Cold Freedom by Troon Harrison

Author:Troon Harrison
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-988211-09-1
Publisher: Moonshell Books, Inc.

Chapter 10

It grew colder and colder. The wind whistled off the Baltic Sea, keening among the scrub pines and whispering in the coarse reeds that poked through the snow. Darkness fell suddenly, throwing its black cloak over the struggling refugees. The moon rose to spill a silvery light down rippled dunes. To the south, across the dark expanse of Frisches Haff, the sky glowed red with fires, and sometimes we heard the dull thunder of distant guns. I swayed in the saddle, gripping two sets of reins in one hand as I rode Carina and led Bruna. My other hand, bare since losing my glove, was shoved deep into my pocket. For hours, my fingers had felt numb, and then they’d burned with a tingling pain. Now even the pain had vanished and I felt nothing at all.

Peter rode silently beside me on Bruna. Mutti had tied his scarf high up around his face so that only his eyes peered out between the scarf and his hat. Ahead, between Mutti and me, the strange boy swayed along. My eyes bored into his shoulders. I was angry with him for being on Gretel, using up the strength that should have gone to her unborn foal. She was such a slender, fine-boned mare that I didn’t see how she could carry a boy as well as a foal. The mares stumbled and tripped with exhaustion. Sometimes one of them would simply stop and stand in the snow, staring blankly ahead but not moving. Then, with a sigh, she would continue on, her feet weaving. We couldn’t go much further. Where would we spend the night? There were no farms out here on the sandy spit of Frische Nehrung.

Carina began to limp, lurching along with her near-hind foot barely touching the ground before she moved her weight off it. My heart clenched with dread. If she went lame, would we have to leave her behind?

“Wait!” I called to Mutti. Her head swiveled to look, and she halted Lili as I slid from Carina and went to her back foot. “Her shoe is almost off!” I cried. “Only one nail is left.”

Mutti joined me, leaving Sissi perched alone on her mare. Sissi’s face too was almost completely covered by a scarf. Mutti bent over Carina’s foot in silence. Then she dug through her saddlebags and pulled out a small tool which she used to remove the shoe. “They’ll all be barefoot soon,” she said. The abandoned shoe shone pale in the moonlight, its surface scratched and notched. How shiny and smooth those shoes had been when Schulte nailed them on at Tannenwald! He’d used sharp nails so the mares wouldn’t go down on the ice. But now the shoes were coming off, and Gretel had already fallen on the ice, and home was far behind us. How could Carina walk on with only three shoes, and one unprotected foot?

Mutti went to Bruna and lifted her feet in turn. “She’s already lost two shoes,” she muttered, straightening and patting the bay mare’s shoulder.

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