by M J Porter
Erann ‘saw’ that Sereh had walked a long way in her two days but there seemed to have been no purpose to her wondering and all she had succeeded in doing was in walking herself half to death. Arrow had followed closely behind the whole time. Sereh was a presence in every one of the flashes and the sight of her determined, defiant and so vulnerable filled him with feelings that he had never experienced in this way before. He was proud of her, scared for her and amazed by her. His heart thudded as he watched the images and as he watched her fall it felt as though his heart had stopped. She lay crumpled at the bottom of a steep crevasse but she was alive, or had been then. He thought to Greeneyes and the imagines in his mind changed. Greeneyes would go and find her, he would rescue her. A relief so profound it left him feeling weak thudded through him and then Arrow was gone, presumably to help Greeneyes, and he was alone again and feeling useless. The things he had seen had robbed him of the ability to move or to think of anything other than Sereh. He hoped Greeneyes got to her in time. He would never forgive himself if he didn’t. He knew in that moment that he would do anything for her. He would nurse her back to health and he would tell her the truth. His heart demanded it.
* * *
His wings beat strong in the air and he felt as always exhilaration in his power. Below him the wolf was running slightly in front, frantically across the melting snow. Greeneyes was not flying at top speed as he would have left the wolf far behind. Instead he reigned himself in, knowing it was far easier to follow the wolf than to ‘see’ the images in her mind
Why he was pampering to Erann’s needs? The answer was quick in forming. The images from Erann’s head were too intense to ignore. Erann needed the girl in a way that Greeneyes did not fully comprehend. From a young age he had known he would always be alone and he had not formed any close bonds with anyone other than his family. He had realised he would need to be self-fulfilling to survive in his position. The intensity of Erann’s feeling for Sereh was making him reconsider his attitude as was his deeply close connection to Erann.
Below, the wolf had come to an abrupt stop and was uncertainly looking both up and down. Greeneyes lowered himself quickly to the ground with a snap of his wings. The wolf had found the place where Sereh had fallen, either though a cessation in Sereh’s scent or from memory. Greeneyes was not yet sure if when he ‘looked’ into the wolf’s mind he was seeing or remembering events. He planned on giving it more thought when he had time.
The wolf, Arrow, Erann called her, ran to him and started barking frantically. Greeneyes could not see Sereh anywhere and briefly wondered why Arrow had stopped here. Then in the blink of his huge eyelid. Arrow was gone. Greeneyes rushed forward to where she had been standing and nearly stepped in through the hole in the snow. It was tiny and Greeneyes shook his head in bewilderment. How had the girl managed to fall down the only, tiny hole on the entire mountainside?
He walked back and slowly lowered his head so that he could look down inside the crevasse. It took him a moment to focus and when he did he was dismayed. Sereh was lying in an awkward position on a tiny icy ledge which dropped away steeply on one side. On the other side there was a sheer rock wall littered with tiny, sparkling icicles. There was no way that he would be able to go down there. He could not even get his whole head through the hole and was currently only looking with one eye. He attempted to poke his front claw through the fissure but could grab only air. She was too far down.
He refocused his eye. Arrow was whimpering silently at Sereh’s side but Sereh did not stir. She looked ill. Her face was sheeted in sweat and her skin was icy to behold, and he feared that to touch it would only confirm that she was dead. Then a tormented groan escaped her mouth. Not dead yet but it surely wouldn’t be much longer.
Arrow was looking at Greeneyes questioningly and Greeneyes was stumped. He could not reach her, let alone get her out. He thought this to Arrow and the wolf let lose a long, tail twitching, howl, which needed no foray into her mind to understand its meaning. She was mourning her friend.
Making a quick decision, Greeneyes realised that he had no choice. He would need to get Erann here. He didn’t know how but letting Sereh die when Erann and Arrow might be able to rescue her was not his decision to make.
He did not need Arrow now. He thought to the wolf what he was going to do and told her to stay by Sereh’s side. The wolf obviously agreed because she lay down next to Sereh in an effort, Greeneyes assumed, to keep her warm.
Greeneyes took off with a loud crack of his huge wings. He needed to get to Erann and quickly. From looking in Sereh’s mind he knew just how weak she was.
* * *
He was frantically preparing the cave for Sereh’s arrival. He needed to do everything that she had done for him only a few days ago. The problem was he had been unconscious and so he wasn’t exactly sure what she had done.
So far, he had rebuilt a huge fire using more of Emma’s store of wood – he would have to ask Greeneyes to get more. He had filled all the available pots full of snow to melt so that he could warm her up. He had even put some of the wolf pelts by the fire to warm and was warming a stone to place in her bed, wrapped in pelts, to keep her really warm. He knew he needed to pay particular attention to her nose, toes and fingers. He did not want her to lose them.
It was painful hobbling around the cave but at least he was hobbling. His leg was excruciating and he wasn’t sure if it was from the initial break or from his repeated falls of the last few days when he had been trying to get to his feet.
He knew that Greeneyes was exasperated with him for undoing so much of the healing that had taken place and he was a little resentful. He couldn’t just lie around waiting for his leg to heal – it needed to be healed – he needed to find Sereh. Some things were just more important than his physical well-being. He feared he would be left with a permanent limp, but had reasoned it away in his mind already. It was better to limp than lose Sereh.
He was not sure how long Arrow and Greeneyes had been but he was surprised when he felt Greeneyes in his mind. She can’t have been as far away as he had feared.
He dashed, as much as he could, from the cave and almost fell over Greeneyes huge, twitching, golden tail. He looked around frantically when he had regained his balance but he could not see Arrow or Sereh. Before he could completely panic he felt a reassurance in his mind and looked at Greeneyes.
Greeneyes seemed uncomfortable, as if a dragon could, and Erann’s heart instantly sank. They had been too late. He dropped down into the snow covered floor. Grief like nothing he had ever felt before washed over him – worse than when his father had gone; when his sister had gone and when he’d realised that his mother was slowly dying as well.
Again, a feeling of reassurance came into his mind along with a complicated stream of images. He quickly understood what Greeneyes was communicating to him and was on his feet in moments. Pain shot through him and left him momentarily breathless. Greeneyes thought concern at him but he brushed it off. He had no time to think of himself.
He practically ran into the cave, grabbing things as he went and stuffing them into his backpack. He needed furs and anything rope like that he could put his hands on. He grabbed all the wolves’ pelts as well. He would need to drag Sereh out of the hole she was in. He knew that Greeneyes would help him, he just hoped that Arrow would understand enough to help as well. He would not be able to rescue her alone.
In a matter of moments he was back with Greeneyes, backpack on one arm and his stick under the other. He was struggling to stay upright. Luckily Greeneyes didn’t notice, or for once stayed silent on the matter. Whichever, Erann was grateful.
He looked at Greeneyes in expectation, wondering how they were going to accomplish this. Greeneyes looked at him quizzically and then delicately extended one huge front claw, projecting an image that Erann was to step inside. Erann was again grateful. He knew he would not be able to clamber on to his back without doing himself more and probably severe damage.
As
he stepped inside the claw he experienced a moment of fear as the other claw closed around him. It was like being imprisoned. Now that the moment was upon him he was not sure that he really wanted to experience flying. He felt a small rumble from Greeneyes and wondered if he was laughing at him. He brushed the thought aside. He needed to get to Sereh no matter how uncomfortable the journey.
Greeneyes extended his wings and they snapped. Erann felt himself being lifted from the ground and looked through a gap in the claws to see what was happening. They lifted slowly from the ground and Erann could see with his own eyes the destruction that the avalanche had caused. The mountain now looked misshapen and the black of the rock showed where before there had only been white. Erann was astounded. Without Greeneyes help there was no chance that he could have survived. Gratitude swept through him, which Greeneyes returned with a metaphorical shrug of his huge shoulders. Erann supposed to someone as strong and powerful as Greeneyes it was nothing. That said, he could not help Sereh now without Erann. He assumed that sometimes there was more to it than sheer baulk and strength.
As Greeneyes flew, Erann looked all around him from his new vantage point. He realised he must quite like flying. All around him he could see a gleaming vastness of white. Where the sun caught it, it reflected back in an assortment of blues and purples, no two places looking quite the same. Here and there, the colours of the land could be seen just starting to break through – the deep greens, browns and black. The snow must at last be melting in those few places. As their journey continued, Erann realised that the white was more extensive than the land. The thaw was coming, but only slowly. Erann finally understood Sereh’s concern of a few days ago. He had been virtually imprisoned in a cave for over seven days. She had seen all this first hand when she had been foraging.
The ride was relatively calm and Erann felt a brief smile of pleasure cross his face. It lasted for as long as it took to land and for Erann to realise just how precarious Sereh’s position was. Greeneyes showed him an image of where Sereh was so that he could determine where he was supposed to find her.
He wanted to go to her, immediately on landing and being released from Greeneyes claws, but resisted. There was no point in him becoming trapped with her. There was no chance of him going down to her. There was already no available space on her ledge with Arrow at her side.
He reached for and began pulling out all the furs he had bought with him. His fingers were fumbling with his barely contained panic and he found it harder than he could imagine to just concentrate. Greeneyes entered his mind again, conveying soothing images. Erann wanted to believe the images, but he couldn’t. At this moment, at this time, he could not allow himself to hope. Sereh was too important to him, he could not let himself relax. What would he do if he calmed down and this rescue didn’t work? In his fevered state he hoped that he would miss nothing and that this would work.
Eventually he had everything ready, and he called to Arrow. He hoped that he would be able to get Arrow to understand what she needed to do.
Arrow slowly and gingerly climbed out of the hole and came to stand by Erann. Her fur cloak was frozen and unruly and Erann dreaded to think of the condition that Sereh was in. He handed her the end of the fur rope and she clamped it between her teeth, before carefully returning down the hole. Erann squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to calm his frantically beating heart and gasping breath. It didn’t work.
Arrow barked and Erann took hold of the end of the rope. He began to pull. His leg screamed in agony. Almost instantaneously he felt a lessoning on the rope and looked around in surprise. Greeneyes had grabbed the very end of the rope and was walking backwards to pull the rope up.
Erann still tried to help but quickly realised it was pointless. He was being more of a hindrance. Instead he walked near to the hole and waited for Sereh, to hopefully, appear. There was snow and rock falling down the hole as the friction from the rope caused a mini avalanche to fall. Arrow let out a small yelp but the rope continued to move. They couldn’t stop. Not now. The crevasse was far too unstable.
With a cry of joy, Erann saw Sereh’s head appear through the hole. He cried out in alarm. She looked awful; her face blue and bruised and sheeted in sweat. He wanted to go to her, to touch her, to reassure himself that she was all right. But he continued to wait until she cleared the hole and was a short distance away from it. He felt a slight trembling in the earth below him and reached out frantically for something to hold onto. At that moment, Arrow appeared, and he grabbed her. She pulled them both clear as the ground around them disappeared, down a long and dark tunnel, to who knew where.
Erann lay beside Sereh, getting his breath back and cursing his stupidity for getting too close to the hole. He reached for Sereh’s icy hand and prized his own fingers from Arrow’s fur at the same time. Greeneyes had also returned to his side and with part of his mind he wondered at the strange picture they must make together; a wolf, a dragon, a man and a woman. No one would ever believe him and he wasn’t sure he wanted anyone to, other than Sereh.
He rolled over, towards Sereh, and finally got a really good look at her. His heart stopped temporarily. Where they too late? He reached out his shaking hand and gently placed it on her chest. It took an agonisingly long time but he eventually felt a slight heartbeat. She was alive – that was all he needed to know. He undid all the tangled furs that had formed the rope and heaped them around her. Then he turned to Greeneyes and showed him an image of what he wanted him to do. Greeneyes wrapped them both in his front claws. Erann tried to get Arrow to come with them but she shied away, and instead took off running back towards the cave. With a snap of his wings, Greeneyes had them in the air.
* * *
She wasn’t sure of anything any more. Even the cold had faded to an irritating niggle. However, she was sure she had felt movement and that she heard Erann speak her name. She smiled to herself. It hurt. Her face must be so cold it was frozen in place. She had been a fool but at least in death she would see Erann again. The thought filled her with peace.
After some time, she realised the movement had stopped and wondered why. Only moments later she felt furs being piled around her and then, after a few more moments, the pain came. Every part of body was tingling, and not in a nice way. She cried out. This was agony. She would rather stay numb than endure this pain.
She was aware of someone whispering her name. It was Erann. And of a persistent force inside her mind trying to relieve her pain. She fought the presence, concentrating on fighting that instead of on the almost unendurable agony that was lancing through her body, and also on Erann’s voice. Erann’s voice would keep her safe. She wanted to be with the voice.
* * *
He felt totally useless. Everything he did to comfort Sereh seemed to make her cry out in pain. He had covered her with furs and placed the heat stone at her feet before gently dribbling warmed water into her mouth. Still she twisted and turned. Eventually he had asked Greeneyes to calm her pain – Greeneyes said she had fought him with so much strength that he was unable to offer support. Still, Greeneyes stayed. Only when Arrow had returned and lain at her side, her right hand entangled in her fur, had she calmed down at all. The only comfort was that in her pain, she cried his name, over and over again.
Tears streaked his face and his heart had not beaten out a steady rhythm since he had seen her return from her crevasse, complete and whole. Greeneyes had tried to calm him as well. Erann had refused his help and had pushed him from his mind, a skill he had not realised he had. Greeneyes had accepted all this willingly. He had not become upset but had retreated outside the cave, concentrating on blowing his warm breath inside the cave. Only when Sereh seemed to sleep more naturally did Erann even begin to relax, and then when he did, his leg screamed in agony; now he accepted Greeneyes help. He needed it to function.
He made himself a strong tea with Emma’s herb and then dribbled more of it through Sereh’s lips. She groaned in her sleep and whispered his name. He held her now
warm hand, and whispered back that she was okay now, she was safe and that he loved her. She whispered back, “Me too”. Tears pricked his eyes as he saw a small smile light up her face. Wherever she was now she at least understood what he was saying. His heart leapt. She was safe and she loved him.
When she slept peacefully, he gently uncovered her feet and removed her fur lined shoes, and seal skin outers. Her feet were still cold but each toe responded to his touch. He took another heated stone from the fire and wrapped it in a fur before placing it near her feet. He checked her hands and fingers as well before placing them under the furs close to her skin.
He ran his hands over her face and through her long, lustrous blonde hair. It just felt so good to have her here – whole and in one piece. Eventually he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer and he climbed under the furs next to her, lacing his fingers though her own.
* * *
All night she dreamed strange dreams. Faces floated in front of her; her father; her mother; Rankil; Erann; Dabbie; Emma She tried to catch her dreams but they slipped through her mind almost as soon as she had dreamt them.
She felt warm and loved and only her unsettling dreams forced her to the surface, before she sank back down again. Finally a dream of Rankil calling her name pushed her back to the surface enough to waken her. Her eyes opened, slowly, unsure where she was. She felt that she was surrounded by warm bodies and gradually became aware of Arrow to her left and Erann to her right. She looked above and recognised the intricate black and grey pattern of the cave where she had nursed Erann back to health. How had she come to be here, surrounded by the two people she loved most? The last thing she recalled clearly was falling down a hole which had opened up before her.
Her mind wondered. Why did it matter how she came to be here? Surely all that mattered was that she was, and that she was, somehow, magically, safe.