I glanced at the sky. Night would soon be falling, it was very cold, and I was unexpectedly saddled with two idiots. I felt vaguely ill in a way I could not define. Not dizzy or feverish. I felt as if I had just arisen from my bed after a long illness. Well, I had, without preparation, towed two unSkilled ones through a pillar, and the simmering memories of the Skill-road besieged my walls. I decided I was lucky that I felt only weak. And they were fortunate to be sane and alive. If they were.
“Lant? How do you feel?”
He dragged in a long breath. “Like the morning after a night of drinking bad ale.”
I turned and glared at Perseverance. “How did you do that?”
He looked surprised I would ask. “I hid under the cloak near the stone. You know how it conceals things that are beneath it. Then, at the last moment, I jumped up and caught hold of you. And here I am.” He stood straight suddenly and met my gaze. He seemed totally unaffected by the passage. He draped the butterfly cloak around his shoulders. “I followed to serve you as I vowed to do. To avenge my Lady Bee, whose colors I wear.”
I wanted to stamp and shout, to call them every demeaning and damning term I knew. They looked at me like puppies and suddenly I could not muster the energy. The cold that squeezed me was not a cold that had patience with human frailty. I looked down at both of them. “Lant. Get up. There’s a tent in that bag. Make camp over there, under those trees where the snow is shallower. I’m going to get a fire going.”
They stared at me, then exchanged astonished glances. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lant stand. He stumbled two steps sideways and then reached up to hold his head in his hands. The Skill-portal journey had not been easy for him. His own fault. My anger at how they had complicated my life drowned any sympathy I might have felt. Perseverance, wrapped in layers of butterfly wings, looked less affected. I walked away from them, pulling my clothing closer. I’d worn the gaudy Farseer cloak over the plain one and was suddenly glad to have it. I found a dead and hanging branch, shook it cautiously to rid it and the branches right above it of loose snow, and then began to break pieces off of it. I returned to find them struggling to erect the small tent I’d been reluctant to bring. Now I was glad of it. I ignored their efforts as I scraped clear an area of the cobbles of the old market and set about my fire-making. I was rusty at this skill, light-headed from our passage, and the longer I struggled, the colder and stiffer my hands became. I panted and sniffled as I worked, for the cold does that to a man. I felt my lips dry and tried to remember not to lick them, as I knew they would immediately crack. Night was coming on and the cold was squeezing me harder. Patience was hard to find. I should have brought a fire-pot.
A spark caught and lingered, and then another, and finally a tiny trickle of smoke rose from my tinder. “Go get wood,” I told the two watching me struggle. “There’s a hatchet in my pack. Don’t dump it out on the snow, reach inside to find it.”
“I’m not an idiot,” Perseverance said huffily.
“You’ve not proved that today,” I told him, and he went.
Lant lingered a moment longer. “I told my father you’d refused me. He told me it wasn’t your decision to make. That I should find a way. So I did.”
That sounded like Chade. “We’ll need a lot of wood to last through the night, and the light is nearly gone,” I pointed out. Lant stamped away.
I fed the tiny fire twigs and then snapped off bits of the branch and then finally dared add some actual wood to it. I looked around at the gathering gloom. Motley had taken up a post in a bare-limbed tree and was watching me. I decided we would have a large fire tonight. Perseverance returned dragging a substantial branch. I broke some of the smaller limbs from it and then set him to chopping the rest. The fire was lending some warmth by the time Lant returned. He’d found a storm-broken evergreen, and the resinous branches caught quickly and burned hot. I could tell he did not feel well. He kept pinching his lips together as if he feared he’d be sick, and more than once he reached up to press the heels of his hands to his temples. I didn’t care how he felt. “We still need more wood,” I told them.
For a time we all came and went, bringing whatever storm-dropped wood we could find. When we had a substantial reserve, we crouched around the fire, warming ourselves. “You first,” I said to Lant. “What supplies did you bring?”
I watched him try to order his thoughts. “Warm clothes. Some dried meat and fruit. Bread, honey, some bacon, cheese. A blanket rolled small. A knife and a cook-pot. A bowl and a cup and spoon. Coin for inns. My sword.” He looked around us at the forest. “I thought there might be inns.”
