The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) (29 page)

I nearly fell to the floor as the door closed behind me. The hut was thick with smoke from the fire – I learned later that the smoke-hole had been plugged to keep the snow out – and all that I could see was the others crowded beside me. Devin thrust warm wine at my lips, and I gratefully swallowed the few drops he allowed me. The lieutenant still had his arm around me, holding me steady. He waited till I had finished swallowing, then said in a sharp voice, "Adrian – where's Carle?"
I looked over at him in bewilderment. Gradually, my numb senses began to take in who was surrounding me: Devin and Payne and Gamaliel from the night patrol, and Chatwin and Hoel from the day patrol – the latter two must have outraced me to the hut. Carle and Iain and Jephthah were nowhere to be seen.
"God of Mercy," I whispered.
Quentin gripped my arm harder; the pain brought me back to my senses. I said, "He was on Mount Sword— No, wait." This, as Quentin began to slip away. I paused a moment, trying to recover, from the depths of my memory,
the whistles I had heard. Now of all times I must remember correctly. "Jephthah and Iain were on the eastern side of Mount Skycrest. Carle told them to go to the cave under that mountain – the one I discovered when you were hunting me. He said he'd meet them there."
The lieutenant whirled around, the edge of his cloak hitting mine; the snow that had clung to my cloak slid the warm floor. He was at the door to the hut before I knew that he had moved; the only reason I caught a glimpse of him at all was that he paused at the door, said, "Stay with the unit," and threw an object into Devin's hands.
It was not until he was gone into the blizzard that I saw what he had thrown, and then, like all the others present, I was stunned into silence. Quentin had given his partner the seal-ring of his lieutenancy. It is the ring he uses to seal official documents, and it is never to be removed from his hand unless he is in imminent danger of dying and needs to deputize his power to the soldier who will take command of the unit upon his death. Devin turned the ring over and over in his hand, as though he were examining a man's will.
It is five minutes from here to the cave. The lieutenant has been gone for an hour.
Two hours. We've all been sitting silently around the fire, except for Devin, who has been occupying his mind by counting up his beloved supplies in the store room. I've been spending the time thinking about Carle. Iain and Jephthah were on the eastern slope of Mount Skycrest, twice as far from the hut as the cave. Carle must have guessed that there would be just enough time for me to get back safely; if he had come with me, he would be safe too. Instead, he ran for the cave, where he could do no good except to be trapped there with Iain and Jephthah.
Try as I might, I cannot imagine Carle, being what he is, doing anything other than what he did.
Four hours. Chatwin and Hoel have been discussing how, several times a day, the mountain winds will stop for a few minutes before starting up again.
"If the lieutenant made it to the cave, that is what he could be waiting for," said Hoel. "The cave is close enough that the four of them might be able to make it back here during the break. The snow is not the problem; the problem is the winds blowing the snow around."
"Then why should the lieutenant risk himself at all?" asked Payne. "Carle and the others could make it back on their own."
Hoel shook his head. "The passes are tricky in the snow. You lose sight of your familiar landmarks. It takes someone like the lieutenant, who has grown up next to the mountains, to be able to find the way back from the cave."
"Then we can be sure that they will find their way back," Payne said confidently.
"
If
the lieutenant made it to the cave," said Devin without looking up from the supply list he was checking.
Seven-and-a-half hours. The winds died a short time ago, and everybody's head jerked up. Devin opened the door and stared out at the frosting of snow on the ground. The white blizzard blanket had fallen suddenly to the ground, and the air was clear of but a few steady flakes.
Devin was shifting from foot to foot. I could see that he was aching to leave in search of Quentin, but the lieutenant had placed the rest of us under his care. Devin dared not disobey orders while there was any chance that Quentin was still alive.
A minute passed, then another. Finally Devin said, "I am going to the tunnel. I can find my way back to the hut from there."
He left, and Gamaliel took his place at the door; he is next in rank after Quentin and Carle and Devin. The rest of us strained to look over his shoulder, trying not to be too obvious about it. There was a long silence, like a pause between the songs of a Daxion bard; then Gamaliel abruptly slammed the door shut, narrowly preventing the renewed winds from blowing out our fire. Gamaliel remained on the outside of the hut as he did so.
Payne told me earlier that this was the first time in his life that he ever wished he was Koretian, so that he could pray to the gods. Well, I have managed to keep from praying to the god I renounced, but in the five minutes that followed, it was a very close thing.
The door slammed open again, the winds screamed into the room like a wailing woman, and the four of us who had been waiting scrambled forward to help the figures stumbling in. As I threw my cloak over Devin, I counted automatically in my head, and then felt relief fall over me like sunshine. Six men had entered the room; everyone was back safe. No one had died.
Not yet, anyway.
The sixth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.
We spent most of yesterday evening rescuing Quentin and Carle and Iain and Jephthah from frostbite. "It's
cold
in that cave," Carle said with a grin as I wrapped a fire-warmed blanket around his feet. "It makes this hut seem like a southern summer in comparison."
Carle is the only one who thinks so. The first thing Quentin did after he got back – before Gamaliel had even been able to persuade him to strip off his wet clothing – was to go into consultation with Devin about the supplies. Two minutes later, he smothered the fire with dirt; then he removed all but one of the logs and started a much smaller fire, one that Hoel says can barely be dignified with the name of fire-embers.
There was no evening meal. The reason for this became clear after Quentin, having submitted himself patiently to Gamaliel's doctoring, called us together in council. He had Devin read out the list of supplies. The list sounded long, but Devin followed this up by telling us how much food ten men can eat in a day.
What Devin's news amounts to is this: There is no telling how long it will be before the winds die down for a few days. If we keep the fire going at its present temperature – just warm enough to keep ice from forming in the hut – then we have enough firewood to last us three weeks. That's the good news. The bad news is that we have enough food to last us three days.
The lieutenant has put us on quarter rations: this means that every day we get a few gulps of wine, as much water as we want (we have plenty of snow to melt), a handful of nuts, and two large hunks of bread. Gamaliel is looking worried. I found him reading through his doctoring manual this afternoon; he was turned to the page discussing the need for men in cold climates to eat lots of food.
"When Teague and Sewell returned to the headquarters without the rest of us, Captain Wystan must have known that his letter of warning to me went astray," said Quentin. "There is nothing he can do, though, until the winds die down; nobody can reach us through these storms. The best we can hope for is that the captain will retain enough faith in us to send a search party when the winds die down, as it is likely we will be in no condition by that time to make the journey back on our own. Our duty, then, is to stay alive so that the search party's efforts are not wasted."
I decided that it was characteristic of Quentin to describe our desperate attempt to stay alive as our duty rather than our natural desire. If it wasn't our duty to stay alive, I think Quentin would have us feasting on the supplies right now, rather than condemn us to the prolonged death that awaits us.
The seventh day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.
Eleven days' worth of food left; we're still on quarter rations. We've all been squeezed up next to the fire today, trying to ignore the cold against our backs – all but Devin, who seems to find comfort in counting our supplies over and over, and Quentin, who keeps going outside to check on the weather. We slept in pairs last night, curled up against our partners so that we could throw two cloaks and two blankets over ourselves. I only woke up twice from the cold, but I think that's because Carle insisted that I face the fire and that he protect my back with his warmth. Like everyone else, he's worried that my southern constitution will prevent me from surviving.
We're all wearing our two uniforms double now, one on top of the other. Since Quentin cut up his extra tunic for Sewell, I tried to give the lieutenant my Koretian tunic, which I still have here, but he simply remarked that it was a good thing I would have extra protection. I didn't argue; it's amazing how quickly men become selfish in such situations.
Not all of us. Quentin isn't wearing his cloak, not even when he goes outside; he gave it to Iain, who has been suffering from a bad cold since his return from the cave.
The eighth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.
Ten days' worth of food left. I'm finding it hard to write; my hands feel like lumps of ice most of the time now, even when I'm sitting directly next to the fire, which is most of the time. We've been playing Law Links throughout today, and Jephthah, who has been to Daxis, tried entertaining us with some songs. But it turns out that all the songs he knows end with the protagonist dying, so the lieutenant made him stop.
Gamaliel has been spending most of his time with Iain, whose fever has grown worse. I heard him muttering something today about the need for isolation, but I'm not sure what he meant.
The ninth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.
Now I know; the rest of us have caught Iain's cold. Iain has taken a turn for the worse and is starting to become delirious. We all volunteered our blankets to Iain, but Gamaliel crossly said that having one patient was bad enough; he didn't want all of us dying from the cold. It's the first time Gamaliel has let slip his fears about Iain's state.
Nine days' worth of food left. I took an informal survey and found that five of us have fasted before: me, Quentin, Gamaliel (he says that it's part of a physician's training), Devin, and Jephthah. Iain may have fasted as well, but he wasn't in any state to ask.
The tenth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.
Eight days' worth of food. Quentin caught Jephthah feeding his dinner to Iain and brought Jephthah up before the unit for disciplining.
"I know what this is going to lead to," said Quentin, "so I am going to stop it now before it spreads any further. Jephthah, you are under my command, and you are to follow my orders to keep yourself alive by eating. If I find that you have failed to do so, I will force the food down your throat. That goes for the rest of you as well."
He let Jephthah go with a reprimand; I don't suppose any of us could survive a beating at this stage. I feel absolutely no temptation to stop eating. It's all I can do to remember my honor and not take more than my fair share when the food is passed around.
The eleventh day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.
Iain died during the night. Chatwin and Payne are now quite sick; Quentin, after consulting with Gamaliel, has raised their food allowance to half our usual rations. However, because of Iain's death, we still have eight days' worth of food left.
Jephthah borrowed my pencil and a sheet of paper earlier. He said that he wanted to write a letter to his family in case we didn't survive, but that he didn't want to bother Devin by asking for writing supplies.
Devin just found Jephthah's body in the store room. Jephthah hadn't disobeyed Quentin's orders by starving himself; he had fallen on his sword.
Quentin had us lined up against the ice-cold hut wall within minutes. I've never seen him look so grim, not even when he captured me. He spent a brief period ascertaining that none of us knew what Jephthah had planned. I was racked with guilt, but the lieutenant said I couldn't have known what a simple request for writing materials meant. After he had questioned us, Quentin didn't bother to give us a lecture. He simply made every man in the room take out his blade and place his palm on the flat, swearing that he would not take his own life by any means. This is called a free-man's oath and is the Emorian equivalent of a blood vow, treated just as seriously.
Emorians are usually buried whole, but Jephthah asked in his letter that his body be used for fuel, so we had a warm fire tonight as we sent his spirit to the Land Beyond.
The twelfth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.
Nine days' worth of food left. The reason we have so much is that another man died during the night: Gamaliel, whom nobody even suspected was ill. As the unit's physician, he could conceal that information from us.
Payne and Chatwin are much better, thanks to Gamaliel's doctoring; the lieutenant has put them back on quarter rations. There are now seven of us left here: Payne, Chatwin, Hoel, Devin, Quentin, Carle, and me. Despite Quentin's orders, Carle has been trying to sneak portions of his daily meal into my rations, though I've caught him doing it every time. During the rest of the day, Carle entertains us with stories of the worst winters he knew as a boy. If he is to be believed, we are experiencing an exceptionally mild winter.
The thirteenth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.
Eight days' worth of food left. Devin has been urging Quentin to let him try to make it back to Emor in order to lead the search party to us, but Quentin has refused to let him go. The winds continue to howl about our hut except during brief periods of silence that seem almost louder than the wind-blows.
Carle has been teaching me the Justification to the Law of Vengeance. I protested that my mind was in no state to be memorizing thirty pages' worth of law, but Carle sternly told me that I wasn't on convalescent leave and that I was to continue with my duty of learning the law. I didn't have the energy to argue with him.