Chapter 293: Real Cold
There was a burning from the cold Irene’s face as she climbed the hill that left the northern side of the township she had gotten comfortable staying in. In response, she slowed Sammy and pulled the scarf higher until it was just under her eyes.
With a moment of pause, the girl turned towards the place she was leaving and her eyes brushed over it fondly. She was sure she would be back on the way home.
While the sun was rising and the clear sky would make one think that it was going to be a warm day, she could see the occasional sparkle in the sky that showed just how frozen the air actually was. It had reached a point she was familiar with where the sky was too frozen to hold clouds. The sun was a misleading backdrop to what would be an awfully cold travel day.
Yet the horse underneath her seemed giddy to keep going so she squeezed her knees and requested he go forth. He bounded down the hill in response and they crunched through the snow with each step.
She even spared one last glance to the ships that stood in the distance. The further north she traveled, the icy plateau that led to a mountain even higher than the northern mountains in Chemois would conceal the ships and the signs of life would no longer be present.
Her father told her that the likelihood she could miss the village altogether was quite high. She needed to pay special attention to her surroundings and everything it said on the map. The village was said to be where the icy plateau was no longer in sight and they had a gateway to the far north. Only there she would find the lumps in the snow that represented the village that her uncle and father came from. It was the one her grandmother and grandfather built from scratch.
She also had three grouse carcases that she had frozen the night before in individual pouches, knowing that they would come in handy.
From the township, she had also stolen a shovel that she could put behind her saddle and on top of one of the saddlebags. There seemed to be a high likelihood that the expanse of whiteness ahead meant that there wouldn’t be rocks or buildings to nestle against to stave off the cold. Her only option otherwise was to dig downward and hope that snow was stable enough to offer shelter.
Considering the weight of Sammy and her was only sinking down about six inches, there was a high likelihood that the snow would hold. The issue would be if she was too tired or not to accomplish the digging needed to give both herself and her horse a decent enough shelter.
Because of the clear day, Irene occasionally measured the icy mountain with the northern mountains that were her backdrop. She was supposed to be going northeast rather than true north. Each time she looked in the direction of the mountains, she knew she was on the right track, but the monotonous path ahead was making her doubt herself.
The only way she could tell that they had gone forward a great deal was the fact that the township was lost in the distance and concealed by what she wasn’t sure were hills or merely snowdrifts. It made her realize she would love to return once things were thawed out. However, Sunstoian people traveled in packs for a reason. The high amount of monsters in this region when things thawed was not something she could take all on her own.