She stood in the doorway, looked at him intently. "Your companion, why does he lurk in the shadows? He has nothing to fear from me."
He did not reply. He knew not himself the reason for the evil presence.
Game became increasingly scarce.
He was lucky when a rabbit crossed his path. And even these were few in number, lean in build. Scrub brush served to cook those few he killed.
The winds wailed, the snow peppered down, then settled in huge white flakes. At times the storm stilled and he traveled on in a world where day was night, night day. Across the skies strange colored images danced, twisting and turning. Here seemed a world deserted by Zeus, left to the ministrations of lesser Gods.
The world was enveloped in a blanket of white. At times he sank into its depths. At other times, frozen, it supported him as well as solid ground. And still the snow fell, wind-driven.
With cessation of the wind he could hear, though from a far distance, the crunch of footsteps on the frozen snow. Hidden in the fog or by the falling flakes, the unseen companion was ever with him, ever following.
Even when the snow ceased the air held a strange opaque whiteness, as though the world were immersed in milk. At such times even his hand before his face was not visible. He dared not travel on, knowing he would circle helplessly in the blinding whiteness.
Slowly the white out lifted. The barren snow covered wasteland stretched endlessly.
He pressed on. There was little choice.