It was cold. Bitterly, horribly, miserably cold. Sorri was unused to such extremely frigid weather, and it showed from the way she was dressed; she wore a simple leather jerkin over a silk shirt and studded leather greaves over wool trousers. Her boots were reinforced, but only for protection along the shins, not to prevent the ice-melt and heavy, wet snow from soaking through and turning her feet to unfeeling blocks. Thin leather gauntlets covered her rigid hands, which she desperately kept tucked under her arms to prevent permanent damage. Her hooded wool cloak - decent enough for a chilly night in Eversong, was clutched tightly about her shivering frame, but it only covered half her length. As a result, her knees felt like they creaked with each step she took across the howling plains.
When the young rogue had signed up with the recruitment officer, she'd been in the throes of a blissfully raucous drinking binge and had felt an unfamiliar stirring of patriotism for the forces fighting in the Frozen Reach. By the time she'd been found, sent through basic training and bundled off to the wastes, news was already spreading of a crushing defeat and no one had time for a green recruit with a bad attitude. She thought she'd been pretty clever to sneak off on her own, but now she felt like an idiot. A frozen idiot.
Why? WHY, didn't I stay at base camp until things blew over? she asked herself for what felt like the thousandth time. There were few places to hide there, and the living conditions could barely be called such, but in hindsight, it was a damn spell better than this hell-hole. A heavy sigh of self-pity created a cloud of breath in front of the young woman's reddened face, making another layer of frost cling to her brows and lashes.
A mournful howl broke the monotonous sighing of the wind across the snow-drifts, making Sorri look up with concern. The animals she'd seen out here were huge and unafraid of people. Fire seemed to be the only thing that kept her relatively safe at night - both from the bitter elements and the denizens of this forsaken land. Though loathe to remove her hands from the cocoon of her body, she fumbled for her compass and squinted at the pale disc in the cloud-choked sky. The native hunting village she'd seen on the maps was supposed to be nearby. Black worry stirred in her gut. Why haven't I seen signs of it yet?Puffing as she continued her tromp through the deep snow, she pushed onward in the direction she was heading. Maybe just over the next rise,she told herself, willing it to be true.
The howl sounded again, closer this time and behind her - downwind, she realized. Her heart began to beat more rapidly and despite her fatigue from the long trek, she picked up her pace, struggling through knee-deep drifts and praying to un-named benevolent gods that might lend her luck. The wind moaned low and long through a lone bare tree, making the branches rattle so that nature's song had turned to a desolate dirge for the slumbering land. Head down, breaths making a permanent haze around her head and frosting her hood, Sorri almost didn't see the drop-off.
Skidding and sitting heavily in a snow drift, the rogue gasped - the cold air painful to her overtaxed lungs. Just a few steps in front of her, the land suddenly ended abruptly. A stone cliff-face bared by the winds made a sheer drop to the icy sea below. Terrified by the near-fatal mistake, Sorri could only sit there in the snow and pant, a part of her mind aware that fatigue was just as dangerous as the more overt aspects of this land.
There was no doubt now that she was in trouble; the wolf she'd heard had summoned its fellows, whose voices joined in as they covered her trail, their howls excited and nearly constant now that prey was imminent. Adrenaline surged through the frightened woman and she struggled to her feet to draw her swords, glancing right and left for some place to make her stand. There was only an ice-rimed boulder nearby, close to the edge of the cliff, but it would serve. Hurrying over to throw her pack aside, she turned to face the threat.
A calm sense of fatalism settled over Sorri as four hulking wolves - they were big as bears - cleared the rise that lead to the plateau. Tired, hungry and chilled to the point of sluggishness, the rogue knew she would probably die. Pale grey eyes narrowed with determination as stiff fingers tightened on her hilts and her body crouched in preparation for the fight.
"Come on then," she growled softly. "Let's get this over with."
- K.M. 2009
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