The Sentinel Read online

  Shadows were on the face of the entrance to the cave as she crept slowly forward. Finally, she could see a dim figure near the mouth. For a moment she thought it was just a strangely shaped boulder. Then, as she neared, she saw the man.

  Moving in to see him better, she squatted on her thin haunches directly in front of him, not moving until her eyes adjusted from the glare outside to the darker shadows in the cave. The man's face came into full vision. She caught her breath. He looked dead, yet there was something that said he was not. She knew that most of her people believed him to just be a frozen man, but she knew different. Slowly she moved closer to him, careful not to touch the sword in his scarred hand. Moving a little to his side, she looked him over from all angles.

  The face was not cruel – hard, yes, but not cruel. In her child's heart she saw a terrible sadness in the set of the mouth, a great weariness in the manner in which the broad shoulders sloped under the frozen robe. She moved her face closer to his, nearly touching him. She looked into the eyes, eyes that never blinked, yet she felt that they knew she was there.

  A strange desire came over her; she set her young lips to the pale ones of the warrior, expecting to feel stiff, ice-frozen flesh. She jerked back when the flesh yielded under her lips. His lips were cold, but she knew that there was life behind them. She became frightened of her boldness and her thoughts. Removing the garland of flowers from her hair, she set them in the lap of the warrior and turned to race back down the mountain as fast as her legs would take her.

  That night she didn't think of the slap her brother had given her for going off. Instead, her mind was filled with the face of the man in the cave, and she dreamed childish dreams of how one day he would awaken to take her from the mountain down into the warm lands. He was hers.

  As she grew, so did her fantasies about Casca. He represented all the things she dreamed of: a sleeping noble who would make her his bride and come to her rescue when danger threatened.

  Keeping the secret to herself, she made regular trips to the cave, spending hours there talking to the man, not minding that he didn't answer. She told him all her secret dreams and thought that she saw his head nod in understanding or his mouth twist just a bit in a tiny smile.

  Each time before she left, she would kiss the gray lips and tell him to rest well till she came again. The young men of the village who courted her found themselves rejected firmly. No matter what they offered, she would not lay down with them or take one to mate, even though she had now reached the sixteenth year of her life and was as beautiful and wild as the mountains of her home.

  Her father shook his head in resignation that his daughter was a bit strange, but he hoped that she would grow out of it and take a mate soon. But she never even entertained the thought of taking one of the men of the mountains to wed. She had her lover high in the mountains; he waited, and so did she. One day he would come for her, and she would be there.

  Ireina's high valley was seldom visited by the new masters, for it was off the beaten paths and had little to offer in the way of riches. Occasionally a rider came to tell them that they were to pay tribute in the amount of a few sheep or cattle, either to the Burgundians or to the Ostrogoths, whichever was most in power at that moment. Sometimes they had to pay both, for they sat near an undefined border between the two states. The Ostrogoths controlled Italy proper and were the stronger, but they had other richer regions to tax and were seldom hard pressed enough to send warriors into this sparsely populated region for the sake of few sheep or cows. They only came in the summer months, when the passes were clear of ice and snow.

  Their worst fears were about the bands of raiders and bandits who wandered the mountains, taking refuge from the warriors of the new masters. These were not so choosy. All knew that it was only a matter of time before they showed up again, though now it had been two full generations since a band of brigands had last entered their valley. That had not been too difficult an ordeal. A patrol of Burgundians was hot on their trail, and the brigands moved off after killing a few villagers and taking what little they had in the way of movable goods. Their loot consisted of less than ten silver coins and a few pots of copper. They took nothing else – even slaves would have slowed them down – as they were short of horses.

  Ireina prayed for her sleeping lover to awaken, but he didn't.

  The old ones of the village said that he would not come down until the village was in desperate danger. Ireina was torn between hoping for disaster to strike and fear that it would.

  It was the fall of her twentieth year when what they'd dreaded came to pass. A band of fifty warriors from different tribes rode into her valley and made themselves master there. This time there would be no pursuit, for the first snows were already beginning to close up the narrow passes and trails. There could be no aid until the spring thaw.

  The village had increased in size but still numbered no more than a hundred males, of whom fewer than twenty were of an age to fight.

  The bandits rode in nearly unopposed. Several young men attempted to resist but were quickly cut down. The leader of the bandits was named Herac, a tall, darkly handsome man with a shaven face who was half Greek and half Goth. He affected cleaner habits than his cohorts but was not lacking in their greed and cruelty.

  As the leader, he had first choice among the women, and he picked Ireina. She was led to him where he had set up headquarters in the longhouse for bachelor males. It was the largest building in the village.

  She closed her eyes and her mind to what happened to her as he forced himself into her body, his rough hands bruising her breasts, whipping her to try to get some response. She lay still, saying nothing, doing nothing, as he performed one vile exercise after another on her. She took her mind away from what was happening to her body, giving Herac, who considered himself quite a lover, no satisfaction. Finally he beat her and threw her out of the longhouse, cursing her for being a stupid cow who couldn't please a real man.

  That night the first heavy snow came falling in a windless sky to cover the earth and fields. The old women treated her wounds, washing away the blood from her thighs. When they at last left her alone, she dressed, ignoring the pain, took food and a warm robe, wrapped her legs in wool breeches, and climbed out over the stockade wall. She knew where she had to go.

  Her trail was covered in a matter of minutes as the snow continued to fall in fat, gentle flakes.

  It was dawn when she reached the opening to the cave where the warrior slept. Wrapping herself in her robe, she lay down beside him.

  The cold of dawn woke her, her body aching and her legs cramped under her. The temperature had dropped too far past the point of freezing. Sitting up next to Casca, she rubbed the pain from her legs, trying to get the circulation started again. She had to stay warm, or she would join her sleeping lover. The thought appealed to her: to sit beside him through eternity, never knowing pain or hunger, to be always young.

  The chill set in deeply. Her lips turned blue and her limbs numb; she knew what she had to do. Wrapping her robe closer to her body, she left the cave and went back down the trail for two thousand feet until she reached the treeline. She gathered fallen branches from under the snow and hauled them back to the cave. Three times she made the trip, ignoring the pain of her wounds and the cramping in her loins and stomach.

  Once she started moving, the cold wasn't so bad, but she knew that if she stopped, she would never rise again. At last she had the final load and sat, breasts heaving, in the cave as the sightless eyes of Casca looked over the emptiness of the new winter.

  Finding rocks in the rear of the cave, she piled them as high as they would go in the entrance. Hesitantly, she managed to take the stiff frozen bearskin from around Casca's shoulders and use it to plug the small opening that remained.

  That accomplished, she took flint, steel, and lint from her pouch to start a small fire. Sparingly, she fed the tiny flame, knowing that it would not take much to warm up the small confines of her shelter. She
didn't want to have to make the journey back down the mountain for more wood any sooner than necessary.

  Slowly, the cave began to warm up for the first time since it had been formed millennia before. It passed the freezing point a few degrees and then a few more.

  Ice began to melt in Casca's beard, and melted frost ran in tears down his unmoving cheeks to lie in tiny puddles on the stone floor.

  Ireina slept deeply from her exertions. The heat built rapidly in the small confines of their shelter and lulled her into deep slumber, but another was beginning to awake.

  With the increase in temperature, the thick sluggish blood in Casca's body began to flow a tiny bit easier through arteries and veins that were regaining some of their flexibility.

  His heart warmed under the flow of blood, giving a slightly stronger beat and then another, gradually picking up the tempo of true life. With the increase of his heartbeat, blood was forced down into the lower regions of his body where it had been drawn away to feed the body cavity and heart when first he had sat down to freeze.

  His lungs gave a jerking labored movement as they sucked in a large quantity of the warming air involuntarily. The intake of oxygen fed the blood cells, sending a burst of sensation down into his extremities. The thick fluid behind the gray eyes thawed as thousands of small vessels and capillaries opened to welcome the unfamiliar surge of warmth. One eye blinked and then the other. His face began to gather spots of color around the cheekbones. His lips lost their gray paleness, and with the return of blood came pain.

  His entire system came to life in one spasmodic effort. It was too much too soon for organs and vessels that had shrunk from the century he had slept, each year using up a tiny bit of their remaining moisture.

  His mouth opened, though his mind had not yet awakened, and a scream came forth. He was on fire, the same pain a man feels who has had frostbite and then warms the frozen limb too rapidly.

  The guttural screams woke Ireina in a panic. Had the brigands followed her?

  When her eyes focused, she saw the source of the cry of anguish. The warrior's mouth was open, filling his lungs again and again to let out his cry of torment as the warmth of his blood thawed the cells of his body.

  His sword dropped from stiff fingers, his back arched, and for the first time in over a hundred years he straightened out his legs and screamed once more. Then he fell onto his back unconscious, letting his system complete its job of restoring him to humanity. Ireina watched in shock as the warrior went through his agony. She wasn't frightened, only stunned by his resurrection.

  Then it came to her. All that she had prayed for had come to pass. Her childhood dreams were becoming reality. The sentinel was awakening, and he would protect her and punish those in the valley below.

  The training of her youth in the cold of the mountains took over. She knew instinctively what was causing part of the warrior's pain, and she began to treat him as she would one who had spent the night in a snowdrift.

  She covered his body with her own robe, not trying to remove the rusty armor from his body. Then she tugged at him to pull him farther inside. She thought that he would have weighed more, not knowing that the gradual loss of fluid in his cells had wasted away thirty pounds. From her sack, she removed a small copper pot. Moving Casca's bear robe aside, she scooped snow from outside to fill the pot, and then she set the pot over the small flame.

  Into the pot she put shaved strands of dried meat to simmer along with herbs and a small amount of precious salt. At this altitude, even though the mixture boiled fiercely, she knew that it was just past being lukewarm. But that was well enough. Something too hot might hurt her patient, who was silent now, his breathing a bit easier, though she knew from the expression on his unconscious face that he was still in great pain. His legs and arms trembled and twitched spasmodically, his hands opening and closing of their own accord as his body shook.

  She removed his helmet, noting the deep lines sunk into his forehead where the steel brim had rested, its weight pressing ever deeper until it almost reached the bone of the skull. A strip of loose skin came away from his nose as she pulled the cold steel from his face.

  Touching his skin, she was surprised to feel how dry it was. There was no suppleness to the tissue. She pinched the back of his hand, pulling the skin up only to see it remain there, not going back to its original position. She knew from the old women that was a sure sign of lack of fluids. Gently, she moistened her fingers in the pot and patted the broth onto his lips, careful not to crack them.

  The fluid sank into the parched lips until she was able carefully to pry them back a bit and slip half a wooden spoonful into his mouth. Then she waited a moment before giving him another. The broth was absorbed into the dried membranes of his mouth, bringing flexibility back to the gums that had pulled partially away from the teeth.

  His system welcomed the new flow of energy, attacking the broth greedily as she was able to spoon the contents of the pot faster into him. At last a spoonful made it all the way into his stomach, where it started the flow of digestive juices that had long lay dormant.

  She then set about removing his armor and clothes, her fingers stumbling over the unfamiliar straps and buckles that held it to him. Once she had managed to free him of that encumbrance and had set it aside by his shield, sword, and spear, it was easy to get the rest of his clothes off. She sucked in her breath at the sight of his body: not at his nakedness but at the wounds that had been inflicted on him.

  She refilled the pot and set it to warm the snow; then she tore a piece of rag from her clothes and soaked it in the warm water and began to wash his body. He was like a piece of sun-dried parchment. The fluid on the rag never left a wet mark on his skin as his pores soaked it all in to feed his starving tissues. She saw this and, not understanding the reason, knew what she had to do. Not dipping this time, she poured the water into her hand and began to rub. She refilled the pot seven times before she saw a glow and suppleness return to the flesh. She never noticed that the winter sun had set as she labored over her man, for that's what he was to her mind. Had she not brought him back to life?

  All that night she fed and bathed him in turn. To her, it was a miracle the way his features changed. He was still thin, but there was life behind the sleeping, twitching lids. She wondered whether he dreamed and, if so, of what.

  At last, too weary to continue, she lay down under the robes with Casca after first putting a few more twigs on their fire. She snuggled close to his naked body. Putting her head on his shoulder, she slept content. Sometimes dreams do come true, and now all would be well.

  The unconscious agony of his rebirth passed. Casca slowly felt his eyes open, burning slightly, sticky and heavy. The lids seemed to have weights holding them shut. As of yet, his body was a distant foreign thing, and there was pressure on his body and chest. He moved his head to see what it was.

  His eyes were still fogged. All he could make out was a blurred halo of silver lying in waves around a face. Blinking, he tried to focus. Slowly the face came into view. He felt like he was having some kind of strange dream, where the taste of it stays with you long after you awake and it takes some time before you accept the fact that it all happened in your sleep.

  Ireina moaned softly and shifted her body closer to him. The warm feel of her full breasts next to his bare chest and the firm leg thrown carelessly over his assured Casca that this was no dream.

  What had happened to him returned gradually to his fogged mind. How long he had been in the cave or what had happened during his long sleep, he didn't know. His mouth was dry, and his tongue felt the size of an ox's. He needed something to drink. Stiff muscles and joints cracking, he moved out from under the robes, careful not to wake the girl. As he moved out from under the robes, he could see, even in his dizzy state, that she was a real beauty. The flickering of the small fire cast gold and red shadows over her white skin, accenting the smooth valleys and curves of her body.

  He moved to the opening of t
he cave and pulled his bear robe out of its hole to look outside. A blast of frigid air hit him, causing him to blink in renewed pain for a moment before he could replug the gap; then it passed. He looked for his gear and saw with some surprise that it was all still there. By the fire he found her pot. In it was water warmed by the flames. Casca drank it all in one motion, letting the fluid slide down to ease the parched membranes. Water had never tasted so good, not even during the time when he had been lost in the wastelands of the Persian desert.

  Even that small effort wearied him. Silently, he returned to lie under the robes. Carefully, he placed her head on his arm and rolled over to face her, his mouth close to hers. He could smell her breath. It was like the fresh grass of spring, clean and sweet. His eyes closed, and he held the silver girl in his arms. They slept as two children do, holding each other for comfort against the dark.

  With the dawn, the fire went out and they began to stir, their bodies seeking each other's warmth. As one, their eyes opened to look into the other's, the gray blue of the warrior's and the crystal lakes of the girl's. Casca forced words from his throat, dry and croaking from long disuse: "Welcome, whoever you are.'

  Ireina didn't answer immediately but moved closer to him and placed her lips on his. A still touching, devoid of passion, yet the touching she wanted, to show that she cared and needed him, the innocent kiss of a loving child who needed to be reassured.

  They lay for some time until Ireina rose from their rough bed to dress and rekindle a flame from the coals. Casca watched her as she swept back a wayward tendril of hair. To him it looked a liquid flow of purest silver.

  She was happy for the first time in days, and the memory of her abuse at the hands of Herac didn't matter anymore. It was done with; she had more important things to think of now as she prepared a meager meal of boiled dried meat and barley. She was cooking for her man. It never occurred to her that he might not want her to.