Snowberry's Veil

Part 4

That night was even more miserable than the one before it. That night, I was not half delirious, that night I wasn't almost totally numb and wooden with cold. I had enough warmth to feel the cold around me and as the temperature plunged, I could feel icy little tendrils reaching into my bedding. It was as if I was sleeping under a net, with the little cover I had almost a mockery as it let in cold air through a myriad of little openings. The air was still and there was no rain, not yet at least, which I was thankful for. Sleep eluded me for hours, and I kept banking the fire up, adding more wood. The heat helped, but it warmed one side of me more than the other and I kept turning like a hog on a spit, trying to equalize the heat and disrupting what structure my bed had until I had to remake it entirely.

Sometime during the night I slept, and while I had no nightmares, I did not feel truly rested either. As I slept I saw the branches above me, the roots of the tree, the stone outcropping, the fire, as if my eyes were wide open and I was simply resting instead of dreaming. Perhaps I was. When morning came, it was even colder than before. Seeing my breath wasn't unusual, but seeing frost on the ground was new. Little crystals had formed like blades of grass, pushed out of the ground a knuckle or more high. My fire was still burning which I was thankful for, because the stockpile of wood was gone.

Then I stared in disbelief, wondering just how bad off I'd been. I had built the fire over and over to the point that the reflector was scorched, the wood overhead blackened with burned and charred leaves. I could have lit my entire shelter on fire, that bonfire must have been a huge beacon all night. The fact that nothing had seen it and come to visit was amazing to me. It was like I'd forgotten everything I knew. Around me I'd clawed more dirt onto the bedding so I was partly buried, dirt all over my body.

I shook my head and sat up, then saw a sudden movement. Just to the side of the reflector, against the fallen tree, something had leapt up and was gone. I carefully moved to where it was and saw there was a pressed down portion of leaves and dirt, the ground still slightly warm. The tracks leading away were fresh: it had been my felpyr visitor. Apparently it hadn't meant me harm after all. Maybe it liked the warmth of the fire, or company. Animals were hard to figure sometimes. I awoke one morning years before to a flock of geese that had lit and slept right beside me all night, they rose as one in a panic of honking and flapping to flee when I moved, but they'd wanted to be near me while I slept.

This morning I felt almost no pain in my side and my wounds were much better. The healing herbs had made a tremendous difference and while I was weak, desperately hungry, and so thirsty I couldn't speak, I felt enormously better. I took the bandages from around my feet and wove them together into a continuous strip of cloth. Taking a section of tough, flexible bark from the overhead branches, I made a pair of makeshift sandals by tying the bark to the bottom of my feet with the cloth. This would do until I could find better, and I'd be able to walk easier until the bark fell to pieces. The soles of my feet were almost completely healed thanks to the renk poultice and I breathed a sigh of relief. It was a long crawl back to the road.

Immediately I went out and gathered some soft pine branches, stripping them down to rough forked shapes and using vines I put them over my shoulders and tied them down to give me a semblance of cover. It was primitive, but it would keep some of the cold out and better yet would give me some protection from scratching branches and leaves. It might even mask my scent a little. The smell of pine was pleasant around me, but the needles were scratchy and it wasn't as warm as I'd hoped.

I spent the day collecting herbs to eat, making snares out of strips of wood and vines, and drinking as much water as I could. Water was the second most critical thing to survival, I'd bled and sweated out far too much and was so dried out I'd not passed water since the previous morning. That was a bad sign, telling me I needed to get liquid in me quickly. The water tasted incredible, which was another sign of how thirsty I was. I knew the little stream wasn't entirely safe to drink but there was a common herb growing on the rocks that, when eaten, would negate the sickness that lived in the apparently clear fluid. It actually didn't taste bad either, for lichen.