Served Cold...5 liters...
“You’re going to lose toes trying to walk back to the village barefoot through all this half frozen muck, but that’s a done deal. I’m betting you can’t feel them now, even when you move them around, and that’s bad enough, but unlike you I can see them. Your toes are turning tomato red and that’s the first stage of frost bight. Pretty soon they’ll turn other colors and then you are going to feel them like you’ve never felt anything in your entire life. Along with your fingers they will become the most important parts of your body as they swell and throb and ache. After that though they’ll lose feeling altogether but that means they’ve died like baby rabbits in an abandoned den. Those little digits will become your worst enemy, they’ll have to be cut off or they’ll rot and spread diseases around in your blood. I’ve seen men die that way in the village. Short of being set on fire and surviving it for a time I can’t imagine a worse way to die slow. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about, I was apprenticed to the village doctorman, some don’t survive getting them cut off, the wounds go bad and wind up smelling like cheese that’s gone off, next comes the feet and hands, then the arms and legs. You survive enough amputations and succumb to enough infections you’ll die looking like a human stump with a scream permanently etched on your face.”
“If you’re gonna kill me, little boy, you best just get it done with cause I ain’t saying shit!”
“I think you’re rather missing the point, little man. I didn’t bring you out here to talk. I’m going to do most of the talking and when I’m done you’re doing to do the one thing I brought you out here to do.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”
Garrett bent down and added the jacket to the building fire and the man cursed at him. Garrett only laughed at the outburst. “We’re pretty far out, you’re going to have to do better than that. Trust me, the cold will get you up to the right timber, I’m just here to provide the pitch.”