She turned back to her husband and extended a hand to him. “We need to get you warm,” she insisted, ignoring her own shivers that were causing her teeth to chatter.
His hand took hers and she helped him from his feet. They huddled close as they walked, Grimult rubbing at her shoulders and arms as they went, perhaps for her comfort, perhaps for his own. She did not mind either way.
They made camp in a shallow den, Grimult leaving her at the entrance, his sword drawn as he ensured there were no wild beasts currently making use of it. It was dry, but lacking in warmth, and if Penryn peered hard enough in the darkness, she thought she could just make out the outline of bones, picked clean and decaying in the dirt.
It was enough to make her shudder and bring her cloak more tightly about her, determined she would not make any further attempts to look about her surroundings.
Finding wood that would burn was more of a challenge than she had thought, but after enough poking about and a great deal of determination, they had a fire in their den, a bedroll to share, and both had stopped their shivering when they had finally slept.
She had forgotten the dead sort of sleep that accompanied by the exhaustion of travel, and she found herself blinking awake at Grimult’s shifting, uncertain how long she had slumbered but wondering if it would be wrong to indulge for just a little longer...
The sun was not out, and surely that meant it was too early to consider leaving the little nest they had managed to create.
“We should go,” Grimult commented, and she did not bother to suppress her groan. It made her husband glance over at her, and her cheeks pinked at her less than gracious response. She could at least hear his reasoning before complaining. “There is wind, but no rain, and I would see us get as far as possible before we must contend with both.”
She did not relish the thought of him having to struggle so hard to keep them moving on a straight course, but she would defer to him. She had been the one to guide their first Journey, but she had been well taught and prepared for every nuance of that one.
In this, she must rely on Grimult’s experience.
She gave another longing look at the bedroll, even if her body was stiff from sleeping in it. She had grown soft again, luxuriating in fine beds with warm linens.
But she got up all the same, doing her part to portion out a hasty breakfast, doing what she could to tear down their encampment in between tending to morning ablutions as best she could given the circumstances.
And then they were off once more.
The wind was not quite as chilling, but perhaps that was because her cloak had dried by the fire, so it did not have opportunity to seep into her very bones, freezing her as thoroughly as possible. Grimult seemed to have to go higher in order to avoid some of the most lurching changes in the wind’s current, and she buried her face in his neck, hidden by his hood, lest fear and a roiling stomach get the best of her.
She hated this. She would never tell him so, but this was not how she had imagined their return to be. She had expected the freedom of flight, an exhilarating, bonding thing between them, a taste of a heritage denied to her.
Instead she longed for the steadiness of the ground, for the tedious trudge that did not lurch her poor stomach to and fro, and she was more than grateful when they finally managed to find a pocket of stillness.
She turned her head, determined she would not look downward, but to allow crisp hair into her lungs, hoping that would help soothe things. Grimult’s brow was creased, but he did not look to be struggling as he had done before, his attention fixed somewhere below.
“What do you see?” she asked, lifting her chin so her lips were at his ear.
“I am not certain,” Grimult answered, shaking his head. There was no mistaking the frustration in him, and she took a deep breath, forcing herself to follow, to try to offer what help she could.
Nothing was recognisable, the landmarks missing from even the aerial maps she had studied. If they were on the proper course, a river should have truncated the wood and plains, a lake should be eastward.
“We will end up in our territory,” Penryn assured him. They might miss the sage’s keep by a great distance, but they would be amongst the farther reaches of their people all the same.
“That is not what concerns me,” Grimult muttered, his words partially obscured by their movement through the air.
There was a dark line across one of the plains, and Penryn squinted in an attempt to ascertain what it might be. It was not wholly dissimilar to when they had caught sight of the large beasts from above, present and terrifying in their way, smudges against a sea of green and gold.
But these joined and formed a long trail against the landscape, moving as one.
She swallowed.
“What do you think it is?” Penryn asked, already fearing the answer.
It could be a large migration of creatures unknown to her.
But the movement was organised, happening as one rather than the sprawling meander of beasts.
They were drawing nearer, and Penryn almost asked him to stop, to alter course so they would not come too close.
