Chương 30: What If?: In A Frozen White Hell 1

Steve hated the cold. He hated the way it cut through his suit, he hated the way it burned with every breath, and he hated what it reminded him of. There was no escaping it, not in the hours he had been walking since he woke up, half buried under a growing snowbank. He could count on one hand the times he'd been seized by such a panic, thrashing his way free as soon as he'd realised his situation. He would never go into the ice again. Not like that. Snow crunched beneath his feet as he hiked through white hell.

His goal was the forest off to the west, steadily growing closer, but for now all that was around him was snow and the occasional bit of stubborn grass poking through. His stomach was a yawning pit, but at least the cuts and bruises he'd earned fighting Thanos were numbed by the cold. God, he hated the cold. If there was any other living thing in this place, he saw no evidence of it. A light snowfall buried all evidence, even his own trail, and if he stopped, it would bury him too.

An hour passed, and then another, but the sun seemed to stay static in the sky, and the only change in landscape was the size of the distant trees, looming ever larger. There was something primordial about the forest, something other, and he began to think that he might be the first human to ever pass under them. Time blurred, and the cold took root in his bones. He was thankful he was here alone; any other human would have collapsed long ago. Although, maybe Bruce or Thor would have had body heat to spare…

he blinked, and suddenly he was only a stone's throw from the forest edge. His breath hardly fogged in the air. For a moment, he felt the urge to sit down against a tree and rest, but he knew if he did, he would never get up. Snapping branches, a panicked, staggering run, the growl of some beast, all of it coming from deeper in the forest. Steve felt his pulse quicken as it grew closer, blurred vision sharpening.

From the treeline, a small figure emerged, running as quickly as they could, but weighed down by the too-large furs they wore. They were running in a blind panic, heading straight for Steve, and a moment later he saw why. An enormous brown bear was on their heels, jaws slavering as it panted and roared. The only reason it hadn't caught its prey already was the trees getting in its way, but now there was nothing stopping it from running the kid down at its leisure. Nothing except him.

Steve slipped his shield from his arm. The balance was off, and the shattered edge would stop it from flying as he was used to, let alone bouncing back, but he didn't need it to. He threw, and it spun end over end. The jagged side buried itself deep in the bear's head, crushing its skull, and the beast collapsed. Blood and brain matter stained the snow. Steve breathed deeply, shaking the last of the fog off. The fleeing child had collapsed into the snow, sucking in huge breaths as they lay on their side.

After a long moment, they forced themselves to roll over, craning their neck to look at the corpse of the bear, before collapsing back, staring up at the grey sky. They couldn't have been older than twelve, and the furs they wore were clearly meant for an adult, ill fitting and allowing roughly cut red hair to peek out from under the hood.

"You ok there kid?" Steve asked. The kid was on their feet as soon as he spoke, graceless and lurching. There was a knife in their hand, and it was steady as it pointed at him, despite how its wielder swayed.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Steve said. He eyed the knife, more a shiv really. It was a fragment of shattered metal that had been bound to a wooden handle. The child spoke, but not in a language he knew, with many words of few syllables, almost rhythmic. Their tone was demanding, and revealed them to be a girl. Steve raised his hands, showing them to be empty.

"I don't speak your language." The girl spoke again, still demanding, but she seemed uncertain, and she was still taking in heaving breaths.

"Steve," he said, pointing at himself.

"... Frelja," the girl said. She kept her knife pointing at him. Steve began to circle around Frelja, and she scampered back, but she wasn't his goal. He reached the bear, keeping one eye on her, and pulled his shield free from the corpse with a squelch. He knelt down to clean it with some snow, wiping blood and viscera from it. Frelja spoke again, an order, jabbing her knife towards him, and he looked between her and the bear. Had she been out hunting, or had she been separated from her family by the animal?

"Where is your family?" Steve asked. His question was met by predictable confusion, so he put his hands to his arms and mimed a shiver, before pointing at the bear and rubbing his stomach. Frelja stared at him for a moment, before she pointed at his shield, and then herself, before making the same shivering mime he had. He hesitated, but only briefly. He didn't need his shield to defend himself from a child, and it wasn't like he couldn't get it back if he needed it. He held it out, offering it.

The girl pointed at the ground, tone demanding. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Steve frowned, and shook his head. Reluctantly, Frelja inched forwards to accept the offered shield, shiv still at the ready. She put her shoulder under it as she took it, expecting it to be heavy, and a look of astonishment crossed her face as he let go and she felt it lightness.

"Happy?" Steve asked, wry. Frelja ignored him, circling around the bear as she inspected it. Her hood slipped down over her face and she pushed it back, enough for Steve to glimpse an old bruise on her neck. The bear was almost taller than she was, even slumped down in death. She looked between her small shiv and the shield she now possessed, taking in its sharp edge. Without ceremony, she raised it over her head, intent on bringing it down on the animal's leg.

Steve stepped in before she could, catching it mid swing. He let go quickly as she tried to stab him with her shiv.

"Food?" he asked, before miming an eating action, pointing between bear and stomach. Frelja nodded, and pointed from the shield to its leg. Steve shook his head, and began to dig about in his belt pouches, retrieving a loop of high tensile rope, string really. He flipped the bear over with ease, sending Frelja skittering back, and began to tie its rear legs together. He was left with about two feet of string, and he gave it a tug, testing his work. The bear shifted, and the knots held.

The girl spoke again, glancing between the carcass and him with a doubtful look. The look turned to disbelief when he put the string over his shoulder and began to pull it towards the forest. He turned when he reached the treeline, raising one eyebrow.

"Coming?" She was quick to hurry after him, and then past him, leading the way through the shadowed boughs of the forest. She glanced back occasionally, but as they trudged onwards, her confidence grew, and soon they were making a steady pace towards wherever it was she was leading them. Steve noticed that even her boots were oversized for her, the cuffs tied to skinny legs with catgut. He resigned himself to another long walk in the cold. At least the scything wind couldn't reach him here.

Even with his burden, it only took them an hour to reach Frelja's village, a small collection of huts made from branches and animal hides. They were arranged in a rough circle in a clearing in the forest, and did not look like permanent structures. Snow dusted them, but the lanes between were a muddy slush. Their approach did not go unnoticed, a man in the middle of skinning an elk seeing them almost as soon as they emerged from the trees.

He called out to someone, but didn't abandon his task, eyes tracking them as cut away at his task. The people who came out of their huts or stepped away from their tasks to investigate their arrival were a wild folk, clad in furs and bearing the signs of rough living. They watched him distrustfully as he pulled the bear corpse into the centre of their dwellings, eyes flicking between him and Frelja. None of them had red hair.

Frelja began to crow to the growing gathering, waving about his shield and pointing between him and the bear as he returned his rope to its place on his belt. There were maybe twenty villagers, mostly adults, mostly men. The girl finished her story, looking around with an expectant air as she raised her chin proudly, but he noticed that the hand holding his shiv was white-knuckled. Around her, the villagers began to talk and discuss, gesturing to Steve, to the bear, to Frelja.

Few actually responded to her, talking over the girl more often, and those that did were derisive, dismissive. She responded insistently, unable to keep herself from stamping her foot, but that only made them laugh. Another small group joined the gathering, three men, pushing through the others. Each had a thick beard, and looked like they ate better than the others. The biggest of the three spoke, and muttered conversations fell silent. Steve felt a frown forming.

Felja answered him, still standing tall, but she held his shield in front of herself, putting it between them and her. She was defiant, despite the fear he could see her trying to hide. The leader held his hand out, expectant, and Felja shook her head. The man sighed, before stepping forward to grab it. Felja tried to pull it back, but the man slapped her across the face, giving her a contemptuous look as she fell to the ground with a cry. He started to admire the shield, looking to slip it onto his arm.

A frisson of hate welled up within him, for striking a child, for daring to lay hands on what was his, for being a bully. Steve stepped forward, putting one hand on the shield. The man's piglike eyes widened in outrage, and he spat something, vitriolic. Steve slapped him across the face, sending him reeling, and took his shield back, returning it to its place on his back. The man spat blood, and touched his hand to his lip.

He looked at the blood that stained his fingers like he couldn't believe it, and then he roared and ran at Steve, murder in his eyes. Steve slapped him again, knocking him clean off his feet and sending a tooth flying. One of the other men charged at him, but Steve stepped to the side and grabbed him by the waist of his pants and pulled, flipping him ass over teakettle to get a facefull of the muddy slush. Before he could start to rise, he planted a foot on his back, forcing him down.

"Anyone else?" There was another, and Steve was losing patience. He ducked a wild swing of an axe, and grabbed him by the arm and the leg, before spinning in place to launch him over a nearby hut and out of the village. He gave a strangled shriek as he flailed in the air, before landing deep in a snowbank.

"Well?" Steve asked, looking around. He knew they couldn't understand him, but actions spoke louder anyway, and no one approached him. He stepped over to Frelja, picking her up and dusting snow from her shoulders. She blinked rapidly, still rattled from the slap, and her eyes were watery.

"Frelja!" A child's cry. Frelja looked around, and stepped away from Steve in time for a small cannonball to throw itself at her midsection, holding her tight. She wrapped her arms around the small redheaded boy, pressing her lips to his crown. Her eyes, though, remained on Steve. A middle aged woman came limping up, from the same direction the boy had come from, and she spoke to Frelja as the small crowd began to disperse.

Some grabbed the man Steve had slapped senseless to drag away, and he took his boot off the man he had pinned. He rose, and for a moment he looked like he might make another attempt, but a single warning look was enough to put him off, and he fled. The woman speaking with Frelja shared no looks with her or the boy, hair brown and pug nosed, and the limp in her step spoke of an old injury. She glanced at Steve, and spoke to him haltingly, in a different language this time.

"I don't speak that language either," Steve said, grimacing. His joints ached, and his eyes burned with tiredness. The older woman pointed at the bear, tilting her head in question. Steve pointed at Frelja. Frelja regained some of the pride she had held when they first reached the village, standing taller again, and she said something to the woman. The boy clinging to her looked up at her in awe, sneaking glances at the bear. The woman called out, and two of the villagers approached, a man and a woman.

She gestured to the bear, giving instructions. The two gave Steve a hesitant look, but he nodded, and they produced knives, beginning to set about the carcass with a will. Turning, the woman began to limp away, Frelja and the boy following. Standing in the muddy lane, snow falling on him, he felt a bone deep weariness, lost and alone. He looked for the strength to continue, but nothing came. His eyelids were heavy.

"Stev!" He forced his eyes open, looking for the one who had mangled his name, and found Frelja looking over her shoulder at him. She smiled shyly, and gestured for him with the arm that wasn't holding her brother. He blew out a breath.

"I'm not dead yet," he said to himself. He hoped they had somewhere warm to lay his head. He put one leg in front of the other, and walked.