Page 56 of Winter Longing
“That’s some workout, holding back,” Tank agreed. He shook his head. “I’m not sure how a marriage is supposed to change that.”
“One more thing about medieval life we don’t understand,” Cole suggested.
Around Cole, the Sinclair men carried on with their meal. The young ones, like Cian and Colin, shared quiet jokes, while the older soldiers cast wary glances toward the MacLaes at the opposite side of the hall.
When Tavis stood, indicating he was finished with his meal, the Sinclairs, almost as one, rose as well.
They were given accommodation in the stables, which left Cole and Tank wide-eyed with disbelief. The Sinclair soldiers crammed into the space like sardines in a can, barely any room between them as they unrolled thin blankets onto the packed dirt floor. The men didn’t seem to mind the close quarters. They were used to this, clearly, settling in shoulder to shoulder as if it were just another night on the road.
The overflow of men spilled into the nearby barns, where the conditions weren’t much better—no heat, just the faint warmth of the animals, whatever blankets they had brought along, and their comrades to keep them from freezing.
Though he suffered not at all from cold—the press of bodies was indeed helpful—Cole barely slept, tossing and turning with Tank snoring in his ear and the image of a freezing or injured Ailsa in his mind.
Still, when morning came, Cole felt a renewed sense of urgency, anxious to get going, being one of the first in the courtyard, which was much larger than that of Torr Cinnteag.
Alastair MacLae emerged from the keep as the Sinclair army gathered, and Cole guessed it made sense for the man to join the search for his fiancé. That was not the case, however; he was simply here to wave goodbye, apparently—though he did commit six of his men to the effort. Six.
Cole rolled his eyes and happened to catch Tavis’s eye as the Sinclair laird walked his horse past Cole.
“That’s the guy you want your sister to marry?” he challenged with disgust, earning him a ferocious scowl from Tavis.
***
Though the snow had stopped falling, the cold bit into Cole’s skin almost more bitterly than it had yesterday. He felt more frantic, more anxious today, believing too much time had passed by now. He feared they’d come to find it was no longer a rescue mission but only the recovery of bodies. What snow had fallen yesterday amounted to about a foot in these parts, the horse’s legs sinking up to their knees. The horses seemed sluggish to him, their trek ponderous, while the world seemed blanketed in an oppressive silence. The landscape stretched out before them,white and desolate, with jagged mountain peaks looming in the distance beneath dark clouds.
The group had been traveling for hours, scouts racing ahead and coming back—no news, no sightings— when they neared the largest mountain they’d seen yet. It came down through the ranks as they approached that this was where Ailsa, the carriage, and the others had last been seen.
“Oh, shit,” Tank cursed, staring up at the mountain.
“What?Oh shitwhat?”
Tank, bundled in his parka and cloak, lifted his gloved hand, pointing toward the mountain—a football field away, but visible enough now that the pattern was undeniable. “See that stripe of snow cutting through the trees on the mountain? Right there? The one running from the top to the bottom?” Tank’s voice was grim, his familiarity with the scene evident. “That’s a clear indication of an avalanche. Look at the broken trees—limbs scattered like matchsticks—and the snow... it’s not just fresh snow. That’s snow that crashed down from the mountain. And look at the debris field—no way this happened just from a storm. This mountain's been pissed.”
Cole didn’t question Tank’s observation. He knew the man had spent years skiing the Rockies in Colorado, and his expertise in avalanches, however indirect, was something to trust.
“Damn it,” Cole muttered, urging his horse forward, wanting to reach the base of the mountain. As he passed Dersey and Tavis, who had turned to look at him when they heard him coming, Cole called out, “An avalanche—Tank says it looks like there was an avalanche.”
The scene before them grew clearer as they neared the bottom of the mountain. The snow had settled in deep drifts, stretching out across the land in soft, undisturbed sheets. Yet the way it lay, the broad expanse of smooth snow interrupted by jagged edges and ridges, was unmistakable: this was no naturalaccumulation. The avalanche had carved a wide, jagged scar into the landscape. Snow had crashed down with such force that it had ripped apart trees, sending large branches and limbs flying, leaving only broken stumps behind. Rocks, large and small, lay strewn across the path as though the mountain had unleashed a great fury.
Tank caught up with Cole and both men dismounted at the same time at the edge of the debris field of snow, where it had come to rest at the base of the mountain. Tank turned and held up his hand to the approaching Sinclairs. “No horses beyond this point,” he called out, his voice carrying easily. “Watch your step. This ground’s unstable. The snow might look solid, but it’s packed in layers—some areas could be pockets where it hasn’t settled yet.”
Cole faced Tavis, thinking to instruct, “Have some rope on hand. Bring up the strongest horses for pulling someone out if they disappear beneath the surface.”
“What do we do? How do we search?” Dersey asked, swinging down from the saddle.
Cole looked to Tank for the answer.
“Slowly and carefully,” was Tank’s suggestion. “Maybe only a few men to any grid of”—he shrugged, possibly only making it up now— “ten square feet. We don’t want to put too much weight on this snow.”
This gave Cole pause. He stopped abruptly and looked down.Christ.Could Ailsa be somewhere beneath him?
Tavis, seeming to perfectly understand what might have happened, and what Tank had suggested, hollered for Stewart, who Cole knew to be the army’s engineer.
“Map it out, lad,” Tavis said, “by sight. All this area, all this snow that is taller than what we walked through to get here—Jesu, it’s nearly ten feet higher. Dersey! Where are ye? Och, Dersey, assign three men to each grid as Stewart directs.” Hewent on, calling for rope to be attached to several of their huge war horses, and to have them at the ready. And then Tavis himself began searching, awaiting Stewart’s direction.
The first clue came before Stewart had assigned even twenty men—a crumpled shape just visible beneath the surface.
“There!” Colin alerted.
