The wind didn't howl. It screamed.
The convoy was thirty minutes out of the tunnel, and the world had turned into a white hell.
The sky was a flat, bruised gray. The ground was an ocean of powder. The only color in the universe was the dirty green of the trucks and the red taillights fading into the squall.
Inside the Rover, the heater was losing the war.
Marcus watched his breath fog the air. It came out in thick, white clouds.
Frost was already creeping across the inside of the windshield. It looked like lace made of ice.
"Heater is at max," Marcia said. Her teeth chattered. It was a sharp, clicking sound. "It's not doing anything."
"The battery is cold," Marcus said. "Chemical reactions slow down."
"Fix it," she snapped. She gripped the steering wheel so hard her knuckles were white.
"I can't fix physics, Marcia."
[ALERT: EXTERNAL TEMP DROPPING.]
[CURRENT: -15°C.]
[WIND CHILL: -25°C.]
A new bar appeared on Marcus's gold HUD. It wasn't health. It wasn't mana.
[LEGION HYPOTHERMIA: 14%]
It was a death clock.
"Status report," Marcus said into the radio.
Static hissed back. Then Decimus's voice. He sounded drunk. Slurring.
"Trucks are... sluggish, Lord. The men are huddling. Can we stop? Build a fire?"
"Negative," Marcus said. "If we stop, the engines cool down. If the engines cool, the fuel gels. If the fuel gels, you die. Keep moving."
He looked at the speedometer.
20 MPH.
The snow was too deep for anything faster. They were crawling.
Marcus rubbed his eyes. The white glare of the snow was burning his retinas.
He looked out the side window.
The landscape was flat. Dead trees poked out of the drifts like black skeletons.
For a second, the snow shifted.
The white static formed a shape. A face.
It was massive. Stretching from the ground to the clouds.
Vane.
The Executive was laughing. His eyes were red voids.
The HUD flickered. The gold lines turned jagged and crimson.
[QUEST UPDATED: DIE.]
Marcus flinched. He grabbed the dashboard.
"Marcus?" Marcia asked.
He blinked hard.
The face dissolved back into drifting snow. The HUD settled back to gold.
"Nothing," Marcus muttered. "Glare."
"You're twitching."
"I said it's nothing."
[ANALYSIS: HALLUCINATION.]
[CAUSE: SENSORY DEPRIVATION. STRESS. COLD.]
[ADVICE: EAT A PROTEIN BAR. YOUR BLOOD SUGAR IS CRITICAL.]
"Shut up, JARVIS."
Suddenly, the radio screeched.
"Truck 4 is stopping!"
Marcus looked in the side mirror.
Four trucks back, a heavy transport was slewing sideways. It lost momentum. The wheels stopped spinning. It drifted to a halt in the deep powder.
The convoy braked.
"Don't stop!" Marcus yelled. "Keep the RPMs up! Idle in neutral!"
Marcia slammed the Rover into park but kept her foot on the gas. The electric whine filled the cabin.
Marcus kicked his door open.
The cold hit him like a physical blow. It wasn't just air; it was a wall of needles. It slapped his face, instantly numbing his skin. The moisture in his nose froze.
He jumped into the snow. It went up to his knees.
"Narcissus! Galen! On me!"
He waded toward Truck 4.
The giant cyborg was already there. Narcissus didn't wade. He plowed. His metal legs smashed through the drifts. He wore no coat, just his armored chassis. Snow melted and sizzled on his heated fusion core.
Galen scrambled out of Truck 5. The engineer was wrapped in three layers of greasy canvas. He looked like a bundle of rags.
They reached the stalled truck.
The driver was banging on the steering wheel.
"It just died!" the driver yelled. "It coughed and died!"
"Pop the hood," Galen yelled over the wind.
Narcissus didn't wait for the latch. He grabbed the sheet metal hood and ripped it off. He tossed it into the snow like a frisbee.
Galen leaned in.
The engine block was encrusted in ice.
"Fuel filter," Galen shouted. "It's waxed! The diesel turned to jelly!"
"Fix it!" Marcus ordered.
Galen fumbled for his tool belt. His hands were shaking violently. He wore thick woolen mittens.
He tried to grab a wrench. The mittens were too clumsy.
He pulled the mittens off.
His hands were red and raw.
He grabbed the icy metal of the fuel line.
"AH!" Galen screamed.
He dropped the wrench. It disappeared into the powder.
Galen fell to his knees, clutching his hands.
"I can't feel them!" Galen sobbed. "I can't feel my fingers!"
"Move," Narcissus rumbled.
The cyborg stepped in.
Narcissus didn't need tools. He reached into the engine. He grabbed the frozen fuel line with his iron fingers.
CRUNCH.
He crushed the blockage. He ripped the filter out.
"Bypass it," Marcus said.
Narcissus grabbed the two ends of the hose. He shoved them together, fusing the rubber with the heat of his own grip.
"Try it!" Narcissus bellowed.
The driver cranked the engine.
Chug. Chug. Whirrrr.
Silence.
"Battery is dead," the driver whispered. "From the cold."
Marcus looked at the line of trucks. They were idling. Wasting fuel.
[LEGION HYPOTHERMIA: 18%]
Every second they stood here, the percentage ticked up.
"Leave it," Marcus said.
"What?" Galen looked up, tears freezing on his cheeks. "It's a transport! We need the cargo space!"
"We can't tow it in this snow," Marcus said. "And we can't jump it. We're leaving it."
Marcus turned to the back of the truck. He banged on the canvas.
"EVERYONE OUT! NOW!"
The flap opened.
Thirty refugees stared out. They were huddled in a pile, sharing body heat. Children were in the middle.
"Move!" Marcus grabbed the first man and pulled him into the snow. "Get to Trucks 5 and 6! Squeeze in!"
Panic set in.
The refugees scrambled out. They hit the snow and screamed. The wind cut through their tunics.
"Run!" Marcia yelled from the Rover. "Keep moving!"
It was chaos. People were slipping, falling. Mothers dragged crying children.
One old man didn't move.
He was sitting near the tailgate. His eyes were open. He was staring at the roof.
"Get up!" Marcus climbed into the bed. He grabbed the man's shoulder.
The shoulder was stiff.
The man toppled over. He hit the metal floor with a solid thud. Like a piece of wood.
He was blue.
"He's gone," Marcus said.
A woman near the front shrieked. "Father! Get him up!"
She tried to climb back in.
Marcus blocked her.
"He's dead," Marcus said. His voice was flat. The wind tore the words away.
"No! He was just talking to me!"
"His heart stopped. The cold shock." Marcus shoved her toward the waiting arms of Narcissus. "Go to the next truck. Now."
"We have to bury him!"
"Look around you!" Marcus swept his hand at the white wasteland. "This is the grave! We are standing in the grave!"
Narcissus picked the woman up. She kicked and screamed. He carried her to Truck 5 and deposited her inside like a sack of grain.
"Count is good!" Decimus yelled from the rear. "Everyone is loaded! It's tight, Lord! Standing room only!"
"Make them stand," Marcus said. "Body heat helps."
He jumped down from the dead truck.
He looked at the corpse one last time. The old man looked peaceful. Frozen in time.
"Strip him," Marcus said to Decimus.
Decimus paused. "Lord?"
"Take his cloak. Take his boots. Someone else needs them."
Decimus hesitated for a second. Then he nodded grimly. He climbed in.
Two minutes later, Decimus jumped out holding a bundle of clothes.
The corpse lay naked on the metal bed. Skin pale as the snow.
"Close the flap," Marcus ordered.
They sealed the dead truck.
Marcus trudged back to the Rover. His legs felt heavy. The snow was cement.
He fell into the passenger seat.
Marcia hit the gas before he even closed the door.
The convoy lurched forward.
Marcus watched the side mirror.
Truck 4 grew smaller. A green box in a white void. A coffin left on the side of the road.
"Did we get everyone?" Marcia asked. She didn't look at him. She was staring at the tracks in the snow.
"Minus one," Marcus said.
He looked at the HUD.
[LEGION HYPOTHERMIA: 22%]
It had gone up.
"Drive faster," Marcus whispered.
"I can't," Marcia said. "The snow is getting deeper."
She pointed ahead.
The road was gone. Just drifts. Mountains of white.
"Plovdiv is twenty miles," Lucilla said from the back seat. Her voice was trembling. "If we don't find a heater... we're all going to look like that old man."
Marcus gripped the dashboard. The plastic cracked under his fingers.
"We'll find it," he said.
"And if Titus is there?"
"Then he better be warm," Marcus said. "Because I'm going to burn everything he has."