Three days later, Lela stood in an empty field, staring at a patch of trees surrounded by dense underbrush, her lips pursed in an expression of distaste.
“I really am not in the mood to kill anything,” Lela protested as Markie demonstrated how to draw her bow.
“Lel-Leake,” Markie stumbled over her new name, “You really do need to be able to hunt. Look, if you can’t manage this now, killing animals for food, how are you going to fair when we arrive at Kalaan? I’d imagine that this is profoundly preferable to killing men.”
“Markie! Let me just handle one thing at a time. This is depressing enough,” Lela replied through gritted teeth, as she suppressed a small shudder.
“Alright, so you saw how I did that. You just want to take the string and bend the limbs closer together so you can string the bow together.” Markie returned his focus to the problem at hand.
Taking a deep breath, Lela attempted to shut out the thoughts of what she would be doing with the bow after she had finished stringing it, and focused on using her strength to make the string connect with the limb of the bow. She almost had it, when the string snapped out of her grasp.
“Oww!” She exclaimed more in surprise than hurt.
“Are you alright?” Markie asked quickly.
“I’m fine,” Lela said as she stood there panting and staring at the weapon she still held in her left hand. Being more careful this time, she grabbed the string again and sought to make the two pieces meet.
A few minutes later, Lela stood, exhausted but triumphant. She had strung her bow!
“Good,” Markie stated and pushed himself up of the ground he had been sitting on while he waited. He picked up his bow, which was a good deal larger than Lela’s, and proceeded to string it with ease, “Now we’ll start close. Your bow isn’t as powerful, so you’ll always need to be at a closer range than I do, but for now we just want to focus on accuracy, not power.”
Lela trotted after him, as he walked closer to the strand of trees. He stopped suddenly and she almost didn’t notice in time to keep herself from running into him.
“Do you see that tree over there, the big one with the low limb,” Markie said as he pointed to a large evergreen tree that did indeed have bough that seemed to almost be lying on the ground, “I want you to aim for the trunk of that tree. You’ll do it just like this. You want your elbow up and keep everything straight and in line. Then, simply pull back on the string, creating tension and release the arrow.”
And Lela watched as the arrow soared through the open space and embedded itself firmly in the trunk of the evergreen.
“Okay,” Lela said as she attempted to draw her own bow. Her clumsy attempt only resulted in her dropping the arrow as she attempted to release it.
“Oops,” she muttered as she bent down to retrieve it.
This time as she fumbled with her weapon, Markie came up behind her. Softly speaking words of instruction, he placed his hands over hers to show her exactly how things should be. Lela couldn’t help but enjoy the feel of his strong arms around her, but she prudently kept her mind on the task at hand. With his help, Lela’s second attempt resulted in an arrow that managed to lodge itself in the side of the tree.
“I think I’ve got it now,” Lela told Markie as she drew the bow herself. Carefully she aimed and released. Twang. The arrow rushed through the air, whizzing off to the right and missing the tree completely.
“Well, at least you didn’t drop it this time,” Markie teased, “Try a few more and then we’ll go try and find your arrows.”
They spent the better part of two hours practicing, until Lela’s arms couldn’t take it anymore. Not to mention her head, staring so hard at one spot for a couple hours had managed to cause one large headache to take root. However, Lela knew better than to complain about it, so she simply stretched her arms and gather her pack, rubbing her forehead as she started back on the road with Markie.
~
When they stopped the next afternoon, Markie didn’t waste any time in grabbing his bow. He made sure Lela had hers as well, before he lead her away from the main road and deeper into a grove of trees. He allowed her a few practice shots, making sure she could hit her target consistently, even if her shots were still regularly off center.
“How was that?” Lela asked happily, after one of her arrows had nearly struck the tree exactly where she had wanted it to.
“Good. I think you’re ready to hunt now,” Markie replied.
“Oh. I guess I should have taken longer to hit the tree,” Lela commented with a wry smile., but she didn’t complain as Markie helped her collect her arrows and then began to teach her about how to move quietly in the forest, without alerting any prey to their presence.
They spent the better part of another hour hunting for dinner. Lela had to admit that she didn’t try very hard to kill anything, although she probably couldn’t have even if she had been trying. When they got back to where they had left their packs, Markie skinned the rabbit and Lela cooked it over their fire. It was a good rabbit stew in Markie’s opinion, but Lela had too much trouble banishing the images of its death to really enjoy eating it.
~
By the start of the fifth day, Lela was sorer than she had ever imagined she could get. She had worked all day at home, but this walking was gruesome. Her shoulder was starting to rub raw from the pack she had slung over her shoulder and was carrying, her legs ached, and her feet were starting to get blisters. She knew it probably could be worse. It could be raining, and she had seen Markie putting the heavier items in his pack. Markie had also told her that her pack now weighed only about 20 lbs and in the army her pack would probably weigh close to 50 lbs. That hadn’t helped lighten her mood any. Well, at least the walking would help prepare her for that.
“Let’s stop here for lunch,” Markie abruptly announced.
“Alright,” Lela replied, very relieved.
She was definitely ready to stop walking. Lela was about to sit down when Markie spoke again.
“Uh-uh,” he said shaking his head, “We’re going hunting for lunch.”
Lela groaned and straightened up. Not only was Markie going to force her to keep walking, he was also going to make her go and try to kill innocent little animals.
“Markie? Aren’t you tired yet?” Lela asked as he stepped off the path and into the forest.
Markie just laughed and kept right on walking.
After they had caught their meal and Lela was finally able to sit down she was fully convinced that she’d never be able to get back up again. But of course Markie had her up and walking again within 30 minutes. Sleep that night was heavenly, even though they slept on hard, cold dirt with only a then blanket for cover.
The next day followed the patterns of the day before. Little changed over the next week as they trekked through the large valley of Corin’s Crown. The landscape barely changed, and they only passed through a couple small towns.They crossed the Icena River on day six of their journey and by day seven they entered the mountains.Currently they were a day out of the mountains, following a well-used trade route. This time of year the road was almost abandoned. Very few were willing to travel with trade wagons over the fierce mountains during this time of year. Almost everyone who was using the road at this point in time was headed in the same direction that Lela and Markie were. Their fellow countryman had as little choice in the timing of a trip to Kalaan as they did. For some reason, the mountains looked even more forbidding than usual as Lela stared up at their icy peaks.
“It’s getting cold up here,” Lela mentioned as a shiver ran down her spine.
“You do have a another layer to put on, don’t you?”
“Of course. You worry too much Markie.”
“Well, if you’re cold, put it on.”
“I’ll get it out when we stop for lunch.”
“Alright.”
They continued walking. More snow started to fill their path and the wind got colder. Lela started to notice the scarcity of life. Every once in a while they would see a deer or snowy rabbit, but there wasn’t much up here. As the road began to slope upwards, gaining altitude, a light snow began to fall, cloaking the ground with a layer of sparkling beauty. The snow helped remove some of the fierceness of the rocky mountains, clothing them in splendor instead, and quieted the land around them until it felt like they were walking in their own personal winter wonderland.This was one of the reasons that Lela loved winter. The sight of fresh, sparkling snow on a bright winter’s morning was a beautiful sight and the snow made everything so clean. Gone was the mud and dust, instead there was crisp clean snow.
After they had stopped for lunch, put their jackets on, and resumed walking, the wind began to pick up, pushing the snow flurries harder until they stung Lela’s face as they fell.
This wind is getting bitter,” she commented, stating the obvious.
“You have your hat and mittens on right?” was Markie’s reply as he quickly checked her over, making sure that she was wearing all the appropriate winter gear.
“Yes Markie!” Lela replied, a touch irritated, “I’m not a child and I have lived in Corcee for my entire life.”
Markie was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
As they continued up the road into the base of the mountains, the weather only became worse. The wind increased in intensity and the snow began to fall harder, the flakes changing from small flurries to big fat ones that made Lela feel as if she was walking in the middle of a fog. A cold fog.
“Markie?” she asked hesitantly. She certainly didn’t want to sound like she was complaining, but she was worried about the safety of starting an ascent into the mountains, on a narrow winding road, when she was starting to have trouble seeing more than three feet ahead of her.
“What?” he responded, squinting at her through the snow.
“Do you think that we should stop, find shelter, and wait this storm out?”
“For now, I think that we should keep going. There really isn’t much shelter around here, at least not anywhere protected enough that we could get a fire going. If the temperature keeps dropping and we don’t have a fire, we’re going to need to keep moving just to keep our blood circulating.”
“Yes, but we should look for somewhere that blocks the wind at least. The wind can bring frostbite with it faster than the cold itself.”
As if on cue, a strong gust of wind swept into them. The snow was falling so thick it constricted their view to a few feet on all sides.
“You do have a point there,” Markie almost had to yell back at her in order to be heard over the howling of the wind.
They paused for a moment, staring around them into the swirling whiteness, trying to define some nook or cranny that they could fit themselves in to in order to wait out the storm.
“I can’t even see two feet in front of me,” Lela grumbled.
“Neither can I. I suppose we should just keep moving then.”
With a little sigh, Lela started shuffling through the snow once more.
Before long, the snow began to accumulate into drifts that rose higher than Lela’s knees, so they took turns breaking the trail, the other following right behind. Markie did most of the leading, and Lela was too tired to protest. Her fingers and toes were starting to lose feeling and her nose and cheeks were bright red from the icy wind. The shivers, that had started running gently through her body, were now causing her to shake uncontrollably. She was trying so hard to think of something else, while staying as close to Markie as possible in order to use him as a windbreaker, that when he toppled forward with an exclamation of mixed surprise and pain she didn’t react in time. So she landed hard on top of him, her feet tangled in his legs.
“Ooof,” She grunted as the air was pushed out of her lungs.
She started to kick her legs free of his, but Markie stopped her, “Oww, Lela! Please just stop moving for a second!”
Lela, who had been trying to get up for the main reason that she didn’t want to crush Markie under the weight of herself and both their packs, relaxed a little, resting her weight on top of him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, a note of worry evident in her voice.
“I’m okay,” he grunted from underneath her, “But I stepped wrong, and I think I might have sprained my ankle.”
“Oh.”
This time when Lela rolled off of him, she was careful not to flail her legs around. Once she was off of him, she drew herself up to her knees. She slipped her pack off of her shoulders, and crouched down next to Markie, who had also rolled over. He was grimacing in pain from the movement.
“I must have stepped in a hole or something,” he said.
“Which ankle?”
“My right one,” he told her.
She knelt in the snow and pulled his pant leg up. Markie’s breath escaped in a hiss as she started to untie his boot.
“Don’t take the boot all the way off,” Markie said suddenly, “I don’t know if it’s going to swell a lot and if it does we might not be able to get the boot back on.”
So Lela just unlaced it, and probed his ankle through his socks. Markie didn’t say much, but she could see that her inspection was hurting him. Finally she gave up.
“I can’t figure out how bad you’ve hurt it while you still have your boots on. Do you think that you can walk on it?”
“Maybe,” was Markie’s reply.
Lela turned and donned her pack once more, before bending down next to Markie. She grabbed his arm and draped it over her shoulders. Together they heaved themselves up. Once they were both standing, Lela realized how awkward it was going to be for her to try to help him walk. He was several inches taller than her, so he had to stoop in order to rest any of his weight on her. But they had to make the best of the situation, so slowly they started walking. Markie was barely able to put any weight on his ankle, and they hadn’t gone more than three feet when Markie asked her to stop.
“I’m sorry Lela. I can’t walk on it, especially not through this snow,” He told her through jaws clenched tight with pain.
Lela looked up at him, thinking that he looked almost ashamed as he uttered those words.
“It’s alright Markie,” she replied, “We’ll just find some shelter here then.”
“Leake, we’ve been looking for a good shelter the last few miles, there’s nothing even close to adequate around here. I’ll wait here, you keep going. See if you can find anything.”
“If you think I’m going to leave you, stranded in the middle of a blizzard, think again!” Lela responded, squinting through the snow so that she could focus on Markie’s face.
Markie sighed in resignation, knowing that he wasn’t going to be able to force her to leave him. Lela could barely see his face the snow was so thick, but she knew he must be in a lot of pain. Markie would never stop just because he was uncomfortable. If he said he couldn’t walk, then he wasn’t able to walk. She stopped trying to decipher his expression, and turned her attention to the landscape around her. The base of the mountains were rocky, with trees a sparse commodity. As she peered into the whiteness around her, she could just barely make out a steep slope of hard rock to their left. Taking a few steps closer, Lela batted her eyes, trying to get the snow off her eyelashes. It looked like the slope came out towards them for a few feet, then fell back away. The wind was mainly at their back, but it was coming from the north, which was on their left, as well. If they put their backs to the spot where the slope backed away from them, it might at least block some of the wind.
Returning her attention back to Markie, Lela spoke, “Let’s at least get our backs up against that rock over there.”
Markie looked like he was about to protest, but he kept his mouth shut and let Lela help him get his good foot underneath him again. It took a little while for Markie to hop the short distance over to the rocky wall, but they made it. Lela helped him sit down and take his pack off, before she let him lean back against the rock behind him. She took her own back off as well and arranged both packs in a manner that would block the most wind.
“I’ll get the blankets. We can wrap ourselves up in them to keep warm,” Lela shouted over the howling wind, as she forced her numb, stiff fingers to unroll their bedding.
“Thanks Leake,” Markie answered, as he took the blanket that she handed him.
Lela finished getting the rest of the bedding out and they rolled themselves up in it, huddling close together for warmth. Not even a half an hour later, they had to get up and rearrange themselves so they couldn’t be buried under the thick snow. It was a tiring task, but at least it got them up and moving. It kept most of their blood circulating, but their fingers were stiff as they tried to get back into the blankets. Lela hoped and prayed that they could get out of this without losing any body parts to frostbite.
This pattern continued for awhile. Every half an hour they would get up, climb on top of the snow, and recover themselves with the blankets. By the time the storm let up, both Markie and Lela were freezing, hungry, and exhausted. Huddling in to Markie, her head resting on his chest, Lela fell asleep a few hours before dawn.