The Shawl of Snowflakes, Chapter 1 Temur's Hunt,

 .........somewhere in the Heartless Waste

There is no land more savage and more remote than the northern reaches of Cerilia, the Heartless Waste beckons a wanderer. To a loner set on his own survival these frozen lands are an affront, for the very notion of the long dark and cold suggests that a man alone stands no chance. The strengths and resources of many is what is needed to endure the embrace of the North: a comrade's hand, when one has fallen through the ice; a welcoming yurt when one has succumbed to snow blindness; a small settlement when one has been starving and the hunt has been impossible. Yet it is to the loner that the North is the most appealing: it offers an unrivaled vastness of white and meaningful solitude. Also, a person not born into the North, no matter how acclimatized and skilled in the art of braving the frozen wilderness he becomes, will forever remain a 'southerner' for the natives, and therefore an outsider. Reject this station – and he will certainly die; accept it – and in your position of an observer and a humble student of the northerners, you shall discover the world where the barbarian tribes hunt and make war in the foothills of the Drachenward, and where Karesha's reign is contested only by more ancient, if just as malicious, powers. For nothing is benevolent in the North. It is an ultimate test for your strength and your will.

The hound looped back and returned to stare at Temur with her distant yellow eyes. This weighing unafraid gaze belied her bloodlines: she was a half-wolf, fiercer and moodier than any dog. Every time they hunted in those foothills, Temur thought that the sallow bitch tested her master's prowess against the voice of the wilderness. He looked directly into his dog's eyes until she gave a lazy wag of her shaggy tail. Then, unhurriedly, she went on her winding way between the sparse poplars.

For a short moment, the hunter stared after his companion, envying the light footfalls of the wide paws and, at the same time, trying to see if the jagged edges of the icy crust cut the dog's feet. Then Temur tagged at the leather harness, which cress-crossed his shoulders and was strapped to the sledge with a deer carcass. Frozen, the leather straps were as hard as the iron blade of his spear, and with a monotonous motions of the skier, they rubbed even through his fur-lined jacket. Wearily, he thought of the warmth of his hides-covered hut and the salted tea with chunks of fat in it that would take the chill away from his bones; and of his wife's fingers that would take away the numbness from his shoulders. Ghoa was awkward, but she knew well how to soothe him. He had married a fine woman – strong and quiet, and heavy with their fifth child just now. Temur chuckled and pressed forward, his wide snow shoes and laden sledge leaving deep regular trails in the powdery snow.

Temur pulled for a while, trying to find his way between the hills, to avoid climbing their steep slopes. The white sun above was listless and spared no warmth to the Spine of the World: it was growing colder, and the silence of the forest was turning into the frigid stillness. The cold stole the limbs of the unwary. Even worse, the cold seeped into a man's mind and led it away to the world of the white dreams, leaving the limp body behind to freeze. To keep his mind awake Temur started humming an uncomplicated song of an Chambui hunter. A song like that would be merely a diversion in the summer; in the winter it was a litany of life: a simple tune that jumped from his thoughts to the things that a hunter sees in passing.

This winter is cruel, worse than the last five winters. I walked in the foothills for two days before I killed the Master Deer. A proud Deer, a Warrior among his Herd with three-years antlers, thick red blood and yellow fat. The poplar trees look like pale gold of the dwarves from under the mountains when they come to trade it for deermeat and herbs. My father's father gathers herbs in the spring

and summer. I wish it was spring again and my first-wife had born me my third-son.

When the shadows started to lengthen, the dark clouds left their high seat on the jagged ridge of the Spine, rolled down the mountain slopes and spread across the sky. Temur sighed derisively, regretting that he would not reach his yurt for another day, but not surprised in the least. Winter blizzards came and went as they would in the foothills. The hunter searched the forest for a place to set up a shelter before the wind picked up and, before long, he made a small prayer of thanks to the Irakhain. A recent slide had ripped a hill slope and the fresh rounded hole stood bare under the overhanging bluff, red with clay among the whiteness of snow, like a bloody wound left on a polar goat carcass' by a bear's bite. The sliding soil took along the trees, uprooting and shearing poplar and fir alike. Near the bottom of the hill where the displaced soil mass had come to a stop, there was a tangle of broken branches, boulders, ice and dirt. But one trunk stood, cracked at Temur shoulder's height, dropping its short northern branches set with waxed needles to one side.

Throwing wary glances at the blackening skies, Temur went to work. He dug shallow snow from underneath of the broken tree and cut the branches to make just enough room for his body - a bigger

shelter steals warmth, not offers it. He set the sledge on its side to make a windbreaker and collected more branches to cover the frozen dirt and set a fire after the worst of the storm would pass.

The snowflakes froze together in flight and slipped by; so did the hours. The wind howled, trapped between the low clouds and frozen earth. Huddled under the branches and blanket, Temur and the dog listened to the stranded element. When the night had diminished, and the feeble dawn slapped back the dark clouds, the she-dog climbed out of their makeshift den. She joined its voice to the winds, but crawled back inside quickly, bringing chill and icy breath of the blizzard with her.

Temur slept and awoke again only to the silence of the early evening. The storm was over, leaving the air tingling with cold and the land and tree embroidered with the myriad of crystal-clear ice beads, festoons and other decorations. Temur sensed a woman's hand in the fanciful and delicate beauty of it: Karesha's hand. The hunter smiled, imagining the severe goddess of winter and cold leaning over the world, just like Ghoa would lean over a canvass with her needles and colorful threads. Once she entered his thoughts, she would not leave. Grinning and savoring the vision of a healthy boy wrapped in a blanket all covered with red and black embroidery in his mother's arms, Temur went about setting a fire. When it took, he extended his stiffened fingers toward it and sang to the flames, praising and coaxing them to grow taller. Afraid to offend the spirits of the wind and snow, or even Karesha herself, Temur slyly commended the elements as well; even if in his heart he did not feel grateful for the storm. The she-wolf lifted her nose to the washed-out twilight skies – twilight, because neither darkness nor light was ever complete in the long northern winters - sniffed the air in. She did not howl this time. Instead it crouched and growled. Seeing that, Temur went immediately into a crouch himself, hefting his hunting spear.

The man and the dog saw the glow of the sky at the same moment; the she-dog's coarse hair stiffened and rose on her back. Sweat beaded on Temur's brow: the ancestors did not dance in the high halls of Irakhain, coloring the skies above with their festive fires to share the joy of the ever-hunt with their kin. They had come back to Vosgaard – or so it seemed, for the northern lights crested and then rolled down the neighboring hill. Coming closer. "What would the forbearers want of me?" Temur thought,

"They must have taken me for my father's father, Onggur the Shaman." His hand eased on the spear and he spoke comfortingly to the dog, but did not fool the bitch: she sensed that her master was nervous about pointing out to the Forbearers their mistake. The silence of the world was absolute, as the pair of hunters waited tensely for the glow to approach them. At length, Temur saw the Forebears. A Forbearer. Despite what the legends said, the ancestor did not dance in the lights. It was nothing more than one small figure sitting cross-legged on a crystal sedan chair. Temur was more impressed by the entourage: six metal clad armoured men served as the spirit's chair bearers.. It was frightening to see that and Temur had no doubt that only a Deathpriest could do such thing in the afterlife – could harness the flares of the heavens. Temur hoped that the strange procession would pass by, but the figure tapped one of the huge armoured figures on the shoulder and pointed them toward Temur.

It was a little girl, Temur thought at first, but when he looked closer he saw a grown-up, slim in size and short in height. She sat sloughing, the right shoulder rising almost to her jaw, and the left dropping. All of her attention seemed to be focused on her blue-nailed fingers rolling the edge of a thick shawl that draped the midget's legs in loose heavy folds. Finally, she lifted her head. He shivered: there was no eye apples or pupils, just two lidless ovals covered by opaque film that reflected the colorful lights of dark shimmering night sky. The woman was blind.

Northern tribers left what few deformed children born to them as offerings to whatever gods wanted them – perhaps they took one and elevated her to be their messenger. The woman raised a hand, and a wide sleeve rolled back, showing a bony hand. Sinuous crystal bracelets rolled along it, from the wrist to elbow, chiming softly.

"You praised the Frostmaiden and her creations." the woman intoned and Temur could not chase away the impression that the dead eyes scrutinized him. "Then why do you offend her by keeping the ravager?" She pointed at the red flower of fire at his feet. Temur did not know if he was more afraid to lie or to tell the truth to a Priestess of Karesha – for that what the woman surely were. The bracelets made a sad melody as the Kareshaite leaned forward from the chair and passed her hand in the air. The flames went out with a resigned hiss. Confused by this casual show of power, Temur stumbled back. But the dog, like any cornered animal always fought the harder the more it was scared, so it sprung forward, aiming to land on the chair, to bite the one who killed the fire and menaced her master.

The closest of the guards lifted one of its hands, and with a long steel blade, stubbed the she-wolf in mid-air. She collapsed without a sound back on the fresh snow, the droplets of living blood freezing before they reached the ground. The white frost flowers grew thickly and rapidly along the wound, above the dog's loyal heart. Temur could do nothing but stare.

The barbarian was not afraid of any natural foe, not even of the iroc clad warriors. But the blind priestess was something else. A single thought, a cruel thought occupied his mind: if she killed him, she would send him to Karesha, and he would never hunt with his Forbearers, never feast in the heavenly halls.

"This did not start well," the Kareshaite said quietly, and put a hand on one of the guards horned helmet. Satisfied with the punishment, the woman quieted and crossed her hands under her breasts.

Her lips moved, and her blind eyes suddenly glowed on their own with pale white light, like the one of the moon. The moments passed; Temur watched her lips, but could not hear a single sound. He had seen his father's father to drift away like this, when he smoked the fumes to walk among the Forbearers. Finally the priestess came out of her trance and said loud and clear: "The Chambui do not honor the Frostmaiden as they should. She is angry. I shall come among your people soon. Go, tell them to expect the High Priestess Hallveig, and to prepare to pay homage to Karesha."

"Why should I serve you, Hallveig the Ugly?" Temur found his voice at last, and with it, his courage. "Better that I be dead, like my dog, than come with a message like this to my father's father yurt."

Hallveig laughed melodically: "You'd take your dog as an example?" Temur clutched his spear tighter. The priestess lifted her hand, and Temur prepared to sell his life dearly and take at least one of the huge guards with him, to death. But they did not move. Instead the frozen corpse of the she-dog stirred and convulsed with the flow of life that Hallveig forced back into her. The fierce animal whined no louder than a newborn pup and did what Temur had never seen. She rolled on her back opening the hairless belly with pale nipples to the priestess in an unequivocal canine show of surrender.

"I will not yield!" Temur tried to charge at the huge warriors, but the cold air froze around him and became an ice wall. Hallveig commanded her henchmen and they moved in closer. If Temur though that he could not grow colder, he saw his mistake when a feeble hand pressed a point of an ice dagger to his throat. The immeasurable chill shoot from the prickle on his skin into his very heart. "You are

my serf now, and I wish you to deliver my message." She had defeated him in battle; she owned his life. Sensing his defeat, the Kareshaite unlocked the air grip, and Temur fell to the ground near his dog, shivering. Hallveig threw her shawl over him: "That should warm you up, my shawl of snowflakes. Now go swiftly, and do not light the fires. By Karesha's will."