Wind, Snow and Stars

Rustik didn't like to talk. What he knew, he kept to himself. He'd seen the tracks in the snow and the fear in Dyatlov's eyes. 'So we're being hunted... and what's more, our leadership has been quiet about that fact,' he thought to himself. He pulled his skis up the frozen hill behind a long line of Russian coats shielding sweating students. Frightened by man or beast he did not know, but Dyatlov was leading the group out of the trees long before it was safe to brave the high howling Siberian peaks at night. He was unmoored, Rustik knew that... Zolotov, Doro, and Zina were uneasy, too.There had been strange sounds late in the night and that awful stench of rotting meat. 'Was that all it took to unsettle these seasoned hikers? No, there is something more than folklore with us here in the Urals, thousands of miles away from human settlements.' Rustik reassured himself with a grunt and adjusted his pack to excuse a cautious glance behind him at the frost-tipped pines disappearing down the slope. All that savage-hearted northland was silent and still and nature's will for that remote place focused on making all of life's attempts to infiltrate the Arctic tundra also silent and still.