Free Shapers of Darkness by David B. Coe Page B

And they were without a warming blaze.
    Tavis returned to the shelter of the boulders, and as he did, the gleaner stirred.
    “Gods be praised!” he whispered, rushing to the Qirsi’s side. “Grinsa? Can you hear me?”
    The gleaner’s head lolled to the side and he let out a low moan.
    “Grinsa. You have to wake up. We need a fire, and you need to heal yourself. I can’t do it for you.”
    The gleaner whispered something Tavis couldn’t hear.
    “What? Say that again.” He leaned close, putting his ear to the man’s mouth.
    “Cresenne,” the gleaner said, the name coming out as a sigh.
    “No, Cresenne’s not here.”
    He stared intently at the gleaner, waiting for him to say more, or move, or do something.
    “Grinsa?” he said after a time, gripping the gleaner’s shoulder and shaking him gently.
    Nothing.
    “Damn!”
    He slumped against the nearest boulder, shivering with the cold and wrapping himself more tightly in his damp riding cloak. After a few moments, for want of something better to do, he returned to the wood and his flint. Searching through the pile of logs once more, Tavis found a few scraps of bark and thin branches that seemed relatively dry. He cleared the wood out of the fire ring and piled the bark and twigs. Then he set to work with his dagger and flint once more, desperate now to start any sort of fire.
    Before long his hands were cramping. Still, he kept at it. Occasionally he would draw a small wisp of smoke from the scraps of wood, but as soon as he began to blow on the wood, the smoke would vanish and he would be forced to begin again. He should have given up. Several times he threw the flint to the ground, cursing loudly. But always he retrieved it, starting anew. It wasn’t merely his fear for Grinsa that drove him, or the bone-numbing cold, or even his certainty that they would die before the next dawn if they didn’t find a way to warm themselves and dry their clothes and bedrolls. In the end, when fright and desperation failed him, it was pride that made him fight his failure. Curgh pride. For centuries, the nobles of his house had been known for it, ridiculed for it. But pride had kept him alive in Kentigern’s dungeon, allowing him to endure Aindreas’s torches and blades. And pride saved him now.
    Somewhere, perhaps in that dungeon, or else in the corridor of an Aneiran inn, wrestling with the assassin Cadel, or perhaps on the Wethy shore, where the singer nearly killed him, Tavis had lost his fear of death. Even knowing that his life would not lead him to the Eibitharian throne, or any other future he had envisioned as a child, he still looked forward to meeting whatever fate the gods had chosen for him. And if they had marked him for an early death—if they had ordained that he should suffer a fatal wound on the battlefield, or succumb to the killing magic of the conspiracy’s Weaver—so be it. But he refused to die here in the highlands, a victim of hisown inability to light a fire. He had endured too much in the last year to suffer such an ignominious fate.
    He struck at the flint again and again, caring not a whit if he notched the blade of his dagger, ignoring the aching of his hands. The sky grew darker, though from the fog, or new storm clouds, or the approach of night, he didn’t know. Eventually it began to snow, scattered small flakes that landed softly on the grasses and stones and quickly melted. And as these flakes fell, a spark finally flew from his flint and ignited the bark at the center of the fire ring. The flame danced for a moment in the gloom, then died. But Tavis dropped low and began to blow on the small glowing corner of the wood, steadily, gently, adding a second piece of bark as he did.
    The bark crackled, and smoke began to rise from the small pile. He added twigs, tiny ones at first, then, gradually, larger pieces, until he had a blaze going. Once the first flames appeared it really didn’t take very long at all.
    He straightened, still on