He knocked at the door, and, getting no answer, tried it, whether it was latched or not. The latch gave. The door opened outward a little, and when he kicked the snow away, he gained enough to get the door open halfway. That was enough for them, but not for the horses: he kept digging and shoving and heaving at the door until he had deep snow rammed up beside the door track. It was utterly dark inside the cottage, darker than the night, and he envisioned some previous owner dead inside, gone to horrid bones.
But whatever was in there, it offered walls and a roof. He ventured inside, and scuffed the floor, and he was glad to find it was earth, nothing of rotten boards that might entrap the horses: it would be cold, but not as cold as the howling wind outside. He went out again and led his brother’s horse in, heard the crash of something as the beast swung his hindquarters about in the dark: the horse shied, and he hauled down on the reins and used all his strength to stop the stupid beast from bolting out the door.
His brother moaned and tried to get down before disaster happened. But Aewyn steadfastly held the horse, soothed him with a gloved hand, and Otter—Elfwyn—got down to him, clinging to the horse. His own borrowed horse had put her head into the dark, snuffing the air of this strange stable, then balked.
“I can manage him,” Elfwyn said in a thread of a voice, holding to the bridle, and he let his brother go to grab the Amefin mare and get her in, all the while prepared to block his brother’s horse in any rush for the door.
Something else crashed, and wood broke, Elfwyn’s cursed horse finding, evidently, some remnant of furniture to back into, but the Amefin horse came in meekly enough. They had no light. The horses were both unhappy with the place, and both apt to bolt for the door and the far hills if Elfwyn’s horse went. He shut it, made sure of the latch, and stood in the utter dark with his heart thumping. There was a little more shifting about, but the horses slowly grew quieter, deprived of all light, and deprived of a way out.
“Elfwyn?” he asked into the dark.
“I hear,” Elfwyn said.
“I don’t know where we are,” Aewyn said, overwhelmed by shivers, not least from the hard battle with Elfwyn’s horse, and the prospect of being left afoot. “I’m afraid to open the door. I’m afraid the horses will bolt for home. I’m going to move around a little and see what’s here.” The thought of bones made it far, far worse. “I’m following the wall. There’s the window, the shutters, but they must open right out into the wind out there.”
“I’m by a wall,” Elfwyn said. “There’s stone walls. Some pots. Did you bring any food?”
“No,” Aewyn admitted. He had been in the kitchens and had taken not a thing when he ran. “I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
“I did,” Elfwyn said, “but Paisi had it. And I lost him in the fog, like a complete fool. You say he’s with our father—where is he?”
“Back in Henas’amef. I came after you. They were still talking.” Aewyn kept moving, cautiously. He found a table, and a fireplace, and he felt into it, finding only soft, old ash, which told him nothing of how long ago this place had been occupied. Beyond that, however, was a woodpile. The bark of the logs crumbled under his grip, but the logs were solid, and the better for age.
“There’s wood,” he said. “There’s a fireplace. I don’t suppose you can enchant us up a fire if I pile up the logs.”
“Conjure,” Elfwyn said hoarsely. “I don’t know the first thing about it. I saw Gran try once. She couldn’t. I don’t think I can.”
“Well, try, all the same.” He dragged small wood loose, working utterly blind, and shoved the pieces into the fireplace, in as orderly a structure as he could make, blind. “There’s kindling. It’s in the fireplace. The flue has to be open. I feel the draft. Just do it.”
“I’ll do my best,” Elfwyn said, and came over near him, edging over on the ground. He sat there a moment, making no sound.
“Nothing?” Aewyn asked after a moment, and put his own hand into the wood. There was no warmth to it, none at all. “It’s still ice-cold.”
“I’m not Gran,” Elfwyn said faintly. “And she couldn’t do it. Gran’s dead. Just like in my dream.”
“I know that. We passed there. I’m sorry. I’m ever so sorry, Otter.”
“Well, she couldn’t conjure. And I—I’m just not a wizard. I’m not, at all. And I’m afraid to conjure fire. The only fire I’m apt to get is sorcerous, like my mother, isn’t it? I don’t know what it might do… burn us all, like as not!”
Elfwyn’s voice grew ragged, near to tears. Aewyn closed a hand on his shoulder and shook at him gently.
“Well, but we still have the horses, don’t we? They’ll warm the place just with their heat. We have to rub them down and be sure they don’t chill. Then we can sit on your saddle and wrap in the horse gear. That will warm us.”
They managed that, utterly in the dark, and piled the horse blanket and tack near the dead fireside, and snuggled down with that and their cloaks to provide the warmth it could against the drafts that were constant in the room, from little seams that equally well let in the storm light from outside. For a time their arrangement seemed warm and snug enough to sleep a little, leaning on each other.
But warmth slowly faded from their bodies.
“There’s a draft on my arm,” Aewyn complained, shivering, once when they both waked, “no matter how I turn.”
“At least we’re all out of the wind,” Elfwyn said. “And it’s only a draft.”
They were at least partly warm, close together. The horses shifted about and bickered, occasionally treading on something broken in that end of the single room, and the wind raged outside, a wind that pried at edges and whipped to this side and that of the little cottage looking for ways inside. Something thumped. A shingle might have just flown off: a new draft started, right above them.
“It’s wicked out there,” Aewyn said.
“It’s bad. But morning will be warmer. We can look around for a flint or something when it gets light enough.”
“I hope it doesn’t snow us in,” Aewyn said. “The door opens out, remember.”
“There is the window,” his brother said. “We can get out that way if it comes to that: we wouldn’t be the first. And I’m sure there’s a roof trap if that gets covered, or we can just knock some shingles off: there’s one gone already, I’m quite sure.”
His brother wasn’t afraid of the storm. Otter—Elfwyn—had spent all his winters in a cottage like this, where the door could be snowed shut. Probably it happened every winter, and the wind howled and rattled shutters, beyond windows with goatskin panes, and all his winter nights must have been this long and dark.
Elfwyn had grown up with no servants, no guards, nobody but Gran and Paisi to see him fed and keep him out of trouble, and for protection against things that might threaten a remote cottage, only Paisi’s dagger and a stick from the woodpile. He had sounded weak and foolish, he decided. His father’s son should not be either weak or a fool. He had found Elfwyn, had he not, and Elfwyn had been in dire trouble until he had found this place, so he had saved both of them, had he not? He had not lost his way, even when the fog had closed in around him and he had been utterly without landmarks: a sense had guided him. He had not lost the horses, when that kind of accident might have doomed them both.
So when his father found them, his father might even say he hadn’t done too badly, except not bringing food and blankets along; and neither, really, had Elfwyn done badly, for a boy who had never ridden a horse until this winter. His father would be so glad to see them, he would gloss over the part about stealing the mare, and the mare would come back sound: he was absolutely determined on that.
In all their other troubles, he hadn’t even asked about the book Elfwyn was supposed to have stolen from the library. He didn’t truly care about that. He supposed Elfwyn had it, and had a good reason to have gotten it, and they would settle that: Elfwyn probably thought he was going to get into dire trouble—Elfwyn was always convinced trouble would fall on him—and once they settled things with Lord Crissand (and he knew his father could), then his brother would be back in Henas’amef, and the book would be put wherever it needed to be, and Lord Tristen would come, and they would both have days to spend without worrying about anything. When he had had his few annual hours to spend with Otter—who was Elfwyn, now—Elfwyn had led him to all sorts of wonderful places to investigate. If they were going about on horseback, they could range much farther in their adventures.