BONES UNDER SNOW
They walked until the sea sound faded.
The forest closed around them slowly, as if it had been waiting. Trees thickened, trunks tall and straight, their bark scarred with age and weather. The ground dipped and rose without pattern. Moss swallowed stone. Old paths vanished into nothing.
Neither spoke.
Riqua walked a few steps behind Thorfinn, not out of fear, but instinct. He watched how Thorfinn moved. Where he stepped. How he paused before crossing open ground. How his head tilted slightly when the forest shifted, as if listening to something deeper than sound.
By midday, hunger settled in.
They found a stream and drank. The water was bitter cold, sharp enough to ache the teeth. Thorfinn knelt and splashed his face. Riqua followed, slower, more careful.
"You always walk like this," Riqua said. "Without stopping."
"Yes."
"Where are we going."
Thorfinn shook his head. "Away."
That answer seemed enough.
They found berries later, small and dark, growing low beneath twisted roots. Thorfinn tasted one first, waited. When nothing happened, he nodded. They ate in silence, staining their fingers purple.
By nightfall, the cold crept in hard.
They built a small fire in a hollow between rocks, feeding it sparingly. The flames barely rose above their knees. Thorfinn cleaned his knives. Riqua watched.
"You killed a lot of them," Riqua said.
"Yes."
"Does it bother you."
Thorfinn paused. The blade hovered, reflecting firelight. "It used to."
Riqua considered that. "What changed."
Thorfinn resumed sharpening. "I did."
The wind shifted. Somewhere in the distance, a howl rose, thin and searching.
Riqua drew closer to the fire.
That night, snow fell.
Not heavy. Not yet. Just enough to coat the ground in white by morning. Their fire had burned out long before dawn. When Thorfinn woke, his breath clouded thick in front of him. Riqua slept curled tight, jaw clenched, eyes twitching.
They walked again.
Snow deepened as the land climbed. Each step became heavier. Their clothes stiffened with ice. Riqua stumbled more than once, catching himself on trees, biting back curses.
Near midday, they heard voices.
Thorfinn dropped instantly, pulling Riqua down with him. They crouched behind a fallen trunk, snow soaking into their knees.
Men emerged from the trees ahead. Six of them. Armed. Armored poorly but enough. Not farmers. Not merchants.
Soldiers.
They moved in a loose line, alert, eyes scanning. One carried a spear. Another had a shield marked with a faded sigil Thorfinn did not recognize.
"They're not ours," Riqua whispered.
Thorfinn nodded.
The men passed close. Close enough that Thorfinn could smell them. Sweat. Leather. Old blood.
One of them stopped suddenly.
Thorfinn tensed.
The man bent, touched the ground. He lifted his fingers, smeared with purple.
"Berries," he said. "Fresh."
The others drew closer.
Thorfinn moved.
He rose behind the last man and slit his throat before the shout could leave his mouth. He caught the body as it fell, lowering it into the snow.
Chaos exploded.
Riqua lunged for the fallen spear, gripping it awkwardly. A soldier rushed him, sword raised. Riqua thrust blindly. The spear struck the man in the stomach, not deep enough. The soldier screamed and swung.
Thorfinn intercepted, driving his knife into the man's neck from the side. Blood poured hot over his hand.
Another soldier charged. Thorfinn ducked the shield bash, rolled, came up behind him. He slashed at the back of the knee. The man collapsed. Riqua struck him again, again, until the spear stuck fast.
A sword caught Thorfinn's shoulder. Pain flared bright and sharp. He snarled, grabbed the attacker's wrist, twisted hard, felt bone give. He headbutted the man and finished it with a quick cut under the jaw.
Silence followed, broken only by heavy breathing.
Two soldiers fled into the trees.
Thorfinn did not chase.
Riqua stood shaking, hands slick with blood. He stared at the bodies, chest heaving.
"You didn't hesitate," Thorfinn said.
Riqua swallowed. "Neither did you."
They dragged the bodies off the path and stripped what they could use. Cloaks. Boots. A length of dried meat. A small pouch of coins that meant nothing.
Snow fell heavier now.
They walked until the light dimmed again.
That night, they found shelter beneath an overhang of stone. Bones lay scattered there, half buried in ice. Animal. Human. It was hard to tell.
"People died here," Riqua said quietly.
"Yes."
"Why."
Thorfinn looked at the bones. Some were clean. Some cracked. "Cold," he said. "Hunger. Each other."
Riqua sat and stared at them for a long time.
Sleep came in fragments.
Thorfinn dreamed of running through snow, knives gone, hands empty. He woke with his heart pounding and snow clinging to his lashes.
They walked again.
Days blurred together.
Snow rose to their shins. Food ran thin. Riqua grew quieter, his movements sharper, eyes harder. He learned quickly. How to hold a knife. Where to strike. When to wait.
One evening, they reached the ruins of a road. Stone slabs broken and swallowed by earth. Roman work, long abandoned.
Bodies lay along it.
Frozen where they had fallen. Men. Women. A cart tipped on its side. A horse stiff and dead.
Riqua stopped. "They didn't fight."
"No," Thorfinn said. "They ran."
Riqua looked sick.
They did not linger.
That night, as the wind howled and snow piled high against the rock, Riqua spoke again.
"Back there," he said. "When you could've let me die."
Thorfinn stared into the darkness. "I didn't."
"Why."
Thorfinn closed his eyes.
"Because if I walk alone," he said slowly, "I won't stop."
Riqua understood that.
Outside, the snow kept falling, covering bones, covering roads, covering the past.
They slept anyway.
And in the white silence, the world moved on without them.
Snow buried the road by morning.
What had been stone was now only suggestion. A rise beneath white. A line where nothing grew. The past sealed away without ceremony.
They moved slower now. Every step pulled at muscle and breath. The cold did not stab anymore. It pressed. It stayed. Fingers numbed. Toes burned, then went dull. Thorfinn watched Riqua closely, not speaking, measuring the way his steps shortened, the way his shoulders hunched inward.
By noon, the wind shifted.
It came down from the north hard and dry, cutting through the trees and scraping sound from the air. The forest thinned. Pines gave way to bare trunks, twisted and clawing at the sky. The land opened into a wide stretch of rolling white broken by black stone.
Thorfinn stopped.
Riqua followed his gaze.
Figures moved in the distance. Dark shapes against the snow. Slow. Too steady for animals.
"People," Riqua said.
"Yes."
They crouched behind a low rise. Thorfinn counted. Eight. Armed. Moving with purpose. Not hunting. Searching.
"They'll see our tracks," Riqua said.
"They already have."
As if to prove it, one of the figures stopped and pointed. The group shifted direction.
Riqua's jaw tightened. "We can't outrun them."
"No."
Thorfinn scanned the land. To the left, stone teeth jutted from the ground, half buried. To the right, a shallow ravine choked with snow and scrub.
"There," he said.
They moved fast, sliding down into the ravine just as the wind swept their tracks thin. They pressed themselves into the earth, pulling loose snow over their cloaks.
Thorfinn slowed his breathing.
The men came close. Boots crunched above them. Voices carried, low and tense.
"They went this way."
"Split up."
Footsteps descended into the ravine.
Thorfinn moved.
He rose behind the first man and drove his knife into the base of the skull. The man dropped without a sound. Thorfinn caught him, easing him down.
Riqua lunged at another, slashing wildly. The blade caught the man's arm. He screamed.
Everything broke.
Steel rang. Men shouted. Thorfinn took a blow to the ribs that knocked the breath from him. He rolled, came up low, slashed at legs. A man fell. Another charged and slipped, skull cracking against stone.
Riqua fought like someone drowning. Hard. Messy. Alive. He took a cut across the cheek and did not slow. He stabbed again and again until the man stopped moving.
An axe whistled past Thorfinn's head and bit into stone. He seized the haft and wrenched it free, drove the blade into the man's chest. Warmth flooded his hands.
Two men fled.
The ravine fell quiet.
Thorfinn leaned against the wall, breathing hard. Pain throbbed through his side. He pressed his hand there and felt blood. Not much. Enough.
Riqua stood shaking, blood on his face freezing into dark lines. He stared at the bodies.
"I killed him," he said.
"Yes."
"I didn't think."
Thorfinn wiped his blade clean. "Thinking comes later."
They stripped the dead quickly. Better boots. Thicker cloaks. A skin of weak ale that burned going down. Thorfinn bound his side tight.
They moved again.
By dusk, the snow turned to ice. The ground beneath it hardened. They reached a ridge overlooking a wide frozen plain. Far off, smoke rose. A settlement. Or a camp.
Riqua squinted. "People."
"Yes."
"Friend or not."
Thorfinn did not answer.
They circled wide, keeping distance, moving along the edge of the plain. As night fell, the smoke dimmed but did not vanish.
They found shelter in a stand of trees twisted by wind. Thorfinn built no fire. They huddled together, backs to a trunk, cloaks wrapped tight.
Riqua's teeth chattered. "I don't feel my feet."
Thorfinn shifted closer, pressing his side against him, sharing heat. "Stamp them. Don't sleep."
Riqua nodded, eyes unfocused.
Hours passed.
Somewhere out on the plain, a horn sounded. Low. Long.
Thorfinn stiffened.
Another answered it.
Voices carried faintly now. Many of them.
"They're moving," Riqua whispered.
"Yes."
The voices grew closer. Shapes emerged from the dark. Dozens. Armed. Armored. Organized.
Thorfinn's mind worked fast.
He grabbed Riqua's arm. "When I move, you move."
They waited until the last moment, then broke from cover, sprinting downslope into the dark. Shouts rose behind them. Horns blared again.
They ran until their lungs burned, until their legs screamed, until the ground dropped away beneath them.
Ice cracked.
They slid onto a frozen river, skidding hard. The ice groaned under their weight.
"Don't stop," Thorfinn shouted.
They ran.
The ice shattered behind them as men followed. One plunged through with a scream. Another scrambled back, slipping, clawing.
An arrow struck the ice near Riqua's foot, cracking it wide.
They reached the far bank and scrambled up as the river began to break apart, water surging black and violent.
The men stopped at the edge.
Curses filled the air.
Thorfinn and Riqua did not look back.
They ran until the sounds faded.
They collapsed in a stand of dead trees, gasping, laughing without humor.
Riqua lay on his back, staring at the sky. "We should be dead."
Thorfinn wiped blood from his mouth. "Not yet."
Riqua turned his head and looked at him. "You keep saying that."
Thorfinn met his gaze. "Because it's true."
They lay there until the cold forced them up again.
By morning, the snow had stopped. The world lay silent and white, broken only by their tracks.
They walked on.
Behind them, the river swallowed the dead.
Ahead of them, the land stretched on, indifferent and endless.
Bones waited beneath the snow.