Snow Mountain

- 1 -

When the goatherd rose and walked to the entrance of his cave the world was white.

He took his time readying for the day. Leisurely he stoked the fire, heated water for his morning wash alongside a mug of thick gala he milked from the goats yesterday. The herdsman thought the taste sweeter and fresher than cow's milk, and better suited for making cheeses to preserve over the long winter.

After washing, he dressed. Over a tunic of rough cotton he layered a sheepskin vest and warm goats' wool tunic, as well as several scarves, also woolen. His legs he pulled into deerskin leggings, warmer than their supple texture suggested, and beaten till waterproof. He pulled huge sheepskin boots onto his feet that came up to his knees. Each had taken the hide of a whole sheep to make.

Finally, across it all he belted a bearskin, the claws still remaining. Sunny as it was, he did not need it for warmth, but the weather on the mountain was changeable, and he knew to be prepared.

Then he took his crook from beside the cave entrance and set out.

The sun was blinding. Reflecting off the snow, off the mountain tops, blazing out of the blue sky. The herdsman blinked and took some time to allow his eyes to adjust before setting out toward the pasture he had left his goats in. The going was slow, his heavy weight causing him to sink deep into the snow. He had tried once to fashion snow shoes that would let him skirt across the surface of the snow as men did. But his weight was many times that of most men, and even broad though he had made the shoes, he had still sunk too far for it to be practical.

And so he was forced to carve a path like this. He took care to make sure his steps followed a set route, one that would let him make later branches and crossways leading to other parts of his mountain. The lake, the spring, the hollow where his goats like to graze when the wind was strong and the weather rough. And also a path up to the peak, so he could climb and look down on the world around him.

It was something he always enjoyed, after the first snow of the season. Climbing up high to see the world bathed in white.

He found his herd near where he had left them, grazing close to the old, beaten road that ran across the saddle ridge that joined his mountain to the next. The road was rarely used, save by the herdsman when he journeyed to town, and the goats often came this way. The tough mountain plants grew thicker in the saddle.

His goats were standing from where they had huddled together for the night, shaking clumps of snow and ice from their thick coats. It was amazing to him that no matter how harsh the weather, his goats emerged unscathed. He could not help but feel a respect for the humble, grass-munching creatures.

The herdsman stood and watched his flock, letting them graze. He watched Mavros, his black buck, use horns to knock snow from a clump of grass then pull several strands from the bush with a loud snap. Chewing till even the tough strands were broken, the buck swallowed and then bent for more.

A harsh cry echoed out of the sky and the goatherd tilted his head back. White geese, seeming close with the height of the mountain, soared directly overhead in a precisely spaced triangle, heading south. A true sign of winter.

Absent-mindedly, the herdsman reached one hand toward his back,as though to scratch his shoulder. But his hand stopped and fell midway.

Around noon the sun went behind grey clouds that appeared from behind the western ridge, and soft white flakes started to fall once more. These were slow and ponderous flakes, nothing like the blizzard that had hit the night before. But the disappearance of the sun the wind had turned icey cold, and the herdsman pulled the bearskin higher, sheltering his neck. His hair grew long and thick, and a beard covered his face, but these did little to deter the wind.

Again he marveled at his goats, indifferently cropping in the snow.

"Ayy- giyyap!" he yelled. Raising his crook to begin to drive Mavros toward his mountain. Though the goats were impervious to weather while together, there were instances of single goats getting lost in a strong storm and freezing to death on their own. It would be better to keep them closer while winter was new and the storms at their worst.

As his herd headed up the mountain back toward the cave, the herdman counted them. There should be nineteen, a large herd. It only took two or three goats to support a small family, so he had far more than he needed for himself. And soon he would have too many for the sparse pasture the mountain offered to support. He would need to cull one of the older members of the herd soon, or risk them all starving.

He glanced around for Thymonos, a wether and the oldest of the herd. Castrating the animal when he grew too old to mount the females had done nothing to help the beast's foul temper, and hence the goat's name, 'angry one', still suited it.

Spotting the old goat's brown coat behind them, the herdsman turned and lumbered back through the snow.

"Thymonos, you stubborn old bastard, you do nothing to help your case. Come now, or you will be the first one I eat come spring-"

The herdsman stopped. The old brown goat lay in the hollow created by the herd the night before as the snow had fallen around them. And beneath the goat lay something else.

A curve of flesh, a strand of silver and gold hair. A hand with bones too fine to be a man's.

"Oi, Thymonos, you bastard, get off of her!" the goatherd yelled, shooing away the old wether. The goat went, looking balefully over his shoulder at his master as he did.

With the goat gone, the herdsman could more completely see the woman on the ground. What he saw startled him.

The blue swirls on her skin mixed with scars, from blades and whips and tools too terrible to imagine. Her legs were too thin, the muscle depleted from lack of use, and the worn flesh on wrists and ankles made him wonder if she had been bound so tightly as to prevent movement.

But it was her bent back, and the strange blotched scar on her shoulders that most outraged him. He realized it came from being kept in a cage, one far too small for its captive.

Miraculously, she still drew breath.

The man crouched closer to inspect a wound on the woman's forehead and was overpowered by the smell. Having to live with goats, he was no stranger to stink, but the foul smell that arose from the woman turned even his stomach. He realized it came from her hair, which appeared to be matted with feces and urine.

It is not her own, the herdsman realized. Such maneuvering would be impossible. What did they do her?

They. He did not need to know who they were. Men were universally cruel. They bred cruelty and violence wherever they went, caring little if it was their own kind that caught in it.

The herdsman's fingers curled to fists. He had sworn off violence a long time ago, but something very like wrath filled him.

He undid his belt and pulled the bearskin from his shoulders, then lay it out on the ground beside the woman.

Gently, he lifted the bruised, dirty body and lay it on the thick fur, snow falling around them.

Then he lifted the woman and followed his herd back to the cave.