[https://i.imgur.com/6arrOAA.png]

[https://i.imgur.com/g24JfyK.jpg]

In the end, they made a competition of it — Eirlys cut Saheel a branch while he combed the path for a couple of suitable stones. This time, he found ones that were arrow shaped, reasoning the flatter surface area would reduce air resistance.

With that done, they climbed a short way until they reached an outcropping that overlooked the whole of Haden’s Seat. It was the kind of view he could have spent a week just drinking in, a fractal of little details. His gaze followed a stream as it spilled out the mountainside and barged its way through the heathland, leaving gorges in its wake as it widened and widened and hit the horizon. Clouds trailed enormous shadows behind them, flanked by birds.

"We’ll aim for that tree." Eirlys pointed as she peered through binoculars.

He squinted at a smudge maybe five miles away. "I think I’d need my other glasses to see that, sister, but alright. May the best player win."

"I don’t intend to lose. Does half an hour sound okay?"

He nodded, and threw up his stone, pausing it as it came back down in front of him. Then he shifted to the side, trying not to notice the shingle he was cascading down the cliffside — heaven forbid either of them should slip here — and raised his branch.

A couple of meters to his left, Eirlys did the same.

While it did send waves of exertion coursing through Saheel’s upper body, it did not exactly make for a spectator sport. It would have been like watching someone doing push ups. Regardless, he gave it his all. It was a little scary that he discovered how much harder he could swing when he pretended it was Sean, the wounds still raw from twenty years ago — those weren’t exactly Christian thoughts.

After his phone’s timer rang out, Saheel fell back on his arse. His arms were burning, unused to labour. He doused himself with the Holy Water Pistol and drank heartily.

Eirlys took a gulp from a more conventional flask. "Are you hanging in there?"

"Don’t worry about me," wheezed Saheel. "It’s not as if I do this every day… or like I go to the gym…"

"Okay," she said. "Tell me if it’s too much. It’s just, with Greer. I don’t want that to happen again."

She said it so woodenly that Saheel almost chuckled, but he was starting to adapt to the black hole that was her emotional expression. It reminded him of this old crone who came to his services, always scowling, but unlike the others who just wanted to chat, she actually listened and believed.

"Thank you, sister," he said. "That’s really good of you to say. Now, shall we stand back a little and find out who’s won this?"

She nodded, and they got as far towards the mountain as they could on the outcropping.

"The shape made it a little more difficult to hit," said Eirlys, adjusting the focus on her binoculars. "But without solid rock to slow it down, I wonder how far it’ll go."

They raised their remotes, counted down from three, and pressed play.

WHOOMPH, went the stones, deafeningly loudly, and then they disappeared, that is to say, they were past the horizon before Saheel’s eyes could report back to his brain.

"God forgive us." He took off the sunhat. "I think we both made it past that tree."

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"Call it a draw, then," said Eirlys, so they did.

They decided their objective should be to move on and set up camp by a stream, so that they could spend the rest of the day preparing two more superweapons. Hopefully along the way they’d be able to figure out how the American woman came into it.

They stopped at the peak of the mountain to find the best way down on the map, and Eirlys said, "Hmmm. That’s odd."

"Yes?"

"The light in the tunnel that we made with the first stone, how far along would you say it was?"

Saheel rubbed his eyes. His legs were aching, and he didn’t even have to carry anything, other than his beer belly.

"Maybe a mile or so?" he said. "There’s nothing to say that’s where the rock stopped, though. For all we know, it could still be flying.”

She pointed to the ground, then double-checked the map. "Well, that light, it’s around here. More or less. Except for the fact that it’s a solid mountain, and there’s no way any light could be poking in."

"Are you saying it wasn’t daylight, sister?"

"I’m saying I don’t know. But it certainly lines up with our ambitions."

They clambered down the mountain in thought, and had to cross a narrow ridge — naturally with a sheer drop either way — to get to the next one. The few times he tried to say anything to Eirlys, she didn’t respond, and he realised she was pretty much dead to the world. So he got to thinking, trying to distract himself from the fact that if he wobbled too much either way he’d end up breaking every bone in his body.

"The American has to be another hiker, right?" he said. "I don’t want to sound rude, but you seem to get awfully lost in thought. Could it be that you somehow passed her by when she needed a Good Samaritan?"

Eirlys stopped, and hung her head in a way that looked kind of sad.

"Yeah, maybe," she said.

"Don’t worry, sister," he smiled in the way that priests have to. "I’ll keep an eye out."

She nodded, and they continued. The landscape blurred together as the hours dragged on, the sun reaching its peak and gliding back down. Saheel saw many breathtaking things, but he was quickly discovering there was only so much you could take in before it became normal. What he didn’t see or hear was anybody who needed rescuing.

He shivered — they were still high on the mountain range, and fog was rolling in. It slithered up to them unassumingly, cutting off a meter every ten minutes, until they suddenly couldn’t see five steps in front of them.

They stopped, and Eirlys checked her compass with the map.

"Ah, I’m starting to remember this, now," she said, showing him. "The fog rolled in, so I cut across the top of the mountain rather than taking the scenic route. We’ll probably have to do the same."

Saheel checked the remote, and sure enough, the arrow coming out of it pointed towards the mountain, wanting them to go back up and climb even more.

Half out of exhaustion, he said, "The scenic route around is flat, is it?"

"Yes,’ she said. "It’s ultimately the one we included in the book as the main route. We may have to scale a cliff or two on my detour."

"Well that’s got to be it!" he said. "Maybe the American woman’s blowing an SOS signal, or something, and you would have come across her, but you got turned around by the fog!"

"And she holds me responsible for that?" she asked.

"I don’t know," said Saheel. He didn’t want her to see him about to keel over with exhaustion, and he sure wasn’t about to complain — but he could certainly redirect. All he wanted to do right now was lie down. He prayed for strength.

"I think it’s worth us taking a look," he said. "Just on the off-chance."

She studied him up and down, face impassive, and then she said, "I asked you to tell me if you were feeling tired."

"I’m not tired," he panted. "I’m just…"

"It’s okay," she said. "We can go round the ridge, but it’ll take longer, and you need to stick as close to the wall as possible."

"You don’t think I haven’t been doing that all day?" he said.

They set off round the mountain, and as the fog got thicker, Saheel took to holding onto Eirlys’ rucksack so he didn’t lose her while he watched where he was stepping. He couldn’t even see the drop that was a couple feet to his left.

"Hello?" he bellowed. "Anybody out there?"

But the only thing that came back was the echo of his voice, muffled by fog. The birds had long stopped chirping, and the wind grew stagnant.

He yelped as his foot dislodged a rock and nearly went tumbling, but he managed to recover.

"Are you okay?" asked Eirlys. "Do you want to stop?"

"There’s somebody out there who needs our help," said Saheel. "We can’t afford to stop."

"I’m serious," said Eirlys, "Don’t push your—shit!"

Saheel had stepped onto a landslide and loosened a rock that just so happened to be holding everything together. Eirlys’ mountain climbing reflexes kicked in and she leapt to the side, scrabbling for handholds in the cliff. As soon as she secured herself, she reached out for him — but he wasn’t so adept; the floor crumbled to pieces under him, he was swept away with the incredible current of loose stones, cresting a ridge, and then he plummeted.

His stomach migrated to his throat, and he screamed. In that brief moment before he hit the ground, he realised exactly how Eirlys had sent the American to her death.