Glass Winter | Chapter IX

A torrent of freezing wind brought Sevt back to life. The pain in his leg was making him drift off.

He glanced around, still standing at the entrance to Malcolm’s quinzhee where the two sentries watched him.

“Where’s Quinart being held?”

They didn’t respond at first, glancing between each other. One of them smirked.

“Sowne made sure to house him as far from you as possible. Aurora’s somewhere else as well.”

“Could you take me to Quin?”

The guard whom had spoken leaned his head on the shaft of his spear, “He’ll be alright.”

“Let me see him and judge for myself.”

The other sighed, “Mal’s holding an assembly soon, and you’re not to be wandering about where the commune’s most important can’t see you. But there’s still time.”

He indicated to his partner to keep watch before gesturing to Sevt to follow.

The commune did not seem large enough for all the people it held, and yet they were here. A group of anglers, their long rods perched against their shoulders with dangling, crusted hooks, walked past, paying no heed to Sevt and the sentry. The wind that had awoken him blasted from a hole in the wall close by, where several stocky men were changing shifts with builders just as large as themselves. Every thirty feet a burning stone bowl reeking of oil and fat kept the grounds warm. Those that were not working, nor hiding within an igloo or a quinzhee connected to a subterranean shelter, huddled around the flames. One of them, a young woman whom had been smiling but a moment before, looked up in terror at Sevt’s approach. The rest of her company turned to see the source of her apprehension, and their expressions grew dark.

Hopping and limping with a cane not suited for a man with no leg, Sevt could only pass them so quickly. His sentry, at least, was patient enough to walk at his speed.

The commune was in a circular shape, as far as Sevt could see. To slow down the winds, he assumed, as they navigated around the wall’s surface.

“How large is this place?”

“It protects about a hundred people comfortably, and it’s always expanding and shifting north. Or what you might call north, that being the direction we last saw the dancing lights guiding us towards.”

“There isn’t a strict plan right now, is there?”

“No, there isn’t.”

They move only by faith. However little.

Sevt noticed even in his early days in the barrens that the lights did not abide by any one direction. To follow them was to hope in a guide that did not want you to save yourself on your own terms. And that had been swell, until they had vanished, and one’s faith was put to the ultimate test.

“Through here.”

They had reached an igloo, stout and confined, isolated from the rest of the commune and cast in shadow given its distance from the nearest bowl of fire.

Sevt thanked the sentry and, after dropping to the ground, clambered through the vent. He reached a wall of snow with an elevated sleeping area where the huskies were resting, and another like it behind. There, a man sat with his back against the igloo’s interior.

“Quin.”

Strelka awoke with a growl, but upon recognising Sevt’s scent and face, and a lick behind the ear from Medved, she settled, with a wary eye still watching the uninvited guest.

“Quin, it’s Sevt. I’m coming up.”

Pulling onto the first elevated area caused Belka to bark and to whine. To Sevt’s surprise, she helped him with the final heave by gripping his cloak in her jaws. She licked his face.

Sevt smiled and ruffled her fur.

When he looked up he saw Quin looking back with whatever was left in those eyes.

So empty…

“You’re alive.”

“Yes, Quin. I am. As are you.”

The grizzled man scratched the bruises on his neck, seeming to sink lower into the snow. To shrink.

“Let me come up.”

“No, there’s no room.”

“Scooch over. We’ll find some.”

Quin obliged, though he did not bother to help Sevt climb up to meet him. The visitor leaned against the wall and exhaled.

“See?”

Quin didn’t respond.

Sevt coughed.

“I’m heading out. Once I can gather myself…”

He winced, as if by thought alone his stump could act up.

“The last things I heard before I passed out weren’t good. I had assumed that under Mal’s protection nothing would happen to you, but still. I had to see for myself.”

More silence.

“I’d lighten up, Quin. We’re finally safe, aren’t we? It’s an opportunity to rest. Remember that it was doubt and fear that nearly killed us. Let’s not return to that.”

“I never told you what the huskies’ names meant.”

Sevt observed them, resting below.

“What do they mean, Quin?”

“Strelka’s an arrow. The fastest of the four, and she never took no shit from anyone. Belka’s eyes are magical but that’s not why she’s named after a squirrel. She’s just the most docile, and a coward, but what can you do? Some dogs aren’t dogs.”

“Laika?”

Silence.

“She barked a lot. But a dog will be a dog.” Quin glanced at Sevt.

The visitor chuckled. The older one managed a smile before it faded too soon.

Sevt locked eyes with Medved who, always the alpha, watched everything. If huskies could think…

Maybe he did. They looked almost human, those two dark eyes.

“He’s like a bear.” Said Quin, “Brave. Strong. Unfaltering. Larger than his size. In another life he might have even been one. And I think he knows it.”

Medved looked away towards the entrance, his ears perked. The winds had risen in pitch.

When Sevt turned back to Quin he saw that the man was also listening.

“We’re running out of time. I’m afraid that Malcolm can’t see that.”

“Running out of time for what?”

“Before they come for us.”

He might have meant Sowne and his men, or something else, but Sevt didn’t bother to ask. The answer would make no difference.

“There’s nothing we can do here. Not even I in my condition.”

“But there’s no time.”

“I can’t see the lights. Nobody can. It would be suicide to go—”

“There’s no time, Sevt.”

“And I can’t act. What do you want me to say?”

“You have to. Even if I can’t.”

“Now why can’t you?”

“Because I have no faith. I lost it a long time ago. And look what that’s done to me.”

So, this is it.

The two men were not in the same room.

This was the storm that’s been brewing in his mind since we left the old commune.

“I have no faith,” Quin repeated, “and I’m too afraid to move forward in faith.”

“I hardly have it myself, but I keep moving.”

“You’re a fighter speaking to an old man. Which of us moves best without faith?”

“I’m not the only one here. We’ll get out of here, even if you have to endure Sowne and his men. While Mal’s around they’re commanded to protect you.”

“So, you do believe we can get out of here?”

Sevt said nothing.

“You do.” Quin reiterated. “You have more faith than you let on. And so does Aurora. If that’s enough to keep the darkness at bay, as you’ve managed to do, then take it and move. But don’t stay here.”

“Quin. If you truly believe that then does that not prove your own faith? However little there is? After how far we’ve come you feel like rolling over and dying despite what you clearly believe.”

“But it’s not so simple, Sevt. It isn’t.”

“What I don’t find simple to understand is how an old man like you can get so crossed in his thoughts to freeze himself out of fear.”

“I’m afraid that if your God isn’t real then my faith will kill me.”

Strelka whined. Medved’s ears turned towards Quin. His head was lowered.

“I can’t take the risk… I’m afraid… so, so afraid…”

“And how insulting is that?” Sevt pushed himself up with his cane, “So you don’t believe in God. And you know that neither do I. Yet you’re entrusting Aurora to my care because you’re too afraid of dying outside the walls of the commune?”

“Because she has a better chance of living under your protection.” Quin looked up, “What can a frightened old man, God or no God, do to protect someone as precious as her?”

“Precious?”

“She may be naïve but she’s still a child. You have a child of your own you’re nearly dying to come back to. Regardless of whether Aurora’s piety is truthful or not, she has the potential to change the world with her steadfastness alone. A child cannot do that if people like you and I never ensure their future when all of Hell is knocking on the door. When we’re too frightened or blind to remember what truly matters when life’s final days are slipping through our fingers.”

The huskies shifted down below on their step. Quin kept his head lowered.

“So.” Sevt dropped to the floor, “Your solution is to just roll over and die, is that it?”

Silence.

“Is it?”

“We’ll see.”

“What about your potential, Quin?”

“Have you not listened to a single word I have told you?”

Stillness. Deathly stillness within that dome of ice and snow.

“Aren’t you angry, Quin? You should be furious. Your life, your potential, forget about your old age, all of it has been taken away by this place, and for what? By fate or by design we have been dropped here with no chance at redemption because neither one of us knows why we were dropped at all. Shouldn’t that be enough to make you furious? To give you a drive and a rage to power through with what little life you have for a chance at a better life beyond this place? Instead, you’re choosing to die. Every day, volume by volume, there’s less remaining inside. You believe your assignment is an act of nobility, but you’re abandoning the girl. You’re acting out of cowardice, despite the years of wisdom someone like you might have attained.”

“I am wise. You’re right. Because I’ve weighed all the options. This is how it ends, for everyone.”

The room, while dark, was vaguely alight through the snow from the fires outside. Sevt would see the glint of the shard before it was too late.

Then him and Quin were struggling. The huskies yelped and thrashed at Sevt. He felt one of them push their partner away, and knew that Medved was on his side. His hands overpowered Quin’s and the piece of ice that the man had wanted to end his own life with.

“You don’t really want to die, do you Quin? Do you, Quin? You wouldn’t have waited just to cut your own wrists in my presence.”

“Leave this place, Sevt. Leave it soon. While there’s still time. While we’re not all cursed. Save Aurora.”

Sevt tore the shard away from the other, and crawled away. The huskies had settled. One of them whined.

“If you can bring me peace, Sevt, assure me this.”

“Alright! Alright…. It is done.”

“Assure me this…”

Sevt heard the igloo flap open, and the voice of the guard came from the vent.

“Wrap it up in there. Mal wants you back at his shelter.”

Quin’s eyes were dark. But the storm was no longer brewing behind them. There was only the still and silence of an ocean at night.

“Go now, Sevt. Do not look back.”

~~~~~

Sowne spun a dagger through and around his fingers, “We’re short 3 casks of the quota. We’ll be starving by the end of the month.”

Mal’s attention shifted between the rest of the men in the room, especially those with more to say in their demeanour than words.

“You suggest we ration, Sowne?”

“You’re suggesting it Mal. I applaud you for that.”

“Don’t be snark.” Tematyr filled the hallway, a hairless head burnt by the winds outside, “Fact of the matter is we’ve yet to catch another seal, and we can only divide fish from oil for so long before returns diminish.”

“They’re not diminishing, they’re in the abyss.” Sowne sheathed the dagger and rose to his feet, “I’ve been suggesting it long enough, now it’s time the people heard it come from your mouth, Mal. That is, of course, what you’d like, is it not?”

The chief did not reply.

“We dim the fires. Halve them. This’ll mean colder waking hours but so will the corners harden in the commune. That equals more work, more progress. Progress you’re shunning, Mal, while we do the heavy lifting.”

Mal saw Tematyr make a move.

“Quiet, the both of you.”

“If I may be so bold, sir.” Bair the Bonehold made himself known for the first time that session, stepping around some builders, “Morale is down already. I speak for us masons when I say that we’re building blind.”

“We’re not blind.”

“I’d have to concur.” Tematyr returned to the hallway.

Sowne leered, “Like you would know.”

“More than you would, scout master, if I may be so bold.” Bair looked between him and the chief, “Truth of the matter is we douse halve the fires we lose morale. We build onwards and forwards, drifting farther from the sea with each day, and it compounds. I’d urge us to stop and re-evaluate…”

“Do nothing?” Sowne again.

“…as we cannot afford an attack.”

A draught whistled and faded away. It did not return.

“I haven’t seen it myself, but Harman’s team, they’re working now, have reported movement in the darkness.”

It’s colder, all of a sudden.

“When was this?” Asked Mal.

“Before the last sleep. During two of the shifts, with much time between them.”

“Why was I not informed?”

“Harman didn’t believe it. Told the lads who saw it to watch the ground not the horizon. Word got to my team regardless.”

“Tematyr?”

“Something in the water maybe. But that’s every day. Seals, we think, and then they don’t surface. But it’s a hard thing to catch, so one can’t be sure.”

Sowne watched the ground, but he listened. Mal noted this. While the room turned over to din and gesticulation, the scout’s thoughts were brewing.

“With your blessing, chief, I’ll sanction a party for ice trek, as we’ve discussed.”

The room was silent.

He’s pushing his authority and mine. Denying his request now, in front of all these people…

Bair was curious, “What are you planning?”

“An expedition, Bonehold, the greatest one of your lives. I generalise with my use of ‘your’, you’ll understand—”

“I’m not having it,” Mal placed his horn on a cubic outcrop of snow, “Be as bold as you wish, but I’ll restrain you from daring ideas that take you too far, it’s my right.”

“It is.” Sowne picked up the horn, and sipped, “But so is mine in times of crises. You didn’t allocate me scout master because I was bold; I captained the counter-attack at the commune long enough for your families and loved ones to make it out, losing two good men in the process. Goodness… we weren’t meant to make it out at all. My lads knew that, and did it all the same.”

He finished the tea and put down the empty horn.

“You already have a party going down to the sea, Sowne. At least wait until their return before we discuss this.”

“Damn it, Mal, we don’t have the time. Hasn’t that been made clear today? My word, my men. Your parting blessing is all that we need.”

Mal restrained his own speech, though his insides simmered.

Insubordinate discreditation of my position, in front of everyone.

Sowne had planned it, that was certain.

“How many men will you take?”

“I’m placing Eron in charge of a five-man party. He’ll see it through. Besides, as scouts it’s our job to scout, is it not? Let his men lead the charge while the others search for Sevt’s staff.”

Still got things to do here, then, he has.

“Any visions of late, Mal?” Bair seemed to be changing the conversation.

“Nothing of import.”

“All the more reason for us to head out,” Sowne nodded and made for the exit, “I’ve said my piece, I’ll go and inform the others.”

“Session’s not done yet.” Tematyr blocked the hallway.

“Well, you are twice my size but we’ve half the time. You may continue to quarrel over whether it should be five or ten fires but I’m taking action on something that’s already certain. You are smart enough to understand that?”

“Let him go, Tem.”

The big one cast a censorious glance at Mal before moving aside, Sowne passed him.

The chief at first didn’t hear the footsteps of Eron, following after the scout master, and while the man wasn’t tall he was stolid, his head and his hands twisting with muscle, with crackly speech belonging to a square jaw that nearly met with the shoulders. His eyes, while small and pitiful in their gaze, spoke of a wisdom behind that pity, one that warned its petty foes not to oppose the man that bore them.

He was accompanied by four other men. Brutes whom were once criminals before they were dropped, Malcolm suspected. The perfect bunch to weather the storm beyond these walls.

“I’d listen close to a man who knows the winds as well as Sowne does,” said Eron, “Wisdom in hindsight might be a wonderful thing. But none of those who’ve been dropped still have it. You understand.”