Chapter Thirty-nine
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“Ya know Hroli isn’t gonna be able to pick us up any time soon,” I snarled at Hale. This had been his genius idea. The butthead.
He narrowed his eyes at me. The sky had darkened severely since the four of us stepped in front of the ancient main glass facin’ north. Oh, stink. Snow fell now, hard, slidin’ horizontally against the face of the mountain. Either gravel or hail pelted the thick glass.
“That’s ugly,” Alex mumbled.
Hale and I held each other’s eye for a long moment. He agreed with me. Since when could we suddenly have a conversation without openin’ our mouths? Why didn’t we know before that we’re stinkin’ witches?
If the landin’ above iced over, there’d be no helicopter landin’ up here for days. Sure hadn’t seen a front end loader sittin’ around lookin’ for work. Tiniest lateral breeze and Hroli would be ploughin’ a couple hundred feet over the side.
I’d already checked the back rooms—there was plenty of firewood, thankfully—for a while, if the fire was kept modest. The docents always had a small fire goin’ in here for ambiance. For the time bein’ we wouldn’t freeze to death. Worse come to worse, we could chip ice off the stairs for drinkin’ water.
“But that storm looks like it’s gonna drop a few feet of snow, or more,” Hale said softly, finishin’ the words formin’ in my brain case.
“We’re gonna get hungry,” I said.
“Hungry?” Alex said. “What?”
Beky explained the obvious to him. His eyes turned into saucers. Again.
Beky climbed up on the granite ledge frontin’ the glass. “At least it’s beautiful.”
In a hostile sort of way, I guess. Hale stepped away—goin’ to collect a cord of wood from the back.
“Shouldn’t we call that orc lady and have her come get us?”
Duh. Hen. Not lady. Hadn’t he listened to Beky? Pretty sure we couldn’t even get cell service up here. We’re on top of the stinkin’ world. Not a lot of cell towers. I pulled my phone out of my vest—just to verify the obvious, hopefully not givin’ Alex the wrong impression. Nope. Nothin’.
“How many bars?” Alex asked.
Beky laughed harder than me. I turned the thin’ off and slid it back into my vest.
“Can we walk to a forest station, or something?” Alex asked.
Walk? Had he not been lookin’ out the window when we flew in? I’d never heard of a forest station, whatever that is. I let that slide. “A hundred miles between here and the nearest village as the dragon soars,” I said. Maybe a few ancient troll mines in between. But if we could find one, wouldn’t provide a better, safer place to be than here.
“More likely get to dandy weather faster, hiking straight down.” Beky pointed out the quickly frostin’ glass.
Hale returned with a ton of wood stacked in his arms. He knew we wouldn’t be leavin’ any time soon.
“Can we do that?” Alex asked.
I didn’t follow his train of—oh. Hike down. I joined Beky, chucklin’. “If ya’re as tough and strong as a dwarf, sure,” I said. Or a pronghorn. Hm. A goat would prolly say nuh uh no way.
“Dwarf. There aren’t any dwarves, anymore, are there?” Alex asked.
Beky and I are gettin’ good at matchin’ each other’s chortlin’. I studied Alex’s face a moment. Where’d he think they all went? With the gnomes, fairies and dragons? Never heard of dwarves bein’ from the other side. Best anyone figgered, they were a long lost strain of orcs, toughened up in the hollers of the Range many, many millennia ago. Buggers are as wide with muscle as they are tall. Prolly can eat granite when times are tough.
Humor erupted from Hale, though no smile tinged his face. He liked that last one.
“Well, what are we going to do?” Alex asked.
The bitter hint of burnin’ kindling worked around Hales shoulders. He huffed a few times, and a bit of smoke joined the aroma, as the sound of the storm turned up an energy level or so. Made me shiver. Had to be cat 4 winds out there.
Dang weezit. We’d only planned to be up here for a few hours. None of us even carried a pack, much less a pocket of essentials. Hale now had a few flames goin’ and he reached up and opened the flue a bit. The sound of the storm intensified, leakin’ in from the chimney. The high wind would draw every tidbit of heat the fire generated right into the next peak, unless Hale added a few cords into the hearth. That would only give us a few hours of heat.
The docents had stored up enough wood for the short period of time the shrine was typically open, but nothin’ that would help us much if this storm continued. Alex, maybe even Beky, would likely freeze to death in five, six hours, when the last flames failed.
Hale yanked a hard look at me. Anger rattled around his head, which eased after a moment. Yep. He came to the same conclusion. If this storm wasn’t majically short, it would be bad for us, worse for Alex and Beky.
Why hadn’t Hroli been aware of the strength of this storm? For no better reason, I decided to blame Uncle Ike for this. Didn’t care that wasn’t fair. Didn’t want to load it all on Hale.
He glowered at me.
~
Hale
~
I may have begun to lean into one of my events, but I worked to keep my mind twirlin’ in a practical fashion. One. There was no way Hroli was landin’ in the next couple of days. Two. Alder would be dead within an hour of runnin’ out of wood. Three. My sweet, sweet Beky wouldn’t last much longer. Four. There was no way either Alder or Beky were climbin’ down to the plain. Maybe, when the wind stopped, I could make the hike, but I’m not even wearin’ a coat, no gloves. How far could I make it in a double digit, negative temperature?
Five. Can ogre-trolls go days without food? I like to snack every couple of hours. If only my troll side was more dominant. Stinkin’ trolls have a non-existent metabolism, and will eat thin’s a goat would say nuh uh, but thanks. There’s prolly plenty of centipedes and scorpions scrappin’ about all these granite cracks surroundin’ us. Mama would be set for dessert.
Bele was glarin’ at me. I refused to look her way.
Six. If the wind slowed down, the heat wouldn’t get pulled out through the flue so fast. Couldn’t close the flue. The carbon monoxide would kill us in an hour. Seven. I shoulda started the fire in one of the smaller chambers. I looked around for somethin’ to scoop the embers up with. No handy snow shovels. But there was a dainty little ash shovel and bucket to go with an ancient lookin’ poker. Had to do.
“Where you going?” Beky asked as I strode for the hallway.
Bele answered for me. “We need to move the fire into a smaller room.”
Felt good Beky followed me. We stumbled in the dark as we got away from the front glass. Beky grabbed my hand. Nearly frozen solid already. I knelt down, pulled her hands together, and exhaled hard on ’em, rubbed ’em between my hands. A strangled sensation gripped my chest. Not sure what that was. The hint of emotion I could interpret, disjointed me.
The closest bed chamber was crammed with junk. We needed to explore it to see if there was anythin’ that could help our situation, but the fire was first. The next chamber was small enough to take advantage of a smaller fire—with a narrow window to limit the heat loss—and large enough for the four of us to cluster together on the granite ledge where a hay mattress prolly once rested. I checked the flue. It was functional.
I spent the next ten minutes shiftin’ the fire from hearth to hearth, only burnin’ the cheese witz out of my fingers a few times. But if we weren’t lookin’ at the demise of our friends, ya could almost have called the smaller place, quaint.
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