Arrow’s Flight (24 page)

While there was still light left to see by, they took turns clearing the valley of deadfall. They finally had enough to satisfy Kris when they’d found the last scrap of wood that hadn’t vanished into snow too deep to be searched. It would not outlast being snowed in, but there was more than enough to outlast the storm. If, when the storm died, they couldn’t reach any more deadfall, they could cut one of the trees surrounding the station, evergreens with a resinous sap that would allow them to burn, even though green.

But when they returned to their shelter, their work wasn’t complete. For though there seemed little rational reason to do so, they continued to follow their vague premonitions and moved all the supplies from the storage shed into the Waystation. It made things very crowded, but if they didn’t plan on moving around much, it would do.

By the time they finished, they were as chilled and weary as they had been the first night.They huddled over the fire with their bowls of stew, too exhausted even for conversation. The wind howling beyond the door seemed to have settled into their minds, numbing and emptying them, chilling them to the marrow. They huddled in their bed in a kind of stupor until sleep took them.

The wind suddenly strengthened early the next morning, causing even the sturdy stone walls to vibrate. They woke simultaneously and cowered together, feeling very small and very vulnerable as they listened with awe and fear to the fury outside. Kris was very glad now that they’d trusted their instincts and moved everything to the leeward side of the Station and within easy reach.

“It’s a good thing this isn’t a thatched roof like the last Station we were in,” Talia whispered to him, shivering against him, and plainly much subdued by the scream of the wind outside. “Thatch would have been shredded and blown away by now.”

Kris nodded absently, listening mainly to the sound of the storm tearing at their walls like a beast wanting to dig them out of their shelter. He was half-frightened, half-fascinated; this was obviously a storm of legendary proportions and nothing he’d ever seen or read could have prepared him for its power. The Station was growing cold again, heat escaping with the wind.

“I’d better build up the fire now, and one of us should stay awake to watch it. Talia, make a three-sided enclosure out of some of our supplies or the fodder, and pile lots of straw in it. We need more between us and the cold stone floor than we’ve been sleeping on. Leave room for the four-feets; if it gets too cold they’ll have to fit themselves in nearer the fire, somehow.”

Talia followed his orders, building them a real nest; she also layered another two bedgowns on over the woolen shift. Kris uncovered the coals and built the fire back up—and when he saw the skin of ice forming on their water-kettles, he was glad he had done so.

They crept back into their remade bed and held each other for extra warmth, staring into the fire, mesmerized by the flames and the wail of the wind around the walls. There didn’t seem to be any room for human thought, it was all swept away by that icy wind.

Their trance was broken by a hideous crashing sound. It sounded as though a giant out of legend was approaching the Station, knocking down trees as he came. The noise held them paralyzed, like rabbits frightened into immobility. There wasn’t anywhere to run to in any event. If something brought the Station down, they’d freeze to death in hours without shelter. Neither of them could imagine what the cause could be. It seemed to take several minutes, approaching the Station inexorably from the rear, finally ending with a roar that shook the back wall and a splintering sound that came unmistakably from beyond the half-door.

They sat shocked into complete immobility, hearts in their throats, for a very long time.

Finally— “Bright Goddess! Was that where I thought it was?” Kris gulped and tried to unclench his hands.

“B-b-behind the Station,” Talia stuttered nervously, pupils dilated with true fear. “Where the storage shed is.”

Kris rose and tried the door. It wouldn’t budge. “Was,” he said, and crawled back in beside her.

She didn’t venture to contradict him.

Twice more they heard trees crashing to the ground, but never again so close. And as if that show of force had finally worn it out, the wind began to slacken and die. By noon or thereabouts, it had gone completely, and all that remained were the faint ticking sounds of the falling snow. Without the wind to keep it off the roof, it soon built up to a point where even that could no longer be heard.

The Station stopped losing heat. The temperature within rose until it was comfortable again, and the rising warmth lulled them back into their interrupted sleep before they realized it.

The Companions prodded them awake. How long they’d been asleep they had no idea; the fire was dying, but by no means dead, and the silence gave no clue.

Rolan impressed Talia with his need to go out. Immediately. Talia could tell by Kris’ face that Tantris was doing likewise.

He looked at her and shrugged. “Might as well find out now as later. We’re still here, and under shelter at least,” he said, and pulled on fresh clothing while she did the same.

It was not long till dark. The stacked fodder had kept the door clear of snow or they’d never have gotten it open. Beyond the shelter of the bales was a drift that reached higher than Kris’ head.

The chirras were not at all perturbed by the sight; they plowed right into it, forcing their way almost as if they were swimming, their long necks keeping their heads free of the snow. The Companions followed and the two Heralds followed them. After making their way through drifts that rose from between the level of Talia’s waist to the height of the first one, they suddenly broke into an area that had been scoured down to the grass by the wind.

The forest around them had a quality of age, of power held in check, that was raising the hair on the back of Talia’s neck. There was something here ... not quite alive, but not dead either. Something . . . waiting. Watching. Weighing them. Whatever it was, it brooded over them for several long moments. Talia found herself searching the shadows under the trees until her eyes ached, looking for some sign, and found nothing. But something was out there. Something inhuman, almost elemental, and—and at one, in some strange way she couldn’t define and could only feel, with the forest itself. As if the forest were providing it with a thousand eyes, a thousand ears....

“Where’s the road?” Talia asked in a small, frightened squeak.

Kris started at the sound of her voice, looked around, then turned slowly, evidently getting his bearings. The Station from here seemed to be only one taller drift among many. There were new gaps in the circle of trees that surrounded it. “That way—” he finally pointed. “There was a tree just beside the pathway in—”

“Which is now across the pathway in.”

“Once we get to it, we can have the chirras and Companions haul it clear ... I hope.”

“What about the back of the Station?” She was not certain that she wanted to find out.

“Let’s see if we can get back there.”

Working their way among the drifts in the deepening gloom, they managed to get to a point where they could see what had happened behind the Station, even though they couldn’t get to it yet. Kris whistled.

Not one, but nearly a dozen trees had gone over, each sent crashing by the one behind it, the last landing hard against the side of the Station. The storage shed was gone; splintered.

“At least we’ll have plenty of firewood,” Talia said with a strained laugh.

“Talia—” there was awe in Kris’s voice. “I never believed those stories about Sorrows and Vanyel’s Curse before—but took at the way the trees fell!”

Talia subdued her near-hysterical fear and really took a good look. Sure enough, the trees had fallen in a straight line, all in the direction of the force of the wind—except the last. There was no reason why it should have deviated that she could see, and had it fallen as its fellows it would have pulverized the Station—and them. But it had not; it had fallen at an acute angle, missing the Station entirely and destroying only the empty shed. It had almost fallen against the wind.

“Gods,” Kris said, “I—I never would have believed this. I never believed in miracles before.” He looked around again. “I ... this sounds stupid but, whatever you are . . . thanks.”

The steady feeling of being watched vanished as he said it. Talia found she could breathe easily again.

“Look, we’d better get back inside. It’s nearly dark,” Kris gazed up at the sky, and the snow that still fell from it with no sign of slackening.

Subdued by their situation and the destruction outside, they made their meal, ate, and cleaned up in silence. Finally Talia broached the subject that was troubling them both.

“Can we get out of here?”

“I’d like to be reassuring and optimistic, and say yes—but truthfully I don’t know,” Kris replied, resting his chin on his knees and staring into the fire. “It’s a long way to the road, and as I’ve told you, it will be worse beyond the trees. It’s going to take us a long time to cut a path there, with no certainty that the Guard will have gotten that far when we do make it.”

“Should we try to force our way without cutting a path?”

He shook his head. “The chirras could do it, unburdened, but not Tantris and Rolan. Even if they could, we’d need the supplies. I just don’t know.”

“Maybe we’d better just concentrate on digging our way out.”

“But how can we dig ourselves out with no tools?”

“There’s the tree blocking the way, too.”

Kris stared at the fire without speaking for a long time. “Talia,” he said finally, “Holderfolk never buy anything if they can help it—their miserliness is legendary. What do you know about making shovels?”

“Not much,” she replied ruefully, “But I’ll try.”

“Let’s take an inventory of our materials.”

They had plenty of rawhide for lashings, lots of straight, heavy tree limbs for handles and bracings, but nothing to use for blades. The unused bedboxes were so stoutly built that it would be next to impossible to pull the bottoms out, and the shelves were made of board too thick to be useful. There had been thinner wood used in the shelves of the shed— but they were fragmented now. Finally Talia sighed sadly and said with reluctance, “The only thing we have to use is the harp case.”

“No!” Kris protested.

“There’s nothing else. When we leave here we can detune My Lady and wrap her in blankets and cloaks and she should be all right without the case. The wood is light and strong, and it’s been waterproofed. It’s nearly even the right size and shape. We haven’t got a choice, Kris. Jadus wouldn’t thank us for being sentimental fools.”

“Damn!” He was silent for a moment. “You’re right. We haven’t any choice.”

He got the case from the corner on top of Talia’s packs where he’d left it. Wincing a little, he took his handaxe and carefully pried the front and back out of the frame, and handed them to Talia.

She fished a bit of charcoal out of the fireplace and drew something like the blade of a snow-shovel on each piece. She handed him one while she took up the other.

“Try and whittle it to that shape while I do the same.”

She shaved delicately at the edges of the wood with the blade of her own axe, with shavings falling in curls next to her. Kris watched her with care until he felt he knew exactly what she was doing, then began on his own piece. There was one blessing; the grain was fine enough that with sharp axes it was relatively easy to shape. When both their pieces approximated the look of a shovel blade, Talia marked holes in the boards for them to drill out with their knives. By the time they’d finished, their wrists and hands were tired and sore.

Talia flexed her hands trying to get some feeling and movement back into them. “Now I need two pieces about so wide,” she said, gesturing with her hands about two fingers’ width apart, “And as long as the backs of the blades. I expect you’ll have to cut them out of the frame.”

While Kris further demolished the harpcase, she rummaged in her packs for her pot of glue. When she found it, she placed it in a pot half-filled with water, and put that container over the fire so the glue would melt. Meanwhile she went through the dozen or so branches that looked to be good handle material and picked out the two best.

Once the glue was ready, she showed Kris where to drill holes in the branches, and how to taper the end that was going to be fastened to the blade. Her wrists just weren’t strong enough for the job. When he finished the first one, she lashed it to the blade with wet rawhide, stretching the thong as tightly as she could so that it would shrink and bind the shovel to blade as firmly as possible when it dried. Then she cross-braced the back of the blade with a smaller branch cut to fit, lashing it the same way to the handle. Lastly she glued the piece of frame to the back of the shovel blade to act as a stop to keep the snow from sliding off. She lashed another piece of branch to the handle behind the stop to act as a brace, then she glued every join on the whole makeshift shovel, saturating even the rawhide with glue. That finished all she knew how to do; she set the whole thing aside to cure overnight, and started in on the second.

“They’re not going to hold up under much rough handling,” she sighed wearily when she’d finished. “We’re going to have to treat them with a great deal of care.”