Borin Frostwalker's Arc

Chapter 2 of 10

Borin unrolled the hide map that night by the fire. He meant to study the first day's turns before they marched. But when he smoothed the skin flat, his stomach dropped. The hide had stretched while he rubbed it against the stone. The charcoal had smeared. One whole section near the middle was a gray blur. He could not tell where the safe crossings sat or where the crevasses waited. "This part is ruined," he said. He pressed his thumb to the smudge. "Right here. I can't read it." Thyra crouched beside him. His sister had found the chimney map in the first place, and she did not waste words now. She studied the blur, then the clear lines on either side. "You can still read the start and the end," she said. "It's only the middle that's gone." "The middle is where the pits cluster." Borin stabbed the hide. "If I guess, I guess wrong, and forty people fall." Thyra stood and gripped her spear. "Then don't guess. Go back to the stone." Borin shook his head. "The cabin is half a day behind us. Light's almost gone." "So we lose a day." She met his eyes. "Better a day than a grave." He knew she was right. He hated it. They had rationed food already for the long road, and now they would burn another day's walk doubling back. But a blurred map was no map at all. They set out before dawn, just the two of them. The tribe stayed camped with the elders in charge. Borin carried fresh hide and a new lump of charcoal in his pouch. Thyra walked ahead, spear ready, breaking the trail. They reached the outpost cabin by midday. Borin knelt at the cold hearth. He scraped the soot from the chimney stones again. The old grooves showed clear in the daylight. He laid the new hide flat against the rock and held it still with both hands. "Rub slow this time," Thyra said. "Don't drag it." Borin pressed the charcoal in short, careful strokes. He kept the hide pinned so it could not stretch. The snaking channel came through dark and sharp. The dashes. The pits. Every mark in the middle section he had lost. He lifted the hide and checked it against the wall, line for line. Nothing blurred. Nothing missing. "I have it," he said. "All of it." Thyra almost smiled. "Then we don't die in the middle." Borin rolled the new map and slid it into his pouch. The copy was good now. But he had spent a full day to earn it, and a day of walking meant a day of food gone. He stepped out of the cabin and looked at the long ridge ahead. The road was clear at last. The question now was whether his people had enough left in their packs to reach its end.