The Snow on the Cross by Brian Fitts Page B

grain
around the top was stained with dark specks.  It is harder to clean blood after
it has soaked into the wood.  Eirik tapped his spear on the ground as if to
send me a message to hurry up.
    He murmured something.  Bjarni spoke
up.
    “The hunt awaits,” Bjarni told me. 
“And it will not wait for you, so come on.”
    I looked behind me in confusion, as
if seeking help from an unknown source.  There were no answers.  Finally, I
replied.
    “What should I bring?”
    Bjarni touched Eirik on the shoulder
and whispered something to him.  I watched as Eirik pointed to the large packs
they had stacked beside them and said something back to Bjarni.
    “Bishop,” said Bjarni.  “We have
prepared you a pack.  You need nothing else.  Come on.”
    His tone suggested they had lost
patience with me.  The other men grinned at my distress.  “Very well,” I said. 
“Let’s go.”  I put my boots on as they watched, looked around at my
    little stone church, and wondered if it was to be the last
time I would see it.  It had nothing to compare it to my cathedral at Le Mans , save that I called it home, but it
seemed a sanctuary while I was here.
    Eirik seemed satisfied, and I didn’t
feel as lost with Bjarni coming with us.  At least I would have a translator. 
I stepped outside, wrapping the fur Malyn had given me around my shoulders. 
Eirik hoisted one of the packs and thrust it at me.  I caught it, nearly bowled
over by the weight.
    I shut my door behind me, and we
began the walk.
    * * *
    Some of the men were dragging large
sleds behind them.  The sleds traveled a bit rough over the grasslands, but
with enough yanking and grunting, the men pulled them through.  I almost
thought about asking why I could not place my pack on the sled, for it was
weighing down my shoulders and causing my lower back to throb, but instead I
kept my silence.  I knew Eirik was judging me, and I did not want to seem too
weak in his presence.  Those sleds could just as easily carry a human body back
from the hunt.
    We walked single file, and I found
myself jostled behind Bjarni and another man behind me.  I could not pronounce
these men’s names, so I sorted them by the color of the furs they wore.   Grey
and Black were walking behind me.
    Eirik took the lead, and it was
apparent he knew exactly where we were headed, for he climbed the hills like he
had been born here.  The men never questioned their direction, and just as I
began to wonder when we would take a break from the walking, we stopped.  Eirik
had crested the next hill and stood gazing over the lands beyond.  The air was
quite colder here than by the sea, and I half expected to see snow at any
moment.  I watched as Eirik, half silhouetted against the horizon, raised his
arms.  He gave a wild shout in his own language and pointed.  I, along with the
others, finished the climb and looked down at the plains below. 
    A pure ice field stretched before us,
dotted with dark patches of what I would later find out was lichen, but it was
not the lucidity of the land or the shimmering of the sunlight that skated
along the surface that truly amazed me.  A dark mass, moving ever so slowly,
was swarming along the plain.  Shaggy brown beasts bellowed and moaned as the
entire herd, thousands of animals, traveled across the ice field.  They swarmed
as insects, thick and black, and although they moved as one entity, it was
still difficult to distinguish where one ended and the next beast began.  The
ground was shaking as the slow moving river of what Malyn had called reindeer
coursed in front of us.  If this was Eirik’s idea of a skillful hunt, then his
skill must have been poor, for even I could have shot and arrow into the midst
of those creatures and struck down two or three, and I have never shot an arrow
before.
    Eirik hoisted his spear and pointed
out several of the herd to Bjarni, who had moved up beside him.  The others
gathered, their eyes glowing with