The
snow had fallen hard for six days, and before that had been stewing in the grey
clouds and the cold, waiting and building up before it finally fell in
heaps. The Imperial had walked on as
best he could around the snow drifts and through them when he had no choice
with the command in his heart from the emperor driving his boots. The Imperial
geas is a death sentence, but it is never taken unwillingly. He is calm. He is
tired. He is cold.
He never knew when his worn boots
would sink thigh-deep into a crevice in the rock below the snow. The journey
was slow. Rations were low. The last two other members of the expedition had
disappeared in the night, weeks ago. It could be they were dragged off by wild animals.
There were bears, here, stronger and faster than an Imperial arrow. There were
wolves that could overwhelm a traveler in the night. It could be -- and this
was more likely -- that they had decided to go home and pretend like they had
completed their task for the emperor until the sickness consumed them. What remained
of the expedition was this one man with the sunken features of starvation, a
sack on his back, and a heavy stick to walk with. Under his thick robes, which
hadn’t been washed in months, was a small dagger, and what remained of a small
broken crossbow hanging from his belt. His skin was ashen, but he was dark of
skin, with short, curling black hair. He did not feel like he belonged in this
cold place, but here he was, trudging forward. His thin boots were stuffed with
rags and hay to keep out a little bit of the cold, but it only got damp from
the cracks. The woods were thick, here, this far up the mountain. What trails
there were disappeared into the snow.
He
followed the smoke rising from the mountain. In every gap and clearing between
the naked branches of the hibernating trees, he scanned the cold grey sky for
lines of smoke rising. There was a village pushed against the mountain. There
were crops and animals there. There might be somewhere warm to rest, if they
were friendly. Some of the villages have been friendly. Some have taken one
look at the dark man walking in out of the cold and casting him out as if he
were a monster. It’s hard to tell what will happen when he reaches the village.
There’s no way to know ahead of time how they will act.
The
wind picked up again. It was just as cold as it had been for the last six days
when the snow started. Every morning, he woke up beneath the snow, as if it was
burying him alive.
He kept
moving slowly through the thick trees to the smoke on the horizon. By midday,
he was nearly upon it. He wondered that he did not hear any sounds from the
village. Generally, people made noise. Children made noise. Animals made noise.
Each footfall in the snow crunched alone. When he
paused to listen, there were no other footfalls. The stillness was
disconcerting so close to a village. There were fires burning up ahead. There
should be people at the fires. There should be laughter, blacksmith hammers,
and children running through the snow.
The
village was fenced high, but it wasn’t fenced strong. It would discourage wild
animals. There were no gaps or broken
places in the fence. There was no forcible sign of struggle.
He
walked around once just to be sure. Again, there wasn’t anything wrong with the
fence. If something was inside, it was going to be something that could open a
gate.
He had
seen troubles on this journey before. He searched through the knots in the fence before he opened
the gate, to see if there was anything on the other side. He had seen nothing.
The
town was empty, like a ghost town. The fires were burning inside the buildings
still, but they were burning down since he first saw them. The houses were
empty. It was like a whole village heard some kind of warning bell and dropped
whatever they were doing to run into the woods. It had happened when he had
been walking towards them, or their fires would have long ago burned out.
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