The flakes began to whisper down out of the sky shortly after dusk, at first just one or two, seeming to crystallize rather than fall. Then bigger flakes, and bigger, and a wind rising out of the north to drive them on. Around midnight the two sentries, seeing the snow starting to drift around and over the humped sleeping bags on the bare ground, decided to wake people up and make them shake themselves clear. The camp turned into a slow shuffle of exhausted men and women struggling out into the cold air, shaking their bags down, moving to a new spot, lying down, feeling the hard ground beneath them turn to slush under their own escaped body heat. They began to shuffle unconsciously to get into the lee of each other, the camp moving slowly piece by piece downwind.
Some time before dawn Shef, realizing what was happening, made a line of backpacks and raked snow over them to create a makeshift wall, putting the party behind that in ranks, the weakest in the middle and the strongest on the edges. Few people slept much for all that. Dawn broke on people tired, hungry, and still fireless.
There was no moving till the snow stopped, as it did after a few hours. They looked out then on a featureless white plain, the sun hidden behind clouds. Shef felt a momentary stab of doubt. During the night he had lost all sense of direction. With the sun hidden… He had heard that there was a kind of clear rock that so concentrated the rays that you could see the sun even through cloud, but there was none of it in this group.
He controlled his fear. Which way they went was no longer material. They had to find wood and shelter, and any way that led to that was good. Salvaging the skis from under the snow, he told Thorvin and Ceolwulf, their only skilled users, to go in different directions as far as was visible, to look for a break in the plateau.
Only after they had left did he think to count heads. They were one short. The missing woman was Godsibb, a fair, silent, sad girl, who had trudged along without complaint ever since they had taken her from Drottningsholm. Even Karli had not bothered to try his luck with her. She had never responded even to his good cheer. They found her body, a hump in the snow surprisingly far away, showing how much they had moved in the night.
“What did she die of?” asked Shef after they had swept the snow off the body with their hands.
“Cold. Exhaustion. Hunger,” said Hund. “People have different levels of resistance. She was a thin girl. Maybe her bag got damp. Nobody noticed her in the night and she fell into the snow-sleep. It is a peaceful way to go— better than the fate Queen Asa would have given her,” he added, trying to deflect Shef's self-criticism.
Shef looked at the worn face, too tired for a young girl's. “She came a long way to die here,” he said.
And in dying she had caused him a problem, too. Impossible to bury her in the frozen ground. Could they leave her in the snow, under the snow? It would look all right as they marched away, but no-one could avoid thinking of what would happen when the snow melted and left her exposed.
Hund touched Shef's arm and pointed silently. On a knoll a hundred yards away, a four-legged shape looked at them, then sat down to wait, tongue lolling. Others drifted up behind it, took in the situation, and sat or lay down.
There were different views about wolves. Some of the English were quite used to them, said they were hardly dangerous at all. Brand had contradicted that with his usual finality. “They'll pull you down,” he said. “Not frightened of people at all. Of course they won't attack a score of you, armed and together. Two men off in the forest, that's another story.”
The wolves meant they could not possibly leave Godsibb, not till they could find earth to lay her in, fire to soften it, and stones to pile on her grave. Carrying her would just weaken the carriers further. If they ended up with another corpse to carry, and another…
Shef called two men over, told them to tie her in her bag, attach ropes to it and drag her through the snow when they moved on. He waved aside Fritha's eager offer to shoot a wolf with his crossbow. Waste of a bolt. There would come a time when their need would be greater. Meanwhile the hunting bows had been lost in the night, put down on the ground and buried in the snow. Shef organized the party into a line and made them move back over the whole area they had covered in the night, back to where he thought was their original campsite, probing with feet and gloved hands. They found two of the four bows but only one quiver of arrows, also a set of skis and someone's discarded backpack. By then it might have been noon, and not a step advanced on their journey. A poor start for the first day of bad weather. Shef scowled at the man who had lost his pack, and rubbed the lesson home with harsh words.
“Keep everything by you. Or on you. Don't leave anything ever till the morning. Or there won't be a morning. And remember, your mother isn't with us!”
Thorvin and Ceolwulf were back, looking annoyingly warm and cheerful from hours of positive action.
“Head that way,” said Ceolwulf, pointing. “There's a dip, a valley going down, and what looks like trees a few miles off.”
Shef reflected. “All right,” he said. “Look. Just two of you might not be safe, with our new escorts. Pick four of the youngest and show them how to use these skis. Then take them forward, ahead of us. Even your beginners will be faster than people floundering in snow. When you get to the trees, break wood and bring back as much as you can carry. A fire will put heart into people, and make it easier for them to walk on. I will bring everyone on as fast as I can. Take care not to lose sight of us, and come back at once if the snow begins again.”
The skiers went ahead of them, Thorvin and Ceolwulf calling advice and helping fallers to their feet. Shef and the rest, sixteen of them towing one body, kept on trudging forward, occasionally stumbling into drifts. The snow crept down boots and inside mittens.
Piruusi the Finn reveled in the snow, the first fall of the year, early and welcome. He had left his snug skin tent at dawn, watered the bone runners of his sleigh and left them to ice, wiped his face and his skis with yellow reindeer-fat, and skimmed away, bow in hand. He hoped for ptarmigan or Arctic hare, but anything would be welcome, even nothing. Winter was the time of release for the Finns, and if it came early, then their ancestral spirits looked kindly on them.
As he swept up to and past the tent of old Pehto, the shaman, Pehto came out and hailed him. Piruusi stopped, frowning. Pehto was too powerful with the spirits to vex, but he called always for attention, respect, food and fermented milk.
Not this time. Capering professionally and shaking his rattle, Pehto nevertheless for once spoke sense. “To the west, Piruusi great hunter, lord of the reindeer. To the west, something comes. Something with power, Piruusi, and a god's disfavor. Aiiee!” And he began a manic stamping dance, which Piruusi ignored.
Nevertheless he swung out of the low birch wood, its leaves already turning brown from the first frost, and pushed up the gentle slope to the west. His skis hissed smoothly across the snow, Piruusi moving without thought and without effort. Ski-poles were slung across his back, but on anything less than a full slope he had no need of them. More important to hold the bow and arrow, ready for a shot at any moment. One lived in the winter wild by preying on every opportunity. Never turning down a chance.
