Servant of the King Chapter 21

Chapter 21

            He lay on his back in a patch of sunshine in the middle of a clearing. He thought he could hear the daily noise from his village, somewhere just beyond sight as he turned his head to the left and right. Laughter, sharp voices, the noise of someone chopping wood or something similar. The warmth felt so good, as if it were a friend he had not seen for years. Or like his bed after a long day hunting with his father and Lamorun.

            Something was wrong. He tried to push himself up to go and join his village, but he couldn't move. It was not so much that he was paralyzed, but that his limbs were too heavy for him to lift.

            That was okay, it was warm here and he was comfortable.

            But his family. Something told him that he hadn't seen them in a while and that they wanted him home soon. Perhaps for dinner. He had to go to dinner.

            He still couldn't move, although his stomach seemed to be twisting tightly.

            He had to get up. Had to see his mother and father, Lamorun and Alronna.

            That was wrong. Lamorun had died in one of the king's useless wars on the Usurpers.

            At the thought of the Usurpers, an image of a footprint outside of his family's hut came to him. What did that mean?

He struggled to make connections. If only he could stand, he could walk to the village and someone there would help him.

Someone there.

Alronna.

Everything in his body told him not to move as consciousness invaded. He opened his eyes, brown pine needles blurring into long spears that a rodent might use.

A dream. As he thought the word, he became instantly aware of the frigid temperature that seemed to want to absorb him and the tiny pocket of slight warmth in his torso. He had fallen asleep under the tree.

He had to move. Had to get up.

Groaning in pain, he forced himself to roll off his side onto his knees. When he put his hands down on the ground to steady himself, pain lanced through his fingers. He looked at fingers and hands; they were pale in the dim morning light that filtered through the canopy of pine branches. At least I can still feel them.

He began to crawl out from under the tree, then realized he had left his bag and bow. The quiver still hung over his shoulder. With that thought came dull pain from where the quiver must have been pressing into his side and back while he slept.

Pain.

Pain means I'm not dead yet. But one more night like this last one and Lakhoni wasn't certain he would make it through.

"I have to make it." He grunted as he dragged his things with him. He pushed his body to a standing position. Aches and stiffness forced him to try several times to straighten his back. "It can't be that far." He reached down to pick up his bag and bow. His movements were slow in the quiet of the winter morning. Slow like an oldster.

"It can't be that far."

He glanced up and only then realized that the sun was shining brightly over the mountains. The frigid wind had died too; perhaps the clouds had taken it with them as they departed.

He leaned toward the sun, willing his legs to move and catch him before he fell. It seemed that with every step, a shudder would course through him. He caught his cloak tighter around his body—or at least as tightly as it would go now that he had to carry his bow tucked under his arm. As he walked, he tried to jam his hands under his arms while still holding the cloak. He angled his breathing alternately up and down, first into his leather face mask and then down into his tunic.

The moment of warmth each breath gave fled too quickly in the face of the cold.

Every few minutes, interspersed among handfuls of snow and long, slow breaths, he would say it aloud again. "It can't be that far."

The morning passed slowly and quickly. He felt as if each step lasted an hour or more, but when he looked up into the sky, the sun was somehow behind him already.

Hunger pangs struck hard as afternoon dimmed into the evening.

He had been scouring the terrain as he walked, moving between patches of forest and open ground. He had seen no sign of any other living thing or anything edible.

Dark fell quickly. Only minutes before the sun's glow faded completely, Lakhoni found another sheltering tree.

Small and medium branches littered the bed of brown needles under the tree.

The thought of a substantial fire made his movements even clumsier than the cold had made him. Finally, after several tries, he had smoke coming from a pile of needles. Blowing gently, he added small twigs, then some small branches.

The fire's heat and warm glow seemed to kindle greater hunger in him. How long had it been? Two days? Three?

If only he could eat leather.

He held still, trying to catch the thought that followed his wish.

There. He searched the ground from his position between the fire and the tree trunk. He found a rock that was about as wide around as his hand was long. It was flat on one side, but had a very shallow cavity in it. He found another rock and started scraping at the cavity in the first rock. It didn't take him long to realize that he was making no difference.

He put the flat rock right next to the fire, then carefully sidled to the right, leaning out far enough to pick up a handful of snow. He placed the snow in the cavity of the rock; the snow melted almost immediately. Reaching to his belt, Lakhoni pulled his knife from its sheath, then carefully cut a tiny chunk of his cloak off. This he placed in the water in the cavity of the rock.

He sat as patiently as he could, for as long as he could, feeding the fire. The small amount of water actually began to bubble after a while. He left it for a few minutes longer, then used his cloak to protect his hands as he eased the rock away from the fire to cool down.

He could wait no longer. Taking the rock in leather-wrapped hands, he lifted it to his mouth, slurping the hot liquid up. A faint hint of deer meat filled his mouth. With his tongue, he took the small piece of leather out of the rock cavity and chewed on it. It was tough, but he could almost believe he was chewing on a very tough, overcooked piece of deer meat. His stomach rumbling, he chewed, praying that even this small bit of nourishment would keep him alive. He felt his eyelids getting heavy.

            "Too tired," he said. His unused voice sounded strange to him. This diminishment of his energy felt like it was a bad sign. He guessed that it would simply continue as his body fought the frigid cold with so little food to fuel it.

            Shaking his head, he repeated the process of making leather cloak soup. As he did, his thoughts turned to the buck he had tried to take the… How long ago was that? Was that yesterday? How did deer do it? They seemed to manage winters fine. He thought back to the buck pushing its nose through the snow, seeking food. He knew that they ate winter moss throughout the season, but was that all they ate?

            Winter moss. If it could feed a deer, could he eat it too?

            Lakhoni pushed himself away from his small fire and tiny amount of bland soup. He scrabbled under the branches of the pine tree and, the darkness nearly complete but for the stars and a rising moon, searched the woods for one of the rare winter-naked trees. It didn't take him long. Finding one, he fell to his knees and dug through the snow at the base of the tree with leather-covered hands.

            Starlight illuminated the winter moss, making it look pale and almost ghostly. Lakhoni pulled some and brought it to his nose. The smell of green things filled him, sending images of spring into his mind. He touched his tongue to the moss. No flavor. Next he took a small bit into his mouth and chewed. He had eaten grass before and this tasted much the same, only heavier—closer to what he imagined earth would taste like.

            The flavor wasn't one of the several flavors his father had taught him to watch out for as poisonous.

            "It couldn't hurt," he said. He stood and returned to his shrinking fire.

            Lakhoni broke the moss into tiny bits and added it to the already hot water in the cavity of the rock. He would leave it longer this time to see if the leather would soften more. He sat, adding fuel to the fire, the moments of near-comfort allowing him to send his mind on old paths.

            The Separated could not track him. He felt confident that he had thoroughly escaped them. Maybe they thought he had died and expected to find his corpse in the spring. He planned on disappointing them. He felt that these moments of clarity were an opportunity for him to confirm his objective in being out in this terrible cold.

            Alronna had been taken from the village, along with something else that came from under his mother's sleeping mat. Something about the size of a new baby—if that baby were in a square container of some kind. His village was gone, the people murdered.

            Justice or a sister? He snapped a thin branch over his knee. Am I after only Alronna, or am I supposed to bring justice to our family's murderers. Lakhoni sat there, waiting for his leather moss soup, looking inward for the rage that had filled him so many months before—the anger that had fueled him less than a week previous.

            He could not find it. No storm roiled in his soul anymore. Instead, he found a banked fire, its heat and glow nearly gone. He couldn't call it rage or fury. He didn't know what to call it, but it felt like the gently glowing coals of this fire were not wood coals but were something stronger, harder and hotter. Like they were stones heated by a mighty force and made to glow in darkness, lighting the way through a journey.

            Finding and rescuing Alronna would not be enough. The king and his raiders must answer for their crimes. It had to be like in the village. If someone stole something, they were made to return it, then they had to receive a number of lashes to their hands, then serve the person whose property they had stolen.

            Restitution. There had to be restitution and justice. He fed a stick to the fire before him. He didn't know how he would be able to mete out that justice. But he also wasn't supposed to be alive and wasn't supposed to have been able to escape from the Separated. I've made it this far. I'll find a way.

            Not because of anger or grief, but because law demanded it.

            Maybe not the king's law, Lakhoni thought, but a different kind of law. "Something greater," he said. He reached for his miniscule amount of soup and brought it to his mouth. The rock's heat felt good against his leather-covered hands. The soup's flavor was stronger this time. Leather moss soup was not delicious, but it was better than nothing.

            As he lowered the rock, the heat he felt gave him another idea. He found more rocks under the tree and put them all just on the edges of his mid-sized fire. Then he sat there, chewing leather, feeding the fire and resisting the urge to make more leather moss soup. If he wasn't careful, he would eat his entire cloak.

            Just before sleep took him, Lakhoni arranged the warm rocks in different positions along his body, curling around them. His stomach still rumbled. His toes still felt as if they were steadily freezing. But a feeling that he had crossed some kind of horrible chasm filled him. As if a difficult bridge had been traversed successfully.

            He wasn't finished yet. Not going to die under this tree either.

*          *          *          *          *

            Lakhoni came to a stream early the next morning. He guessed it was about four paces wide. Ice and snow covered it. How thick could the ice be? He found a dead branch and swept the snow off a small space near the stream's bank. Next he found a rock and, crouching low, slammed it into the ice. Cracks formed with the first strike. Only three hard hits later, freezing water splashed up as chunks of ice split apart. He had a hole that was about a half pace in width.

            ”Now what?" The idea of catching a fish had so overtaken him that he hadn't thought about what he would use to do it. He stood there, looking blankly at the hole he had made. He needed a net, but it would have to be small. And what would he use to make the net?

            He could use an arrow head as a hook and lower it on a thin strip from his cloak. "Bait?" he asked himself.

            No idea revealed itself. He had a hole in ice, and perhaps fish swimming in the water underneath the ice. But he had no way of catching one.

            "Sorry stream." He walked several paces to the right, then crossed the stream quickly. Orienting himself on the sun again, he left the stream behind. "Is it better to talk to streams or to myself?"

            He let the question dissipate in the still winter air along with the cloud of his breath. "If the stream talks back, that's probably better," he said, a grunt of laughter following. He laughed again, this time louder. It hurt his chest and throat, but felt good somewhere else—somewhere deeper. "Better if a stream talks back!" The bursts of laughter felt wild. An abandon he had never felt before washed through him. "So talk back, stream!"

            Lakhoni flung his hands out wide, welcoming the odd sensation that filled him. Nothing mattered beyond each breath, each step. If he could beat the winter with leather moss soup, nothing could stop him. And if winter won the day, so be it. All that mattered was that he still breathed and would fight for each breath. Exhilaration filled him. His bones seemed to burn with a sudden power. "Talk back!" He laughed at the clouds forming heavy bundles in the west. He screamed at the frozen woods and brush. He fell to his knees, bellowing his defiance. His chest and throat burned. His stomach was a chasm that would never again be filled. And still he shouted.

            He didn't know when his screams became tears. He only knew that he found himself on all fours, his feet and hands feeling as though they were frozen to the ground. Tears poured off his cheeks, and out the slits in his mask, dropping and leaving tiny holes in the snow beneath him. He lowered himself so that his forearms rested in the snow and tried to catch his breath. He had to keep breathing. The snow felt soft beneath him, strangely warm. It would make a nice bed.

            No. He still had several hours of daylight. He could walk more.

            But a little rest. Maybe some leather moss soup. He could find a tree.

            Lakhoni felt his body pulling downward—the ground reaching up for him.

            Why not?

            Nobody would know.

            He heaved in a freezing breath. Sharp pain, like tiny icicles, jabbed the inside of his chest.

            Nobody would know.

            But he had to fight for each breath. He could breathe just as well, maybe better, if he were walking. He pushed himself up, scrabbling through the powdery snow until he was on only hands and knees again. He pushed again, arching his back and getting his feet under him.

            He stood. Pain. There was pain and breathing. That was all.

            He looked to the crisp blue sky and found the sun.

            Tucking his bow under his arm and his cloak tighter around his shaking body, Lakhoni took a step forward.

            A spasm of coughing burst out of him.

            He took another step.

            He breathed in, holding the air until it felt warm again, then blew out, first into his mask, then his tunic.

            Another step.

            He found himself in a wide pasture of rolling mounds of snow. The forest had ended.

            Another step. Another breath.

            No more than an hour had passed when he saw the glint of fire and the shadows it threw on a circle of stone huts. 

Servant of the King Chapter 20

Chapter 20

            Stars glistened like countless jewels on a blanket of midnight black. He felt that if he stopped for long enough, he could count each and every one of them in the night sky.

            And then I would freeze. Somebody would find a Lakhoni statue.

            The ridiculous thought fluttered away, stolen by the full-body shudders that slammed through Lakhoni's body with terrifying regularity. He had been walking for so long that he no longer had to force his legs to move, carrying him forward through the pine trees that made up this new forest.

            Seven days.

            His eighth night in the frigid winter.

            And I still have no idea if I am getting anywhere near Lemalihah.

            He wondered if he would ever be able to smell anything, or for that matter taste anything, again. His face felt carved from ice, despite the swath of deer skin that covered everything but his eyes. He had punched a small hole for him to breathe through as well and had initially been amused when icicles began to form around it.

            Now there was no energy for laughter. No energy for thoughts that moved far from walking eastward.

            Lakhoni resisted the impulse to glance over his shoulder. Just keep going. Nobody's there. He had spent his first night away from the cavern jogging and walking, praying to the First Fathers for snow. He had decided, as the first flakes fell, that his prayers had been answered, although he was certain it would have snowed without his prayers.

            What was the purpose of those prayers then?

            The thought evaporated in the cold, the shivers that took control of his body, the numbness that was traveling down his fingertips.

            Those first flakes had been the beginning of an angry snowstorm that had lasted two days. Was it three? It didn't matter. All that mattered was that there was no possible way any of the Separated could have tracked him. He had escaped.

            A tremor of hunger flared in his stomach, fighting with his shivers. His meat had run out the previous day, despite all of his rationing. He had finished the last half of an apple this morning.

            He had escaped the Separated, but he was beginning to wonder if he would simply die out here in the raw winter. As he walked, he made sure to keep his eyes open for any sign of wildlife he might be able to trap or shoot with his bow. He had seen nothing for days; only sentinel-like pine trees, snow that rippled like a shaken blanket, and vast sky.

            No paths. No animals. No sign of a village or any other human.

            He felt he must be the only creature that moved on the earth.

            None would miss him if he simply gave in to the exhaustion that seemed to be making his bones ache. He could wrap his deer hide and blanket tightly around himself, start a final fire, then go to sleep. As he slept, his fire would surely fade, and so would he.

            No. Alronna. She was out there. She had to be in Lemalihah. What was happening to her there? Was she being hurt?

            Frustration kindled in him. He stoked the tiny inner fire with thoughts of the injustice and cruelty of the king. Flames of anger lengthened his stride, made him blink the chill from his eyes and focus more. I have to eat.

            He decided to walk more slowly so that he might increase his chances for seeing signs of wildlife. Despite the pale light that reflected from the snow from the stars and sliver of a moon, he could make out little of detail on the snow's surface.

            Tomorrow. He would spend tomorrow looking for food. Then he would resume his journey. Tonight he had to find a place to rest.

            He knew what to look for: a large pine tree with wide, low-hanging branches. It would shelter him from much of the frigid wind and there was always a thick bed of old, dried pine needles on the ground under such trees. Good fuel for a small fire.

            After a few minutes of searching, he found exactly what he needed. The tree stood tall, as if it were the captain of the army of trees surrounding it. He ducked low, trying to keep from knocking snow off the branches above down upon him. He lowered himself to the ground, putting his back against the rough tree trunk.

            He set his bag on the ground and retrieved the spark rocks. Next, he gathered a goodly pile of dried needles, leaning to one then the other side to get as many as he could reach without having to get up. He cleared a space in front of him, exposing the hard, cold ground beneath the needles. With only a few tries, he had smoke coming from the small pile of needles he had arranged on the bare spot.

            Gently blowing and carefully adding more needles as needed, he soon had a small fire crackling. He leaned in close to thaw his face. After what felt like hours, he could finally smell the aroma of burning pine.

            He built the fire higher, adding some small, dead branches that were scattered in among the dead needles under the tree. The heat hurt his frozen fingertips, the pain lingering for a long time. Nothing's fallen off yet, he thought. He didn't dare to remove his boots to confirm this hope, but instead moved his feet closer to the fire, hoping the heat would penetrate the frozen leather.

            Opening the blanket and cloak he had wrapped around his body, he willed the heat of his small fire into his flesh.

            His stomach rumbled, jealous of the slight comfort the rest of his body was enjoying.

            Tomorrow. He would kill some food…

            The thought drifted away as sleep overcame him.

*          *          *          *          *

            A sharp jabbing, like the point of a spear, in his cheek dragged him from the weight of dangerous sleep. Lakhoni jerked groggily awake, forcing himself from already fading dreams of cave-like darkness.

            It hurt. He felt as if he were fighting part of himself that wanted to stay in that position forever, hoarding the pocket of warmth that he had trapped in his middle.

            He lay curled in a ball, pine needles pricking his cheek. Black and gray ash, snowflake light, and all that remained of his miniscule fire, scattered as he willed himself to scrabble into a seated position.

            The ache in his stomach felt like another spear, this one digging and twisting, seeking his spine.

            He gathered his bag, grateful to the canopy of pine branches that had kept the frost from covering it. And him. Two, maybe three mornings previous, he had woken and found himself covered in a fair dusting of snow.

            Dangerous. Have to move.

            On hands and knees, pointy needles under his palms, he crawled out from under the canopy, lurching to his feet in the snow that came up past his ankles. It was soft and light; easily blown by the almost constant frigid wind.

            Hunt. I was going to hunt today.

            Lakhoni looked to the nearly uniform, gray sky. After a brief moment of searching, he found the glow that indicated the sun's position. East. He would continue east, but much slower. And he would find food.

            Surely he wasn't the only thing moving in the woods. He would find a deer, or a rabbit. Even a predator of some kind. Or maybe a frozen stream that would have sleepy fish wandering under a layer of ice.

            He began to walk, coughing to clear his chest. This did not feel like a spear; it was more like a small animal that was chewing its way out through his ribs. His throat burned as well. He knew these were signs of winter illness. But he knew there was nothing he could do.

            As he walked, he swung his arms down periodically, filling his hands with snow and bringing them up to his mouth. Mouthfuls of snow melted as he held them until they were warm enough to swallow. In this manner, he made his careful way through the trees, scouring the ground and trees for signs of life. Scattered snow at the base of a tree. Torn bark exposing a tree's tender trunk.

            There would be something. There had to be.

            Hours passed. His legs moved of their own accord. A sense of futility began to fill Lakhoni. He knew he was going mostly east and felt like he would surely run into Lemalihah eventually. It was supposed to be a large city; how could he miss it? But despite that inevitability, he knew his body would only continue functioning for so long in this weather. Branches clothed with deep green winter gowns filled his vision. Trunks, dark and rough, sap frozen in lighter bumps wandered through his sight as he walked. Splotches of lighter brown interspersed with whorls where old tree branches had fallen off.

            Lakhoni held snow in his mouth and trailed to a stop.

            Lighter brown splotches. A tingle shot through him from neck to feet. Swallowing the newly melted water, he pushed through the snow to the tree trunk he had just seen. He bent close, examining the uneven scarring on the trunk's bark. Yes, this had been an animal. It didn't look to be too old, either. He turned to the ground, seeking further evidence. Questing out further from the tree, he found the deer droppings long minutes later. He crouched near the pile of round pellets. Taking his cloak and wrapping part of it around his right hand, he carefully brushed a small layer of snow away from the area surrounding the droppings, seeking hoof prints in the snow.

            Nothing; just a uniform layer of snow.

            If there had been a slight thaw, he might have found prints that had broken through a crust of snow, leaving evidence behind. But the cold had never broken once it had set in.

            Lakhoni began walking in ever-widening circles around the tree trunk and deer scat. He had to be at least fifty hands from the original tree when he found a patch of somewhat bare ground at the base of a tree. Tiny, light green flecks colored the dark earth. This had been a patch of winter moss. He looked back toward the other tree, deducing the movement of the deer.

            In this manner, walking in wider and wider circles around trees, ducking low branches, and shivering as his body protested the prolonged cold, he hunted. The morning passed and Lakhoni hoped he wasn't fantasizing the feeling that the spoor he was following seemed to be getting fresher.

            It was early afternoon, his stomach rumbling loud enough that he was sure the noise would echo off the tree trunks around him, that he found the trail in the snow. There was no denying it; this was a deer trail. He searched the trail, seeking evidence of the direction the deer had been moving in. He searched for many minutes before he found the nearly complete hoof print.

            South.

            With a brief, regretful glance to the east, Lakhoni followed the trail.

            Afternoon light was dimming toward evening when Lakhoni realized that the light brown, fallen tree he had been staring at was not a tree. He immediately crouched, estimating the distance. Nearly a hundred paces. He slid his bow off his shoulder, standing behind a tree and quickly stringing it. This was harder than usual in the cold, but it still took little effort. He tested the stinging wind, then moved carefully to the right so that he could be totally downwind of the buck he had sighted.

            With its antlers, it stood taller than his father, taller than even Gimno.

            Giddy eagerness filled Lakhoni. Food. He tried to tell his stomach to stop complaining so loudly as he stalked quietly nearer the deer.

            He pulled an arrow out of the quiver that also hung over a shoulder. Now he was grateful for the feather-light snow. It muffled sound perfectly.

            Sixty paces now.

            He ghosted forward, staying low and doing all he could to blend in with the trees.

            The buck was alone. It nosed through the snow, seeking sustenance of its own. Lakhoni wondered briefly if it was the leader of a herd, wondering if deer missed other deer that never came back.

            As he approached within thirty paces, Lakhoni chose the spot he would shoot from. A thick pine tree, its lowest branches forming a widely spreading tent over the ground, stood tall and straight less than twenty paces from the deer. He angled his movement so that the tree was directly between him and the buck. Reaching the tree, he contorted himself between branches, careful to not disturb snow or make any kind of noise.

            He knew that any sound would carry a long distance in this frozen landscape.

            Thanking the First Fathers, Lakhoni set his arrow to the bowstring. This would be a direct shot, but the distance was greater than he preferred. The arrow would have to fly perfectly. He caressed the fletching on the arrow, hoping to make it even straighter. He stepped to the right of the pine trunk, standing tall between two large branches.

            There. He could aim just over that branch. The buck moved forward, still digging through the snow on the ground.

            Composing mental prayers to the First Fathers, Lakhoni raised the bow, drawing the string slightly back. He brought the bow up enough so that the tip of his arrow pointed right at the buck's shoulder. A long distance. He expanded his chest, fighting to control his breathing and stretching his left arm forward as his right arm pulled backward. Shaky. Too shaky.

            He relaxed the pull, taking long, deep breaths.

            Again he raised the bow and pulled the string back. His right hand was at his cheek. He sighted down the arrow. One breath in, then out. He pulled the string back more, his right hand going behind his ear.

            An explosion of noise stunned Lakhoni momentarily. At the same moment that he watched the buck jerk up, then bound away. a flash of burning pain on his right ear and cheek, as well as on his neck, struck him.

            Despair rolled over him in a dark wave. He sunk to his knees. He didn't have to look to confirm what he knew had happened.

            His father had taught him better than this. "Always rub your string in your hands before shooting in winter," he had said. "It's a deer tendon, so it will break because of the cold."

            Lakhoni fell back against the tree trunk. He put a hand to his face. No blood, but the tension in the string before it broke must have caused it to leave a red mark on his face and neck.

            He held the bow up before him and watched the two broken lengths of tendon swing gently in the wind. He wished he could take back the prayers of gratitude he had offered only moments before.

            Why be grateful? He was going to die out here. Probably under this tree.