The frozen field stretched out before them like a white sheet pulled taut over the bones of the earth. Snow had fallen in the night, fresh and deep, erasing the tracks of wolves and foxes and the smaller, softer things that moved beneath the crust.
The sky was pale, almost white, the sun a suggestion behind layers of cloud, and the wind that moved across the open ground was the special cold of the north.
In the middle of the field, a line moved.
White on white, fur on snow, the arctic foxes of the Meroron tribe were almost invisible. They wore their winter coats, thick and pale, and over them, white fur pelts that had been passed down for generations, each one carrying the warmth of the foxes who had worn it before.
They moved in a single file, heads low, tails tucked, their small paws sinking into the snow and lifting, sinking and lifting, a rhythm as old as the north itself.
At the front, Emra Mero led.
