Slowly the figure drew nearer. A great shivering of cold and pain racked me. I could go to the wolf. I summoned the last of my strength to defy myself. "Here!" I croaked to Death. "Here I am. Come and take me and let it be done at last."

He heard me. I saw him halt and stand stiffly as if afraid. Then he came with sudden haste, his white cloak swirling in the night wind. He stood by me, tall and slender and silent. "I've come to you," I whispered. Abruptly he knelt by me, and I glimpsed the chiseled ivory of his bony face. He put his arms around me and lifted me to bear me away. The pressure of his arm on my back was agonizing. I fainted.

Warmth was seeping back into me, bringing pain with it. I sprawled on my side, within walls, for the wind surged like the ocean outside. I smelled tea and incense, paint and wood shavings and the wool rug I lay on. My face burned. I could not stop the shuddering that ran through me, though every wave of it awakened the searing pain in my back. My hands and feet throbbed.

"The knots of your cloak-strings are frozen. I'm going to cut them. Lie still now." The voice was curiously gentle, as if unused to such a tone.

I managed to get an eye open. I was lying on the floor. My face was turned toward a stone hearth where a fire burned. Someone leaned over me. I saw the glitter of a blade nearing my throat, but I could not move. I felt it sawing and honestly could not tell if it tasted my flesh. Then my cloak was being lifted back. "It's frozen to your shirt," someone muttered. I almost thought I knew the voice. A gasp. "It's blood. All this is frozen blood." My cloak made an odd tearing sound as it was peeled loose. Then someone sat down on the floor beside me.

I turned my eyes up slowly but could not lift my head to see a face. Instead I saw a slender body clothed in a soft robe of white wool. Hands the color of old ivory pushed the cuffs of his sleeves up. The fingers were long and thin, the wrists bony. Then he rose abruptly to get something. For a time I was alone. I closed my eyes. When I opened them a wide vessel of blue pottery was by my head. Steam rose from it and I smelled willow and rowan. "Steady," said the voice, and for a moment one of those hands rested on my shoulder reassuringly. Then I felt spreading warmth on my back.

"I'm bleeding again," I whispered to myself.

"No. I'm soaking the shirt loose." Once again, the voice was almost familiar. I closed my eyes. A door opened and shut and a gust of cold air wafted across me. The man beside me paused. I felt him glance up. "You might have knocked," he said with mock severity. I felt again the warm trickle of water on my back. "Even one such as I occasionally has other guests."

Feet crossed hastily to me. Someone lowered herself fluidly to the floor beside me. I saw the folding of her skirts as she sank down. A hand pushed the hair back from my face. "Who is he, holy one?"

"Holy one?" There was bitter humor in his voice. "If you would speak of holes, you should speak of him, not me. Here, look at his back." He spoke softer then. "As to who he is, I have no idea."

I heard her give a gasp. "All of that is blood? How does he yet live? Let us get some warmth to him, and clean away the blood." Then she tugged at my mittens and dragged them free of my hands. "Oh, his poor hands, his fingers all gone black at the ends!" she exclaimed in horror.

That I did not want to see or know. I let go of everything.

For a time, it seemed as if I were a wolf again. I stalked an unfamiliar village, alert for dogs or anyone stirring about, but all was white silence and snow falling in the night. I found the hut I sought and prowled about it, but dared not enter it. After a time, it seemed I had done all I could about something. So I went hunting. I killed, I ate, I slept.

When I opened my eyes again, the room was washed with the pale light of day. The walls curved. I thought at first my eyes would not focus, and then I recognized the shape of a Mountain dwelling. Slowly I took in detail. Thick rugs of wool on the floor, simple wooden furniture, a window of greased hide. On a shelf, two dolls leaned their heads together beside a wooden horse and tiny cart. A huntsman puppet dangled in a corner. On a table were bits of brightly painted wood. I smelled the clean shavings and the fresh paint. Puppets, I thought. Someone was making puppets. I was belly down on a bed with a blanket over me. I was warm. The skin of my face and my hands and feet burned unpleasantly but that could be ignored, for the great pain that bored into my back took precedence. My mouth was not so dry. Had I drunk something? I seemed to recall the spill of warm tea in my mouth but it was not a definite memory. Feet in felted wool slippers approached my bed. Someone bent down and lifted the blanket off me. Cool air flowed across my skin. Deft hands moved over me, prodding the area around my wound. "So thin. Were he better fleshed, I'd say he had more chance," said an old woman's voice sadly.

"Will he keep his toes and fingers?" A woman's voice, close by. A young woman. I could not see her but she was near. The other woman bent over me. She handled my hands, bending the fingers and pinching at the ends of them. I winced and tried feebly to pull away. "If he lives, he'll keep his fingers," she said, not unkindly but factually. "They will be tender, for he must shed all the skin and flesh that was frozen. By themselves, they are not too bad. The infection in his back is what may kill him. There's something inside that wound. An arrowhead and part of the shaft by the look of it."

"Cannot you take it out?" Ivory-hands spoke from somewhere in the room.

"Easily," the woman replied. I realized she was speaking the tongue of Buck, with a Mountain accent. "But he will certainly bleed and he has not much blood left he can part with. And the foulness of his wound may spread in fresh-flowing blood to poison all his body." She sighed. "Would that Jonqui were alive still. She was very wise in this type of thing. It was she who pulled from Prince Rurisk the arrow that had pierced his chest. The wound bubbled with his very life's breath and still she did not let him die. I am not such a healer as she, but I will try. I will send my apprentice with a salve for his hands and feet and face. Rub his skin well with it each day, and do not be dismayed at the shedding of skin. As for his back, that we must keep a drawing poultice on, to suck the poisons from it as best we may. Food and drink you must get into him, as much as he will take. Let him rest. And a week hence, we will pull that arrow and hope he has built the strength to live through it, Jofron. Know you a good drawing poultice?"

"One or two. Bran and goosegrass is a good one," she offered.

"It will do well. Would that I could stay and tend him, but I have many another to see to. Cedar Knoll was attacked last night. A bird has come with tidings that many were injured before the soldiers were driven off. I cannot tend one and leave many. I must leave him in your hands."

"And in my bed," Ivory-hands said dolefully. I heard the door close behind the healer.

I drew in a deeper breath but found no strength to speak.

Behind me, I heard the man moving about the hut, the small sounds of water poured and crockery moved. Footsteps came closer. "I think he's awake," Jofron said softly.

I gave a small nod against my pillow.

"Try to get this down him, then," suggested Ivory-hands.

"Then let him rest. I shall return with bran and goosegrass for your poultice. And some bedding for myself, for I suppose he must stay here." A tray was passed over my body and came into my view. There were a bowl and a cup on it. A woman sat beside me. I could not turn my head to see her face, but the fabrics of her skirt were Mountain woven. Her hand spooned up a bit from the bowl and offered it to me. I sipped at it cautiously. Some sort of broth. From the cup wafted the scents of chamomile and valerian. I heard a door slide open, and then shut. I felt a waft of cold air move through the room. Another spoonful of broth. A third.