Page 27 of Dragonbound

Erann found it incredibly hard to look away from the stare. He couldn’t leave him like that, eyes peering blankly into space. With a deep breath, he leaned forward and tried to close them, but they wouldn’t stay shut. Fumbling on the floor, he found a couple of small stones and gently placed them over the eyelids to weigh them down. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Erann was about to turn to leave when he noticed a scrap of script in the child’s stiff hands. He bent down and gingerly pried the fingers open, wincing as he did as they cracked, until he could pull the piece of text free.

Feeling numb, Erann made his way back down to the main room. It struck him how lucky his family had been to survive the Long Night. More than once, he’d been certain they’d used the last of their stores – only to find something he’d overlooked the last time. A missed bag of peat. Jars of curdled animal blood. Containers of hardened butter. Once, three snow hares, skinned and ready to cook. Even now, he didn’t recall hunting them.

The scrap of writing lay heavy in his hand. Did he want to know the sad story it would tell? He wandered towards the open door, clutching the tattered page, unwilling to read it. At last, although he didn’t feel ready, he unfolded it.

It bore a list of names, and when they’d started to die.

The baby was only weeks old – Sunna. Her mother, Estrith, had died with her.

Next had been the small three rotations old child, Harold.

After that, the other names became more hurried, scribbled one after the other, in a rough hand, as if someone had been trying desperately to make sure they’d be remembered. The grandparents were Auld and Snorri. The father, Swein.

The last name was another Snorri, written in shaky, childish letters. Erann could only assume it had been written by the child in the loft, after his father had died – the one whose eyes stared up at the dark ceiling above his head.

A silent trickle of tears slid down his cheeks. He angrily wiped them away. He couldn’t stay here, but he’d ensure they received proper burial rites. He would have to burn the place.

He turned and hurried outside, needing to get away. There was too much tragedy here. It was too close to what had nearly happened to him, his mother and brother. He still didn’t understand how they’d made it through the Long Night.

Outside, twilight had settled over the land, the daylight fading fast. He could no longer see the path he’d followed earlier. In the distance, the mountains, with the tallest, Snaefell, behind them, were swathed in deepest magenta and had become no more than a remembered menace.

He could use his heatstone to kindle a fire and walk on into that forbidding dark towards Rankil’s. Forget what he’d seen here.

He recoiled at the thought.

‘No. These people deserve their death rites,’ he said into the silence, aware of the rising wind and dark clouds which promised more snow. It would be another bitter night, and the wind would make it hard for the flames to catch.

‘I’ll have to wait for sunrise,’ he muttered.

He stepped away from the entrance tunnel.

‘I can’t sleep in there.’ The thought alone made him judder at the memory of touching the forever cold hands and eyelids. ‘So now what?’

He knew there were no other steadings close enough to reach before night set in.

‘I’ll have to stay inside.’ Even saying it made him uneasy.

But then an extension to the side of the steading caught his eye. He swallowed with relief and strode towards it through the deep snow, lifting his snowshoe-clad feet high over the drifts.

The door opened easily, giving only a faint creak. The faint smell that met him was familiar – long-since cleared away manure and animals. The animal shed. There was no taint of death here.

‘I can sleep here, but first…’ He retraced his steps back into the steading. With some effort, he closed and fastened all the shutters he’d opened earlier and then pulled both the inner and the outer doors firmly closed behind him. In the morning, he’d set the fire and send them on their way to their Gods. He could do nothing else for them.

With the steading closed up once more, he made his way back to the barn and hauled the large doors closed behind him. He retrieved the heatstone from his backpack and built a small fire out of dried animal bedding stacked in the far corner, welcoming the heat and light.

He couldn’t help wondering why the farmer hadn’t done the same. They could even have burned the steading. Why not use this fuel to keep his family alive? Maybe Swein had been too weak from hunger to make the trip outside during the terrible Long Night storms. Maybe there hadn’t been a choice left. It appeared no animals had sheltered in the annex during the Long Night. Had they been forced to slaughter them all before the last Sunset of the previous Long Day?

Whatever the reason, Erann was grateful for the small comfort the fire afforded him, after everything he’d seen.

In the glow from the flames, Erann absently ran his fingers over his father’s journal. He flicked through the silky pages, gazing at the regular columns. Nothing about them made sense. The numbers meant nothing. With a tired sigh, he curled into a tight ball next to the fire and watched the small blue flames dance until finally sleep took him.

His dreams were filled with crying children. He saw them clearly – running towards him, begging him for food. The last child to die stared at him with anguished eyes and pleaded for help. Erann tossed and turned, trying to escape from the dream, but it held on to him. It repeated, over and over again. He could feel tears streaking his face and scrubbed at them in a half-waking daze.

He wanted to wake up but couldn’t escape the cloying dream. Then suddenly, a sound broke through.

The harsh baying of a wolf pack cut over the fiercely howling wind of the blizzard, far too close for comfort. They must have caught the scent of the dead bodies on the wind.