82nd of Winter, 504 AV
Ruddy dusk. Needled towers of pine crept away the further he shambled over the knoll’s flinty backbone, leaving only purple mazed by strands of pink. The silver birches, discarded long before, swelled in a frayed blanket, pocked by boulders. The jaws, Ulric growled, forcing gloved fingers into a fissure. There wasn’t anywhere to go but higher, so he jerked himself further up the defile, so the eroding leather of his heel scuffed away layers of frosty powder. Lofted by bleak drafts, his press of furs jostled, swirled over the frosty rocks. The dreary sweep of gimlets looked jadedly over the drapery of conifer and stark, plunging canyons. They were limned by guilt, for the welling of ruddy tears. But their souls are mine, he glared, cuffing the base of his spear over a jumble of rocks festooned by purple crusts of lichens and densely spiny bracken, as if to defy his flaking resolve. They’re clad in fetters, tugged by the jangling, horrid trundle of my cart, subjugated by the clack of knuckles. There’s only me, and I won’t forget you. Think on it, and you’ll find meager japery in a carcass, flayed of ruse and conceit, just the murmur of demise. That’s your cage, boys.
Ulric jerked his cloak tighter, swaddled palm loitering over the clasp at his neck. The only legacy of my father, he reflected, Though at the very least, it lacks the varnishing of a craven. The inlay winked from ravines in yellowed, fluted bone. Then, a squall of a bitter, black bile crept up from the twisted walnut of his ravenous belly. The wind shrieked, and his chest rattled as he lurched over the lip of a shelf, the icy crest dispersing in a cruciform of tumbled, calcified rocks. Flecked by black mica, they skewed to the pewtery helmet of a tor. The glassy fragments seized the garnet gleam, like petrified fireflies.
Hesitantly, he hefted the spear, pressed further through the messy confines. The folds of his eyes gave a tug, partly wrapped by the bindings of his furred cap. They creased over depressions, vainly looking for the indents of ungulates, but brushing only abject despondency. That’s just great, Ulric growled, cowering deeper under his shawl of mangy pelts. The fist of winter wouldn’t relent, it seemed. Harsh gusts lashed at his nose, his ears. They chafed red, flares of pain fading before the numb, turgid currents. Every livid swatch of skin shrieked of discord with the pearls of frost draping his scruffy beard. The menhirs plunged yet again, squat, stocky, and sundered to many pieces. Like a god’s fingers, he scowled.
As if conjured by a witch, foggy curtains fouled his gaze, garbling and deceiving. There were angular scrapes in the ground, but he couldn’t discern what they’d come from. Probably nothing, he mused, tracing a splay of fingers over the icy crust. There’s no use indulging in that brand of reckless sanguinity, just subjugation by long, freezing dusk, and the gaunt fever of hunger.
His belly gave a rumble.
Empty, always empty. He giggled.
Ulric dragged the spear’s haft through silky powder, leaving empty swathes behind him. They filled in barrenly, as if he’d never passed. This pursuit wasn’t. The squat rams were departed, or dead. Most likely dead. There was a jerk of his jaw, iron-gray in the fading glow. The loom of a shelf caught his eyes, and he flung his spear over its crest. Prongs twisting up from drifts, lads. Prongs twisting up from drifts. Melting, many carcasses putrefying. Mangroved forests of bleached, broken ivory to remain, rejected by scavengers.
Those, and the gristle of his thoughts. They lay in a shatter. Tossed, flung away like the spear. The palm of his glove cuffed at rock, and his heels dug at heavy, flanged crags. His pulse came in quick, rapid jets. There was only a dull pain. The raggedy grunts, ringed by vapor. His legs were leaden, but he kept on, grasping at oblong crags, hauling up what remained of himself. Those layers of furs couldn’t hide the scrawny, desperate animal that he’d become.
But he was a man, not a weeper.
Down, down, should’ve gone down, he trembled. Down there, in the bristle of forest. There, where he could’ve found use for felling axe and furnace, and scuffed an existence from the bleak cliffs. That’s what he might’ve done, though it wouldn’t have satisfied him. His roots weren’t deep. He’d hankered for more, always more, but the wine of coin just left you choking on bile. There’s no use for greed, he reflected. The toeholds kept him up when leaden arms slung away, yet he clasped those jagged planes of granite, bulling his way to the hump of crest.
Frost plumed, like chunks of a jerky pinwheel. Ulric just glared at them, clutching the spear to his chest. Rocky piles caged him, fringed by glassy bluish streaks. These ridges felt sepulchral. They flanged like vaults of snowy gypsum, ringing and folding between higher peaks. The gorges plunging with a thunder of dark, icy rivulets. The forsaken taper of a crevasse. Imprudently, he trudged over the undulations, chapped lips working as a lizard’s fleshy mane. The mongrel rags binding his boots flapped in the guts. They were heavy, like sordid ballast. But he wouldn’t relent, just forced himself into a jog. Thawing the skim of frost from his lungs, those tracts of pale, tight scars menacing every shamble. They might sunder, but he’d take risk. His bones lurched, and rattled.
There, knit by scant, ruddy dusk, spread boglands. The birds departed, reducing to brown tufts high over frosty planes. Hinged by shuffling disruption, the ball of his ankle tangled on gorse, and he tumbled on his chest. Gravel dug at his palm, though abortively. Leather layered so thick, it couldn’t breach. The sting bided in dull, roiling twinges. His thighs were sore and cramping, wool chafing at tender, shrunken nethers. There wasn’t anything to do but get up, and keep going. He stamped and huffed, rousing turgid veins that tingled excruciatingly. The skin under was ashy, yet he didn’t want to look. That would’ve leeched his resolve. There was only his task, and he loped for it grimly, beset by a litany of visages, veiled by the affecting, fading recollection of embers.
Night fell.
Ulric halted, his cheeks insensate of the eddies of powder lashing up from dislodged drifts, and glared up at the luminous sliver. There was glow enough, though it pained him to keep going. There he was, impotent under an inky shroud. The wrongful brush of toes might see him dead, but seeking respite, well, that’d only be quicker. Think of the bones, he grunted, leaning heavily on the spear. They’re biding for you, lad. They’ve bided for your entire life, but even now, you’re blinded of their meaning aren’t you? They chant your name, don’t they? That’s why you think of the bones, and don’t let yourself falter. That’s how they get you. Harshly, he plowed and stumbled over a bayou of intractable boulders, plateaued by their disregard. The spear scraped, and skewed with mulish accord, like a condor’s tongue picking at carrion. Huddled by insolence, he finally made out the braided canyons that lurched to dregs, trenchant lips degrading and beckoning.
And then, the rounded lips of piled rocks, squatly plumed by ends of bracken and maned by brittle frost, desolately immaterial in the gloom. He snuffled, dragging snot over his cheek. Found, he sighed, jerking to a deplorable crouch. The caps of his knees were like jelly, shoulders rocking back leaden. The reaving, blustery fury of the gusts filched his tears. Weeper, he accused, cuffing them from the grooves of gaunt sockets. Weeper, weeper, weeper. Dirge, or jeer. But who’d witness his ignominy?
The wind is fickle.
