’s mouth and immediately recoiled at the pungent scent. Smearing some of the salve on his fingers, he drew off the cloak and spread the stuff on Kith’s leg, above and below the wound. That done, he covered his brother with the blankets and leaned back against the stone wall to wait.
Kith-Kanan remained unconscious throughout the impossibly long afternoon as the sun sank through the pale blue sky and finally disappeared behind the western ridge. Still, no sign of movement came from the wounded elf. If anything, he seemed even weaker.
Gently Sithas fed his brother drops of water. He wrapped him in all of their blankets and lay down beside him.
He fell asleep that way, and though he awoke many times throughout the brutally cold night, he stayed at Kith-Kanan’s side until dawn began to brighten their valley.
Kith-Kanan showed no sign of reviving consciousness. Sithas looked at his brother’s leg and was appalled to see a streak of red running upward, past his knee and into his thigh. What should he do? He had never seen an injury like this before. Unlike Kith-Kanan, he hadn’t been confronted by the horrors of battle or by the necessity of self-sufficiency in the wilds.
Quickly the elf took the rest of the cleric’s salve and smeared it onto the wound. He knew enough about blood poisoning to realize that if the venomous infection could not be arrested, his brother was doomed. With no way left to treat Kith-Kanan, however, all Sithas could do was pray.
Once again the water in their skins was frozen, and so he made the arduous trek down the narrow pathway from the ledge to the valley floor. The trough in the snow made by his passage on the previous day remained, for the wind had remained blessedly light. Thus he made his way to his snow rimmed water hole with less difficulty than the day before.
But here he encountered a challenge: The bitter cold of the night had frozen even the rapidly flowing water beneath the snow. He chopped and chipped with his sword, finally exposing a small trickle, less than two inches deep. Only by stretching himself full-length in the snow, and immersing his hand into the frigid water could he collect enough to carry back to their high campsite.
As he rose from the water hole,
he saw the trail of the sheep across from him and remembered the magnificent creatures. Suddenly he was seized by an inspiration. He thought of his bow and arrows, still up on the ledge with Kith-Kanan. How could he conceal himself in order to get close enough to shoot?
Unlike Kith-Kanan, he was not an expert archer. A close target would be essential.
He gave up his ponderings in the effort of making his way back to the ledge.
Here he found no change in Kith-Kanan, and all he could do was force his brother once again to take a few drops of water between his lips.
Afterward, he strung his bow, checking the smooth surface of the weapon for flaws, the string for knots or frays. As he did so, he heard a clattering of hooves even as he stewed in his frustration. Once again led by the proud ram, the mountain sheep descended from their slope across the valley and made their way to the faint trickle of water. They took turns drinking and watching, with the ram remaining alert.
Once, when the creature’s eyes passed across the cliff where Sithas and Kith lay motionless, the animal stiffened. Sithas wondered if he had been discovered and wrestled with a compulsion to quickly nock an arrow and let it fly in the desperate hope of hitting something.
But he forced himself to remain still, and finally the ram relaxed its guard.
Sithas sighed and clenched his teeth in frustration as he watched the creatures turn and plow through the snow back toward their mountain fastness. The powdery drifts came to the shoulders of the large ram, and the sheep floundered and struggled until they reached the secure footing of the rocky slope.
The rest of the day passed in frigid monotony. That night was the coldest yet, and Sithas’s own shivering kept him awake. He would have been grateful for even such an uncomfortable sign of life from his brother, but Kith-Kanan remained still and lifeless.
The fourth morning on the ridge, Sithas could barely bring himself to emerge from beneath the cloaks and blankets. The sun rose over the eastern ridge, and still he lay motionless.
Then urgency returned, and he sat up in panic. He sensed instinctively that today was his last chance. If he could not feed himself and his brother, they would not experience another dawn.
He grabbed his bow and arrows, strapped his sword to his back, and allowed himself the luxury of one woolen cloak from the pile that sheltered Kith-Kanan.
He made his way down the cliff with almost reckless haste. Only after he nearly slipped fifty feet above the valley floor did he calm himself, forcing his feet to move with more precision.
He pushed toward the water hole, feeling sensation return to his limbs and anticipation and tension fill his heart. Finally he reached the place opposite where the sheep came to drink. He didn’t allow himself to ponder a distinct possibility: What if the sheep didn’t return here today? If they didn’t, he and his brother would die. It was a simple as that.
Urgently he swept a shallow excavation in the snow, fearful that the sheep might already be on their way. He swung his eyes to the southern ridge, to the slope the sheep had descended on each of the two previous days, but he saw no sign of movement.
In minutes, Sithas cleared the space he desired. A quick check showed no sign of the sheep. Trembling with tension, he freed his bow and arrows and laid them before him in the snow. Next he knelt, forcing his feet into the powdery fluff behind him. He took the cloak he had brought and lay it before him, before stretching, belly down, on top.
The last thing was the hardest to do. He pulled snow from each side into the excavation, burying his thighs, buttocks, and torso. Only his shoulders, arms, and head remained exposed.
Feeling the chill settle into his bones as he pressed deeper into the snowy cushion, he twisted to the side and pulled still more of the winter powder onto him. His bow, with several arrows ready, he covered with a faint dusting of snow directly in front of him.
Finally he buried his head, leaving an opening no more than two inches in diameter before his face. From this tiny slot, he could see the water hole and he could get enough air to breathe. At last his trap was ready. Now he had only to wait.
And wait. And wait some more. The sun passed the zenith, the hour when the sheep had come to water on each of the previous days, with no sign of the creatures. Cold numbness crept into Sithas’s bones. His fingers and toes burned from frostbite, which was bad enough, but gradually he became aware that he was losing feeling in them altogether. Frantically he wiggled and stretched as much as he could within the limitations of his confinement.
Where were the accursed sheep?
An hour of the afternoon passed, and another began. He could no longer keep any sensation in his fingers. Another few hours, he knew, and he would freeze to death.
But then he became aware of strange sensations deep within his snowy cocoon. Slowly, inexplicably, he began to grow warm. The burning returned to his fingertips. The snow around his body formed a cavity, slightly larger than Sithas himself, and he noticed that this snow was wet. It packed tightly, giving him room to move. He noticed wetness in his hair, on his back.
He was actually warm! The cavity had trapped his body heat, melting the snow and warming him with the trapped energy. The narrow slot had solidified before him, and it was with a sense of exhilaration that he realized he could wait here safely for some time.
But the arrival of twilight confirmed his worst fears – the sheep had not come to drink that day. Bitter with the sense of his failure, he tried to ignore the gnawing in his belly as he gathered more water and made the return to the ledge, arriving just as full darkness settled around them.
Had the sheep seen his trap? Had the flock moved on to some distant valley, following the course of some winter migration? He could not know. All he could do was try the same plan tomorrow and hope he lived long enough for the effort.
Sithas had to lean close to Kith-Kanan just to hear his brother’s breathing. “Please, Kith, don’t die!” he whispered. Those words were the only ones he spoke before he fell asleep.
His hunger was painful when he awoke. Once again the day was clear and still, but how long could this last? Grimly he repeated his process of the previous day, making his way to the stream bank, settling himself in with his bow and arrows, and trying to conceal any sign of his presence. If the sheep didn’t come today, he knew that he would be too weak to try on the morrow.
Exhausted, despairing, and starving, he passed from consciousness into an exhausted sleep.
Perhaps the snow insulated him from sound, or maybe his sleep was deeper than he thought. In any event, he heard nothing as his quarry approached. It wasn’t until the sheep had reached the water hole that he woke suddenly. They had come! They weren’t twenty feet away!
Not daring to breathe, Sithas studied the ram. The creature was even more magnificent up close. The swirled horns were more than a foot in diameter. The ram’s eyes swept around them, but Sithas realized with relief that the animal did not notice his enemy up close.
The ram, as usual, drank his fill and then stepped aside. One by one the ewes approached the small water hole, dipping their muzzles to slurp up the icy liquid. Sithas waited until most of the sheep had drank. As he had observed earlier, the smallest were the last to drink, and it was one of these that would prove his target.
Finally a plump ewe moved tentatively among her larger sisters. Sithas tensed himself, keeping his hands under the snow as he slowly reached forward for his bow.
Suddenly the ewe raised her head, staring straight at him. Others of the flock skittered to the sides. The elf felt two dozen eyes fixed upon his hiding place. Another second, he suspected, and the sheep would turn in flight. He couldn’t give them that opportunity.
With all of the speed, all of the agility at his command, he grasped his bow and arrows and lurched forward from his hiding place, his eyes fixed on the terrified ewe. Vaguely he sensed the sheep spinning, leaping, turning to flee. They struggled through the deep snow, away from this maniacal apparition who rose apparently from the very e
arth itself.
He saw the ram plunge forward, nudging the ewe that stood stock-still beside the water hole. With a panicked squeal, she turned and tried to spring away.
As she turned, for one split second, she presented her soft flank to the elven archer. Even as he struggled to his feet, Sithas had nocked his arrow. He pulled back the string as his target became a blur before him. Reflexively he let the missile fly. He prayed to all the gods, desperate for a hit.
But the gods were not impressed.
The arrow darted past the ewe’s rump, barely grazing her skin, just enough to spur the frightened creature into a maddened flight that took her bounding out of range even as Sithas fumbled with another arrow. He raised the weapon in time to see the ram kick his heels as that great beast, too, sprinted away.
The herd of mountain sheep bounded through the deep snow, springing and leaping in many different directions. Sithas launched another arrow and almost sobbed aloud in frustration as the missile flew over the head of a ewe. Mechanically he nocked another arrow, but even as he did so, he knew that the sheep had escaped.
For a moment, a sensation of catastrophe swept over him. He staggered, weak on his feet, and would have slumped to the ground if something hadn’t caught his attention.
A small sheep, a yearling, struggled to break free from a huge drift. The animal was scarcely thirty feet away, bleating pathetically. He knew then he had one more chance – perhaps the last chance – for survival. He held his aim steady, sighting down the arrow at the sheep’s heaving flank. The animal gasped for breath, and Sithas released the missile.
The steel-tipped shaft shot true, its barbed head striking the sheep behind its foreleg, driving through the heart and lungs in a powerful, fatal strike.
Bleating one final time, a hopeless call to the disappearing herd, the young sheep collapsed. Pink blood spurted from its mouth and nostrils, foaming into the snow. Sithas reached the animal’s side. Some instinct caused him to draw his sword, and he slashed the razor-sharp edge across the sheep’s throat. With a gurgle of air, the animal perished.