39

I stomped through the drifting snow for what felt like hours, my breath gasping out in puffs of white mist, moving blindly through the woods. I was hopelessly lost now, but I had no choice but to keep moving. The snow did not abate at all, and everything before me became one sweeping landscape of swirling whiteness that dulled to gray as night fell. Even if the blizzard finally wore itself out, the sky was still clouded, preventing me from navigating by the stars. I had no idea what direction I was traveling in, but I had to keep moving.

I had my arms crossed over my chest and my hands tucked under my armpits in an effort to keep my hands from freezing. I could still feel my fingers, but unfortunately I could barely feel my feet, and my face was also completely numb from the cold and the wind. I was also exhausted, having been on my feet almost the entire day, and hungry on top of that. But aside from that, I felt surprisingly good.

But the temperature was dropping like a stone, and soon it would be almost too hard to see. I felt like I could keep going for some time, even though I was tired and hungry, but the darkness and unbelievable cold would soon take their toll. On the other hand, I was certain that Falx and his men could not possibly be following me at this point. I had been walking for at least two hours, maybe more, and was miles from the camp by now. There was no way that any of his men would still be tracking me in the middle of the blizzard like this, since it was unlikely that they would be able to find their way back in the dark.

So I felt safe enough to stop and try to make camp for the night, but where? I had hoped to find a cave or something along the mountains, but so far I had seen nothing I could use for a shelter. I still had by flint sparker, so I could possible make a fire, but there was nothing to start a fire with except for snow-covered branches.

I found myself shuffling through snow up to my knees, and I stopped for just a moment to catch my breath. I could just barely make out a line of trees off to my right, and to my left the land sloped downward to what might have been a creek bed. But everything was buried under snow, and I couldn't go much farther before it was too dark to see.

I had barely managed to survive the first time I was lost out in the woods, and I didn't expect to get lucky a second time. I certainly wasn't going to stumble upon the fort this time. If I didn't stop and make a fire soon, it would be too late.

I stumbled over to some trees and kicked away the snow underneath the branches, kicking and digging until I found dirt and twigs. I tried to scoop some of the twigs and damp underbrush into a pile, and crouched beside it with my sparker, trying to light it. But the wind was too strong, and the tiny pile of kindling was too damp.

I angrily cried out, looking around for some other way. I needed some kind of shelter to block the wind, and find something to burn that was still dry, and neither of those things seemed to exist. Frustrated and beginning to get scared, I cried out once more, the wind tearing my voice away and throwing it into the storm. My hands were cold once more, so I tucked my sparker back in my belt and stuck my hands back under my arms to try to keep them warm. If my hands went numb, I had no hope at all.

I moved faster along the edge of the trees, hoping to find even something like a hollow log or even a hole in the ground. Anything to block the wind and give me some time to start a proper fire. But I couldn't find anything, and ran even faster, desperation creeping up on me.

But then I heard something. I spun around, hearing a strange clacking noise coming from out of nowhere. And then something echoed in the wind, and even though I was already freezing, somehow the fading sound made me feel even colder. It was a faint, high-pitched sound, like shrill laughter. And though I had never heard the sound before, I knew exactly what it was.

It was a spriggan, one of the mysterious treefolk. I panicked, turning around in a circle, trying to figure out what direction it was in, but I couldn't see anything. The forest fairies were defenders of the forest and spirits of nature, and they were extremely dangerous. I would sooner face a bear in combat than one of the spriggans.

I pulled out the sparker and frantically snapped it, creating brief flashes of light, but I could see nothing but the blowing snow. And then I snapped it again, and caught the reflection of something not far in front of me: a pair of red eyes seemingly hovering in the air.

I screamed and stumbled away, running as fast as I could in the other direction, nearly falling into the deep snow. Behind me, I could hear the spriggan's high-pitched laughter, and then the sound seemed to follow me. I stumbled along, heading downhill, running completely blind in the utter darkness. All I could feel was the cold on my face and the sound of my heart beating wildly as I ran through the blackness.

I heard the spriggan's shrill voice ahead of me somehow, and I frantically turned and ran in another direction, almost running face first into a tree. I staggered among more trees, somehow able to make out their shapes. I stumbled once or twice, falling to my knees, but the spriggan's laughter urged me up again. I didn't even feel cold now, as the adrenaline surge in my veins seemed to warm me.

I don't even know how long I ran, as each time I seemed to lose the spriggan, it appeared in front of me again, its grating laughter forcing me off in another direction. I realized with horror that there had to be more than one of them, and they had me surrounded. Once or twice I thought I could see its eyes glowing red in the darkness, or the outline of its thin, branch-like body, but for some reason, it never attacked me. It just kept appearing, as if it wasn't actually trying to hurt me and was only playing with me.

The forest fairies were almost always hostile, but I had heard vague stories that sometimes the spriggans helped people who were lost or in danger, though I never believed those stories. More often, the stories involved the spriggans cornering lost travelers and ripping them to pieces. But now, I couldn't help but think that maybe this one was trying to lead me somewhere, since it never attacked, even though I was weak and defenseless. Either that, or the spriggans were leading me into a trap.

I stumbled through some bushes buried under snow, and emerged into a clearing, wincing as the wind buffeted against me. But as I lifted my gaze, I could make out a huge, looming shape ahead of me, its dark gray outline a faint silhouette against the black sky. I staggered through the knee-deep snow until I was up against it, although I could not understand what I was seeing.

I thought it was a cave at first, but it wasn't a cave. It was a building of some kind, mysteriously out here in the middle of nowhere. But as I ran my hand along the surface, which was undoubtedly wooden, I realized that it was not shaped like a building at all. The outside was curved, and as I walked along the edge, I could see that the entire structure was crooked, like it had partially tipped over or collapsed.

I found an entrance, but it wasn't a door. Part of the structure was indeed collapsed, and I managed to crawl through a smashed section, with long broken beams of wood sticking out in all directions. Snow had drifted inside, but once I crawled past the entrance, I found a solid floor sloping upward.

With cold hands, I fumbled with my sparker, snapping it to provide brief illumination. The split-second of light revealed the inside of a large wooden chamber. Off to my side there were crates and broken barrels lying in a haphazard pile, like they had all crashed there when this building had collapsed. Using my sparker to provide flashes of light, I investigated the pile of broken crates and found a ragged, old net bunched up on the floor.

Relief poured through me as I yanked the net free and dragged it over to the entrance. I crouched down over it and used my sparker for a few minutes, until I managed to finally light a spark, and then the net began to flicker and crackle with the first few whisps of flame. I almost cried I was so happy, and I huddled close to the fire until the net was burning fully, warming my hands.

With the light of the fire, I dug through the wreckage of the crates and barrels, finding some more loose wood, straw, and fabric that I could burn, then I broke up the crates as much as possible to use for kindling. I built up the fire, making sure to keep it contained in the middle of the drift of snow, to keep the fire from spreading to the building itself. The smoke drifted up along the ceiling, but there must have been some opening up above me for the smoke to escape, because the interior of the building never filled with smoke.

When the fire was going strong, I climbed up along the slanted floor and found huge sheets of heavy cloth folded up and tied with rope, slumped against the wall as if it had been thrown there. As I unfolded some of it, I realized with a start that it wasn't regular cloth, it was a sail for a ship, or at least a section of one. Why this place would have shipping sail was completely beyond me, but nothing about this strange place made sense anyway.

I dragged the section of sail down nearer to the fire and used it as a blanket to wrap around myself. I curled up by the fire and tossed some more chunks of wood into the flames to keep it going.

I don't know why the treefolk had brought me here, but I wasn't going to argue. I looked past the fire, out through the broken wall, and thought I saw those twinkling red eyes floating out in the darkness, but maybe it was just my imagination.

Not long after that, I finally fell asleep.