They trudged through the heavy snow is a writing prompt taken from Winter of the White Horde. The book is the standalone sequel to my middle grade (read that as aged 9 to 90 in terms of the small but enthusiastic fan base) Guardians of the Forest series. The section the prompt comes from is shown below.
Winter of the White Horde, and the other four books in Guardians of the Forest are all on sale at 99c/p throughout August, for the summer holiday. Find them here. (You need to scroll down the Amazon page to get them all!)
Connor walked close behind Willow, his heavy breathing – hampered by the collar – misting on her hair, his arms wrapped in the fur which was all he had to keep warm. Last in line was Rowan, Celeste glinting in his hand in case they fell across Melda’s deformed creatures. Willow was glad of the sword’s hard shine in the damp gloom.
They trudged through the heavy snow, accompanied by the huffing of their own panting and the squeak of snow under their boots.
Willow fretted about their need for shelter and a fire to survive the night. And food. The bread, cheese and handful of dried fruit which remained in her bag would not go far to fill their bellies. She was about to ask Asfal if he had a plan for stopping, when Rowan called out. Her pulse beat hard before she understood it wasn’t a warning.
‘Over there.’
Rowan pointed Celeste through the watery air. ‘It might be shelter.’ He veered off their footprint trail, plunging into knee-deep snow.
Squinting, Willow could make out a deeper darkness on the shadowy slope of the valley, partially hidden by a tumble of rocks.
‘Asfal,’ Rowan called, more loudly. The gryphon halted, turning his head to listen. ‘We need to stop before night falls, try to light a fire.’ He waved at the darkness. ‘It’s a cave. Might be deep enough to hold us all.’
A dusting of snow covered the stony earth of the shallow cave, which would shelter the four of them if they squeezed together like kittens in a basket.
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Love the description – kittens in a basket LOL
THEY TRUDGED THROUGH THE HEAVY SNOW
They trudged through the heavy snow towards the light barely visible on the hill.
The snow was still falling and they reasoned that, if it didn’t stop soon, any sort of movement would become wellnigh impossible.
Bob turned to Stan and, through his protective mask, popped the obvious question.
“Think we’ll make it?”
“Dunno,” was the response. “Still a fair way to go and it’s not getting any easier.”
“No, it’s not,” Bob agreed. “Wish we’d decided to bring our skis.”
Both men had left the safety of their ski lodge earlier that day in response to an urgent request for medical supplies to treat an injured skier being cared for at a hut on a hill several miles away.
The weather forecast predicted bright sunshine and they thought it would be just as easy to take snowshoes as to bother with all their cumbersome ski equipment.
Trouble was, the bright sunshine had soon turned to heavy clouds and, before they knew it, blizzard-like snow was impeding their progress.
To top it off, the rucksacks carrying the medical supplies only became heavier with each passing mile.
“Surely, we must reach the hill soon,” Bob exuded a hopeful tone.
“Yep,” replied Stan as, head down, he continued to brave the elements.
Bob looked into the distance. The light did not appear to be appreciably closer.
“This is really becoming hard going, don’t you think?”
Stan nodded in agreement.
“Sure is.”
“My legs feel like lead. I need to rest,” said Bob.
“Well, we can’t rest too long or I think we’ll become permanently stuck.”
Both men stopped momentarily to recover their energy before trying to push on.
Just when they thought that this might be the end of the road, they spotted a bright light moving rapidly towards them.
From out of the gloom a snow ski suddenly materialised, the driver gesticulating urgently.
“Hop on boys,” he said. “We thought this storm might slow you up and the injured man is in a bad way, so we thought we’d try to find you.”
“Thank God you did,” breathed Bob. “We were literally on our last legs.”