The Singers of Nevya (21 page)

“Doesn’t usually snow so much about now,” Lorn muttered, half to himself. “Usually get clear skies when the deep cold is starting.”

Sira looked about uneasily. It had not been so many weeks since she had traversed Ogre Pass. These surroundings looked nothing like it. Could one pass be so different from another? The snow fell in curtains about them and the trees loomed close over their heads.

“Singer,” she said, as respectfully as she could, “I think perhaps our direction is wrong.”

He pulled up his
hruss
. “I don’t understand it. We should have been in the Pass by now.”

The
hruss’s
fetlocks were heavy with unseasonably wet snow, which Sira supposed would freeze unpleasantly when darkness fell. Their path, which looked less and less like a road, had grown steep and treacherously slippery.

“We must go back,” she said. “Retrace our steps until we strike familiar ground. We have missed the entrance to the Pass.”

Lorn shrugged. “Might as well,” he said. “Snow’s getting thick.”

Sira could not see the downslope to her right through the blinding snow, and it worried her. She had an impression of emptiness, that might mean a cliff or a talus slope, hidden by the storm. “Be careful!” she called over her shoulder to Lorn. She turned her
hruss
with difficulty in the close space between heavy rocks and trees on the uphill side and white blankets of falling snow on the other.

Sira had heard the expression “white weather” many times, but had never experienced it. The reality, she thought, was worse than the description. Sky, ground, rocks, and trees disappeared into pallid curtains of snow. She felt dizzy at the loss of perspective, only barely retaining her sense of up and down by watching her
hruss’s
withers. The animal felt its way gingerly down the trail, and Sira felt every bunch and quiver of its muscles in her own legs and arms. A sudden squeal from the other
hruss
chilled her, as if a handful of wet snow had been dropped inside her furs. She heard Lorn make one short sound, a grunt or a curse.

“Lorn? Are you all right?” she called. She pulled up her
hruss
to listen. There was only the hiss of snow and the huffing of her mount. For a moment, panic tugged at her, a familiar feeling of being utterly alone in the wilderness. Then she heard Lorn’s voice, shaky but audible.

“Sira, wait!”

She looked back, but could not see him or his
hruss
. Laboriously, she turned her own beast once again, and urged it gently back up the steep path. “Lorn!” she called again. Suddenly the
hruss
stopped, and Sira realized the other animal was down, sprawled in the snow at her own mount’s feet.

The enveloping whiteness made it difficult to see anything. Sliding down from her saddle, Sira could just make out Lorn lying beside his fallen
hruss
. Snow trickled under her hood to wet her neck. She kept a hand on her
hruss’s
neck to orient herself in the blank whiteness.

“Can you get up?” she asked.

Lorn’s figure shifted a little. “It’s my leg,” he said weakly. “Afraid it’s broken.”

“And your
hruss
?”

“He severed his hamstring.” There was a painful pause. “I cut his throat.”

Sira’s stomach lurched, but she nodded with respect for Lorn’s quick and merciful action. “I will make a
quiru
.”

She leaned back against her
hruss
, her mouth dry, her hand clutching at its mane as her boots slid on the icy ground. They would have to stay here until the snow let up enough to see properly. She had no experience with broken bones, and no confidence in her ability to deal with them. And how would they get down from here?

She pulled her
filla
from inside her tunic. Taking some snow into her mouth, she waited for it to melt. She squatted by the dead
hruss’s
body across from Lorn. When her mouth was moist enough, she put the
filla
to her lips and played until a strong
quiru
blossomed around them. In its light, and the blessed relief from the white weather effect, she saw Lorn clearly.

His face was gray with pain, though he made no sound. He lay limply against the still-warm body of his
hruss
. Her own
hruss
sniffed at the dead one, shifting its feet nervously as it smelled the blood pooling under the poor beast’s head.

Sira untied Lorn’s bedfurs from the back of his saddle and spread them with difficulty, working them under him. Snow fell into the slender
quiru
, dampening her face as she tried to work. Everything would be wet with melted snow in an hour. The
quiru
would have to be kept very warm, and Lorn’s leg would require whatever help she could muster. She wondered briefly how they could be found, so far from the traveled road, but thrust that worry aside. More immediate matters required all her concentration.

“Lorn, I will try to ease your pain. I do not know if I can do anything about the leg. Lie as still as possible and let your mind be open.”

The old Singer nodded, gritting his teeth. Sira’s earlier impatience with him dissolved in admiration for the unflinching way he accepted the accident and its consequences.

She began to sing, wordlessly, a simple melody in the first mode. His face smoothed and relaxed almost at once. She took up her
filla
and played in the second mode, with her eyes closed, trying to see the injured leg. Her psi encountered the chaos of broken bone and torn flesh, and collapsed, unable to go farther. She had almost no idea what to do.

The mountain
hruss
were heavy creatures, and it seemed Lorn’s had fallen with its full weight on his leg. Sira put her
filla
back inside her tunic, and dug through Lorn’s saddlepack until she found a large piece of softwood. She took a deep breath, put her hands on the crushed leg, and straightened it with one swift, strong movement.

Lorn gave a long, deep groan, but did not open his eyes. Sira bound the leg to the piece of wood with strips of leather cut from the injured man’s saddle. She felt along it with her hands, hoping it was more or less straight. The bone, she thought, was in bits, one of them breaking through the skin. The pain must be ghastly.

“I am sorry, Singer,” she muttered aloud. “All I can think to do is to try to get you down to the traveled road.”

She sat back on her heels, wet and exhausted and afraid. Around her
quiru
the whiteness was as blank and forbidding as a solid cliff of ice. Lorn lay quietly against his dead
hruss
, and her own beast nudged at her anxiously. Sira felt as if she had been in this spot forever.

Thirst and hunger finally moved her to action. She worked her way to her saddlepack and untied it, laying it out on her bedfurs. The
hruss
whickered at her, and she patted its big shoulder. “Be easy,” she said. “We will not be going anywhere today.”

She cleared a spot of wet snow and set out softwood twigs and a little tinder, and began to try again with the flint and stone.

For the first time, she succeeded. She breathed a prayer of thanks as a curl of smoke, no less white than their surroundings, rose into the
quiru
. There was a chuckle from Lorn. “Finally got it?” he said through pale lips.

“Finally,” she said. She was inordinately proud of her little fire crackling gently, melting snowflakes as they drifted into it.

“Can’t fix my leg, can you, Cantrix?”

Sira looked sharply at the old man. She had told him nothing of her background. “I am just a Singer,” she said lamely. “Like you.”

Lorn ignored that. His voice was weak as he went on. “Conservatory doesn’t teach that, I guess. It’s bad, though.”

“I am afraid it is bad,” Sira answered. “But I am not a good judge. Without a
pukuru
, it will be difficult to carry you back to the main road.”

Lorn’s eyes fluttered, and Sira hung her head, feeling useless. What would she do now? Food, she decided, was the first thing. Then she would think, long and hard.

As she busied herself with
keftet
in her little cooking pot, Lorn roused again. “You’ll have to go back without me.”

Sira shook her head. “You could die here alone, and the pain would be terrible.”

“I may die in any case.”

There was a long silence. Sira made tea, and handed Lorn a cup. She stirred the grain and dried
caeru
meat over the fire, trying not to burn it this time, adding snow when it looked dry. At last she said, “I will make a sled and pull it behind my
hruss
.”

Lorn managed another dry chuckle. “You can’t even saddle your own
hruss
!”

“I can and I did,” Sira reminded him. “When the weather clears, we will go down. Together.”

It sounded simple enough, except that Sira had no idea where they were, or if she would recognized the road if she found it. But she could bear no more deaths on her conscience.

Lorn closed his eyes, submitting. He whispered, “Thanks, Cantrix.”

“Just Singer,” she said, but very quietly.

Chapter Nineteen

Snow continued to fall all night and most of the next day. When it finally began to taper off, it was already too late to make a start. Sira had sung for Lorn several times, when the pain began to rise again, and he accepted her help with gratitude. She cooked for him, too, inexpertly. They ate everything regardless of its quality. Between their two saddlepacks, they estimated they had food for about five days. But it was not food that worried Sira.

She fashioned a makeshift
pukuru
from Lorn’s bedfurs, using the cinch, flank strap, and ties from his saddle as harness. She remembered the cushioned, bone-runnered
pukuru
that had carried Theo; hers would not be so comfortable. The deep snow would have to be Lorn’s cushion until they found the road. Perhaps there she could find softwood trees to rig as runners.

The second morning in their precarious campsite dawned clear and cold. Now Sira could see the steep, treeless slope falling away to the east, as if they were on some winding mountain trail. It was certainly not one of the roads they had been seeking.

Lorn’s face looked as gray as his hair, his eyes sunken and glazed. He barely touched the bowl of
keftet
she gave him.

Sira ate, and fed the
hruss
, then carefully turned it around on the narrow path. She struggled to fasten the clumsy runnerless sled to the back of her saddle. She knew little of knots, and had never tied anything but her hair when it was long. The leather was thick and unwieldy in her fingers, and rigid with cold. She fashioned an awkward sort of tether to attach to the bedfurs, splitting the other end with her knife, and tying the two pieces to either side of her saddle.

Mounting her
hruss
, and urging it into a gentle walk, Sira turned sideways to watch the improvised
pukuru
as it slid over the snow. She was afraid it would slide right under the
hruss’s
hooves, or that it might come undone. They left the body of Lorn’s
hruss
behind, though Sira contemplated butchering it for the meat. She decided she didn’t need anything else to carry. They traveled for what seemed an impossibly long time, with Sira constantly looking backward until her neck and sides ached with twisting.

The path was treacherous, but the fine Conservatory
hruss
was surefooted. More than once Sira patted it gratefully on the withers. Once she had to stop and tighten the cinch, doing her best to make it comfortable for the animal but still safe. Lorn appeared to be asleep, so she mounted again, and they resumed their slow progress down the mountainside.

Softwood trees began to appear again, and the sky brightened. Sira could see why Lorn had thought the trail was a road. It widened and smoothed, little by little.

She wondered how she would ever learn all the roads and trails of the Continent, the way an itinerant must. She couldn’t do it alone, that was certain. She would have to apprentice herself to someone. The independence she longed for seemed further away than ever.

At midday, Sira reined in her
hruss
, and got down to check the injured man. Lorn’s color was no better, and he didn’t rouse when she spoke to him. Rather than do battle with the flint and stone, she ate some cold dried meat and fed the
hruss
with a bit of grain from her hand.

Climbing back into the saddle, she set off again, stopping once in a while to adjust the sled or retie a strap. Through the long day they rode. Sira’s back ached from the strain of guarding the
pukuru
. Her legs trembled with fatigue from bracing herself in the saddle.

At last the trail came out into a broad, more level stretch of packed snow that looked as if it might be a road. Sira stopped the
hruss
, shakily dismounting and leaning against the stirrup for a moment to let her muscles recover. She thought Lorn might recognize the road in the morning. Tonight they would camp here, and eat. Tomorrow they could decide their route.

Lorn still slept, even as she untied the sled and smoothed his bedfurs around him. She spoke to him, and touched his shoulder, but he did not respond. She even extended a gentle tendril of psi into his mind, but the waves of his thought were blank and unreadable.

Sira established a strong, warm
quiru
before dark fell. She struggled with the fire, almost giving up until she heard a
ferrel
scream in the distance. Then she tried one more time. The muscles of her wrists wearied of the effort, but she kept at it until a thin line of smoke curled from her little pile of tinder and softwood. She cooked
keftet
again and ate all of it quickly, though it was cold in the middle and burned underneath. The
hruss
nuzzled her shoulder and she realized she had forgotten to feed it.

“Sorry,” she murmured, rising to dig grain out of her saddlepack. The
hruss
dipped its muzzle into the grain, and Sira spared a moment to worry about how flat the saddlepack was getting. The softwood was in shortest supply. It had never occurred to her to bring an axe, and she had no idea whether there would be deadfall to burn.