Quenesti Pah ... goddess of healing. The invocation of that benign goddess brought his mind around to the small vial his mother had given them before they departed. From Miritelisina, she had said, high priestess of Quenesti Pah. Frantically Sithas dug through the saddlebag, finally discovering the little ceramic jar, plugged with a stout cork.
He popped the cork from the bottle’s mouth and immediately recoiled at the pungent scent. Smearing some of the salve on his fingers, he drew off the cloak and spread the stuff on Kith’s leg, above and below the wound. That done, he covered his brother with the blankets and leaned back against the stone wall to wait.
Kith-Kanan remained unconscious throughout the impossibly long afternoon as the sun sank through the pale blue sky and finally disappeared behind the western ridge. Still, no sign of movement came from the wounded elf. If anything, he seemed even weaker.
Gently Sithas fed his brother drops of water. He wrapped him in all of their blankets and lay down beside him.
He fell asleep that way, and though he awoke many times throughout the brutally cold night, he stayed at Kith-Kanan’s side until dawn began to brighten their valley.
Kith-Kanan showed no sign of reviving consciousness. Sithas looked at his brother’s leg and was appalled to see a streak of red running upward, past his knee and into his thigh. What should he do? He had never seen an injury like this before. Unlike Kith-Kanan, he hadn’t been confronted by the horrors of battle or by the necessity of self-sufficiency in the wilds. Quickly the elf took the rest of the cleric’s salve and smeared it onto the wound. He knew enough about blood poisoning to realize that if the venomous infection could not be arrested, his brother was doomed. With no way left to treat Kith-Kanan, however, all Sithas could do was pray.
Once again the water in their skins was frozen, and so he made the arduous trek down the narrow pathway from the ledge to the valley floor. The trough in the snow made by his passage on the previous day remained, for the wind had remained blessedly light. Thus he made his way to his snow rimmed water hole with less difficulty than the day before.
But here he encountered a challenge: The bitter cold of the night had frozen even the rapidly flowing water beneath the snow. He chopped and chipped with his sword, finally exposing a small trickle, less than two inches deep. Only by stretching himself full-length in the snow, and immersing his hand into the frigid water could he collect enough to carry back to their high campsite. As he rose from the water hole, he saw the trail of the sheep across from him and remembered the magnificent creatures. Suddenly he was seized by an inspiration. He thought of his bow and arrows, still up on the ledge with Kith-Kanan. How could he conceal himself in order to get close enough to shoot?
Unlike Kith-Kanan, he was not an expert archer. A close target would be essential.
He gave up his ponderings in the effort of making his way back to the ledge. Here he found no change in Kith-Kanan, and all he could do was force his brother once again to take a few drops of water between his lips. Afterward, he strung his bow, checking the smooth surface of the weapon for flaws, the string for knots or frays. As he did so, he heard a clattering of hooves even as he stewed in his frustration. Once again led by the proud ram, the mountain sheep descended from their slope across the valley and made their way to the faint trickle of water. They took turns drinking and watching, with the ram remaining alert.
Once, when the creature’s eyes passed across the cliff where Sithas and Kith lay motionless, the animal stiffened. Sithas wondered if he had been discovered and wrestled with a compulsion to quickly nock an arrow and let it fly in the desperate hope of hitting something.
But he forced himself to remain still, and finally the ram relaxed its guard. Sithas sighed and clenched his teeth in frustration as he watched the creatures turn and plow through the snow back toward their mountain fastness. The powdery drifts came to the shoulders of the large ram, and the sheep floundered and struggled until they reached the secure footing of the rocky slope.
The rest of the day passed in frigid monotony. That night was the coldest yet, and Sithas’s own shivering kept him awake. He would have been grateful for even such an uncomfortable sign of life from his brother, but Kith-Kanan remained still and lifeless.
The fourth morning on the ridge, Sithas could barely bring himself to emerge from beneath the cloaks and blankets. The sun rose over the eastern ridge, and still he lay motionless.
Then urgency returned, and he sat up in panic. He sensed instinctively that today was his last chance. If he could not feed himself and his brother, they would not experience another dawn.
He grabbed his bow and arrows, strapped his sword to his back, and allowed himself the luxury of one woolen cloak from the pile that sheltered Kith-Kanan. He made his way down the cliff with almost reckless haste. Only after he nearly slipped fifty feet above the valley floor did he calm himself, forcing his feet to move with more precision.
He pushed toward the water hole, feeling sensation return to his limbs and anticipation and tension fill his heart. Finally he reached the place opposite where the sheep came to drink. He didn’t allow himself to ponder a distinct possibility: What if the sheep didn’t return here today? If they didn’t, he and his brother would die. It was a simple as that.
Urgently he swept a shallow excavation in the snow, fearful that the sheep might already be on their way. He swung his eyes to the southern ridge, to the slope the sheep had descended on each of the two previous days, but he saw no sign of movement.
In minutes, Sithas cleared the space he desired. A quick check showed no sign of the sheep. Trembling with tension, he freed his bow and arrows and laid them before him in the snow. Next he knelt, forcing his feet into the powdery fluff behind him. He took the cloak he had brought and lay it before him, before stretching, belly down, on top.
The last thing was the hardest to do. He pulled snow from each side into the excavation, burying his thighs, buttocks, and torso. Only his shoulders, arms, and head remained exposed.
Feeling the chill settle into his bones as he pressed deeper into the snowy cushion, he twisted to the side and pulled still more of the winter powder onto him. His bow, with several arrows ready, he covered with a faint dusting of snow directly in front of him.
Finally he buried his head, leaving an opening no more than two inches in diameter before his face. From this tiny slot, he could see the water hole and he could get enough air to breathe. At last his trap was ready. Now he had only to wait.
And wait. And wait some more. The sun passed the zenith, the hour when the sheep had come to water on each of the previous days, with no sign of the creatures. Cold numbness crept into Sithas’s bones. His fingers and toes burned from frostbite, which was bad enough, but gradually he became aware that he was losing feeling in them altogether. Frantically he wiggled and stretched as much as he could within the limitations of his confinement. Where were the accursed sheep?
An hour of the afternoon passed, and another began. He could no longer keep any sensation in his fingers. Another few hours, he knew, and he would freeze to death.
But then he became aware of strange sensations deep within his snowy cocoon. Slowly, inexplicably, he began to grow warm. The burning returned to his fingertips. The snow around his body formed a cavity, slightly larger than Sithas himself, and he noticed that this snow was wet. It packed tightly, giving him room to move. He noticed wetness in his hair, on his back. He was actually warm! The cavity had trapped his body heat, melting the snow and warming him with the trapped energy. The narrow slot had solidified before him, and it was with a sense of exhilaration that he realized he could wait here safely for some time.