‘Why is Katvar not married?’
Kioshi muffles a burp. ‘Bad blood,’ he mumbles into his sleeve and wipes his mouth.
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘His story to tell.’
I groan. ‘Okay. Do you have an axe? I need to make firewood.’
‘Nope. Birket told me not to bring one.’
‘What?’
‘He said if you had everything you need to get to Svalbard, you’d go alone. So…no axe for you, girl.’ He grins and his light-brown eyes twinkle. ‘Don’t need to wait long now, anyway. Katvar is due tomorrow morning at the latest. I brought some of the things you two will need, he’ll bring the rest, axe and all.’
‘You are kidding me!’ I say. My hand strays up to my hair to rake through it but finds nothing. I’m brought up short. It’s weird. And a bit cold.
‘Want to hear the plan, or not?’
‘Okay, give me the plan then. Oh, by the way — how’s Javier?’
‘Fuming. But he believes Katvar died a horrible death. He even told the Sequencer Council that you are a murderer. All is cool. So, this is what Birket and I came up with: You guys will take the train. A nice, old, fat steam engine. A bit rusty, but you’ll love it.’
Kioshi fumbles with his coat and extracts a map from an inside pocket. He spreads it on the floor and traces a finger across it as he speaks, ‘Two sleds, two people, twenty-four dogs — twelve in each team. Go to Minsk and board the train to Moscow. That’s a ten to fifteen hour train ride, maybe, depending on how much snow is on the tracks. Sari is your messenger, she left the morning after you and Katvar went into hiding. She will talk to other clans who will send out their messengers, who will talk to more clans, and so on. Syktyvkar is where the next train takes you. A three day ride this time. For each train, a wagon will be arranged for you, including sleds and dogs and all. Might be a bit crammed, though. From Syktyvkar it’s only two thousand six hundred kilometres or so to Svalbard. The other clans know to help you with provisions, information, and, if necessary, fresh dogs. All clear so far?’
Stunned, I nod. ‘I didn’t expect…’
‘Strategy? Excellent communication across great distances? Ha!’ He rubs his palms on his pants, obviously proud he could impress me.
His hand slips into his coat pocket once more and he extracts a bunch of folded papers. ‘Katvar and I made a list of stuff you need to know and be able to remember if you two get separated. Which doesn’t mean you should try to get separated, if you catch my drift. Okay…’ He leafs through the papers, turning them this way and that, sorting through a chaos of bullet points, side notes, and side notes to side notes.
‘Target speed is between twelve and fifteen kilometres an hour. Don’t race the dogs; they have to go a very long way. As often as you can, dig snow caves or build snow huts, don’t use the tent. Snow is mostly air and good insulation, so it will be warm enough even on very cold nights. You’ll need a lot of petroleum, lard, or oil to heat the hut and to thaw snow. Never eat snow as a way to drink water.’
‘I know.’
‘Yeah, thought so,’ he continues. ‘Just wanted to make sure. Okay, what’s next? Fishing equipment, axes, longbows and arrows, pots and pans. You can use them for trading if necessary. Thick fur pants and coats, wool underclothes. Brush for bedding. More furs.’
‘Snow goggles?’
He looks up from his list. ‘Yep. On the list and in the bags on my sled.’
He squints at the papers. ‘It’s best if you let the dogs run for three to four hours, then you take a break and feed them, feed yourselves, too. Better to do that two to four times a day than to run one long stretch. You and the dogs will use up more than three times as much food as you would do under normal circumstances. You will have to hunt a lot. And I really mean a lot. For example, if you race the dogs and you feed them reindeer meat, which is quite lean, your twenty-four dogs will gobble up an entire reindeer within two to three days.’
‘Shit,’ I mutter. ‘We’ll spend most of our time hunting, not travelling.’
‘That’s one of the reasons you shouldn’t be racing the dogs. But you can basically eat anything you find: wolf, owl, marten, lynx, eagle, fish, deer, moose, bear, crow, whatnot.’
‘We’ll need shovels to build snow caves.’
‘Snow shovels and saws are on my sled,’ he says. ‘Oh, and if you don’t have enough oil or wood to melt snow for drinking water, you can also fill a canteen or water skin with snow and place it close to your body. It works, since you don’t cool down your core.’ He clears his throat, scratches his head, and points at my bald scalp. ‘Isn’t that cold?’
‘A bit.’
‘Oh, one last thing about the dogs: They love to run at low temperatures, usually work best at minus thirty, thirty-five degrees Celsius. You can run them faster and harder at lower temperatures if you have to. They can even work at minus fifty, when all you want to do is dig yourself a snow cave. You can run them at night, as long as they get at least four hours sleep each day. Always make sure they are tethered, because they have a strong hunting instinct. They’ll run off when they scent wolf or prey.’ His gaze strays to the hearth. ‘Any stew left?’
‘Yep.’ I stand and make for the door. ‘Eat it all. I’m full.’
I grab my clothes and furs — now frozen stiff — and bring them in to arrange around the fire. Kioshi unloads a ton of stuff from his sled and carries it inside, checks his list again and nods.
‘Okay, Micka, woman who travels far. I’m leaving now and I don’t think we’ll meet again anytime soon. All I can say is this: Do not take any crap from Katvar.’ Then he bumps my shoulder, says, ‘Good luck,’ and leaves.
I listen to the excited yapping and howling of his dogs until the sounds fade in the darkness. One night alone. I’ve been craving solitude and now that I finally get it, I don’t know what to do with it. My plans for leaving this place aren’t worth shit. I can’t hunt because my ammo is low and running around in the woods armed with only my knife and my teeth would be rather stupid. And I’ve never shot anything with a longbow. I can feed myself by trapping small animals or ice fishing, but feeding all my dogs that way is impossible.
I watch the fire until it dies; the embers throw a faint glow at the black walls of the fireplace. Hugging my knees, I try not to fall asleep, not to dream, not to grow weak.
I wake to a scream and a weight on my chest. I don’t even need to think of my pistol. It’s in my hand, safety flicked off and…I see Katvar looming above me, eyes wide in shock.
I pant. My gaze flicks between the muzzle pressed to his temple, his left hand resting lightly on my chest, and his right hand, trembling and signing.
‘You. Nightmare,’ is what I read.
I drop the weapon, slap his hand off me, and scoot away from him.
‘What do you dream?’ he signs.
‘None of your business. Why do you insist on coming with me?’
He signs something I don’t quite get. He writes it down for me, ‘None of your business,’ then chucks the charcoal back into the cold hearth and smudges the black letters on the floorboards with his foot.
———
Birket’s last visit is short. He sits on Katvar’s furs and slips his hand into his coat. A small box comes into view. It nestles in his calloused palm like a small and precious egg. He snaps open a clasp and pushes the lid aside. Inside it is greyish brown earth, merely two spoonfuls.
‘This is all we have left of them. Memories and a bit of soil from where we buried them. There wasn’t enough time to give them a proper ritual. We had to bury them like a dog buries a bone. Hasty. They’ll never rest. At least, they lie together.’
He dips his index finger into the powdery soil and gazes down at it, then rubs it gently and carefully off his skin and back into the box, so as not to lose one single particle. ‘My daughter is there, too. It doesn’t matter what the story means to you, Mickaela.’
‘You think this doe
sn’t mean anything to me?’ I ask and point at the box in his hand. ‘Do I appear so coldblooded?’
‘Not this story, your story. The tale the Bringer of Good Tidings spreads. It makes no difference if you believe it or not. People believe it. They will help you because you represent hope. Never mind the shaved-off hair.’
‘I think it’s the BSA spreading this story,’ I say.
‘What for? To help you destroy them?’ Katvar signs and Birket translates before I can interpret it all.
‘I don’t know. I can’t think of anyone else who would spread that bullshit.’
Birket slaps his knees and rises to his feet. ‘So you are telling me you don’t want to destroy the BSA?’ He grins and taps three fingers against the side of his head. ‘Your journey is prepared. Leave at dawn.’ He steps forward, lays a hand on Katvar’s shoulder, and says, ‘Farewell, my friend. May you never forget who you are.’
Heat rises to Katvar’s cheeks and he lowers his head. Birket turns and leaves.
‘What did he mean?’ I ask. ‘Does it have anything to do with this stupid bad blood crap?’
Katvar’s expression darkens, his irises are almost black now. ‘Pack your stuff,’ he signs, pulls out his knife and begins to methodically sharpen it on a small stone.
Shit. I’d hoped he might be angry enough to leave with Birket.
I might have to shoot him in the foot.
The spray of snow conceals Katvar, his sled and his dogs. Only once in a while do I catch a glimpse of his head and his broad shoulders. We are racing the dogs because they are asking for it. They’ve been lazy and bored for days and Katvar has decided to give them what they want. We’ve left the Carpathian Mountains behind us. The ground is smooth, a thin layer of fresh dusting conceals half a metre of compressed snow. Sari’s tracks are wiped out already. But we don’t need them to find our way.
I’m angry at Birket. He stole Katvar’s razor so I can’t shave off my hair again. The reddish three-day stubble on my scalp is already telling. That man knows nothing about warfare. It’s of no use to run around shining like a beacon that screams, “Look, everyone, here’s that chick who’s set to kill all the BSA jerks!” One doesn’t show off like that. You have to be unexpected, silent and invisible. Else you get killed before you’ve accomplished anything.
While steering my sled around a tree today, I almost had a collision. I’m still learning to do this dog sled thing properly. The commands for left or right have to be repeated as often as needed to complete the change of direction. For a broad and sweeping forty-five degree turn, I had to shout, ‘Left!’ about twenty times. Katvar tapped his lead dog twice. I guess I’m not established as the leader of my team.
The tree that I missed by mere centimetres was the only one in a large clearing. Now, the forest stretches as far as the eye can see and we don’t need to worry about firewood until we reach the tundra.
We are loaded to the max — an estimated three hundred kilograms on each sled, much of it moose meat. We don’t need to hunt for the next five to seven days and can finish our first leg quickly.
The dogs are working hard, and because the snow cover is so compact and has little to no grip on the skids, the heavy sleds fly over the white. It also helps that Katvar has coated the skids with a thin layer of ice — an elaborate procedure that involved dunking moss into lukewarm water and spreading layers of water onto each layer of newly formed ice. It took ages, but it does wonders.
We plan to avoid settlements until we reach Minsk. Visiting a clan always involves a lot of talking and eating, and we can’t afford delays before we’ve made it to Syktyvkar. After that, we’ll need help, and only then will we invest the time to socialise.
At breakfast, Katvar signed to me the plan for the next six days. He had to write it down, too, so I understood everything correctly. We’ll rise before the sun, run the dogs until noon, rest for at least one hour, eat well and feed the animals, then run again until the sun sets. That’s a bit different from what Kioshi told me, but Katvar is the expert here, so I’m listening to what he says. Once we hit difficult terrain, we’ll add two more breaks to our day, but not more. Life will get harder the farther north we travel, so we’d better eat away the kilometres while we are fresh and strong.
One small thing makes me oddly happy and I can’t help but smile when I see her leaping through the snow: the white dog that was snuggled up to me when I woke up at the Lume’s winter quarters two years ago. I’d almost frozen to death and Runner was badly injured. The Lume had saved our lives and this white one was the first dog I learned to not fear. I even learned to like her and I still do. She’s a friendly girl with eggshell white fur, black nose and lips, and warm brown eyes. Her name is Gull and she’s running behind the lead dog of my team, Balto.
Before we left the hut, Katvar mixed up our teams, then chose the two lead dogs. He’ll be keeping an eye on the pack dynamics for the next few days. ‘Be wise when you choose the leader,’ he’s signed and written for me. ‘Most dogs like it when someone they trust tells them what to do. They feel safe. Few dogs want to be the ones in power and even fewer of those are good leaders. It requires patience and the will to take responsibility.’
Katvar seems a good leader. He teaches me to praise them a lot, and to be vigilant. Never allow one dog to steal food from another. Never even let a dog eat before you have said it’s okay to eat. He’s teaching me how to stiffen my stance, how to growl low in my throat. And praise. Always praise. I’m also learning the clicks and huffs he’s using on his animals. I had to laugh when he told me he’s the alpha male and I’m the alpha female.
I don’t think the dogs give a shit who’s which gender.
The sun is high in the sky. We race in and out of the jagged shadows of firs and pines, through the glare of snow crystals.
Before us, the sound of many paws, the huffs and yaps of happy dogs. The wind in my face. The scents of frozen forest. I open my mouth wide and stick out my tongue.
But there’s nothing. No flavours spread through my mouth and down my throat. I can’t recall how the word “forest” tasted, or the word “Micka.” Once upon a time, there was a girl who could taste words. I wonder if she’s ever coming back.
Katvar makes a croaking noise and lifts his whip high up. His sled slows down and comes to a halt. My dogs obey his signals before I can tell them to stop. They plop into the snow alongside the other team, bury their muzzles in the cold white fluff and swallow a mouthful.
He fetches the axe from his sled, begins carving meat off one of the moose legs, and feeds it to the dogs. The animals always come first, he said. Without them, we can’t get anywhere near our final destination. I get the second axe and choose a tree with dead and dry branches, chop off an armful and start a fire.
The meat is tough but delicious. We eat without talking, because my mouth is full and Katvar’s hands are busy. Once I wipe the grease off my chin, I ask, ‘Shouldn’t we have crossed the river by now?’
Two sharp lines form between his eyebrows. He nods, extracts the map from his coat and points his knife to where we are, or rather, where he thinks we are.
Katvar signs and writes in the snow, ‘I keep thinking we should have stolen Javier’s SatPad.’
Surprised and proud I understand all his hand signals correctly, a grin spreads over my face.
‘What?’ Katvar signs.
I shake my head. ‘Not a good idea. A SatPad can be tracked. Even if Erik once believed me dead, after what Javier told the other Sequencers, Erik now knows I’m alive. He’ll be looking for me. For now, I think, we are quite safe. We’ve been travelling mostly through dense pine forests. Even IR sensors won’t see us properly.’
‘IR?’ In a fraction of a second his right hand pokes his pinky up in the air, then crosses index and middle fingers. Sometimes I have the feeling that my eyes could plop out of their sockets trying to follow his super fast speaking.
‘IR is short for infrared. Satellites can make thermal signatur
es of animals and humans visible. One might think the winter would make that an even bigger problem — our bodies are much warmer than the snow and the air around us. But…’ I touch my hood, ‘…we are insulated. Fur everywhere. The dogs have very thick pelts that prevent heat loss. I’ve checked them with the night-eye of my scope. The heat signature of their bodies is pretty low, only their noses and eyes show up hot white. So with the tree cover and our heat insulation, we are pretty much invisible. At least until we reach the tundra.’
‘Will he know where we are then?’ he signs.
‘That’s our advantage. He won’t know where to look for us. He doesn’t know where we are heading. He doesn’t even know there’s a “we.”’
Katvar nods, lost in thought.
‘What are you thinking?’ I ask.
‘He will know when we cross the sea ice.’ He repeats it twice for me until I get what he means. “Cross” and “sea ice” are new words for me.
‘I’ll find a solution,’ I say. ‘There’s time.’
‘How fast can Erik get from his headquarters to Svalbard?’
‘Hm… Headquarters is roughly two thousand five hundred kilometres from Svalbard. The top speed of his solar plane was five hundred kilometres an hour. If he’s got his hands on another such machine — and I’m sure he has — he’d need at least five to six hours.’
‘So he can be there long before we reach it.’
‘No. We can hide. We race the dogs when there’s a cloud cover. We dig ourselves a snow cave when the sky is clear.’
He nods again, unconvinced.
‘It’s the best I can offer. You don’t want me to fly an aircraft,’ I say.
‘Why not find someone who can?’
I laugh. ‘I’ve never see normal people own high-tech stuff and know how to operate it. Power plants and water treatment plants, yes. Everything else, everything high-tech that can be used in warfare — satellites, warships, and aircraft are all in the hands of the BSA and the Sequencers.’
Ice: The Climate Fiction Saga Page 7