Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (25 page)

and the settling gloom. Darzid, Gerick, the search, everything receded in importance. The whole world

was reduced to the next step. . . .
One foot in front of the other. . . don’t slip, don’t stumble, don’t

imagine what lies down the impossible, dark slope at the end of each steep traverse. Shift the reins

to the other hand so your fingers don’t get numb and drop them altogether. . .
.

A yelp from in front of me broke my concentration. The slouch-brimmed hat vanished into the murk.

Paulo’s horse stopped dead in the track.

“Paulo!” I yelled over the blustering wind. No answer. I picked my way carefully around Paulo’s

horse and the packhorse. It was fortunate I took care, for we had come to a set of snow-covered steps

that signaled the end of one descent and the reversal of direction that would begin another. It appeared

that at least one of the steps had been a false one, carved of snow instead of rock. Slide marks led right

off the edge into the dark unknown below the trail.

“Paulo!” I screamed again. In a moment’s lull in the gale, I believed I heard a soft moaning just below

me and to the left.

“Holy gods . . .” Kellea had crept up behind me. “He’s down there.”

Without taking my eyes from the spot where I thought I’d heard him, I told her to get a rope . . . and

to watch her step. She was back in moments.

“One of us has to go down,” I said. “Is there anything to tie the rope to?”

“Only his horse.”

“Can you steady the beast and hold the rope if I go down? You’re likely the stronger.”

“I think so.”

We tied the rope to the horse and to my waist. I forced my frozen fingers to remember the sailors’

knots my friend Jacopo had tried so hard to teach me. When all was as secure as I could make it, I told

Kellea to start paying out the rope a little at a time. She murmured to the horse about what a good boy

Paulo was and how important it was to hold fast.

I told myself the same and stepped backward over the edge. My boot found no purchase on the

steep slope, leaving me sprawling face first in the snowy embankment. Shaking, I held on tight until I was

sure the rope was taut and the knots around my waist snug. When my heart was out of my throat and my

voice would come out in more than a croak, I started calling for Paulo. “Hold on,” I said. “I’m coming.

Make a noise so I can find you.”

The next step down. Better. I found rock. If only I had a little light. I could scarcely see the darker

patches where rock and dirt protruded from the snow. Estimating the angle of Paulo’s slide, I tried to

stay to one side of his path. I called again, but heard only the wind and the rush of fear in my ears. Down

another step. The upper part of the embankment was incredibly steep. I slipped again and got a mouthful

of dirt and snow. Was this what it was like to be blind, every step fraught with terror, stomach lurching,

not knowing if your destination was within a finger’s breadth or ten leagues away? How could Paulo have

survived such a fall? This could be the very edge of the world for all I could see.

Kellea yelled something that was snatched away by the wind.

I stretched for a foothold. Stepped down again, trying to be sure of it. Where was he? “Paulo, help

me find you.”

To your right
! screamed Kellea, directly into my head.

I moved to the right. Gods, where did the earth go? I flailed about in panic when my hand and foot

found only a pitch-black void instead of a solid hillside. No, it was just that a piece of the slope had

slumped away, leaving a scooped-out bowl of snow. A darker patch lay on the far side of it, and I heard

the faint moan once again.

A little farther . . .

The snowy shelf angled outward. I eased onto it, digging in the uphill edge of my boot to make decent

footing, scarcely daring to let down my weight in fear it would give way. I crept toward the sprawled

figure, unable to determine his position, until I realized that one of his feet was pointed at a totally

impossible angle.
Oh, curse it all. . .
. Even insensible he was holding on, his fingers dug into the snow

and the dirt. Probably better if he could stay asleep. He wouldn’t want to feel what it was going to be like

to get him up the embankment.

Carefully I scrabbled into the snow at the back of the shelf, trying to make a spot that was fairly level,

not at all happy to discover that the outsloping snow lay over out-sloping rock. The snow would have to

hold me in. I settled myself into the spot; then, hating every moment of it, I untied the rope.

“We’re going to haul you up, Paulo. Hold on. It’s going to be all right. ...” Carefully . . . carefully I

knotted the rope about Paulo as snugly as possible. No way to immobilize his leg until we got him up.

Then, I gave three hard tugs on the rope. At the first creeping movement, Paulo screamed in agony.

Slowly, Kellea
, I begged silently.

I’ve known nothing that’s taken so long as it did to drag Paulo up that embankment. After the first

scream he never cried out, but I could hear his muffled sobs for a long while. When he at last fell quiet, I

prayed that he wasn’t dead. In fate’s crudest perversity, the broken leg was
not
the one that was already

crooked, the one that gave the clumsy twist to his walk and made the children of Dunfarrie call him

donkey.

He’s up. Watch for the rope
. Soon the rope dangled in front of the ledge. Unfortunately it was just

out of reach. Gingerly I shifted forward, outward, until I could grab it and tie it about me. Three tugs and

I started to climb, scrabbling upward and eating a good deal of dirt and snow as I went. I didn’t really

care, as long as the rope held.

When I crawled over the edge of the path, I lay in the snow panting beside a motionless Paulo. Kellea

sat beside me, her head bowed. “We’ve got to get him downhill and get a fire going,” she said, nudging

my aching shoulder.

I nodded, and we stumbled to our feet. Together we bundled the limp Paulo in blankets, using our

rope to bind one of them tightly about his leg to hold it as still as possible. Then we laid the boy across

the saddle and tied him to his horse. Kellea took the lead as we crept down the trail.

The next hour passed in a misery of snow and cold, wind and exhaustion. When Kellea made an

abrupt halt and scrabbled about in the snowy hillside on our right, I could do nothing but stand huddled in

my cloak, numb, dull, too tired even to ask what she could possibly be doing. To my astonishment, she,

her horse, the packhorse, and the spare mount we’d brought for Gerick disappeared abruptly in a

direction that couldn’t possibly be right. But I forced my frozen feet to follow . . . into a cave, deeper and

wider than I could reach with my arms, and wonderfully out of the wind. I vowed never again to travel

without a Dar’Nethi Finder.

We lifted Paulo down first. Then, while I felt my way carefully with hands and feet, leading the horses

a little deeper into the cave where they couldn’t step on us, Kellea worked at starting a fire. She had

never learned how to manage it with sorcery. From the mumbled oaths as she worked her balky flint, I

guessed that fire-making would be the next thing she learned from the Dar’Nethi swordwoman.

Carrying blankets and what extra clothes I could grab from our packs in the blackness, I crept my

way back to Paulo. I bundled him up and wrapped my arms around him, trying to share what little

warmth I had, willing Kellea’s flashing sparks to catch whatever she had found to burn. When the first

sickly flame split the darkness, long before it provided any warmth, I sobbed silently in gratitude.

The cave looked like a way station for bandits. All manner of odd things lay about: broken crates, a

few barrels, a spilled bag of blue-dyed yarn, chewed by generations of vermin. The blackened fire pit lay

near the mouth of the cave, filthy with half-charred animal bones and unrecognizable muck. But a good

supply of dry firewood was stacked beside it.

Paulo was awake and shivering uncontrollably, eyes glazed with misery, lips bloody from holding

back his cries. His skin was pale and clammy. “We’ll soon have you warm,” I said, as Kellea ripped

twigs from the larger pieces to feed her hungry flames. Fumbling with a waterskin and my handkerchief, I

wiped the dirt and blood from the boy’s mouth.

As soon as the fire was blazing, I turned to Paulo’s injuries. Kellea knelt beside me, stroking his

forehead while I cut away his muddy breeches and leggings. I tried not to let my voice reflect the grim

sight I was uncovering. “About time we got you some new clothes, Paulo.”
Oh, gods have mercy. . .
.

“I’ve brought a few things,” Kellea said quietly over my shoulder. “I’d best get them.”

Kellea’s herbs weren’t going to do much for Paulo. His lower left leg was broken in at least two

places that I could see, possibly one more from the way he moaned when I touched his swollen knee. A

shard of bone protruded through mangled flesh and sinew above his ankle, and he was bleeding

profusely. At the least we had to straighten the breaks and stop the bleeding. Yet, even if we could keep

the injury from killing him with sepsis or blood loss, I doubted the limb would ever be usable.

Kellea unrolled a small leather bundle containing a number of paper packets and small tin boxes.

Tearing open a packet, she crushed several dark green leaves in her palm, transferred them to Paulo’s

tongue, then gave him a sip of wine to wash them down. “This’ll make you sleepy, so it won’t hurt so

very much. We’ll give it a little time to work before we see to your leg. Same as we did for Graeme

when he was hurt. You remember.”

He nodded ever so slightly.

I tried to blot away some of the blood from his ankle, but when I so much as touched the grotesque

wound, he sucked in his breath and his face went even whiter. Little whimpering moans caught at the

back of his throat. “Ah, Paulo, I know it’s awful. But we have to press on it a bit to stop the bleeding.

Can’t have you leaking all over the blankets.”

While Kellea stoked the fire to roaring and put a pot of water on to boil, I held the ragged remnant of

Paulo’s breeches on his wound. First we cleaned the wound with wine and boiled oak bark from

Kellea’s packet and forced the bone back inside, and then I held his upper body while Kellea pulled and

twisted his poor limb into some semblance of alignment. Gripping my arms, he buried his face in my

breast and did his best not to scream. But he couldn’t manage it. His racking sobs tore me to the heart.

After a while he fell insensible again and we finished the horrid task as best we could. From a small tin,

Kellea extracted an oily yellow paste and spread it onto his torn flesh, then bandaged and splinted his leg

with pieces of a broken crate, binding it with lengths of our rope. So pitifully little we could do.

Kellea was almost as pale as the boy when she was done. “It’s far from straight, but I just can’t get it

to move any more,” she said. “We’d have to use rope and pulleys to make it right, but even then I’m

afraid we’d just do more damage. I’m no surgeon.”

I threw Kellea’s cloak over her shoulders as she dribbled willowbark tea into Paulo’s mouth. Then I

moved the horses farther into the deep cave and unsaddled them, giving them a cursory wipe-down with

a piece of sacking Paulo kept for that purpose. We couldn’t afford to have them die on us. I dared give

them only half a ration of grain from Paulo’s emergency supplies. Who knew how long we’d be here? By

the time I had done what I could for the beasts and hauled the rest of our supplies close, Kellea had

fallen asleep.

All through the night we took turns watching Paulo and feeding the fire. I forgave the bandits their

crimes in thanks for the wood. Paulo shivered and moaned quietly, and I gave him more of the

willowbark tea. What on earth were we to do?

At some time, I fell asleep without waking Kellea. When my shoulder was touched lightly, guilt set me

apologizing even before I could unglue my eyelids. “Is he all right? I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” I fought

my bone-weariness to sit up, but my dream refused to be banished with the opening of my eyes. Paulo

lay beside me, his cold hand gripping mine. His face was pinched and pale, but bore a trace of his old

grin as he gazed up at the one who knelt on the other side of him.

“This will hurt for a moment,” said the newcomer, his voice quiet, weaving a cocoon of peace and

reassurance, “but nothing as to what you’ve done already. Then I’ll be with you, and we’ll take care of it.

All right?”

Paulo nodded, a silver knife flashed in the firelight, and Karon’s words of healing scattered embers of

enchantment like fireflies through the cave.

CHAPTER 14

A Dulcé had shaken me awake. “My lady,” he whispered. “Would you be kind enough to step

outside where we could speak? I would most appreciate it. The Prince has said it will take him a goodly

time to care for the boy.”

“Yes . . . yes. Of course.” This could not be a dream if I was stammering so foolishly. “Of course I’ll

speak with you.”

Kellea’s blankets lay empty, no sign of her in the cave. I wrapped my cloak tight, dragged my eyes

reluctantly from Karon, who was binding his bleeding arm to Paulo’s, and stepped into the dawn light.