We wake to a thunderous howl. A storm tugs at our tent. It’s not half as warm as a snow cave and I’m worried about our supply of oil for the lamp. The small flame can keep the inside of a snow cave warm enough for us to sit short-sleeved. Now, it seems as if all heat flies out through the thin fabric walls. I keep the flame low, waiting for the snow to pile up farther on the outside. It’s now at more than half of the tent’s height.

‘Will the dogs be okay?’ I ask.

Katvar cracks one eye open and nods. ‘A blizzard is no problem for them,’ he signs. 

The dogs seem to be happy and warm enough, although they couldn’t dig into the rock-hard snow-ice mix, either. They are probably little snow mounds by now, almost indistinguishable from their surroundings.

I blow out the light and try to listen to the scraping of ice crystals across fabric. But the faint noise is drowned out by the storm. I imagine the howling growing softer and quieter as more snow piles up on our tent. I close my eyes, listening and trying to think of nothing. Exhaustion pulls me down quickly.

Something’s wrapped around my throat. A rope? No. A hand. I try to breathe. A rushing sound; that of oxygen deprivation. Voices reach my ears through the surge of half-consciousness. Or is it half-unconsciousness? I try to open my eyes and what I see is confusing. The inside of a tent. No. Men with semiautomatics, firing at me, at the Lume, at Rajah, at… The hand around my throat tightens. My view blackens and the noise in my ears grows unbearable. It sounds like…a scream. A hand on my head, grasping my hair, pulling, twisting my neck. My gun. My knife. Where’s everything? A hand in my hair. A soft caress. No pain. No blood. 

A tap to my cheek wakes me. ‘Hm?’

Another tap; I open my eyes.

‘It’s late in the morning,’ Katvar signs. ‘We need to move.’

I’m shit tired. My joints ache and my eyes are burning. When I peel myself from my toasty furs, the air feels like ice.

The yapping of the dogs comes as a relief. They are obviously happy and eager to run. While I pack up the tent and strap it to my sled, Katvar feeds the animals and checks their legs and paws for soreness.

I move like a slug through honey, and Katvar is done with all dogs before I finish packing our stuff. He helps me and finally we are ready to leave.

The fresh snow is deep and soft and it takes too much time and energy to move the sleds out of a snow drift and line up the two teams. I’m already sweating. 

I take off my snow goggles and rub my face. The landscape is a blinding white with cotton-coated firs and pines littered here and there. The trees are getting smaller the farther north we travel.

I gaze down at my legs that are knee-deep in the snow. The dogs’ bellies are buried in it. Snow dusts their thick coats. They tug and jump, but the sleds move only reluctantly. 

Katvar oofs and the fur balls plop on their butts, impatiently snapping at the air and the snow. He steps off his sled, pulls on his snow shoes and signs to me, ‘I’ll walk ahead to make a path. We’ll switch in a few hours.’

Our progress is slow. He tries to compact the snow by stomping his snow shoes in short steps, wide enough to fit the width of the skids and the dog teams. The animals seem to think us ridiculous; they want to run and all we do is slow them to a crawl.

To help them pull my heavy sled through the deep snow, I push with one leg, then the other, a repetitive and almost hypnotic movement. Soon, I feel like an achy version of a perpetual pendulum. My head hurts and I want to eat handfuls of snow to cool down my body. I’m parched. We have to keep moving.

The sun skids along the horizon and at some point, Katvar stops walking. He looks exhausted. His knees wobble. I sneak a fistful of snow into my mouth, then cut up the last bit of the roasted reindeer leg and hand him a piece. 

Sitting on the sled, with his eyes shut and his breath heavy, he chews his food while I distribute portions of raw meat to each of the dogs. I’ll have to make another kill today or tomorrow. We are almost out of provisions. 

Despite a lack of appetite, I eat my ration, then break branches off the fir trees and throw them to the dogs. They happily chew them to shreds. I cut the fresher greens off the tips of fir twigs, scrape the abundant lichens off the tree bark and deliver a handful to Katvar. 

He brings his fingers near his lips, then moves them toward me. I like this gesture; it’s much more mindful than most spoken thanks. With sign language, you have to look at each other, look into each other’s eyes. There’s sincerity in that.

He sees my tiredness and offers to keep walking. I shake my head no. It’s my turn, and I’m set on reaching our destination by mid-March at the latest, come what may.

I strap on my snow shoes and stomp ahead. After only a few moments, I grow exceedingly hot. Sweat drips from beneath my fur hood down along the snow goggles, and into my scarf. Flavours of fir and lichen linger in my mouth. The taste is unpleasant, but the hardy greens provide us with the much-needed vitamins our carnivorous diet lacks.

The wind picks up and blows snow in my face. My body tells me I’m about to freeze to death or burn to death or both. Hot and cold. Something’s wrong with me, but I’m sure I’ll sleep it off tonight.

I pull my scarf farther up my nose and cheeks, and my fur hood lower over my face to close the small gap of exposed skin. 

My legs ache and my sweaty and now-cold shirt sticks to my back. I’m not worried about the dogs today. They’ve spent hours walking slowly. They must be bored, not exhausted. 

Sweating, freezing, and nauseous, I keep up my pace until the sun sets. Once in a while I glance over my shoulder to see if Katvar is still behind me, but now with the light fading and the snowstorm thickening, I can’t spot him anywhere. 

The dogs begin to bark and jump. There’s something ahead of us. A dark shape between the sparse trees. It’s large, the size of a bear or wisent. 

I signal the dogs to stay, pull the rifle from my shoulder, wipe my goggles clean, and approach whatever agitates them. The thing doesn’t seem to move, and slowly, its shape grows more defined. 

It’s a door.

All of a sudden, it’s swallowed by blackness.