Chapter 28
Ben and Maya stepped through the door into a swirling blizzard. Thick fog and a maelstrom of snow and ice prevented them from seeing beyond their noses. The gale-force wind pulled at their hair and clothes and came close to lifting them off their feet and into the murky greyness.
The foul, smoky, acrid odour was still in their nostrils, but as they looked around through squinting eyes, the ornately carved door through which they had arrived was nowhere to be seen. All Ben and Maya knew was that they were on the open deck of a ship. A wall of thick planks loomed behind them, while in front of them was a waist-high wooden handrail coated in delicate patterns of white frost.
Maya knelt down, leaned her back against the wall and pulled her cloak tight over her head to protect aga
