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said, “but there’s an accent. Thick accent.”
    “Sounded Russian,” Mildred suggested.
    “That’d make sense,” J.B. said. “According to the maps, Alaska is close to the border with the Russkies. Easy enough to sail that distance. Little extra ice and you could probably walk it.”
    “She has a family,” Ryan said.
    Doc cleared his throat. “Let me voice what is doubtless primary on all of our minds,” he said. “That the girl there is a slave of some kind, mayhap transported from the west and kept for entertainment.”
    Mildred looked unconvinced. “You’re making some big assumptions. Huge ones.”
    Doc inclined his head. “And yet we have seen such scenarios played out time and again, Mildred. The girl’s demeanor, and her cries for help, infer that she was running from our two friends back there. Would you not agree?”
    “Yeah.” J.B. nodded. “That’s a given. You reckon they’re this Pomoshch fella she was shoutin’ about, Doc?”
    “I feel it may be more simple than that, John Barrymore,” Doc said. “ Pomoshch is likely Russian for help.”
    Sitting with Nyarla beside the thick trunk of a conifer, Krysty was trying to find out what she could.
    “It’s cold, isn’t it?” Krysty said. When Nyarla didn’t answer, she continued on. “How did you end up out here dressed like that?”
    Nyarla looked introspective, her eyes focused in the middle distance. “Run,” she said in her heavily accented English. “I run.”
    “From whom?” Krysty asked gently.
    “They want me to dance for them,” Nyarla replied. “To do dancing.” She looked disgusted, and Krysty suspected that by “dancing” she actually meant something more intimate.
    “Who?” Krysty asked. “Who wanted you to dance?”
    “They live in ice,” Nyarla replied, her head turning toward the north. “My father says it freeze their hearts, that is why they so kholodnyi... so cold.” She pulled the blanket closer, snuggling into its warming embrace.
    “Is your father there now?” Krysty asked.
    Biting her bottom lip, Nyarla nodded uncertainly. “He run. With Elya.”
    “It’s okay,” Krysty said. “You’re safe now.”
    “Nyet,” Nyarla replied, her eyes suddenly fierce. “They come. They always come.”
    “Who do?” Ryan demanded, having overheard the last of Krysty’s conversation with the troubled young woman.
    “The frozen men,” Nyarla said. “From Yego Kraski Sada— the fields where time stands still.”
    * * *
    T HE MUTIE WOLF unleashed a howl as it charged down the slope toward Jak and Ricky, where the naked man lay sprawled in the snow. Fast-thinking Ricky had his Webley Mk VI revolver out of its holster and in his hand in an instant. The weapon featured no safety and had been rechambered to fire .45 Automatic Colt Pistol bullets. But Jak warned him back, stepping directly into the path of the wolf as it thundered toward them.
    “Just want meal,” Jak said gently.
    The huge wolf emerged from the bushes, and Ricky gasped. Even on all fours, the mutant creature was almost four feet tall, and its muscular body was closer in size to a pony’s than a canine. Perfectly camouflaged for the snow, the beast had dappled gray-white fur and pale blue eyes that seemed full of intelligence. Jak held its stare, fixing it with his own.
    The wolf stopped in place, eyeing Jak warily. “We all hungry,” Jak reassured the creature. “Not enough food to go ’round. Not out here.”
    On the ground, the naked man was whimpering, wrestling against the staked ties that held him by wrists and ankles to the ground. His extremities had turned a lifeless shade of gray, with white stripes where the ropes chafed against him.
    Ricky took a step toward the man and leaned down to examine the ropes. Tied to the man, each rope was a foot long and brutally nailed into the ground through a wooden stake. The stakes looked impossible to pull free, but Ricky was sure he could untie the knots given a minute or two. What good