Thar felt something inside him snap and twist and break when he heard D’Argen scream yet again. It was pain beyond imagining and it took him too long to realize that he was shaking not from the agony he felt from his mahee inside him, connected to D’Argen, but because of the ice.
When they first fell into the crevasse, Thar immediately latched onto the ice wall. The shaking around him was so strong that he felt his bones rattling. He concentrated on keeping connected, keeping the wall of ice he was attached to solid, keeping as still as possible as D’Argen and Hortson hung off the edge of the rope around his waist. It felt like years before the shaking finally settled. Another few before Thar could pull back and close off his mahee enough to melt the ice around his hands and turn it into holds. His fingers were stiff, his entire body taut, and the rope harnessed around his waist was uncomfortable.
None of it could compare to the pain inside him.
D’Argen.
Thar chanced a look down only to see darkness. A glance up revealed that the hole they had fallen through was covered in snow. The ice around him was dark, untouched by any sunlight. Using his mahee to create light while trying to keep the wall from breaking was exhausting but he was able to do it. When the light around him started shining a pale white, he looked down again.
D’Argen’s unconscious form was hanging limply from the rope. Beyond him, Hortson was also unconscious, hanging off the edge of the rope like a limpet.
Taking a deep breath of the stale, cold air around him, Thar concentrated. He opened his mahee wider, ignoring the tension of the spells wrapped around him. It felt like it was trying to burst out of his chest and break him apart, but he pushed. He reached for the ice wall and then down to the small ledge his toes were on. Then further down. It passed D’Argen and hesitated, he wanted to reach out to cradle the runner, but it would not be enough. Instead, he reached further.
Hortson was completely out of it, even when Thar broke and stretched the ice wall to create a wide platform right under his feet. Pulling the ice out of the wall without compromising it and making it strong enough to hold the mortal’s weight took a very long time. Thar dismissed the light spell, throwing the crevasse back into darkness, and concentrated on just that.
Once he felt it was strong enough, he created new handholds and footholds further down and started descending. When Hortson was lying on the platform of ice, Thar felt his weight like a release and he only had to carry D’Argen down. Slowly and carefully, so cautious to stay away from the larger breaks of the ice or the ones that were too sensitive, he continued his descent.
When D’Argen was lying on the ice platform beside Hortson, Thar felt his body finally relax a little. He did not bother to be careful as he let go of the wall and grabbed it again just before hitting the platform. The icicle he grabbed onto broke off when he release his mahee from around it and he landed softly on the platform. Even so, it cracked under their combined weight.
Thar concentrated on strengthening it even further until he felt something hit his foot.
D’Argen twitched, still unconscious but his face creased with pain.
No. Safety first.
A quiet groan filled with pain had him kneeling before the platform was fully solidified. D’Argen was completely unconscious. Thar searched his mind for a spell and then felt Lilian’s mahee as he muttered one of their spells. The air around them shifted and then entered through D’Argen’s nose, down his throat, and into his lungs. Another spell and Thar felt that there were no broken bones though D’Argen’s hip was shifted out of alignment. Another spell revealed torn muscles around the shift. Another spell revealed the blood flowed too slowly.
Hortson twitched, drawing Thar’s attention. He glared at the mortal but then dismissed him and sat down beside D’Argen with his legs crossed. He could do nothing with so much of his mahee already used up. Instead, he concentrated on the cold air around them and breathed it in slowly, forcing it down his throat and into his lungs, then beyond to try and refill what he had lost.
It took a long time before he opened his eyes to the darkness once more. And it was not because his mahee was filled.
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No.
Hortson had awoken with a scream of panic.
Thar muttered one of Abbot’s light spells but before he could get the last word out, he felt a sudden absence in front of him and on top of the platform. Then Hortson was screaming, the sound echoing and penetrating the ice, breaking it further and causing everything to shake. A moment later, D’Argen’s body beside him twitched, shifted, and then slid toward the edge of the platform where Hortson had already fallen.
Thar reached for D’Argen and grabbed his leg just in time to stop him. Then D’Argen woke with a scream. The mahee inside Thar, so weak and not yet full, squeezed even tighter than before. He felt something break, not just inside him but also under his fingers. Then he felt nothing at all as the ice platform shattered into millions upon millions of shards and snowflakes.
Then he was falling too.
Reaching for the ice around him, trying to find anything at all that would stop him, felt impossible with the tight squeeze of his mahee inside him. It throbbed, like a heartbeat, and each pulse only brought on a new wave of agony.
He had to stay awake. Ice scraped at his shoulder as the wall shifted. Hortson started screaming again. D’Argen was silent. Thar felt his head pounding. Then there was a loud crack, one of both ice and bone breaking, followed by another scream, another crack, and then Thar hit something so hard that he blacked out.
When he came to, it was to whimpers in the dark. Without thinking, Thar muttered one of Abbot’s spells and the cold white light that emanated from his hands revealed his surroundings.
An icy ledge covered with snow and ice shards. His arm was hanging off it and there was not enough room to bring it up. Hortson was awake, his entire face red and wet with frozen tears. He was sitting on a slightly wider part of the ledge and clutching at his leg. D’Argen was on the widest section of the ledge, still unconscious. Even though he had more room, his body was twisted at an uncomfortable angle that left one of his legs hanging off the edge and his head propped strangely against the wall.
“I’m sorry,” Hortson mumbled under his breath, his voice quiet and meek.
Thar decided he did not deserve a response and focused on shifting into a sitting position without tumbling off the ledge. Once he was sitting, he shined the light down. It revealed the ice wall they were on, a reflection not that far from them but unreachable on the other side, and nothing but darkness above and below. Instead of using his mahee to strengthen the light and see the distances, Thar decided to conserve his power. He let the light shine from around him rather than directly from his hands and felt for the ice under them. The ledge was strong. It would hold.
Slowly shifting to a standing position, he moved over to where D’Argen was.
“His hip is dislocated,” Hortson said before Thar could touch D’Argen.
When Thar looked up at the mortal, the man cringed and ducked his head before saying quietly, “It is a common accident if… if the harness is not tied off properly.”
The anger inside Thar’s veins felt like his blood was crystalizing and those tiny icicles were trying to rip out of him. A deep breath calmed the itch under his skin. It did nothing for the squeeze around his mahee that felt unnaturally strong for a dislocated hip.
“And something broke. When we fell,” Hortson said again.
This time, he visibly flinched when Thar glared at him.
“And me too. My leg. It’s gone numb now, with the cold, but—”
“Can you stand?” Thar interrupted, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. For a single mortal to cause so much damage? It was a horrible thought.
Hortson shook his head in the negative. Thar sneered and finally touched D’Argen. He ran through the same spells as before, feeling his breath was shaky but full, the dislocated hip, the torn muscles around it, and then the fissure of broken bone on that same leg. He let go of all the spells, including the light, in order to take a deep breath and concentrate.
Get D’Argen better.
Calm the mortal.
Figure out where they were.
Get them out of there.
With that list in his head running on repeat, Thar opened his eyes and his mahee, lighting the area once more in the cold white of Abbot’s spell and then taking in the cold and stale air around them. Only once he stopped did Thar realize that Hortson had been shivering the entire time. He chanced a look at the man and noticed his lips and teeth were stained red. Not good. A glance at D’Argen’s mouth revealed nothing of the sort. Good.
“I can set the hip,” Hortson offered, his voice still soft and meek. He cleared his throat then turned his head, coughing into his shoulder. Thar noticed the furs there were already stained with red flakes. “I just need some help. I couldn’t do it on my own, so I waited for you to wake up.”
Something about the man’s words annoyed Thar but he nodded.
When Hortson moved, Thar noticed a splint around his leg. The mortal was limping but he remained quiet to his own pain. Hortson touched D’Argen and Thar felt something inside him threaten to snap. He pushed it down.
“Hold him like this.” Hortson directed Thar into sitting against the wall with D’Argen’s upper body in his lap. Then the mortal untied the rest of the rope from around D’Argen’s waist and started undressing him. Thar wanted to snap but kept his mouth closed. He knew what Hortson had to do. He clutched at D’Argen’s shoulders tight and looked away from the tanned skin that Hortson revealed.
Then he could not help but stare at the large blotch of black and blue and purple and where the skin distended in an unnatural way.
“You will…” Hortson hesitated. “It will hurt. It may wake him. He… he shouldn’t scream.”
Thar understood the words even as he gritted his teeth in anger. Then he placed a single palm over D’Argen’s mouth and glared at Hortson with all the hatred he felt.