Not Gonna Die (A Skybrine Fanfic)

|Chapter 8| Just snow

          Mitch glanced at his friends. "Yeah, how did you know that?"

          The Queen's only answer was a swear and rapidly telling them to follow her while she sprinted from the room. More than a little worried by her sudden movements, the Team quickly followed as she sprinted to the stables, barely pausing to grab her jumper while calling orders to the warriors who were working nearby.

          "Wait, Anne, what's happening?" Ty asked as she threw her saddle over her horse.

          "Your friend's life is in danger," she said, pausing in her movements and facing them. "If we don't find him within the next few hours, he will be dead."

          "Wait, what are you talking about?" Seto asked, a sick feeling in his stomach.

          "Being caught alone in the snow is bad enough," Anne said, "but with the way he reacts to snow, he's got almost no chance. The best way to find him is to split up. Go in groups, one of my men will guide you. If you find him, bring him straight to Aramis, he will be able to look after him."

           Mitch glanced over his shoulder and saw that a dozen other warriors were saddling their horses quickly, all dressed in the grey-white jumpers, carrying packs. "Guys, let's go," he said urgently, moving over to saddle his own horse. "We don't have a lot of time."

          "Everyone meet back here in three hours," Anne said to her men.

          They rode out in groups of three, their hoods up over their faces, riding at a canter to the south, standing up in their stirrups to call out Adam's name every now and then. Mitch and Ty rode with Queen Anne, the groups splitting up in different directions. The light snow made the chance of finding any tracks impossible and the minutes ticked by, stretching out into one hour, going into the second. Ty stood up in his stirrups for the hundredth time and cupped his gloved hands to his mouth.

          "Adam!" he called, his voice echoing thinly around the barren landscape, no reply coming back.

          "He will still be alive, right?" Mitch asked Anne worriedly.

          "I don't know," came her quiet voice.

          "But what if-"

          "Shh." Something soft had come from the distance and Anne focused on the direction, dropping her hood from her head. Mitch and Ty copied her movements, listening. The sound came again, shrill and high, but the three instantly clapped their heels to their horses' sides and galloped in the direction of the distant whinny. The snow flew up behind the hooves of their horses and a dark spot blurred by the snowfall grew larger and they slid to a stop beside the horse sniffing nervously at a figure lying on the ground.

           "Adam!" Ty and Mitch simultaneously said, both jumping down from their horses. Ty took off his glove and pressed his hand to Adam's neck, feeling for a pulse. For one horrible moment, he couldn't find it, but then it thumped weakly against his fingertips.

          "He's still alive," Ty said. Anne swiftly got down from her own horse and also felt Adam's pulse while Mitch held the fretting horse, patting its nose gently. "We'll have to move fast to get back, his pulse is weak."

          "He doesn't have that time, you need to get him out of the snow country now."

          The urgency in Anne's voice made both of their stomachs grow a sick feeling. "You don't mean he's dying... right?" Mitch asked. "I mean, it's just snow."

          "If he's not dying now, he will be in a few minutes," Anne said. Ty helped her to heave the unconscious Adam up and onto his horse, then she took the reins from Mitch as he mounted his own horse. She swiftly tied the pack she had carried to his horse and pointed in the distance to a mountain top. "Head towards there, that's the fastest way out. Don't slow down until he starts to stir and whatever happens, do not bring him back. I'll tell your friends where you've gone."

          Ty nodded and with a glance to Mitch, clapped his feet to his horse and the two were off, the snow flying up behind them, Anne holding onto the reins of Adam's horse while her own pawed the ground behind her. She was quickly lost in the snow. Ty and Mitch didn't speak, the thudding of the horses' hooves on the snow making any attempt at conversation difficult. They travelled fast, eating up the distance to home, heading straight for the mountain Anne pointed out. After a tense two hours (Adam's pulse was getting weaker and weaker), the snow started to melt around them and it dissolved, allowing tuffs of brown grass to show until it was gone altogether, and a tentatively warm breeze drifted through their hair and the grass started to show green shoots.

          The trees were growing multiple young leaves when Adam finally stirred, making a sound of annoyance, like he had been woken up from a great dream. The two Generals slowed their horses and stopped in the shade of a young tree, gently helped him down from Ty's horse. He blinked several times and put one hand to his head, the other resting on his propped up knee as the other two sat beside him.

          "Are you okay?" Mitch asked almost instantly.

           Adam nodded a bit. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine."

          "Your heart was slowing down," Ty said, watching Adam carefully. "You were dying."

          Adam frowned. "Wait, what? Why?"

          Ty and Mitch glanced at each other. "I thought you would know that," Mitch said but Adam shook his head.

          "I've... never been that bad in the snow country," he admitted, looking down at his hands. They were warm now but shaking slightly. "It's just in the last few months that I've suddenly been constantly cold in the snow and unable to be warm, no matter what I do."

          Mitch frowned. "Could it be because you've climatised?" he suggested but Ty instantly dispelled the idea.

          "Ian's been out of the tundra for longer than Adam and he doesn't have the same reaction," he pointed out. "Besides, we're fine with it and the tundra is much colder than the snow country in some parts."

          "Quentin suggested that I was getting sick but..."

          "Sickness doesn't make you pass out and almost die only when you're surrounded by snow," Ty said.

           The three were silent as if waiting for some amazing revelation to appear out of nowhere but nothing came. Mitch took the pack from his saddle and handed out some of the food and water that were inside. Adam didn't realise how thirsty he was until he started to drink.

          "We'll head home and the others should join us in a few days," Mitch said. "At least we got the treaty signed before all this happened."

          "Yeah, good timing Adam," Ty mumbled with half a sandwich in his mouth.

          "Thanks," Adam said dryly.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

It's just a passing thing, right? Nothing more than that.

(Well, the very fact that I'm saying that should suggest that it's really, really not.)