My words are drowned by a low moan. Blayze is awake, grimacing and writhing on the ground, dislodging the snow from his burns. ‘Legs. Can’t f-feel my legs.’
Tansy turns back to him. Serafine swoops down, keeping vigil beside him. ‘Hold him still,’ Tansy says to Maris, as she palpitates various points on his legs.
Blayze paralysed? I swallow, hard.
‘I’ll have to administer peace-poppy for the pain. Weeping bark won’t be strong enough.’ Tansy is using the same soft sickbed voice the healers use around my mother when the news is grim.
She draws a small bottle containing silver liquor from her basket and holds Blayze’s head, struggling to keep it still as he thrashes like a hooked fish. She forces his mouth open and pours several drops onto his tongue. His groans become less frequent, his body stills, his tortured eyes glass over. The animal sounds are replaced by deep, rasping breaths. Tansy returns to inspect Astrophel’s wounds more closely.
She’s peeling back the bandage, when a low roar rumbles over the mountain. I follow the sound back to the glacier. I’ve been so preoccupied with our own wounded, I forgot about the cragstalkers.
Two are sprawling, panting on the ice and licking their wounds. But the third, the largest – the one that carried me and Astrophel – lies unmoving.
Leaving Astrophel in Tansy’s expert hands, I walk towards them to say goodbye. I owe them that much, and someone needs to gather the precious supplies we’ve left in the saddlebags. We’ll have to carry everything now – part of the reason I’ll be sorry to bid the pack farewell, though in truth, it’s the quiet reassurance their warm, lumbering bodies provide that I’ll miss most. If only we had a few drops of the tincture left, enough to help them battle the mountain’s thin, foul air. It’s worked well enough for Briar and Serafine.
The cragstalkers don’t register my approach at first. It’s only when I kneel beside them they turn their heads, regarding me with deep, dusky eyes.
‘You saved our lives. Not once, not twice, but three times,’ I whisper. ‘I’ll never forget it.’ I stroke them farewell in turn, fingers twining in their wiry, bloodied fur, then I reach into the saddlebags gathering my pack first before shouldering whatever else I can carry. I press my lips briefly to the paw of the fallen cat.
‘I’ll fulfil the prophecy. I’ll do it for you.’
The lump in my throat is thicker than ever as I return over the ice. I’ll ensure the cragstalkers never go the way of Estelia’s other lost species.
‘The ice-cabin’s close?’ Tansy asks, as I rejoin them.
‘Over there.’ I point a little way up the mountain. Squinting through the snow, I can just make out a tapered roof.
Tansy glances at Maris and Delphine. ‘Can we carry Blayze between us?’
The Islanders exchange a nervous look. Delphine’s eyes dart back to the remaining cragstalkers.
Tansy shakes her head. ‘We’ve asked too much already.’ She takes a laboured breath and levels Briar with a weighted stare.
I take in the wounds that haven’t fully healed since Galtair, the sylvanmare’s bowed head. ‘Is she strong enough?’
‘You said it isn’t far…’ The quaver in Tansy’s voice is far from reassuring.
The others heave Blayze onto Briar’s back and claim what they can from the saddlebags, I return to Astrophel.
He’s conscious but so pale, his aura a weak flickering thing, and the bandage binding his arm more blood than fabric now. I kneel beside him, settle his good arm around my neck, and haul him to his feet.
‘Just a bit further, then Tansy can patch you up.’ At least my voice doesn’t shake.
He holds my gaze, grey eyes shadowed with pain, then rests his forehead against mine. ‘Thank you.’
My chest is suddenly heavy. Weighted by more than the various packs I carry.
‘You don’t need to say that.’ I don’t deserve thanks, not when the chief part of my concern has been for Blayze.
‘But I do,’ he says, with a rueful smile. ‘There are so many things I need to say to you…’
The skin prickles on the back of my neck, but I don’t need signals from my brandsong to sense the dangerous direction this conversation is drifting in. The brightening of Astrophel’s aura is all the warning I need.
I lean away. ‘Don’t talk. Save your energy.’
Astrophel tries to shrug his arm off my shoulder. ‘I’ll manage by myself,’ he says. But he’s too weak to support himself.
I tighten my grip on his back. ‘Astrophel, wait. That’s not what I—’
