The sun did not rise the next day. The Season of Snow had begun.

Burgu peered through the exposed slit between his hood and the mask pulled over the bottom half of his face, breath crystallizing before him. A surprisingly clear day. His gaze caught the strip of radiance along the horizon hinting that night had ended, despite the blackness of the sky and his surroundings. The only light came from the lanterns hanging by the door of his house some distance behind, their scornrock cores emitting a reddish glow.

Crunching steps in the snow drew Burgu’s attention over his shoulder, and another man dressed like himself came alongside, a bag on his back and a saw in one hand, spear in the other. He nodded to the bag and accompanying shovel Burgu wore.

“Got everything?” Vanahelm, his eldest son, said.

Burgu nodded, and they set out. They followed a path of stakes driven into the ground with rope connecting each of them, pausing at one point to replant some stakes that had been knocked over, most likely from passing beasts. When the stakes stopped, Burgu walked a few steps and then started digging with his shovel.

A dull clang rang out. He shoveled around the area, and stepped back. Vanahelm struck the ice with a pick his father handed him, then carved into the ice with his saw, cutting out a rectangle with long strokes. Together, they lugged the chunk free, and then Burgu lowered a bone shaped like a fish with tiny bits of inlaid scornrock to make it glow into the water while Vanahelm poised above with the spear.

They waited. Neither spoke.

A shadow moved in the water, the glow of the lure giving it the barest form. Vanahelm struck. He cried out in victory and pulled, Burgu jerking the bone fish from the hole before latching onto the spear and pulling as well. Water splashed over them as they lugged their catch into the air: a pike as long as they were tall.

They tossed it further from the hole and let it wriggle for a bit as they caught their breath, and then Vanahelm used the spear to end its struggle. Burgu bound it with rope from his bag before tying that same rope around his shoulders while Vanahelm gathered their tools. Then they set off again, Burgu dragging the fish behind them.

With the calm weather, they did not need the stake-trail to guide them home, the faint red glow of the scornrock lanterns sticking out in the flat expanse. The sound of the rest of the family starting on the day’s tasks welcomed them as they reached the raised earth wall surrounding the house: a construction of a giant bear’s skeleton for the framework with hide pulled over the bones to keep the heat in.

Once within the wall, Burge and Vanahelm got to work skinning and deboning the fish. The leather door, attached at certain points to the bones, was untethered at one point as a woman with long blonde hair peeked her head out, light pouring from behind her. She smiled at the two, who waved, before refastening the door.

After removing some relatively bloodless strips, Burgu took them to the house and knocked on the bone frame. Again, the woman opened the door, and he tromped inside, and she closed it right after he entered. The ground sank low at this entrance before rising a little further in to the flat living area.

“Good catch?” Heilag, his wife, said.

“Full-grown pike. We will eat well.”

The single room house had little in the way of furnishings. Fur cots lined one side, and stone bowls were piled next to the pit near the back. Nothing burned in the pit, the interior light coming from one scornrock lantern dangling from the ceiling, and the comfortable heat of the house from its occupants, the remaining three of which waved at him as he pulled back his hood and mask. Scornrocks may have provided continuous light and their luster persist for years before fading, but they gave off little ambient warmth, even if they burned to the touch.

“Did I hear something about a pike?” Vanagjof, his daughter and second-eldest said.

“But no fire to cook,” Ásljos, son and third, groaned.

“Raw is plenty tasty,” Nýrfjor, the youngest son said.

“We have some berries left from last season,” Burgu said. “They will give us a little flavour.”

A short while later, Vanahelm pulled back the door and entered, removing his hood and mask. Like the rest of his family, his blonde hair shone, though he had a full beard to match his father’s. He joined them around the pit and munched on his own meat and berries.

“Should be fully bled in time for dinner,” he said.

After the meal, Burgu and Vanahelm sat against the rib supports of the house to rest. The youngest two ran around the house, playacting being warriors fighting off monsters while Heilag and Vanagjof carved fish bones in the shapes of an owl and a trout.

“If we catch two tomorrow, we could bring one to the village,” Vanahelm said.

Burgu shook his head.

“Snow might come. While it is clear, we should catch another. When we are done resting.”

His son nodded. A couple hours later, they did exactly that, the rest of the family seeing them off. The pair picked a different spot on the frozen lake to fish, and this time, Burgu held the spear. The prey soon arrived, and they dragged a younger specimen onto the surface, and considering its smaller size, maybe half their height, they waited for another and snagged that one too. Almost full-length.

“I will take the bigger one this time,” Vanahelm said.

They dragged the fish towards the house. Burgu glanced at the one his son pulled. With one that large and even the younger he had, perhaps they could trade for some hunted meat. Maybe fruit too, if any remained from the warmer season.

A shriek pierced the quiet night. Both of them froze.

“A bird?” Vanahelm said.

More shrieks. High and sheer, not unlike the distant wailing of a freezing gale. Burgu frowned. His skin crawled from the noise.

“Bird, maybe,” he said, “But not ones we wish to meet.”

They pushed a little further, but as the cries neared, Burgu and Vanahelm shrugged off their burdens and ran. The bird-like shrieks hounded them. Keening. Nearing. Sharp as ice.

“The spear,” Burgu barked as they skated through the opening in the house’s wall.

“Father—”

“Now. You get your axe and wait at the door, in case these things can fly.”

Vanahelm passed over the spear and ran to the house. Burgu faced the shadowed snowscape. Cries clawed from the night-like day, cloaked in ambiguity and that much more fearsome. He had faced monsters before. Who in Thule had not? With most houses built from the bones of dead beasts, they had to.

But the snows hid many creatures unknown to most. He could not say what approached. All he knew was that they would not reach his family.

Shadows flickered at the edge of the scornrock light. Feet pattered through snow. One shadow broke into the light, churning up white cast crimson by the lanterns as it loped towards him on all fours. His stomach twisted at the sight of it.

It moved in some sense like a dog, yet its shape warped in an unwholesome way, and dark feathers served for its coat. An owl’s head screamed at him, its eyes black and tortured. He planted his feet and bellowed at the beast. It skidded in the snow, and he rushed forward, plunging the spear into the monster. Its scream of pain scraped over his ears, but he pushed deeper before planting one foot on the dying creature and tugging the spear free.

Two more of the monsters lanced toward him, while others made for the now empty entrance in the wall. Burgu sprinted to that hole and spun around, shouting again at the monsters. One wavered from the noise, but the rest broke off and ran towards the wall itself. They leapt and scrabbled at the dirt, talons digging in as they tried to climb.

“They attempt to scale the wall,” he called.

He lunged at one of the beasts on the wall. In the same moment, the wavering one from before recovered its senses, and he found its beak almost upon him. With a shout and a rush of strength born of fear and desperation, Burgu spun the spear with the monster stuck on its head and slammed one creature into the other. The spear’s bony haft snapped from the impact.

He grasped the decapitated spearhead and lurched it free, blood spattering over his gloves. One of the beasts scrambled on top of the wall and leapt in, but found its head met with Vanahelm’s axe. Burgu barreled into the body of another as it climbed, knocking them both to the ground, and tore the spearhead through the beast’s neck.

Pain blasted through his back. One of the beasts screamed from where its talons dug into him, and he screamed back, rage and fear and hurt mixing into a sound no longer human. He staggered to his feet and backed into the wall, slamming his rider against it. Again. Again. Each time, excruciation shook his senses, his sight flashing between a crisp clearness wrought by the pain and fading shadows as death drew a little nearer.

With a rending sound, the beast was ripped from his back, and Vanahelm threw it to the ground before separating its head from its body.

“Get back to the house,” Burgu snarled through clenched teeth.

“You have to come with me.”

“I will. Go!”

Vanahelm sprinted back inside after a look to his father, slamming the axe into one of the beasts as it leapt at the wall. Burgu dropped the spearhead. With his wound, he needed range, even if that range was a bone stick rather than a weapon proper.

More beasts launched out of the darkness of the day. Some went for the wall. Others circled around, no doubt approaching from behind. Two came for him. He clubbed one and kicked the other in the side, his wounds flaming with every movement. He thrust the broken spear-end into one, tugged it free, and felled the other in the same way, bony fragments swimming white in red.

He walked with one hand on the wall. The edges of his vision threatened to join the day in shadow, each moment the blackness creeping further over his sight. Not yet. Not until his family was safe.

A scream. A girl’s. The blackness burned away, and he hurled himself forward. Another beast ran at him and leapt. Burgu jumped back, letting it slam into the wall before skewering its neck.

Burgu staggered inside. Vanahelm stood amidst numerous owl-monster corpses, parts of his coat in bloodied tatters. He was wrestling with one, arm wrapped around its neck while he tried to strike it with his axe, and Burgu ran it through, Vanahelm finishing it off with a blow.

“Get inside,” Vanahelm panted. “Some are there.”

“Cut open the way. My fingers…”

His son did so with the axe before two more of the beasts came over the wall. Burgu stumbled past the door, Vanahelm planting himself in front of the now open doorway.

Within, Vanagjof beat at one monster with a fish rib, a second beast sputtering on the floor, most of its head caved in. Behind her were her siblings and Heilag, the mother reassuring her children with a feeble smile, one hand on the gash in her stomach. Burgu pulled himself onto higher ground and slammed his bone-shaft into the beast as well. Together, he and his daughter slew both.

Burgu panted as he steadied himself on one of the house’s bone supports. Now to return to Vanahelm.

“Stay, Father,” Vanagjof said, laying her hand on his arm. “Your wound must be cared for.”

“Vanahelm needs help.”

“Then I will go.”

“No. You stay here in case others come through that hole.”

He waved to the tear in the house from the monsters’ entry. Vanagjof opened her mouth, but before she could argue further, Vanahelm squeezed through the door.

“I hear no more shrieking,” he said.

As though such words were the incantation breaking an enchantment, Burgu sank to the floor. Vanahelm clambered up beside him and inspected his back. Burgu made to wave him away.

“You are wounded yourself.”

“Scratches. They are nothing. Your life might be in danger.”

Burgu submitted to Vanahelm’s care. His son helped him remove his layers, and then cleaned the wound. Vanagjof did the same with her mother.

“Well,” Burgu muttered. “At least we do not want for meat.”

A beat of silence. Then Vanagjof giggled, and her older brother soon joined her with deep chuckles, and then the whole house shone with laughter, fear and pain refining itself through that release. Even the two most injured laughed, though it hurt them.

“What a family of fools, to laugh now,” Burgu said.

“I think it a good thing,” Heilag said. “Ow.”

“Do not speak, woman. You are wounded.”

“The raven calling the crow black.”

Vanahelm chuckled and shook his head.

“I will seek the völva in the village. If she can bring us words of healing, you both should be fine.”

“Do not forget yourself,” his sister said, tapping him on the side of his head.

“There is a difference between life-threatening wounds and battle scars. These will make for fine stories.”

“Maybe you will have a chance with a girl now,” Ásljos said.

“Why, you…”

Vanahelm leapt to his feet and charged at his brother on all fours, and Ásljos fled while keening with laughter. Burgu winced as he pushed himself back to avoid the boys’ path. His body ached. Weariness born of the fight, of loss of blood, and simply of years weighed on him, but the sound of their laughter would be balm enough as he waited for the healer’s touch.

He leaned his head back and smiled. To defend that laughter… from that he drew his strength each day. Let it never know silence.