The Second Year of the Longwinter: Spring Equinox
All across the northern lands people watched for the end of a terrible winter. The scholars examined their almanacs, the farmers eked out the last of their stores, the hunters prepared for the migration of the animals they preyed on, and the warriors sharpened their blades in advance of the new campaign season.
But this year was to be like none that had gone before, not for ten thousand years. This year the growing masses of ice on land and sea, cloaked with cold air, would significantly divert the currents of air and moisture that flowed over them. This year the spring winds would not come from the balmy south-west, but from the chill north. There was a spring equinox. The planet’s orbital geometry mandated it. But there was no spring.
As the cold endured, all across the northern hemisphere, people began to look to the warm, to the south. Only to find, usually, that there was already somebody there.