At The Landmeet

The Winter Of The World, XVII.

Donya and Josserek speak from a wagon. Their immediate audience is only about fifty, mainly wives, seated or standing. However, unpaid but trained, strong-lunged and strategically placed stentors shout what they hear to the small groups scattered throughout the crater. A curious procedure. Obviously, the members of the groups do not want to be close enough to ask questions or to participate in any discussion.

After speaking about the invaders:

"At the end, beneath a sky where thunderheads towered and a smell of storm blew on a rising cold wind, through brass-colored light, he and she stood alone in the wagon." (p. 145)

The wind at least always has its say and the approaching storm exactly parallels the approaching invaders just as approaching thunder parallels approaching Huns at the end of Anderson's "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth."

After a night with Donya, Josserek knows what he might do so the narrative approaches its climax when some decisive measure will be taken against the invaders.

 Read on.