Balkah’s fingers felt annoyingly useless and stiff despite the thick leather gloves that the locals had given him to prevent the frostbite from kissing his skin.
The sound of his labored breath and the occasional strained pants that unintendedly escaped from his exhausted self after hours of arduous work got mixed with the snorts and squeaks of the slightly agitated herd.
Their anxiousness inevitably spread to him as he carefully estimated the amount of the remaining precious hot water that he had left in his metal flask so he could pour its contents equally on each one of the posts. As he needed to finish the job of loosening the surrounding frost, and he needed to do it fast. Yet, using the pickaxe for this purpose was a no-go… It would make too much noise and risk getting him caught
