North Dark | Chapter 20 of 21
He stumbles out into the bright cold daylight. A hawk’s scream echoes from the bleary blue dome of the sky. A bloodtrail and series of deep, ragged footprints lead away from the hangar...
The bodies of five living men and one dying woman writhe together in a bloodslick knot. One of the guards, knife in hand, leaps from the tangle, scrambles in the oily blood, rises to his feet and runs from the room. Sliding and knocking into one another, Oiler and Thrall chase after the man.
Two Crows kneels, arm wrapped around a guard’s throat. He does not know what to do, so he tightens his grip, choking the man to death. The guard kicks and gurgles ferociously for a long, long time. Two Crows, grunting with the strain, hauls backward, putting him to sleep, putting him down. When he finally slumps, Two Crows releases and climbs to his feet. He looks around the bloodstained room and then at the bodies of Doctor Bell and her guard.
He stumbles out into the bright cold daylight. A hawk’s scream echoes from the bleary blue dome of the sky. A bloodtrail and series of deep, ragged footprints lead away from the hangar, out toward a belt of crooked dark trees.
He finds Thrall and Oiler standing beneath a copse of snowy pine tree limbs. The guard they had chased is facedown, dead on the ground between them. A knife stands, buried to the hilt, in the back of the dead man’s neck.
Thrall, heaving and out of breath, stares at Oiler. “You shouldn’t have killed her. She could’ve told us if there are other camps, other prisoners. We could have gotten information from her.”
Oiler, clapping his bloody hands, says, “It was the right thing to do.”
“You’re out of your mind.” Thrall spits, turns away, dismissing Oiler. He walks back toward the camp and toward Two Crows. “Let’s go,” Thrall says to Two Crows.
Behind him, Oiler, eyes flashing, visibly decides something. He reaches down to the dead guard, applies his foot to the man’s head, and pulls the knife from his spasming body. Armed, he rushes toward Thrall’s back.
With no thoughts in his head at all, Two Crows flings himself forward, pushes Thrall aside and absorbs the knife blow into his own chest. The smooth shaft of metal becomes a part of his body as he wrestles with Oiler, throws him to the ground, plunges his head into the snow and holds him by the neck. Thrall turns and sees Two Crows, knife in chest, killing the attacker. Two Crows has saved his life and been grievously injured in the effort. Powder lifts and puffs into the flat air as Oiler kicks out, wriggles, enters his death throes. Two Crows grimaces and drowns the man in snow.
Thrall kneels beside Two Crows and touches him with both hands. “Don’t move,” he says, staring at the knife. “We have to treat this.”
Two Crows looks at Thrall and, knife still standing in his chest, collapses into Thrall’s arms while Oiler’s dying body wriggles in the snow. Red blood spreads in the white snow like a flag unfurling beneath them all. Two Crows’ body does not feel much pain, just cold, as Thrall lowers him to his back. “It’s not in your heart,” Thrall says, eyes fixed on the blade in Two Crows’ chest.
He places his hands upon him and slowly draws out the blade.
Two Crows’ ribcage fills with pressure, then releases. Thrall holds his hands against the wound. His eyes are worried. This is not going to end well. He cocks his head and applies his ear to the air near the injury. Two Crows is unable to draw a full breath. Thrall looks around for something he cannot find. “Here,” he whispers. “Rise.”
He helps Two Crows to his feet and, propping him up against his shoulder, walks him through the trees, back toward camp. Freed prisoners stand and stare at them.
Thrall lays Two Crows down on a broad swath of sunlit snow.
Two Crows blinks in the sunlight, watches Thrall stand and run off for something. People move into his field of vision, appearing in silhouette against the sunglare, tall, long, and shadowed as though they were mourners standing above a grave. Two Crows swallows painfully and looks up at these faceless men and women. I am about to die.
Thrall returns and presses a square of some kind of cold sheeting against the chest wound. He tears lengths of tape from a roll. He applies three long strips to three edges of the square of sheeting, not four. Why not four? Two Crows wonders to himself.
He shuts his eyes as though he is about to fall asleep, but he knows he will not.
He thinks of his father swinging an axe at a tree.
He thinks of his mother spooning birdsoup into her own mouth.
Thrall listens to the wound. Listening for air.
Two Crows inhales. Then again more deeply.
His vision sharpens. He can smell the pure, fresh snow.
I can get up. Two Crows sits forward and Thrall’s eyes are a little amazed. Slowly, Thrall releases the wound and Two Crows holds it shut.
They both stare at the injury. Totally unsure what to do.
Two Crows smiles a thin, grim smile.
The freed prisoners group in one of the longhouses and help themselves to the guards’ stockpiles of tinned meat, vegetables and canned coffee. The warm chamber fills with the sweaty air of exhausted men and women. Two Crows watches them all from his place on a bench. His breathing shallow and pained, he sits, arm extended to a young girl who wraps his broken wrist with twine and sticks. He watches these immunes. Nearly every last one of them is panicked and lost. Rumor and confusion dominate all discussion.
A redheaded woman says, “All of the cities have fallen to plague.”
“That’s not true. Lemmink still stands.”
“We’ll be hunted.”
“By who? Everyone’s dead.”
“Who is supplying this camp? They’ll come back.”
“We’ll kill them when they do.”
“You’ll kill them without me. I’m leaving.”
“Leaving to where?”
An older woman speaks for the first time and everyone falls silent at her light voice. “None of this matters,” she says. “It doesn’t matter if the plague has taken all of the cities or not. It was days of walking—weeks for some of us—that brought us here. We don’t know the directions. We’re on a mountain range in the middle of an ocean of snow. Setting out will only get us killed.” She looks directly at Thrall now. “We’re just as trapped as we were before. More.”
Thrall looks at the woman, then the larger crowd. “She’s right. None of you know where you are. You’re lost in the tundra and you can’t find your way back. But I can.”
“How?”
“Stars,” Thrall says.
“He can read the stars. He can navigate.”
“He’s a Star Reader.”
“The Cold Star.”
“Why should we believe you?”
“You don’t have to,” Thrall says. “But I’m loading up sleds now and leaving soon. Anyone who wants to follow is welcome. You don’t have to stay here and die. You can come with me.” He looks at the faces in the room, all focused on him.