Page 37 of Thor

Well, that and Jorunn's bright idea to teach Thor to play poker. He grasped the rules readily enough, but the man had no concept of a poker face, and the better he learned to play, the easier it became to read his hand from his expression. It was probably a good thing they hadn't thrown gambling into the mix, or Jorunn would have robbed him blind. Poor Thor just couldn't bluff.

On the evening of the eighth day, Jorunn had endured an unusually bad losing streak, which meant it was her turn to go to the mess tent to check on dinner.

Jorunn returned quicker than usual. "I have good news and bad news," she announced.

Sibyl knew what she wanted first. "What's the bad news?"

Jorunn wrinkled her nose. "One of the guys was in charge of dinner, and he decided we're having smoked herring wraps with sauerkraut."

Sibyl felt bile rise up in her throat at the thought. What with being snowed in and having the supply run delayed as a result, everyone had been eating more, so they were down to the foods she liked least, and they'd had too much smoked herring to start with.

"Don't you want to hear the good news?" Jorunn asked.

Sibyl shook her head. "Nothing's good enough to make up for that."

"You don't know that," Jorunn said.

"What is it, then?"

Jorunn looked smug. "It's stopped snowing. If the skies stay clear, we might be allowed to start surveying again tomorrow."

Thor perked up. "Let me look." He made his way to the tent flap and stuck his head through. He just stayed there for a long moment, before he said, "She's right. There's a warm wind coming in from the ocean. It should blow this storm to the other side of the mountains, and melt all the snowfall in a matter of days."

"How would you know? Did you already sneak a look at the forecast while I was gone?" Jorunn asked.

Thor just shrugged. "My father taught me about the weather, and I'm never wrong."

The God of Thunder he wasn't, but he was as good a weather forecaster as whatever app Lara was using.

By morning, the snow had turned to slush, and the whole camp was a muddy miasma. By evening, Thor's promised warm wind had come to call, and within a day, it was like the snowstorm had never happened.

At dinner, Karl raised his bowl of baked beans in a toast. "Tomorrow, we resume our survey, and our search for Odin's army," he said.

He could have said they were looking for Odin's camp latrine pit, and they still would have cheered. Everyone else was too happy to be allowed out of camp to argue.

FORTY

By day's end, Sibyl's feet hurt from crunching over rocks, and if she had to lean over one more time to examine something promising that turned out to be nothing more than a freeze dried weed, she might scream. There had been some small finds in the area surrounding the pit they were all calling Odin's grave, but nothing like the dead army Thor had promised.

If she didn't know him so well, she'd have sworn he was lying about the other graves, but Thor couldn't even bluff at poker. If he said there was a whole company of ice mummies to be found, then the bodies were here somewhere.

"Who's on dinner duty tonight?" Karl asked.

"I am, with Jorunn," Sibyl said. She'd never been so grateful to be assigned to the kitchen in her life.

"You two head back to camp, then, and the rest of us will finish this last search pattern before it's too dark to see," Karl said.

Sibyl shouldered her daypack and trudged back to camp, hearing the scrunch of Jorunn's tired steps not far behind her.

"What do we have left?" Sibyl asked as Jorunn peered into the stacked boxes that were their makeshift pantry.

"Enough smoked herring to choke a whole pack of polar bears, and a box of dehydrated curry and rice."

Sibyl perked up. "How did we all miss that?"

Jorunn shrugged. "We're in Norway, not Australia. They're fans of Arctic fish, not sauce that'll blow your socks off."

Sibyl pulled out an armload of dehydrated meal packs and hugged them to her chest. "I don't know about you, but I could murder a curry," she quipped.

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