Mahon carefully shifted his weight on a tiny hold. He pressed hard with his toes to make sure he wouldn’t slip and then proceeded into the next move. He stretched his leg ever so slowly, taking extra care not to unbalance himself. In such a precarious position, a too deep breath could push him from the wall just enough to cause him to fall.
There was nothing to say about what pushing too fast on his leg could do.
Sweat dropped from his face as he strained his muscles to pull himself up. Mahon had to turn his head to the side to keep his balance, his cheek scraping against the rock. His leg trembled as he continued to push slowly on it, but Mahon gritted his teeth and tried to forget his very uncomfortable position.
At first, the climb had been just like any others. But after six hundred meters of ascent, the difficulty had changed. In the beginning, it had just been a few moves that were harder than the rest. But the more they progressed upwards, the harder the moves became until Mahon was faced with a full section as flat as glass.
Up to there, the climb had been grueling and tiresome, and Mahon and Jorik, who had started climbing just a few months ago, were still a bit sore from all the previous ascents. The section Mahon was actually climbing was one the worse so far. Still, he refused to let that stop him.
The rock was so smooth and featureless that it seemed impossible to find any hold, but Mahon observed carefully how Halueth went with it, and he copied to the best of his abilities what the old man did. The only thing going in his favor was that the cliff was slightly angled in the positives, giving him the possibility to balance himself on very tiny indentations.
Climbing, however, required that he moved upwards, and keeping his balance while rising was an entirely different challenge. Mahon fought against his constant urge to stop stressing his muscles and get a good stretch. It would simply lead him to his fall, and he could only endure it for now and until the next rest. Alas, there was not a single rest on this section. So Mahon kept going higher and higher.
As he climbed, he found tiny holds, some no bigger than his fingernails, and Mahon clung to them as if his life depended on it. Which was actually not that far off from reality. There were so few cracks that there were meters between two climbing nails, and falling from this height would cause him to break a bone or two.
Mahon focused on his breath, keeping it steady as he grappled a minuscule dent in the wall with his index, and pushed again on his legs. The climbing shoes were doing a miracle to keep him stuck to such a wall, and if he hadn’t climbed so much previously, Mahon would never have trusted them enough to place all his weight on almost invisible dimples.
He had to be extremely careful not to lose his grip, as a single mistake could mean his fall. It was proving challenging to resist directly teleporting to the top and skip the whole section, but there was something in Mahon’s mind that prevented him from doing so.
People before him had succeeded in climbing this cliff. Paegis himself had gone through all of it. If Halueth and Ranaeril judged him good enough to pass it, then he couldn’t disappoint them. And so he persevered.
Step by step. Hold by hold. Meter by meter. Climbing nail by climbing nail.
He endured, and in the strain he found some kind of peace. Climbing was similar to training in many aspects. He was on his own against himself. It was a challenge he had to overcome alone. Only he was responsible for the outcome.
As Mahon neared the end of the section, he could feel his forearm strength beginning to fade. His fingers ached, and his legs trembled with exhaustion. But he refused to give up. With a smile that bordered on the grimace’s side, he dug deep within himself and found the reserves of energy he needed to keep going.
When he grabbed Halueth’s short rope that secured him to the cliff and finally reached a flat platform where he could rest, Mahon let out a deep sigh of satisfaction.
“A good one, right?” Halueth commented with a large grin.
The old man seemed as fresh as at the beginning of the day. Clearly, Mahon was very far from being efficient in climbing compared to him. Seeing Mahon’s sweaty face, trembling legs, and tired look, Halueth chuckled and his grin grew even larger.
“What? You thought you could understand everything about climbing in just a few months? It takes a lifetime to master!”
Halueth’s laugh echoed on the wall, while Mahon finished installing his setup to let Jorik join him and experiment for himself the joy of climbing.
The day continued like that, and until they reached the first signs of snow. Fortunately, if they were climbing half of the time, they were resting the other half while their partner was climbing himself. Without that rest time, Mahon knew perfectly he wouldn’t have been able to climb that far.
He had a very good endurance, but not towards climbing, and especially not for such long distances on such hard itineraries. When the group finally reached the snow, however, he knew his journey was almost complete.
They had trained climbing on snow before, obviously, and Mahon knew what to expect. The dangers were different, as avalanches were a very prominent risk. But it wasn’t as physical as climbing on rocks. Or at least in a very different way.
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Climbing was very demanding on the body, but just for a few muscles. Forearms, shoulders, legs, and core strength. It was especially taxing on the forearm, which was usually a tiny muscle that couldn’t endure long. Mahon didn’t really feel tired in the end. His forearms ached like nothing else, and his fingers barely closed from how sore his muscle was, but that was it.
Snow climbing, however, was a very different story. For Mahon, it was more like running or swimming. It engaged the whole body’s muscles and took a heavy toll on someone’s energy.
After a climbing session, Mahon wasn’t really hungry. The adrenaline and the very specific muscle activations made him tired instead. After a session of snow climbing, however, Mahon could eat like three people. The low temperature, the difficulty of moving through snow, the engaging challenge of not going too fast not to produce sweat and risk freezing… Everything was demanding and taxing, but at a different level.
Rock climbing was about maximal strength. Snow climbing was about endurance. And Mahon was really good at endurance.
They switched their normal climbing shoes to snow climbing shoes with metal poles to help them pierce through the harder parts of the snow and stabilize themselves even in a vertical cliff.
“We’re about three hundred meters to the summit now.” Halueth indicated. “The weather is really good, but be extra careful. This snow can be tricky sometimes. Follow in my footprints, but leave enough space to dodge an avalanche, should it occur.”
Without more words, Halueth entered into the snow, planting his feet deep inside to make sure he wouldn’t fall. In his hands, he had two ice axes that helped him both dig through the snow and create holds for his hands.
He moved much slower than on the rock, double checking every hold he was putting his weight on to make sure it wouldn’t collapse afterwards. Contrary to rock climbing, there wasn’t a clear path to follow, as the snow was identical everywhere they looked. The difference was in feeling how hard the snow was, and what was its chance of resisting the passing of four men.
Halueth moved efficiently and stopped after thirty meters, where he found a relatively stable platform. There, he gestured for Ranaeril to catch up to him. He wouldn’t dare go to the full length of the rope for fear of not finding any good resting place later on. As soon as he found one, he would stop, and Ranaeril would follow.
They had done this exercise dozens of times already, and Mahon gave Ranaeril enough space before he followed behind. It was easy to follow on the two Hunters’ footprints, simply because of the holes left behind by the snow climbing shoes and the ice axes through the snow.
Mahon placed his foot exactly where Halueth had placed his own, and he planted his ice axes in the same places Halueth had planted his own. He always checked that the holds were still good enough for him to pass, and then he proceeded forward.
The pace was leisurely, but snow required constant vigilance. The conditions could change in an instant. If they stayed too long in one place, the sun or just their body heat could melt the snow and cause their resting place to fall down. It was another reason Halueth didn’t wait long before setting a belay point and asking for Ranaeril to catch up to him.
Halueth also proceeded carefully in a zigzag pattern, to make sure he was never directly above any of the three men. In the case of triggering an avalanche, they would have more chance of surviving if it didn’t fall straight on their head.
“It’s very thin here.” Halueth commented as they were now less than a hundred meters below the summit. “I’m not sure we can all pass.”
Ranaeril who was sitting near Jorik grimaced. “There is no other path?”
“I’ll try to look, but it all seems the same.” Halueth answered.
As if to prove his point, he hammered the snow just above him and small blocks of ice fell while his ice ax failed to plant itself deep into the snow. The old man started to move towards his left while probing the snow around him, but he didn’t find anything satisfying.
“It doesn’t seem to last long. There is something like fifteen or sixteen meters of thin snow, but I don’t think we can avoid it.” Halueth concluded shortly after.
By that time, Mahon had joined Jorik and Halueth, picked up the climbing nails and was ready to follow behind them again. Halueth hadn’t much time left, since the others were all grouped at the same place. They both released more heat and weighed heavier now that they were three.
“Go for it then” Ranaeril told him back while he looked at Mahon and Jorik trying to take as little space as possible while he belayed Halueth. “We’re a bit crowded here, anyway.”
The old Hunter stared down and realized the other three were now packed together, and he nodded.
“Ok. Let’s do it this way then. Mahon and Jorik, you’ll have to carve out your own steps. I don’t think mine would last long enough for the four of us.”
Mahon and Jorik exchanged a look.
“Why is it always when I’m the one climbing first that such things happen?” Mahon grumbled, but he nodded anyway.
Halueth picked up the pace, not wanting to spend longer than necessary on thin ice either. A few minutes later, he passed above the dangerous zone, secured another belay point, and gestured for Ranaeril to start his ascent. Since the snow wasn’t safe, Mahon waited patiently for the chief of the Silent Bow Clan to move all the way through the thin ice area before he climbed.
He first followed in Halueth’s footprints before deviating a bit to the left and starting to carve his own way. He proceeded carefully, triple checking the snow at every step.
There was a delicate balance to find when hammering ice. Too weak, and the ice ax wouldn’t even stick to the ice. Too strong, and there was a higher chance of cracking the ice and triggering an avalanche.
Mahon meticulously poked the snow above his head with his ice ax. The tool ricocheted on the ice at first, and Mahon struck with a bit more strength. A loud crack rang out in the valley, and the four men stopped instinctively.
A second of silence passed while they stayed perfectly still, praying that nothing bad would follow. Sometimes the snow moved and stretched, ripping on itself and breaking loudly in its depth but without any impact on the surface.
“Oh, shit...”
Jorik’s voice reached Mahon’s ears, and he immediately knew it wasn’t such a case.