Beneath the Frozen Stars (Destiny’s Edge)
1. Chapter 1
Chapter one
T he wind whistled across the mountainside. Gyrda could not hear it anymore, but she could still imagine the sound in her head, the swish of snow blown across the icy slopes. She'd thought it a frightening sound when she hunted here with her father as a child, like the breath of a wild beast against the nape of her neck.
Now the endless empty landscape was welcome. She could disappear into it.
She drove her walking stick into the snow and pulled the small water skin from beneath her coat, where she wore it to keep the liquid from freezing. She pulled out the stopper and took a quick drink before closing her coat around it again.
She'd been walking for days, and she'd still not seen another living creature, apart from snowshoe hares and mountain sheep. The snow-covered peaks and valleys stretched before her, empty and frigid.
Gyrda picked up her walking stick and continued her path up the side of the peak. She could feel the snow crunch beneath her fur-lined boots. Yet another sound she was still convinced she could hear.
She found shelter as the sun passed mid-day. A natural cave was set into the side of the cliff, its entrance small enough she had to duck to enter. It would keep out the worst of the cold, but she needed to find one of the mountain clans soon and seek permanent shelter. She'd spent the first night beneath a tree when she was still in the forest. After she'd hiked above the tree line, safe places to weather the nights had been few and far between. Last night she'd dug herself a small hollow in the snow that protected her from the wind chill and little else. She'd barely slept, waking and walking on well before dawn to keep herself warm.
She sniffed as she entered the cave, but it did not smell like a predator's burrow. She should be safe enough. She leaned her walking stick against the wall and dropped her pack, bow, and quiver onto the floor of the cave, pulling her mittens from her fingers and breathing on her hands to warm them up. She wiggled them, the joints stiff and skin tingling as feeling returned to them. The mittens weren't adequate to the elements, but she'd only had enough money to purchase fur lined boots and a coat that could withstand the mountain temperatures. She dug through her pack for her snares, pulled her mittens on, and trudged back out into the snow.
She'd seen some snowshoe hare tracks across her path, their large hind footprints distinctive in the snow. She followed a few of the sets of tracks to burrows dug into the snow and set her snares. On her way back to the cave, she packed snow into her water skin to melt against her body heat and replenish her water.
She ate a meal of frozen bread and cheese, the last of the supplies she'd brought with her. She'd have to catch hares or shoot a mountain sheep to eat tomorrow, and even then she might have to eat the meat raw. There was wood in the mountains, small forests in some of the valleys between peaks and shrubs that grew on the sunny sides of the slopes no matter the time of year, but she had yet to pass through a wooded valley. Her stomach cramped in protest at the meager meal. She was not a small woman, taller than most men and sturdily built, and she was used to eating her fill.
When she was finished with the food, she crawled further into the cave. The space was dusty and strewn with fallen rocks, the stone covered in lichen. Behind a ledge of rock, she found a collection of dried sheep dung and twigs. They were stacked neatly side-by-side.
She must be close. The orcs must use this cave on their hunting expeditions. She took a small amount of the material to the front of the cave. They would not begrudge her this, she hoped. With them, she could make a fire tonight and roast some of her catch. Her stomach grumbled happily at the thought.
She would repay the orcs when she found them. The stories said they welcomed any who contributed to the livelihood of the clan. She could hunt, cook, and sew. Her body was sturdy and strong enough to haul firewood and shovel snow. She could assist with births and care for children. She would work wherever they needed her, and happily. She enjoyed hard work.
It had been the only thing her husband had found useful about her.
As the sun sank below the peaks, she ventured out again to check her snares. Three of the five had caught hares, their necks snapped cleanly in the small nooses. She collected her catch and skinned one of them outside the cave, washing the blood from her hands in the snow.
She started a small fire with the sticks and dried dung, then built a little ledge of stacked stones next to it, laying the hare over the rock. The flames licked over the edge of the stone, heating it like a griddle. She set her water skin close to the fire to melt the snow inside it and sat back against the wall of the cave, watching the meat of the rabbit sizzle and brown. When it was cooked, she ate almost her fill, leaving some for the morning, and lay down beside the embers of the fire as they burned out. She pulled her coat tightly around herself, turning her face to the side to warm her nose in the fur lining of the hood. For the first time since she'd left the city, she slept well.
Sahginoth frowned at the bodies of the mountain sheep strapped to his sled, pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow despite the cold. The herds had been hard to find today. They had moved further from the village to avoid hunters, and he'd tracked them across the mountains for hours until he found them late in the afternoon. Now, the moon was already rising. The village was only a few hours away, but he didn't relish the idea of tramping all the way there in the dark of night.
He chuckled. The young hunters in the village would tease him that he was growing old. They were not wrong. He'd passed his forty-ninth birthday in the spring. His hair was greying and his joints had begun to protest during the coldest days of winter. He could still trek days across the mountains with the younger warriors and hunters and not fall behind, best them in tournaments from time to time. But he liked his small comforts as he approached old age: a soft place to lay his head at night, a fire, protection from the wind and snow.
There was a cave only half an hour behind him on his path that was stocked with fire starters and protected from the wind. He could rest there tonight and continue back to the village in the morning. He looked to the spoils of his hunt, five dead mountain sheep tied to the sled, and shrugged. It wouldn't hurt to leave them out in the snow for a night. He'd not crossed the paths of any ice bears or mountain cats during this hunting trip. There was nothing to steal his kill from him.
He turned back the way he'd come, dragging the heavy sled behind him. The moonlight sparkled across the snow, his breath making white puffs in the cold night. He veered from the ridge-line path and pulled the sled down to the cave in the side of the mountain.
He stilled as he approached, nostrils flaring as he sniffed the scent of a fire on the breeze. Perhaps one of the other hunters had decided to spend the night in the cave as well. He slowed, quieting his footsteps in the snow as he wedged the sled against a boulder and approached the mouth of the cave. There were two snowshoe hares in the snow and a dark patch of snow beside them. He touched his finger to it and lifted his hand to his face, sniffing. Blood, from where someone had butchered themselves a meal.
It was dark as pitch inside. He pulled a small emergency lantern made of moss, wax, and animal fat packed into a stone bowl from the satchel over his shoulder and lit it with his flint. The tiny light flared in the darkness, flickering in the wind as he ducked to enter the cave.
There was a small fire, nearly died out, by the entrance of the cave. A few red embers glowed, showing him a form curled up on the stone. He knelt and held his lantern close.
A women lay on her side, her lips parted slightly in sleep. He reached out gently and pushed her hood and hair aside. She had blunted round ears. A human, then. She had a striking face, strong cheekbones and a wide masculine jaw, her lashes long and dark against her cheeks. Her hair was dark too, but he couldn't tell the color well by the light of his lantern. He lowered the lantern along her body. She wore wool and furs, her boots heavy and warm. Beside her lay a large leather pack, a bow, a quiver, and a tall, knotted walking stick. She was well prepared for the harsh, unforgiving mountains. If the hares outside were hers, she must be a capable trapper as well. He shone his light at her face again and she shifted, sighing softly in her sleep.
He sniffed and turned to the fire. Half a cooked hare sat on a stone by the embers. He pulled a piece of warm meat from the bone and chewed it as he crawled on hands and knees further into the cave. The small space was empty. There was no one else traveling with her.
She had come alone to the mountains in the coldest season. He frowned, watching as she shivered slightly. Collecting the rest of the dung and wood from the back of the cave, he rebuilt the fire, the air around them heating slightly.
He unstoppered the drinking skin that lay beside the rabbit and sniffed it. Fresh water. He drank, then refilled the water skin with snow, laying it back beside the fire to melt. Sitting back against the wall of the cave, his boots to the fire to melt the ice from them, he examined her. It was hard to tell with her thick winter clothes wrapped around her, but she seemed large, sturdy, not thin from lack of nourishment. She was tall, too, for a human.
Human hunters and trappers rarely ventured this far into the mountains. There was game enough for them near the tree line, and they were reluctant to stray too far into orc territory. The orcs had no laws against it, but neither were they welcoming to humans.
It had been too long now for anyone to remember how their ancestors had come to the Delakki mountains, or if they had always been there, but for as far back as the legends stretched, humans had not been friends. Humans had a long-held fear of the orcs, with their massive size and strength, their sharp teeth. It seemed to be the human way that the strongest rose to dominance (a primitive but seemingly wide-spread phenomenon amongst them), so humans had an innate fear of those who were stronger than them. Things were not so bad in recent generations. The orc clans traded more with human towns and cities at the base of the mountains, and there were always those humans who were without fear or prejudice. It was still rare to find a lone human trekking through the inhospitable mountains. Most would rather take the long way through the pass on the road to the Pearl Coast where there was little snow and smaller predators.
He wondered what had brought her here, but he was not so unkind as to wake her in the middle of the night to ask. She was welcome to his cave and his fire for the night.
Sahginoth tamped out his lantern and set it at the mouth of the cave so the oil could cool and solidify. He wiggled his toes in his boots as they melted and warmed and settled back against the cave wall to sleep.