Taru had worked very hard to prepare for her first winter alone in the wilderness. The handle of her axe still bore the bloodstains of broken blisters as it hung by the door of her new cottage. Nearby her brand-new sauna stood waiting for her to strip down and relax. She had built her home right on the lakeshore where she could swim after enjoying the sauna or catch fish right from her own dock. Around her new home she had dug a fencerow of pits, literally a moat around her little haven (sure, she fell in herself whenever she wanted to go out, but she was good at climbing, and a little dust just helped to cover her scent on a hunt).

Taru had filled her cellar with all kinds of tasty treats - turnips, peas, wooden tubs of fish stew, smoked meat, and bags of flour. And at the very end of autumn she emptied all the nets she had in the local lake and discovered: she couldn't move. Well, getting back home with a couple hundred fish in her pockets was an adventure all its own, but now it was wintertime, and the time for adventures was over.

Taru had cleared land and cut firewood while she was shaping logs for her cottage and sauna, piling them next to the door. A pile of furs and leather waited in the corner for her to figure out what to do with them. A pile of trade goods (mostly from Njerpez warriors who had come into her yard over the summer, waving their scimitars at her frightfully, but afraid to brave her row of pits to get her. the silly fools just stood there swearing at her while she shot them full of holes with her bow) collected dust, as she had averything she could need. She had lost or broken over half her arrows over the green months, but surely thirty-some arrows would get her through the winter until she could trade for more.

It was the second day of winter and Taru was bored. Bored of cold, bored of being at home, bored of the ever-falling snow outside her door.

Maybe she could chop a hole in the ice and go for a polar bear dip after the sauna... noo, she didn't like the cold and just the thought had her in gooseflesh. Maybe she could make some new traps to set out in the spring... *sigh* thoughts of traps and trapping only made her think about the forest in springtime - perhaps later. Maybe she could practice a bit of carving, maybe make some bowls, sharpen a few javelins... *sigh* of course she had forgotten to cut down some trees to save for winter. Making a bowl now would mean going out into the snow with her axe and risking frostbite. *sigh* Perhaps another day.

Outside the wind blew, the snow fell in ever-deeper drifts and the sky grew dark. Taru paced the floor of her cabin back and forth, back and forth in an endless, restless circuit. Her every step was shadowed by her faithful wolf/dog Cujo, who never left her side, as well as her three bulls Urho, Taisto and Sulo, who followed her back and forth at the ends of their leashes. Taru was afraid to let them free to roam the yard for fear that they would get lost and get themselves into trouble. She had to keep a very close eye on Sulo, who tended to eat her porrige when she wasn't looking.

Outside in the inky dark of midnight the wind began to howl... or was it wolves? Cujo woke up from his nap by the fire with ears aleat and the battle bulls shifted uneasily in their corner.

What happened next???