Shadows of Myth. Rachel Lee

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СКАЧАТЬ was then that she noticed her fingertips were burning. She decided it was the cold.

      “I’ll be right back,” she said, rising to look for something to wrap around herself and the girl.

      “Ooooon-tieeee,” the girl moaned as she moved away.

      The sound tore at her heart, but discipline and a training she did not remember took control. If she didn’t find a way to keep them both warm, nothing else would matter. They would simply die here, in the dark, in the cold, vainly clinging to each other for a warmth neither could give.

      She picked through the slashed bundles that lay on the ground, finding nothing but sacks of wheat and rice. Surely one of the bundles ought to hold a blanket or spare clothes. But there were none to be found. Shuddering at the thought, she combed through the column again, finding the body of a woman roughly her own size. She closed her eyes as she undressed the woman, whispering a nearly silent I’m sorry, fighting back revulsion as she pulled the damp wool garment around her, knowing that the dampness was blood.

      Still, wool dried from the inside out—yet another fact she wondered how she would know—and she knew she would warm up soon. She ran back to the girl.

      “Hah-gee,” the girl whispered. “Oon-tie.”

      “Yes,” she said, nodding her head. “Oon-tie. I’ll help you. Oon-tie.”

      She pulled the girl inside the cloak with her and tied the sash, sharing her body heat with the pale, cold girl. Tucking the girl’s legs around her hips, she rose and once again searched the column for anything she could use for a bandage. Finally realizing that a torn strip of sackcloth was the best she would find, she did her best to wrap it around the girl’s throat while keeping the girl inside her cloak. It wasn’t a proper field dressing—where had that phrase come from?—but it would have to do.

      “Oon-tie,” she whispered in the girl’s ear as she bound the wound. “Oon-tie.”

      It was then that she realized her fingers were still burning, even though she’d grown warmer. This wasn’t the burn of cold-numbed nerves. It was as if she had dipped her hands into a bag of ants, and the burning itch was spreading up to her palms.

      “Oon-tie,” she whispered again, carrying the girl with her to the river, where she knelt and plunged her hands into the icy water, then scrubbed them against each other.

      The water soothed the burning enough that she could focus on what to do next: move away from this place. She had no idea if the killers would return, but the bodies themselves would soon draw natural scavengers. She didn’t want to be there when the vultures arrived, didn’t want this girl to watch them peck at the flesh of people she had known and loved.

      In the darkness, she picked out a hard, stony road that ran alongside the river. She went upstream, for the simple reason that at least this way they would have access to clean water. After a few minutes, the river widened again, and the sound of water over rocks faded into the darkness. The road bent closer to the river, and a neat stack of thick, smooth logs seemed to materialize out of the night.

      A portage, she thought. Perfect place for an ambush. And why do I know this?Who am I?

      She let her mind wander over that question for a few minutes but could find no answer. Her back ached with the weight of carrying the girl, and she needed to rest. In the distance, a tree line beckoned. At least she would have cover. She could make it that far. Then they could rest.

      But the tree line hovered just out of reach. Her depth perception had been skewed by the flat light of the moon, the crystalline nighttime air and the fact that she was climbing a slow, steady slope. Her breathing grew labored, but she pressed on, the girl shivering in her arms.

      The girl ought to be warming up, too, she thought. Yet the girl’s breaths came in ragged rasps. The girl’s legs slid off her waist again and again, as if they were increasingly weighted with stones. Each time, the girl seemed to struggle harder to pull her thin legs back up. She was losing the battle for life.

      The woman didn’t let herself think about that. The tree line. The tree line. It became a mantra, the whispered words keeping a rhythm to her stride as she forced herself on into the night.

      Finally she could make out distinct trees, some kind of pine, tall and straight, wreathed in bunches of needles that looked as fluffy as a squirrel’s tail.

      Just a few more steps, she told herself. You can do this. You’ve done it before. She had no idea where, or when. But she had done it—and more.

      The girl went into spasms just as they reached the trees. The woman lowered herself to the ground, pulling the heavy wool even tighter around them, but the warmth did nothing to stem the spasms.

      “Ooh-ooh-oon-tie,” the girl gasped.

      “I’m trying” the woman answered. “I’m trying to help you, honey. Oon-tie. Oon-tie.”

      She felt for a pulse again. It was weaker than before, tiny flutters fighting a rising black wave. The girl’s skin was clammy, her breath shallow. She laid the girl on the ground, in a pile of needles, and turned the girl’s face to her.

      “Keep fighting,” she said, hoping her tone of voice would convey what the words could not. “Don’t give up. Don’t you quit on me.”

      But the girl’s eyes grew cloudy, her breath more ragged, until finally she let out a tiny gasp.

      “Teh-sah.”

      Then she was still.

      The woman lifted the girl and clutched her inside her cloak, sobbing in the darkness, vainly crying out to any god who might listen in this strange place, “Noooooooooo.”

      Sara Deepwell hefted a barrel of ale from the stack and lowered it into a V-shaped cart, then rolled it out of the alehouse and in through the back door of the Deepwell Inn. Despite the cold of the morning, with mist still drifting in off the Adasen River and across the Commons, she wiped a sheen of perspiration from her forehead with a sleeve.

      “That’s four barrels,” she said.

      Her father, Bandylegs, looked up at the icy-blue sky and nodded. “I’m sure that will be plenty. Let’s get the stew going.”

      “Yes, sir,” Sara said, suppressing a small sigh.

      She could remember when four barrels of ale wouldn’t have lasted through half an evening at harvest festival. This year, it would probably be more than enough.

      She went into the kitchen, dipped her fingertips in a basin and flicked the water onto the skillet atop the stove. The water danced and popped. Satisfied, she speared a huge mutton roast on a metal fork and pressed it onto the skillet, taking in the scent of searing meat, turning it every few minutes until it was nicely browned. The roast went into the boiling water in a cast-iron cauldron, along with the onion, garlic and herbs she had minced before dawn. Later she would add the potatoes, carrots and other vegetables. For now, though, she had other chores.

      Always other chores, she thought sadly. The inn was too much work for her father alone, and she had been helping him for what seemed like forever. In truth, it had been six years. Six years to the day since she’d heard her mother’s laugh, since she’d heard her mother’s songs in the public room, since she’d seen her mother’s СКАЧАТЬ