“You know what he’ll say.”
“I don’t care! If we don’t get him warm, he’ll die.”
There were the sounds of feet on snow, sounds of urgency and fear, but Mince did not care. He was warm and safe and still remembered the music lingering in his head, calling to him.
When Kine returned to camp, only Brand was there—Brand the Bold, as he liked to call himself. It was a bold boast for a kid of thirteen, but no one questioned it. Brand had survived a knife fight, and that was more than any of them could claim.
“We need to get a fire started,” Kine said, returning to the Hovel. “We found Mince and he’s near dead with cold.”
“I’ll get kindling,” Brand replied, and ran out into the snow.
Kine got the tinderbox from the supplies they had not touched and cleared a space near the front of the shelter. Brand was back in minutes with a sheet of birch bark, a handful of brown grass, tiny dry twigs, and even a bit of rabbit fur. He dropped the treasures off and set back out. As he did, Kine spotted Elbright carrying Mince on his back. The boy’s head rolled with each step. It reminded him of how deer looked when hunters brought them in.
Elbright said, “Make a bed, put down lots of needle branches—pile them up—we want to keep him off the snow.”
Kine nodded and ran out of the shelter past the horses—two more were lying down. He entered a grove of spruce trees, where he tore the branches from the trunks, getting his mittens sticky from the sap. He made four trips, and when he finished, Mince had a thick bed to lie on.
Elbright had a small, delicate flame alive on the birch sheet. His mittens were on the snow beside him. His bare fingers were red, and he frequently breathed on them or slapped his thigh as he squatted in the snow. “Fingers go numb in seconds.”
“What are you doing?” Renwick said, coming up the slope from the south.
When Mince had not returned after going for water, they all went searching in different directions. Renwick took the southern riverbank and returned only now that the sky was darkening and the temperature plummeted.
Although he was also an orphan, Renwick was not one of their gang. He lived at the palace, where his father used to be a servant. While really no more than a page, the boy had served as squire to Sir Hadrian during Wintertide. All the boys were impressed by Hadrian’s spectacular success during the games and this admiration spilled over to Renwick. The boy was also older—perhaps a year or two Elbright’s senior. Unlike those of the rest, Renwick’s clothes fit him properly and even matched in color.
“We have to get a fire going,” Elbright told him even as he fed the tongues of flame little sticks. “We found Mince on the ice. He’s freezing to death.”
“We can’t build a fire. Hadrian—”
“Do you want him to die?”
Renwick looked at the growing fire and the tendrils of white smoke snaking from it, then at Mince lying on the spruce bed. Kine could see the debate going on inside him.
“He’s my best friend,” Kine told him. “Please.”
Renwick nodded. “It’s getting dark. The smoke won’t be visible, but we need to contain the light as much as we can. Let’s bank the snow walls higher. Damn, it is cold.”
Brand returned with more wood, larger branches and even a few broken logs. His cheeks and nose were red and ice crystals formed around his nose and mouth.
“You need to keep him awake,” Elbright told him as he tended the fire as if it were a living thing. “If he stays asleep, he’ll die.”
Kine shook Mince and even slapped him across the face, but the boy did not seem to notice. Meanwhile, Renwick and Brand boosted the windbreak wall, which not only contained the light, but also reflected the heat. Elbright coaxed the fire, cooing to it like it was a child he had brought into the world. “Com’on, baby, eat that branch. Eat it, that’s right, there you go. Tastes good, doesn’t it? Eat all of it. It will make you strong.”
Elbright’s baby became a full-grown fire and soon the frigid cold fell back. It was the first time in days any of them had known real warmth. Kine’s feet and fingers began to ache and his cheeks and the tip of his nose burned as he thawed out.
Beyond the mouth of their snow cave, darkness fell, made deeper by the bright light of the fire. Renwick grabbed a pot from the supplies, filled it with snow, and set it near the fire to melt. Elbright refused to let him put it on his fire. They sat in silence, listening to the friendly sound of the flames.
Soon the shelter was warm enough that Elbright took off his hat and even his cloak. The rest of them followed his lead, with Kine laying his over Mince.
“Can we eat now?” Brand asked.