Chapter 8
Coedwig
~
I kicked my boots against the granite base of the stairs to knock off the loose muck. Made my way up to the veranda and used the broom left there to finish the task. I continued to grumble under my breath, askin’ myself why I felt it necessary to go a visitin’. I could hot-up a cup of tea at home. A fire flicked in my hearth. I didn’t need to hear the banter of ogres and trolls, or silly human women. Though, they always have tasty cookies that put my hard, dwarf-style biscuits to shame.
The door behind me swung open and closed quickly.
“Imagine the snow coming so early this year.”
The soft voice of the elf wouldn’t have made it to me if it weren’t for the silence the chill brought. There wasn’t a hint of sound for miles. I knew if I strained, I could hear the pine needles shiverin’.
“It happens,” I groused.
“I still have a pair of guests. They’re trying to decide whether a warm spell will come and let them get through the pass a little more safely, or take off now and hope for the best.”
“Ya best kick them out before ya get stuck with ’em for the duration.” I flung the broom against the banister like it was a thin’ imposin’ on my time, picked my axe back up, and turned on the elf. “If ya want, I’ll pack their thin’s up and see ’em to their wagons for ya. I don’t reckon I have anythin’ better to do.”
“That is a might kind offer, dwarf.”
I leered at the tiny twit for a moment, tryin’ to figure out if he was makin’ fun of me. I couldn’t decide. I stood up tall. I like standin’ next to Braes. Too many dang giants and humans about the Hamlet. Like to act superior enough, without loomin’ over me like fool trees.
“Main thing I enjoy about comin’ here, elf, is playin’ checkers against someone shorter than me. Oh, and beatin’ his pants off.”
“I believe you’ve told me that before.”
“Ya callin’ me a boorish type?” I barked.
“I might be. Would it take the edge off your game?”
“Nothin’ takes my mind off my game,” I said.
Braes snorted. “Jear had a way of distracting you.”
“Not fair. He was a master cheat,” I snarled. “Ya gonna keep me out here in the cold all day, or invite me in?”
“Since when do you need an invitation?”
“Get out of my way then. Even the women are more interestin’ than ya.”
“The females,” Braes quipped, “mirror your demeanor better than me.”
I snorted as I pushed the enormous door inward, pullin’ it closed in my friend’s face on purpose. Seemed the thin’ to do. Hard to believe I consider a fool elf a friend. Go figger.
“Ah, starting to come down hard again, is it?” someone asked. I don’t know who, not that I cared. If the question was meant for me, I ignored it. I walked toward the back of the hall where the kettles lined up on the stove. I glanced over my shoulder. A sight made me stop and turn around. A smudge of solid white careened out of the sky. A whiteout.
Someone mumbled, “Glad we stayed.”
Someone else said, “Hope no one else is getting caught in that. It’ll be their undoing.”
They were right. Hope Kincere and her family across the Lake are as well stocked as the Inn—but know they are. What about those fool daemons. They hadn’t had much summer to can and smoke. I poured myself a cup of tea, grumblin’ I’d probably be expected to cart over supplies to the daemons within the week, even cut them wood. The giants aren’t much for usin’ an axe. That bull, Drazy, isn’t good for much of anythin’ besides workin’ his mouth.
“Good day to you, Master Coedwig.”
I turned to snarl at whoever it was, until I realized it was the quiet, lovely Miss Sylvia. For a human woman, and a Northerner, she’s not too offputtin’. I looked down quickly at the toes of my boots for a moment, tryin’ to think what kind of polite words ya say to someone ya don’t want to insult. I’m not used to goin’ out of my way not to insult.
“Cat got your tongue, cutie.”
“Cutie! Who’re ya callin’ cutie?”
She bent over and gave my beard a tug. “Who else? You’re the only cutie I see here.”
I slapped at her hand, and she giggled. The woman has some reflexes. A gnome appeared from the ethereal, and Sylvia jumped, clutchin’ the front of her smock. A little squeak escaped. The majie looked nervously at the two of us and blinked away.
“I’ll never get used to that,” Sylvia said.
“I wish I never had to get used to it.”
“What’s wrong. Your face turned all sour,” she said.
“Ah, nothin’. Tordelshy—nothin’.”
“That the gnome’s name? Tordelshy?”
“Ya’re a nosy sort.”
She grinned and tugged down on my knit hat so it covered my eyes.
“And rude,” I snorted.
“We’re just starting to get locked in for the winter. Imagine how I’ll be rubbing you wrong in four months.”
I growled.
“Have you had breakfast, sweetie?”
“Stop calling me—”
Tordelshy blinked in again and turned a glare at Sylvia.
“He looks like he wants to talk to you in private,” she said.
“They aren’t ones for talkin’,” I grumbled. “What ya want, gnome?”
The majie looked nervously at Sylvia again, before turnin’ back to me. I reached up and pulled him out of the air so he could whisper in my ear. I listened and then explained to Sylvia, “A herd of orcs be stranded on their way here. Ten miles up Silver Spur.”
The gnome blinked out.
“Bad news. News we can’t do anythin’ about,” I grumbled.
~
“Maybe Lucas and his queen can make it there?” Bick offered.
I was standin’ on a chair in front of the window, lookin’ out at the solid bank of fallin’ snow. I stuffed my hands under my armpits. It was cold in Braes’ office. The elf isn’t botherin’ to keep a fire goin’ in the room since he isn’t workin’ in there much with the offseason.
Yoso growled. “In this, it would even be dangerous to try to make it over to his place to pose the question. Ya could get turned around in this whiteout and end up in the Wildes.”
“I visited ’em two days ago,” Bick said. “Iza is hibernating. She’s dug ten feet into the hay in their barn. Lucas said he hadn’t felt her mind all week.”
“Those orcs—” Braes mumbled. “Picked a bad time to be traveling in the mountains.”
“It would take serious brawn to tread through that.” I shivered.
“S’pose daemons?” Braes asked, lookin’ at Eina.
“They’d need a guide,” I muttered.
I looked over at Yoso, who grimaced. The troll looked out the window. “Don’t like what ya’re suggestin’. Only ya and I know the area well enough, and would have half a chance of gettin’ there. We’re almost as old as those hills. Have no business out there in that mess.”
“Then I guess I’ll be goin’ after their frozen carcasses alone,” I said.
“Nonsense. Snow is already over yar head,” Yoso growled.
“It’ll be over yar head in those gullies. Only chance is to stay on top of it.”
Yoso used a dwarf’s common answer—a snort. “How ya plan on doin’ that?”
“I need someone else useful with their hands, and a few of ya who can do some heavy weavin’,” I said, walkin’ out of the office. My gnome-friend blipped out to the ethereal.
~
Janding and I worked five frantic hours to make the four pairs of snow shoes. I was already tired, and the weight of the shoes strapped on my shoulders made it hard to lift up my feet. I shook my head. “Will be my death,” I mumbled. “I’m smarter than this.”
I trudged directly across the frozen Lake. It’s early in the season, but I had no doubt the new ice would hold my measly weight. My worry was that Drazy would scoff at the futile idea of savin’ orcs ignernt enough to get caught in a blizzard. If the daemon had any sense, he would. I decided not to work overly hard to convince him. It wouldn’t be right. The daemon clan owed favors for the help the Hamlet folk lent in buildin’ their four enormous, long-cabins, but puttin’ one’s life at stake exceeded that debt.
~
The door opened as I clomped onto the porch. Whisked inside by a grinnin’ giant, I found maybe the true decision maker of the clan wasn’t the hen daemon after all. She muttered and paced up and down, but bulls prepped, dressin’ in their warmest clothes while she ranted about it bein’ insane. I reckon she gave her bull-folk reason enough to decline, unwillin’ herself to say no outright. She still ranted as she grabbed Drazy roughly and gave him a mean kiss goodbye, which more than embarrassed me.
Them daemons ain’t above displayin’ too openly.
Outside, I bent over to put on my snowshoes when the beefy daemon bull-leader lifted me up and put me on his shoulders. “We don’t have time to spare waitin’ on ya, no-legs.” Just rude.
The four daemons strapped on the over-sized shoes Janding and I rigged up, and we were off at a hard run. I bounced roughly, amazed at the speed they made, well into the foothills in thirty minutes, though with the downfall, I was nowhere certain I pointed Drazy in the right direction. The world was solid white. I oriented by feel—maybe it was imagination—or maybe it was direction from Tordelshy, I had no clue which. But there was no time to second guess.
Even with the lopin’ speed the giants managed, with the rate of the snow fallin’, I worried even if we found the orcs, it would be a miracle if any of them made it back alive. Between the cold and jostlin’ I took on Drazy’s shoulders, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to survive, I was so miserable, bounced about and near frozen.
I estimated we were twenty miles, not ten, up the Spur when Tordelshy appeared, and sank chin deep into the snow. If he hadn’t made a racket in his high pitched whine, the wretched group of us wouldn’t have noticed him.
The gnome kept poppin’ up in front of us until we found the cliff face the orcs hid against. Their fire was out and they were mostly-buried in snow, despite the overhang. All alive, but in bad shape. The daemons debated the benefit of findin’ wood for a fire to warm them up before we headed home. I turned and pointed up at the heavily fallin’ snow, and they all nodded. Don’t know how they expected to find wood for a fire under all the snow, anyway.
There were four young orclings. Three of the daemons stuffed one in the front of each of their coats. I held the smallest, atop Dazy’s shoulders. The six adults would have rougher rides under the arms of Drazy and his friends. With a nod, we were off again, trudgin’ through the ever-deepenin’ drifts. I said a rare prayer to several gods I hadn’t visited, maybe since the mate passed. As cold as I was, might be joinin’ her soon.
It had to be night, though there was no way to prove it. Only the natural blanket of white made it seem like there was any light at all, no darker than it had been when they left the Hamlet.
Hour after hour we struggled. I kept a steady stream of insults and curses goin’ in my mind to keep from feelin’ quite so numb. Again and again I lurched as the child I gripped slipped in my hands. Drazy tumbled several times, and the orcling and I went flyin’. The snow was deep enough our collisions were cushioned, but it did nothin’ for our misery. I could only imagine how the daemons fared. The logs and boulders they tripped over must be givin’ them awful gashes.
Time and again, Tordelshy appeared to point us in the right direction. I had never been so miserable in my life. My hands and feet were numb, my face burned from the slashin’ cold. The hours and miles dragged. Suddenly the ride became smoother. The daemons jogged upon a flat surface. When the meanin’ of it struck me it must have come to the daemons as well, as they all came to a hard stop.
The four stood frozen, afraid to move.
Would the ice hold them? The giants are massive.
Tordelshy hadn’t stopped us. Perhaps he knew.
After a moment, Drazy led on. I didn’t disagree with his decision, but I guessed it had more to do with the wish for the pain to be over than anythin’ else. If we broke through the ice, the water would do us in quick enough. Perhaps the width of the snow shoes distributed their weight sufficiently. I looked into the night tryin’ to judge where on the Lake we were, but there was no tellin’. Nothin’ but solid white blinded me. We could have been thirty miles west of where we should be for all I could tell.
As a snow bank rose in front of us, the gnome appeared once again to direct us. It was too impossible we made it. The daemons struggled up the last, steep incline, and a pinpoint of light peeked through the white blanket before us. I heard one of the daemons shoutin’ for help and it seemed immediately there were a dozen hands graspin’ to aid us.
I closed my eyes and allowed the jostle to pull me forward. It didn’t feel like I could breathe any longer. It was time to give up. I had managed, somehow to help the foolish orcs make it to the Hamlet. Were any of them still alive? The bundled up child I held hadn’t moved in hours.
~
The skin of my cheeks tingled, burned, as did my hands. No, more ached. I opened my eyes and looked directly into a pair of enormous, brown, human eyes.
“Hey there, cutie. Glad to see you’re still with us.”
I’m in a human’s lap. A woman’s lap. How outrageous. If anyone of the clan ever learns—
I looked away. We were in the Inn’s massive kitchen, next to the bank of stoves. The heat felt marvelous. The daemons sat on the floor near the stoves workin’ at steamin’ mugs. The aroma of chicken soup swirled. Drazy looked up and caught my eye. The daemon’s eyes were blood red, but he wore a silly grin of accomplishment on his face. He gave me a wink. Hamlet residents sat about in chairs holdin’ orcs in their arms. A few sat up on their own, sippin’ at bowls of hot soup, a couple others managed their own steamin’ mugs without assistance.
“Care for some hot cocoa?” Sylvia asked me.
I struggled to rise, and hesitated. Her arm around my shoulder didn’t feel as— I couldn’t think of the right word— Perhaps, improper. I sniffed at her scent. She smelled of baked apples and cinnamon. There couldn’t be anythin’ nicer for a female to smell like.
Eina walked up and handed Sylvia another blanket. She took away the one I had pulled up to my chin, and wrapped me in the new one, which had been hangin’ above a stove, and felt heavenly toasty. I snuggled into it. Decided I could stay where I was for a few more minutes. If Miss Sylvia didn’t mind, I didn’t.
~
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