Недружелюбно Территория - Nedruzhelyubno Territoriya [open]

[Ziu]

Time: Mid-Morning
Date: Winter of 1941/1942
Weather: Painfully cold, bleakly sunny
Place: The edge of a Russian forest

His shoulder was so stiff.

Ziu panted, reduced to dragging his right foot. His back leg permitted a hobble, but it could not bend without peppering pain shooting through his hip. Where shrapnel had buried into him, the holes had barely healed over - some reopened with the slightest touch, weeping hot fluid. Ziu was weak from hunger, shaking if he had to stand still, his last meal having been days before. The long-dead sheep contained only a few, frozen shreds on its bones, no more than solid chunks with little taste. Breaking open the bones for their marrow had been possible, but the shards dug painfully into his gums and between his teeth. The Shepherd could still feel one wedged between two of his molars, poking startlingly into his flesh if he moved his tongue the wrong way.

He was tired. He had been trudging through deep snow for the past week, a violent wind having blown frosty powder into his face, ears and nostrils. There had been no precipitation, but he had been travelling through woodlands, and Ziu had been pelted with branches, icicles and hardened white. The temperature had temporarily warmed, allowing some of the ice to melt and flow away, but the blessing had been two-sided - natural bridges over rivers were now gone. Ziu might have been able to make his way easier, and he might have been able to drink from the rivers, but he had been forced to take the scenic route.

Now, his body was feeling every inch of that difficult journey, and the cold was quickly coming back. He was on the verge of delirium, so hungry and tired and lost in the wilderness, and unnoticing of the scent of gunpowder. Neither did he catch wind of the smell of humans, nor did he spot some of the man-made footprints in the snow.