Mid-afternoon came, and went, before he cleared the forest and reached the bottom of the ridge. There, Nylan dragged everything onto the packed snow surface of the trail, took off his skis, and tied them to the sheeting.
With another series of slow efforts, he started uphill.
Halfway up, two figures skied down and joined him.
“Ser?”
Nylan looked up blankly, then shook his head as he recognized Cessya and Huldran.
“Frigging big animal, ser,” observed Huldran with a grin.
“Heavy animal.” Nylan nodded tiredly. “I could use some help.” That was an understatement.
“We can manage that.” Huldran studied the red deer. “Lot of meat here.”
“I hope so. I hope so.”
As the two marines unfastened their skis, Nylan just sat in the snow beside the trail.
“You all right, ser?”
“I’m a lot better since you arrived.” Nylan staggered up as they started to pull his kill uphill once more. The muscles in his left leg still knotted with every step, but the pain was less without the strain of pulling the makeshift sled and deer.
Saryn was waiting, tripod ready, by the time the three reached the causeway.
Nylan set his skis against the tower wall and sat on the causeway wall, too tired to move for a time. The sun had just dropped behind the western peaks, and a chill freeze rose.
“Ser,” ventured Huldran, “would you mind if I took your skis and poles down?”
“I definitely wouldn’t mind. I’d appreciate that very much.”
“Don’t stay out too long, ser,” added Cessya, picking up his poles.
“I won’t.” The coldness of the wind felt good against Nylan’s face, and he just sat there, staring into space.
Saryn looked up from the deer carcass, then at Nylan. “Good animal, but you sure made a mess.”
“I’m a poor killer and a worse butcher,” Nylan said, his voice rasping. “I wasn’t planning on getting anything this big. I hope I didn’t spoil anything by taking so long.”
“It’s cold enough that it isn’t a problem.” Saryn grinned. “Gerlich came back earlier. He said there wasn’t anything within kays.”
“There isn’t. I went down that section you call the forest wedge.”
“And you carted this back that far? That’s a long climb.”
“Huldran and Cessya helped me back up the ridge.”
Kyseen hurried out the tower door, looked at the deer, then at Nylan.
“Mother of darkness! What am I going to do with that?”
“Cook it,” snapped Saryn. “The engineer didn’t cart it back to waste.”
“Tonight … the meal’s done.”
“I’m sure you can find something to do with this tomorrow, Kyseen,” Nylan said. “And they’ll eat anything you cook.”
“They’re already complaining about the chicken soup, and it’s not even on the tables. Why didn’t I wait for the big deer the engineer brought-that’s what Cessya asked.”
“Tell her it’s worth waiting until tomorrow.” Nylan grinned, and slid off the wall, trying not to wince as his leg hit the stones of the causeway. “You mind if I leave you, Saryn?”
“No. You did the hard work. This is simple drudgery.” Saryn’s skinning knife flashed again.
Nylan limped into the tower, and looked down at his damp and bloody clothes. Should he go straight to the laundry, orup to find something, like his sole remaining shipsuit, that was dry?
“You look even worse than manure.” Ayrlyn walked toward him from the stairs leading up from the lower level. “You’re limping. Is any of that blood yours?”
“I fell chasing the deer. I don’t think any of it’s mine.”
“Let me see.” Her fingers lifted the trouser bottoms and touched his upper calves. “It feels like you ripped the muscles. You shouldn’t be skiing or hunting for a while.”
Nylan could feel a faint touch of warmth radiating from her fingers, and a lessening of the cramping. The pain subsided, slightly, from an acute stabbing into a duller, but heavy aching.
Ayrlyn straightened. “I hope it was a big deer.”
“It’s a huge deer,” interjected Huldran as she passed, adding, “I’ll get the stove in the bathhouse warmed up. You look like you need it, and there’s a little wood we can spare.”
“I’m all right,” Nylan protested, feeling as though he were being humored.
“Enjoy it,” Ayrlyn laughed. “People are glad to see another solid meal. And you do look like you need some cleaning up. I’m going to help Saryn. From what everyone’s said, she needs it, or she’ll be out there all night.”
Nylan flushed. “It’s not that big.”
The healer grinned before she turned.
Nylan looked at the stairs up to the top level. The bathhouse wouldn’t have warmed that much yet. He suppressed a groan before he started up the stone steps.
LXIX
IN THE WARM lower level of the tower, Nylan worked only in a light tattered shirt and trousers, occasionally even wiping sweat from his forehead, as he smoothed and evened the cradie’ssideboards. At times, he had to stop and massage, gently, the aching left calf that still had a tendency to cramp if he stood on it too long without moving.
A few cubits away, Istril used a single smoothing blade to plane the sideboards of the cradle that could, except for the carvings and designs, have been a mate to the cradle before Nylan.
The engineer glanced at Istril’s headboard-which bore a crossed hammer and blade surrounded by a wreath of pine boughs. He nodded at the detail of the pine branches.
“You like it, ser?” She leaned back against the cool wall stones and wiped her forehead.
“You did a much better job on the carving than I did,” he admitted. “The pine wreath is good.”
“Thank you. I worked hard on it.” She grinned, although the grin was wiped away as she stopped and massaged her abdomen. “They say the last part is the hardest.”
“Of woodworking?”
“Of bearing a child. I suppose that goes for anything.”
Nylan nodded, lowering himself onto his knees to take the weight off his leg, but the stone was hard, and he’d have to switch position before long.
“Jaseen said you and the healer saved Siret and Kyalynn.”
“We did what we could. It happened to be enough.”
“If … I need you … would you?”
Nylan nodded. “If you need us, we’ll be there.”
“Thank you.”
He paused. “Istril, could you feel what we did?”
The silver-haired marine blushed slightly. “A little, ser.”
“Good. You might try to explore that talent. It could come in useful.”
Istril paled. “Ah … excuse me, ser.” She turned.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Fine as I can be with someone punching my bladder.” The formerly slim guard half walked, half waddled up the tower stairs, even though, except for the distended abdomen, she carried no extra weight.
Nylan couldn’t imagine carrying and bearing a child.Having to experience the pain and discomfort secondhand was bad enough. Maybe Ryba was right. Maybe things would be better if women ran them. Then, again, maybe they’d just get used to abusing power, too. The soreness in his knees from kneeling on the hard rock got to him, and the engineer switched to a sitting position beside the cradle.
He picked up the fine-grained file and studied it, glancing at the assembled cradle in front of him. After looking at the wood, he set the file aside and picked his knife back up.
With long strokes that were as gentle as he could make them, he worked on rounding the left sideboard just a touch more, trying to make the sides match as closely as he could. The relief around the rocky hillside on the headboard needed to be deeper, too, although he sometimes felt as though attempts at art were almost a waste in a community struggling to survive.
He looked up at the sound of boots.
Relyn stood there, studying the cradle. After a moment, the red-haired man asked, “Were you ever a crafter, Ser Mage?”