Chapter 24
Cold Lake
Snow continued to fall. The rafts turned white with accumulated powder. The wind increased in its intensity. Only two days ago the Helsop men had wished for wind as they rowed their way across Cold Lake in balmy weather. They had trailed fishing lines from their rafts and stopped each evening at dusk to make a fire, eat their catch of the day and wrap up in their furs to sleep on beaches or grassy hillsides. Then the hoped-for breeze arrived. They set their sails and stowed their oars. A few clouds rolled in, then a few more. The winds gathered strength, the temperature fell and a snow storm was upon them. Dagon could hardly make out the raft directly behind him now. They tied the rafts one to another when they realized this was not to be a light dusting of spring snow.
"We will go ashore as soon as we find a beach," Dagon shouted. He could hardly hear his own voice over the screaming wind.
Dagon and Tandor, in the lead boat, strained to follow the shore line. The storm had quickly turned into a 'white out'.
"Can you make out the lay of the land?" Dagon asked Tandor, leaning in close to be heard. Tandor was the youngest member of the team and he had the best eyesight.
Tandor shouted back without turning his head from the shoreline. "We'd best steer to the right. We're losing the shore."
Dagon pulled on the rudder as he tried to scrape snow from the raft before it froze solid. It was dangerous enough without slippery ice underfoot.
"Let's chance heading for shore," Dagon yelled. "If we go aground we may be able to jump to shore. Too much could go wrong out here."
He held onto the mast with one hand and cupped the other around his mouth as he shouted to the men in the raft behind him. "We're heading for shore. Hold on in case we run aground."
The three rafts bounced to shore on waves that swelled in the wind. Dagon rubbed his hands and arms to keep circulation going. The cold was extreme. He strained to see past the blinding snow. Dagon's raft stopped with a lurch and a muffled thud. The next two rafts quickly slammed into it.
"Everyone all right?" Dagon shouted.
Four voices lifted over the winds. All accounted for.
"We've hit hard ice." Dagon picked through the bags tied to the mast, looking for a hammer and spike. "I'll test the ice for thickness. We might be able to walk to shore from here."
The other four men stepped carefully toward the first raft, feeling for solid footing with each step. Waves continued to push the last two rafts back and forth against one another. Otto stepped from the third raft to the second as a wave separated the two rafts. He grabbled empty air to keep from slipping. Olaf hooked an arm around Otto's neck and pulled him back just in time. Falling into Cold Lake in these conditions meant certain death.
Dagon drove a spike into the ice that held the first raft in place. It held without splitting the ice. He almost lacked the strength to pull his spike back out.
"I think it is thick enough to hold our weight," he called. Dagon began going through the bags once again, pulling out kindling and blankets. "We should bring whatever we need to wait out the storm. Load up. I'll go first."
Tandor grabbed Dagon's arm. "Let me go first. I'm the lightest."
"Not by much," Dagon argued. "Anyway, it has to support us all eventually. Find me the longest rope we have aboard."
Dagon scooted off the raft on his knees, jabbing at the ice ahead of him with his spike as he inched his way forward. Tandor waited until he was out of sight, then took hold of the rope and started off behind him. Up ahead he could hear Dagon's voice faintly.
"I'll call from shore if I make it and then you can each follow the rope. If you hear a splash pull me in, quick."
Tandor crawled backward to the raft. The men waited, silent, listening for a splash. Olaf said he thought he heard a voice. They all held their breath and cupped their hands around their ears. They heard the faint shout.
"All ashore, all ashore."
Each man shouldered his burden. They carried food, firewood, cooking utensils, blankets, furs, weapons and a shovel on their backs. They clung tightly to the rope as they ventured out onto the ice, moving as blind men in the white storm.
When they had all gathered on shore, Dagon pushed forward, taking each step carefully, cautiously testing the ever changing depth of the snow beneath him. At times he was up to his waist as he navigated a terrain full of bushy undergrowth. His fingers and toes tingled with approaching frost bite. He stopped to let his men catch up.
"If we can find a rock outcrop or even a tree, we might be able to rig some kind of covering that will protect a campfire."
They slogged on for a few minutes without finding anything with enough height to support a canopy. The wood they carried on their backs would soon be too wet to be of use.
Dagon bumped into a boulder and was overjoyed to find another boulder close by. They stretched a skin across the two rocks, dug out the snow beneath it and lay down their kindling with shaking fingers. After several tries with a slippery flint, Dagon managed a tiny flame of tinder. They added kindling, one small piece at a time and took turns holding their numb hands above the flames.
The Helsop men sat huddled together for body warmth, eating venison jerky and flat bread, handing around a pan of melted snow to drink. They stared into the campfire and hoped their supply of wood would last through the night. Dagon finished his meager meal and began to retell the story of their ancestors as Leif had told it to him. "We won't know how many streams we passed in the storm, but if our calculations were correct we should be close to Hammer Haven in another ten days," he concluded.
Olaf cleared his throat. "My grandfather died when I was five or six years old. He told me before he died that we came from a land across the lake, but we must never return there."
The men listened without speaking, hoping for more, but that was the extent of Olaf's childhood memories about their ancestral land. His grandfather's warning seemed more like a prophecy here in the freezing darkness of Cold Lake.
The campfire died out shortly before dawn. With the first grey light they stood up to explore. They were on the rocky edge of a sand beach which stretched a long way to the west. Had they stepped right instead of left, they would not have found a rock tall enough to shelter them from the storm.
After scouring the beach for driftwood beneath the snow, they built a roaring fire to dry their clothes and warm their bodies. The wind died and the snow diminished. They set off once again toward Hammer Haven with renewed spirits.
Princess Electra Book 4 School of Medicine Page 25