Three days they walked, rising early with the sun and stopping early to make their shelter. The trees along their path became sparse only to thicken again, sometimes hardly capable of keeping the bitter wind away, other times dark and gloomy enough to mask the sun. It was a rare sound that wasn’t the crunch of Steve’s boots or the rasp of the sled through the snow.

The fucking faffing snow. Steve had been sick and tired of it before they left Frelja’s village, and going by their northerly heading, he was going to have to put up with it for a while yet. He reset the makeshift harness he was using to pull the sled, making it a touch more comfortable on the shoulders of his suit. It wasn’t meant for this kind of climate, but he would endure. Endure the cold and the fu-

“Stev?”

Steve turned, falling into a ready stance as he did. He hadn’t noticed any threat, but that didn’t mean - he held back a sigh, chiding himself. Frelja was holding out a waterskin to him from where she was perched on the sled, knees held tight to her chest. She was more hide than human, thoroughly rugged up and leaning against the rucksack that held their supplies. Her pale face peered out through a small window in her hood. It was lined with the kind of fur that some rich folk would have paid months of Brooklyn rent for.

“Water?” the girl said.

“Thank you, Frelja,” he said, accepting the skin. It was half empty, and colder than he’d like, but it was water all the same. He drained it, before handing it back.

Frelja took it and hung it from the sled backing with four more like it. Only two were still full, but they would melt snow to refill them once they made camp for the night. “Walk long?” she asked, teeth not quite chattering.

Steve glanced up at the sun, such as it was. Hidden behind grey clouds, he judged it by the light that pierced them as much as its position in the sky. “Not long,” he said. He gave her a smile as best he could, even with his face cold and stiff.

Hesitantly, Frelja returned it, but after a moment hid her face in her knees, almost burrowing into her furs and hides.

Turning, he took up the slack of the sled harness and again began to walk, trudging onwards.

It wasn’t a path they were following as much as a heading. Frelja’s tribe had known those who had raided them, just as they had known that there was nothing they could do but recover and be ready for the next raid. In the cold and the snow and the quiet he had had a lot of time to think, and he had realised that sending him off with Frelja was as much in hopes that he would find her mother as it was hopes that he would kill their enemies, kill those that had hurt them. This was not a land of sentiment, wherever the Stones had cast him, not a place where good deeds were done for their own sake.

Not yet.

They walked until the light began threatening to fade, and then they stopped, finding shelter in a dead tree with a hollow at its base large enough for two men, or for a large man and a child. Steve had killed a deer the day prior, and they cooked more of it that eve, sitting close to a small fire just outside the hollow. The cold was ever present, but there was little wind, and with the tools that Steve kept in his suit and the supplies gifted to them by Frelja’s village, they were able to achieve something approaching comfort. Snow was melted for water, and preparations for the next day of travel were made. The flames cast flickering shadows across the branches of nearby trees.

Man and girl spoke, little by little coming to understand each other. Frelja was at turns silenced by her wariness and chatty without pause, speaking of things that had the air of stories to them. When she spoke, Steve listened with an attention that she soaked up like Tony on a stage. In turn, she listened when he spoke, even if she lacked understanding.

“I should be looking for a way home,” he said to her, staring into the dancing flames. “I was never good at putting myself first though. Nat called it my worst virtue.”

Frelja shifted beside him, crinkling. The furs she was near swallowed by hadn’t satisfied him, so he had wrapped a foil emergency blanket around her, and the material fascinated her to no end. She liked to hold and twist it, to hear it and see the firelight glint off it. Not now though, not while he was talking. She was a good kid like that.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“Once we get your Ma back I’ll start looking. Head south, see if I can find any civilisation,” he said. He sighed. “Lord knows there can’t be any to the north.”

In the distance, a wolf howled, calling for its kin, and the forest quietened. Frelja looked out past the campfire, one hand disappearing under her blanket as she hunched in on herself.

Steve was unconcerned, only taking a piece of wood from where it had been set to dry by the fire and adding it to the flames. Of all the things in the forest that night, he was the most dangerous. More howls came, but they were distant, and growing more distant still. Frelja relaxed slowly, comforted by his ease and the memory of what he did to the bear that nearly killed her, her grip on her knife easing.

The night was still young, but with darkness fallen and their hunger sated, there was little cause to remain up. Frelja had a habit of burrowing into his side like a tick over the night, and the hides and blankets weren’t exactly zero rated sleeping bags, but they made do, arranging the hollow to suit their needs. He didn’t have a hope of stretching his legs out, but - he heard a branch snap underfoot.

Frelja noticed the moment his focus sharpened, looking up where she had just made herself comfortable. He gestured for her to stay, head cocked as he listened, staring out into the forest. It was still quiet after the howling of the wolves, and a moment later he heard the crunch of snow. He rose, casting off his own foil blanket. His shield he left just inside the edge of the hollow, for now.

Quiet footsteps grew closer, too quiet for most to hear, but stepping quietly wasn’t enough when he could hear their breathing with a little focus. Four - no five men approached, and only one head on. The others were coming from the sides, or circling around on the rear side of their tree.

From the darkness of the forest beyond the fire, a man emerged, clad in furs and with a sword at his hip, blatantly out of place. He had a face made for smirking, and unkempt black hair, but he blinked when he saw Steve standing and ready, already watching him.

“That’s far enough,” Steve said, and though his words could not be understood, his tone was more than clear.

The man stopped, but only for a moment. He put on an ingratiating smile, taking a swaggering step forward, arms held out, palms up. He said something, an invitation.

Steve was having none of it. He raised a hand, each digit extended, and began to point, first at the man across from him, but then at unassuming trees around them, finishing by pointing a thumb over his shoulder.

The dark haired man’s smile faded into a sneer. He gave a whistle, and after a moment, the four men who thought they were hidden revealed themselves. They looked much like their leader, unwashed, unkempt, and with faces that wore cruelty well.

“Leave,” Steve said in their language. “Or die.”

A snort was his answer, and one of them made a demand of his own, but Steve ignored him, eyes pinned on the leader. For a moment, the man tried to meet his gaze, jaw clenching. Then there was a faint movement at Steve’s back, drawing his eye and giving him an out. His smirk returned as he glimpsed Frelja peering out from the hollow, and Steve let out a small sigh.

The leader pointed at Frelja and said something, tone unpleasant. His men responded with raucous laughter, and Steve responded with immediate violence.

Steve’s fist shattered the leader’s skull before they could react. In a single bound he had leapt across the fire, and none of his strength was held back as he struck downwards. The corpse was spiked into the ground, and blood stained the snow.

The swiftest of them rushed him, hand axe coming for his head, but he wasn’t nearly swift enough. Steve caught it by its haft, tearing it from his grip and then smashing it into his face in one motion. His forehead pulped like an overripe melon, and he collapsed as Steve pulled it free. Its balance was good enough, and it spun through the air to cleave into the next man’s neck, cutting deep. He tried to howl in pain, but it was hard to breathe with an axe blade through half your neck, and he staggered and fell. Scant heartbeats had passed.

The next was quicker to think foolish thoughts, already darting for the dead tree and Frelja, bright steel clutched in his hand. He almost made it to the tree before Steve was on him, seizing him by the head and twisting. There was a crack, and he flopped bonelessly to the ground. Steve turned to face the last of them, intent on finishing the job, but it was not to be. Seeing the fate of his fellows, there was only the sound of crashing footsteps, rapidly fading into the night, and Steve’s steady breathing. A pop came from the fire, sparks rising into the air.

Cautiously, Frelja emerged from the hollow, shiv in hand and shifting her whole body to look side to side, blinkered as her vision was by her hood. It only took a moment for her to be satisfied that the man by the tree was dead, and then she was kneeling in the snow, prying the dagger he carried from his cold hand. No makeshift weapon, it was a properly forged thing with a hilt and pommel, and she admired it in the glow of the fire.

Suddenly, her face fell. She looked to Steve, and held the dagger out reluctantly, looking for all the world like a child told they needed to share their candy with their sibling.

Steve reached out, but not to take it. He closed her fingers around it, gently pushing her hand away. There was a moment of confusion, but then she lit up, tucking her shiv away in favour of the rondel dagger, holding it this way and that, childish glee on her face.

He left her to it, focusing on the corpses. Left alone, they would attract predators, and he’d prefer a good night’s sleep to the extra meat. The man with the broken neck was thrown over one shoulder, and he took the man with the mangled throat by one ankle, ready to carry them away.

“Stev, no,” Frelja said.

Pausing, Steve looked to his companion. Her new dagger was stowed in her belt, and now she was pointing at his burden, then to the ground. He dropped it, and waited.

Frelja skittered forward, working at the fastenings of the dead man’s clothing, patting him down as she went. As he watched, she found two more shivs, as well as a small block of pemmican, wrapped in cloth. They were set aside as she kept working at the man’s hide cloak, heaving him over to get it off.

“Clint would call you a loot goblin,” Steve said, though his tone was more wistful than anything. She hardly slowed, looking up only to flash a quick white smile, already returning to her task. He turned to the other body he had planned to dispose of. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, and the Romans said resources were precious in this frozen hellhole. He set about searching the body.

“Stev,” Frelja said, drawing his attention. He looked up.

She had finished her task, and now stood before him, holding the cloak she had stripped from the man. It was a patchwork thing, and he could see the hides of at least three different beasts stitched together, but it looked warm, and she was holding it out for him.

He stared for a moment, just long enough for her to grow uncertain, but then he gave her a smile. “Thank you, Frelja.” He accepted it, and her smile returned, though she tried to hide it in the fur of her hood. He began to put it on, even as she scampered off to loot another corpse.

Maybe this place wasn’t a complete hellhole.