LXXIII
The market was not a village. It was a temporary city, built from tents, yurts, and bone‑framed stalls. Smoke rose from dozens of fires. Traders shouted. Children ran between booths. Hunters displayed pelts. Shamans sold charms. The air smelled of meat, smoke, and cold earth.
Representatives from the Steppe Tribes were everywhere. Tall, broad‑shouldered people with wind‑burned faces and sharp eyes. They wore layered furs and bone jewelry, their hair braided with feathers and dyed bone rings.
When they saw me, they stared.
Not hostile. Just… fascinated.
I was healthier than most women here.
I was thicker, stronger, and better fed.
My hips and thighs fuller from a life before this world.
To them, I looked like a symbol of abundance.
A sign of prosperity. A desirable wife.
One of the Steppe representatives, a woman with a shaved head and a cloak made of wolf pelts, approached me with a serious expression. She spoke to Rolan first, then pointed at me, then at a pile of pelts.
Rolan's eyes widened. He looked at me, then back at her, then shook his head firmly.
She insisted. She gestured at me again, then at the pelts, adding a few glittering stones, and a carved wooden bowl, then at her tribe's banner.
A trade. They wanted to trade for me.
As a wife. I stared at her, stunned. "No," I said, shaking my head. "No. Absolutely not."
She didn't understand the words, but she understood the tone.
She frowned, confused, then looked at Rolan as if expecting him to override me.
Rolan stepped between us. He touched his chest. Then mine.
Then shook his head again.
The woman exhaled sharply, disappointed but respectful. She bowed once, then walked away. Other representatives watched the exchange with interest, whispering among themselves. The hat‑man's cat flicked his tail, amused.
Rolan looked at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
Then he nudged Stone‑Wind forward, guiding us deeper into the market. We browsed, picking up a thing or two in trade, necessities for the journey, and travel food. A primitive kind of pemmican was readily available. Pemmican is a mixture of tallow, dried meat, and sometimes dried berries. Pemmican is calorie rich, can be eaten raw, or put in a stew. The ultimate protein snack. We gathered necessities until it was nearing sunset. I had asked Rolan to not stop until we reached another village. This market didn't feel safe enough to me.
We followed further up the river, following the melt, as it would eventually end in the glacier. Not far from the market darkness framed a group of willow trees. It looked flat enough to camp out in for the night. We quickly set up camp. Rolan set up bone clackers between the trees to alert us if anything was coming.
Exhausted Rolan snored beside me. I slept more lightly. We had both to sleep, until something in the night alerted me. A random sound, something being knocked over. The clackers shook and rattled. I sat up immediately, poking Roland awake, he rose slowly, but then he sensed it, bolting up fully awake.
Shapes moved between the tents. Out of the darkness crept men draped in wolf pelts, lion pelts, faces hidden behind snarling animal masks. Their bodies were painted with ash and soot, making them look like creatures crawling out of the dark. They moved with purpose toward our horses, toward our packs, and toward me. One of them whispered in a dialect I didn't know, but the tone was unmistakable:
Take the woman. Take the horses. Take everything.
Then a hand touched my shoulder. Rolan tilted his chin toward cat. I gently nudged the cat awake and then squeezed the mirror that housed the hat-man. I could feel him wake as it drew on my soul to power up. The little cat stood on Sura's saddle to get a better view.
They emerged like smoke given shape. Canines with long, lean bodies made of darkness, eyes glowing faintly like embers. They didn't bark. They didn't growl. They simply appeared, slipping between tents, weaving through the raiders' legs.
The men didn't notice until it was too late.
One hound lunged, not biting but passing through a raider like a cold wind. The man screamed, dropping his rope, clutching his chest as if something had reached inside him.
Another hound circled the horses, keeping them calm, their ears flicking but not panicking. A third hound stood beside me, tall as a wolf, its shadowy fur rippling like smoke. It didn't look at me. It looked at the raiders.
The hat‑man's cat sat upright on Sura's saddle, eyes glowing faintly. His whiskers twitched once. He was directing them. The few minutes that he borrowed power from me he attacked with full fury, ripping and tearing with what energy he could muster until the power ran out and our fifteen minutes was up.
Rolan grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the horses.
"Go."
One of the few words he said clearly.
We mounted fast bareback, no time for straps or knots. I tucked the cat into my crossbody bag. Rolan slapped Stone‑Wind's flank, and the stallion surged forward. Sura followed, her hooves pounding the frozen earth.
The raiders shouted, realizing too late that their prey was escaping.
Some chased on foot, others tried to block our path.
Rolan reached for his atlatl—the throwing stick he kept strapped to his pack. He loaded a dart in one smooth motion and hurled it with a snap of his wrist.
The dart flew with terrifying accuracy.
It struck a raider in the thigh, dropping him instantly.
Another dart hit a man's shoulder, spinning him sideways.
A third clipped a mask, sending it flying.
Rolan didn't aim to kill.
He aimed to stop. And he did.
Horses run faster than men.
Much faster.
The raiders fell behind quickly, their shouts fading into the night. The shadow hounds followed us for a time, then faded into smoke, returning to wherever the hat‑man kept them.
The cat curled back into sleep, exhausted. The hat man's consciousness dissolving back into the mirror.
Rolan didn't slow until the market fires were distant specks behind us. We rode hard until dawn, stopping only when the horses needed water. My hands shook. My breath came in sharp bursts. Rolan checked me twice, touching my arms, my shoulders, my face, making sure I wasn't hurt.
"No stop. North." he declared. I nodded, agreeing. We had picked up enough supplies at the market. There was no need to encounter another group of people. We'd do it ourselves.
By the time we reached the great river, it had become something unrecognizable. It wasn't a single flow anymore—it was a wide, roaring expanse, splitting and re‑splitting into tributaries that braided across the land like living veins. The water rushed away from the glacier in multicolored rapids, reflecting the aurora above. Green currents, blue currents, and a shimmer of gold and red ochre beneath the surface. It looked like the sky had melted and poured itself into the earth.
Rolan stood at the bank, jaw tight, eyes narrowed. He didn't like it. The horses didn't like it either—Stone‑Wind stamped and snorted, Sura's ears pinned flat. Even the hat‑man's cat lifted its head, pupils narrowing to slits as if it sensed something deeper in the water.
The river was uncrossable. Too wide, currents too fast to cross. Downstream, the tributaries would split again and again, feeding the plains with water that had once been ice. But here, at the glacier's edge, the river was a barrier. We would have to follow it until it narrowed, or go all the way to it's origin, to the glacier. The temperature dropped sharply.
We pulled on more furs. Thick pelts wrapped around our shoulders, our legs, our heads. Rolan helped tie mine tighter, making sure no wind could slip through. He wrapped his own cloak around his face until only his eyes showed, dark and steady.
I tucked the hat‑man's cat form into a fur‑lined purse, soft and deep enough to keep him warm. He curled inside immediately, purring once before settling. I pulled the purse into the front of my parka, close to my chest, where my body heat could keep him alive.
The magic in the air drained him faster than usual, and cats were never adapted for this kind of cold. Rolan glanced at the purse, then at me, then nodded with approval. Smart.
We mounted the horses again; their coats already rimmed with frost. Sura's breath came out in thick white clouds. Stone‑Wind's mane stiffened with ice. Luckily they were a hearty breed and had lived through such chills before, their bloodline having adapted over millennia.