A glyph [https://i.imgur.com/ZLENX3y.png]

After a day and a night, morning came, and Andra crept from the snow hole. The storm had left the world clean and blinding white in the low sunlight. She climbed the slope overlooking the shelter and sat, hunched around her hunger, trying to think.

She was troubled. Her soul pained her and she did not know what to do, or how to be comfortable with herself.

The humans were the problem. She had meant to kill them. A hunt should end in a kill. They were her rightful prey, weak and defenceless.

But the man had looked her in the face and said, ‘Angel.’ His voice had been faint and hoarse, the word strangely accented, but she had understood.

Her mother had seen an angel once. She had been hunting in the mountains when she saw fire in the shape of a man stride across a frozen lake far below. It moved straight as the wind, touching nothing, leaving no trace. She had watched it out of sight and when she gave birth to the daughter she was carrying, she named her Andra-sila: Fire Walks.

Andra had heard the story so often, and imagined it so clearly, that the image of the burning angel was like her own memory. And when the human said, ‘Angel’, all this came to her mind, and — she did not know why, but she had not killed him, or any of them. Instead she had dug out the snow hole and dragged the humans inside. She had slept through the storm surrounded by their fever-hot bodies, their strange sickly stench.

Why?

There was no reason for it, no reason at all.

She was not used to questioning her own actions. Her life was simple, her reasons were simple. She hunted, she killed, she ate. She was wronged, so she sought vengeance. She never considered why she did these things. No thought was needed.

The eagle did not ask why it stooped, nor the wolf why it howled. It just did, and that was sufficient. So her life had always been, until now.

She had helped the humans without thinking, yet to help the humans made no sense, and when she turned on herself and asked why she had done this thing, it was like the sharp crack of ice beneath her feet. For if she had acted wrongly this time, then what other mistakes had she made, and never known?

Perhaps she had been so long alone her mind had weakened. To think such things must be madness.

Si glyph [https://i.imgur.com/mHhTdaF.png]

Simon woke to a cold splat of water landing on his forehead. He squinted at an icy ceiling inches above him.

He had dreamed… strange dreams. Drifting in and out of consciousness, in and out of sleep, for a time he thought he lay trapped beneath a rockfall — but that nightmare was an old one — and for a time he thought he was dying, or already dead, yet somehow still aware, trapped in his own decaying body.

But he was awake now, and sure he was alive. Apart from the water dripping on his face, he was pleasantly warm, which was good. His right hand, the one the dog had chewed on, hurt. His feet ached. His mouth was dry, his stomach empty.

He wasn’t underground, but he was in a tight space, suffused by a dim light — enough to separate existence into light and dark. When he tried to move, he could, though not without pain.

Responding to his movement, something stirred at his side. ‘Dad?’

‘Sam, are you all right?’

‘I guess.’

‘Is your sister there?’

‘I’m all right,’ Lorie said. ‘And Nana, I think. She’s asleep.’

Simon relaxed. His family was with him, and safe, and that was enough, for the moment. They were in a snow hole, and judging by the light, the storm must have passed.

He bunched his muscles, working himself up to the idea of moving. He was stiff and sore, his hands and feet hurt, and he felt he could lie here forever, but he ought to move. He had to live and look after his children, or they would all die, as they so nearly had last night. So he rolled onto his belly and crawled toward the brightest light.

A short tunnel connected the snow hole to the outside world. He wriggled through the last inches of loose snow and emerged into dazzling white glare and biting chill.

Deep snow blanketed the landscape. He floundered into it, stumbled, and sat down.

Weak. His legs were rubbery, his feet agony. Cold fresh air flooded his lungs. He sat blinking and squinting, letting his eyes adjust to the brightness.

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Someone sat on the low hill opposite the snow hole. A stranger, wearing furs and skins, with their back to him.

Simon cleared his throat. His mouth was dry. In his dream, there had been a stranger, a woman who had come to save them from the storm. An angel — but that was impossible — and this certainly was no angel, only some wandering fur-trapper.

‘Hello,’ he called.

The stranger turned to look at him. It was a woman, and her face, though tanned and aged by wind and snow-burn, was younger than he’d expected. On her cheek was a tattooed design — some sort of animal.

‘My name is Simon,’ he said. ‘I owe you my thanks, I think. What is your name?’

She stared, studying him with undisguised curiosity, and didn’t answer. Perhaps she didn’t speak the common tongue. Some northers from further west had their own language, which he didn’t know.

‘Simon,’ he repeated, and thumped his own chest, before pointing to her. ‘Your name?’

‘Andra,’ she said.

‘You saved our lives. Thank you. If not for your help, we’d have frozen.’ He paused, realising he was babbling, and her blank expression suggested she hadn’t understood. ‘Sorry. Do you understand if I speak slowly?’

She tipped her head to one side.

‘Are you a hunter? A trapper? We were lucky to run into you.’ He stood, careful of his balance. ‘Or is there a village nearby?’

He took a step toward her. The snow swallowed his leg to the knee.

She flowed to her feet, and suddenly she had a knife in her hand — a long, curved blade, very thin.

He froze. That knife — he had seen such a knife once before, and that sort of facial tattoo, and now he remembered, he was shocked he hadn’t realised immediately what she was. Not an angel. Not human, either.

‘You’re lasker,’ he said.

Years ago, he’d joined a summer prospecting survey north of Sark. A group of lasker, two men and a woman, had approached to trade. The Sark men were terrified. They knew lasker only from stories — tales of ice-blooded killers more animal than man, cannibals driven by blood-lust.

Certainly, their norther guides said, lasker could be dangerous. They were stronger than men, faster, impervious to cold. And yes, they had murdered humans, and ate human flesh. They ate their own dead too. Life was hard in the ice-wastes and a hunter couldn’t be too choosy. But they weren’t beasts. They had speech and reason, and were honest in their way, more honest than many civilised men.

And this was the angel who had stepped from the storm: a savage, who might kill them and eat them. Yet she had not.

‘We owe you our lives,’ he said, speaking slowly. ‘Thank you.’

The truth was, without Andra’s help, his family would be dead now, and they weren’t safe yet. They had little food left. Athanor still lay many days walk away. How far, he didn’t know, or even if they had been going in the right direction. Without help of some kind, they surely wouldn’t reach the city alive.

If Andra guided them, they would have a chance. But why should she stay and help them? Why should a lasker help humans at all?

Lasker traded though: they sold furs to men such as Chase. They understood payment.

‘Andra, would you help us more? We need a guide. We’re going to Athanor, to the east. Do you know Athanor?’

There was a spark of something in her eyes. Recognition, he supposed. Everyone, surely, knew of Athanor: the city that burned, the city of gold.

‘Would you guide us there? Would you help us? We can pay you, if you tell us what you want. Anything you want.’ The northers paid the lasker with steel knife blades and copper cooking pots. He had nothing like that, but one could buy anything in Athanor.

‘No,’ she said.

He hugged his coat to himself. The cold seeped through his clothing. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘What do you want? There must be something.’

Lasker dwelt in the far north, in the ice-wastes too inhospitable even for northers. She must want something, to be so far south.

She sheathed the knife. ‘I hunt.’ She frowned and gestured, a wide sweep of her hands from sky to horizon, as if the words she knew were too small for what she wanted to say. ‘Sister.’

‘Your sister?’ That was unexpected. ‘You’re looking for your sister?’

‘Two men,’ she said. ‘Human. Sister.’

Two men and her sister: the mental image clicked suddenly into comprehension. Simon straightened, excitement coursing through him. He bit his lip. His first instinct was to blurt out what he’d just realised — but he couldn’t be certain, and besides, he had to think it through.

‘Andra, I think I know where your sister is.’

Her eyes fixed on him with burning intensity. He wasn’t sure how much of his speech she understood, but evidently she’d understood enough. He had her attention.

‘I want to make a deal,’ he said. ‘If you help us, I will tell you what I know.’

She stalked through the snow toward him. He stood his ground. He could barely walk, let alone outrun a lasker in deep snow.

An arm’s length away, she stopped. ‘What? Speak.’

‘No.’ Ice ran in his veins, but he was certain of what he must do. He only feared she wouldn’t understand. He didn’t know how far he could push her… she might kill him. But without help, he was dead anyway. ‘A trade. You help us reach Athanor. You promise—swear it. Then I tell you about your sister.’

The long thin knife was at his throat. ‘I kill you.’

‘Kill me, and I can’t talk. If you don’t help us, we will die, and you will never know. The only way to find out is to trade.’

She hissed, anger and distress warring on her face. He almost felt sorry for her. She had travelled a long way from home, searching for this sister — she must love her a great deal, just as he loved his family. ‘Trade. Yes. Tell me now.’

He gestured to the knife. She lowered it, reluctantly.

He swallowed. ‘First, you must promise to help us. Swear, you understand?’ He didn’t know what lasker held holy, or whether a promise would bind her in any way, but it was all the surety he could think of.

‘I help you,’ she said.

‘How do I know you mean it? Do lasker lie?’

‘No lie.’ She pressed her knife to her own cheek. The sharp blade drew a line of blood. ‘On my life.’

Simon breathed. It was something; it had to be enough. ‘All right. I’ll tell you.’ He sat down in the snow where he stood, his legs unable to support him any longer.

She crouched opposite, never taking her eyes off him.

‘There were two men, fur-dealers. Chase and Nyl, and they had a woman with them, a prisoner. I never saw her face, she never spoke—’ He realised he was speaking too fast for her to follow, though the attentiveness of her gaze suggested she understood part of it. He swallowed, and got his thoughts in order. ‘We were with a wagon train, going to Athanor. There were two men and they had a prisoner, who might have been your sister. They were going to Athanor.’

The more he thought, the more sure he was that he was correct. Chase and Nyl’s masked captive must have been Andra’s sister, though why they would capture a lasker and take her to Athanor, he couldn’t imagine.

She stood, and walked away. He watched her stride up the hill. Without a glance or pause she plunged over the ridge and vanished from sight.

Gone. Cold sank into his bones. She was all the hope they had, and he’d told her what she needed to know, and she’d gone.