The Flame of Destiny
Winter on the Taiga

Come on Serpil,” Samira encouraged the hungry horse, “I push and you pull and together we’ll get this stupid cart out of the slush.”

The days were grueling for the poor girl. Yahsi couldn’t walk on her injured ankle. Despite some healing herbs, she had a fever and was getting weaker all the time.

They entered the outskirts of what seemed a vast coniferous forest. The trees were still small and far apart, so Yahsi urged her to continue and they plodded slowly ahead on the rugged terrain. A weak, watery sun provided some light for a few hours every day.

After three days in the forest, Samira started losing hope. They had almost run out of food. She was close to exhaustion and Yahsi was barely conscious. Haphazardly following a frozen stream which they couldn’t cross with the cart, she continued northwards.

Fresh snowflakes fell and Samira longed for her warm little house in Ligeia with the ever burning stove. Even the Underdeep, where she was never more than a few minutes away from a hot pool or steamy cave, seemed more hospitable.

Just when she was about to stop and climb in the cart for the night, she saw a tiny cabin about a hundred paces from the stream in a small clearing. Its sturdy wooden walls held up a roof that was covered with a foot of snow. Was this their lucky day?

She entered the cabin carefully. There was a musty and pungent smell and she instinctively held her breath. There was just one room in the hut and it had been completely turned upside down. Items of all sorts were strewn on the wooden floor and the furniture was smashed to pieces.

Had there been a fight? Judging by the cobwebs, it had been a while. The girl went further into the room and examined the small kitchen, which had been completely ravaged. The cupboards were open and the pots overturned.

Yet, by some miracle, there was still food left: dried mushrooms, pickled vegetables, and even some flour to mix with water and bake flatbread, a rarity this far north! For the first time in days they had food.

Samira prepared the single bed for Yahsi while she slept on the floor with Nehir, inside a pile of old blankets they had found in the hut. It was freezing cold, but still warmer and more comfortable than sleeping in the cart.

The next day she searched the cabin from top to bottom. In several places, the wooden planks of the cabin showed long scratches. “What’s this?” she asked.

Yahsi lifted her head. “Oh, just markings from the builders,” she said to close the matter. The last thing she wanted as she lay helpless on the bed was to have Samira fantasizing of the dark places she had escaped

A few moments Samira jumped up in joy when she found two large bags of flour under a loose floor panel. She also grabbed a small leather pouch. Her heart beat faster and she forgot about the scratches. It looked exactly like the pouches worn by the rich people in Ligeia to carry gold.

She sat down next to Yahsi to show her what she had found. The sick woman nodded. “No one lives here anymore,” she whispered hoarsely, “you can open it.”

She felt the stones through the pouch. What if these were just worthless pebbles? She opened it, hardly daring to breathe.

“They’re beautiful,” she sighed, “they look like the evening sun.”

Samira ran the pebbles through her hands one by one. There were at least two dozen, some small and some larger. She held them up and the stones shone in the sparse sunlight. They were brown, a little translucent, like the color of her hair when it fluttered in the wind and was lit by the sun.

“These are amber stones,” groaned Yahsi and she managed a smile, “they’re very valuable. If we survive the winter, our problems are over.”

“Too bad we can’t eat them,” said Samira.

Scattered around the hut they found some bones that had been gnawed clean but there was no meat anywhere, not even dried meat. The last person in the hut had eaten all the meat, but left the other food behind. Who or what does such a thing? She shivered at the thought. Would an amber seeker behave like that or did something else enter the hut.

Still, they had a place to sleep, enough food to get through the blizzard, and a glimmer of hope for the future.

The next morning, Samira took the small bow Taymur had given her and opened the cabin door.

“Wait,” said Yahsi, “it’s too cold.”

“But I have to find food for us,” replied Samira, “and I have nothing warmer to wear”

“Look in there,” Yahsi said, pointing at a leather bag that Samira had taken from the cart earlier.

Samira had never been allowed to touch the bag before. She had not even dared to ask why but thought it had something to do with the daughter Yahsi had lost many years ago. She looked at Yahsi in surprise, “are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said. “Maya would have wanted you to have it.”

The jacket she found had soft rabbit fur on the inside and leather on the outside. The edges were lines with straps in a darker leather, the seams were stitched with tough, silvery horsehair. It felt warm and comfortable. The sturdy leather riding trousers with fur lining fit her perfectly.

“I can’t let you go out half-naked in this weather,” mumbled Yahsi but her face betrayed much deeper emotions.

Samira hugged her intimately. “I won’t disappoint you anymore,” she swore. It was a happy moment yet both were in tears, overcome with emotion. The old woman had finally forgiven her, and perhaps even accepted her as a daughter. Samira stepped out of the cabin with renewed pride and confidence.

[Picture Samira]

The food they had found earlier would run out in a few weeks, and with winter almost upon them, there were no berries while roots were deep in the icy ground buried under the snow. Worst of all, Yahsi was still weak so they couldn’t go out in search for a village. In the vast lonely forest, Samira devoted herself to the hunt. She was finally strong enough to string the small bow, now she ‘just’ had to learn to shoot it.

Alone, in the bitter cold, she practiced every day until she could no longer move her fingers. At first, she barely hit anything but as the weeks progressed, she got better and better.

She shot a first arrow straight ahead, then quickly drew another one, aiming it at a target to her left. Without a break, she fired on a third target, higher up a tree. She nearly dropped the fourth arrow and the next shot went a long way off. Her fur jacket and thick gloves didn’t make these quick movements any easier. She picked up the arrows and tried again.

When she was practicing alone, she thought a lot about of her step-brothers. Taymur had given her the bow but Bhaltu had shown her how to use one. He could shoot further and better than anyone in the clan. At the campfire on the long summer evenings, she listened to the stories of their heroic ancestors, the Royal Sarmatians or the Narts from the Age of Myths. These heroes were excellent archers all of them. ‘Even blindfolded they can shoot a bird from the sky,’ said Surhab, ‘or split an apple while riding by at a full gallop.’

How could she ever get that good?

‘Choose a goal,’ Diokles taught her before he left on one of his long trips, ‘not too easy. In fact, it’s best if it seems impossible at first, like a distant mountain. Then practice every day and measure your progress. You can take small steps, as long as you keep moving forward. And one day, you’ll get there and enjoy the view.’

‘Then what?’

‘Well,’ chuckled Diokles, ‘you’ll take a good look around and discover there’s an even taller mountain.’

This had become her secret formula, her way to rise above the mass of poor children and fulfill her dreams.

It was never supposed to be easy. The first goal he chose for her was to memorize three hundred verses of Homer’s Iliad. She chose an additional goal for herself, she wanted to climb onto the ‘rock’ of Ligeia. He helped her think about how to measure progress, ‘one verse at a time’ or ‘one step higher each time.’

When he left on one of his long journeys, Samira practiced tirelessly until he returned. She wanted to impress him, craving for a smile or a look of amazement, which she rarely got from her parents. She secretly hoped that if she always delighted him, he would keep coming back and eventually never leave her.

It worked out quite differently she thought bitterly. Here in the chilly taiga there was no one to impress, except the trees, the occasional bird, and of course Spark. Yet she tried harder than ever before. They needed food to survive and with her small bow, she had to hit her prey perfectly if she wanted to kill anything larger than a squirrel.

She always placed the target a bit further away, practiced a little longer or tried to hit more targets without pausing. She made another attempt, twisting and turning to hit the targets that she had placed all around her, this time hitting six of the seven targets.

“Not bad,” said Spark, sticking her head out of the warm coat when the last arrow hit its mark, “you’re getting pretty good.”

Samira smiled and hummed a tune as she searched for the arrows. She counted them carefully, she couldn’t afford to waste a single one. “I feel lucky today,” she said.

Cheerfully she went into the forest. “Didn’t I say I was lucky,” she exclaimed when she found a hare in one of the traps. Thanking Artemis and Satanaya, she respected both goddesses equally, she slit its throat. Since she hadn’t eaten anything fresh for two days, she had to restrain herself not to devour the hare on the spot. Only the thought of Yahsi and Nehir going hungry made her and ignore her complaining belly.

Throwing the animal over her shoulder, she walked deeper into the forest. “I’ll go to the frozen pond,” she announced, “it’s our best chance to spot a deer, and with my luck today, I might shoot it.”

“You’ve never shot one before,” said Spark skeptically, “but if it’s really your lucky day, we’ll have food for a month.”

She could hardly believe her good fortune when she found a second hare in one of her other traps.

“It’s almost as if something drove them into my traps,” she said.

The frozen pond was one of the few open places in the forest and offered her a wide view even as she lay hidden behind an improvised shelter of wood and leaves. A small hole in the ice that she poked open every day, attracted some birds and sometimes larger animals like deer or elk.

Today it was eerily quiet. The sun made its brief appearance over the tree line and still not a single animal could be seen or heard.

Samira waited patiently. As the sun started its descent, Spark emerged again. She poked her head out of Samira’s coat and looked around. She snorted and grimaced, then closed her eyes to enjoy the last rays of sun.

Samira waited patiently, humming a tune inside her head. Hunting requires a lot of patience, she remembered Taymur saying, and she couldn’t think of a better spot so there was no reason to move.

The little Peri emerged again. She shuddered and opened her eyes wide, “where did all the birds go?” She crawled out of the pouch and scanned the area then sniffed. “I don’t hear anything. Something’s wrong,” she peeped.

“What is it?” asked Samira.

“Something’s very wrong…,” she paused and the illumination of her dress flickered. “We need to leave, like right now!”

Spark thought spiders were dangerous and shied away from anything larger than a mouse, so Samira didn’t feel too worried. “But dusk is the best time for hunting,” she argued, “can’t we stay a little longer?”

“No,” whimpered Spark, “we need to leave at once.”

She hadn’t seen the little Peri so panicked since they had escaped the Underdeep. “All right,” she said, “let’s head back. We’ve got enough for a couple of days.”

Samira carefully crawled backwards from her hiding place but just then they heard the noise of cracking branches and muffled feet in the snow. A large animal was approaching, perhaps a deer or even an elk.

“Wait,” said Samira and crawled back into her hideout, “prey is coming. It’s my lucky day, remember.”

The animal came closer and now they also heard a loud growl and snort.

“This is not prey,” hissed Spark, “get out!”

But it was too late. She couldn’t leave the hiding place unnoticed anymore. She started to get somewhat worried because of Spark’s panicked buzz and crouched behind the shelter, peering through the narrow opening. “What do you mean? Is it a wolf or a wild boar?” she suggested.

In the twilight, the forest had turned into a wall of black but the open ground around the pond was still clear. The noise came closer and closer as she waited with her heart pounding. The seconds seemed to last an eternity.

It was a mightily big animal, she realized. Bigger than a wolf. If it wasn’t an elk, perhaps a bear? In that case, it was best to shout and swing your arms, Bhaltu had told her. She wasn’t sure if she would be brave enough to do that though.

Then she saw them.

Three huge shapes emerged from the dark forest on the other side of the lake and she could barely suppress a scream. The sight was so terrifying she couldn’t take her eyes off these creatures. They were taller than Bhaltu and he was the tallest man she had ever seen. A hideous nose with dirty green warts protruded from beneath their dirty gray patchwork coats. The strings of hair that emerged from under their hoods, were rough and tangled and looked like dirty ropes. Their legs were long and gnarled. Their tough and wiry arms that could be seen through the holes in their coats, were covered with sores and tufts of hair. Two of them held a long spear with a stone tip and the third carried a heavy club with spikes.

They sniffed in the air and scanned the open space.

“W ... what kind of monsters are that?” Samira asked as quietly as she could.

Spark was paralyzed with fear. “These ... these ... these are dirty and evil creatures,” shivered Spark. “These are man-eating Trolls.”

If she hadn’t see them with her own eyes, she would never have believed her. Trolls were for children’s stories told around the campfire and even Samira was old enough to know that they didn’t actually exist. One day a fur trader from the north claimed that he had seen one but Surhab just laughed in his face.

Yet here they were. If even half the stories of their cruelty were true, thought Samira gloomily, they were in deep trouble. “Let’s keep quiet and hide,” she whispered, “maybe they’ll leave us alone.”

“It’s too late,” said Spark trembling, “they’ve smelled us.”

The smallest of the Trolls froze and looked in their direction. For a moment, Samira saw his fiery eyes and she shivered. The monster pointed a long warty finger at their hiding place and grunted to attract the attention of the others. They must have spotted me, thought Samira.

[picture: troll]

The trolls began to run towards the frozen pond.

Samira was paralyzed with fear and unable to pull her eyes off these creatures. With Spark’s encouragement, she managed to crawl back, then hid herself under dead fir branches. “That doesn’t help anymore!” squeaked the faery, “they know we’re here. We have to run!”

The Trolls paused at the edge of the frozen lake. One of them set a foot on it and caused the ice to crack dangerously. They snorted and hissed at each other. Then they split and started jogging around the pond in two directions.

“Good!” shouted Spark, “they’re afraid of the ice. It’ll take them a while to reach us. We should run now.”

The knowledge that those monsters weren’t completely invincible brought a little hope to Samira and she got up. “Come on Spark,” she shouted, “we’ll take the shortest route to the cabin.”

Samira ran as fast as she could, but in the thick snow and with bush hindering her, that wasn’t very fast. The tall, sinewy Trolls had little trouble with the deep snow and simply blasted through the bush. Soon she heard their growls and grunts nearby. They had already cleared the lake and were now hot on her heels.

She dropped the hares she had caught earlier, so she could run faster. This distracted them a while, as three Trolls are unable to share two hares and a vicious fight ensued. After a quick succession of angry snorts and panicked squeals the largest troll gulped down both furry animals while the others licked up the mix of pus and blood that oozed out of the scratches from the kerfuffle. The losers were even angrier and hungrier than before and resumed the chase. It didn’t take long before Samira could hear their snorts and smell their odor.

Samira sprinted towards the frozen stream. It carried her weight easily and there was no vegetation to block her way. The heavy Trolls with their sharp claws couldn’t risk the ice and remained on the shore which was steep and rocky and covered in thorns and small trees. On the ice, she was faster and managed to pull away from the monsters.

After a while, all she heard was her heart beating and her lungs panting. She had shaken off the monsters. At least for now, she knew they would track her down with their keen smell. She ran without pause until her lungs nearly burst.

There was the cabin. “Yahsi! Yahsi!” she shouted.

Yahsi looked at the girl in surprise. Samira’s face was red and sweaty despite the bitter cold and her limbs were shaking, “what’s wrong child, you look terrified.”

“Three big Trolls are coming,” she shouted breathlessly, “we have to go!”

“What are you talking about?” Yahsi knew Samira as a dutiful girl but also playful and imaginative and on darker days, she was still haunted by nightmares from the Underdeep. “Just calm down, tell me exactly what you saw.”

Samira took a deep breath and explained in as few words as possible what terrible danger was approaching. “They can be here any minute,” she said, “they have smelled me. It’s them that ransacked the cabin and took all the meat.”

Samira’s story sounded crazy but how else to explain the state of the cabin when they first found it? Yahsi had to believe her and sprang into action. Like a whirlwind she collected their most important belongings and loaded them onto the cart next to the hut. Meanwhile, Samira grabbed Nehir, wrapped her in warm blankets, and put her in the cart.

She glanced at the long wooden planks that they had attached under the wheels for gliding. Without proper tools, it was a flimsy construction and they hadn’t tested it yet. Would it work?

Yahsi limped towards them, dropping half the stuff she had gathered in her haste. Samira helped her get on the cart.

They already heard the ominous snorting of the Trolls in the distance. A few moments later the monsters burst into view. Two went for the cabin where a kettle of food was producing mouth-watering scents, but one of them sprinted directly at them.

“Let’s go now, quick!” shouted Yahsi and spurred the horse.

Serpil shot forward but as soon as the ropes tightened and he had to pull the full weight of the cart, he halted.

They urged Serpil on as hard as they could, and the poor old horse strained under the weight of the sled. His body leaned forward and all his muscles tightened, but the sled didn’t move.

Samira jumped off and pulled at the ropes. “Come on girl, you can do it!”

The first Troll was now a few dozen steps away.

“Please Serpil,” begged Samira while Yahsi pulled the reins.

The old mare neighed and pulled with all her strength. The sled finally came loose and started to glide. Samira quickly jumped on.

The sled started slowly and the lead Troll was still gaining on them. They could smell the monster and the flies that accompanied it were buzzing around their heads.

Then it lurched forward and grabbed the cart with its warty fingers.

Samira shrieked.

Yahsi didn’t hesitate. She slashed down with her axe, using all her force. It cut the hand clean off.

The monster was in terrible pain and let out a scream that would haunt Samira for many weeks.

But it let go and the cart shot forward.

The other trolls raced after them but were exhausted after their long chase. They couldn’t keep up with the cart that glided smoothly on the snow.

Yahsi and Samira kept going and didn’t look back. They pushed Serpil to her limit. They rode for two days, barely stopping. Only after fresh snow covered their tracks, they felt safe enough to take a rest.

They had left the canvas of the cart behind in the hut and were forced to sleep under the open sky with only a few blankets protecting them from the bitter cold. In the middle of the night, Samira woke up shivering. She got closer to Yahsi and found the woman sobbing softly. “It’s so cold,” said Yahsi, shivering, “poor Nehir. If she’s not eaten by Trolls, she’ll die of cold or starvation.”

“Don’t cry,” said Samira, “you saved us from the Trolls. We’re getting through this, all of us.”

She threw her own blanket around the old woman then climbed out of the wagon and collected wood. After a while she had a small pile.

She sat down and thought about Yahsi. The woman had cared so long for her. She was stern and serious and at times, very decisive with an axe. She had sacrificed much to take Samira into her yurt. She trained and fed her all those months. She had shown genuine love, the love of a mother, stronger than that she had ever known.

I don’t have to search for my parents anymore, thought Samira, I have Yahsi.

A warm glow overtook her body. Steam rose up from the ground. The stick she held in her hand started to smolder and a wisp of smoke rose. A small flame appeared. She wasn’t surprised anymore, she had done this before. It felt like it could become a skill.

With the flame, she lit the small pile of wood and when it was burning strong and hot she fetched Yahsi and Nehir. For hours they watched the dancing flames and enjoyed the warmth on their faces. They slowly forgot their fears and their spirits rose. They understood that they had narrowly escaped death. The winter was far from over and untold dangers were lurking in the dark forest. They had lost their shelter and had no idea where to go. But they had each other and were ready to face any challenge.

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