Frost Moon

Frost Moon Part 6

Bjørn squinted through the windshield. The rig he was driving was an old snowplow. Well, it used to be. Now it was converted into a vehicle of war that Mad Max would have been proud of. He was getting close towhere he'd be picking his brothers up, and it wouldn't do if he ran them over instead of home.

Bjørn had a real bad feeling about this. For the zillionth time, he checked that his weapons were within easy reach, Desert Eagle? Check. Silver bullets? Check. Shotgun? Check. Cold iron shrapnel? Check. SquirtMaster 2000 with its neon pink reservoir filled to the brim with Holy Water? Check and fucking check!

It could not be a bloody coincidence that a damsel in distress should show up around now. Not with Ingjerd's prophecies about rains of fire and portals to Hell! Back in the days, Ingjerd was winning the lottery often enough that only a fool would ignore her warnings. Especially with a full moon coinciding with the winter solstice, and the ancient TrollCaves nearby. His family had been guarding those damned caves since forever. Only Tor and Ingjerd knew why, but at least these days they had sensors and remote alarms. No need to sit in a dull cave, waiting for nothing, freezing your ass off.

And this girl... No one travelled alone without being able to defend themselves anymore. It was just too dangerous. Typical timing, this happening just when they were making some progress, training the local kids. You never knew when the Church would start their missionary work again, sending out freshly anointed teams of Sirens and Rat Catchers to bring more children into its abusive fold. That's why they needed to train the kids – so they would resist all those seductive voices in the night. A few more months and the youngsters would have been safe, ready to just disperse into the woods and live off of nature when danger would rear its ugly head, conducting guerrilla warfare if necessary. Now, though – if things went south... Bjørn didn't want to think about it.

* * *

Herlovsen pointed. He was explaining where the shots had come from and where the sensors that had triggered the avalanche had been placed. Katherine barked out some orders, and her pack spread out to implement them. Erikka secured the copse of trees where the shots had originated, and saw that the automated weapon turrets had run out of ammo. Monkey sniffed his way to where the brothers had been watching the spectacle, and found both the casing of Tor's single shot and some of Geir's cigarette butts. The casing implied a powerful military weapon, while the turret guns were nothing but modified civilian hunting gear. It didn't look like an organized ambush by one of the many groups that hated the Church – more like die-hard mountain men that hated outsiders on principle. Most likely. And since half the night had passed, most likely was good enough.

It looked like the ambushers had left on skis. That meant it would be a piece of cake to catch up with them. Katherine felt no need to rush it. She'd rather let them get back to their den, where they'd think themselves safe and let their guard down. It was a common first mistake.

Katherine signaled that they should get going again. The hounds bounded almost play fullyover the snow at great speed, and if Herlovsen and his men hadn't been strapped on, they would've had no chance of hanging on. As it was, the rookie riders were mercilessly tossed back and forth.

Nielsen had it worst. Ludvig was so small he didn't care about low hanging branches as they were crashing through the forest. Nielsen, however, stuck up above the saddle, and got all the branches and snow in his face. Earlier, he had removed the visor of his armor as the Italian garbage misted up and made it impossible to see anything. Now, he bitterly regretted that decision, and straightened himself up to put it back up – at the wrongest possible time. A large branch hit him squarely in the chest. If he hadn't been strapped tight, he would have broken a few ribs and been sent flying. Unfortunately for Nielsen, his lower body was strapped tight to that massive hunk of muscle and cyberware thundering through the forest beneath him. The soldier's spine broke with a dry, brittle crack, his torso flapping back and forth like a ragdoll, gurgling blood. Ludvig looked behind him, undid the straps, and simply let the dead weight fall off. The dwarf could have gotten good money for that corpse, but it would be impractical to lug it around for the rest of the mission.