Magnus Frostbeard's Arc

Chapter 3 of 15

By midday the wind turned mean. It drove ice into their faces and stole the last gray light. Magnus watched his crew stumble. Frost Thornpaw dragged his paws. Greta's steps grew short and heavy. Frost Winterchase swayed on her feet, blade forgotten at her side. They had walked all night and all day with no rest. Magnus knew the truth in his gut. Push on into the dark, and someone would misstep on the ice and never rise. "We stop," Magnus said. "We build shelter here." Greta looked at the open plain. "Stop where? There's no rock, no cave. Nothing." Magnus knelt and pressed his gloved hand into the snow. It was deep and packed hard. He grinned under his frozen beard. "We don't need rock. We cut the snow itself." He pulled the short saw from his belt and sawed a block free. It held its shape, solid and square. Greta understood. She dropped to her knees beside him and clawed out blocks with her huge hands. Thornpaw shaped them with his claws. Winterchase laid her palm on each one and named the ones too soft to trust. They worked in a ring, stacking the blocks inward, leaning each course tighter than the last. The wind fought them the whole time. Twice a wall slumped and they built it again. Magnus packed loose snow into every seam. His arms burned. His crew said nothing, only cut and stacked and cut again. Slowly the dome rose. They left a low crawl hole facing away from the wind. Winterchase crawled inside first and laid both hands on the walls. "Solid," she said. "It will hold the night." They packed in shoulder to shoulder. The wind screamed outside, but inside the air went still and warm from their own breath and bodies. Magnus dug the blankets from his pack. He shook out the thick winter ones and passed them around. At the bottom sat a small quilt, sewn from a hundred bright squares. His daughter had made it for him before he left. He hesitated, then wrapped it around Winterchase's shaking shoulders. She stared at the cheerful patches, so out of place in the frozen dark. "Why give me this?" "You read the ice all night," Magnus said. "You keep us alive. Rest now." He shrugged off his heavy leather coat and draped it over Thornpaw and Greta both. One by one his crew went slack and slept. Magnus stayed awake a while, listening to the wind claw the walls that held. He pulled out his map and marked the shelter's spot with his charcoal stub. A safe camp. One more mark on the blank half of the chart. Then a sound cut through the wind. Winterchase's eyes snapped open. She sat up, quilt sliding from her shoulders, and pointed her blade at the crawl hole. "Hooves," she whispered. "On the ice. Coming this way."