The Fallen (Book 1) (20 page)

Immosey disappeared. Milgorry was just about to go after her when she
reappeared dragging two branches which had fallen from a nearby dead tree, one of the few they passed as they searched for a place to hide. He vented his worry on her.

‘
Don’t ever wander away without me again, little sister! How can I protect you if you’re flitting off without even telling anyone? With Louisa guarding your thoughts I didn’t even notice you were gone!’

Immosey blushed
. ‘There’s a dead tree not far from here. I thought, seeing it’s still foggy, we might be able to make a fire?’

Milgorry
looked at the two meagre branches, turned abruptly and disappeared. He returned minutes later with what appeared to be half a tree. Louisa broke the branches into short lengths and Elena and Immosey arranged the pieces neatly into a little mound. Milgorry took a small box containing a flint and steel. He shook his head in dismay when he saw there was no tinder remaining in the box.

‘
We need something that will burn,’ he said.

‘
My dress is made from cotton,’ said Elena. ‘Will that burn?’

‘
Not well enough to start a fire, and I think you probably want to keep wearing it,’ said Milgorry raising an eyebrow. ‘It would work better if I made it into char cloth but I need a fire in the first place to do that.’

‘
What about hair?’ Immosey suggested.

‘
No. Human hair doesn’t burn for long enough.’ He sounded sad when he said this and Immosey stopped herself from asking him how he knew that. ‘I’ll see what I can find,’ he said abruptly, and he picked up the tinder box and disappeared again. When he returned the tinder box was jammed full of a dead, grassy looking plant. He knelt beside the pile of wood and a minute later he had a merry little fire burning.

‘
This wood will burn hot and without smoke,’ he said, pointing to the wood he had collected. ‘Immy, these branches you found earlier also burn well, but they give off a lot of smoke so we’ll only use them when it’s night and if it stays foggy. If the mist clears, the fire must be doused at once. Don’t use the water bags, we can get some snow,’ said Milgorry. ‘Now you must sleep. If you untie the skins, you won’t have to sleep on the rocks.’

The girls had tied the sheepskins around themselves with
ties from their dresses, so they removed them and laid the cloth strips aside. They placed the skins close together on the flattest area of rock under shelter. There were three blankets which they were not wearing. Louisa took one and stretched it out over the sheep skins. She rolled up one of the remaining blankets and made a pillow and when the girls lay down she stretched the last blanket over them.

‘
This is actually surprising comfortable,’ said Elena positively, wondering how she would ever get to sleep. The cart had been uncomfortable, but at least it was an even surface. Sleeping on the ground had been manageable, but she found it almost impossible to relax on the cold, hard rocks.

Milgorry chuckled and turned to Louisa.
‘I think what she actually meant to say was, ‘How can I sleep lying on rocks?’ His eyes opened wide in amazement as he saw that Immosey was already asleep. He looked at Elena curiously for a moment and then he hesitatingly raised his hand over her face. Her eyes widened but she didn’t move. He withdrew his hand. She was asleep. He rose and went and stood beside Louisa, next to the fire. ‘What’s happening to me, guardian?’

Louisa smiled
. ‘Whatever it is, I think it’s good.’

Milgorry
placed a thick branch in the fire. ‘I think we should both sleep today, though probably not at the same time. We can keep the fire going too, if this fog persists. This afternoon we’ll gather as much wood as we can carry, for the crossing of the ice.’

‘
Mil, do you really think we can do this? I don’t know if I’ve ever been more scared in my entire life.’

Milgorry smiled.
‘Your entire life?’ he asked with his voice full of irony. ‘How old are you? Eighteen years?’ He shook his head. ‘You’re a child,’ he murmured. ‘I have fallen in love with a guardian and she’s practically still a baby. Supreme Majesty! If Nandul doesn’t return me, Tiernan surely will.’

Louisa turned to face him and his heart was filled with gentle pity as he felt how deeply frightened the girl was and how desperately she needed him. He reached out and pulled her close. She shivered as she felt the strength of his arms wrapping around her. She wondered for a second if he knew how much
comfort he was to her, and if he had any idea how much he aroused her, and whether she had any effect on him and she blushed a little at the thought. He drew back and stared into her eyes in surprise and she felt herself go even redder. He took her hand and led her outside. They sat together not far from the edge of a small cliff which dropped away to the north. Louisa laid her head on his lap. They sat without speaking for a long time, with Milgorry running his fingers through her hair. She fell asleep.

Mil didn
’t move until Louisa awoke. She sat up and twisted around, wrapping her arms around his body and wishing she never had to let go. He held her tightly against his chest for a moment then lay back on the rocks, drawing her over so she was lying on top of his body. He breathed in quickly as she leaned against his chest. She rolled away, her face bright pink.

He exhaled slowly.
‘Perhaps you should keep watch now, and I should go and find a patch of snow to lie in.’ Louisa hid her smile as he took her hand and led her back into the crevice. He sat against the rocks and closed his eyes. Louisa was keeping watch, but if anyone tried to come into the crevice they would have to get past Milgorry first.

They
woke Elena and Immosey as the sun sank. The mist had remained for the rest of the day and Louisa and Milgorry kept the fire burning, providing enough warmth for the girls to sleep in relative comfort. Louisa prepared the usual small portion of food and after they ate they both went out into the rocks to relieve themselves. Milgorry left the cave to collect as much wood as possible from the dead trees, and the sisters quickly undressed and rearranged their blankets comfortably before Louisa helped them pull their dresses back over the lumpy blankets. Her face was set with concern as she noticed their dresses were far looser than they should have been. The girls were getting even thinner and Elena had difficulty finding the strength to pull her cotton dress over the thick blankets. Milgorry returned just as Louisa was lacing the back of Elena’s dress, her mind still full of the image of Elena’s thin back with ribs and backbone showing clearly. She turned to see him looking at her in horror, as the image in her mind flashed into his. He dropped the wood to the ground.

‘
I think we’re safe here for the moment,’ he said. ‘The fog’s not going to clear for a while and we have ample wood. We’ll remain here tonight and tomorrow you’ll stay here while I hunt. It shouldn’t be too hard to find awleotil,’ he said, referring to the small deer-like beasts that thrived along the Ice Coast.

They remained close to the fire inside the crevice, sometimes talking quietly and sometimes sitting in co
mpanionable silence. Elena and Immosey went back to their little bed at about midnight and slept until the sky lightened behind the unrelenting mist. Milgorry couldn’t have been more pleased with the concealing fog. He picked up his bow. ‘Louisa, we need to let the horses go. We cannot feed them now and there’s nothing for them as we cross the ice.’ He disappeared into the fog.

The girls were
just starting to worry when Milgorry returned with a small awleotil. He carried it past the crevice onto the lower rocks and deftly skinned and gutted the beast. Whereas once she would have found the whole process sickening, Louisa now watched in fascination of his skill, as Milgorry deftly sliced the carcass open and began dissection. Milgorry was pleased to see the awleotil’s fat was white, as this meant the beast would probably prove to be quite flavorsome. A beast with yellowed fat meant it had eaten poorly and the meat, though far from unpalatable, might have been lacking in flavor.

They returned to the crevice carrying portions of the beast
, to find that Elena had made a little platform for the meat to be laid upon, out of the most even sticks of wood. Immosey was kneeling on the ground, holding a small dagger she had found amongst the items Milgorry had taken from the camp of the fallen. She had a pile of sticks each about the thickness of her little finger and she was attempting to sharpen the ends of these into points. Milgorry and Louisa placed the meat on Elena’s platform and then Milgorry walked over to watch Immosey. He knelt beside her and placed his hands over hers, guiding the dagger along the stick. Immosey bit her lip determinedly as she worked and Milgorry released his grip and sat back to watch again. She continued tenaciously with the dagger for a while and then triumphantly held up the very roughly pointed stick.

‘
Good,’ Milgorry encouragingly. She glanced up at him and noticed he was suppressing a smile.

‘
Go on then!’ she said, handing him the dagger. Milgorry took the dagger and with swift and precise strokes he quickly shaped the end of the stick into a smooth, sharp point. He placed the stick to one side and picked up another. This time he completed the process slowly, letting Immosey see how he moved the dagger along the stick and the angle of the dagger against the wood. He handed the dagger back to Immosey and sat back again to watch. The girl labored at her task until each stick was reasonably sharp. She eventually stood in satisfaction, looking pleased with her progress. Milgorry took the little bundle to the fire where Elena and Louisa began skewering pieces of meat for cooking. Milgorry and Louisa ate little, but continued to cook small pieces of meat for Elena and Immosey until the girls could eat no more. Louisa buried the remaining meat in the snow outside the crevice and returned to the fire.

‘
I think we should stay here again tonight and then move on in the morning,’ she said looking from the two girls to Milgorry. ‘If there’s meat left over, can we take it with us?’

‘
Yes. It won’t be difficult to keep it cold. A little more sleep and some more meat will strengthen us,’ he agreed.

‘
Strengthen
us
, is what you mean,’ said Immosey, looking down.

‘
Yes Immy, that
is
what I mean,’ said Milgorry. ‘But you can stop thinking what you are thinking, little sister. Your lives are of great value. Those who are loved are not a burden.’

‘
You need to sleep now. Tomorrow we have to start walking again,’ said Louisa.

The two girls moved to their little bed
, and they lay looking up to where the edges of the rocky crevice met to form their ‘roof’. Immosey lay quite still, thinking of their parents and their home in Cullen Ringo. She wondered what her life would be like when she returned. She knew things would never be the same. She considered how meaningless her life had been before. Now if there was anything she could do to help her sister return to Kelian, she would do it. She felt like she had learnt more in the last two weeks than she had ever learnt before, and she knew that if she ever had her own children, she would show them much more of the world around them than she had been exposed to. She could feel Louisa acknowledging her thoughts and she sensed her sister’s agreement.

Elena was trying hard
not
to think of Kelian. Each time her thoughts turned to him over the past weeks, which was more often than not, she desperately buried her emotions, lest they overwhelm her. This became more and more difficult as time passed. Before they escaped, she had all but succumbed to her belief that she would never see him again, sinking into an endless cycle of depression and hopelessness. Now hope had been renewed. She remembered the first time he kissed her. They were sitting together on the edge of the square fountain in the courtyard. She wasn’t expecting to be kissed and she sat in stunned silence for so long, staring up at Kelian that he murmured an apology and began to move away from her. Elena managed to overcome her surprise before he had gone too far and she grabbed him and pulled his face back down towards hers. He fell against her and the two of them toppled into the fountain. She remembered her mother’s face when the dripping pair returned to the mansion. Her father had caught her kissing the Prince in a little alcove in a hallway, still dripping with water. He reprimanded her, until he saw whose arms were wrapped around his daughter, and then he stood in shock with his mouth open as the Prince tried to explain how he felt about Elena. And she remembered the fury on Kelian’s face, the very first day they met, when he found Rayne harassing her and he had slammed him through a stained glass door. She could clearly remember the faces of the visiting nobles watching him lying amongst a pile of smashed glass with the irate Prince standing over him. Her thoughts turned serious again as she remembered the attack on the barge. She knew Kelian would be searching for her and she wondered if the fallen would find him and if they did, whether they would kill him. She filled with panic at this thought and her heart began to pound. Her eyes prickled with tears as she battled to push her feelings away. Milgorry turned and she glanced at him, determinedly blinking away tears and sealing her agonizing emotions away as tightly as she could.