cool southern breeze

The central cavern where everyone gathered was deserted at this time of day, which meant that it would be relatively easy to get a cooking fire started with no interruptions. This high up in the mountains, the air was bitterly cold despite the season, but there was a warm breeze coming up the ridge from the ocean to the west. Having carried the coals from their forge in a covered bucket along the craggy slopes, it was much easier to get the fire going than if they'd tried to start it from scratch. Instead, it was merely a matter of feeding them until a few logs could be added to the blaze. A cooking spit was set up from the long tines of caribou antlers that had been shed and discarded on the steppes to the east, with a sharpened spit run through the bighorn haunch and then balanced across the supports. Perfect. While that cooked on one side, it was time to go out searching for some clean snow to melt for water.

Massive frame carried the titan with practiced ease down the slopes of the col until they were meandering along a less travelled area of the deadly ridge. From a rocky overhang ahead hung a series of wicked looking icicles. Well, those would be far easier to manage than snow or ice sheets, wouldn't they? They picked their way up the slope until they could get a better view of the long spires of ice glittering in the mid-afternoon sunlight. It was easy work to grab hold of a particularly thick one with minimal inclusions of pebbles and debris locked away inside, and with a jerk of their impossibly powerful neck muscles they dislodged it from the overhang. The showering of snow that fell onto their face and into their ears came as a surprise, met with a heavy snort that mingled with a soft yelp. "Co'd! Co'd! Nosh, co'd!" they whined aloud, shaking away the light dusting of snow that was clinging to their lashes, whiskers, and inner ear fur.