As I hung onto that icy cliff face and I heard the shriek of the wyver in the blizzard wind, I thought as though my hands might betray me. That by some treachery of my numb fingers, I would fall and plummet into the whirling abyss below. And it was only with the second, closer howl, that I found I was still alive and clinging to the ice wall.

With renewed speed, I swung my ice axe, sinking the implement secure into the frost. Freezing snow pelted me as my boots scrabbled to gain purchase on the cliff face. Even with my crampons and my training, the near vertical climb had proved difficult. And it was only when I was halfway up that the beast had conveniently announced itself.

With a great tumult of force, the wyver plunged into the cliff side, using its body to try to knock me off. The only thing that saved me was the terrible snowfall, blinding the creature. I looked down to see great wings of scales and snapping jaws smash into the ice before falling off and taking flight again.

Hurriedly, I slammed my ice axe into the cliff and continued climbing. I gave up on my useless feet to push me upward, instead relying on my arms. With quick strikes, I struggled up the cliff face, not only pulling up my body weight, but my knapsack, and the great sword Caliburn too. With each painful lurch of my shoulders, I thought my arms might be pulled out of their sockets.

The wyver came back, howling furiously as ever and swooped down to rake its claws along the mountainside, tearing out great gashes of ice. It flailed in its attack, again throwing itself with mad abandon against the cliff.

It missed only barely. The gushing gale of its pass blew up my blue mantle, flapping wildly in the wind.

I cried out in pain as I swung my ice axe again, hoping that there was a crevice or perhaps some cover with which I could obscure myself from the beast. As it happened, I did not look upwards, not wishing to hesitate with how much farther I would have to go. And it just so happened I could not see that far anyway.

Groaning in pain, I swung the ice axe again. I am sure if I had time to think, I would’ve been tempted to loosen the straps of my knapsack, or even forsake Caliburn, throwing them down below. But these terrible weights were also my lifelines, and if I abandoned them, there was no guarantee I would find them again.

And I hope, if that temptation had ever come to me, I would not have considered abandoning Caliburn so easily. It was Berenice’s last gift to me.

I swung the ice axe again, each time frustratingly finding more ice. The wyver’s shriek was a shrill noise that grated the ears above the cacophony of the blizzard. It was akin to the piercing cry of a hunting bird given weighty scales instead of nimble feathers. I would’ve shouted back at it, but my chest was agony, and it was all I could do to swing the ice axe up again.

The wyver rounded away for another plunge, and just as I swung, my axe found air and sank awkwardly onto the flattened ground. The unexpected motion nearly caused me to lose my grip and tumble down. I saw that I had come to a wide ledge on the mountainside. The gentle outcropping ran along farther than I could see, and I didn’t have time to speculate on its size.

Finally, crying out in great pain, I swung my legs onto the rocky shelf and clambered up, rolling onto the ledge on my side. My arms and shoulders were reduced to terrible gouts of pain, feeling as though many nails had been run through them. I wanted nothing more than to lay there and suffer, but I knew the danger had not passed.

Crawling to my feet, I had just pushed myself onto all fours when the wyver clipped me as it crashed into the mountain.

The world turned to a confusing blur of white and grey as I was sent flying along the ice shelf. It was a miracle I did not impale myself on my own ice axes. All I can recall is a great plume of snow and rocky debris exploded from the mountainside. And in the whirling haze, I came to my senses as great, piercing shrieks of pain came from the beast as it writhed a short distance away.

In my delirium, I clenched my numb fingers, unsure of whether I was still holding my tools. In my foggy vision, I glanced at my hands and realized I was not. With only instinct guiding me, I reached back for Caliburn, only to discover I did not have the strength to lift my arms above my head.

The wyver panted as it recovered, slithering its long neck against the shelf towards me. Its claws scraped weakly against stone and ice as it crawled on its belly like a snake. My strength had still departed me, and I had not the energy to get up and run. Light-headed, I glanced this way and that, my addled thoughts straining to think of what to do.

I saw one of my ice axe had fallen a short distance away, and I threw myself towards it, inching closer with gasps of pained breath. The scraping noise of the wyver was terrible on my ears, like the slow rush of stone before the avalanche. The sound and the creature’s snarling jaws compelled me to push myself past what I thought possible.

Desperate second by desperate second past, until at the final juncture, the creature gave a piercing cry and lifted its head above, aiming to snatch me up and devour me whole. It lunged for the final strike as I clenched my fingers against the ice axe. With the last of my strength, I threw myself upward and rammed the ice axe into the wyver’s eye.

The beast recoiled and let out a howl of shrieking pain as blood gushed out from the wound. I fell on my back as the wyvern retreated back on the shelf, clawing at its eye and trying to get the implement out.

I laid on my back, my strength utterly spent as the creature howled in rage and thrashed a short distance away. Its movements were growing pained and slowed. As much as I wanted to credit myself for striking the creature, I watched breathlessly confused. I did not think I wounded it so badly that it would be acting this way.

A minute passed, and I loosened the straps on my knapsack. Pulling myself loose from the heavy weight, I rolled over and planted a hand on the rock as I pushed myself up. Stumbling over to the beast, I unsteadily unsheathed Caliburn. The wyver’s head was now resting on the ground, its limbs jerking uncontrollably.

I noticed a great scar ran along its neck, a terrible wound that sank so deeply into its flesh I struggled to understand how this creature would’ve lived. It was as if the animal had had its throat torn out.

Unsteadily, I stepped over for the final blow, hoping to finish what some long-forgotten adversary had started. But as I lifted the sword, I hesitated. It was not out of pity for the creature, for there can be no pity between man and such beasts. However, after surviving such an encounter, I discovered my fear of death again.

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I like to think it was out of my newfound concern for my oath to Berenice—and perhaps it was. But perhaps it was the terror of the creature, or perhaps it was the terror I found of myself, that my weakness would finally be the end of me. And perhaps it was none of these things, that it was some machination of my mind yet hidden to me. It is true men often take action and contrive their reasons later.

And perhaps it was pity.

But rushing back out of the reach of its jaws, I stood a safe distance away and waited. The wyver’s green eye almost looked disappointed in me as it croaked, and as I realized shortly after, breathed its last.

After a minute passed without the rise and fall of its chest, I lowered my sword and rested against it, staring bewildered at the fallen beast. While I knew my strike with the ice axe would’ve caused it great pain, it was nowhere near enough to kill it. And it was then I understood what had happened.

It perished from the cold. The reason the creature had been hounding me so desperately was that it was dying from the freezing weather. And I, mistaking its death throes for a ploy, had forever lost my chance to proclaim I had slain a wyver.

It was strange, lamenting lost glory at this last crossing. At the time, there was no one I could tell save for the cannibals and the ghost men. However, it is a man’s nature to desire proof of prowess as a king desires to be worthy of a crown. All I could say now was that I had survived a wyver, not that I had killed one.

That difference crushed my heart even as I wept with joy that I had survived.

It is the eternal fate of mankind to cower before the boons of the Potentate, with the greatest men of history only half seizing the chances offered by the the divine hand. I could only balm my shame with the resolve that I would not lose such another crown to exhaustion again.

But as I took hold of my ice axe, lodged in the wyver’s eye, I found some grim humor. It is true in this age we need not fear the likes of dragons, for the land itself shall pile their corpses up more quickly than the swords of men.

However, as I wrenched my ice axe away, spilling more blood onto darkening ice, I wondered where this wyver had come from. If the land had been so hostile to it, how could’ve it been here? The great lizards were all dead, either bones in the ground or condemned to distant stars far beyond man’s reach.

This was a lesser son of a lesser son, far from the drakes birthed in the celestial fires, and possibly so low as to be a cloned spawn from the decrepit line of Tiamat. As much as I wanted to remain and ponder this mystery, the toll of the blizzard was catching up to me. And the fight with the wyver had done little to help.

I trudged back to my knapsack, and sheathing Caliburn, I found my other ice axe buried in the snow. I continued along the ledge looking for some shelter. The mountains were perilous. I could hardly see much ahead of me as I trekked down. It was all a grey expanse, and I could only just make out the dim peaks of the mountains rising in the distance. Their visage was made all the more haunting with the wreckage of ancient ruins silhouetting their dark slopes.

When a man is lost in the wilderness and seeking aid, he piles stones on top of one another to mark his trail. The smallest act of ordering rocks, something unbeknownst in all of nature, is a sign of himself to other men. It is the proof of his existence—the proof of his hand.

What I saw on that mountainside were those same stones now a civilization, long crying for help that never arrived.

All that was left were ghosts, condemning me for arriving centuries too late.

I took sight of one minaret in the distance, and I strove towards it, hoping to make that my camp. My exhaustion was such that I felt as though I might collapse in the snow. As much as I wanted to make rest here, hugging the steep mountainside, I feared that the storm would worsen overnight. It was hard to tell, but I thought the winds might be gaining strength, and if they worsened while I slept, I could be blown right off the mountain ledge.

And now I also had to worry about wyvers.

I grabbed the straps of the knapsack with my numb fingers, trying to cinch them tight as I continued down the mountain. The craggy rocks stuck out from the ice and snow like the mountain itself was trying to cause me to fall. As soon as I thought I had clambered to a safer trail, my foot caught on a new outcrop.

Curses flew from my tongue, but they did no good against the land nor the cold. The latter had sunk its icy fingers deep into my bones, and I feared that my body would suddenly betray me. But as I learned, I still had much to fear from the ground underneath my feet.

No sooner than I had taken another step than my foot found air as the snow collapsed underneath. A hidden crevasse opened before me, its depth plunging deep into the dark mountain. I tumbled and fell, but I was not without aid. With my Astronomer’s training, I twisted at the last moment. I threw my hands upon the edge even as the rest of me fell downwards.

My arms popped as my entire weight suddenly came upon them. My feet dangled over a dark nothingness, and with a great cry of pain, I lurched myself back up into safety. Panting heavily, I gave out a great cry of frustration at my near sudden death. Pounding my fist against the rock, bruising my hands, I was tempted to curse the Potentate.

How I wished to cry to the very heavens. “Save me if you must! But I shall take no step farther!”

But as my mouth grimaced into a sneer, I unsheathed Caliburn and tenderly ran my fingers along the side of the burnt blade. I wondered where Berenice was. She could only be a few days of travel away, but already it seemed like an uncrossable gulf had been placed between us. The choice was made. She was gone.

All that was left was an oath to fulfill.

I stood my groaning body up and lit the sword. Fire leaped from the blade. I did not care if it might attract more wyvers. I just wanted to be warm again.

The fire did ease me, but in its light, I saw something far better. Just in the distance, at the edge of my sight, I saw the darkness of a large cavern. It was astonishing to me that I had missed the cave, so large an opening in the rock face. However, it was concealed around a bend, and the terrible conditions made it all the harder to see.

I ran to its opening, and found that its mouth was split open by metal. It was if the ancients had pried the very earth apart as physicians clamp wounds open for surgery. The purpose was long forgotten, however, and all I could see of the entrance was the ragged remains of an aperture half shut. Inside was no less of a riddle. I shall call it a vault, although I would say cavern might’ve been a better word, for much of what remained was now rock. A great tunnel burrowed down, its size staggering. I raised my sword and quickly stepped into the darkness, grateful for a roof over my head.

Struts and rusted bracings held up a ceiling beyond my sight. I was but a speck, a candle in the night, but as I was so desperate for shelter, I was not threatened by this. The ground was dangerously uneven, and the debris of an old world was scattered before me like boulders on the mountainside. Their strange silhouettes followed me as I travelled deeper inside.

I came to an overlook of a vaster space than I could comprehend. My sword only lit a little of the underground, though I saw long rows of what I can only describe as paddocks extending into the distance. They were ruined heaps of metal barriers, but in each of them I saw heaps of skin having lost all identity. I knew they were animal, and yet I could not discern what they had been from this far.

At first glance, I thought this place might’ve been a tomb, but then there would’ve been no need for the barriers. A vivarium then? Now fallen to ruin and death. Though I suppose all zoos are already tombs of a sort, their simulacra of nature little different than the mementos on a gravestone. So it was I found myself in the land of the dead, twice over.

As much as I wanted to investigate further, I was too exhausted to climb down the broken stairs to the paddocks below. Seeking the walls, I walked for a distance until I came upon a passage breaking off from the main tunnel. I made my camp there and resolved to explore in the morning. And as I rested my head against my knapsack with my sword as a fire, I wondered what other secrets lay hidden in the depths of this mountain.