Answer: One of the ways that the author creates a foreboding tone through the description of the 'deadly cold'. This could possibly be foreshadowing to events later in the novel, as the adjective 'cold' could represent a heartbeat fading and a dying body going 'cold'. This is proven even further by the way that the cold is 'deadly', foreshadowing that later on in the story that characters are going to die in 'cold' blood. Furthermore, the 'ice' being compared to that of a 'blade' can suggest a potential weapon that could be used later on in the story for a murder, and also links into the semantic field of frigidity that is presented throughout this extract.
