Ice crunched as it shattered beneath Marianne's thigh-high boot. She nearly stumbled face-first into the river beneath her, but managed to stay standing. Her feet were too numb to tell if water had soaked through the leather. "Damn," she whispered. The ice had been her best hope of hiding her trail from the Swordwulfen hunting her, but she didn't dare risk it any longer. No healer would help her if she blued and blistered from the cold, not with the magi so eager to fuel their rituals with the power ripening in her blood. This close to the mountains, villages were sparse and untrusting — and filled with guards. Without training as either a mage or a soldier, all Marianne had to rely on for her escape was the woodcraft she'd learned as a child in the southern oaklands. Once, she'd dreamed of discovering a powerful patrimony, of living in a lord's house in the capitol. Now, she mourned the simple hut of her youth, burned in the war. She might never grind acorns again, and the thought did not fill her with the joy it might once have. The palace was a trap, her father's legacy reduced to a battered old knife, and everyone she cared about was dead. Marianne shook away the bitterness as she trudged through the uneven snow. It wouldn't be long before someone noticed the broken ice, the footprints she could no longer help but leave behind. Heart pounding, she tried to run, but the snow dragged at her legs unless she hiked them comically high. Snowshoes would have helped, but she didn't dare pause long enough to make a set, not with the skies filled with enchanted guards. An outraged wail from one of their exotic mounts cut through the winter-sharp air. The tulpi vented its fury at being denied the chance to graze among the clouds of pollen hovering over the pine barrens like algae atop a stagnant pond. Marianne glanced up to see if its rider had spotted her. Her ermine cloak — taken from the carriage of a magi's pampered wife — blended in with the snow around her. With so many trees for cover, surely not even the sharp eyes of the Swordwulfen pursuing her would notice her pale, shadowed face staring up. A sieve-toothed tulpi, fat with snowmelt in its belly, flopped onto the ground in front of her with a _thud._ Its rider, tall and impossibly dark in riding leathers thick enough to stilt his movements, leapt from between its wings. "Surrender!" he shouted. Marianne stumbled backwards, clawing awkwardly for the hilt of her stolen knife. Her purser landed in the snow, but rolled up to his feet with the signature agility of the Swordwulfen. "Just let me go!" Marianne cried as she finally wrestled the knife from its scabbard. His mouth opened in a lupine laugh, tongue nestled silently against his bottom lip. "Stolen cloak, stolen knife, stolen blood—and you think I'm going to leave now that I've finally found you?" He sounded amused. Confident. Like the flight of her life was nothing but a charming diversion from a boring stint on guard duty. She gripped the knife tighter, knowing that whatever magic it held, it wouldn't be enough to save her, not from the inch-long talons that tipped his strong hands, or the two-foot sword he still had not yet drawn. It would stay sheathed until he stopped trying to take her alive. "This was my father's knife," Marianne said, trying to goad him into drawing the weapon. His eyebrows crept up, a hint of mockery edging his amusement. "That dagger belonged to Alpha Camfelder of the Greyfoot Pack. He didn't have any children." He took a step forward. She slashed the knife in the air before her, down across her chest, tight in to her body so he couldn't grab her arm. "That's what they want you to think," she panted, adrenaline and fear shortening her breath. "He didn't die in the Southern War. He went feral when he met my mother and they put him down. But she was pregnant and she escaped the Purge thanks to his Lieutenant." He snorted. "A pretty story, but a lie. Swordwulfen don't sire children." They did when a mating bond overrode the spells that kept them chained, but he wouldn't believe that, either. The magi had made sure of that, with their cages and shackles and the evil little needles they used to pull magic out of the girls with power and leave them weeping husks not even fit for breeding. She wasn't going back to that. He took another teasing step forward. She slashed again, he danced back. She would tire before he did. The cold sapped her strength. She'd already walked for miles. Marianne shifted her grip on the knife and drove the blade into her thigh, activating its enchantments with the latent power of her blood. A greatwolf, big as a sheep, manifested into the icy air. It bared its teeth at the Swordwulfen, then spun and dove at Marianne. This had always been the risk: that it would see her as the target, and not the wielder. That it would see the Swordwulfen as ally, not enemy. She braced herself for the killing bite, a better death than the life the Swordwulfen's duty would return her too, but she hadn't counted on his reflexes. The sword swept up, right into the gut of the greatwolf, and passed through aether. The wolf completed its leap, but instead of knocking her to the ground and ripping out her throat, it _entered_ her. Became her. Wolf and woman joined, their senses crisp. Energy flooded Marianne, and she faced the Swordwulfen with eyes that could see each short hair on his chin and a nose that could scent the rosemary of his soap. "No," he breathed, disbelief warring with rising horror. "You've destroyed a priceless artifact, you rabid bitch!" "I reclaimed my birthright!" Her shout echoed despite the trees. Marianne winced. Not that it mattered if anyone heard, not anymore. The other tulpi-riders would have seen him land. They would have noticed he hadn't returned to the sky and would be converging on them any minute. He lunged for her, lashing out with his sword. Marianne leapt forward to meet him, forcing her body inside his guard—he'd expected her to flee, not flight. Even when she rammed her talons into his gut, the disbelief in his eyes didn't fade. "The magi lied to you," Marianne said, fingers still curled in the Swordwulfen's guts. "Rebels didn't kill my father. The magi used their magic to steal his wolf, and then they killed him." "Impossible," the Swordwulfen said. And then he died. By the time his comrades found the corpse, Marianne was halfway over the mountain in the body of a wolf. ## ANALYSIS The first time I ever heard about snowshoeing was in an L. E. Modesitt book. The protagonists of _[Fall of Angels](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FO6K9KG?btkr=1)_ (one of my favorite books!) are magically transported from a space battle to orbit around an inhospitably hot planet. They land on a high, flat plateau in the Westhorn Mountain Range. It's known as the Roof of the World — which I later learned is what [the Tibetan plateau](https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/roof-world) is known as in the "real world." The settlement, which they call Westwind, is cold and snow-bound for much of the year. To survive, the involuntary settlers must learn to hunt with primitive weapons like snares and bows — on showshoes. When I first read the book, I had never used snowshoes. I live in a region that gets some snow and periodic blizzards, with ski resorts in the nearby mountains. I've gone skiing before — but conditions in my area tend to be icy. My dad used to say that if I could safely ski in Maryland, I could safely ski anywhere, and he's probably right. But honestly, I don't _like_ skiing very much. I do it because I like going on ski trips with friends, and I was determined to put on a brave front and learn how to do it. I eventually took lessons, and what I learned is that it's hard on my hips, scary when you fall, and optimized for the kinds of people who thinking jumping out of planes is exhilarating. For myself, I usually get down the mountain with a sense of grim determination and relief. It's no more fun for me than rock climbing — which lots of my friends love. But snowshoeing? I _love_ snowshoeing. Growing up, my mental image of snowshoes came from cartoons — tennis rackets tied to shoes, basically. It wasn't until I went with some friends on a ski trip that we'd scheduled for what turned out to be an unseasonably warm week that I saw a modern snowshoe. My husband and I decided to split off from the main group and try snowshoeing since the conditions were pretty bad for skiing, even with manufactured snow, and it was _awesome_. For my purposes, snowshoeing is like hiking except better because all the underbrush is under the snow, so you don't have to stick to the trails. The snowshoes just clipped onto my normal shoes and let me go wherever I wanted — even up hills. We chatted and looked at beautiful waterfalls and admired the wildlife, and I wasn't ever terrified. Unlike poor Marianne, who would have been terrified whether she had snowshoes or not. While I was writing _The Impossible Knife,_ I spent a little time researching how to build makeshift snowshoes, just in case it would have been totally ridiculous of her not to make a set. I found [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ZP3PV1Oqk) which explains how to use a knife and an evergreen tree to make snowshoes. It seems pretty easy — in the end I decided that the story didn't really have room for a digression into this process, but I was kind of disappointed I didn't get to show off my research, because snowshoes are pretty cool. In an emergency survival situation where you don't have the benefit of modern clip on snowshoes made of plastic and steel, you can apparently make a set out of evergreen trees. Basically, you cut flexible evergreen branches and shape them into an oval with a cross-beam for support. Then you use the roots as cordage to lash the branches together. You can also make [longer snowshoes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKKZ5EYpGaQ) with straight branches that you can strip the bark off to whittle grooves into for the cordage, but this method seems like a lot more work. ## Further Reading - For more neat stuff you can do with trees and stories, check out my article [All The Things that Trees Can Be](https://eleanorkonik.com/all-the-things-that-trees-can-be/) %% ( [[2021-06-15 All The Things that Trees Can Be]] ) %%. - For more hints about the Swordwulfen, take a look at [Effervescent](https://eleanorkonik.com/effervescent/) %% ( [[2021-09-22 Effervescent (DRAFT)]] ) %% — and maybe leave a comment in the new comment software letting me know if you enjoy this storyline 💚 Your feedback helps me decide which piece to publish each week.