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Shepherd wasn’t sure if he was going to live to see the coming day.
It was a terrifying thought, but one that rang loud and true, reverberating around his skull, the only one left after the numbing, freezing cold had purged everything else from him. He clung to Sarnax’s lantern like a lifeline, because it was. Without the lantern, he would die. He knew that.
The sound of teeth chattering, wind howling, and slow staggering footsteps were the only ones he could hear. Through the swirling snow, he could see Clayton and Victoria leaning on each other. Under each of his arms, Sarnax and Kana supported Shepherd’s own dead weight. The exhausted, half-frozen tiefling could barely move his legs anymore, and it terrified him.
He was going to die here.
Shepherd had a feeling that he might have started to panic if he’d had the energy to spare, but fortunately for his already fragile state of mind, he was sluggish and slow, unable to walk or even hold his own head up, let alone spiral into a panic attack that would do nothing but waste the precious breath he fought so hard to take in, lungs screaming in protest at the cold dry air that made his chest ache and seize, causing weak coughs that only exacerbated the pins and needles that prickled under his skin. He didn’t have the time for fear.
And yet, here he was, descending into madness in his own mind, stuck in the freezing cold with nothing but his racing thoughts.
He worried that he would never make it off this mountain. If he couldn’t go on, he didn’t have a problem with his friends leaving him for dead to save themselves— in fact, he preferred it. They were strong enough to take care of themselves without him now; no need to waste their valuable energy and resources looking after him when the cold would take him soon enough anyway. He understood that.
But that didn’t mean it didn’t scare him.
From the time he’d listened to his parents’ final desperate, tortured screams, dying the most painful death he could imagine surrounded by cruel people who believed in strict law imposed on families who were just trying to live their lives, Shepherd had been terrified of dying alone. It was a silly, childish fear; he knew he would end up that way, after all. The doc had many good years left in him yet, but he wouldn’t make it until Shepherd himself was an old man. There was no one else in Rattlesnake who would give him the time of day, let alone sit with him in his final hour, take care of him until and after he passed. His parents hadn’t gotten that treatment, and he knew he wouldn’t, either; no one would spare a glance or a kind word for a devil.
But it was scary, and it sounded so lonely. He didn’t want to die here, in the cold, slowly letting the snow and ice take him, his body getting buried in it as it accumulated in drifts on top of him, until all he could feel was wet and cold, and he began to shut down. The idea shook Shepherd down to his very core. If he had had the strength, he would’ve clung to Sarnax tighter, if only to reassure himself that his friend wouldn’t leave him to such a slow, tormented demise.
That wasn’t the only reason Shepherd was so desperate to make it off this mountain alive, though. He wanted nothing more than to go home, to leave Barovia, return to Rattlesnake, and see his father again. He needed to hug the doc, to tell him he loved him, to thank him for taking in an orphan and raising him to be a good, strong man who could take care of himself, even in a place like this; for showing him love and kindness, and for teaching him a deep respect for all those who walked the earth, from the biggest beasts to the tiniest insects.
The doc needed to know how much Shepherd appreciated him. He had to know how much he cared.
He thought back to the way he’d sauntered off the porch all those months ago, bursting with confidence, a smile playing on his lips and laughter bubbling up from his chest as he waved goodbye. He wished he’d made his departure mean more. Shepherd would never forgive himself if he died without telling his father how much he loved him.
Tears stung at his eyes all of a sudden, and he squeezed his eyelids shut in protest, feeling how the water instantly turned to ice on his skin, making it difficult to blink them open again as his eyes were practically frozen shut. He saw Victoria stumble ahead of them, saw the professor catch her, heard him hiss in pain through clenched teeth as she collided with his frozen, half-numb body, heard his weak voice call, “Keep m-moving, Azran Expedition. We will make it t-to the Amber T-T-Temple. We have to.”
We have to, Shepherd told himself, chanting the words again and again in his head like a mantra. We have to. We have to save Barovia. I have to see the Doc again.
He tightened his grip on Sarnax’s lantern, fighting through the numbness and the pain to do so, and suddenly the notion struck him that it might help to pray.
Shepherd wasn’t quite sure where the idea came from. Maybe Sarnax had given it to him unintentionally— or intentionally, knowing him— maybe he had planted the seed in Shepherd’s mind. It was probable that Sarnax was the reason that he, feeling as if he was knocking on death’s door, stuck on this cold, cold mountain, would think of Gherix, a being of light and warmth.
Warmth. Shepherd wished he could feel warm again.
So he closed his eyes and prayed to the only one he could think of that could make it happen.
Gherix, he said hesitantly in his mind, feeling a little stupid but hoping against hope that he wasn’t, can you even hear me if I don’t talk out loud? I hope you can. If you can, please, please get us through this alive. We gotta save this place and go home. I gotta see the Doc again.
He didn’t receive a response the way Sarnax might have, in the form of a flickering or undulating flame, popping sparks, or a sense of weal or woe. It was hard, so hard, for Shepherd to believe he’d gotten through, that Gherix had heard his desperate prayer, when he seemed to show no acknowledgment of his pleas. He exhaled sharply through his nose and closed his eyes and tried to have faith.
Even the doc would’ve told him to have faith, Shepherd thought with a weak ghost of a chuckle that was lost to the wind and snow. He’d never been a particularly pious man, but would often mention proverbs and verses of some god whose name slipped through Shepherd’s fingers like sand. He wished he’d paid more attention.
Firelord, please, he thought again, his desperation growing with every passing second. He forced his eyes open with the last of his strength and saw that where there hadn’t been minutes before was a ravine, becoming visible to him as they crested over a small ridge in the mountainscape. Shepherd hadn’t noticed the thrum of the river below growing louder until now, too wrapped up in his thoughts and too belabored by the effort it took just to stay alive, but it positively roared now, sending a fine misty spray arcing through the frigid air, some of it even turning to snow as the wind buffeted it. In minutes, he was soaked to the skin, icy water dripping and freezing on the end of his nose and his hair and even his tail. He tried to tighten his grip on Sarnax, who now held the lantern against Shepherd’s chest with his own shaking hand, though the weary tiefling didn’t remember when that had happened.
He was so cold. Clayton said something, and Shepherd tried to listen, he really did; but exhaustion crept into him, right down to his very bones, and he just couldn’t focus. Sarnax and Kana, on either side of him, helped ease his dead weight to the ground, and Shepherd wished he could move, could warm up, could breathe without coughing in the air so cold it made his chest ache and spasm in pure agony. He huddled against Sarnax’s side, but he felt no heat— the lizardfolk’s robes were soaked through, his exposed scales coated in a thin film of ice, and he was shivering just as much as Shepherd himself, razor-sharp teeth chattering loudly in his ear. Minutes passed, and he didn’t feel any warmer.
“Sarnax,” he tried to say, but he got no response. His voice came out raspy and quiet, a small, creaking thing, unable to be heard even by the lizardfolk’s keen ears. Sarnax’s trembling hands pressed the lantern into Shepherd’s chest where he himself failed to do so, but he still just couldn’t warm up.
He heard his best friend saying something, heard him mention the Firelord’s name through the screaming wind. Shepherd couldn’t help but perk up. Had he heard his prayers? Was he going to intervene, to save them? It felt childish and irrational, to put so much trust and faith in a higher power, but Shepherd didn’t know what other choice he had at this point.
He thought about the doc, waiting for him at home on the ranch, and focused hard on that. He forcibly cast out thoughts of snow and ice and vampires and mist, and he focused on his family, on the doc and the horses and chickens and his room in the loft at the old ranch and his father’s workshop where he’d grown up being taught and chastised in equal measure. He remembered rooms full of laughter and light, remembered how much the doc loved him, even if it was rare he would show it in any conventional way. Shepherd thought about how the doc showed his love, with time quietly spent together doing separate tasks while coexisting, a hearty meal to come home to, fussing over the smallest wounds, with a little bit of scolding for being careless enough to get himself hurt in the first place.
And he felt warm.
Heat flooded through Shepherd’s body with all the suddenness of a bulette in a china shop. His eyes flew open in utter shock and he was terrified and fascinated in equal measure to find he was surrounded by flames. In a perfect ring, the red and gold fire of Gherix blazed around their expedition, huddled on the ground, leaning against one another. His prayers had been answered.
Following the sudden heat, though, was utter agony. Shepherd gritted his teeth as ice melted from his hair and clothes, turning to steam and evaporating to join the mist outside their little circle of warmth. He pressed into Sarnax, for security if nothing else, as his nerves were positively set ablaze by the fast and shocking rise in temperature.
Shepherd shifted as feeling began to return to his limbs, painful as it was. A groan slipped from his open mouth and he looked up at Sarnax, meeting his red eyes with a bleary, exhausted gaze.
“Sarnax,” he croaked, voice coming out weak and raspy. “S’warm.”
“It is,” Sarnax replied, a smile in his words, and, blinking, Shepherd could see it, too— the slightest upturn at the corner of his mouth, a glint in his eye he only got around fire. “Yes, Shepherd, it certainly is.”
“I-it hurts,” he mumbled without thinking, merely voicing what was on his mind— agony ripped through him like a roaring wildfire, after all, his body heating up far too quickly from its previously frozen state. Sarnax gingerly pulled the lantern away from his chest.
“Gherix has given us warmth,” he murmured. “Destruction brings renewal, Shepherd, remember. It will do you well in the long run. Just breathe.”
Shepherd did. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, then let it out. His racing thoughts slowed, and though the pain lessened only slightly, still burning and ripping through him like every nerve in his body had been branded with a hot iron, he breathed through it, knowing that once he was warm, he would be able to move again, to enter the temple and find out what exactly was going on here. He would kill Strahdanya, and go home to the doc, to his family. He had to.
He lifted his head as the pain slowly faded, offering Sarnax a crooked grin. “Thanks, buddy. Let’s go on in.”