The last made his head hurt. It upset Burn, who went out imaging <fire> and <dark> and <fight.> And there wasn’t a damned thing out there. Guil could see it in Burn’s images as if he was seeing it with his own eyes: <eroded stone, bare rock, puddles and more barren hills with tufts of grass… >
<Burn.> Guil wanted him back now, and Burn came back under the roof.
<Fire,> Burn imaged, imaged <heat,> which was some help. He could actually halfway feel it, illusion that it was; but wood was nowhere outside, from horizon to horizon—thank you, Aby, thank you, Jonas and Luke and Hawley.
And if he could somehow persuade Burn to go off hunting the nearest dead tree, it left him sitting alone in the Wild with a rifle and a handgun—no more than the Anveney truckers had, to be sure, and they were still fairly well in the die-off zone, but there’d been vermin last night, and he wasn’t sure he wasn’t going to fall on his face and pass out.
Which could mean coming awake with willy-wisps swarming over you, no, God no, there were ways to go, but gnawed half to death while he was passed out wasn’t one he’d choose.
Lying here wrapped in plastic, waiting for some sunny day to dry his trousers wasn’t a choice, either. He couldn’t depend on a sunny day corning along before snowfall, in which case, also thank you, Aby, he wanted dry clothing.
That meant firewood.
And since one of them couldn’t leave the other, it meant moving. He wasn’t sure he could get on Burn’s back without falling on his face, but if he did fall, Burn wouldn’t desert him.
Which meant at least willy-wisps wouldn’t come near him. So he was safer going with Burn, if he didn’t break his neck falling off. His head ached so—he really, truly, please God, didn’t want to fall on it again.
He made it by stages to his feet, splitting headache and all. He couldn’t see for a moment, couldn’t find his balance, caught himself against the shelter wall—which reminded him, lucky thing, that he had gear to take with him.
So, knowing he wasn’t tracking mentally at all, and in a gloomy shelter with his eyes not working reliably, he leaned against the wall until he could list very carefully what he had hung where and what he’d brought in.
Then he gathered up his belongings. He folded the blanket, which was still reasonably dry, and put it in the two-pack. He found his trousers and his boots, which were colder, if no wetter, than they’d been last night.
Burn was worried. Burn kept nosing him in the arm, in the back, which didn’t help his balance at all. Burn licked him on the ear.
<Burn carrying two-pack,> he imaged at Burn, figuring he’d get away with it or they weren’t going. He put on the ice-cold and sodden trousers, as something Burn’s body heat and his could somehow warm, at least: warm, wet clothes were better insulation than dry, exposed skin, and the slicker could make a tent, of sorts, on Burn’s heat-generating hide.
Then, leaning on a post, and on the same logic, he forced one foot and the other into cold, soggy boots, hoping blood moving would warm them and hold that warmth as long as the wind stayed still. He just, half wet as he was, couldn’t afford to fall.
<Burn outside, > he imaged, last of all, and when Burn did leave, out into the drizzle, he buckled on his sidearm and put his scarf and gloves and hat on, picked up the gear, occasioning a moment of visual blackout, and walked through that dark out to Burn—a direction he couldn’t lose even without his eyes, and he realized he was in fact walking with them shut.
He slung the two-pack across Burn’s back, put the rifle over, and made his best effort first, belly-down, at getting on.
<Truck going off a cliff. Guard trying to exit. Fear in the ambient. Horror. Riders unable to move—logs scattering like straws down the rock slide… >
He just lay there a moment belly-down and crosswise on Burn’s back while his headache left him alone with the images, not quite sure where up or down was, except <Burn> was in contact with him and <Burn> was usually down…
The fog cleared. He could see the ground. He thought for a precarious, strengthless moment that he might throw up, but Burn wouldn’t like that. He rested as he was and breathed hard for a minute or so. Burn, <wonderful, handsome Burn,> stayed rocksteady under him, so eventually, still in the red-pulsing dark, he dragged his right knee over the bump that was Burn’s hipbone, lodged his heel over the hollow that was Burn’s sensitive flank, trying not to send Burn sky-high, and leaning one hand on the leather flat of the two-pack that was across Burn’s shoulders, used the weight of the rifle in his right hand and the pistol on his right side to drag himself square on Burn’s backbone.
Burn sidestepped. Guil swayed like a sapling in a windstorm, and the whole blurry, double-imaged world swayed out of balance as gun-side and no-gun-side refused to find center. Burn moved across under his center of balance, and got the idea, he thought, that his rider wasn’t at all interested in a run right now.
Burn walked, so sedately a baby could have stayed up. Burn compensated when the world swayed out of balance, which occasionally required a drunken sidestep. The wind blew cold on Guil’s face and his double-vision and the dark traded places occasionally, aftermath of exertion—but the blood pressure finally evened out between his head and his feet. He discovered that a curiously comfortable convenience—he never had appreciated how nice it was that was usually taken care of.
Forgot where they were going at first. What they had to do. Then he remembered he was in wet clothes and wanted a fire; and he remembered about <wood> and <mountains> and <Tarmin village.>
Eventually his legs grew warm on the insides, but his feet remained chilled. He bore with it. He imaged <wood> and <trees> and Burn kept a pace that didn’t jar too much, because <head hurting > afflicted Burn too.
Then after what seemed most of a morning, he saw trees growing up against the rise of a rocky face. The road, on which the rain had filled all the old tire-ruts down to a gentle high center and two long puddles beside, tended in that direction.
It dawned on him then, perhaps a sign his brain was less addled, that he had a medical kit. He recalled he’d some bitter-root for tea, which was good for headache. Water certainly wasn’t any problem.
Pans weren’t, either. He had a pan. He’d bought it. He told himself he could have hot tea if he didn’t fall off and drown in the puddles. If he got a fire built. One damn thing after another.
The world shrank away to toys when you looked down from the mountain. The world faded to pale colors, and the mountain became vivid, rocks and evergreen, and more rocks, as if the two worlds hadn’t a chance of existing together, and you traded one for the other. All of Shamesey would have been thumbnail-sized if you could see it from here—but Danny couldn’t. A piece of the mountain was in the way.
And they had to walk a lot more. The horses couldn’t carry them as fast as they could walk. Cloud’s back got tired, and Cloud like the other horses let a rider know when he’d had enough.
So they hiked, carrying the baggage, which the horses wouldn’t carry. The Hallanslakers might be scum, but there was no way even stupid scum could argue with their horses.
An elbow arrived out of nowhere, knocked the wind out of him for a second. He bent and Quig gave him a knee for his thoughts— <mad Quig> and <Harper mad> was all through the ambient of a sudden, then <bite,> as Cloud let out a fighting squall and lunged at Quig.
Quig’s horse—then all the horses—dived at Cloud, pushing him to the edge as he fought back.
Then: <Quiet water, > somebody was sending, and <blood> was equally strong in the ambient—the Hallanslakers grabbing horses by mind and mane as fast as they could, as with his feet on the eroding road edge, he got a grip on Cloud’s mane and got through Cloud’s anger in a frantic effort. <Danny falling. Danny falling, Cloud going forward a step. Breathing quietly. Danny and Cloud. Danny and Cloud… >