It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life.

It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.
But there _was_ life, abroad in the land and defiant.

Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs.

Their bristly fur was rimed with frost.

Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapour that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost.