by D. H. Dunn
Under Everest
Fractured Everest - Book One
D. H. Dunn
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
The story continues in Seas of Everest
Acknowledgments
About the Author
The Fractured Everest Series
Free Prequel, Mailing List and Reviews
Kindle Edition - 2018
Seaside Tower Press LLC/D.H. Dunn
dhdunn.com
ISBN: 978-1-948324-01-4
Copyright © 2018 D.H. Dunn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
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Cover artwork and design by Holly Heisey
Edited by Joshua Essoe, Mia Kleve
Published by
Seaside Tower Press, LLC Publisher
D.H. Dunn, Publisher
Created with Vellum
1
“I needed to go. The pull of Everest was stronger for me than any force on Earth.”
—Tenzing Norgay
November 1, 1951
Just outside Gorak Shep, Nepal
As she struggled up the rocky wind-swept face of Kala Patthar, Nima was certain that the figure she pursued was not human. Through the blowing snow and wind that pierced the night like an icy sword, she could see the glimpses of white fur covering a huge form, hints of magical colors danced across its back.
The fur might just be a coat, a practical voice in her head reminded her. A voice that sounded a lot like her mother, right down to the hint of condescension. Your eyes are tricking you.
Maybe they were. If this was the creature of myth her grandfather had delighted her with stories of, it was hurt. It was at home in the mountains of the Himalaya even more than Nima’s people the Sherpa, she should never have been able to chase the figure effectively. Even though she struggled, she was gaining ground.
Kala Patthar was little more than a hill, nothing compared to the mighty mountains that surrounded the tent city of Gorak Shep, nestled deep in the Himalayas. Hill though it might be, its incline and slick surfaces worked against her, pushing fresh aches into her muscles with the strain.
Slung over the figure’s shoulder, Nima could see the unmoving form of her client. Kidnapped just moments before from their camp below, an impossibility out of legend was now pounding through the snow above her.
She could hear Drew Adley’s heavy boots crunching through the mixture of snow and stones farther down the slope. Ever-present since she had fished him out of a crevasse six months earlier, she wasn’t surprised the American had followed to help.
“You okay?” Drew yelled ahead to her, his voice broken and hoarse. Along with her brother Pasang, the three of them had been climbing in the Himalayas all summer and were well acclimatized. He was out of breath from the chase, not the altitude.
She glanced over her shoulder, giving Drew the thumbs up gesture he had taught her. She could barely make out his tall form through the whirling snow between them, his brown hair blowing in the gale.
Their client had been taken suddenly, a pale shadow emerging from the blowing snow and grabbing the woman from right in front of Nima. Drew had been nearby at their small camp, packing their tents. Hearing Nima’s cry he must have run after her, clearly forgetting to grab his hat.
She cursed again under her breath hoping her mother’s spirit did not hear her. Surely her Ama was already judging her even from death. She would never have approved of this crazy plan to earn money and save her father’s farm, to say nothing of risking her younger brother Pasang in the process. As always, Nima was not good enough.
She pushed her crying legs farther up the slope, her boots skidding on the mixture of stones and snow. Behind her, she could no longer hear Drew’s labored ascent. She suspected he had gone back to Gorak Shep, perhaps to Pasang, who Drew had sent ahead for supplies.
Nima had no time to look back and check, she kept her eyes focused on the laboring shadow ahead of her, the woman slung over its shoulder like a pack. This was about more than an innocent woman’s life at stake, more than just a client who had hired them to guide her around the region. This beast out of legend was trying to steal away with Nima’s only hope for her family’s future. Without the money Wanda Dobrowolski represented, all would be lost.
The wind whipped another icy gust down Kala Patthar’s slopes, a wind surely borne farther north, from Chomolungma, Mount Everest to Westerners like Drew. It was cold enough to cut through Nima’s clothing, forcing her to stop and shield her eyes.
A quick glance above her showed the hulking shape had also been halted for a moment by the weather, the beast turning its captive away from the wind as if it were shielding her from the chill.
“Hey!” she shouted up the mountain, forcing a smile against the icy air biting at her skin. “I am coming for you! You cannot hide from me!” She laughed up at the struggling white form, forcing her joy to fill her limbs with new life. She was cold, but so was her prey. Perhaps this was no Yeti after all, it seemed to be affected by the weather just as she.
Gritting her teeth in a grin, she pushed herself forward again. Finding the strength to run was easy, she had only to think of her Ama’s frowning face. She kept her smile despite the imagined disapproving visage, the gesture itself an act of defiance. Her boots pounded out a steady rhythm as she closed the distance.
Through the dim light she could see the woman struggling, her captor slowed further by her efforts.
Nima ran even harder, pushing off the ground with her hands, clawing at the small mountain’s icy stones and pebbles to gain more purchase. She was close enough now to smell the sweat of the figure’s exertion, hear Wanda’s cries over the wind. With just one more step, her hand would be close enough to grab onto the white fur that danced in front of her.
One more step.
With a small pop and a flash of lavender, the figure blinked away just as Nima was about to reach it. One moment it was towering in the snow, framed in the snow right in front of her. The next, her glove was empty as she saw the beast’s faint form suddenly reappear twice as far up the mountain as before.
Nima gasped, small purple sparks still dancing in the air where her quarry had stood just an eye-blink before. She froze in place, her heartbeat pounding in her chest. Fatigue began to overtake her as her mind tried to process what she had seen.
It had simply va
nished; blinked away. Magic, just as her grandfather had insisted existed in the world. For a moment she could feel the wonder she had shared with her grandfather as a little girl, sitting on his knee as Pagaga told her stories of kings and dragons, wizards and magic.
Frustration began to overtake her other emotions. Nima dropped to one knee, her chest heaving from the effort of running up Kala Patthar’s slick surface. Working so hard, to get so close, only to have it mean nothing. Dozens of meters above her she saw the shadow was hunched over as well, affected, she supposed, by the effort of exerting its sorcery.
The fire that powered her pursuit still burned inside her. In her mind she could see herself running up the mountain, tackling the figure to the snow, freeing their client, and restoring her dreams of paying off her father’s debt.
Her legs betrayed her hopes, their strength weakened from her charge up the mountain. All she could muster against the incline was a slow walk forward, while her prey moved farther out of sight, carrying with it poor Wanda and any hope for Nima’s family; lost into the wind and snow.
The roar of Drew’s motorbike ripped suddenly through the air behind her. She looked back down Kala Patthar’s slopes and could see the lone headlight shining across the glacier as it exited the tent city.
The bike sounded hoarse―Nima remembered Drew was still waiting for a new engine part from Kathmandu―the sputters and coughs audible even over the howl of the winds.
Drew raced the bike up the slopes toward her, extending one arm to allow Nima to leap on behind him. It was a move they had practiced and played at many times during the summer, the three of them just passing idle time. Pasang had been better at it than Nima, but then it had only been a game. This was real.
As Drew roared by, Nima leaped onto the back of the bike, landing clean and quickly wrapping her strong arms around the bigger American. She was grateful he had not slowed down, he was taking this as seriously as she was.
“How did he get so far ahead?” Drew yelled over the noise of the engine.
“Magic!” Nima yelled back, gripping even harder as they skidded on a section of exposed rock on the ice. There was no time to explain, though if anyone might believe her it was Drew.
Above them, the figure was looking back down the slope as they sped up toward it. From this distance and seen through the snowy gale, it was just a vague hulking shape again.
Drew bore down on their target, starting to slow as he approached. With help from a mechanic at the local temple, Drew had modified the tires to deal with the snow, but ice and rock at an incline were another matter. He was slowing to keep them safe, but this was no time for safety.
Nima reached around Drew, put her right hand on the throttle and twisted it. The motorbike’s engine roared with increased speed.
“Nima, what the hell?” Drew yelled. Working against her grip, he eased the throttle back as the bike began to shimmy. Nima stood while still holding the handlebars along with Drew. The boost had been enough; the beast was now in range.
With a yell Nima leaped off the back of the bike as Drew passed the shadowy figure, sending her crashing into it and its captive. The trio went to the ground in a collection of limbs as Drew swerved his bike around.
Nima landed on the hard snow a meter away and scrambled toward the pair of bodies. She rushed toward the large prone figure, her hands pushing into the fresh snow. Catching full sight of her prey, she gasped.
It truly was a Yeti, looking just as her grandfather had described. It was covered in white fur except for portions of its face where the skin looked blue in the dim light. It seemed a bit taller than Drew, but far bulkier. She could see the hints of what looked like crystals pushing through the fur around its shoulders, the sharp outcroppings glowing purple with a dim internal light.
The beast began to rouse, shaking its head and struggling to get up when Wanda gave it a solid elbow to the face. Cursing in a language Nima had never heard before, the Yeti threw the woman off him.
Nima was not about to let the Yeti use its magic again. With a shout, she got to her feet and threw herself on top of the creature, driving her knee into its dense stomach with all the force she could muster.
Nima felt a brief tingle of energy as purple sparks began to cover both her and her prey. She gasped for breath, her lungs suddenly empty as if the air had been pulled out of them. A whine filled her ears as the sparks increased, then she felt a heavy weight slam into her, knocking her clear of the creature.
Pinned under Drew’s heavier form, she watched helplessly as the Yeti blinked away, leaving behind the same lavender wisps as before.
Nima pushed Drew off her, rolling to the side and quickly standing. Through the dim light of the darkening sky, she could see the Yeti now sliding down Kala Patthar’s far slope. Bereft of its captive it seemed much more agile. Its form passed into the mists surrounding the Khumbu glacier and was quickly disappeared into the darks of the valley.
“I saw what it was doing,” Drew said, kneeling beside her. “I didn’t want to lose you, too.”
She lay flat on her back, looking up at Drew’s concerned face framed by the clouds of the cold night sky.
“You saw it then?” she croaked. “You saw . . . what it was?”
He nodded, his gloved hands going up to cover his ears against the cold. He shook his head, a sigh escaping in a cloud of vapor.
“Yeah, I saw it, little sister. I can’t explain it, though. If you weren,t here to see it, too, I’d have thought I’d gone crazy.” He put his hand out, and she allowed him to help her stand.
Wiping the snow from her eyes, she stomped her feet against the chill.
Her brows narrowed as she faced Drew, her jaw set. His short brown hair whipped in the wind, his gaze looking past her. Behind him, the profile of Everest dominated the dark sky, the ever-present plume of snow casting off its peak like smoke.
Chomolungma had always seemed magical to Nima. But now the mountain appeared to be like something from another world, a world that contained creatures like the Yeti and magic beyond her imagining.
A low moan broke the silence, the shape on the ground moving and sitting up. Nima and Drew rushed over to her just as the wind caught the woman’s hat and tore it from her head. Wanda’s flame-red hair swirled in the night breeze, framing a face nearly as pale as the snow.
Nima helped her to her feet, the other woman wore a look of confusion that echoed her own. The Yeti had grabbed Wanda so quickly Nima was not sure she had even seen what had taken her.
“Th-Thank you,” Wanda sputtered, her strong Polish accent sounding musical. Nima unzipped her jacket and wrapped one end around the woman to try and warm her. Drew quickly joined them, Wanda throwing an arm around each of their shoulders.
“Wanda, we need to get you back to Gorak Shep,” Drew said. “Dorjee”s a pretty good medic, she can make sure you are not hurt.”
“I’m fine,” Wanda said, strength returning to her voice. “At least, I hope I am. My leg’s a bit stiff.” The woman made no mention of the Yeti, and Nima noticed Drew had not mentioned it again either.
When they had first met, she had thought Wanda’s tall, thin frame might be too weak for climbing. In the days that followed, though, Wanda had impressed with her stamina and strength. Yet now the Polish woman was walking with a slight limp as she navigated the slick, snow-covered rocks, Nima’s heart fell at the sight.
If Wanda was hurt, that would signal the end of her expedition, and Nima’s last chance to get the money she and Pasang needed to pay off Jang and save their family’s farm.
“I understand,” Nima said, trying to keep her voice steady. So much hung on the answer, for a moment even the Yeti was pushed from her mind. “I understand if you need to end our guiding with you.”
The Polish woman gasped, freezing in place and staring down into her hands.
Wanda’s eyes were wide, color blossoming on her pale cheeks as she stared at her gloved left hand. A small leather book was clutched between he
r fingers. Wanda gripped it so hard it shook in her hands.
“My father’s notebook,” she said, her voice growing excited. “At our last camp, I found it just before . . . whoever that was grabbed me. This means his letters were true. He was here! Here on the mountain!”
Nima felt the icy hand that was gripping her heart loosen a bit. If she, Drew, and Pasang could manage to guide this woman to her destination and save her family’s future.
“Will you need us to guide you closer to Everest?” Nima heard excitement creep in her voice, and wished she could balance her reaction better. The Yeti had headed in that direction; a terror and wonder she needed to see again.
Wanda surprised her by reacting with just as much enthusiasm.
“Maybe even more than that,” she said. “I might need you to take me up Everest itself!”
November 1, 1951
Outside Dorjee’s Tent, Gorak Shep
Nima stood outside Dorjee’s, the large tent that acted as a hub for the small village of Gorak Shep. Nestled in Everest’s shadow, the collection of temporary dwellings represented the only civilization for hours in any direction, as well as home to her and her brother, Pasang, for the past six months.
A brother who was missing, as usual.
The wind whipped through her hair as it sent the burlap material of the makeshift tavern into convulsions. Drew was inside with Wanda, getting their Polish client some tea and trying to soothe her nerves after her ordeal. Nima was grateful to Drew for doing what he did best, adding calm and stability. They couldn’t afford to lose this client, this last hope for her family.