Warlock

than anything, will sap our strength.”
        
        They tied up in groups as before and started off on another steep but none too dangerous stretch of ground.
        
        And the snow came…
        
        In wintertime in Perdune, the citizens lived in a state of siege, walled from the rest of the world by drifting ramparts of white. The spring, summer, and short autumn were employed to store away the necessities of life through the long and bitter winter months. Storehouses were stacked high with fuel wood and blocked, dried mosses from the marshlands by the sea, beyond the Banibals. Every housekeeper had a larder packed to the beams, and the merchants made certain that their own salable foodstuffs were well crated to endure until the last month or two of winter-for if the season were longer than usual, they would turn quite a business at a decent enough profit. There were always those who prepared for the average winter, without thought to a late thaw.
        
        In Perdune, by mid-winter, the streets were all but impassable, narrowed to walks by the packed, mounting drifts. Houses at some locations were swept across by snow-bearing winds until, at last, they were completely concealed from the eye, but for the constantly maintained channel from front door to street. Snowshoed teams of armed men patroled the drifted town, walking at roof level, looking for wolves. There were always some of them who did not leave the valley for the western slopes of the Banibals during the last weeks of autumn. Some stayed behind, their instincts failing them this once, and when they found themselves without food in a cold wasteland, they prowled the drift-packed village, growing emaciated, shivering with the cold, eyes red and weeping tears. Children were most often kept indoors during the hardest weeks of winter; in the beginning, when the snow had only begun to fall and mount, they went out to play and enjoy themselves, well aware of the isolation that came with later days; by January, the wolves and the fierce winds confined all but the stoutest citizens to their warm homes.
        
        The residents of Perdune grew accustomed to this period of the year, and even seemed to look forward to it, despite all the complaints and the jokes about eternal winter and lost spring. It was a time to read, to forget commerce and enjoy leisure. It was a time when warmth and coziness seemed unbelievably precious and wonderful, by comparison to the world outside. It was a time for family games, for baking sessions in sweet-smelling kitchens, a time for games of a frosty night, played around a stone fireplace on the warmed bricks of the hearth, a time for quilts and warm chocolate in bed. When it was gone, when the snows began to melt off, a melancholy settled upon the residents, despite their proclamations of relief and joy in seeing spring approach.
        
        But even a resident of Perdune, the Shaker thought, would flee in terror at the fierce weather the climbers had encountered far up the slopes of the Cloud Range. No sooner than half an hour after he had predicted the snow last night, it began: gentle at first, even pretty- later growing harsh and thick and difficult.
        
        They had made camp at the bottom of a sheer wall which they would have to scale the following morning. Sheets of canvas were brought out from the supplies, and specially trained teams set to work driving the iron braces of the windbreakers into the earth. Even where there was ground instead of solid rock, the earth contained eighteen inches of frost through which the sharpened spikes had to be driven to insure safety. The chore was not a small one, and not without an accompanying rush of curses from every man so employed.
        
        But even when the flapping, whispering breakers had been erected around the close-grouped climbers, some wind managed to reach them. It tore through the camp, sent columns of fine, dry snowflakes whirling like tornadoes It made them huddle over their hot soup and cured, salted beef, made them suck greedily at their steaming coffee and their private bottles of warming rum and brandy. There was no urge to conversation, and all but the guards were soon drawn deeply into their sleeping bags, scarfs wrapped about their heads, hoods of leather coats drawn up and pulled tight with the tie strings about their necks.
        
        The wind was an ululating