Page 83 of Cursed Shadows 4
It means I can afford a small sleep in the hollow of a tree—the first one I come across as I stagger through the frosty forest and leave the bog behind.
The weariness of it all has turned my mind sticky like hot toffee. I can’t quite make sense of where I am, of which directionto take. So I dig out an old den from the trunk and roots of a dead tree, then curl up in there for my deep, all-encompassing sleep.
However long I dream, it’s hard to be sure, but when I do wake, the skies are sun-bleached stone again. Daylight.
I make use of it and build a fire.
But another failure faces me when I unfasten my backpack and dig out the dead fish. The stench is a punch to the face. Enough to force a retch through me.
Can’t eat these.
Can’t even risk it.
The stench tells me enough. If I do manage to get these down, and they don’t come right back up in a spray of sick, then they will poison me, and that is such a pathetic way to die on this mountain, to survive what I have survived just to die of seafood sickness.
I toss them aside, then pick at my store of berries. I should bury the fish now, but my starved stomach has control of me now, and I’m grabbing a fistful of honeycomb.
I sift through the crumbs. The last of what I have. And that’s it, too quick to go. I have nothing left.
Not even water.
I abandon this spot and move with weighted legs and dragging boots.
I follow the faint trickle of a stream. It’s such a delicate song, like the windchimes that are dotted throughout the woods around risk villages, so the folk can prepare for an incoming blast. If this stream was a wind, it would be a swift whisper, barely there, like the breath that comes from a cough. Meagre and disappointing.
Still, I tuck the opening of the waterskin to the spill of water that rolls over rocks, and I wait until it’s full.
There are no fish to catch in this stream. No tadpoles to snack on. I have little other choice—
Fishing out a paring knife from the harness that crosses my chest and cinches my waist, I step over the smooth, damp rocks that disturb the water flow. Careful not to wash away any of my camouflage, the dried blood caked and cracked all over me, the old mud that’s sunken into my pores, I lean for the larger boulders.
With the paring knife, I scrape off as much algae as I can reach, until I have myself a little pile, as big as two slices of bread stacked together.
My mouth floods at the thought of bread.
Oh and cheese, and some smoked ham, and some almonds—sugared of course—and a nice hot tea…
I shake my head, as if to shake out the thoughts of food.
Today, I eat algae.
I scrape the lush green from the boulder and watch it dust and fall into the little pouch that should have berries in it. I finished the last of them.
Now, all I have is this.
A pouch of algae.
At least it’s nutritious.
Focus on the positive…
I don’t waste time sitting around the stream, a freshwater source that will draw in any nearby fae at any given moment. With algae and a waterskin full of freshwater, I head back into the frosted woods, and scout for the best spot to take cover.
Almost an hour of walking, sudden turns, digging through hollow spots, studying the boughs of the trees above, and I come across a cracked tree. The trunk is severed, almost entirely. Butenough that the tree itself has fallen onto its neighbour, and there, it leans.
Chin lifted, I study the thicker weaving of the branches above. With the boughs and twigs and branches of both trees together, it makes for damn good cover. If I can climb that high, above the seam, then I might not be spotted by a passing fae.
And since the sunlight is fading, the stone hues of the skies hardening above, I am out of time.
