The sun hadn't even started to come up by the time the four of them were awake enough to start developing their plan. They spread their maps out on a table, lit by oil lamps and their flashlights, the four of them all crowded around the small surface. They were still a long way from their target, separated by some of the harshest terrain they'd come across yet. It was going to be an entirely new hell, across untamed lands that stretched on for hundreds of miles in any direction.

"Even if we find another truck, it's never going to get over all that," Barnes said, shaking his head.

He was right, but they couldn't just turn around and give up.

"What's the alternative?" Loki asked, trying not to give in to the overwhelming despair that threatened to cripple the squad. "Walk a thousand miles across the Arctic?" He'd survive, but none of the others would.

"What about those dogs?" Rogers asked. "Think you could get a few teams up there?"

Loki shook his head. "We'd need at least four teams, minimum. Double that if we wanted to take any amount of supplies with us. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I can teach seven other people to drive dogs when I can barely do it myself."

Rogers nodded, glaring down at their map.

"And then there's this." Barnes pointed to a narrow strait separating them from the rest of Russia. "Can we expect ice here, or do we need to go all the way around?"

It was a good question, and one nobody had an answer for. "We'll ask a local," Rogers said. "Maybe we can find someone able to ferry us across."

"How much can we trust the locals?" Loki didn't trust any of them. Not the ones in camp, or any others, no matter what the official situation with Stalin was. They'd run into too many turncoats and spies already, and he didn't expect that to stop just because they'd crossed another border.

"I don't suppose we can fly the rest of the way?" Barnes asked sardonically.

"Even if we could find a plane," Bruttenholm said, looking up like he was stepping on everyone's toes just by being there, "we'd find ourselves having to take the roughest portion by foot. You won't land a plane close enough, and jumping would be suicide."

"If we can even find a plane," Rogers said.

"What about snowmobiles?" Coulson asked.

The four around the table all turned to look at him, curiously listening in from where he sprawled lazily on a cot. "A what?" Rogers asked.

Loki and Barnes both looked to one another, silently asking if the other knew what Coulson was talking about. The agreement between the two of them was a shrug and shake of the head.

"That's what my old man calls them," Coulson said. "Every winter he'd take a bunch of old bike parts lying around the shop, and bolt them to a sled. We'd take them upstate and go tearing up some field somewhere."

"Snowmobile," Rogers said. He nodded slowly. "How long would that take you to put together?"

Coulson sat up and shrugged. "With the parts we have, I could throw one together in a few hours. Should be able to hold a couple people and some supplies. We can probably beg some more parts off the locals. Take a few days and build a fleet."

Rogers looked to Loki and Barnes.

"Snowmobiles?" Barnes asked.

They looked back down at the map, and Rogers nodded again. "Snowmobiles," he repeated. "If we don't come up with anything better in the meantime."

With more planning left to do, Loki left Rogers with Barnes and Bruttenholm to figure it out while he went out with Coulson to scrounge supplies. They stopped by Rogers' bike first, moving it from beneath the canvas sheet they'd hidden it under out into the open so Coulson could get a good look at it.

"The mechanics are all pretty good, but it's the chassis and suspension that's blown," he explained, pointing with his flashlight at the bits that were held together with twisted wire and someone's belt.

"What parts do you need?" Loki asked. He didn't understand any of it, so far removed was the technology from the methods on Asgard that even the Alltongue didn't seem to be translating properly.

"The chassis won't be load-bearing as much once it's stripped down. The wheels will go. Replace the front one with the skis from the sled, and the back one with a track." He looked around the snow-covered camp, like he expected to see something. "Not sure where we'll get something like that, but if we can figure it out, it'll be the hardest part of it."

Loki looked around as well. The camp was mostly quiet in the pre-dawn morning. "We're in a mining camp," he said. He'd been in one before, during an earlier visit to the realm. He'd spent most of his time in the camp then, gambling in the saloons and drinking with the miners, but curiosity demanded he go out to the claims to see what all the fuss was about. Midgardian technology had advanced slightly since then, but he imagined the very basics of their rigs would be the same. "There's going to be some sort of track or conveyor that isn't being used."

Coulson considered this for a moment, nodding along. "If it's not too heavy, it should work," he agreed. He stood up and nodded down what passed for a road in the camp. "Come on, let's go see what we can find."

Loki got up and walked through the snow with him, trying to find the lay of the camp. The dogs Loki had rode in on were all kennelled on the far end of camp, just before the path that led to the mines themselves. Their plan to take dogs would not have gone very far, since the team Petrov had met them with was the only team the camp seemed to have. They had trucks and other vehicles that weren't going to be much use getting across frozen marshlands. More importantly, they had no shortage of sleds and toboggans, which meant that they needed only find engines and tracks. The rest could be fabricated with whatever scrap was lying around.

Finally, they got to where the brunt of the work was being done in camp. Towering machines stood out against the slowly rising sun on the horizon, casting an imposing image on the endless landscape. Machines that crushed up rocks into grit, and collected the grit and sent it off to be smelted and refined into whatever these men were digging out of the ground.

"Is this what we're looking for?" Loki asked.

Coulson trotted over, shining his flashlight at the particular bit of machinery Loki had his light on. A long, narrow belt made of linked steel plates was poised to send the rocks up to be crushed.

"Yeah," Coulson nodded. "I think that could work." He looked over at Loki, visibly concerned even in the dim light. "Now how do you plan on getting them to hand it over?"

Loki looked around. The camp would be waking up soon. "What do you think the odds are of a broken one sitting around somewhere?"

hr

Coulson's contraptions were terrifying. They rattled and rumbled and threatened to fall apart at the slightest cross wind. Turning involved a wide circle and a nearly broken shoulder as the skis dug into the snow and dragged the machines to one direction or the other, more than guiding them, and he had warned everyone of the catastrophic possibility that their tracks might fail, and if that happened, they'd have just enough time to realise they were about to break their necks. It was not an experience Loki wished to repeat on this damnable mission.

But they were quick. Quicker than the horses, or the dogs, or the reindeer across the snow and quagmire, and the small two-stroke engines used between them less fuel than the Opel ever did by miles. They crossed the peninsula in less than a day, with people and supplies loaded up in the sleds that made up the new bodies. At the strait, they lost only a few hours at the town at the end of this leg of their journey, having only then been able to arrange passage across to the mainland. The ice over the water was loose, in large, treacherous sheets that would tip and drown anyone who dared to try to cross on them. They soon found a captain of a fishing trawler willing to take them across for a small barter of rations and supplies, and they were on their way again into the endless Russian night.

After several days, the terrain became harsher, even for Coulson's death trap machines. Tundra gave way to hills and inclines, and in breaks in the weather, their next foe loomed over them on the horizon. The mountains weren't the high, craggy peaks they'd had to brave in Switzerland, but they were still mountains, and their target was somewhere deep in the middle of the range. Up until then, they had followed maps to get where they were going, but now what they sought was not on any map the Army possessed. The camp they made at the base of the mountains that night would be their last before they had to stow their snow machines and hike the rest of the way on foot.

"We should be on the right track," Brutttenholm said, poring over the map. "The location described is said to be between two rivers, in a valley, between two peaks, and two flooded valleys like cuts in the land."

Their maps were not that detailed. Neither were their aerial photos. Everyone in the squad was given the task of studying every piece of information they had.

"Cuts?" Pinkerton asked. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think," Bruttenholm said, his voice wavering, "it might perhaps mean something like a rift. Or perhaps a canyon. The translations are not always direct when the source was written in metaphor to begin with."

The entire squad went quiet again as they all studied what they'd been given. Loki used the opportunity to attempt once more to scry ahead, but without knowing what he was looking for, or where to find it, he was still just as lost as the rest of them.

"Hey, what's this?" Morita said suddenly. He put his photograph into the light of their lamps so the others could see. "These kind of dark lines. That looks like water, doesn't it?"

He was pointing at two lakes, miles long, and almost completely straight. Both lakes bordered on two peaks within the mountains, which created a valley between them.

"Are there rivers in there?" he asked.

They began comparing Morita's photo against maps, trying to locate the area relative to their position. They were a bit too far south, if that were the location, but not so far south as to complicate matters. Barnes quickly measured the distance on his map, and then double check it.

"It's less than thirty miles, in a straight line," he said. "If we can find a path through, we could make the objective tomorrow."

"How likely is that?" Rogers asked.

Bruttehnholm didn't answer immediately, taking a moment to realise he was the one being spoken to. "I've never been here," he said, shaking his head. "If we're on the right track, there may be certain signs to look for, but Alexander the Great would have done it on foot. I doubt he was summiting any peaks to get there."

Rogers nodded. "What signs?" he asked.

Again, Bruttenholm shook his head. "Literal signs, possibly," he said. "Or, depending on what we find, anything."

"And you're sure you know where we're going?" Rogers asked.

Bruttenholm bent over to study the spot marked on the map. "Reasonably certain, yes. The spot we're looking for is in the Arctic Circle, but in 330BC, it might have been significantly farther south, I think." He nodded, still considering the map. "But not so much farther south that I think anywhere else might fit that bill. I think we should aim for this location."

"Should we send a scouting party?" Pinkerton asked. "To make sure?"

Rogers considered this for a moment. "No. We stick together. It's only thirty miles. It'll turn into more when we find our path, but if we head out early, the sun might still be up when we get there."

"We're looking for a valley in the mountains," Loki said. "Where there's valleys, you tend to find rivers, and rivers tend to be flat." He rotated the map to be able to see better, and picked up a pencil from their canvas workspace. "We can trace this river along its course here," he said, working the pencil backwards from the spot Morita had found. "Take our northward voyage before the mountains and enter at this location here. It couldn't more than double the distance."

"Sixty miles," Rogers said. "If we can take the snow machines up through most of it, we can still have some daylight left when we get there."

"And if we can't?" Barnes asked.

"We walk," Loki said simply.

hr

They followed a river that coursed in every direction except where they meant to go. While Loki's assumptions about the shape of the terrain had been correct, it hadn't taken into account the change of seasons or the weather. The river was already swollen, leaving the banks a soggy, muddy mess, forcing the squad to follow single-file along the slopes on either side. This too had its dangers. The snow was soft and prone to collapsing beneath the weight of the machines, forcing them to move at a considerably slower pace.

"We ditch here," Rogers announced as they came to a long, twisting lake ahead of them. He pulled out his map to consult it and made a mark on the page. "This is about halfway, and we're not going to get anything around these banks safely," he said, pointing. The water had spilled out from the lake, forcing the only route along a much steeper edge.

"We're not going to make it by sundown then," Dugan said. "It's already past ten."

"Then we'll camp," Rogers announced. Without waiting for another word from anybody, he got off his machine and started picking up his supplies from the back. "Single file. Stay in the tracks of the person ahead of you."

One by one, they all got off their machines and followed after Rogers along the slope. Bruttenholm was going to slow them down again, but now more than ever they needed him by their side. In case they hadn't found the right place, or in case they had, and it was guarded by some magic Loki didn't know. They kept him at the back of the pack, where a deep enough trough had been cut through the snow to prevent him from falling too far behind. He'd walked across half of France with them, and if he suffered as they walked through some frozen Russian mountain range, he kept it to himself. Everyone kept their suffering to themselves. The air was bitingly cold, but the effort of moving through the snow made the men overheated and exhausted. It was a bigger danger than the cold on its own. Now that they had all been drenched in sweat from the exertion, stopping was a death sentence. They'd freeze at once.

Camp that night was cold and miserable, bivouacked on a steep slope with winds whipping high above them, and a swollen, half-frozen river far below them. They were two or three men to a tent, surviving off one another's warmth and little else. They'd been hauling supplies for the mountains since their drop in Norway, but nothing had prepared them for what mountaineering actually meant.

"Man, the doc had better be right about this, because we are screwed if we get there and find a bunch of nothing," Coulson said, rummaging through his pack for any last stragglers from his rations. Like everyone else, he had little to nothing left in his supply.

"Here, have some coffee," Morita said, passing him a tin cup.

"I have any more coffee, and I'm gonna shit my fucking brains out right here on this mountain," Coulson said.

Loki and Morita exchanged a quick glance. "Don't mind if I do," Loki said as he took the cup. It was too hot and too weak, but better than eating snow.

"What are we supposed to do when we get there?" Coulson went on. "It's not like we're going to walk into a mess hall with hot food. It's still a fucking mountain, and we still have to get off it. That's another two days of starving. Plus we have to hold the place. How the hell are we supposed to do that with no rations and no resupply?"

Loki sighed and handed the coffee to Coulson, giving him the choice of taking it or letting it be spilled in his lap.

"Fuck," he muttered, taking off his overcoat and reaching for his gear. He'd restocked on arrows while they were in the mining camp, and was hoping to hold onto them for a change.

"Where're you going?" Coulson asked.

"To do something about us all starving to death," Loki said, taking his bow and quiver and squirming out of the tent. He considered letting Rogers know he was leaving, but it wasn't worth it. He didn't even know what he might find out in this wasteland, but there weren't many other options.

He trudged down the slope toward the river, knowing that if anything were out here, it would probably want to drink. Out in the snow, alone, he slipped into his true form to better see in the darkness and ignore the cold. Even then, in those circumstances, he was more comfortable than he remembered being in a very long time. It felt like he could breathe for the first time in months. The white, snow-covered valley stood in heavy contrast in the dark night, and he thought he could see a deep rut in the snow on the other side of the river. Not wanting to risk crossing the dangerous waters, Loki followed from the far bank. The tracks were not small, but the snow was deep enough that he couldn't tell if he was following where the animal had gone, or where it had come from. But they looked fresh, and continued to do so, so he continued to follow.

After over an hour of following the tracks, his patience won out. The animal had come to a wide part of the river, where the water was shallow, and crossed over to his side. Once he was at the tracks, he could see the direction they were heading, away from the river. He continued to follow as the animal cut a path through the sparse trees. Low branches had been broken and twisted, torn from the trunks and left hanging in the creature's wake. The height of the damage made Loki pause and look at the tracks again. He had hoped for an elk, or maybe a large deer. But even elk did not tend to cause so much damage. Knowing he couldn't lose the animal, Loki followed it further, walking in its tracks to make less noise. Broken trees meant the animal had been stopping to eat, which gave Loki an advantage to catch up. After another hour of walking, he finally spied the giant black figure against the snow up ahead, lazily picking at vegetation as he trundled along. He hated moose. Ever since he was a boy, he hated them. If it charged him, it might not have killed him, but it would make him regret his decision to follow after it. He crouched in the animal's tracks and drew an arrow from his quiver, moving slowly to stay as quiet as possible. As he drew the bow, it didn't click or rattle like his rifle did. He pulled the string back silently, lining up his shot and waiting for the right moment. He could not fell a moose with a longbow. Not without using every last one of his arrows. But he could do it with three if he timed his actions just right. He spared a quick glance at his belt to make sure his bayonet was where it was supposed to be, and wasted no further time. He loosed his arrow and immediately drew another. The arrow hit the moose in the side of the neck, enraging the animal in an instant. It threw its antlers around and gave blind charge at Loki, receiving a second arrow in the shoulder, followed by a third directly beneath. The moose stumbled in its charge, but was not dissuaded. Loki tossed his bow to the side and grabbed his bayonet from his belt, still crouching low in the snow. He waited until the moose was all but on top of him before he threw his empty hand at it, blinding it with a flash of hot, white light. The moose reared, flinging his head back and exposing its neck for Loki's blade. He dug it deep into the animal's flesh and held on, letting the moose's own weight pull the knife across its neck. Its hooves flailed wildly. One of them caught Loki in the side of his head, but he still held onto his blade. Blood poured from the animal, soaking Loki and the snow around him as it fell, still kicking and braying. Loki jumped quickly out of the way to avoid further punishment from its hooves and antlers and finished the job, slicing across its neck and killing it.

A bayonet was not a good butchering tool, but it was a problem easily remedied. Loki had knives and other weapons stored in his secret spaces, and it was from there he pulled a blade more suited to the job. He took off his jacket and shirt and crouched beside the animal to begin the task of butchering it. He could have likely dragged the animal back to camp, but would have no adequate explanation for having moved a 1000 pound animal by himself. If the rest wanted to eat, they could help.

He worked quickly not particularly caring about cutting the animal up for ageing or proper curing. He had no saw to cut through the bone, but his silversteel blade was sharp enough to do the job with considerable force behind it. He quartered the animal the best he could, and would further butcher and cook it at camp. With the moose gutted and quartered, he'd possibly halved its weight, which was still a suspicious haul on his own. He cut the antlers off, hiding them along with his blade back in his secret place, and dressed again, putting his shirt on. His jacket was already soaked from his hunting method, so he dropped one of the front quarters onto his jacket, and stepped into the shadows. He stepped out again at the base of the slope, leaving the moose quarter there and walking up to the tents. At his return, he could see several faces poking out at him, and he was suddenly reminded of his form. They couldn't see him from that far away in the dark, so he quickly shifted back and climbed up the slope.

"Moose," he said, pointing down the slope at his jacket. He feigned breathlessness, pointing downstream next. "Three more pieces down there. If we hurry, we can get to it before the wolves do."

He bent over, leaning on his knees as Rogers stepped out of his tent with a flashlight, followed by Barnes and Bruttenholm. "You went hunting?" Rogers asked, his voice skirting an uncomfortable line between grateful and accusatory.

"It was that or starve," Loki said. He stood up, and held his arms out to his side. "I grew up doing this."

"Your head," Rogers said.

Loki touched the spot on the side of his head where the moose had kicked him. Blood had run down the side of his face, and was still sticky on his skin.

"It's nothing," he said. "I'd already forgotten."

Rogers nodded and looked behind him. "Dugan. Jones. Go help him get the rest," he said, already heading down to collect what Loki had brought back.

"Bring canvas," Loki said. "An error I regret making."

The two headed out of their tents with the canvas covers for bad weather and followed him back down the trail. He moved more quickly this time, knowing where he was going and not caring about making noise and frightening game. Once they made it to the kill, they loaded the remaining quarters onto the canvas. As Loki picked up his bow and quiver, he stopped to examine the animal.

"I think I will have the pelt," he said, picking it up. It had not been his best job at skinning an animal, but he thought the moose pelt might go nicely with his polar bear.

"You killed that thing by yourself?" Dugan asked, looking at all the carnage from the field dressing process.

"Not the first time," Loki said, telling only a small lie. He'd never felled a moose before. "It's tradition in my village for an elder to lead a group of kids who have turned thirteen that year out for their first hunt. Nobody goes home until everybody kills something."

They began hauling the canvas through the snow, using the moose's tracks for less resistance. "And you killed a moose?" Jones asked.

Loki grinned at him. "And you should have seen the looks on their faces."

Both the other men laughed. They took considerably longer getting back to camp than it had taken them to get to the kill, but they were met with the rest of the hard work already done for them. A fire had been built, with the first quarter already roasting above the flames. They left the other three nearby as Loki walked over to examine the progress.

"We'll head out late tomorrow," Rogers said. "Use the daylight to see to that." He pointed to the butchered moose and nodded at Loki.

"I can have it done tonight," Loki said. He could go a night without sleep, and welcomed the opportunity to do so; to do something familiar. "Everything will be rationed out by sunrise." He'd have to cheat to do so, but as long as everyone else was asleep, they'd never know the difference.

Rogers looked at him skeptically, but nodded all the same. "All right," he said. He looked around the camp, and nodded again. "Good."

Loki watched him and the others return to their tents, exhausted. He'd wait about an hour before he helped everything along and made good on his promise. And while he waited, he began to work on his pelt.

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