When they reached the sentry post, they stopped long enough for Zenain and Ekakios to speak to the men on duty, and for the Torians to collect their little leather bags, then carried on.
It should have felt momentous, but it didn’t. There was no great sense of relief at their escape, and Finnvid didn’t feel anything from his men, either. The truth was, being a Torian prisoner really hadn’t been that bad.
It could have been. If the warlord hadn’t protected the men from interrogation, or if Theos had been a different sort of man. Everything could have been much worse for all of them. But as it was, they were leaving relative safety behind, heading into danger that couldn’t be controlled by strategy or human decency.
It was a sobering thought. Sixteen Elkati, twelve Torian regulars, and twelve Sacrati, plus an innocent Torian shepherdess, facing weeks in the harsh, icy wilderness just because Finnvid had said so. He hoped they wouldn’t regret following him.
The dusting of snow on the valley floor turned into knee-high drifts as they started climbing the slope of the mountain, and soon the Torians broke out the oversized, sinew-latticed “snow flats” that they strapped to the bottom of their boots for easier walking in deep snow. They’d insisted on supplying a pair for all the Elkati travelers, and there was a bit of a break as Finnvid and his soldiers discovered how to walk with their feet wider apart and without catching their toes with every step. After this, the Torians took turns blazing the trail, moving in a slow shuffling jog which seemed effortless to them but left Finnvid struggling to keep up.
There was more jockeying for position around midday when Zenain decided it was time to stop for lunch and gave the order without consulting Gunnald or Ekakios. The Torian regulars unslung their packs and started to find food while Finnvid’s men looked torn and the Sacrati watched in amusement. They’d been snacking as they marched, Finnvid had noticed; he’d seen Theos sharing food with the shepherdess. And they were probably too fit to need a break from simple walking.
“You’re on Torian land,” Zenain said to Gunnald. “You’re our guests, yes, but guests eat when the meals are served, not when it suits them.”
“This isn’t an ideal place to stop,” Ekakios observed. “Prime avalanche territory . . . see how there’s no trees?”
“This isn’t avalanche weather!” Zenain snapped at him.
Finnvid thought he was right, but Ekakios just shrugged. “The Sacrati will scout ahead.” He gestured across the open slope where they were perched, to where the trees started growing again. “We’ll see what the trail looks like. And if the snow comes down, maybe we’ll be able to dig you out.”
“Fine,” Zenain sneered. “Suit yourselves.”
Finnvid wished there was a way he could go with the Sacrati. He wasn’t worried about an avalanche, but he was pretty sure he’d prefer their company.
Not that they wanted his. At least, Theos certainly didn’t, and even though he was no longer the formal leader of the group, the others were apparently following his example. After their initial greeting, they’d kept away from him, keeping to themselves and treating him like an outsider. Still, they’d once been friendly, if not quite friends.
He turned back to his own men and saw one of them watching the shepherdess as she bent to pull something out of her pack. The man noticed Finnvid scowling at him and quickly averted his eyes.
Finnvid felt almost guilty as he swiveled his head toward Theos and saw the man watching the exchange. Theos’s frown seemed to be directed at Finnvid as much as at the errant Elkati soldier, and Finnvid returned the expression. He wouldn’t take responsibility for a man happening to glance at an attractive woman, and if Theos didn’t like it, that was Theos’s problem.
His indignation allowed him to turn his back on the departing Sacrati and hunt through his pack for his own food. The Torians made a sort of biscuit, mostly just corn flour held together with fruit and animal fat, that they swore by for winter travel. But as much as Finnvid trusted the Torian expertise on all things practical, he couldn’t bring himself to eat the “cakes.” He’d tried it twice, back in the city when the supplies were being put together, and had gagged as soon as his teeth sank into the gritty lard. He’d seen the other Elkati react the same way. The cakes might have everything their bodies needed to stay healthy in winter conditions, but they wouldn’t do much good if the Elkati couldn’t get the food into their stomachs. So he’d filled his pack with dried food and hoped for the best.
After their short break they set out again, the Torians seemingly inexhaustible, the Elkati starting to drag. By the time they reached a clearing in the forest and paused to regroup, Finnvid decided it was time for him to look after his men, and himself. “This seems like a good camping site,” he observed, careful to speak to the air somewhere between Zenain and Ekakios. “And the sun’s getting low. Should we stop here and set up camp?”
Both men grudgingly agreed, and the Sacrati almost immediately disappeared into the woods, spread out in various directions, apparently on some secret mission. They were away longer than the firewood they returned with justified, but Finnvid was too happy to see the start of a fire to think about them too much.
He helped Gunnald set up the tent they’d agreed to share. It had been scavenged from the equipment the Elkati had been carrying when they’d been captured, so at least he knew what he was doing with it. He sensed some of the Torians watching him and the other Elkati with curiosity, and it soothed his pride. The Torians might be physically superior, but they weren’t innovators. They were probably still sleeping in tents that were little more than a canvas thrown over a tree-tied rope. The Elkati tents were carefully designed, vastly superior—
Then he noticed that the Torians weren’t setting up tents at all. They’d made a long, narrow fire down the centre of the clearing, nestled some snow-filled cookpots into the flames, and now they were just sitting around. Well, no. A couple of them were busy, working away with shovels and the snow.
Andros approached him carefully, almost reluctantly. “The tents are fine,” he said, “as long as it doesn’t get too cold or windy. But if we hit a storm, you’ll all have to den up. Do you know what that means?”
Finnvid stared at the digging men. They were making man-sized tunnels in the snow . . . “You’re going tosleepin those?”
“Snow’s a good insulator. It’s nice to have a tent or two so there’s somewhere with space to move that’s out of the wind. But for sleeping, we den up.”
“You stay warm by burying yourselves in snow?”
“Aye. When we stay in one place for a while—like for our Sacrati initiation—we build a whole house out of snow, and it’s warm enough to strip down and bathe in, and to sleep in with just a couple blankets. Quite comfortable, really.” Andros kicked at the white stuff on the ground. “Horrible for traveling through, but very useful for living in. ‘A winter without snow is a cold winter indeed.’”
“We have the same expression,” Finnvid said. “But I think we mean it differently.”
Andros shrugged. “So, den up,” he concluded. “We can show you how. Also . . .” He lowered his voice a little. “Good job earlier. Suggesting the campsite.” He made a face in the direction of the Torian leaders. “I think those two are going to be a bit of a problem. Playing games, competing . . . there’s no energy to spare for that nonsense. If your men or you need a break,youneed to call for it. If anything else needs to be decided, you decide it. Don’t get sucked into their games. Aye?”
“Aye,” Finnvid agreed. “But . . . well, I know when my men are tired. But I don’t know enough about winter travel to be in charge of any real decisions.”
“We’ll try to give you suggestions,” Andros said. “Quietly, though.”
“We?” Finnvid asked. He tried not to sound pathetically hopeful. And itwaspathetic, this desperate need he had for Theos’s approval, or for any sort of contact with the man. Even the frown from earlier had beensomething, because Theos had at least acknowledged Finnvid’s existence.
