KINGDOM OF THE STONE -- a Wattpad featured novel

Chapter Fifteen

The cold air pinched their hands, numbed their feet and cut into their lungs like frost knives.  A score of women and children shuffled through knee—deep snow, wrapped in hastily snatched blankets and random bits of winter clothes.  An occasional whimper from the younger children betrayed their presence in the moonless night.  Karux paused to brush off the large snowflakes which fell from the black sky like ash and to let Eiraena catch her breath.

"Hold up!" He called out as loudly as he dared.

Somek and Pronos in the lead paused, frowning back at the long line of stragglers.

A long mournful howl of hunting drwg echoed across the foothills from the northeast.  Everyone cast glances around the snow-shrouded brush, fearing the next inevitable explosion of fur-wrapped teeth and claws of a drwg attack.

"We're getting near the southern trail," Karux hissed, dragging Eiraena by the hand through the snow which nearly came to her chest.  "If the angorym chased anyone southwards, they could be nearby."  He indicated the women and sniffling children with a jerk of his head.  "If we all go blundering up to the trail, they'll hear us."

"So?" Somek said.  "You want us to wait here until they come for us?"

"No.  We need to send someone to scout ahead to see if the trail is clear."

Pronos glanced at Somek then frowned down the dark trail.  "I'm not going."

"Me neither," Somek said.

Theris stepped up next to Karux, clenching his spear in one frost-chapped hand.  "I don't know about this, Karux."

"We can't all go," Karux insisted.  He looked around for Eiraena's mother, hoping he could hand her off since it was clear no one else was up to the task.

"I'll go."

Karux turned on Macander.  "You can't go.  Aunt Sairu would kill me."

"And you can't go," Macander countered.  "You've got a bad leg."

"It is stealth, not speed, which is called for here."

"So?  I'm probably the stealthiest one here.  No one has ever caught me at hide-and-seek."

"That's true," Somek added helpfully.

"This isn't a game, Mac.  This is life and death."

"Like last winter?'

Karux glanced at Theris and read stubborn disapproval there, but Theris said nothing.  Karux couldn't help but feel Macander had always been blessed by the Most High in everything he did.  With a certain sense of disbelief, he looked into Macander's determined eyes and nodded his assent.

Macander pushed past through the snow without a word.

Karux heard a muffled cry behind him and saw Aunt Sairu clutching her hands at her throat as she watched her youngest walk into imminent danger.  He hoped she wouldn't scream and give them all away.  He glanced back at Macander, intending to urge him to caution for all their sakes, but Macander had already disappeared.

-=====|==

The snow drifts were so deep, that Macander thought moving forward was more like swimming, than walking.  Like swimming, he had dived into the cold deep without thinking, before the fear could catch him and hold him back.  He held his spear up, bracing it against his right hip so it wouldn't drag in the snow, and tried not to think about how useless the spear would prove if he were discovered by even a single angoran with its attack trained drwg.