They had eaten a joyless meal, a rough stew of horsemeat and some roots gathered on the way past the lake a couple of days before. For some eating was an ordeal in itself, and they had to be spoon-fed so they wouldn’t spill it on their already sodden, freezing clothes.
Auum tried to ignore the fact that he was shivering so hard he couldn’t sit down. He could barely open his mouth to talk and had taken only a few swallows of the stew, seeing others needing more sustenance than he did. It was probably an error with the cold penetrating through to his bones and on into his heart and soul. Stein had told them it would be cold, but this was a level of pain beyond anything he could have conceived.
‘Something to tell your children about,’ said Ulysan.
He was still managing to smile despite the obvious discomfort of carrying Tilman for the day. He looked utterly spent but still refused to sit down and had checked on everyone else, all one hundred and twenty of them, exactly as both Auum and Stein had.
‘I’ll have to write it down before I freeze to death,’ said Auum, a new shiver racking his body so hard it made him grunt. ‘Trouble is, my fingers are frozen and I couldn’t hold a quill.’
‘Nor do we have bark or parchment, but it was a sound plan other than that.’
Auum cast his eyes over his people. Julatsan elves were moving among the tight-packed bodies, doing what they could with warmth and healing, but it was like using a fruit knife to fell a banyan. He and Ulysan were standing at the outer edge, a few yards from a sheer drop into a chasm. Auum wondered how many bodies they might be rolling into it come morning. Perhaps there would be none left to chant the lamentations.
Auum felt a keen anger bite and it warmed his soul a little. He let it grow, take form and substance in his mind, and he realised where his anger stemmed from. He turned to the quiet huddled group, most of whom had their faces buried in their arms and their knees dragged right up, trying to eke out a modicum of comfort.
‘This cannot be it,’ he said loudly enough to cut across the whine of the wind. ‘This cannot be all we can do. It is going to get colder and colder as the night deepens, and how many of you, with your nerveless hands and your soaking clothes, think you are going to survive? I’m not certain I will.
‘The TaiGethen cannot fight this. We cannot make fires from nothing. So what has your wonderful magic got to offer, my Il-Aryn and Julatsan friends? Conjure me a log and some kindling. Conjure me a timber shelter. Do something.’
Stein stood. His lips were swollen and his face was raw and red.
‘I understand your frustration, but we are few and we cannot expend all of our strength. I could have my mages warm the stone, but the cold runs deep and the warmth will be stolen before it can be of use because we are so exposed here. We have to conserve our energy.’
‘For what? If we don’t do something, most of us will not be alive to benefit from your precious stamina come dawn.’ Auum stared at the faces of TaiGethen and Il-Aryn around him and saw either determination or surrender. He picked out Rith. ‘And you, what can you do? Takaar’s teaching of seven hundred years cannot be so feeble that you cannot warm yourselves, surely?’
‘We can’t make heat out of ice,’ said Rith. ‘It doesn’t work that way. We don’t channel mana like a Julatsan, we use the energies around us to forge what we can. We adapt what we have; we cannot create something from nothing. I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry?’ Auum spat out the word. ‘Is that it? Just as on the walls of Julatsa when the pressure was on and you found you could do nothing? Takaar’s precious Il-Aryn, the new power among the elves. . Yniss save us and Ix abandon you, but on this evidence I never had anything to worry about, did I?’
Rith could not hold his stare. He saw her shudder violently as she dropped her head, and he wasn’t sure if it was the cold or the onset of tears. Auum spread his arms.
‘We have suffered to bring you here. TaiGethen saved you by the lake, we saved you on the wall and we kept you alive to get here. Now it is your turn. Don’t you dare look away from me, Rith.’
Her gaze returned and there was fire in it at least.
‘We did not ask for this! We did not want war and we did not want to freeze to death on a mountainside, but you forced us here, gave us no choice but to go with you. You brought us here and now we are spent and we have no hope.’
‘None of us wanted war,’ snapped Auum. ‘But it is what we have. Either here and now, or in our lands in the days to come. I choose to fight here and I will die here if I must, but it will be by sword thrust or black fire, not because of a lack of elven spirit.’
Rith shrugged her shoulders, the shudders in her body so violent they made the gesture painful. ‘We cannot draw heat from ice. I am sorry.’
‘I do not believe you. I refuse to believe you! I have seen Takaar sink a ship. I have seen you create barriers that beat off Wytch Lord magic, and only yesterday you made the air sharp enough to behead our enemies travelling at a gallop. And you are telling me you cannot create something to keep the damn snow off my back?’
Rith’s mouth fell open and she looked at him as if he were a fresh warm morning.
‘We’ve been thinking about this all wrong,’ she said. ‘Give me a moment. Il-Aryn, gather round, I have an idea.’
Rith began to speak and Auum turned away, uninterested in the mechanics of whatever she thought she might do as long as she did it quickly. He felt a nudge at his elbow and Stein was standing there. He had a bowl in one hand and, as Auum watched, he played a flame from his palm beneath it until its contents steamed. He handed it over and produced a spoon from his cloak.
‘Here. You didn’t eat enough. Admirable but stupid. If you die all hope will be lost.’
‘You don’t feel pressure, do you, Auum?’ said Ulysan.
Auum thought to refuse, but his stomach saw sense and he began to scoop the warm stew into his mouth, having trouble holding the spoon in his unresponsive fingers.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘the quality of Ulysan’s jokes has reached a point where all hope is already lost.’
‘I wonder what they’re doing,’ said Ulysan.
‘Saving all our lives, I trust,’ said Auum.
‘Is it that bad?’ asked Ulysan.
‘I know how I feel and I know how much I can take. It’s night, and the temperature is falling like a stone down that chasm. If we cannot get warm, we’re all going to die right here.’ Auum stabbed a finger at Stein. ‘And if that happens, don’t you dare let anyone who can escape die too or I’ll haunt you from Shorth’s embrace.’
‘To leave you would be to betray you.’
Auum gave Ulysan his empty bowl and pulled Stein into an embrace which the human found uncomfortable but which Auum would not let him break. Eventually, he released him, kissing his forehead.
Ulysan raised his eyebrows. ‘Some honour,’ he said.
‘If all humans were like you, our races would have been friends for a thousand years. What a waste.’ Auum stepped away and looked back to Rith. ‘Now then, how are they getting on? I wonder. Even though I’m freezing and I consider you my brother, Stein, I won’t embrace you again. Your clothes absolutely stink.’
Chapter 27
You never know what is lurking in the dark recesses of the flesh.
Kerela was scared and she was tired but she knew there would be precious little sleep for her. Sipharec was dying and his passing would make her high mage, a position for which she suddenly felt herself entirely inadequate. She knew she would have the support of Harild and that meant a great deal, but her first task, should Sipharec pass during the night, would be to preside over a war with Xetesk and the Wytch Lords.