Veyra Flintstep's Arc

Chapter 7 of 14

The moss beds would recover by spring, Shahndiin said. Veyra took that answer back to the drying racks behind the hall, where the new dye strips hung in rows above a low fire. The wet cloth was dark and glossy near the flame, then paler and softer as the heat pulled the water out. Two hundred strips. Forty poles stacked against the wall. Everything she had asked for, all of it stacked in one place, and none of it yet on the ridge. Giloa stood by the poles with his arms crossed. He lifted one, then set it back down. "Too much," he said. "For two backs." Veyra had already done the count in her head on the walk down. Forty poles. Two hundred dyed strips. Rope. Mallets. Food for four days on the western ridge. She could carry maybe eight poles at a time on her shoulders. Giloa the same. Five trips up a slope that took most of a day to climb. The first snow was already past. The next storm would close the high traverse for the season. "We lose the ridge if we walk it," she said. "Then we don't walk it," Giloa said. Shahndiin came around the drying ring, brushing ash from her palms. "The raptor pulled the beast down from the deadfall," she said. "It pulls better than it carries." Veyra looked at the raptor. It stood at the edge of the fire ring, feathers puffed against the cold, watching the meat scraps by the hall door. It had hauled the dead beast down the gully on the blue sled without slowing. The sled was built for a body. It could be built for cargo. "We widen the sled," she said. "Longer bed. Runners under the wheels for the drifts. We load the poles flat and lash the cloth on top." Giloa nodded once. "I can do the frame tonight." They worked past dark. Giloa split fresh sticks and lashed them across the old blue frame, doubling its length. Veyra bound the poles into two tight bundles with the rope. Shahndiin painted the new wood with the last of the wet dye so the sled would stay one thing, one color, one marker if it was ever lost in snow. The raptor watched them from the fire. At dawn Veyra harnessed it. The lengthened sled sat heavy behind, poles flat, dyed strips bundled and tied down under hide. The raptor leaned into the harness. The sled moved. It moved easily. Giloa walked beside her with his spear. Shahndiin watched them from the hall step and did not follow. They took the lower trail toward the western ridge with a full load on one trip. Halfway up, where the trees thinned, Veyra saw the ridge face above them. A long white shelf of new snow hung across its upper third. It had not been there a week ago.