The days played by torturously into a week. Sethlzaar found himself wondering if he would survive the test.
Maybe I'm not cut out for this life, he thought as he picked up the last of his traps and found a single rat. How the rat had gotten to the trap in the midst of all the snow was a question he did not have the brain power to ponder.
Another week went by in such a manner.
Each day he found an insignificant catch and had himself eating meat of measly quantity. It ranged from rats to lizards and other small creatures.
Sethlzaar made his way back to his shelter, discreetly surveying his surroundings with each step. It was a habit trained he was yet to lose. It was in his second day of the test that he had first felt he was being watched.
At first his mind had gone to Cenam, but such a feat in such an environment was something he couldn't imagine his brother capable of, even in all the boy's mastery in the wild. The feeling had remained with him through the days. Now he was beginning to think it was all in his head.
The night proved different from the others, and a significant challenge to Sethlzaar. After eating, he laid beside the fire. Wrapping his cloak tightly around himself, he closed his eyes and waited for a sleep that wouldn't come. Even though he had just eaten, his stomach growled in protest at its size. In the first four days, taste had been a challenge when he ate. He had since grown accustomed to it.
The wind blew at his blanket, threatening to pull it free as it did every other night. But, unlike other nights, the blanket came off. It came loose, letting the howling wind in. With the wind came all the snow it could carry.
Teeth clattering, Sethlzaar rushed back to the entrance. He raised the blanket, replaced it with numbing fingers made worse as cold wind and snow slapped against it, and sat on the wet ground. The blanket came loose again. Whatever had kept him going through the test ebbed.
Sethlzaar caught a glimpse of the night. A blizzard, he noted in resignation.
After painstaking repetitions, he got the blanket to stay. The wind had made a mess of his shelter. His fire was gone. He sat on a wet floor, in a dark night, on an empty stomach. The sticks he saved for fire were wet, making fire an unavailable option.
Sethlzaar flexed his fingers as he laid in his cloak. It failed to bring the tingle of warmth he hoped for.
In the darkness he took stock of what little he had in his shelter. His gaze wandered, noting. His soaked blanket covering the exit, the wet wood where was once fire, the soaked bundles of spare wood, his quiver, his arrow, the yellow eyes watching and waiting, the cloak that served as his blanket from the cold, his....
Sethlzaar froze.
He blinked. The action assured him he was awake. He turned his head. It moved sluggishly, the cold and his lack of will doing much to ensure it.
Fear played its part too.
He felt watchful eyes. The same ones that followed him all week. He'd never seen them before. Now, his memory screamed their presence. They were here with him. He begged it to be a figment of his imagination, a hallucination brought on by his fears and hunger.
He knew he was wrong.
Yellow eyes in the darkness. Even if for the briefest moment, he had seen them.
Has it come for me? Over such distance... just for a lost prey? Or have my dreams followed me into my waking moments.
His head turned.
He saw nothing. Darkness shrouded everything.
Perhaps... A cynical smile spread across his lips. It came, unhinged. Freezing might not be a completely bad way to go.
He stretched out a bit, his body as straight as he could make it. If he died frozen, he did not want to look like a scared child when they found his body.
"A man doesn't need fire. All he needs is a burning passion to keep himself warm."
Sethlzaar smiled. He'd never expected Takaris words to walk in his thoughts at the thought of death. I wonder how he's doing.
He thought it and knew he didn't care.
Of to the side something shuffled. The sound grated at Sethlzaar's ears and his eyes opened.
The room was still covered in darkness. The wind still howled. The blizzard continued its rondo of insanity outside the shelter. Where the shuffling had come from, he did not know. How he had heard it amidst the raging blizzard, he could not fathom.
Sethlzaar waited. His eyes grew unfocused, seeing but not noticing. His breath held. Its sound ceased in his ears. He was as still as instinct could make him.
It shuffled to his side.
There! He sat up as it came again. It was akin to the someone trying to make arrangements.
His blanket still protected the entrance, flapping ever so gently. The snow he had molded into bricks to keep it in place did its job surprising well. But something was wrong with its arrangement. He could not put his finger on it. But he was certain it had been tampered with.
I'm not alone. The realization hit him like one of Omage's blows.
An animal? he wondered.
His hand slowly went for his knife. He worried how firm his hold would be, considering the numbness of his fingers. He grabbed the hilt, regardless. Slowly, he drew the blade from its sheath. It came completely free.
Sethlzaar strained his ears, listening. It was too dark for his eyes to truly help him as it usually did.
"Have you no flames for the night, child?"
Sethlzaar stopped.
He stopped listening. He stopped searching. He stopped planning. He knew the voice. It was a familiar one, one he had heard before. It was certainly not one of his mates. The voice was too deep, too croaked; an elderly voice.
He doubted it was one of the priests.
"Tis a terrible idea to wait out a blizzard without a fire," the voice came again. "Or did your new friends not teach you that?"
Something about the way the voice said the word 'friends' grated at Sethlzaar's memory. He scanned the darkness again. This time he used his sight. Whoever the man was, he knew him. How he could recognize him in the darkness was questionable.
Sethlzaar's eyes adjusted to the darkness. All he saw was the form of a man sitting on the floor. His back was straight, his head fixed on Sethlzaar.
Although he saw better than most at night, he could never see details. He could make out shapes, forms, and even movements. But the details were never clear. Such was to be expected of the dark.
The voice spoke again, old and strained. "You have a few pieces of wood right at the corner there. If you had a flint it wouldn't be too difficult to get one going. I would do it, but, alas, I have neither flint nor the command to do so." The person coughed. When he spoke again it was resigned, as if he addressed himself. "I'm too old for this."
"The wood is wet," Sethlzaar found himself answering at last. Something about the familiarity of the voice put his mind into a state of troubling calmness. It goaded him into a response, as an elder would so easily a child.
"That's a load of brothel talk if I ever did hear one," the person scorned. "Wood is wood.... Or so I've been told."
Sethlzaar watched the form move towards the pieces of wood. The sound of shuffling ensued. Amidst the persistent howling of the wind, he heard the faint sound of wood upon wood as the form rummaged through them.
That's not the sound of wet wood, he realized, rushing over to the pieces of wood.
His guest gave him space, and he rummaged through them. Some were still wet while some proved dry, some drier than others. Sethlzaar grabbed the driest ones. He hurried over to where he always lit the fire, set them in place and looked around for his flint. He found it with relative ease. He struck it once. Nothing happened. He struck it again, aware of his guest patiently waiting. After a few sparks, it caught. A moment later he had a fire going. His guest's face lit up in the glow and Sethlzaar frowned.
The old man grinned. "We should really stop meeting like this, child."
For a moment Sethlzaar had half the mind to throw him out into the blizzard.
It wouldn't take much. His eyes fixed on the man. He's frail, and weak. All I need is a little shove. He shook the thought from his mind. He wasn't going to subject the man to the blizzard.
He frowned, frustrated without reason. He let the frustration show in his voice when he finally spoke. The single word was bitter, and vexed.
"You."