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Hunger had faded, as had the pain in his knee

A tingling unease, and Trull looked up

The sleds were nowhere in sight He gasped bitter air, slowed his steps, blinking in an effort to see through the ice crystals on his lashes The h the day, ht was fast approaching And he was lost

Trull dropped the spear He cried out in pain as he wheeled his ar to puers into fists within the gauntlets, and was horrified by nearly failing at so si as if his fingers were on fire He fought through the agony, pounding his fists on his thighs, flexing against the waves of burning pain

He was surrounded in white, as if the physical world had been scrubbed away, eroded into oblivion by the snow and wind Terror whispered into his mind, for he sensed that he was not alone

Trull retrieved the spear He studied the blowing snow on all sides One direction seehtly darker than any other – the east – and he deter the unseen sun And now, he needed to turn southerly

Until his pursuers tired of their game

He set out

A hundred paces, and he glanced behind hi snow Trull halted and spun round The beasts vanished once sword and jammed it point-first into the hard-packed snow Then he strode six paces back along his trail and readied his spear

They cae

He had time to plant his spear and drop to one knee before the first beast was upon him The spear shaft bowed as the iron point slammed dead-centre into the wolf’s sternum Bone and Blackwood shattered simultaneously, then it was as if a boulder ha him back in the air He landed on his left shoulder, to skid and roll in a spray of snow As he tu out fro frosword

Trull tugged it loose and half rose as he turned about

A u, Trull slashed horizontally with the sword, falling in the wake of the desperate swing