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    A gust of wind threw back her hood. She shivered. While she'd been tracking, the wind had strengthened, and the sky had darkened ominously. Storm coming. She should make camp right now.

    But then she would fall even farther behind.

    Fighting a rising tide of panic, she decided to flout everything she'd ever learned, and keep going.

    As the wind strengthened, she found Torak's trail and followed it into the next valley. She paused for breath under a huge, watchful holly. Her sense of wrongness deepened. It wasn't even midafternoon, but it was as dark as twilight. The snow had an odd, greenish tinge. She hadn't seen a single living creature all day.

    Fin-Kedinn would have called a halt long before now. "The first rule of living," he'd told her once, "is never leave it too late to build a shelter."

    And this was a good place for a camp: a patch of level ground near the holly tree, even if it was a bit far from the river.

    Renn chewed her lip. "Torak?" she called. "Torak!"

    Angrily, she flung down her gear. Why had he left without her? And why hadn't she caught up?

    Now that she'd stopped, she realized how little time she had left.

    Come on, Renn. You know what to do. First, the fire. Wake it now, before you're tired from chopping wood, and build the shelter around it. Plenty of tinder in your

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    pouch, keeping warm inside your jerkin; and you've got a bit of horsehoof mushroom smoldering in a roll of bark, so no messing about with a strike-fire.

    Which was just as well. The trees were moaning, and the wind was tugging at her clothes and whipping branches in her face. It was malicious. It wanted her to fail.

    Gritting her teeth, she woke the fire, then wrenched her axe from her belt. Now for the shelter. Bend saplings and tie them together with willow withes, leaving a smoke-hole at the top. Build long and low to weather the storm, and cut off the saplings' heads so the wind can't pull them over--sorry, tree-spirits, you'd better find a new home. Fill in the sides with spruce boughs, plug the gaps with bracken, and weigh it down with more saplings, as many as you can.

    Despite the cold, sweat ran down her sides. Too much to do, and the trees were thrashing and creaking. They sounded frightened.

    Bracing herself against the wind, she wove a rough door from hazel and spruce branches, then crawled inside, dragging in firewood, and more spruce boughs for bedding. The shelter was thick with smoke, it was swirling close to the ground, too scared to leave. Coughing, Renn pulled the door shut. The smoke-hole sucked the haze upward, and the shelter cleared.

    She'd made it just big enough to take two people, in

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    case Torak needed it too. Now she recognized that for the delusion it was. Torak was long gone.

    "Water," she said out loud, trying to banish her fears. The river was too far, so she'd have to melt snow. Yanking her parka and jerkin over her head, she used the jerkin's lacings to tie its neck and sleeves shut, to form a makeshift bag. Then she pulled her parka back on and crawled out into the jaws of the storm.

    The wind pelted her with flying branches and stung her face with ice needles. Quickly, she crammed snow into the jerkin, and crawled back inside. With her spare bowstring, she hung the snow sack from a support sapling, and placed a swiftly made birch-bark pail underneath to catch the drips.

    The wind screamed. The shelter shuddered. Suddenly, the World Spirit speared the clouds and sent the hail hammering down. Renn hugged her knees and prayed for Torak and Wolf.

    A thud shook the shelter.

    She gave a start. That wasn't a branch.

    Pulling up her hood, she shifted the door and peered out.

    Hail struck her face.

    Only it isn't hail, she thought, it's rain --and it's turning to ice on everything it strikes.

    Screwing up her face against the onslaught, she saw the freezing rain hitting twigs, branches, trees--imprisoning

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    all it struck in a heavy mantle of ice. Boughs bent