She traversed the last pass and saw the sunset firing the western sky and the settling vapors vaulted out of the black heart of the world. Below her the white mountain presided over the vale like an enthroned king over his winter hall. She set her eyes on the black thread of the river weaving back and forth along the floor of the valley and with her next step she finally processed into her homeland. She needed to get back to the delving. To [speak] to the stones along the way. To learn which armies had last passed, and whither they had gone. She needed to get back to her da.

Going so far and for so long without food left them hardened but weak. Daraway had [fired] their last flour two days ago. Mym kept them along the tracks of prey whenever they intersected their route, but without a [longarm] for shooting or time spared for trapping they hadn’t eaten a damn thing.

"There's a right sized hunk of elk waitin at home," she said and not for the first time. "Just keep yer eyes down and feet movin. Heels down on the plunge, aye? Try keepin te my steps."

The way down was treacherous. She had seen a dozen avalanches rip down this particular aspect in winters past. The trees at its bottom leaned at tortured angles and they missed bark and limbs from their exposed sides. The snowpack was hard and wet over soft and airy over ancient ice. She tried to not think about it.

The green moon rose above the right side of the valley, and on the slope a thousand feet below she saw a shrub where there shouldn't be any. A hundred paces later she looked again and saw that it had moved.

"Be ready te fight," she said.

Daraway looked up from watching her feet. "What?"

"Someone's comin."

Mym felt the slope unsettle under her next step and she heard the whump and she saw cracks shoot fifty yards in either direction.

"Shitfuck,” she breathed.

"Oy!" called the figure.

"Oy!" she called back.

"Slope's crackin!"

"No shit!"

"What do we do?" said Daraway.

She said, "Step up," but it was too late. The snowpack underfoot shuddered as if quaking and it slid away as it liquified. She reached for Daraway and with all her strength she drove her [alpenstock]'s spike all the way to its head. It didn't matter. Everything fell away. Daraway grabbed Mym’s hood but what a stupid thing to do for now Mym was sliding and now spinning end over end like a stone kicked off a cliff now faster and faster and the snow roared and the slide buried her and swirled one way under her and between her legs and another way over her and it forced her head down and her mouth filled with snow and she couldn't scream or even breathe and shards grated her face and pried the [alpenstock] from her grasp and contorted her arms and legs where it willed and the weight of it grew fuller and fuller as if the white mountain's entirety lay directly on her chest.

She jerked her arms but they wouldn't move. No part of her moved. She couldn't even turn her head or open her eyes. Freezing water poured down the back of her neck and streamed under her collar and wet down the hollow of her spine and around her hips and down her thighs. More of it came and her hair and clothing were soaked through. The pouring water now warmed until it scalded her neck and she flinched under it and her arms moved and her hands swung free and she rolled over and lifted her forearms against the flow and squinted against the hot air and the great billows of steam rising all around her with Daraway at their center, her palms down against the boiling snowmelt, her eyes glowing orange and focused wholly on Mym.

Khaz blew out of the frozen spray kicked up by the avalanche. "Oy! I can't believe it's ye. By the holy mountain I can't believe it." He ran to Mym and wrapped her in his arms and was instantly wet besides. "I can't believe it," he whispered into her ear.

"Khaz," she said.

"Ye alright?" He turned to Daraway and put hands on her shoulders, "Ye alright?" He turned back to Mym. "By my brittle bones that’s one way te get down a mountain. The slide had ye both for two thousand feet or more."

"Guess she couldn't wait to see you," said Daraway.

"How's da,” said Mym. “Tell me ye been te him. Tell me he's alright."

"Aye, aye, I been te him. Don't be worryin bout him right now. We need te get off of this slope and get ye out of them soggy clothes. There's a wind comin up enough te blow the life right out of yer livin bones. Can ye walk? I dropped me pack comin up. It's got dry woolies in it. Got a blanket ye can wrap in Dara. Come on."

He helped her up then turned to Daraway and gave her the biggest hug a dwarf can give, right around her middle. He stood back from the woman and looked up at her and nodded and then he looked at Mym and said, "Come on."

They followed him downslope. His trail through the bottom of the slide was taller than his head and she wondered at the strength of him that he had pushed through so quickly to reach them. They arrived at his discarded pack as the blue moon rose over the right wall of the vale and as an early winter storm came whipping over the left.

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He unrolled a nakwool blanket and cast it around her shoulders, "We need te get down te the trees before that hits us proper. Ye good for it?"

Her teeth chattered but she nodded.

"And ye?" he said to Daraway.

She held out her arm as if for him to feel. He touched her.

"Dried out already. Take care who knows bout that. Thayne’s smoker just quit on him and if he finds out yer made of burnin coal he's like te nail yer feet te the ground and hang raw cuts for cookin off yer elbows."

In the lee of a stand of birch they built a fire. The leafless twigs overhead seemed to shiver out of the dark like wicker fingers stretching out to the warmth. Mym shifted out of her clothes and into those Khaz had packed, and she noticed they were hers too.

"I was comin te find ye,” he said. “Damn armiger did somethin te me aboard the boat. Don't remember anythin cept wakin up in the hold. Yer pack was sittin there right next te mine. I hollered and pounded thinkin ye'd come but ye never did. Had te break the battens te get out only te find we were docked in one of Dara's slips down at seaway's end."

"Tell me bout da," she said.

"I'm comin te that. I looked for ye in the town, looked for ye both tellin truth. Checked that tavern but nobody'd seen ye. Plenty saw the armiger though, said he and his went on up the seaway days before. Stones didn't tell nothin. I set te home hopin ye were in front of me. Made the delvin."

"And da?"

He nodded but kept his eyes on the fire. It bent and waved and sawed the rising wind. "Yer da was about the same then as when we set out. Thayne wanted me te stay but I was already headin back te yer fishin town Dara. Learnt ye had come and gone again. Where'd she go I asked, but they wouldn't tell me. Had te rough up a pair te get it out of em. Sorry bout that."

"I'm glad you did," said Daraway.

He nodded. "They said ye'd gone te the sea of suns searchin for us. Knew I needed te get back too, but no way in hell I'm barkin asea again. I knew ye'd be comin back Mym so long as ye had legs te walk on. There isn't any way te get here cept the old high passes. So I ran on back up te the delvin te repack fer mountaineerin and, well, I'm afraid the world doesn't care enough te wait for me or ye or her."

"What do ye mean?"

"Things had changed."

"What things?"

"First, the keeper's come back."

"What?"

"Aye. Came back leadin them we left behind. Said he'd taken em into the wyndin's after some man came up and told em we were bested at the span and that a whole army of orcs were comin te take the delvin and slaughter anyone in it."

"He should've known better than te trust some man."

"Aye. Thing is he took em deep. Deeper than I've ever been. Deeper than anyone's been in thousands of years. So deep he says he saw livin signs of the blue dwarves."

"Nakshit."

"Blue dwarves?" said Daraway.

"Another myth," said Mym.

"Yet there they were," said Khaz.

"Ye tell him about the orcstone?"

"Aye I told all of em."

"What'd they think of it?"

Khaz poked at the growing fire with a stick. "Well different folk are thinkin differently. Seems like the oldest dwarves believe it least. Folks a bit closer te our age, they really want te believe. And sightins of the blue dwarves just split em down the middle. Some are ready te go seekin em and others are thinkin it’s a sign of the delvin's endin, of the whole world's endin."

"What's da say?"

He shook his head. "He's not good, Mym. He went te sleep like normal before the keeper came back. Thayne says he hasn't woke up since."

The wind came down through the trees to cut straight through her wools and leathers. Cold in her wet hair and in her wet eyes like the breath of the dead. She tried to ask but only managed, "Is he?"

He reached for her hand. "I can't say. He's showin some fight yet. He's, well, he's howlin yer name and yer ma's."

She stood up. "I got te get back."

"This storm's like te cut the boot track up the face."

"Doesn't matter."

"I know it, but nobody lucks through two slides in a life."

"Watch me."

He sat back from the fire and turned and drew her [longarm] and powder horn and a set of cartridges out of his pack. "Here," he said.

"They'll just slow me down."

He drew his own [longarm] and slung its strap over his shoulder. "We'll want em. Stones are sayin some strange things. Listen."

She closed up her coat and slung her [longarm] and horn and pocketed the cartridges. "Ye got anythin te eat?"

"Sure do, but ye aren't listenin."

"No time for it."

She hurried the others upvalley. The storm overcast the moons and howled off the ridges above. They crossed the stream at a ford made for that purpose. Snow bulged above its far bank, disturbed only by Khaz's previous coming. His heavy track through the forest ran like crack through a rib of the world. At the place where it joined the dwarfroad they saw other prints in the old snow as the new stuff started to fall. She stopped to read them.

"What's all this then?" said Khaz.

"Humans. A whole troop of em."

He knelt over a print and traced it with a finger. "And this?"

"A tall one. And heavy. Maybe one of them longhorned otaurs."

"They're hoofed. Like naks. This fellow's gone barefoot."

"Hard te see in this dark. Dara?"

Daraway snapped a candle flame out of her fingertip that danced in the wind.

Mym studied the prints. "Don't know what that one is, but altogether they got te be the armiger's. They're half a day ahead. Ye must've just missed em comin down the road."

Khaz flicked the snow from his finger and thrust his hand into his waistpocket. "Couldn't fly a gnat between us."

"Like as not they'll be hunkerin in this. We'll catch em."

Upvalley the storm ripped through the trees but the prints never diverged from their purpose. Khaz shouted in her ear to be heard over the wind. "They'll be halfway up the face by the time we make the foot."

"Then this blow'll wipe em off."

"Just as like to wipe us off."

"We have te go where they go."

He looked at her and she knew what he wanted.

She nodded.

They came to the place in the valley where the dark flumewaters met the wide stream and she saw the prints hooked right into the side draw. The snow whipped sharp bits of ice against her cheeks and lips and nose but she just stood there as if she couldn't believe her eyes.

She started to run.

The prints wound up the side canyon, following the trickling of the stream then passing the frozen foot of the flume's falls and the mound of snow covering the old jumble of stone dwarves. The prints ran straight into the granite wall of the mountain.

Khaz came beside her shaking his head. "I can't believe it. How the hell they know about it?"

Whoever they were, they had entered the traitor's gate.

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> Item Gained: [Mym's longarm]