The small puddle of water was close to freezing, its surface still and crystalline. In it he saw his own face, the one black hole that was his remaining eye glaring back at him in disgust, the rude yet beardless face stained by thick blood.
The dwarf plunged his hands through that mirror of ice and, soon, misty red clouds spread through the disturbed water. Behind him, laying on a small outcrop on a snowy mountainside, was a dead man, a Pazruki nomad, his eyes staring wide yet lifelessly at a vast open sky.
Far below, his fellow tribesmen rode on through the steppes, searching in vain for their comrade in thievery. The dwarf observed them for a while, but soon his focus drifted on towards the eastern horizon and the distant shadows of high peaks.
The wind whistled and howled, and in its cold voice the dwarf heard, or perhaps hoped he did, the same call that had brought him there, and that now pushed him onward, heedless of his fatigue and wary doubts.
Nameless Frontiers
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