Although the following day started bright and clear, by the afternoon the wind had picked up so much that it was hard to see anything at all. It grabbed the snow off the ground and flung it at them. The sky darkened, but it was hard to tell whether it was from the rising snow or because more was falling.
“Thar? Can you do anything about this?” D’Argen complained even as he searched his pack. He pulled out a hooded cloak that he handed off to Vinson and then another furred cloak, without a good, to Hortson.
Thar remained completely silent, standing tall as if the wind and snow were not trying to them all down. The scent of his mahee was indistinguishable but D’Argen still knew the man was using it. The wind was harsh, and the snow was cold, but it could have been worse. It probably was.
Once the two mortals were covered and D’Argen had found extra gloves for himself, Thar opened his eyes.
“It is covering the entire mountain,” Thar said, his voice quiet and barely heard over the wind. “I cannot hold it all back for long.”
“How long until we are out of it?” D’Argen shouted to ask the question.
Thar only shook his head in answer. They would have to wait it out. D’Argen looked at Vinson, deferring to him for having more experience.
“We can’t sit around and wait for it. We have to keep moving,” Vinson had to shout over the wind. He stumbled at a particularly strong gust but Thar grabbed his shoulder and righted him.
“Move where?” Hortson sounded like he was about to cry.
“Some type of shelter.”
“There is no shelter!”
“Then we move until we find one!”
“What about the tent?” D’Argen asked and took out a pair of hooks from his pack. He had completely ignored them when Borianna handed them off to everyone, but they looked like they would be useful now. Their grips were slippery through his gloves, but there was a strap to go around the wrist. The ends were sharp enough to kill a man.
When D’Argen realized he did not get an answer, he looked up. Vinson was saying something to the wind. Thar nodded after a moment.
“Check the rope!” Vinson shouted and the wind got stronger.
D’Argen was quick to put his pack back on his back and then turned to Hortson. The mortal was shivering so much that his teeth sounded like they would break. At least, they did when D’Argen was close enough to check the rope around him. It circled the man’s waist, looped down to his thighs, bordered his groin, and then looped back around his waist. The knot that connected him to D’Argen was tight and secure.
D’Argen leaned back so the wind would drown out the chattering and he watched as Thar and Vinson checked one another as well. Hortson’s hands were shaking when they yanked at the rope around his waist and adjusted something on his left thigh.
Then they started moving again.
It felt like they were going deeper into the snowstorm and he had to squint through frost-covered eyelashes.
The only reason why D’Argen knew his companions were still with him was because both sides of the rope were swinging and tugging as they walked. He tried to cover his face from the blowing snow and opened his mahee to feel around him, but it was completely useless. Instead, he used his serrated hooks every time he stumbled.
“Stop!!” A shout danced on the wind and it took D’Argen a long time to realize it was coming from behind him. He turned around. It was faint in the blowing wind but the tug at his waist was strong. He grabbed the rope and tugged back, two sharp jerks to indicate he had heard. He then turned forward and did three sharp jerks to where Thar disappeared in the white ahead of him.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Thar, however, did not stop. Nor did he use his mahee to make it more visible. The yank at his waist from the rope felt uncomfortable, squeezing him tight as he was tugged in both directions. The rough harness of the rope shifted, squeezing one of his thighs and pinching the skin around his hip on the other side.
Thar was not stopping. Hortson was not moving forward. And D’Argen was stuck in the middle of the two while the wind and snow tried to drive him into the ground.
“Stop!” Hortson screamed again and D’Argen was thrown off balance with how hard the rope tugged. The only reason he did not fall was because Thar, somewhere in front of him, was pulling him in the opposite direction. But he could not move, his feet slipping in the snow and the rope behind tugging insistently.
D’Argen could not see anything as the whiteout around him blew him about. He was honestly surprised Vinson knew what direction to go in, but he trusted the experienced climber to lead them to safety. He turned forward to where Thar and Vinson would be, but he could not see them. He let go of the rope behind him and grabbed the connection to Thar instead, yanking on it a few times in quick succession. Thar responded in kind and then the rope in front relaxed, making him feel less like his body may split in two.
If Thar shouted anything, it was lost in the wind and snow.
“Hortson! Come!” D’Argen risked shouting back. The wind was much louder than him anyway.
“No!”
As he was trying to figure out how to get Hortson to move, the yank at his back suddenly knocked him completely off his feet and he fell harshly onto his back, the breath blowing from his lungs painfully. Then he was covered in snow and it took him a moment to realize that the pull continued, dragging him even with Thar and Vinson in front.
Shouting came from all sides, the wind and snow accompanied by voices and then the ice under him shook and the snow covered him completely. One of the hooks was torn from his hand and that was when he remembered he had them. He swung the other one, though it did not catch on anything but snow.
A sudden stop with a harsh tug from the front made him realize that one of the others had stopped their slide. Then it seemed it was not enough because he was sliding backwards again. D’Argen tried again and again to use the hook to catch onto something, but it never latched onto anything at all and then suddenly, there was nothing under him.
The wind was loud but it stopped battering him, the snow was crumpled but flaking off of him, and D’Argen could finally see as he fell.
Another harsh tug had him scream in pain and he looked down to where Hortson was hanging only by the rope and then tried to look up. Snow fell into his eyes, but he saw that the rope was hooked over the edge of a break in the ice.
Another harsh yank down and he saw Thar fall through the crack before they were stopped again.
“Wall! Latch onto the ice!” D’Argen screamed though he was not sure Thar would get it right away, it had taken D’Argen a moment or two to realize what had happened too.
Thar was quick though, reaching with both hands for the ice wall. Just as his fingers connected, the rope snapped and the three of them shouted as they fell.
Vinson never made it over the edge with them.
D’Argen closed his eyes and opened his mahee, but there was nothing he could push off of to make him run, and he knew that Thar was their only hope. As suddenly as he thought it, the rope around him tightened once more, yanked so hard that he gagged, and then squeezed even harder.
This time, he felt something snap inside his body. Then came the pain and D’Argen could see nothing but blinding white and feel the snowstorm above raging in his veins as he screamed in pain.
“D’Argen!” Somebody called his name, but he could not concentrate or register who. The pain at his waist and hips where the rope was tied around him was immeasurable. He could only close his eyes tight and grit his teeth, trying to swallow down the screams.
There was another shout of his name but he felt the world spark to life behind his closed eyelids when the weight under him started swinging. The rope felt like it had torn through his clothes and was burning at his skin, squeezing him so tight that it hurt. His entire left leg was numb except for the stabbing and burning pain in his hip where the rope was tied wrong.
“Stop moving!” That shout, he recognized as Thar. But Hortson did not stop moving and D’Argen screamed again as the weight moved harshly and the rope pulled him down further.
He heard his name shouted one more time and suddenly he was weightless, with no pull behind or in front, nothing at all touching his body, and he felt like he was running, so fast that even the ground beneath him was useless. It felt like he was flying.
Falling.
The pain returned with the rope snapped tight around him yet again and it was so harsh that the darkness took over and he felt nothing at all.