We needed to make sure Becker and his men were well clear before we risked going back into the forest, so we stayed there a while, finally having that mid-morning reward coffee we’d planned. It was freeze-dried instant with powdered creamer, sipped from a mess tin, but it tasted better than anything a fancy barista could whip up. There was a flapjack, too, and we wolfed it down. But that was everything in the ration pack and we were still a long way from the rendezvous point at the village. At least we had plenty of snow to melt into water.

Erin helped me to my feet and I tested my leg. The pain had dropped down to something manageable. I wasn’t going to be winning any races, but I could walk.

We headed back into the forest and used the sun to figure out the direction to the village. The route took us downhill: we were dropping down the far side of the peak now, and as we descended, it got a little warmer. About two hours later, we emerged from the trees. Ahead of us was an endless white plain, completely flat. It went right to the horizon and the only feature was a tiny, rectangular something, a little structure of some kind, at the edge of the plain maybe five miles away. It was the first sign of civilization we’d seen since we left the prison.

“The village should be just over there,” I said, pointing. The route would take us across one corner of the vast plain. “I reckon we can be there by tomorrow morning.” The sky was clear, the plain looked like it would make for easy walking and with Becker no longer hunting us, it actually sounded doable.

As we stepped onto the plain, Erin frowned, looking around. “Why does nothing grow here?”

She was right. There wasn’t even a single tree, just crisp, even snow. The ground felt iron-hard under my boots. “Maybe the soil never thaws here, and plants can’t put down roots?”

A memory scratched at the back of my mind but I was still foggy from the morphine and I couldn’t quite get hold of it. “C’mon,” I said. “Let’s go.”

And we set off across the plain.

37. Erin

37

ERIN

We walked all afternoon. We were only crossing one small corner of the plain but it was so vast that it took forever. All we could see was the flat whiteness stretching on for miles: our only sense of scale came from the tiny building in the distance. The temperature had risen now that we were on lower ground. It was still probably minus ten but, compared to what we’d experienced in the snowstorm, that seemed almost warm.