“It’s called stupid.”
“You said you want to get off the island and the lake.”
“Get off and stay off! But not to sleep against the ice.”
“We might have to,” said Cormack. “Winter hasn’t come in yet, but it’s drawing near, and even this time of year can bring freezing winds and deep snows to the higher passes.”
“Then we won’t go to the higher passes,” Mcwigik argued.
Cormack exhaled and tried to relax. He knew that part of the dwarf’s agitation was due to the dramatic adventure they might soon be undertaking. He and these four powries, along with Milkeila, he prayed, and perhaps some of her friends, were bound to leave Mithranidoon. This was not the best time to undertake such a journey, but the thought of spending another several months on the lake surrounded by nothing but powries was more than Cormack’s sensibilities could handle. It hadn’t taken him long to decipher that Mcwigik and his fellows felt the same way, either. They all wanted out-now.
“Shouldn’t yer lady friend be with us?” Mcwigik asked.
“Shouldn’t you take me to her so that I can find out?” came the sarcastic reply.
“In good time-when others’ eyes ain’t on ye so much.”
“The more we get to the cold, the better. It will thicken your blood.”
“Yeah, acclimating,” said Bikelbrin. Behind him Pergwick chuckled.
“Stupid,” muttered Mcwigik under his breath, but he let it go at that. For all his complaining, everyone there knew well that he wanted to get away from Mithranidoon as much or more than anyone else.
In fact, Mcwigik picked up his rowing pace as soon as the conversation ended, nudging Bikelbrin to match him.
Instinct replaced conscious thought as Bransen plummeted from the ledge. Arms flailing, body twisting, the man’s sensibilities were too consumed by sudden terror to consider his Stork limitations. The Book of Jhest resonated in his thoughts, and he reflexively twisted to get his arms nearer the sheer ice wall.
Then those arms worked desperately, frantically, catching, grabbing, pulling, scraping-never enough to jolt him or send him tumbling, for that would have been a fatal mistake, but enough to continually jerk against the fall. It took him a couple of heartbeats to align his sight properly below and put his arms in synch, reacting to the edges and bumps as he registered them. But once he found that balance and timing he began to literally pick his path below him and devise the best strategies.
He manipulated by the angle of his grabs and slaps and the constant twists of his waist, and his handwork became more intrusive and stronger. He spotted one bigger ledge just below, and reacted fast enough to hook his fingers a dozen feet above it-not to break his fall as much as to give him the leverage to turn vertical. His feet hit the ledge hard; his legs bent to absorb the blow, and he did not resist as he fell right over backward, having somewhat slowed his descent.
Then his hands went back to work, and he kicked his feet against every possible jag as well, working furiously to counter the force of his fall. Some two dozen feet from the ground, though, the glacial wall sloped in and away, and the already plummeting Bransen could only free-fall that last expanse. He knew that he was going too fast to attempt to roll out of it as he hit, so he flattened himself out horizontally and spread his arms and his legs.
He slammed into the muddy ground, and the bright sky winked out.
Ha! Looks like yer eyes seen right,” Mcwigik said when the group of four dwarves and Cormack came around an ice and boulder jag at the base of the glacier to see a man lying flat out on his back, driven more than halfway into the muddy ground.
“I’m guessing that hurt,” Ruggirs said, and all four of the powries chuckled. Cormack, though, saw nothing funny in the tragic fall, and rushed to the man, though in looking up at the towering glacial cliff face, he knew that this one was certainly dead.
The man’s strange black clothing made him even more curious, and when Cormack got beside him, the lightweight nature of the smooth fabric had him scratching his head, as it was totally unfamiliar to him.
Cormack nearly leaped out of his shoes when the man stirred.
“Yach, but he’s a tough one,” remarked Mcwigik, coming up behind Cormack.
After the shock wore off Cormack immediately went back to the man, bringing his ear close to the fallen one’s mouth to see if he could detect any sounds of breath.
“He is alive,” Cormack announced.
“Not for long,” Mcwigik chortled. “Better for him that the fall had snuffed out his lights for good.”
“Aye, that had to hurt,” Ruggirs said again.
Cormack continued to inspect the man, to try to determine the extent of his injuries. In truth, he was thinking that the most merciful thing he could do would be to smother this one and end his pain, but the more he looked, the more his estimate of injuries lessened. He pulled off his powrie cap and set it over the man’s head.
“It’s to take more than that,” Mcwigik grumbled, but Cormack ignored him and kept moving the fallen man, one leg or one arm, or rolling him up to a near-sitting position. Through it all, the injured man made not a sound.
“I don’t think he fell all the way,” Cormack announced.
“Yach, but he buried himself half into the mud!” Mcwigik argued.
“He could live,” Cormack replied. “His wounds are not as bad as we expected.”
“Ye’re not for knowing any such thing.”
“Nor are you for knowing that I’m wrong,” Cormack shot back. “This man can live. If I had a gemstone… We have to get him to Yossunfier. Help me now, without delay.” The powries all looked at Cormack incredulously, and none made a move.
“We cannot just let him die!” Cormack yelled at them, and all four burst into laughter.
Cormack took a deep breath to calm himself. Screaming at the powries now would likely just get him stranded here or worse and would do nothing to help this poor fellow. “Please,” he said quietly. “There is a chance I can save him. We humans don’t just bury hearts and pop out of the ground again.”
“Ye’d be smart to watch yer words,” Pergwick warned, but Cormack waved him away.
“I know, I know,” he said. “But it is important to me to try to save him.”
“Ye know him?” Mcwigik asked.
“No, of course not.”
“Then what do ye care?”
“I just do,” the increasingly impatient Cormack retorted. “Please, just get me to Yossunfier that I can at least try to save him.”
“Yach, but ye’re just wanting to take yer girl along with us-again,” Mcwigik argued.
“She already is coming with us by our agreement.”
“Then ye’re wanting her with us sooner, and we already telled ye…”
“She will be of great help to us,” Cormack admitted.
“All of her people will. Save this man and help ourselves, I say.”
“We get near to Yossunfier, and we’re to see the sky full o’ barbarian barbs,” Mcwigik grumbled. “Ye think it’s an easy thing, but ye’re a blind fool. Them barbarians see us coming, and we’ll all be dead before we step on their beach. Now, are ye thinking that’d be a good thing for your flat friend there?”
Cormack took another deep and steadying breath, and looked all around, feeling as if the answer was right there before him, waiting to be unveiled.
He smiled. “There may be another way.”
You wonder why I have allowed you to live this long,” Ancient Badden said to Brother Jond after having the monk beaten and dragged to him in the ice castle.
Brother Jond looked up at him blankly, trying to appear as impassive as possible. He was terrified, of course, but he didn’t want to give the wretched Samhaist the pleasure of seeing him squirm.
Ancient Badden stared at him for many heartbeats and nodded his chin as if prompting the man to respond, which Brother Jond would not do.