Snow Mountain

- 9 -

Winter passed both slow and fast.

Everyday Fyar would wade out into the snow to check wards and scan for signs of the horsemen. There were none, but he could sense that they had not gone far.

Jalintu continued to make arrows, as though a passion had seized her. He was not sure if her enthusiasm came from the task itself or the fact that getting more fletching meant they could dine on goose every night.

He taught her how to shoot, using a target he set up in the snow. To his surprise she learned quickly, till he started to suspect that she did not need his instruction at all.

Still she asked for it, and every evening after his lesson she would stand at the entrance to the cave and shoot at the target, go out to fetch her arrows from the snow, and return to shoot again till the sun set and Fyar called her in to eat.

Jalintu also continued to share his bed. Originally, he had only invited her in to reassure her after her shock at seeing her tormentors once more. However it turned into routine, and Jalintu made it clear it was more than reassurance she craved.

A leg thrown over his own. A hand casually draped across a sensitive area. Rolling over in sleep, so her soft breath tickled his ear.

He was never sure which incidents were intentional and which were accidental.

At times such touches would cause the herdsman to freeze, and at others they would ignite a low fire within him, to the point that a few times he even left his own bed and went to sleep by the actual fire.

He was never sure who his restraint was for. Was it for Jalintu, out of consideration for all she had suffered? Or was it for himself, to protect his long barren heart from swelling with something that would most likely wither come spring and Jalintu's departure from the mountain.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The spring rains brought more snow to the mountain, instead of helping wash it away as they did at lower elevations. The nights, fresh and full of animal voices down in the valley, were still chill on the mountain. In the mornings in the valley the sun danced in crystal dew on freshly sprung grass, while on the mountain it still had to content itself with frost.

On one such chill spring morning Fyar rose to find his store of firewood had near run out.

He was surprised, for usually he cut enough to last him through the winter and until the next. He must have burned more than usual, in an effort to make Jalintu comfortable.

He went to the entrance of the cave. Outside, snow fell like rain, in thick sheets of whitish grey that limited the usually expansive view to just a few hundred paces.

"I will go down the mountain to cut some firewood today," he told Jalintu over breakfast. "May I leave care of the goats to you?"

Jalintu nodded, then looked at him, cautious.

"The mountain will protect you, even with me gone. Do not worry," he reassured her.

After breakfast he pulled a waterproof cape over his sheepskin jacket and set off, a sled dragging in the snow behind him.

It took an hour to make his way down to the tree line. There he stopped and picked several withered, already dead trees and felled them, then trimmed them down enough to lash to the sled.

As Fyar worked he became aware of eyes watching him. Sometimes boys from the village would dare each other to come spy on him. He knew they treated it as a game, or a test of courage, seeing who dared to get closest to the giant of the mountain.

He chuckled to himself. They find me fearful now. They should have seen how monstrous I once was.

But when he finally lashed the ax atop the cut wood and tied the sled about his waist to head up the mountain once more, it was not a pair of boys who stood watching him.