Chapter 18: The Man In The Snow
Guilty continued searching through the wreckage, away from the other two. The wind was too loud near the broken caravan.
The water sack hung from his chained hand, bumping against his leg. It wasn’t full, but it was something. Sloshing. Half ice.
He walked a little farther from the others, stepping carefully through the snow that was now almost to his ankles. Every few steps, he stopped to check the ground, looking for the dark shape of another sack, a bottle, anything that had fallen from the caravan when it broke.
There had to be more water somewhere. The guards always carried extra.
The cold wind brushed against his face, sharp like needles. Guilty pulled his torn clothing closer around his body, but it didn’t help much. The cloth was wet now from snow.
He looked down at the water sack again. He shook it.
There wasn’t enough for three people for even one night, let alone a storm that could last three. They would need to melt snow, and for that they needed fire, which they didn’t have yet.
He found another damaged container nearby - a small wooden canteen, cracked on one side - and carefully, slowly, so he wouldn’t spill, poured some of the water from the sack into it. His chained hands made it hard. Water splashed on his fingers and instantly felt freezing.
Not much. But every drop mattered now. Every drop was time.
He picked up the sack again and tied the canteen to his belt with a bit of string.
Then—
Something moved.
Guilty froze mid-step. His whole body went still.
His eyes widened.
The movement had come from the snow a few steps ahead of him, just beyond a fallen log covered in white. A small shift. Like something breathing under a blanket.
He slowly stepped backward, his chains making no noise in the thick snow.
His heart began pounding loudly in his ears, louder than the wind.
Monster. Wolf pup.
His eyes scanned the area quickly, searching for claw marks, for that eyeless face.
Nothing. Only snow falling straight down.
Then the thing moved again. A twitch. A hand? The snow rose a little and fell.
Guilty’s hand tightened around the water sack until his knuckles went white. He looked over his shoulder toward the others.
They were too far away to hear him clearly now. Maybe thirty steps. The wind would swallow his shout. And the thin prisoner was useless anyway.
He could call for them. Shout for the grey-haired man.
But what if the creature attacked before they arrived? What if it was a wounded wolf, playing dead? One bite and he was gone, and no one would even see.
Guilty swallowed, his throat dry.
He looked down and grabbed a broken piece of wood from the ground, a sharp splintered leg from a chair, and held it like a weapon in both chained hands. It was heavy, but not heavy enough to kill a wolf.
Then he slowly walked toward the movement.
One step. Snow crunch.
Then another. Breath held.
His breathing became heavier, clouds puffing fast.
He raised the piece of wood high over his head, ready to swing down.
"Come out..." he said, his voice small and cracking in the cold.
Nothing answered. Only wind.
Guilty took another careful step, close enough now to touch the lump in the snow.
He kicked away some of the snow with his foot, gently at first, then harder.
His eyes suddenly widened and he stumbled back a half-step.
It wasn’t a monster.
It was a person.
Guilty stared at the body lying beneath the snow, half-buried, face down. For a moment, he couldn’t understand what he was seeing because the snow had made everything the same color.
Then he recognized the coat. The strange dark coat with the torn sleeves. The broad shoulders.
The Awakened man.
The same man who had fought the giant worm alone and cut it. The same man who had been thrown like a doll by the eyeless wolf and left for dead. The man they all thought was dead, that the thin prisoner had said was dead.
Guilty stared at him in disbelief, the wood still raised.
He’s alive?
The man’s body was almost completely covered by snow, like the forest was trying to bury him. His clothes were frozen stiff, white with frost. His black hair was covered in ice crystals. His skin, where Guilty could see it on his neck, had turned pale, almost grey.
He wasn’t moving. Not really.
Guilty slowly lowered the piece of wood, his arms shaking not from weight but from shock.
He crouched beside him, careful, keeping distance at first, then closer.
"You’re..."
The words died in his throat. Cold air stole them.
The man was barely breathing. So faint Guilty thought he imagined it at first.
Guilty watched his chest, focusing hard, ignoring the snow falling on his own head.
Up... a tiny movement.
Down...
Up...
Down...
Barely. So shallow. One breath every long seconds.
The Awakened man had survived the wolf. Somehow, after being clawed and thrown, he had crawled here and collapsed. He had survived being left behind while they fought.
But now...
Guilty looked at the man’s frozen body, at his lips that were turning blue, at his hands that were bare and white.
He’s dying.
The thought came naturally, clear and cold.
The man had survived monsters that killed almost everyone else in the caravan. He had powers that could cut a worm in half.
Yet now he was lying helplessly in the snow, being killed not by claws or teeth, but by cold. By the same cold that was biting Guilty.
It was almost ironic. Almost funny in a terrible way.
A man powerful enough to fight monsters...
Defeated by the cold, like any normal man.
Guilty sat there in the snow next to him, the water sack forgotten in his hand, snow falling on both of them, and didn’t know what to do.