Morpho shook his head, unable to speak. He plunged on, and fell again in the very next drift.
This time Blade did not ask. He picked him up and swung him on his broad shoulders and kept going.
Morpho, when he could speak, shouted into Blade's ear. "A little farther. A mile, not more. There will be a string of dung gatherers' wagons. They came up to bring fuel against the night. The track is too narrow, so they could not turn and go back."
Now came a stretch of track that was deserted. The Mongs, even.the camp followers and the commonest of the soldiery, were careful to keep a distance between themselves and the gatherers of dung.
Then more wagons, and higher drifts. Blade was panting now, and staggering from time to time. They passed half a dozen wagons, all dark, then approached one in which a light glowed. Morpho tapped Blade on the shoulder.
"That one. And, Blade, I would have an oath from you."
Blade, frozen and gasping, encompassed by an icy hell, thought it a poor time indeed for oaths. He growled like a wounded bear.
"What oath, man? This is no time for such matters! We will freeze to death while you yammer about oaths. I..."
Morpho was insistent. The carven grin, colder than the Khad's heart, pressed against Blade's ear.
"A simple oath, Blade! I must have it - that you will not speak of what you see in the wagon!"
Blade nodded. Anything to get on with it. "All right, Morpho. I give my word. Now do we go or does the wind murder us?"
"Let me down."
Morpho slipped from Blade's shoulders and fought his way through the drifts to the wagon. Blade followed, wondering about this new complication and what perils it might hold for him.
The wagon stairs were down. Morpho opened the door and Blade went in, hunching down to avoid striking his head. Morpho followed and slammed the door against the wind.
Blade's first sensation was of enormous relief. His face felt as if it had been flayed. He stared around the dimly lit wagon, trying to adjust his eyes to the shadow-haunted light.
There was a bad smell in the little wagon. By a pallet laid on the floor there crouched an ancient crone, well robed and cowled. She did not turn when they entered, but kept staring down at the face of the girl on the pallet.
Morpho tugged Blade toward the pallet. "My daughter," he said. "Her name is Nantee. She is dying, Blade. I think she will die unless you can help her. I cannot help her. Nor she." He indicated the crone. "And I dare not ask anyone else for help. Only you, Blade. Only you!"
The dwarf was clutching Blade's sleeve and staring up at him. He grinned his terrible grin. Tears trickled down that broad, ridiculous face.
Pity and anger, frustration, all commingled in Blade. Here was part of a mystery explained, but he was not thinking of that. How was he to save the girl? He was no doctor.
He patted Morpho's shoulder. "I will do what I can," he said gruffly. "But do not expect miracles. How long has she been sick?"
"Since five days now. Before we came into the pass,. It is a fever. She burns, Blade, like a fire."
Blade knelt by the bed. The crone, who had been wiping the girl's face with a cloth, moved away. Blade, feeling helpless, put a hand on the girl's forehead. It was dry and hot, yet she breathed easily enough. He moved the heavy robe covering her and put his ear to her chest. Her skin was light, nearly as light as the Caths, and her breasts had budded and were well on the way to development, with tiny rose-tinted nipples.
She breathed easily and deeply, yet her flesh was like a stove. There was no rasp of congestion. Blade covered her again and looked at Morpho.
The dwarf spoke first. "It is not the coughing sickness. I thought that at first, but no. It is only fever - but such a fever as I have never seen before. Can you help her, Blade?"
Blade smoothed back glossy dark hair from a high brow that gleamed lemony in the taper. There was Cath in her, no doubt of that. It showed in her face as well as her Mong heritage. Her nose was delicate and straight, her mouth a rosebud still, though the lips were badly fever cracked, and her eyes were oval, neither round nor narrow, and without the deep Mong fold at the outer corners.
At that moment the girl opened her eyes. Blade felt a shiver trace along his spine. Her eyes were green! A darker jade than those of Lali, but as pure, with all the depth and none of the translucence. The girl stared up at Blade, sensing the presence of a stranger, and raised a hand. By then Blade had guessed.
This girl was blind.
The fragile little hand touched his beard. The girl said, "Are you here, my father? Who is it that I touch?"
The dwarf knelt by the pallet and leaned to kiss the girl's cheek. "A friend of mine, Nantee. He is going to make you well."
The fingers, delicate as flowers, traced Blade's face. They touched his lips beneath the beard, his nose, lingered on his eyes and stroked lightly across his forehead. Suddenly the girl smiled.
"I like your friend, my father. He is good."
There was a tightness in Blade's chest and his eyes were hot. Compassion banished his remaining anger and irritation. But what could he do?
She left off touching Blade and searched with her hands for her father. The dwarf, weeping unashamedly now, caught her hands and pressed them to his malformed face.
"Yes, Nantee. Yes, he is good. He will make you well." He stared at Blade across the girl, desperate and pleading through the tears.
Blade nodded curtly and looked away, unable to face such misery. "I said I would do what I can. How old is she?"
The girl had lapsed into coma again. Morpho arranged her hands and said, "Twelve. Old enough for marriage, Blade. And old enough for..."
He did not finish the sentence, nor did he need to. Blade already understood that.
Blade stood up abruptly, nearly braining himself on a low beam. He rubbed his head and said, "We must get the fever down. Otherwise she will die soon."
"How, Blade? How?"
He stood frowning for .a moment. How indeed? Then he knew what he must do. Must do because there was nothing else to do!
He glanced around the gloomy wagon. The crone, squatting in a corner, watched him with beady dark eyes and no expression on her million-wrinkled face. How much of death she must have seen!
"You have something in which we can gather ice and snow?"
"We have earthen bowls. And the dung baskets beneath the wagon. They will do?"
"They will do. Come on, little man. There is no time to lose."
They collected bowls and went out again into the blizzard. The wind leaped at them with a howl of triumph.
Morpho got the dung baskets, hanging beneath the wagon, and they set about collecting ice and snow, scooping it into the receptacles with their bare hands.
"I had not thought of such a thing," Morpho said against the scream of the wind. "Your brain is better than mine, Blade."
Blade kept scooping and the dwarf added, "But then I am a fool and that is as it should be." The wind could not obliterate the bitterness in the gnome's voice.
They lugged their burdens into the wagon and Blade sent Morpho back for more snow and ice. He stripped the covering from the unconscious girl until she lay naked.
She was well developed for twelve. That was the Mong in her. The slim legs were Cath. Her feet were small, with high arches and fine bones.
Blade glanced at the crone and jerked his head in command. She came to the bed and began to assist Blade in packing ice and snow around the slim body. Blade began at the shoulders, the crone at the feet, and they mounded the ice and snow against the burning flesh.
The dwarf came back with a dung basket full of snow and Blade dumped it on the girl's flat belly. He tossed the basket back to Morpho. "More!"
In a few minutes she was completely covered but for her face. Morpho sent the crone back to her corner while he and Blade squatted on the floor.
Blade studied the girl's face. It was so lovely, so tranquil, that for a moment a claw hooked at his heart and he thought she was dead. Then he saw the minuscule rise and fall of the snow covering her breast.
"She will not freeze?" asked Morpho.
"If we leave her too long like this, but we won't. And we must have heat in this wagon, Morpho. How can you do that?"
The dwarf snapped his fingers at the crone and gave a command. She brought forth a large bowl of wood into which an earthen sheath had been fitted. A crude brazier.