Page 24 of Inferno
The pep-talk worked, to an extent. Nerik hauled himself to his feet, lurching through the next handful of steps to the turnoff. His head was spinning. A cold chill ran down his spine. One foot in front of the other. Keep walking. Keep breathing. Somehow, he reached the gate to his little cottage and fumbled with the latch. Gods, he needed to be on the other side of that gate.
Finally, his numb fingers managed to open it… but that was it, for Nerik. He slumped forward, shoving the gate as he fell. It slammed back into the stopper post behind it, then bounced back and hit him in the face. He huddled there, on his hands and knees, and thought that it was such a fucking waste, to have come so far, to have survived the efforts of heat, and drought, and destiny, and an army of warriors, all trying desperately to kill him, only to succumb to a simple shower of rain.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
One way or another, Yorin supposed, he was going to be spending the night here. It was about an hour after he’d started preparing the stew, the pot bubbling slowly, the food more or less cooked. It was dark now, long before it would normally have been so, due to the heavy cloud and ongoing pelting rain. He was becoming more and more certain that Nerik wouldn’t be back tonight after all. The messenger had likely taken shelter in someone else’s cottage, given that plenty of the folk living in the forest were more than willing to offer shelter and hospitality to a traveller in trouble.
Yorin lifted the pot of stew off the fire and set it carefully on the table, then went back and added another log to the fireplace. Hopefully, Nerik wouldn’t be upset about Yorin making himself comfortable for the night. Walking back to Minia in this weather was a ludicrous idea, and if Nerik was concerned about the food Yorin had taken, well, he would just offer to pay for it. Nerik was no wealthier than Yorin was, after all, and Yorin didn’t want to leave him short.
He fetched a bowl from the kitchen counter, disappointed that he wouldn’t get to share the meal with Nerik, but hungry enough that he wasn’t about to waste it, either.
But before he could help himself to the food, a loud thump sounded outside, and Yorin stiffened. He set down the bowl and went to look out the window. Perhaps a tree branch had just come down, or something had been blown into the side of the house?
He couldn’t see anything immediately outside the house, and for a moment, he debated going outside to check. He’d likely be soaked in less than a minute… but then again, if something was broken, it might be better to fix it before it caused a bigger problem? The fire was burning nicely, and he could always dry off again, a mild inconvenience to the wiser course of action.
With a faint grumble to himself, Yorin dragged his coat over his shoulders and shoved his feet back into his boots. He tugged open the front door and stepped outside, barely able to see anything in the dark. Just a quick check around the house, and he’d be back inside…
A faint moan sounded in the darkness, and Yorin’s head snapped around to the direction of the garden gate. A low, dark figure lay crumpled on the pathway…
“Nerik!” Later, Yorin would never be able to say how he’d recognised the man, soaking wet and huddled in the darkness as he was. But he knew in an instant that the figure in the pathway was Nerik, and that the man was in serious trouble.
Yorin dashed over to him, ignoring the mud that splashed up his trousers from the puddles, and grabbed Nerik by the shoulders. “Good gods, man, what are you doing out in this storm?”
Nerik peered up at him, eyes squinting in the darkness. “Yorin?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” he confirmed. “Come on, let’s get you inside. Gods above, you’re freezing!” Yorin hauled him to his feet, almost having to carry him as he guided the man towards the front door. “What were you thinking, travelling in a storm like this? You’ll catch your death of a cold.”
“Cold,” Nerik muttered, and Yorin was shocked to realise that he was so cold, he wasn’t even shivering. That was a very, very bad sign. “Just wanted to see your face again.” He reached up, one ice cold hand touching Yorin’s cheek. “So beautiful…”
If it was a compliment, it was ill-timed, and it was far more likely that Nerik was mildly delusional. Yorin ignored the comment and dragged his half-conscious companion through the door and into the much warmer cabin.
“You’re soaking wet,” he scolded Nerik. He tried to set him down on a chair, but Nerik just slumped over, making a slow slide to the floor, so Yorin pulled him to his feet again. “Let’s get you near the fire. You need to warm up.”
Nerik seemed to perk up at that. “Fire?”
“I’ve been here for a while,” Yorin said, not entirely certain how much Nerik was going to understand. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“You’re a pashruken,” Nerik muttered, patting Yorin’s shoulder. “An angel.”
“I’m no angel,” Yorin said, a touch sharper than he’d intended to, fear for Nerik’s condition making him impatient. “You need to get out of your wet clothes. Gods, your skin is like ice.” What on earth had Nerik been thinking, travelling in weather like this?
“Fire,” Nerik muttered, and his legs folded under him, leaving Yorin with no choice but to let him sink to the floor beside the fireplace.
“You need to get dry,” he said, then realised that he had no idea where Nerik kept anything in his house. He grabbed the lantern he’d lit from the kitchen table and dashed into the bedroom, hoping to find something there that he could use to dry Nerik. A quick check of the wardrobe came up with no towels of any kind, but there was a thick, soft blanket on the bed. Two of them, actually, and Yorin grabbed them both.
He dashed back to the kitchen, where Nerik was huddled on his knees and elbows, forehead resting on the floor. Little puddles of water were forming on the tiles beneath him.
“Clothes off,” Yorin ordered, dumping the blankets to the side. He summarily stripped Nerik’s coat off, then his jumper and his shirt. On a different day, he might easily have been distracted by Nerik’s physique, but today, the only thought in his mind was getting the man warm and dry. He considered removing the two necklaces around Nerik’s throat, but given that they were both metal chains, it was easier and quicker to just give them both a quick rub to dry them and leave it at that.
Nerik was being no more cooperative by now, so Yorin pushed him over onto his back – wincing as Nerik’s skin came into contact with the cold tiles – and undid his belt and trousers, then stripped them off.
It was hard work to peel them down his legs, as wet as they were, and when he got them down to Nerik’s ankles, he realised he hadn’t taken his boots off yet. He tugged them off, tossing them into the same pile as the rest of his sopping clothes, then pulled off his socks and dragged the trousers over Nerik’s feet. He noted in passing that Nerik wasn’t wearing any undergarments, and he was well aware that at a later date, he was going to be reliving this situation, fiendishly embarrassed about Nerik’s nakedness and that fact that Yorin was blundering through the entire process with absolutely no thought for propriety. For now, though, he ploughed on, noting that Nerik’s skin was so cold he looked almost grey.
Clothes removed, Yorin hauled Nerik up into a sitting position and wrapped the first blanket around him. He used it as a towel, rubbing Nerik’s hair thoroughly, drying his arms and his torso. Then he took on the most authoritative tone he could muster, and said, “Right, then. On your feet.” He took hold of Nerik’s hands and pulled him up, praying that the man could find enough strength to stand for just a couple of minutes.
Nerik came up more or less willingly, stumbling only slightly as Yorin caught him under the arms. He guided him over to the table. “Hold onto this,” he said, placing Nerik’s hands on the back of a chair. Then he continued his task, drying down both legs, his feet, and a few quick swipes between his legs to hopefully soak up the water without lingering or being too inappropriate about it all.
Then, leaving Nerik clinging to the chair for a moment, Yorin used the blanket to wipe the worst of the water off the floor. There was no point going to all the trouble of drying the man just to set him back down in a puddle.