There was no dissent, and the men looked determined, but not grim. "All right, then. Let's move."
He led his group out of the manor and into the driving snow, each man carrying a weatherproof lantern. Snow pounded at his face, and the wind tore at his clothing; it wasn't quite sunset, but you still couldn't see more than a few paces away; the lantern light reflected from the snow in a globe of chaotic, swirling whiteness. Now he wished devoutly for magic lights that would neither blow out nor be extinguished if they were dropped in the snow. He wished for a mage-rope that would hold the men together without interfering with their movements. He wished—
To hell with wishes. We make do with what we have. Wishes are no good anymore.
The wind and snow came at them from the side, and he was glad he'd belted his sword on over his cloak; he'd never have been able to hold the fabric closed. He led the entire troop across the practice grounds, and past the hastily-erected warehouses that held the supplies so vital to them. Many of these warehouses were nothing more than tents with reinforced sides and roofs, just enough to keep the snow off; these structures loomed darkly out of the undifferentiated blue-gray of the rest of the world. The walls were first visible as a line of spots of yellow light above a black mass—the lanterns of the men on guard along the top. The men guarding the gate looked startled to see them, but the officer in charge had a good head on his shoulders when he heard where they were going.
"I'll have my men build a beacon fire above the gate!" he shouted over the howling wind. "If we shelter it on three sides it should stay lit. And if you get lost out there anyway, have your man blow the storm signal, and I'll have mine answer it."
Well, the beacon might be invisible at fifty paces and the horn inaudible, but it was another slim help and worth doing. He nodded his agreement, the stake man tied off the end of the survey string to the gate, and out they went.
Every step had to be fought for; despite his swathings of clothing he was still freezing before they had even reached the point where they were to spread out. He and the rest of the men had swathed their faces in scarves, but every exposed bit of skin stung and burned under the pinpricks of driving snow. He frankly didn't know how the old man leading them knew where he was going, although frequent checks of his own north-needle showed him that the old boy was keeping a straight heading. He'd pulled the hood of his cloak tightly around his head, but his nose and ears were numb in no time. Now he was glad he'd had the foresight to order the men out in pairs, one with his weapon ready and one with a lantern; if there were monsters out here tonight, you'd never know until they were on top of you.
The snow had been about calf-high before the storm began; it was thigh-high now, and drifting with the wind. There'd be drifts up to the rooftops in some places by morning.
His feet were frozen and aching with cold; his legs burned with the exertion of pushing through all that snow. Convinced that the old man knew where he was going, Tremane finally handed the lantern over to him and took out his sword; the old farmer handled his boar-spear like a pitchfork, and probably hadn't the least idea how to use it.
Is it his boy we're looking for, or perhaps a relative? There was no doubt of the single-minded determination he'd seen on the man's weathered and leathery face. Now, of course, he couldn't see much of anything!
Finally, after an eternity, the man stopped. "Here's the edge of the Grand Common!" he shouted over the wind. "The boy should be somewhere out there—" He waved vaguely in an east-to-west semicircle.
Tremane waited for the rest of the search-party to catch up and gather around. "Stake man, horn man, stay here!" he shouted. "The rest of you, spread out in pairs—and remember what I said about keeping each others' lanterns in sight! I'll take farthest left flank, the rest of you fill in."
He led the old man off to the left, determined to hold down the farthest position so that he could be certain of one flank, at least. He positioned the pairs of men on his side himself, then marched off into the dark with the old man still at his side until the last lantern was a fuzzy circle of light through the curtain of snow. He turned and moved north again, slowly, and the lantern at his right kept pace with him.
He had the uncanny feeling that they were completely alone out here; that the world had ended, and the lantern to his right was nothing more than a phantom to torture him. When did the last mage-storm hit? Gods, if one comes in while we're out here— He'd be helpless, as helpless as a babe. Anyone with mage-power, mage-senses, was completely flattened by the storms. He tried to calculate the times in his head. I should be all right. It shouldn't come in until tomorrow or tomorrow night. But if he was wrong, if it came in and sent him reeling into that maelstrom of hallucination and disorientation now, while he was out here—
Then hopefully the old man would know enough to call for help, or drag him over to the next pair.
If I ever want to punish a man worse than simply executing him, I'll send him off in a blizzard like this one. Impossible to tell how long they'd been out here; impossible to tell where they were! There was just the burning of his legs, the burning ache in his side, the knotted shoulders, and the cold, the cold, the everlasting cold and dark and the tiny space of light around their lantern....
Then the snow in front of him exploded upward, in his face! It boiled skyward as something hiding beneath it lurched for him.
All discomfort forgotten, he shrieked and floundered back, sword ready, fumbling for his long dagger, his heart pounding.
"Baaaaaaa!" the snow-monster bawled. "Baaaaaaa!"
Tremane tripped over something hidden beneath the snow and fell over on his rump as terror turned to relief. He coughed twice, and the coughing turned into helpless laughter as the old man helped him back up to his feet. And now the snow all around him was moving, as more of the flock became aware of the presence of humans, humans who must surely represent safety to them in all of this mess. "Swing that lantern and call!" he ordered the old man. "We've found the flock, the boy has to be in here somewhere."
The farmer obeyed him with a will, bellowing like one of his own ewes, and soon more lights came up through the snow as the rest of the men got the message and gathered to this new spot. By now the sheep were pressed up against Tremane like so many friendly puppies, and except for the fact that they kept stepping on his feet, he was rather glad to have them there; their woolly bodies were warming his legs. More sheep came floundering up out of the snowy dark. Once again the men divided up and this time used Tremane as their center point for the search, and it wasn't long before the boy Racky was found, safe and warm, lying down between two of the biggest ewes Tremane had ever seen, with the sheepdog lying atop him.
While the old man greeted his nephew—for that was who this boy was—and the men congratulated one another with much backslapping and laughter, Tremane caught his breath and took careful note of the faces of those he could actually see. What he read there made him smile with satisfaction.