They entered the cave and Erik looked out its mouth. Arrayed at his feet were the snow-covered peaks of the mountains as the late afternoon sun struck rose and golden highlights across the ridges. For a brief moment he thought that despite his pain and fear, beauty endured, but he was just too tired, hungry, and cold to enjoy it.
“Make camp,” he ordered and wondered how long they could survive. Men broke torches out of a backpack and used them to make a small fire. Erik took inventory and judged they had enough food and things they could burn to keep them alive for five or six days. After that, no matter how damaged the men, they would have to start down from the snow line, trying to avoid detection from whatever Pantathians had escaped the destruction of the Dragon Lord artifacts, and find forage enough to keep them going.
He wondered if the horses were still in the valley, and if he could even find that valley. With both Calis and de Loungville hurt, Erik was now leading the survivors.
“Sergeant,” said Alfred. “Better come here.”
Erik worked past the men struggling to light a fire and knelt next to Alfred. De Loungville’s eyes were open.
“Sergeant Major,” said Erik.
“How’s the Captain?” asked de Loungville.
“Alive,” said Erik. He marveled at that simple fact. “Any lesser man would have been dead this morning. He’s asleep.”
Erik looked at the pale complexion of his immediate superior and said, “How are you?”
De Loungville coughed and Erik could see blood fleck the saliva running from his mouth. “I’m dying,” said de Loungville in the same matter-of-fact tone in which he would have asked for another helping of supper. “Each breath is . . . harder.” He pointed to his side. “I think I have a piece of rib sticking me in the lung.” Then he closed his eyes in pain. “I know I have a piece of rib sticking me in the lung.”
Erik closed his eyes and fought back regret. If the man had been allowed to rest and if the bone fragments had been discovered, something might have been done, but a fragment sticking him while he was being half carried, dragged, forced to walk . . . it must have been sawing into that lung for half the day. The pain must have been incredible. No wonder de Loungville had been unconscious most of the time.
“No regrets,” said de Loungville as if reading Erik’s thoughts. He reached out and took Erik’s tunic in his hand. Pulling him close, he said, “Keep him alive.”
Erik nodded. He didn’t need to be told whom de Loungville spoke of. “I will.”
“If you don’t, I’ll come back and haunt you, I swear it.” He coughed and the pain was enough to cause his body to spasm, and his eyes filled with tears.
When he could speak again, he whispered, “You don’t know, but I was the first. I was a soldier, and he saved me at Hamsa. He carried me for two days. He raised me up!” Tears gathered in Bobby’s eyes; Erik couldn’t tell if it was from pain or emotion. “He made me important.” De Loungville’s voice grew even weaker. “I have no family, Erik. He is my father and brother. He is my son. Keep him—” De Loungville’s body contorted in spasm, and he spewed blood across his chest. A great racking attempt to breathe brought only tears to his eyes and he pulled himself upright.
Erik wrapped his arms around Bobby de Loungville, holding him close, tightly so he wouldn’t flop on the stones, but as gently as he would a child, and listened with tears running down his own cheeks as de Loungville tried to take a breath that would not come. Only a gurgling sound of lungs filling with blond was heard, and then de Loungville went limp.
Erik held him closely for a long minute, letting the tears fall without shame. Then he gently lowered him to the stone. Alfred reached out and closed the now vacant eyes. Erik sat unable to think, until Alfred said, “I’ll find a place where the scavengers won’t get him, Sergeant.”
Erik nodded, and looked back to where Calis lay. Feeling the bitter cold, he began pulling Bobby’s heavy cloak off his body. He said to a soldier near by, “Help me. It’s what he would have done.”
They stripped the Sergeant Major’s body and piled the clothing upon the unconscious half-elf. Erik looked at his color and wondered. If he survived the blast in the Pantathian hall, he might survive this cold, provided he could rest and heal.
Erik knew that the only possibility would be to rest a few days, and then cold and hunger would force them out of the cave and down the mountain. He turned as Alfred and another man picked up de Loungville’s body and carried it out into the snow, and he returned his gaze to Calis’s face.
“I promise, Bobby,” Erik said softly. “I’ll keep him alive.”