The trip north had been hard, but I assumed that was because Aeld and Bregg were in a hurry. They wanted to reach that beach while the Oikies were still there, and that hadn’t wanted to give the quadrupeds a chance to reinforce the place against them. That explained the sunup to sundown travel and brutal pace we’d kept up. As it turned out, I was totally wrong. That was their normal pace.
Hurrying back south was a hell of a lot worse.
The next two weeks passed in a sort of endless torture. We ran constantly, eating and drinking on the move, stopping for an hour to rest at midday and four more at night. We had to sleep in shifts, though, so we each made do with two hours of rest before moving on, picking our path by the light of Aeld’s staff. If we’d been following the same trail we took back, it wouldn’t have been so bad. The other hunters had gone that route, though; we were headed sort of southwest, along paths that looked like no one had used them since the last snowfall.
My spell was helpful, but it wasn’t the godsend I’d hoped. Even with Draining Aura active, it drew too much power for me to keep it going all the time, so I started alternating it on and off for an hour at a time, using Draining Aura to refill the lost energy while the spell was off. I also ended up having to alter it a bit when I realized that while Bregg and Aeld were leaving tracks, I wasn’t; the ice spirits held me above the snowpack and ice crusts, so no footprints followed where I’d run. If it had just been Aeld and me, I might not have bothered, but Bregg’s eyes were sharp, and I didn’t want him spotting any anomalies I wasn’t willing to explain. That meant that I had to let my feet sink into the snow rather than it holding me up, and I quickly realized that the ground beneath that snow was not meant for running on.
Rocks and crevices hid beneath the serene crust of snow and ice, just waiting for a bare foot to step on them. My feet had gotten some conditioning on the trip north, but not enough to deal with that, and they burned and stung by the middle of the second day. I would have given my kingdom for a pair of Birkenstocks at that point, much less actual boots. My toes jammed into hidden stone shelves, and my ankles twisted as my feet slipped into cracks. Nothing seemed broken, but my feet throbbed as if they had been.
I thanked God—and Sara—fairly regularly for my new Pain is Gain ability. It didn’t make my feet hurt any less, but that pain sent adrenaline coursing through me, giving me new strength to keep going and push on.
Aeld was the first of us to slip, early in the fourth day, as he stepped on an icy patch and his left foot skidded outward, carrying him over the edge. I reacted without thought, diving forward and grabbing the back of his furred outfit, hauling him to a stop as he slid down the treacherous slope. I got a knee under me and pulled him out without too much effort, but at that point, Bregg had the three of us rope ourselves together at the waist. I was glad he did when Aeld slid again a few hours later, and only the rope kept him from plunging over the side of the narrow ledge.
“Bregg, you have to slow down,” I told him in a low voice after that. “A few hours aren’t going to make a difference.”
“You’re wrong, Hemskal,” he said flatly, pointing to the west. I looked up and swore at the dark clouds gathering there, creeping slowly our way. “Flikkur’s Battle is almost at an end, and its Rise is on the way. That’s the first of the storms we’ll see, and probably not the worst. If we dawdle up here, we could get snowed in, with even the higher paths too buried to take. Hours and days can make all the difference in the world.”
We had no choice but to slow to a walk as the storm broke over us several hours later, burying the world in swirling snow. The wind battered us, trying to pluck us from the ledges and hurling stinging ice into our faces. We trudged forward, leaning against the wind and pushing onward. The temperature plummeted, and the chill gnawed at me despite my Cold Resistance. My fingers and toes ached; my face burned; my ears throbbed.
We made shelter behind a wall of snow for the night, but I slept miserably, and I suspected the others felt the same way. The storm blew itself out early in the morning, but far to the west, I could see another line of clouds advancing our way. Bregg was right; that wasn’t the last storm we’d see, and it wasn’t the worst. Our only saving grace was that the storms seemed to drive the large predators either out of the mountains or into hiding. If we’d had to fight packs of ishvarns or a stornbyor in the middle of one of those blizzards, it might not have gone well.
Late in the sixth day, Aeld began to stagger, and by nightfall, he was barely able to walk. Apparently, he’d reached the limit of his ability to carry himself magically, and his body simply couldn’t keep up with Bregg’s brutal pace. The big hunter reluctantly halted, and we set up camp while the letharvis collapsed onto a pile of furs, asleep almost instantly. He hadn’t put up a ward, so to be safe, I drew a circle around the camp, sucking in the energy and funneling it back into the hunt spirit to replace some of what I’d taken from it. After that, I plunked down heavily in the snow, leaning against the icy mountain behind me, my entire body throbbing like a sore tooth.
“You’re keeping up better than I thought,” the big hunter said after a few moments of silence.
“No, I’m not,” I snorted. “I’m just too damn stubborn to quit.” I looked over at him. “Aeld can’t keep this up, though.”
“He’ll have to try,” the hunter said. “We don’t have a choice. The storms we’ve had so far were nothing. A big one could dump snow up to your waist on us, and if that happens, we’ll be hunkering down for a few days until the wind blows it off the higher paths.”
“Which will just let more storms come and bury us,” I sighed. “I get it. What I don’t understand is why you were all traveling here so close to when these storms would arrive. Aren’t your hunters having just as much trouble as we are?”
“Probably not. The path we took here from the valskab is easier, better trod, and shorter. Plus, the storms are worse this way; by the time they get that far east, they’ve dumped most of their snow and broken up around the mountains. We’re going the hard way.”
“Okay, I’ll bite,” I sighed. “Why are we going the hard way?”
“It’s the most direct route to the Aldhyor. We’ll cut down the center of the High Reaches and come out near the Northern Road leading directly there. It’ll cut a week off our travel time, easily—assuming that we get out of the mountains before we’re buried.”
We let Aeld sleep a full eight hours, and Bregg and I each grabbed a few hours of rest ourselves. When the shaman awoke, he was tired, but he seemed to have regained his spellcasting ability, at least. We wolfed down a hasty breakfast, then took off once more, trying to outrun the third storm that bore down on us.
By the eighth day, even Bregg was starting to flag. He slipped more frequently, and while he always caught himself, I dreaded the thought of the large, heavy hunter going over the side. Aeld was tired enough that he might go with him, and I didn’t think I could hold up both of the Menskies by myself. My eyes burned, my head throbbed, and my legs trembled whenever I tried to stand still. If it hadn’t been for my spell and Endurance skill, I’d have collapsed days ago.
Our luck almost ran out on the tenth day. We plodded wearily along a high, icy slope, trying to ignore the snow and ice driving against our hides, no longer able to keep up even a jog against the wind. Aeld slid and slipped along the path, his spellcasting abilities exhausted, and I followed gamely along behind, my head down, barely looking at my surroundings as my tired brain just struggled to stay awake. My head whipped up as a sudden crack ripped the air, and I looked on in horror as a head-sized rock next to Bregg burst outward, revealing a serpentine creature that looked like a furred snake with a long, crocodilian mouth and four short, powerful legs. The creature leaped from the hole that the rock had covered and slammed into the hunter, catching the large man by surprise and twining around his body. Bregg staggered from the impact and stepped backward—directly off the ledge.
Aeld shouted as Bregg plunged off the slope. The shaman grabbed the rope around his waist and tried to set his feet, but he lunged forward as the hunter’s weight yanked on him. He took two steps before tumbling forward, following Bregg in a headlong plunge over the ledge.
“Shit!” I swore as I grabbed the rope and jammed my heels into the ground, activating Adrenaline Surge as I did. My pain and weariness vanished, and I set my feet, pulling against the terrible weight trying to drag me downward. My feet slid against the icy slope, though, and I felt myself being dragged forward toward the edge of the cliff despite my struggles.
“Your spell, John!” Sara almost shouted at me. “Use it!”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
I grabbed the power in my center and channeled it downward. My stomach burned as the energy rushed out of me, something I hadn’t felt before, but I ignored it as I yanked the nearest ice spirits and bound them to my feet. I staggered as my soles finally found purchase and the full weight of the others came down on me, but I managed to take a step backwards, then another, dragging them up to the ledge one painful lurch at a time.
Aeld emerged first, scrabbling at the edge of the ledge and hauling himself upward, his eyes wide with fright. He rolled onto the ledge, and I sighed as the burden on me eased significantly. He rose to his knees, and together, we hauled the big hunter up to the ledge. I expected him to climb up, but he lay there, unmoving as we dragged his weight onto the icy shelf. I wondered if he’d hit his head—at least, I did until the dark gray, furry shape uncoiled from his body and flung itself at me, its fanged maw gaping.
My body responded before my exhausted brain even realized what was happening. My spear leaped toward the snake, catching it in the middle of its yawning mouth and plunging into it. The creature writhed on the end of the spear, its tail whipping about madly, but I jammed the spear into the icy ledge, stabbing the point deeper into its body. I twisted the haft, and the monster’s thrashing redoubled for several seconds before it finally fell still.
“What the fuck is that?” I asked, poking at the carcass with my spear.
“Lorvorm,” Aeld said tiredly, crawling on his hands and knees toward the unconscious Bregg. “And it bit Bregg. I have to draw out the poison before it reaches his heart and kills him.”
Part of me wondered maliciously if that would be a bad thing, but I sighed and looked down at the still monster. “Is it edible?” I asked.
“Yes, but I don’t know how to dress it without risking its venom, Freyd.”
I sighed and slid to a sitting position. That had almost been really bad; we were all tired, and if Sara hadn’t reminded me to use my spell to gain my footing, Bregg’s fall probably would have dragged us all off the ledge. I glanced downward; the next ledge was at least forty feet below, forty feet of ice, jagged rock, and pain had we fallen. Even if the fall didn’t kill one of us, someone would have been badly hurt, and unless Aeld could heal the injury, it would have pretty much spelled disaster for our chances to get down from the High Reaches in a reasonable amount of time.
“Speaking of pain, Sara, why did it burn casting that spell?”
“Because you didn’t have a chance to gather the power for it, John,” she explained. “You took the energy directly from your native power. The burning was the damage that did to your spirit.”
I shivered at the thought of my spirit being damaged. “Am I okay?” I asked.
“You’re fine—well, mostly. You didn’t take much, and you’ll recover. You might want to keep using your Draining Aura and channeling the power into healing it, though. You’ll heal faster that way.”
We rested another six hours while Bregg recovered, and Aeld and I each grabbed a few hours sleep during that time. When the big hunter awoke, he simply grunted his appreciation at the two of us, then led us off once more—albeit, this time at a slightly more manageable pace.
The temperature plunged again the next day as another storm rolled in, one with winds far too strong for us to fight against. To my surprise, Bregg had us break out our snowshoes at that point and move down into the valley below us. The mountains sheltered us somewhat from the driving winds, and thanks to my spell, I had no trouble walking in the snowshoes, but there wasn’t much I could do about the bitter cold. My body felt half-frozen as we trudged along. My fingers and feet were numb; my face stung from the cold; my lips struggled to shape themselves to make the sounds I wanted when I spoke. The biting chill sapped my strength, and despite my Endurance, hunger gnawed at my belly most of the day. The one good thing about fighting the storm was the notification that popped up somewhere just before dawn.
Due to a Special Action, your Ability: Cold Resistance has become: Improved Cold Resistance
Benefits: you suffer one-quarter of the penalties of cold and hypothermia. Temperatures below freezing feel only half as cold subjectively.
Apparently, forcing myself to endure the cold allowed Sara to adjust my body’s functioning to adapt to it. The bitter edge of the wind seemed to fade, and while I wasn’t warm, I stopped shivering and felt some of my energy starting to come back. It wasn’t enough to make the storm tolerable, especially since we couldn’t stop in it without risking being buried by the blizzard. It was, however, enough to stop my internal bitching about the trip and to quash my growing desire to say, “Fuck it” and set up my own camp to ride out the storm.
The storm blew itself out the eleventh morning, heading east and leaving the peaks shrouded in a pristine coating of bright, new snow. I looked around at the white sheet bedecked with jewels that covered the world, admiring the sun sparkling across its surface. The wind died to a more tolerable intensity, and as it blew the snow clear of the higher slopes, we were able to ascend and return to our distance-eating jog once more.
Over the next two days, the snow around us thinned, and the air seemed to grow slightly warmer. We returned to the valleys, running through a few inches of snow alongside trickling streams of snowmelt that burbled southward. Those streams steadily grew as the snowline crept higher on the surrounding peaks, revealing gray stone slopes. Water ran in rivulets down the mountains, occasionally joining into splashing waterfalls that plunged anywhere from twenty to a hundred feet into deep, crystalline pools of icy but pure water.
As the air warmed, the ground beneath my feet began to feel softer and spongier, thick with gravel and silt, and I was finally able to stop using my spell to keep my footing. Near the streams, I saw the first plant life I’d encountered in this world. A covering of pale green coated the wet rocks, crawling across it with spidery tendrils that made it look more like moss than a normal plant. It grew thickly atop every exposed surface, even plunging into the shallow creeks and winding up the nearby slopes. As the mossy covering thickened, it felt almost like running on hard sod instead of rocks, something for which my feet were eternally grateful.
Sadly, the appearance of the moss also seemed to signal Bregg that we needed to pick up the pace. Our easy jog turned into a run, and despite the carpeted valley floors beckoning us, we once again returned to the higher slopes and ledges. These were wet with snowmelt and slippery, but when I glanced down and saw the valley floor where the moss grew less thickly, I understood. Erosion had apparently hit these warmer peaks harder than the northern ones, covering the valley floors with sheets of tumbled rocks hidden beneath the blanket of moss. While the moss was soft, it probably wouldn’t support the weight of one of our bodies, and I could easily imagine someone snapping an ankle when they stepped between two rocks or landed on one that rolled in a bad way beneath their foot.
Another storm hit us that night, but the snow this one dumped on us quickly turned to slush and then water that left the ledges slick and smooth, forcing us to slow once more. Bregg still pushed us with an almost manic fervor, though, and I was about to complain when a loud roar echoed in my ears. I glanced around and froze as I saw a wall of water rushing down the valley below me, probably only knee high but flowing with terrible force. The flash flood surged for maybe ten minutes as all the melted snows of the last storm surged southward in a rush, and I realized that the big hunter had another reason for keeping us high on the slopes—and for wanting to get out of the mountains as soon as possible.
My chest heaved as I followed the others up and down the peaks, climbing above the moss at times, then plunging back down into it as we followed a trail that I guessed only Bregg could see. The grueling pace began to tell, and we started taking more frequent breaks during the day as Aeld’s body simply couldn’t keep up with Bregg’s demands. Even the grizzled old hunter struggled, slipping frequently and stumbling over patches of broken rock, and I wasn’t really in any better shape. Only Pain is Gain kept me going, and by day thirteen, I stumbled along without really knowing what was happening around me. A glance at Bregg showed that he wasn’t much better off; if something had attacked us at that point, we’d likely have been fucked.
My ability couldn’t keep me going forever, though, and as the sun rose on the fourteenth morning, I knew that I was at the end of my rope. I wasn’t the only one; we moved at a plodding pace, barely stumbling forward. Aeld staggered and fell multiple times that day, even sliding down the ledge a few times, his magical well exhausted and his body too weak to continue. I wanted to tell the old hunter to fuck off, lay down on the ledge, and sleep for a day or so, but a glance behind me convinced me otherwise. Dark clouds gathered to the northwest, and while it looked like the fury of the storm was going to miss us, I remembered the wall of water rushing down the valley. If something like that caught us, we’d probably all be dead. That thought kept me going, putting one drained foot in front of the other.
The storm swept over us two hours later, pelting us not with snow but with fat droplets of water that matted my fur and weighed me down even further. The rain ran along the stone ledges, making them slick and slippery, and Aeld fell hard twice more as he staggered along. Pretty soon, I knew, Aeld wouldn’t be able to keep going, and I wondered if Bregg would insist on carrying him. It seemed stupid—all we had to do was stop at a wide space and rest for half a day or so, and we’d all be able to push on once more—at least, until a rumble and roar caught my attention. I looked across the valley, peering myopically through the rain, and stared at a flood of water and mud rushing down the side of one of the mountains, eating through the trail there and tumbling into the stream that was almost a river below. I looked up at the slope nervously; if something like that hit us, it would fling us off the mountain with ease. I doubted my spell would help me stand against that much water, and even if it did, it wouldn’t work if the trail beneath my feet collapsed.
Even so, I was at the end of my rope, and I knew it. We plodded up a relatively mild hill, and my calves burned and screamed at the gentle ascent. My back and shoulders knotted painfully, forcing me to shift and twist in a vain attempt to loosen them up. Aeld staggered often, and I had to reach out and stop him from stepping off the trail several times. Even Bregg slumped as he walked, his seemingly inexhaustible well of endurance spent. We were done; we needed rest, and soon, or we’d all end up at the bottom of the mountain. I resolved that the next wide spot we found, we were stopping, whatever the fuck Bregg said about it, even if I had to cut the damn rope tying us together.
As I rounded the mountainside, though, that determination vanished. I stopped and stared at the vista spreading out below me, my tired brain struggling to process what it was seeing.
“Congratulations,” Bregg said heavily, slumping to the ground and panting heavily. “We’ve reached the Haelendi. Now, we can rest.”