Page 102 of Moonless

I put the water jug down where he can reach it. He tips it with one claw and looks in. “That’ll need filling.”

“Then stop drinking it.” I wait while he looks up at me with the cup halfway to his mouth. “Or let me fill it. Your choice.”

He drinks, then sets the cup beside his knee. “Stay near the den.”

I push the cuff back up my wrist.

“I’m going to your woodpile.”

“I can still hear you.” One ear’s already pointed at the passage. “Call if you need me.”

“I will.”

I leave him there and get the pot.

The meat needs most of the day, so I start there. I get dried strips out of the food cache and cut them up small on the preparation stone, leaning on my bad arm to hold them still. The knife has to be rocked through the hard bits. He could’ve cut these smaller before he dried them. I think I’ve got enough in the pot for both of us until Rauk points at the piece I left out.

“That too.”

Yes, all right. I add it and take the pot to the pool for water.

Rauk’s still on his bedding with his eyes shut when I get back, but his ear follows the pot when it scrapes down by the hearth. So he’s not asleep.

I get it sitting in the coals with the last of the sticks under it, put my knife back in its case and head outside.

The slab’s already standing open far enough for me to get through, so he managed that much this morning.

Then I get under the overhang and see what he’s left me.

Of course he wants the thick pieces broken. Half of them are thicker than my wrist, and the first one barely bends when I stand on it. When I reach down to try again, my shoulder pulls.

Fuck that. The smaller branches are right beside them.

I take those instead, a bundle at a time against my hip.

Rauk opens his eyes when I come in, and I hold the bundle up where he can see it.

“The big ones can wait.”

He looks at how thin they are, and I wait for it, but he only nods. He really is bad today.

A few trips get us enough for the pot and tonight’s fire. My shoulder hates me. Rauk’s asleep on his side by then, so I leave him to it.

The washing’s waiting on the flat stone by the pool. I light the lamp and take it back there with me. Ugh, his shirts. They’re a nuisance when I’m wearing them, and they’re worse wet.

I can do the thin things. He can keep his enormous trousers for another day.

Wringing out one-handed takes forever. I spread the clean things on the rock by the entrance where the sun is, with pebbles on the corners.

Rauk’s hardly moved when I go back in. His cup’s empty, so I refill it and add water to the stew.

The meat’s still tough, so I leave it simmering and take some dried fish outside to eat in the sun.

There’s a warm patch of stone by the washing, and I sit there with my back against the mountain and my legs stretched out. Oh, that’s nice.

Below me the path goes down into the trees and out of sight. Keer’s down there somewhere with Axan, sniffing after a cloth I helped rub on tree trunks.

Rauk couldn’t come after me today. I could be halfway down the valley before he’d got off his bedding.