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СКАЧАТЬ didn’t think you could manage that alone,’ she greeted him.

      ‘It couldn’t be as bad as it looks,’ he replied. She took his arm as he climbed in, and he sat down on the straw mattress gratefully.

      He watched her tear a finely woven green gown into strips. ‘You may as well rest here for a few moments,’ she suggested, moving to the door. ‘I’m going to make a fire and melt some water. I have no salve or unguents to treat such a cut, but at least we can wash it out. A Harpy’s talons usually carry all sorts of filth. Those who survive the wound often die of an infection.’ Her hand went to the side of her own face as she remembered gratefully Rifa’s soothing oils and gentle hands. But her wounds had been scratches compared to Vandien’s slash. And Rifa and her healing powers were a dream and a memory away.

      Ki frowned at the dimming light as she emerged from the cuddy. The sky had remained clear, but somehow the snowy pass seemed darker to her now. A trick, perhaps, of the dark shiny rock looming over the wagon in startling contrast to the snow – or of eyes that had grown accustomed to the cuddy’s dim interior and now faced snow again.

      The fire was not easily kindled. The snow seemed to melt and quench it every time Ki thought she had it started. The wood itself seemed impregnated with ice crystals and loath to take the flame. But at last the orange flames blossomed freely, and Ki set her blackened kettle packed full of snow to heat.

      Vandien lay still as a dropped doll. Ki stood over the mattress, looking down on him. His face was small and lopsided under the red and brown bandage. ‘I’ll have to take this one off so we can do a better job.’

      He nodded. His eye was distant but clear. Her awkward knots had caked with moisture and blood. They were frozen. The damp bandage was a stiff mush of ice-blood on his jaw. Vandien twitched as Ki slid the blade of her knife carefully beneath the layers and sawed through the cloth. It parted raggedly before the sharp blade. Ki laid the parted bandages back gently from his face. The blood had smeared around the wound. The flesh had slipped, and the cut hung open. Ki set her teeth at the thought of touching it. She felt an echo of the anguish she had felt when she stood over the bodies of Sven and the children The closer she was to their pain, the hotter burned her own. Blood had leaked around the eye closest to the wound, to congeal there. The eye was caked shut with it. Vandien read her face as if it were a mirror, and went pale. He closed his other eye.

      The little fire burned valiantly. The kettle water was not boiling but was hot to Ki’s wary fingertip. She lifted it from the fire, to carry it cautiously to the wagon. The shadow of the Sisters loomed over her, darkening the trail. Ki noted with annoyance that the team had moved off and were farther from the wagon than she liked them to stray. It was no matter. A shake of grain upon the snow and a whistle would bring them back. But not just now. She had Vandien to tend to first, and she was weary. Every step she took seemed an effort. Her feet were weights at the ends of her legs. She thought longingly of sleep. Vandien would have to rest for a while after she had finished with him. She tried to tempt herself with the thought of hot tea and a kettle of soup. But it seemed a pallid attraction next to the sweet forgetfulness of sleep.

      One green rag she soaked in the warm water to gently sponge the blood away. His eye was revealed, closed but still sound in its socket. Washing the blood from his face did not make the slash look any less angry. Steeling herself to the necessity, Ki held the cut open as she trickled a little of the warm water into it. It seemed that as much blood as water washed out of it for her efforts. Vandien scowled and tried to lift his head from the wet bedding. He opened his eyes to look at the red puddle and promptly closed them again.

      ‘More water than blood,’ Ki assured him, hoping he would believe her. She wasn’t really certain of it. ‘And a free-bleeding wound cleanses itself. So the Romni teach.’

      ‘And the moon keeps track of our sins. They teach that, too,’ Vandien replied grumpily.

      Ki held the cut delicately closed, the skin lined up in its original place. The thinner cloth of the gown was a better bandage, easier to wrap firmly and tie in tighter knots.

      ‘The Romni would have shaved around the wound, too, but I have no tools for that.’

      ‘Don’t fret about it. I have no courage to let you try.’ Vandien started to sit up, but fell back heavily. ‘My head feels so heavy. All of me feels heavy.’

      ‘Loss of blood makes you weak. And killing another thinking being makes the soul sick inside you. I know. You may as well rest. I’ll make some hot food.’

      She left him, sliding the cuddy door shut behind her. The shadow of the Sisters overcast them deeply now. The glitter was lost from the snow. Ki looked up at the blackness that loomed over them and longed suddenly for their beauty to reach her as it once had. But all she sensed was their watching.

      The fire had gone out in a puddle of black water. Ki moved on leaden feet to the back of the wagon to get the last of the wood. They would miss it tonight, but she felt she must have some hot food to put some strength back into them, to give her the energy to attack the problem of the ice ridge. The last sack of grain lay in the back of the wagon beside the pitiful pile of wood. She might as well do that, too. It was an effort to pull the heavy sack to her, to tug it open and spill a feed of grain upon the snow. She looked up, whistling for the team. They were nowhere in sight. Their passage through the snow was plain. They had headed back toward the campsite and the dead Harpy. Ki cursed their sudden whim and set out to retrieve them. They would never hear her pathetic little whistle now that they were around the bend of the mountain. And once they reached the two sacks of grain at the camp site, they would have no inclination to return.

      She forced her leaden feet to jog trot through the broken snow. They moved slowly, but their strides were long. Ki panted as she tried to catch up. The thud of her own feet echoed painfully in the side of her head, and the cold poked at her through the rent in her cloak. Damn the man and the horses scheme to get his jewels safely to his home. And damn her heavy head that wanted to nod off her neck, and her heavy feet that seemed to gather snow and weight at every step. And damn the Sisters, who could cloud the daylight with their shadows.

      By the time Ki had reached the bend in the mountain, she had catalogued and damned every adverse condition in her life. It was a small satisfaction, but it seemed to warm her a little. And the grays, looking almost a dappled black in contrast to the snow, had on another whim stopped just around the bend of the trail. They set their ears back at her language, and disapproved when she tried to drive them back toward the wagon. Sigurd remained impassive to her halter-tuggings and slappings of his immense rump. It was only by mounting the more placid Sigmund and taking Sigurd in tow that she was able to get them moving back toward the wagon. Sigurd came sulkily, dragging his heavy hooves through the snow and snorting disdainfully at the bovine spirit of his larger and stronger partner.

      But round the bend of the hill, Sigmund, too, came to a halt. His ears pitched forward with interest, but he would not take another step. Ki was a jigging monkey on his back, for all the good it did her. Tears of rage stung her eyes and froze on her lashes. She stared longingly at her wagon, thinking of the firewood that rested inside its shadowed box.

      Her eyes caught on the wagon. Its box was shadowed deeply, blackly shadowed, as if the snow had turned to congealed blood. The snow about it was as black and deep as the rock of the Sisters that overshadowed it. Ki glanced again at the clear sky. The sun struck her eyes. The shadows of the Sisters lay on the wagon by their own will, not by the sun’s casting.

      Ki joggled her heels against the barrel-body she straddled. Sigmund shook his head. She slid from him and went ahead on foot.

      There was a dividing line, a place where white snow gave way to deep black shadow. And the shadow was deep, seemed СКАЧАТЬ