Winter's Fallen (The Conquest of Kelemir Book 1)

by A. F. Dery

  “I don’t suppose you can lead me to the kitchen, since you’ve never been in it,” she told him. It didn’t feel as odd as she thought it would, talking to the wolf, but she was still rather glad when he didn’t talk back. I was very sick, after all.

  She went to the top step and made the mistake of looking down. The stairway was indeed very steep, and made all of stone. The lantern did not cast sufficient light to penetrate the darkness beyond the first few steps, making it look as though they descended into some black abyss. There was no way of telling just how high up she was, or how many steps there were. She clearly saw there was no railing of any kind: the steps were open to the surrounding darkness.

  “Oh,” she said, sinking down onto the top step. The room had begun to spin. She set the lantern next to her and buried her head in her hands, trying to still it. She felt something furry nudge her arm.

  “It’s really dark,” she told him bleakly without looking at him. “I know I just have to do it, but it’s a little scary. I could be really high up. By which I mean, miss a step and break every bone in my body, high up. I only just got to walking around again, and I really don’t want to end up confined to that bed again.” Somehow explaining her feelings made her feel a little better. The wolf nudged her again. She looked up but he just sat looking at her.

  Tentatively she reached out a hand and very slowly touched his head. His fur was very soft and warm. Something inside her relaxed a little when he made no movement at all. She ran her fingers over his head, once, twice, three times. When he failed to lunge for her throat or rip her arm off, she impulsively tried to touch an ear. He continued to sit unmoving, so she stroked that too, then scratched behind it as she would any dog. She saw his tail wag, though the rest of him still didn’t move, and she smiled so big that her cheeks protested painfully.

  “You’re a good wolf, aren’t you,” she said softly. “And good wolves don’t maul people, do they?”

  The wolf’s tail stopped wagging, and she could have sworn there was a vaguely bemused look in the creature’s eyes. She dismissed the idea as her imagination, but stopped petting him to pick up her lantern and get back on her feet. “Fun as this is, it’s not helping me get down there. You’ll come with me, right? We can take pet breaks when I get too nervous.”

  Grace made her way slowly, painfully, down the stairs. They truly did seem to go on without end. She did not dare go too quickly, but she tried to keep moving. It grew colder as she descended, and she sat down carefully on the steps again as she felt her bare feet going numb. She was shivering and pondering whether she ought to give up and try again another day when the wolf again nudged her arm. He had been following her only a step or two behind. She looked down and saw he had come up beside her, and as she watched he went onto the step where her feet were and laid down on top of them. He felt wonderfully warm, and she stared at him in surprise for a moment, then started to pet him again.

  “You’re lucky to have a fur coat, you know,” she said after a little while. She thought she felt much warmer already. “Is it much further, do you think?”

  The wolf was silent. She stopped petting him and as if sensing her intention, he moved off her feet and to the side. She stood and continued carefully, the wolf returning to his position just behind her.

  Some time later- just when she was contemplating stopping again, her breath beginning to fog the air- she saw the bottom. She left the stairway as quickly as she dared. She turned to smile at the wolf.

  “We made it!” she cheered, then turning back to look around, her foot slipped out from under her. She landed hard on her back, into something that felt sticky. The lantern went flying out of her hand as she did, skittering off somewhere into the darkness, its light gone out.

  To her tremendous relief, there were windows set into the wall. It was dark enough outside that she had not made them out during her descent down the stairway, but now, with the lantern extinguished, she saw pale gray shapes in the wall that could be nothing else. She felt the wolf nudge her arm again.

  “I’m ok,” she told him, choosing to interpret his gesture in the most favorable light. “My back hurts but…I slipped on something. I can’t see what now.” As carefully as she could, she climbed to her feet, moving much more carefully on the stones. They were slick with something, she could tell now; she chided herself silently for not paying better attention before. She knew the place was not well maintained: she needed to be more careful.

  She moved over to the nearest window, which unfortunately was set somewhat higher than her head. She peered up at it as best she could, and saw snow drifted against it, limned in pale light against what she assumed was a dark sky.

  “Is the snow really that high out there?” she wondered to herself. “How in the world do you go out there, then?”

  She heard the wolf beginning to pad away into the darkness and she turned, hastening to follow him before he moved far enough away that she couldn’t make him out any longer in the very dim light. Her foot hit something metallic as she did so and she quickly snatched up what turned out to be the lantern, then scrambled after him again. As they moved around the stairway, she saw there was an open doorway leading into a room that was more brightly lit, though still fairly dark. She followed the wolf inside and saw that it was her goal, the kitchen. In one wall there was a large fireplace with a cooking spit erected over a small, languishing fire, the source of the light she’d seen, along with the windows. These were at the ordinary height for such and paned with glass. Snow appeared to be drifted against each of them, and was still falling rapidly: she saw the white flakes glittering in the pale gray light. It was hard to tell if it was even night or day.

  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw there was indeed a door with a broken latch. The wolf went over to it and sat down, again watching her. The door creaked back and forth on its own in the wind, the stronger gusts letting in waves of snow that were piling up around it. It looked like the wolf had trodden a path through one of the smaller such piles, one that she assumed wended its way outside.

  “That’s dangerous, you know. If you tunnel into it, it could collapse. The snow I mean,” Grace pointed out, suddenly worried for the animal. She wanted to investigate further, but before she could even move any deeper in the kitchen, she heard the telltale scratching noises that had likely been what alerted Hadrian to his kitchen’s inhabitants.

  The rats. She looked to the wolf, who sat looking back at her.

  “Will you help if they attack me?” she asked, barely loudly enough to even hear herself.

  She shivered in the answering silence. Looking around quickly, she saw what looked like a broom lying against one wall. She carefully went over to it, watching her step. The stone floor was littered with refuse everywhere she looked. It was hard to make out just what was there in the dim orange light from the little fire, but she couldn’t say she minded at the moment. Her feet felt sticky against the stones, and she glanced down to see she was leaving dark smudges of whatever she had slipped in at the foot of the stairway in her wake.

  She grabbed the broom and then made her way over to the fire. She was able to find a long enough…stick? Former table leg?…to light her lantern with again.

  The increased light did not much help matters. The kitchen was a disaster, there was no way around that fact. There was a pile of soiled dishes in the wash bin, the absence of flies speaking to their age. Broken pottery, pieces of wood, clods of what may once have been food were all over the floor, as well as mud no doubt tracked in from the back door. Cobwebs covered the upper shelves, obscuring what their contents may have once been.

  The scratching noises seemed to be coming from under the table in the middle of the room that was- or had once been- used to prepare food. There was a shelf for storage set under it, and beneath the shelf she saw what had to be the nest. She couldn’t begin to identify what it was made of, but it was sizable, spilling out from under the shelf and, as she watched, it quivered with move
ment. A foul stench seemed to be emanating from it.

  I can’t hope to kill as many of them as must be in there, Grace thought, nervously gripping the broom. And I don’t know the wolf will actually help me. If only a big hungry cat had dragged me here instead!

  She considered her dilemma. She did know of a farmer from her village who had succeeded in driving out rats from his barn with a bitter smelling smoke when his cats had failed to keep their numbers down. Perhaps she could fix the latch, then smoke them out into the snow. Someone would have to let out the wolf in the future when he wanted to go out, but it seemed like a small price to pay.

  “Hadrian will know what I can use,” she murmured. He had made her medicine, and he was a mage. He surely had other herbs somewhere and knew what she could burn to drive out the rats.

  “I have to go back upstairs,” she told the wolf. “I need to get some herbs from Hadrian so I can smoke out these rats. I wouldn’t begin to know where to find them.”

  Still gripping the broom with one hand and the lantern with another, she cautiously picked her way back out to the stairway. She nearly slipped again as she approached the base of the stairway, but caught herself this time and bent down to the floor with the lantern to try to make out what she’d been stepping in.

  It looked suspiciously like congealed blood, and she felt her stomach turn.

  The wolf came up to her and sat down on a dry patch of stone next to her. To her amazement, he turned his head, closed his eyes, and began to howl.

  Grace quickly straightened back up, her eyes wide. A minute later, she heard Hadrian calling from the top of the stairway, though she couldn’t make out what he was saying over the wolf’s howls.

  As soon as he began speaking, though, the wolf stopped, looking again at Grace.

  “Grace? Are you all right?” she heard coming from the stairway. She peered up in the darkness, raising her lantern. Of course, she saw nothing.

  “Hadrian,” she shouted back. “We’re fine. I was just on my way back. I need something to burn to drive off the rats. There are too many to just bash on the head. Is there anything down here I could use?”

  “No, nothing down there, but I have some galbanum, that might do it. Wait there, I’ll try to find it and bring it down,” he called back.

  “Are you sure? I could come up and help you look!” Grace returned, but she heard nothing. She sighed and decided to return to the kitchen and try to fix the latch on the door so it was ready if Hadrian found what she needed.

  She returned to it cautiously, making as wide a path around the table housing the rats as she possibly could. She saw one streak off across the room at one point but otherwise they seemed content to ignore her. The latch itself did not prove to be badly broken. It had only come loose and she was able to tighten it enough by hand that she thought it would hold for the time being. She saw a chair half buried under some empty, hole riddled grain sacks that she thought she could push against it for extra security.

  Satisfied for the time being, she went back out and sat carefully on the step, trying not to think about what was on the floor or her feet. It was colder out there, but she really didn’t want to sit in the kitchen just yet if she didn’t have to. The wolf came and sat next to her, pressing against her legs. She resumed stroking his furry head, appreciating the warmth and the softness of his fur. Again she felt herself relaxing. She hadn’t even realized how tense she was.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she whispered to him, a little self consciously. The wolf turned his head and looked up at her with dark eyes. She thought she might be imagining it, but he looked sad to her. She sensibly fought back the urge to hug him. Even a tame wolf was still a wolf, after all.

  Some time later, just when she was beginning to seriously contemplate going back upstairs to help Hadrian anyway, she heard movement on the stairway. She carefully removed herself from the steps she’d been sitting on and stood back, waiting. Hadrian came down shortly, clutching a small, coarsely woven bag. He stopped the moment he was off the stairs and appeared to be listening.

  “I’m here,” Grace said, “right in front of you, 10 steps or so.”

  Hadrian jerked his head in a nod and walked up to her. His pace was the same as he maintained upstairs, but unlike her, he somehow didn’t slip on the gory stones. He stopped within arm’s length, and held out the bag. She tucked the broom awkwardly under her arm and took it from him.

  “I’ll help you,” he said. “I just need you to tie these to the end of a long stick or something and light it, then show me where I need to wave it…you shouldn’t breathe it in if you can help it.”

  “It’s all right, I’ll try to hold my breath…what if the rats come after you instead of running away?”

  Hadrian frowned. “Then they come after me. Do you think I would be all right with that happening to you instead? But I don’t think that will happen. You’re still getting over that cough, you need to avoid doing anything that could aggravate it.”

  Grace observed the distinctly mulish set of the man’s bearded jaw and suppressed a sigh. “All right, but I will be in the kitchen with you. I found a broom, I can help drive them out the back door while you handle the smoke.”

  The wolf let out a sudden bark, making her jump.

  “I think that your wolf just volunteered to take that job,” Hadrian told her. His voice was somber but the sides of his mouth twitched suspiciously. “The broom handle would make a good stick to tie those herbs to.”

  “Sure, if I never wanted to actually use it as a broom. And I do want to actually use it as a broom, Hadrian, more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole life up until now,” Grace said darkly.

  “I know this may sound silly, but I’m beginning to get the impression that you’re a little critical of my housekeeping,” he admitted, his mouth twitching again.

  Grace wasted a very good glare on him.

  “I’ll do as you say,” she said at last, “but you must promise to call me if there’s any trouble. I’ll come and help.”

  “I must do no such thing, but if it makes you feel better, of course I’ll call you to come sacrifice yourself to save me from hungry rats,” Hadrian said agreeably.

  Another glare and a flurry of activity later, the operation had begun. Grace had managed to find a partially broken chair whose one good leg was sacrificed to the cause. The rest of it was used to feed the fire in the hearth.

  She had lit the herbs right before hurrying from the room and shutting the door. The smoke had indeed almost immediately started her coughing, despite her best efforts to hold her breath on her way out, but she thought she’d managed to successfully hide this fact from Hadrian. She now hovered anxiously as close to the door as she dared, her lantern set on the floor near the wall and her broom gripped in both hands in case she was needed. The noise seemed to go on for some time, and she thought she heard growling at one point, but at last the tower fell back into silence and the door creaked open.

  “Hadrian!” she cried, rushing up to him. She set the broom against the wall and examined him with her eyes, but he looked exactly the same with no signs of bite marks that she could see.

  “I put the stick in the fire,” he said, “so there still might be some smoke in there. We can’t leave the door open to air it out or the rats might come right back in. Let’s go back upstairs for now, you can come back down tomorrow and start doing whatever you mean to do in there.”

  “I need to put the chair against the door first,” she told him. “I tried to fix the latch, but with as strong as the wind is, I’m not sure it will hold.”

  “There’s another chair?” Hadrian asked, but she moved around him and, holding her breath, went back into the kitchen.

  The table had been shoved out of place, and the stinking remains of the nest was exposed to the world. Several bloody rodent bodies were in it, but nothing living by the look of things. The wolf sat nearby, licking a paw. Grace felt strangely sad when she saw them. Rats brought disease
and were nobody’s friends, as far as she was concerned, but it was still…sad, to see them that way. The back door had been shut and latched, but already the wind (she hoped it was the wind) rattled it. She pushed the sacks off the chair she’d seen with her foot and dragged it over to the door, wedging it against it.

  Her eyes beginning to water, she hurried back out of the kitchen and let out her breath, muffling the cough that followed with her arm.

  Hadrian spun towards her with a glower. “I told you,” he muttered. “Let me feel your head.”

  “I’m fine, I’m not feverish,” she told him, smothering another cough. He stepped so close to her that she could feel his breath on her face and his hand pawed at her head until he found her forehead.

  “Not yet,” he said reluctantly. “But this has been a lot for your first outing. You need to rest awhile.”

  “I hoped to find wash tubs, do you know if they are in the kitchen?” Grace said as his hand fell away.

  “They should be,” he said. “But what do you hope to do, drag them upstairs? They’re made of metal.”

  “No, I know that, it’s just encouraging to hear they’re in there somewhere,” she said. She thought unhappily of returning to the decidedly unpleasant bed upstairs, but there was no denying the exhaustion she suddenly felt overtaking her as her nerves over the rats calmed. She felt herself swaying a little on her feet and she reached out instinctively, grabbing Hadrian’s arm.

  He tensed, as he always did. She grimaced apologetically. “I’m sorry, but will you walk up with me?”

  “Of course,” he said, his brows knitting together.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted again. “Just tired.” But she didn’t dare let go of his arm.

  “Do you want to eat something first?”

  Grace realized she had no idea where in that filthy kitchen he kept the food they had been eating.

  “I’m…not really hungry right now,” she said slowly. “But if you need something…”

  “No, I’m fine,” he said. “Let’s just get you back to bed.”