Hans had continued to grow and fill out. Despite the hard life, he must have gained fifteen or twenty kilos since they’d left the ting, Baver thought. And surely he himself must look different now. He wished he had a mirror, preferably full length.
When the cola was not extreme, they often hunted or explored. If nothing else, it got them out of the smoke reek and let them breath clean air. Nils and Hans skied almost as easily as they walked. Baver and Achikh also became reasonably adept, although their skis fitted more loosely than skis on New Home, with their sophisticated bindings. Baver learned a great deal about the animals they saw and sometimes killed.
Achikh made him a laminated bow, short but stiff. He learned to make and fletch his own practice arrows, and practiced until he was pleased with himself, though clearly Achikh thought him hopeless as an archer. He d shoot at a target tree outside the cabin, a rotten birch stub that didnt damage the unpointed practice arrows when they struck it. He could usually nit it at twenty doubles—forty steps—though his accuracy wouldn’t suffice to consistently kill marmots as the others had the previous summer. He was pleased with himself nonethe-
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less. They’d teethed on bows and arrows, he told himself, while he was new to them.
After a time, the days became noticeably longer, but the nights were as cold as ever and the snow continued to deepen. All winter long they’d hear wolves occasionally; the horses, increasingly gaunt, would gather by the door on those occasions. One night, on what Baver’s watch told him was February 16, the horses whinnied with fear. The Buriat and the Northmen went out with arrows nocked and bows half drawn, Baver with them carrying two torches. A number of wolves crouched down in the torchlight, eyes gleaming, and in a moment, three had been shot. Two of the three who’d been pierced with shafts, tried to flee. Nils pursued them and killed them with his sword. It was hurtful to a man’s soul, Achikh commented, to let a wounded wolf crawl away and die slowly. They used the furs, of course.
Afterward they still heard the pack howl from time to time, as it passed through the area in its hunting, but the pack members stayed well away from the hut.
One evening Achikh, who’d been exploring new territory along the foothills, found where an ancient highway had been. It was overgrown now with forest, but recognizable by the cuts and fills. He’d taken time to explore it, and it did indeed go up into the mountains as if to cross them. It seemed that when spring came, they wouldn’t need to find a route across the Altai; the ancients had made one for them.
At length the days were as long as the nights, more or less, ana the surface of the snow sometimes grew wet where the sun shone on it. Not long afterward—a couple of phases of the moon—they’d find a hard crust on the snow in the morning, sometimes lasting all day. Sometimes one could walk on it without skis. Now the horses truly suffered, for they broke through the crust at every step and could hardly lift their hooves back out. Nor could they paw the snow away to get at last summer’s
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meadow grass. The small stock of bedding hay was doled out, and when it was gone, the men collected lichen for the horses to eat, and branches of Siberian fir, which they’d seen them browse.
The days continued to lengthen. The birds of summer began to appear. The snow settled in earnest, and sometimes no crust froze on it overnight; when it did, it melted by midmorning. Hans wondered that Svartvinge didn’t leave them; ravens nested when there was still snow, he explained to Baver, and surely he must have a mate somewhere. Achikh said a spirit raven might not nest, might have no mate. Nils grinned and said nothing at all about it.
Noisy meltwater ran down the stream over the thick ice, and they traveled little. The days grew long, the snow soggy and much shrunken. Achikh said the steppes would be bare now, and the first spring flowers showing. Baver asked how long it might be before they tried crossing the mountains. Achikh said the snow in the high country would still be deeper than a man’s height.