Thrown Through Time

Chapter 3

The fire was burning and the men were exhausted. They had been marching for hours through the knee-deep snow until Ulriech had finally told them they could rest. Now that the sun was going down and the temperature was swiftly dropping, they eagerly made themselves nice and comfortable around the fire, wrapping themselves up in their thick furs.

Ulriech was pacing around the camp, barking orders. He assigned two men to guard duty and  another two to scout ahead early the next morning. Then he suddenly stopped and looked around. "Where's the woman?" he bellowed. "And where's Eirik?"

The men suddenly began looking around. They all seemed to have forgotten about the woman, and none of them had seen her in quite some time. Eirik, Ulriech's younger brother, had been missing for nearly as long. Then, one of the men pointed.

Walking towards them, Eirik was carrying the woman, who seemed to be wrapped up in his cloak. "Father isn't going to be happy with you if she dies before we get home," he said, walking past Ulriech and nodding for one of the men to move out of his way so he could sit near the fire with her.

"Where did you find her?" Ulriech asked.

"About a mile back," Eirik said. "I guess since the rest of you were so warm, you didn't think that perhaps she might need something a little warmer than this worthless shawl!" He tossed it into the fire and the men shifted uncomfortably as it began to burn. "Would someone bring me a heavy cloak?" He didn't have to wait long before he was brought a replacement for the heavy, fur lined cloak he had wrapped around the woman.

"Fine," Ulriech snapped. "Eirik, you can be in charge of her."

Eirik simply glared at his older brother. "I suppose someone has to be," he muttered. He ate before the food had a chance to get cold, then walked over to the wagon and pulled out two more large furs. Carrying them over by the fire, he laid one out and lifted her onto it before stretching out behind her and pulling the other fur over top of them. He ignored Ulriech as he continued bossing everyone around for another twenty minutes, and closed his eyes with a sigh.

Sophie opened her eyes. The sun was coming up and all she could remember was hiking through the snow. She suddenly realized who she was with, but was surprised that she was warm, given the fact that they were sleeping on the snow. Sitting up slowly, she looked around and saw that all the men were still asleep around the remains of a fire. She wondered if they would even notice if she was missing.

She tried to roll out from underneath the furs and quickly realized that she was not alone under there. Glancing over her shoulder, she recognized the man sleeping beside her. He was the quiet one of the group. In fact, she wasn't even sure if he'd spoken two words the entire time the regiment had been marching her along.

Gently moving his arm off of her, she slipped out from under the warmth of the furs and immediately shivered. It was even colder than she expected, but she was half wrapped in a heavy cloak and she pulled it tighter around herself before getting to her feet and creeping quietly away. Neanderthals, the whole lot of them.

She seemed to be making good time, even through the snow. Probably because they had broken such a nice trail for her. But she knew it wouldn't be long before they woke up to find her gone and she wished she had woken up earlier to get a bigger head start. No doubt they were going to be angry at having to track her down again, and she had no doubt that they would do so fairly quickly. But she had no intention of making this easy on any of them.

Ulriech kicked Eirik's leg. "Where is she?" he snapped.

Eirik muttered something from under the furs before throwing them back and sitting up. "Well, why don't you follow the trail she most likely left and find out?"