The Shattered Gates by Ginn Hale

Author:Ginn Hale [Hale, Ginn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blind Eye Books
Published: 2011-03-06T05:00:00+00:00

Arc Two: In the Shadow of the White Mountain

Chapter Seven

Flurries of snow rolled up in little curls as a sudden wind swept down from the distant, gray mountains. Clouds hung low over the sharp, white peaks. Weeks ago, John had designated the ragged mountains as his marker for north. Sunrise and sunset confirmed that much, even though his compass swung in slow circles, never committing to a single orientation. A compass could easily break, but the solar system was another matter entirely.

And yet when John studied the night sky, he found it alarming. The few evenings that stars pierced through the clouds, they burned brightly. But neither he, nor Bill, nor Laurie, recognized any constellations, though Bill and Laurie gamely offered suggestions.

“Those six there,” Laurie had pointed up to a far corner of the night sky, “they remind me of fireworks.”

“Yeah, and that one looks like a beer bottle.” Bill’s voice always sounded strained now. Both the cold and the thin air scourged his lungs, making him struggle for breath. Even so, Bill couldn’t stand to keep silent. “I think it’s tipping to pour beer over those four stars there. I’m going to call them the sorority sisters.”

A few days earlier Bill had christened the same cluster “the hot dog,” but all of the constellations were so unfamiliar that it was easy to forget which was which. Some nights John almost convinced himself that he recognized the stars of the southern hemisphere in the scattered lights: the crow, the keel, and perhaps the centaur. Other nights they seemed to spread above him in utterly alien configurations.

Either way, he had long ago abandoned the notion of using them for any kind of navigation. Nights were too cold for travel anyway. When John ventured out to hunt among the stands of bare, black trees and deep drifts of snow, he always turned back toward their shelter while a few of hours of light still remained.

In his travels he’d discovered that the land to the east flattened out into a plain and then suddenly dropped into a steel-gray chasm as if the entire world just ended there. The jagged cliffs were treacherous even in the light of the day. Buffeting winds swept up, and banks of icy fog often hid sheer drops. Occasionally, John glimpsed a rolling, black sea far below. Birds soared up the gray cliffs, riding frigid, salty winds.

John caught small birds when he could. They were scrawny things, plumed in thick layers of dishwater-colored feathers and smelling faintly of bad fish. They tasted better than they smelled—but not much.

Bill always cooked them with one hand clamped over his nose.

The weasels were much better, both for their skins and their meat. Plus, John found their behavior fascinating. Sometimes, even after he had trapped enough to feed the three of them, he would remain out in the snow, letting frost color his beard and watching the white creatures come out to play.

The first time he had cut one open, he had noted the fine, red lining of its egg sacks.

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