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In truth, he had needed time alone, though it brought him no revelations. The white woman had taken two of his caste and disabled him-all before she could be struck even once. Her frail form was a deception, hiding startling speed and strength.
Hkuan'duv stood up, facing the white, rocky world around him. Wind and snowfall had ceased by dawn. He ran a hand through his short, spiky hair, secured his face wrap, and pulled up his hood. Without a word, he and Danvarfij slipped along the white landscape and crouched to peer at Sgailsheilleache's abandoned camp.
"When did they leave?" he finally asked.
"At first light."
He could not decide whether to wait or to follow their clear trail. "They must be searching for the small human and the majay-hi."
"Both were alive when you escaped?" she asked.
"Yes, but the majay-hi charged the… white woman. He could not have survived long, and the human would have died quickly after. We have only to wait until Sgailsheilleache discovers their bodies and returns to camp."
"And the bodies of our fallen," Danvarfij added. "Sgailsheilleache will know his caste is following him."
She was not blaming him for leaving their companions behind, but shame slipped past Hkuan'duv's guard just the same. It sickened him that he had left Kurhkage and A'harhk'nis where they lay, without even a hurried ceremonial call to the ancestors to come for their spirits.
"They were lost," Danvarfij said, "and you were not. I would have done the same."
"Your sympathy does not serve our purpose," he replied.
Greater concerns plagued him. Two more members of his caste now searched the land where this savage white woman ranged. Sgailsheilleache and Osha had no idea what was waiting up there. His first instinct was to warn them, but he could not do so without exposing his presence.
"Fulfilling our purpose will be more difficult," Danvarfij said. "A'harhk'nis was wilderness-wise, but so are you. Perhaps we should monitor the search?"
"Not yet," he said. "We wait. Whether they find the bodies or not, they have to return. There is no point in risking ourselves."
Danvarfij shifted closer beside Hkuan'duv to share warmth.
Wy
A dull orange glimmer dimly lit marred stone walls, but Wy
I am here.
She spotted Chap across the room, staring out the entrance. Only remnants of hinges showed that there had once been a door.
The orange light came from a wide and shallow tripod brazier sitting on the stone floor to one side. It had not been there when she collapsed to the floor, but the brazier did not hold fire.
Instead, a pile of fist-sized crystals glowed like coals in its black iron depression. These filled the small room with more heat than light, raising the temperature above freezing.
"How long have I been asleep?" she asked.
Chap kept his gaze fixed outside of the opening. Day has come… I have seen traces of sunlight down the corridor outside.
Wy
"Are they still out there?" she asked.
They appear and vanish… but they are there, always.
"What are they?" she whispered.
Chap remained silent for a long moment. Undead… though I have never heard of animals as such… let alone ones like shadow and yet not.
She rose up on her knees to peer over Chap. Nothing distinct met her gaze-but something like shifting soot moved in the dark spaces across the corridor outside.
"We are prisoners," she whispered. "But why does she keep us alive?"
Chap did not answer, and Wy
The room was perhaps twelve by fourteen paces with no other openings. Its old stone walls seemed deeply marred in places by wild swirls of tangled scratches. A decayed desk near the back wall had collapsed on one side, and its slanted top had long ago spilled its contents on the floor. Iron brackets supporting shelves were mounted on the right wall, but the lowest wooden board lay in pieces on the floor amid scattered papers and books grown brittle and tattered with age.
"Where are we?"
Chap growled at the doorless opening but did not answer.
"Last night…," she said, "you kept looking, until you found me."
He turned his head and quickly licked her hand.
Wy
"We're in an abandoned study," she said, and went to inspect the shelves.
A few books were so old that their covers were damaged with mold. They looked so weak and brittle she was afraid to pick one up.
Another shelf held rolls of rough wood-pulp paper and animal skins stripped clean of fur. She knew enough about old archives not to touch them just yet, lest they crumble and break in her hands. Down another shelf she found stacks of old bark with markings on their i
Other works were bound in sheaves between hardened slats of leather or roughly finished wood panels. One was sandwiched between what looked like scavenged squares of iron the size of a draught board.
"Chap… come and look at these."
Look to the walls first.
Wy
The marks on the walls were not the etchings of age.
The crystal's light spilled over a mass of faded black writing. Patches of words, sentences, and strange symbols covered the stones. They ran in wild courses, sometimes overlapping and tangling in each other. Wy
It might have been a sentence, if she could have read it-but it seemed to go on without end. And the words were not all in the same language. Even the symbol sets differed, and some had faded, becoming illegible.
One word was composed of Heiltak letters, a foreru
The passages were in scattered patches, as if the author had run out of paper or hide, or anything else to write upon. Over time, driven by some desperation, this disjointed and manic record had been made on any surface available. But what had the author used for ink that would adhere to stone for so long?
Wy
Like reading madness itself recorded on forgotten walls.
Now… look next to the archway.
Chap's words startled her. Obviously he had been nosing about before she awoke. Stepping toward the doorless opening, she found a column of single… words? It seemed so, though again the languages and symbol sets varied.
The highest lines were too faded, as if the words had been rewritten in a downward progression over many years or decades. Midway to the floor, Wy