The fire was burning and the men were exhausted. They had been marching for hours through the knee-deep snow until Ulriech had finally told them they could rest. Now that the sun was going down and the temperature was swiftly dropping, they eagerly made themselves nice and comfortable around the fire, wrapping themselves up in their thick furs.
Ulriech was pacing around the camp, barking orders. He assigned two men to guard duty and another two to scout ahead early the next morning. Then he suddenly stopped and looked around. "Where's the woman?" he bellowed. "And where's Eirik?"
The men suddenly began looking around. They all seemed to have forgotten about the woman, and none of them had seen her in quite some time. Eirik, Ulriech's younger brother, had been missing for nearly as long. Then, one of the men pointed.
Walking towards them, Eirik was carrying the woman, who seemed to be wrapped up in his cloak. "Father isn't going to be happy with you if she dies before we get home," he said, walking past Ulriech and nodding for one of the men to move out of his way so he could sit near the fire with her.
"Where did you find her?" Ulriech asked.
"About a mile back," Eirik said. "I guess since the rest of you were so warm, you didn't think that perhaps she might need something a little warmer than this worthless shawl!" He tossed it into the fire and the men shifted uncomfortably as it began to burn. "Would someone bring me a heavy cloak?" He didn't have to wait long before he was brought a replacement for the heavy, fur lined cloak he had wrapped around the woman.
"Fine," Ulriech snapped. "Eirik, you can be in charge of her."
Eirik simply glared at his older brother. "I suppose someone has to be," he muttered. He ate before the food had a chance to get cold, then walked over to the wagon and pulled out two more large furs. Carrying them over by the fire, he laid one out and lifted her onto it before stretching out behind her and pulling the other fur over top of them. He ignored Ulriech as he continued bossing everyone around for another twenty minutes, and closed his eyes with a sigh.
Sophie opened her eyes. The sun was coming up and all she could remember was hiking through the snow. She suddenly realized who she was with, but was surprised that she was warm, given the fact that they were sleeping on the snow. Sitting up slowly, she looked around and saw that all the men were still asleep around the remains of a fire. She wondered if they would even notice if she was missing.
She tried to roll out from underneath the furs and quickly realized that she was not alone under there. Glancing over her shoulder, she recognized the man sleeping beside her. He was the quiet one of the group. In fact, she wasn't even sure if he'd spoken two words the entire time the regiment had been marching her along.
Gently moving his arm off of her, she slipped out from under the warmth of the furs and immediately shivered. It was even colder than she expected, but she was half wrapped in a heavy cloak and she pulled it tighter around herself before getting to her feet and creeping quietly away. Neanderthals, the whole lot of them.
She seemed to be making good time, even through the snow. Probably because they had broken such a nice trail for her. But she knew it wouldn't be long before they woke up to find her gone and she wished she had woken up earlier to get a bigger head start. No doubt they were going to be angry at having to track her down again, and she had no doubt that they would do so fairly quickly. But she had no intention of making this easy on any of them.
Ulriech kicked Eirik's leg. "Where is she?" he snapped.
Eirik muttered something from under the furs before throwing them back and sitting up. "Well, why don't you follow the trail she most likely left and find out?"
"You're supposed to be watching her!" he shouted.
"Yeah?" Eirik stood up. He was a good three inches taller than his brother and refused to back down, even when any one of the other men would have cowered. "Father sent you on this quest, not me! I'm only here to make sure she doesn't kill you in the process!"
"That tiny wench!?" Ulriech let out a great belly laugh.
"She dropped you once," Eirik said.
"Not likely to happen again," he snarled. "Fine! I'll get her. But you'd better keep a better eye on her from now on!"
Eirik just shrugged. "Yell if you need help,"
"I won't need any help!" he bellowed over his shoulder as he stormed off.
Sophie heard him long before she caught sight of him and she tried her best to outrun him. But the man was like a train, easily charging through the deep snow as she stumbled and did her best just to stay on her feet. He reached her fairly quickly and flung her over his shoulder as if she weighed no more than a sack of potatoes to him. She kicked and squirmed, trying to scratch his face as she did her best to escape his iron grip, but it was no use. He was not about to let her go and it made no difference what she tried.
Grumbling something, he dropped her into the snow beside the other men. "Watch her!" he snapped.
She tried to jump to her feet again, but before she could even take two steps, he had pulled his sword from its scabbard and knocked her over the head with the hilt of it. She crumpled to the ground and he walked towards the wagon to find something to eat.
Eirik had been sitting nearby and rolled his eyes. With a sigh and a shake of his head, he got to his feet and walked over to where his brother had left the woman, lying in a heap in the snow. "You do realize that she will never marry you if you keep acting like an ogre," he slipped his arms underneath her and lifted her easily, carrying her back to the furs they had slept on.
Ulriech glanced over at him as he munched on a piece of dried meat. "She'll do as she's told."
"I don't think she'll do anything you tell her to." he replied. "Not willingly."
"I won't give her a choice."
"What are you going to do, kill her?" Eirik asked.
"I just might if she keeps trying to run off."
"Have you even read the prophesy?"
Ulriech stared at him.
"Oh, that's right. You don't read."
"I read just fine!" Ulriech bellowed.
"Then you should know that the woman in the prophesy won't be some bar maid who will let you have your way with her and do whatever you say just because your father is the chief!"
"It's worked so far!"
"And none of them have turned out to be the right woman, have they?"
"Perhaps not," Ulriech shrugged, "But it was certainly fun finding out!"
"You're an ass."
Ulriech just smiled.
Sophie groaned as she regained consciousness. She sat up, pushing the furs off of her and held the side of her head. The look she cast in Ulriech's direction would have caused serious concern for any other man. Eirik watched as she scooped up a handful of snow and held it to the bloody gash along her temple, wondering how long it would take before she killed his brother.
Ulriech didn't seem to be too worried about it. He walked around like a preening peacock, which only seemed to anger her more. The man was incorrigible and she was beginning to hate the sound of his voice as much as the look of his face.
They finally broke camp and Ulriech led them off through the snow. She imagined he knew where he was going, although she didn't have nearly as much faith in him as his men seemed to.
They traveled all day, until just before sundown. Then the men started another fire and went through the same routine as the night before. This time, however, they were all very aware of her whereabouts and kept a close eye on her.
Sophie waited patiently. She wasn't one to rush anything when patience meant a bigger payoff. And Ulriech was going to pay dearly for the headache she'd been suffering from all day. She just had to wait for the right moment, when the other men weren't so close to him.
Then it happened. She was standing near the fire, warming her hands, when the rest of the men joined her. Since they all knew where she was, they didn't seem to pay her much mind as she slowly moved closer to Ulriech, and he was too busy talking to notice.
Before he realized it, she had lunged at him, elbowed him in the throat and thrown a quick punch to the face as he fell backwards. He landed flat on his back in the snow before he'd even realized that she was on top of him with his own dagger in her hand. A sound like a woman screaming escaped him, but before she could stick him in the eye with it, Eirik had stood up, walked over and calmly lifted her off of him.
Ulriech angrily jumped to his feet and moved towards her, growling as he tried to cow her into submission. Eirik rolled his eyes as she suddenly twisted in his arms, throwing her right leg over her left and kicking his brother upside the head. Ulriech had underestimated her again and went down in a heap.
Eirik grabbed her hand. The one that held his brother's dagger, and he squeezed until she had to release it. The last thing he wanted was for her to come at him with it and he let it drop in the snow at his feet before he carried her back over to the fire.
She was fuming, but he didn't dump her in the snow like his brother had, so she sat there like a child who'd received a spanking and glared in Ulriech's direction. Eirik pointed at the furs so she knew he meant she was to stay there. Then he turned and walked over to his brother, crouching beside him.
"Well," he said when Ulriech came to and rolled over onto his back. "That's three times now that she's had you laid out. Are you sure she couldn't kill you? Because if I hadn't grabbed her when I did, I'm fairly certain your pretty little dagger here would be sticking out of your face." He handed him the knife.
It was three more days before they reached the new city. Sophie hadn't tried to escape again. It would have been pointless with all the snow on the ground. Her trail would have simply led them straight to her.
She wasn't going to go easy, though and had spent those three days doing anything in her power to make Ulriech's life miserable. Twice she got up in the middle of the night and took all of his weapons as he slept. She propped them up near the fire where everyone would see them when they woke up and it would be obvious she had taken them. After the second time, he seemed less inclined to remove them from his person and he slept, rather uncomfortably, with his broadsword still strapped to his back.
The last night, Eirik had been reclining back against a tree with his ankles crossed by the fire as he watched her sneak up behind his brother, tie a piece of cord around his ankles and hurry off before he noticed she was there. She would have had to make quite a racket for him to hear her over the sound of his voice, however, and she made it back over to the fire without him being any the wiser.