Even with the dim light of morning, the soldiers were too numb to rouse themselves to remove the snow's weight, having only enough energy left to clear out a pocket of air in front of their faces so as not to suffocate. They became somnolent in their cold cocoons. In their bleary-eyed moments of wakefulness they had no idea how much time had passed since they were last awake-whether an hour, a night or the entire past day. The water in their leather canteens was frozen as solid as their minds, and the silence, both without and within, was at the same time comforting and deadly. We began to think that it had always been winter and that we could feel nothing else, just a vague awareness of the passage of time, like a lost childhood phrase that surfaces occasionally in one's speech, or the indistinct tingling of a limb long removed. The entire universe had collapsed in on itself to this tiny, white, dreary place, asleep, infinitely cold, unspeakably far from home.
Many of the pack animals, weakened already from lack of food and water, simply lay down and died-they were found later frozen solid as stones, their eyes open and sightless, their hides too hard even to be flayed for the leather. The men found that as long as they remained still beneath their burden of snow and did not try to shake it off, they could retain enough body heat to survive for a time, the entire night if necessary. Xenophon could not give in to this luxury, however, and finally, just after the gray dawn the next morning, he stood up and shook off the snow. I had already crawled out of my own burrow and was waiting for him, shivering in the semi-shelter of the overhanging boughs of a large fir tree. As I stepped forward, he greeted me with a grim, silent nod, and then we walked around camp to view the remains of our army.
The sight was eerie, and frightening. "This doesn't even look like the same country we saw last night, Xenophon," I whispered in awe. "Have the gods carried us away?"
He, too, looked about him with eyes wide in amazement, then swallowed and licked his cracked lips. "Don't think such things, Theo," he said. "Or if you do, don't speak them."
The entire landscape had changed under the effect of the snow, which was still falling heavily, obscuring all but the hundred feet or so we could see around us. Not a sign of life was visible; not the slightest curl of smoke from an untended fire, not a single snuffle from a horse, not a whisper from the usually profanely joking and singing soldiers. Just the smooth flatness of the frozen riverbed on which we were camped, with soft mounds of boulders under the snow scattered randomly about the gravel flats. All was utterly silent and still, save for the soft plopping sound made by an occasional handful of snow sliding off the branches above. The thought occurred to me that the army had left in the night, forgetting to wake us, or that the enemy had attacked after all, killing all but us fortunate or wretched few who had lain unawares beneath the silent blanket of snow. My spirit said that this could not possibly be true, but no other explanation for the deathly silence and stillness presented itself.
Xenophon, however, shuddering with cold, used his arms to sweep away a mound of snow from the bed of a cart almost invisible under its deep blanket. Then clambering onto it, he took a deep breath, and to my amazement began bellowing into the frozen air, sending a flock of crows frantically flapping and cackling into the sky from the trees where they had been silently observing us. He shouted curses into the stillness, commanding the forest to awaken, ordering the nymphs and the naiads to dress themselves and split him some firewood, calling, as if he had taken leave of his senses, invoking I know not whom-Pan and the satyrs and the other forest gods perhaps-to stand up and praise their Maker for their continued existence, offering a goat for breakfast to anyone who could find one still living under the snow. I watched in wonder as he declaimed to the stillness, exhorting the rocks and the hills, and then I watched in even greater amazement as the rocks and hills answered him in reply.
The mounds and boulders scattered about the riverbed shivered and quaked, cracks appearing in the layer of snow covering them, and then they slowly rose as if being pushed out of the earth from the depths of hell, emerging unsteadily like enormous mushrooms, the snow sliding off into crumpled mounds on the side. Sharp, piercing eyes appeared from beneath, beastlike men with bushy, unkempt beards stood straight up out of the snow, raising their cloaks over their heads and shoulders and shaking the powder off, stamping their feet to bring feeling back to their frozen members, blowing puffs of vapor on their hands and rubbing their dry, cracked palms together. Xenophon stepped up the pace of his harangue, calling upon the men to seek out their brothers who might be too weak or demoralized to emerge from the snow, pleading with them to build their fires high and warm themselves. He denied the bitter cold and threw off his cloak, stripping himself naked in the biting air as if for his morning exercises, insisting that he felt no discomfort. He seized an axe that had been stuck into a tree for safekeeping and began to noisily hack at a rotten stump, until before my very eyes hundreds, thousands of men and surviving animals emerged from their frozen hell and began reentering the land of the living. Someone took Xenophon's axe from his hands and started to split the wood, someone else kindled a fire, and soon the air was redolent again of the fragrance of smoke and oil and roasted mule, the sounds of men groaning and complaining, belching and bitching and farting and scratching, the sounds of ten thousand men, starving and frozen and aching for women, the sounds of an army that has survived its most difficult battle yet, the sweetest sounds on earth.
Taking a head count, we discovered we had lost dozens of men that night to death and frostbite, and uncounted head of pack animals and other livestock. The short journey into the mountains had been disastrous. Conferring with each other, Xenophon and Chirisophus decided that despite the approach of Tiribazus' hordes at the rear, it would be foolhardy to continue on into the mountains under these conditions. The decision was made to billet again under shelter, in the same villages we had departed, if the enemy had not already taken over the hearths we had vacated. The men cheered when it was announced we would be returning-and in their enthusiasm to be again under a warm roof, they made the return trip in half the time as the outgoing one, sliding down the hills on frozen hides or their own backs, whooping like small boys and ignoring the freezing of their outer extremities, which was taking a terrible toll. We arrived at the villages before the enemy had taken them over, though our vanguard had not a little trouble ousting the enemy scouts who had arrived just a few hours before and were beginning to settle in. Those of the Hellenes who had burnt their quarters upon their departure now had their come-uppance, and were forced to beg or bribe sleeping space from their comrades, or make do in chicken coops and livestock pens. This, of course, was Asteria's lot in any case.
That night, Xenophon sent out a squad of scouts to reconnoiter the enemy's position. After searching all night for the fires we had seen earlier, they returned exhausted and empty-handed except for one surprising bit of plunder they had captured: a Persian light-armored regular, the likes of whom we had not seen since leaving Tissaphernes behind weeks before. This sent the captains into a great deal of consternation at first, wondering whether the wily satrap had somehow outwitted us and marched a course parallel to ours this whole time in an effort to entrap us in the wilderness.