[i]The people stood, as they always did, amidst a ring of broken flesh: hunks of thigh and calf and shoulder and neck, black and red and hard as stone.

And the people, as always, were no softer.

"Where are the furs, boy?"

An exhalation. A whisper. A puff of silver breath on the wind, ripped away in an instant. Eyes as cold and gray as the snow watched the people. Watched the ice. Wept cold tears that froze on reddened cheeks.

"Where are they?"

The question came a little louder now, a growl sitting hunched like a hungry wolf, between the words, a whimper just behind them. 

There were more people now, cloaked figures stark against the snow, the broken bodies scattered between them, unheeded. Ahead, a thin, high whining sound, like bone against glass. Instinctively recognized as frozen flesh against ice.

This time, a rising cry swallowed the words. Now only the answer came: "I don't have them!"

Before her, knelt between the bodies (both living and dead), a boy. A figure towered over him, another knelt beside him, and between the two smaller figures, there was a block of ice. It, too, was stained red.

"This is your last chance, child," and the voice was strangely serene now. "You found it difficult to mine the ice before?" The laugh put a stake through her belly, shooting cold up and done her spine. "Try it with no thumb."

It happened quickly then, as it always did. She moved, as if to step forward, or perhaps to run -- it never mattered. Before she could go anywhere, something broke the endless, gray waves of earth and sky, a swift, dark blur from the huddle of figures at the center of the ring of frozen, fractured flesh. The thing was no blade, had no edge, but in this kind of cold, that was almost a boon. It went up and then down, and somehow, the sound of overripe fruit being smashed drowned out the cry that should have come. 

The ice went a little redder, the frostbitten flesh a little blacker. The pile of flesh grew. 

Far away, something seized up from the earth, dark and vast as the sky itself.

And in the same instant, she felt the ice beneath her boot shatter like glass, sending icicles like needles into her blood stream until the cold swept up and over and she was gone.[/i]

[b][center]---[/center][/b]

Banou woke to a film of sweat cold and thick as mud coating the space between her belly and her shift. She imagined she could feel it freezing then and there, tiny crystalline fractals spreading over her stomach, creeping around her ribs to join at her spine, spread up and down until she was armored in ice like some great, terrible golem, fit herself to shatter or be shattered.

But the thought was gone as soon as it had come, leaving only a frown and an impatient huff in its place.

"Don't be ridiculous," she chided herself, ignoring the way her breath puffed white in front of her nose. The stove in the corner kept the cabin she shared with a small handful of other soldiers warm, but not near enough. 

But then she had always liked the cold.

With that, she sat and placed bare feet upon the even colder floor, letting the chill that raced up her spine wake the rest of her body with it. Even when sitting, Banou tend to remain at attention. It was just easier, and anyway, you never knew when you might be needed. 

For the moment, anyway, her limbs nearly trembled with a restless sort of energy, a need to move, and far beyond the bounds of this vast, bloody ship they'd all found themselves on. Not that she'd ever complain. Mother Yonah had been eager to complete the trip, and so, so was Banou. She had her orders and needed little else.

Quickly, professionally, she stood and dressed, pulling her long, dark hair back into a bun tight enough to make her eyes water. When that was finished, she grabbed her canteen and her spear and struck out to find a quiet space to practice. It was hours yet before Mother Yonah was to rise, but Banou had never had much of an interest in sitting still. If she was awake and not eating or meditating, she was training, and if she was to accompany Mother Yonah through the untamed lands to Varya's men might spread the blessed word, it would not do to go in untested.

Outside, the wind howled across the ice, whipping eddies of snow into tiny typhoons. And somewhere far, far away, a shadow rose from the ice.