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In that moment old Kirtee’s words came back to her, of the thing that came out on the mountain in winter nights, the tale she’d laughed at earlier in the day. Suddenly, though it was still completely absurd, it didn’t seem such a joke any longer.

Holding so tightly to Aachi’s fur that the calf squirmed, Santi began dragging her down the mountain.

She didn’t need to worry about losing her way now, of course. The flickering glow of the tribe’s fires marked the pass, and the closer she got, the more she anticipated settling back into place beside Aanjn, holding on to Aachi, and carrying on in the morning as if nothing had happened.

And nothing had happened. Nothing, really, she told herself. She’d found Aachi, and everything was back to normal – or would be when they got back to camp.

She was so eager to get back to the camp that she was almost down to the pass before she realised that the fires were far too bright.

When she’d left – surely hours ago – the fires had been burning low, with nobody awake to stoke them. By now, all there should be left were embers. But they were burning brighter – much brighter – than ever, and there were more of them. There were so many more of them.

And there were the noises; the shouting of men’s voices, the terrified bleating of the herd – and the screaming. There was so much screaming.

Santi stood on the slope above the pass, appalled, unable to move, watching the mountain bandits at work. By the time she saw them, they’d already wiped out most of the men of the tribe, and were finishing off the last ones. She watched the witchman pulled forward, struggling to free himself. There was a flash of a large sword, and the old man’s head went rolling in a spray of blood. Other bandits were already leading off the herd, and a third group had rounded up the surviving women. Santi tried to look away, but couldn’t, as they got to work on the women. They didn’t spare anyone, not even old Kirtee. She couldn’t even look away when they dragged Aanjn into the middle of a circle and began to work on her. She leaned over and vomited on the hillside, vomited out the grain the older woman had given her earlier, but she couldn’t look away.

If she’d had the torch with her, if she’d brought a burning brand from the fire to light her way, they would have seen her then. They could not have failed to see her, frozen to the spot with shock up on the hill. But she was in darkness, and the leaping flames concealed her by blinding them to the slopes above.

And then, at last, it was over. Picking up what they hadn’t destroyed, the last bandits walked into the darkness downhill. Only the fires still burned in the pass, lighting the slaughtered bodies. Santi – finally finding her limbs working again – began walking stiffly down towards the remnants of the camp, the remnants of the tribe.

She never reached them.

Something came out of the night. It came from the side, silent as the snow, fast as the wind, and Santi saw it out of the corner of her eye, too late to attempt to run, even if she would have wanted to. Aachi struggled, trying to escape, but Santi’s grip on her fur was still as grim as ever, and she could only bleat in terror.

Santi felt no terror. She looked up at the thing towering above her, and she felt no fear. She felt nothing.

It was a thing of darkness and the wind, with fangs of ice and fur of congealed frost. Its eyes were cold as starlight, its claws dark as frozen slush. When it moved, it was as though the night came alive. When it spoke, it was as though the winter itself had found a voice.

"Who are you?" it asked, and its voice came from somewhere far, far away, somewhere so distant and so old that to it the sun and moon were close and new.

Santi was not conscious about having answered, but she must have said something, because the thing stared down at her, its razor-sharp jaws working. "When winter comes, I rise from the air and the stars, the ice and the ground," it said. "And I put to flight all who see me, so that even those who might think of me in passing are filled with such terror they would prefer to believe I do not exist. But you are not like that. I can feel no fear in you. Why not?"

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