01 THE TIME OF THE DARK

She stood less than four feet away. She wasn't looking at them. Though her eyes were open and staring, she wasn't looking at anything. The wine cup dangled forgotten from one nerveless hand, and the torch had gone out in a puddle at her feet. All this Rudy saw across Alde's shoulder in a split second of time, and he felt a chill, directionless wind ruffle across his face from somewhere in the darkness.

With a violence born of the pure reflex of terror, he slung Alde into the back of the dugout and jerked the door shut with a slam like a gunshot. She fell against the wall, catching at it for balance, her eyes dilated with fear and, he suspected, misinterpretation of the situation. "Get me one of those sticks," he commanded roughly. Warned by something in his voice, she obeyed immediately. He used it to bolt the door and found another to use as a wedge for good measure, his hands shaking with shock.

"There's a Dark One out there," he told her quietly. She said nothing, but in the dim light of the cabin's single window, he could see her eyes get wider. "It-got Medda."

"Oh!" she whispered.

"Do you have anything to make a fire with?"

She shook her head, a tiny gesture, stunned. Then suddenly she turned, looking around the almost lightless interior of the room. "There's wood all along the back here," she said, her voice low and tense. "Your fire outside... "

"It's a long way to my fire," Rudy said shortly, "and the rain probably put it out. I wouldn't leave you alone here, anyway." The ceiling of the tiny place was barely high enough for him to stand. He waited, drawn sword in hand, before the door, trying desperately to think what to do next. Behind him Alde gathered sticks together and made a competent little arrangement of them, with dead leaves and twigs for tinder, working swiftly, without display of the fear that must have been screaming inside her. Still tensed to spring, Rudy knelt down and fingered the wood. Soft and splintery. Did one need a special kind of wood, to make fire by rubbing two sticks together? Anyhow for sure, this trash wouldn't work. He examined the hilt of his sword. Steel. Flint and steel. Was it worth it to try to get a spark from the steel blade of the sword, at the risk of ruining the thing for fighting purposes? Anyhow, the walls of the dugout were made of wattle-and-daub, not stone, let alone flint.

The rain now drummed lightly and steadily on the front wall. The moon must be hidden again, since he could see almost nothing in the darkness. But he felt suddenly that same chill wind creeping around the edges of the door. It stirred in the tinder, made a thin, dry whispering among the leaves, and closed off the breath in his throat with the strangling grip of fear.

Flint, he thought through his panic. We've got to strike a spark somehow.

"Are you wearing any jewelry? Any stones at all?" She shook her head, her eyes wide.

What the hell, I probably wouldn't know what to do with flint if it jumped out and bit me ... "Well, after this you're going to have a gold ring made with a hunk of flint as big as a walnut set in it, and you're going to wear it all the time, you understand?"

"All right," she whispered breathlessly.

What the hell am I talking about? There's not going to be anything after this.

Alde crouched back, keeping out of his way so as not to encumber his sword arm, though her terror cried for the comfort of his touch. High up, near the top of the door, Rudy heard a soft bumping noise, like a testing finger tapping, and then a faint scratching on the heavy glass of the window. His heart slamming sickeningly against his ribs, Rudy thought, All I can do is take a swing straight down at whatever comes through that door. What's stone? What's flint? What will make a spark? I wish to Christ Ingold were here. He could make a fire just by looking at the wood.

Wonder if I could do that?