So Kalus cut, and they both carried, till she thought her back would break and Kalus die, where he stood, of exertion. She could not know that what pained him far more than the ceaseless labor (he had worked as hard before) was the fact that he was using all his spiritual, as well as physical reserves.
Because a man can work as hard and diligently as he must, to the extreme limits that mind and body will endure, so long as he has a reason, and a need to do so. And when it is done to provide food and shelter for the lives entrusted to his care, he can work harder and more selflessly still. But take away his reason, his hope for some kind of betterment, however distant, and the strongest, most determined man becomes rootless and lethargic. Tasks and dangers he thought little of before, become as tedious and harrowing as a literal fight for life. Kalus continued because he knew, as every animal does, that he must continue. But as the work sapped his strength and the emotional wound caused by the death of Skither bled unchecked, he became first weary, then angry, then through the ceaseless, hopeless repetition, empty and indifferent.
Sometimes when he felt weakest he would look at the girl, and remember the beautiful thing they had shared. And for a time these memories of warmth and desire would sustain him. But soon all fantasies of a peaceful and prosperous future became nothing more to him than a carrot dangling at the end of a stick, though he possessed no such metaphor to help him understand. And he had no psychologist to tell him that by submerging his grief and distancing himself from the girl he was hurting himself, and stifling the healing forces of time and close companionship. He cut, and carried, and shaped and fitted, sometimes in blinding snow, stopping during daylight hours only to hunt, or to look over what had been done. Because he had no choice.
And slowly the shelter went up. Pine and birch and gnarled oak, he laid them down and made a refuge of their bones, as dark thoughts tormented him.
But the shelter went up. And the night the frame was completed, and all work done save the filling in of cracks, the heaviest storm of the season moved in and piled three feet of snow outside it, blocking them in with drifts up to twice that high. Without warning or ceremony, their new home had been christened.
The next morning Kalus had not the strength to force open the frozen door, and sat alone by the fire for hours, speaking to no one, feeling nothing but weak and shivery exhaustion. The Cold World, which he had said he loved, was upon them.
Chapter 17
That night the two slept together for the first time since word of Skither's fall. Kalus had no strength even to touch, and was moved not at all by his lover's gentle caresses and quiet words, nor even by the tears he wiped apologetically from her eyes as she said, 'I understand.' From this more than any other token, he knew that the blows absorbed of a lifetime had finally taken their toll. He was like a hurt fighter, hanging on, half waiting for the knockout blow.
He woke feeling little bitter, his emotions still dazed and floundering, to find the girl reading quietly on the stairs that led to the silent altar. The sight reminded him of their first meeting, when he had nearly died a physical death. Perhaps this dull anguish was not as bad…..
Then he saw Kamela, and his hopelessness returned. It was almost as if she longed for death, in any form. There was no other way to read the blank despair of her eyes. Akar rested stoically beside the girl, his own thoughts hidden from view. Only the pup was stirring, poking impatiently at her mother's underside and whining plaintively for food. None had eaten meat for several days, and the she-wolf's undamaged breasts were dry.