Driven by the wind, the lambs ran for a while, then tired and tried to hide their heads under one another’s bellies for protection from the pinching and stinging cold. They were barely able to graze.

I was cold myself and shivering. The glow stone couldn’t keep my hands and face warm. My fingertips burned, along with the backs of my hands, my nose, and my cheeks and chin. And I was freezing in other places as well, such as my calves and my neck.

Even Arsylang kept his tail between his legs and tilted his head when we crossed through the wind that lashed us like flames.

“What on earth shall we do?” I asked Arsylang, pointing at the shivering mass. Arsylang didn’t know. So it was left to me to decide. And I decided and said: “Let’s go home, Arsylang.”

So we drove the flock home. This meant going against the wind, which was hard, but with me shouting and Arsylang barking and both of us running hither and thither, we made progress as best as we could.

Mother was working in the hürde, shoveling snow, and digging up and spreading last year’s grainy, dry dung in place of the frozen, new dung she had already scraped together in a pile. She looked at me and said: “I had hoped the running would warm them up and make them eat.” She sounded unsure of herself, almost apologetic, but then she said in a hard voice as if to admonish or even threaten me: “Grab an armload of hay, but make sure that not a blade is lost in the wind.”

The hendshe jostled beneath the rock that formed the northern side of the stone wall and jutted out quite a bit above the hürde. Under there, the lambs were sheltered from the wind, and all that could be heard now—and more clearly than before—was the rushing and occasional hissing and pelting of the wind. Trembling and murmuring, the hendshe tore into the hay, and each of the animals began to eat with a haste I had never seen or thought possible. Mother was watching, too. She told me to fetch düüleesh and fresh horse droppings. I took my small basket, slung it over my shoulder, and left with Arsylang. After a while Mother caught up with us. I was happy to see her and thought that two baskets could hold more than one—this way the hendshe would get more to eat. But I said nothing and only walked as fast as I could so as not to fall behind. Mother broke her silence only once to give a menacing order for Arsylang to go home, which he obeyed immediately.

We walked toward Saryg Göschge, discovering along the way little piles of horse droppings that looked dark and so could probably still be used as feed. But the droppings were frozen rock-solid, and lumps of snow, rock, and dirt stuck to them. Separating the droppings from these lumps was hard work.