Andana Frostedge's Arc

Chapter 5 of 8

The wind came in full an hour later. It shook the door against the bar and pushed snow through every gap in the wall. Andana fed the fire through the low mouth of the stone dome and watched the man sleep. The shed held. She had begun to believe she would only have to keep one secret tonight. Then the pounding started. The blows were low on the door, weak, then weaker. Andana stood. The man on the floor did not stir. She lifted the bar a finger's width and put her eye to the gap. A shape was slumped against the carved wooden staff she had driven into the snow as a marker at the entrance. The staff was painted in pale blue and pink, the only bright thing for miles, and a gloved hand was wrapped around its shaft. The pounding came again from a fist she could barely see. She knew the choice the second she opened the gap. If she left the door barred, the stranger died on her threshold before morning. If she pulled him in, he would see the sleeping man across the fire and the sleeping man would see him. Two strangers under one roof, and one of them carrying sketches of her face. She thought of the propped wall, the stone dome, the oats. Enough for two for one night. Not three. She lifted the bar and dragged him in by the shoulders. He was small and stiff. Snow caked his beard. A cardboard box was crushed under his coat against his chest, the printed animals on its side soaked dark, the crackers inside broken to dust. She set him down by the fire mouth, far from the painted trunk and the sleeping man's corner. When she pulled his coat open to check for frostbite, a sealed leather tube slid out of an inside pocket. She knew the seal before she touched it. The same southern mark as the pouch in the thicket. A second one. They had sent a second one. Andana sat back on her heels. The first man slept on, his hand still on her scarf. The new man's chest rose, shallow but steady. She slid the leather tube under her own furs against her ribs. Then she dragged him by the boots into the narrow space between the stone fire dome and the braced wall, where the dome's bulk would block the line of sight from the sleeping roll across the room. She piled a fur over him so only his face showed to the heat. When the first man woke, he would see a half-dead traveler by the fire. He would not see the tube, and he would not see the box. Not yet. She barred the door again and sat down between the two sleeping men. The night was no longer hers.