Deepwinter (© Biswapriya Purkayastha)
Page 2 High above his head, the sky was cloudless for the moment, except for long
wisps of cirrus, and brilliant moonlight rained down on the world. The moon
glittered on the snow, so that the land was brighter than the sky; it gleamed
on the ice that covered the stream down in the valley, and, when he breathed
out, it turned his breath into a gleaming cloud of tiny ice crystals. It was quite amazingly cold. It was the cold that got him going, because he could no longer bear the bite of
it settling through his thick clothing down into his bones. The cold was like a
living thing that twined about him, embraced him, and tried to draw him into
itself. He felt its teeth inside his lungs with every breath he took, gnawing
him from the inside. He felt its hands run over his body, testing him, prodding
and pinching. The cold promised death. The cold was death. It whispered to him,
and told him that it would claim him before the morning. It would have driven
him back into the shelter of the cave if he had waited another instant, so he
took one last look around and plunged down the slope towards the stream. Down where the frozen strip of water lay, the snows that had slid down the
sides of the valley all Deepwinter had hardened and packed themselves so that
it was like walking on a hard floor. His boots sank above the ankles in the previous
day’s fall of soft powdery snow. When he turned for one last look back at the
cave, he could see his footmarks imprinted deeply enough to show up in the
moonlight. Bekur had not left the cave without a specific destination in mind. He did not
plan to wander in the snow until exhaustion and exposure claimed him. He knew
of a place, far down the river where the cliffs arose on either side, where he
could stay alone, and hunt for himself, and live as long as he could, without
being a burden to anyone. It was a long walk, and he had not gone that way in
many a long year, but it was the place he had decided on, before he had ever
left the cave. He started walking along the side of the frozen river. The wind had begun to
rise, whipping along the ground, raising a fine flurry of snow as it blew. And
if he had thought the cold intense before, it was as nothing to what it was
like now; it sliced through his body like a million knives. The wind rose and
rose; when he looked up, he saw that the sky was now full of shredded clouds,
and the stars appeared and disappeared as though the wind was ripping them out
of the sky. It was clearly impossible to remain on the riverside, so, reluctantly, because
it was much harder going and would take up so much more time, he left the river
and went up the side of the valley into the shelter of the trees. He didn’t go
far into them, because it was dark there and because the snow was deep-piled
and treacherously slippery. He just moved far enough that the wind could not
get at him with quite the same force. On his right the moon still shone on the
frozen river, and the banks were white in the moonlight. It was all so white
and so beautiful that he paused again, and came to the edge of the trees, for a
good look, a thing of beauty to take with him to eternity should he not survive
the night. Because the wind stung his eyes if he looked down the river, he
chose to look back. There were footprints on the snow. He saw them at first without really noticing; the wind had blurred the prints
and brushed them mostly away. He looked at them and looked away at the moonlit
slopes across the river, then when he looked back the wind dropped a little and
he saw them. Then he thought that they were his own prints, but he had moved
off the bank long enough to have moved far too long a distance to be able to
see his own footprints now. Then he saw something else and the sight made him
feel a different kind of cold lay icy hands on his spine: the prints were still
being formed. Even as he watched, they were still being formed, but there were
no feet forming them. When he looked beyond them he could see the broad stretch
of the frozen river, and the forested sides of the valley, and in the distance,
he could just see the slopes where the caves of the Tribe were. Not for no reason had Bekur, in his youth, won renown as someone with the
bravery of a wild boar. As steadily as his old legs could bear him, he stepped
out on to the river bank and walked towards the advancing prints. As he did,
the wind stopped suddenly. As though a door had been closed somewhere, it
completely fell away. [ Continue to page 3 ] |