12
For the second night in a row, I found myself awake in the wee hours, heart pounding, not sure what had disturbed me. The silence was profound, pressing painfully against my eardrums, and the air was again frigid in a way it hadn't been when I had climbed into my bedroll hours before.
The others around me were tossing and turning in their sleep. At first I thought they were again mostly reacting to the sudden drop in temperature without quite waking. But a few of them whimpered or cried out like they were trapped in the throes of a nightmare.
And Mjolner was gone. He had been purring against the back of my neck when I had drifted off to sleep, but there was no sign of him now. Something was definitely going on with him. I only wished he could tell me what was so important he kept not
