Ice E-Book

Annelie Wendeberg

• Herausgeber: Annelie Wendeberg
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The 1/2986 Series
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

People think I survived. But that’s an illusion.

After two years of hell in a prison camp, Micka wants only one thing: To end the Brothers and Sisters of the Apocalypse. She embarks on a race across five thousand kilometres of ice and snow, knowing it’s a suicide mission.

But she has nothing left to lose.

Award-winning author Annelie Wendeberg delivers a dark dystopian series that brims with fast-paced action and suspense. Based on climate science, Micka’s world gives a terrifying glimpse into our possible future.

Warning: Contains themes of war, trauma, physical abuse, violence, and other content which may be triggering to some readers.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ hauntingly beautiful

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I would buy anything this author writes without hesitation

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This reminded me a lot of The Hunger Games but is much better and more realistic.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Love this series! I hope to see more! I have read many books and have yet to see a plot like this series.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Another bombshell adventure of survival and revenge.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Best book I've ever read in a long time!SO AMAZINGLY WRITTEN!! Perfection at its best!

Leseprobe

ICE

1/2986 - Book 3

ANNELIE WENDEBERG

Copyright 2015 by Annelie Wendeberg

eBook Edition

This is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and names in this book are products of the author’s imagination. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN: 978-91-989004-6-0

Cover design by Alisha Moore (Damonza.com)

Interior design by Annelie Wendeberg.

Contents

All you need to know…

Part I

Falling

Clan

Ivory Dog

Javier

The Lume

Part II

5689 kilometres

5419 kilometres

5122 kilometres

Husband

5031 kilometres

4301 kilometres

3157 kilometres

Jeremiah

2978 kilometres

Silas

2899 kilometres

2461 kilometres

2337 kilometres

1789 kilometres

693 kilometres

283 kilometres

The Vault

Part III

zero kilometres

Race

Ice

Preview Book 4

Anna Kronberg Mysteries

Arlington & McCurley Mysteries

Keeper of Pleas Mysteries

More…

Extras

Acknowledgments

All you need to know…

…is here:

Join our reader community!

for exclusive short stories, voting rights, bonus chapters, character art, all of my newest books long before publication, and a juicy discount in my bookshop

* * *

BookBub

This book is dedicated to humility and hope. It is dedicated to my children and to yours, and to the generations that follow. It is dedicated to the polar bear who will not survive the world we are creating, and to the peoples of the Arctic who must adapt to a life without the white expanse.

PartI

I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.

Thomas Hobbes

Falling

When you lay down a law, see that it is not disobeyed; if it is disobeyed the offender must be put to death.

The Art of War, Sun Tzu

I’m about to die. I have mixed feelings about that, but no time to elaborate. The crunching noise is sickening — something’s broken. A sudden impact jerks me forward and I hit my head hard on the yoke, tilting the nose of the aircraft towards the sheer rock wall before me. I yank the machine up, blinking blood and sunlight from my eyes.

Snowy mountains shimmer through the clouds. The small aircraft tumbles and hollers, muting the wild knocking of my heart against my ribs. An orchestra of terror. The crest is racing closer — a black shard cutting through soft white clouds. I growl, clench my teeth, and fight with the stubborn machine.

A piercing noise. I’m thrown forward again, barely missing the yoke this time. I pull the aircraft back up until blue sky is all I see. I want to remain up here, but I can’t.

Both control screens flash warnings in capital letters, telling me nothing I don’t already know. I push the nose of the machine down to bring its wings level with the horizon, and make sure it’s somewhat in line with the previous course.

I’m skidding along a blanket of white. One last glance, then I leave the cockpit and enter the cabin. At once, the machine starts to fishtail.

I hurry the parachute onto my back and pull the buckles tight. My large ruck goes upside down against my front, its straps around my belly and thighs. My rifle sticks halfway out and I’m sure I’ll bonk my head against the stock on my way down. But a headache would be the least of my problems.

Taking a deep breath and ordering myself not to piss my pants, I open the hatch. At first, it requires some force, but then the door is ripped from my grip and bangs against the side of the plane. Cold wind rushes in, and the fishtailing goes from tolerable to violent. The machine dips into the cloud cover.

Okay, time to take a nice comfy leap into a bed of white sheep’s wool.

Ugh, I’ve never been good at bullshitting myself.

I shut my eyes, grab both sides of the doorframe, and propel myself out of the machine with a cry.

Wind rips at my cheeks and eyelids. The wet clouds are as cold as ice.

I try not to think of an impending death by being smashed to smithereens.

Doesn’t work, though.

My heart is hollering. Or maybe it’s stopped by now. I can’t really tell.

I break through the cloud cover and see Earth racing closer. Below me, everything is white. Only a black, dotted line of naked trees and a few dark, windswept rocks are spinning like crazy. Like arms of a clock telling me my time is running out.

The storm of my quick descent roars in my ears. I’m dizzy, trying to balance my limbs in thin air, trying to slow the tumbling of my body. At some point I’m supposed to release the parachute. Not sure when, though. I’ve never jumped from an aircraft.

For a short moment I wonder if I’m free. I think I am, now. Even before I touch the ground, before I reach civilisation, before I can be sure I’ve survived all this. Two years of hell behind me. It feels unreal. Just like flying.

I grin, and the wind gushes into my mouth and through my teeth until they hurt.

My breath is a series of groans in too quick succession. I should try and stop hyperventilating.

There’s a uniform mass of white below and a uniform mass of white above. No idea how close or far away the ground is.

With a rush of panic my survival instinct kicks in as the single line of trees begins to show faint details of branches and shadows of piled up snow. I stop thinking and start reacting. I kick my heels and throw out my hands, stretching flat against the pushing air. My tumbling ceases and I pull the release. The parachute jerks me away from death. I hit my head on the stock of my rifle.

Squealing like a pig that meets the slaughterer, I hold on to my ruck and watch the ground approach. Just as I think that I’m too fast, the ground hits me, hard. Pain shoots up my legs and hips, and I roll and plough through the deep snow. The parachute drags me and, finally, brings me to a halt.

Gasping, I look up at the clouds. I’m invisible. I bark a single, croaky laugh.

I move my legs and instantly, pain sets my right ankle on fire. It almost makes me regret I pulled the release at all. I must have pulled it too late, but then, if I’d done it only a few seconds earlier, the parachute wouldn’t have opened because I was still spinning like a maple seed in a hurricane.

I roll onto my side, scrape snow out of my mouth, ears, and collar. I must have lost my wool hat. When I brush snow from my hair it comes off rusty. It doesn’t worry me; it’s not my own blood.

My body feels stiff and ice cold. I need to move. I strip off my gloves, unstrap my ruck and the parachute and peel myself out of all that equipment. Snow is falling thickly, but at least there’s no wind. Bit by bit, I pull in the parachute. It’s heavy; fresh snow weighs it down and more is falling onto it. It takes about ten, fifteen minutes just to get the thing bunched up next to me.

My fingers brush over my pant leg, gingerly probing the muscles of my calf, ankle, and foot. My ankle hurts like shit when I touch it. There’s no blood on my pants or boots, which means the fractured bone didn’t break the skin. But there’ll be internal bleeding that’ll cause painful swelling in about twenty-four hours. Depending on the severity of the injury, I might be unable to walk.

I twist my neck to assess the distance to the nearby trees. More than a hundred metres. Okay, I’ll crawl, or scoot on my butt — backwards like some stupid crab. Without a good stick to serve as a crutch, I won’t get far. But I don’t even know how far precisely I need to walk to reach my destination. All I know is the direction: south, southeast. More or less.

I pull the knife from its sheath and cut the parachute into shreds. My breath is cloudy. There’s a layer of fresh snow on my pants, boots, and the ruck. Wrapping my ankle tightly in strips of fabric produces more pain. I’m angry at my leg, it’ll kill me if I let it. To croak is not on my list today.

With my ruck serving as support, half dragging it, half leaning on it, I make it to the group of trees in a bit more than half an hour. Or in what feels like half an hour. I’m soaked in sweat when I lean against the first trunk. As soon as I stop moving, cold creeps in with icy fingers.

I find a dead branch that looks the right length and thickness, break it off and clamp it under my armpit to test its stability. It doesn’t creak when I put the combined weight of my ruck and myself on it. I sit back down, pull my snow goggles out of my pack and snap them on my face.

Even with the injury and not knowing where precisely I am, my situation isn’t hopeless. Actually, it’s quite okay, everything considered. I have all my possessions — my ruck, clothes, cookware, provisions, plus a bunch of small and useful things, and most important of all: my knife, pistol, and ammo. Even my rifle. I need to get used to its weight and feel again. And I have to push away the memories it evokes.

A laugh bursts from my chest. There are so many memories that need to be pushed away, I should get my brain washed.

One last glance at the compass, then I stand and hobble away from the Carpathian Mountains.

* * *

Snow is coming down; large and heavy flakes. Four days of snail’s pace limping didn’t get me far. My provisions have been eaten, the little oil in my petroleum burner is gone. Eating snow to replenish liquids would kill me in a day or two.

So that’s it, basically.

My ankle hurts so much I want to throw up. I’ve been ass-scooting since this morning. It took ages to move only fifty metres. My pants are soaked, and caked with ice. I’m freezing. There’s absolutely nothing that looks familiar to me and I have no clue where I am. The maps crashed with the aircraft — in my hurry to get out of the machine, I forgot them and this mistake is going to kill me now. There’s nothing in sight that can help me pinpoint my precise location. A distant forest and I are the only non-white things sticking out of this snow desert.

I keep wondering what I was thinking when I ran from Erik and his men, and whether, at some point, I really believed I could make it.

I gaze up at the sky that has been overcast since I fell from it. Above the clouds are Erik’s satellites, their various UV/Vis and shortwave infrared sensors are unable to see me now. Up until a few days ago I’d hoped to make him believe that I’d crashed and burned in his aircraft, so he wouldn’t come looking for me.

It doesn’t matter anymore.

With a sigh, I remove my snow goggles and lean back against a tree trunk. My knees are knocking against each other. The vibration sends waves of pain up and down my injured leg. I shut my eyes and slow my breathing, thinking of the friends I’ve left behind and wondering what I have done to be the only one left alive. For a very long time, I believed I couldn’t bear the guilt.

Today, I don’t feel this weight. Now that I sit here and stare into the white expanse, I begin to miss things that seemed irrelevant for so long. Strangely, the one thing I yearn for is autumn — the turning of the land, the blushing of the trees before they get naked. Funny, what one suddenly learns to appreciate when time has run out. Or maybe it’s just me not wanting to freeze, to be so hungry and utterly thirsty. Autumn was nice. Sun. Colours. Food in abundance.

When, gradually, my shivering subsides I know that the warmth my body seems to feel is the first messenger of my end. I don’t mind. It’s a kind way to go. I’ll fall asleep and, by tomorrow morning, I’ll be an icicle.

I think of Rajah, her kindness, her voluptuous body, her soft voice. ‘Sometimes, in my dreams, I’m holding you,’ I once told her, and she smiled, the baby at her breast cooed, and she reached out her hand — calloused, red, and a little swollen from too much work. I took it into mine and she pulled me closer to kiss my wrist. Our smiles and the touch of her lips to my skin were her death sentence. We had believed that, for one moment, no one was watching.

Weakness kills. I’ve learned that lesson.

I’m ready now.

I’m ready.

And so tired.

Clan

The yapping of excited dogs sounds from afar. I wake from my stupor. The thought of being torn apart by a pack of hungry wild dogs mobilises my last bit of energy. I slip a round into my rifle and run my index finger over the cold trigger guard. The temperature is so low that the metal is sticky to the touch.

Breath clouds my view and my scope. I let the condensation clear, prop the weapon onto my healthy knee, and gaze through the finder. Two rows of six dogs each, a sled with a heavy load, a handler.

A tear skids down my cheek.

I lower my rifle, cry, ‘Over here!’ and wave.

The animals approach quickly. Their yapping mingles with hoarse huffs. Only a moment later, they come to a halt. Sighing, I close my eyes, revel in the noises they produce, the smacking of tongues and muzzles, the pattering of paws in snow. I try to taste the sounds, but my mouth is parched.

The pulse in my fingertips taps erratically. I can almost feel the warmth and softness of the furry animals.

I will not die. Not today.

I made it.

He’s more bear than man. His beard is dotted with icicles, his shaggy brown hair melts into a thick fur coat that reaches down to his shins to meet two large boots. Gloves with cut-off fingertips and a hat are made of coarse, waterproofed wool. Silently, he gazes down at me as if I’m an apparition from another world.

I’m about to point out that he’s the one who looks absurd — a cross between man and beast — when he lifts the muzzle of his rifle and points it at me. It’s an old weapon, but accurate enough to kill from such a short distance.

‘I am Mickaela Capra, Sequencer’s apprentice in her third year.’ I almost gag on my own words. ‘I lost my SatPad. I’m injured and need to contact my people.’ I cock my head at him, trying to look friendly. I forget how that’s supposed to work with men. ‘Could you help me, please?’

He scowls and doesn’t lower his weapon. If he squeezed the trigger now, the bullet would hit me in the solar plexus.

‘Where’s your Sequencer?’

‘He was killed by the BSA,’ I answer.

The muzzle drops a fraction and that’s when I know he’s close to where I need him. I push a bit more. ‘Did the Sequencers already pick up the samples of dog lungs?’

He blinks. ‘Might be in a week or two. I don’t know your face. How come you know about the tuberculosis monitoring campaign?’

‘I was with your clan two winters ago. Katvar made me this.’ I slip my cold hand under my scarf and tug at the small ivory dog.

The disapproval in his expression comes as a surprise. His eyebrows bunch up as he slings his rifle over his shoulder and offers me a hand. ‘Can you stand?’

A settlement appears on the horizon — small, shadowy blobs amid the white. ‘Why are you so far east this winter?’ I ask, although I know perfectly well.

‘Ran into problems with the neighbours.’

‘Problems that made you move your winter camp several hundred kilometres?’

The bear man, Sal, doesn’t reply. He introduced himself a couple of minutes ago, after two long and silent hours of racing through the snowy countryside. But I’m only guessing how long we’ve been travelling; the sun is covered by clouds and time crawls slower when one wants to be done with freezing, with being hungry, thirsty, exhausted, and in pain.

I’m folded up next to a moose carcass. While it was still warm, I had my arms wrapped around its furry neck, my fingers dipping into the wound and then into my mouth, again and again. I have no idea how he killed the moose, because the hole in its neck was not inflicted by a bullet. Whatever caused it, it looks as if Sal has enlarged it with a knife. There’s another hole in the animal’s chest, a little smaller. I’ll ask him about it later.

Now, the carcass is stiff, its blood tastes off, and I can’t quite move my limbs from underneath the heavy body. At least, I got a little liquid and a few calories into me. Life is improving.

The wind carries cries of welcome to my ears. My heart skips a beat. All will be good, I tell myself. And yet, somewhere in the back of my skull is a scraping sensation. Danger! it whispers over and over again, making my muscles tense and my head ache. I try to calm my breathing.

The sled slows as we enter the village. My eyes are sharp, scanning for potential attackers. My right hand wants to touch the pistol strapped to my leg, but I won’t let it. One doesn’t beg for help wielding a loaded gun. I ball my empty hands to fists. All will be good, I repeat in my mind. All will be good.

Sal shouts, ‘Stop!’ The dogs come to a halt and plop into the snow, long tongues lolling past rows of sharp teeth. Yurts stand in a semi-circle. There’s a log house at the centre with adobe plaster on its outside and a snow-covered roof. The circular opening at the top expels wisps of smoke. Scents of scorched herbs waft through the cold air.

A group of kids, six of various sizes, all covered in thick furs, approach at a run. Sal shoos them away, but they just grin at him, and stare at me and the moose, all of them rooted to the spot, poking elbows into each other’s sides.

He helps me off the sled, because I’m frozen stiff, and then he half-carries, half-walks me to one of the yurts. ‘Oy!’ he calls as we reach the entrance.

A woman opens the flap door, scans me from head to toe while he tells her where he found me, who I said I am, and that my foot is injured.

‘Ankle,’ I mutter. She’s faintly familiar to me, but I’m too exhausted to remember her name.

‘You are welcome in our home, Micka,’ she says. There’s something passing between Sal and her, unspoken words that seem like a warning.

I say my thanks and follow her inside, my stick carrying most of my weight now that Sal is gone. The room is quite large. Rugs in red and brown hues cover the floor. Some are worn down to the threads, and underneath is what seems to be a thick layer of hay and brush. At the centre of the room stands a stove that spills an enticing warmth. The walls are made of a cream-coloured, many-layered fabric. On one side of the yurt, arranged in a semi-circle around the stove, are four pallets — frames of wood, filled with thick beddings of fine birch twigs and covered with furs in all shades of black, brown, grey, and white.

‘My children will prepare a bed for you. Put your things right here. Make sure there’s no bullet in the chamber of any of your guns. The smaller kids will investigate, even if I tell them not to.’ Then, her gaze slips over my shoulder. Someone enters. Someone who seems to cause her irritation.

I turn around and find a man in furs, caked with snow from boots to shoulders. He’s not tall, maybe only a hand taller than I. Broad-shouldered and silent, he takes quick strides towards me, carrying a peculiar aura of strength and willpower ahead of him, pushing it forward and almost slapping it at my face. My right hand finds my gun easily. Safety flicked off. Index finger on the trigger guard. If I didn’t need these people so badly, he would now be hitting the ground, bleeding from two chest wounds and a hole in his head.

He reaches out and softly touches my cheek. I flinch, fighting to control my reflexes. And suddenly, I remember. ‘Katvar!’

His hand drops to his side. He looks at the woman and signs with his hands and lips, probably asking her what the hell I’m doing here.

‘I fell from the sky,’ I hear myself blurt out.

He cocks his head at me.

‘I hurt my ankle,’ I add and wonder what the fuck is wrong with my mouth, or my brain, or whatever is responsible for the garbage coming out of me.

A nod, then he turns away and stomps outside. I can hear him click his tongue, hear the dogs respond with yaps and playful growls.

I sink onto my butt, unable to stand any longer. Shit, I shouldn’t have said anything about falling from the sky.

‘I’m Seema.’ The woman gazes down at me, her hands on her hips. ‘You might remember me. I’m mother to four daughters and one son, wife of Chief Birket, of Raven and of Oakes, and I’m a maker of fine bows.’

I’m about to reach out, when I recall that the Dog People don’t make a habit of shaking hands. They give an introductory speech instead. And I do remember Seema: she gave a youngster quite a tongue-lashing the last time I was their guest. It had surprised me, because she seemed like someone who would never raise her voice.

‘I’m Micka. I’m a sniper. No kids, no husband, but I can hit a target from two kilometres distance.’

That’s not quite true. Two kilometres is just outside the range of my rifle, and I need a lot of target practice to get my sharp shooting skills back to where they used to be. And the kids and husband thing is… I’d better not think of it.

‘I’ll see what we can do for your leg, but first you need to eat and wash.’ She points at my mouth. I hastily lick and rub the blood off my lips. No need to sniff at my hands or clothes. I know I reek. She covers the distance to the yurt’s entrance, sticks her head outside and shouts instructions. Then she turns back to me. ‘There’ll be warm water and a tub soon. Take off your coat. It’s warm enough in here.’

I open the zipper a few centimetres to show her there is nothing underneath. ‘I don’t have a shirt.’

During the first two days of my escape, I used my two shirts and single sweater to catch all the blood. Once they were soaked, I buried them in the snow, knowing the wild dogs or other predators would find the odour of fresh blood enticing and would, hopefully, be led to my clothes instead of myself. Then, on the morning of the third day, I drenched my first pair of pants, during the afternoon, my second pair. Since then, I’ve been wet and freezing.

Seema narrows her eyes and her gaze travels from my matted hair to my grimy face and throat, and down along my coat that ends just over my knees. Various hues of brown peek out from beneath it.

The hairs on my neck bristle as she sucks in a breath. ‘You are bleeding!’ She approaches with two quick strides and gently lifts the hem of my coat to reveal my bloody pants and my soft belly.

‘When was your child born, Micka?’

‘Few days ago.’ I watch her hand slowly pull my coat back down.

‘It died?’

I look away. I’m glad I don’t need to answer her question, because, just then, Katvar marches in, again without announcing himself.

‘What’s wrong with you? Whistle before you enter, man!’ Seema growls at him. ‘And since you’re here already, go and fetch Barktak and be quick about it!’

He frowns and gives her a short nod, then holds out his hand to me. Two rolls of bandages for my ankle. I take them, wondering where the Dog People got the fine cotton gauze from.

‘Thanks,’ I say, but he’s already turned to leave. Katvar is just as I remember him: abrupt and short on gestures, expression forbidding, constantly unfriendly unless you bid him a forever farewell.

I can’t remember Barktak’s face, only her coarse voice and effectiveness (if not to say unfriendliness). She’d amputated my frostbitten toes two years ago, and back then, I’d caught myself wondering if she’d enjoyed cutting them off. I was a silly girl.

Seema helps me to one of the beds. I’m surprised how soft and springy it is. She retreats to the stove and scoops something from a pot into a bowl. She offers it to me, together with a wooden spoon and a mug with herbal tea. Judging from the smell, I’m pretty sure that what I’m about to eat must be the most wonderful meat stew in the world.

‘Eat slow; it’s hot,’ she cautions just as a squawk issues from one of the pallets. She crosses the room, bends down, and coos at a wiggling bundle.

My heart stops.

‘My son,’ she says with a smile that’s proud and maybe a bit apologetic. ‘He is strong and healthy. Just like his three fathers.’

My daughter’s father was strong and healthy, too. It didn’t make a difference.

Seema sits, pulls at the strings of her blouse, and puts the baby to her breast. Gurgling and smacking noises tell of a happy child. ‘You will tell us your story when you’ve rested.’

I doubt that.

I shovel stew into my mouth and burn my tongue but don’t care much about it. I want to eat all of what’s in the large pot. But when my stomach cramps from the unusual amount of rich food, I place the bowl on the ground, finish my tea, and check on my injured ankle.

Unwrapping the strips of my parachute is painful and I wonder if it was stupid to use this peculiar fabric, to have it clinging to me like a telltale sign of how I got here. I scan the room and see only things that have been made by nimble hands and primitive tools. Machine-woven, super-light and durable synthetics will raise suspicion.

I press my eyes shut, think quickly, and decide for the simplest explanation, which isn’t an explanation at all: It’s a Sequencer’s thing and a secret. Period.

My cold fingers brush over my ankle. It looks sickening, much like a misshapen blue and purple balloon.

‘Jarvis,’ Seema whispers. ‘You are a good eater. I’m proud.’

I look up at her and can’t take my gaze off the scene: One tiny hand holds on to a nipple, covering the dark areola. There’s milk leaking through his fingers, a trail of rich white curling down his wrist and disappearing into his sleeve. Seema’s face is that of deep serenity and peace — a woman who seems happy and proud to be a wife and a mother. What an unusual sight.

My throat closes. My breasts never had time to produce milk.

I swallow and study my bowl to find the tiniest puddle of stew left in it — a drop, really. I scoop up the bowl and lick it clean.

With a faint plop, Seema unlatches her son, props him up for a burp, and then offers the other nipple. Within a heartbeat, lips find the target as a chubby hand strays to the emptied breast.

Too tired to sit upright, I lower my head on the furs and watch until my eyelids grow heavy. Seema begins to hum a lullaby. Peace is an illusion, my mind scoffs as I drift off to sleep.

A tap to my forehead wakes me. Two thick socks with one toe sticking out of a frayed hole. Pants made of short fur — horse, maybe? I blink and rub my tired eyes.

‘I am Barktak, mother of five, grandmother of fourteen, wife of Haruo, widow of Nehemiah. I’m the healer of this tribe.’

Her arms are folded over her chest. She looks down her hawk nose at me. Deep wrinkles carve the corners of her mouth, her eyes are the deepest blue. Her lashes are as dusty and grey as a moth in the moonlight.

Yeah, that’s her. I remember.

I clear my throat and sit up. ‘I am Mickaela Capra. Sniper. No kids, no husband.’

Barktak acknowledges me with a sharp nod. ‘Your water is ready. I will help you bathe and examine your injuries.’ She steps aside and offers her elbow.

When I push myself up, ignoring the offered aid of the old woman, she hisses at me. ‘I’m the healer. You want to mend, you listen to me. Now take my arm.’

I stand and the yurt begins to sway a little. She and I are at eye level now. ‘I’m a warrior. You want to live? Then don’t offend me.’

Her face splits open in a toothy grin and her throat produces a harsh laugh. ‘There’s more life in you than last time. You remind me of Nehemiah. Just as stubborn and proud. And stupid. Go ahead, walk to the tub by yourself and keep hurting your ankle. Might get inflamed and I’ll have to cut it off.’

I take a step and find that the pain is even worse.

Barktak looks over at Seema who’s washing her son in a bowl. His butt cheeks are all dimply and he’s punching the warm water with both fists, then he sticks them into his mouth to suck at them.

‘Why did you call me? There’s no work for me here,’ says the old woman.

Seema rolls her eyes. ‘Micka, undress and get in the tub, now. Barktak, help her. If you two don’t cooperate, I’ll wash you both outside in the snow.’

Being naked means being unarmed. That’s never good. But I need to heal and grow strong again. so I clench my jaw, shed my clothes, and grab Barktak’s elbow, making myself a bit heavier than I really am just to prove a point. The woman doesn’t waver. Her steadiness doesn’t fit her bony frame. Her face looks as if she’s in her seventies, but she has the strength of a forty year-old.

I can feel the gaze of both women raking over my skin. The scars and bruises, the swollen ankle, the blood between my thighs, under my fingernails and in my matted hair. More blood runs down my legs as I walk the five slow steps to the tub which looks like a barrel cut in half. I step into the warm water and fold myself in. A whimper slips from my mouth. What luxury! I never… If heaven did exist, would it feature a bathtub?

Gnarled, brown hands pour water over my neck and shoulders, rub unexpectedly soft over my skin. Over the DIE on my back. The countless parallel scars on my arms, chest, and legs. My knuckles — still cracked. My ankle — swollen. My belly — soft and unbearably empty.

A sob wants to squeeze through my throat. It hurts, the weakness. I growl at it and shake my head. Fuck off, asshole.

Barktak takes my foot into her hands and runs her fingertips over the purple skin. ‘The swelling will go down soon. I’ll give you a salve — this, regular applications of snow, and absolute rest for four weeks will heal the fracture.’

Four weeks. That is three weeks longer than I’d planned.

She shifts and presses both hands into my stomach. ‘How long?’

‘Six days.’

‘Was the afterbirth born whole?’

‘I don’t know.’

She frowns. ‘Did the milk come in?’

‘No.’

‘What happened to your child?’

‘She’s dead.’ My cold stare tells her to shut up and leave me alone. She ignores it.

‘Was she born dead?’

I’m about to wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze until her ugly old eyes pop out of her skull.

‘Listen, child, I don’t want to dig into things you clearly don’t want to share. But I don’t want you to die under my hands. I need to know if your child was born healthy, if there were any complications during her birth, and if pieces of the afterbirth or the water bag are still inside you.’

The hardness leaves her expression. All I see is the face of a woman who has seen much in her life.

But I don’t care.

‘I don’t know what can be classified as complications during birth. She was born. She was healthy. She was… She died.’

She was beautiful. Such small fingers, her beautiful pink mouth, her warm, soft body.

Barktak nods. ‘Come. I’ll dry you off. Seema will give you new clothes and I’ll tend to your ankle and examine your lower abdomen.’

She rubs me down and I shuffle to my pallet like a ghost. I didn’t plan on revealing any of these things. I should leave tonight, I think as I lay down and shut out Barktak’s probing hands. Anything below my waistline does not belong.

The cream-coloured fabric above me changes into the sky and back into a ceiling of a simple yurt. Back and forth. There are a few wrinkles. Soft ones, not like the gashes in Barktak’s face.

Yes, I will disappear tonight. In the back of my mind, a thought begins to niggle. Some part of reality is pulling me back. Didn’t I plan to do something here? What was it that needed doing? Why the urgency?

The pressing and tugging at my belly, thighs, and between my legs ceases. Cold bites my ankle.

Slowly, I return to myself. I feel the softness of furs, the tickling of animal hair against my neck.

I look down along my body. Furs cover me. Barktak has left. Not important.

I shut my eyes.

Before I drift off, Seema says, ‘Many women here have lost a child. We know how you feel. You can talk to us.’

No. You don’t know a thing.

* * *

Another tap to my head. Does everybody wake everybody here by whacking them on the skull?

A youngster of maybe eight or nine years gives me a serious stare. She waves a knife at my face, triggering my reflexes, raising all the hairs on my skin, and bringing me dangerously close to leaping at her and twisting her neck.

‘Heard you are a Sequencer,’ she squeaks. ‘I’m a huntress. In four years I’ll be a woman and then you can take me on as your apprentice. I’ll be the best huntress in the world when I’m fourteen.’

‘Are you planning to stab me before I can recruit you?’

She blushes and quickly hides the knife behind her back.

‘How long have I been sleeping?’ I ask.

She shrugs. ‘You arrived at noon, now it’s evening. If you are hungry, you’ll have to wait. Everyone is in the log house. Masha died last night.’ Her gaze drops to her boots and she wipes her nose with the back of her hand, knife still clutched in it. Then, her face lights up. ‘I’ll have new brothers and sisters. And you! Oh!’ She whirls around, sheathes her knife, and dashes outside just to return a moment later, arms full of brush. She tosses the load onto the floor and gets six more armfuls. ‘I’m making a big bed.’

‘Could you get me a bowl with snow, please?’

‘Sure,’ she says and leaves, as quick as a flea, and returns with a pot full of snow.

‘What’s your name?’ I ask.

‘Uma.’

‘Hi Uma, I’m Micka.’ Without thinking, I hold out my hand.

She looks at it, puzzled. ‘So you people really squeeze fingers when you meet?’

I drop my arm. ‘Sometimes. Other times we wave our hands or just nod at each other. When we like someone a lot, we hug.’

‘When we don’t like someone, we don’t say anything.’ She grins wickedly. ‘We look them in the eyes and make sure we don’t turn our backs to them.’

‘Makes sense. And when you like them?’

‘We head-butt them.’ She giggles and slaps her thigh. ‘No, we do this.’ And she takes a step forward, bends down to me and softly touches her forehead to mine.

That reminds me of how Katvar said goodbye to me two years ago. ‘When someone touches your lips with his fingers to say goodbye, what does that mean?’

‘Uh. Serious stuff. That’s what husbands and wives do. Do you need help with that?’ She points at my ankle.

‘No, thanks,’ I say as I unwrap the bandages.

‘Okay.’ She shrugs, turns to her humongous pile of shrubs, and begins to layer them neatly on the other side of the stove. The outlines grow to a square of about two by two metres.

‘I’m used to sleeping on a small rug,’ I say, worried my hosts might believe I needed a huge bed or other wasteful things.

‘Good,’ Uma replies without looking up from her work. ‘That’s for four people. You’ll probably be used as a pillow.’ Her smile shows through light-brown bangs. There’s a tiny gap between her upper two front teeth.

‘Who else will sleep there?’ I ask.

‘Masha’s kids. Chief’s one of their dads, so they’ll live here now.’

‘How did she die?’

The girl stops, about to answer, but then continues laying twigs on the slowly growing mattress. After some consideration, she whispers, ‘Sometimes I think I don’t want to have babies. I don’t want to leave them alone when my time comes.’

My skin prickles. I watch the girl while the snow melts on my ankle, cooling the pain down to a rheumy throb. As I dab off the water, she begins carrying in the furs to cover the twig mattress. ‘That looks very comfy,’ I say.

‘It’s a good bed.’

‘Why do the women here have many husbands?’ I must have been half blind last time I was here, because I didn’t notice how their families were organised. I was probably too focussed on Runner and on finding out what he did for a living.

‘Because that’s normal,’ Uma answers and squints at me. Her brain is rattling behind her eyes. ‘Is it not normal where you come from?’

I blink and look up at the ceiling. Swirling patterns of clouds, stars, moon and sun have been sewn there with blue thread. I’m about to say that, where I come from, it’s normal for a man to have several wives aged nine to twenty-five. Sometimes, but not often, the girls are even younger. But they are never older, because they’ve already been used up by abuse, rape, malnutrition, and excruciatingly hard work. Or they’ve been shot or beaten to death, sometimes burned. But they usually die when giving birth to their fifth or sixth child.

‘One man can have many wives,’ I say at last. ‘I’ve never seen a woman with more husbands than one.’

‘That’s not smart,’ Uma pipes up. ‘What if the man dies? Who will hunt and provide for all his kids and wives?’

‘Hm. Good question,’ I mutter although I already know the answer: no one. If your husband dies, your kids will either be assimilated into military training, or, if too young to carry a rifle, they’ll be killed with a blow to the head and a knife to the throat. Widows are made available to all men in the camp. Some women would call it prostitution. But I’ve read somewhere that a prostitute gets paid for her services.

Blood is seeping onto the thick bandages between my thighs. It’s as if my womb is weeping for a loss it cannot comprehend. Maybe it’s compensating for something my eyes are unable to do.

* * *

The yurt is dimly lit by an oil lamp. Shapes of sleeping people form bumps on the floor. The large bed is occupied by Uma and Masha’s three kids. Tears were spilled in abundance; the smallest of them — a three year-old boy whose name I didn’t hear properly — fell asleep at Seema’s breast and is now curled up in Uma’s armpit.

No one has interrogated me and I don’t understand why. How can these people survive if they keep inviting strangers into their homes, not asking them the most important questions? Where did you come from? Where are you heading? What side are you on? Who did you kill? Who do you plan to kill?

I lie on a pallet that used to be Uma’s and I’m glad I don’t need to share it with three orphans. I don’t like being touched. Hate it.

My mind’s eye shows me the usual: war, death, carnage. The yurt collapses, an avalanche of Erik’s troop rolls over men, women, children, staining the snow deep black in the faint light of the waning moon. My hand doesn’t stray from my loaded pistol.

* * *

I have not seen Katvar in three days. Birket’s home is now closed to everyone who is not family, because the new mother needs rest. That’s me. I’m considered a new mother although the necessary other half is missing.

Seema explained to me that a woman doesn’t stop being a mother when her children leave — be it to marry a man or woman in another clan, or to go to their ancestors.

I nodded at her then. I can accept that notion of souls going places, I guess, but it’s not my belief. I’m pretty sure that when you are dead, you’re dead and that’s it. No paradise at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

The Dog People feed and pamper me. Uma tells me it’s what’s done with all new mothers. They have to heal and regain their strength. I get the impression that women here are considered valuable and that weighs like a rock on my chest.

At headquarters, the girls and women were considered dirty (I should say “even dirtier”) for twenty days after giving birth if the child lived, and ten days if the child died. That alone was a motivation for many men to get rid of newborns. But even then, only a females’ lower half was the dirty part. The mouth was considered unsoiled.

‘You look like you want to kill someone,’ Uma says and moves her fingers in the air.

I think of my own child and how short her life was. My mind strays there unbidden and frequently. I wish I could cut that part out.

‘I said, “You look like you want to kill someone.” Are you still here? Micka?’

My head snaps up. I try to relax my jaws. She nods at the piece of wood in my lap. I look down at it; my right hand is trembling. I uncurl my fingers and a bead of blood crawls along the ridges and furrows of my palm. The sharp little rock I’m holding is black with my sweat. I take a deep breath and rub my palms on my pants. ‘I need to take a walk.’

Uma opens her mouth for a reply, probably to comment on my ankle and that Barktak forbade me to put weight on it, then she shuts it and looks down at my work. ‘Okay,’ she says, her hand making a wiggly sign in front of her chest.

She’s teaching me sign language. Someone has told her about the ivory dog Katvar made for me and since then she’s convinced I should be able to speak my friend’s language. ‘We are not friends,’ I told her.

‘Then do it out of respect,’ she retorted.

I couldn’t disagree with that. So I’m learning sign language now. It’s a waste of time, because I’ll be leaving here soon. And it’s a bit like tying knots in my brain.

‘This is never going to be a longbow,’ I mutter at the crooked piece of oak I’m holding.

‘Looks like firewood to me.’ She giggles. ‘If Seema sees it, she’ll insist you babysit Jarvis instead.’

My face falls. When, two days ago, Seema held out her tiny boy to me and told me to be useful, I was close to losing it. ‘Anything,’ I whispered. ‘I can do anything for you, but not that.’

So now she wants me to make a longbow for her. Or whatever this thing is going to be. With a sharp rock, no less, instead of a knife. Seema showed me how the layers of wood are shaved off the hard core. She’s teaching me stuff from the Stone Age. Sometimes, when I run obsidian over oak, I touch the two pendants around my neck: the dog made of tooth and the silvery exabyte drive made to bring down the sky. Low-tech and high-tech. They belong as little together as I belong here.

Jarvis kicks off his fox fur blanket and grasps the edges of his basket. Tiny pink fingers slip between woven willow twigs. Uma bends down to him and dips her forehead against his. His mouth begins to search for his mother. ‘Uhm-uhm,’ he says.

Uma looks up at me. ‘Was that a smile?’ She signs the words she speaks, and suddenly pokes my nose. I give her a dangerously cold stare that blanches her cheeks.