by Mike Miller
While the majority of the avalanche’s mass spilled down into the open ravine, the upper fringe of the swell slammed Conrad’s body into the face of the opposite cliff. He crushed against the unyielding rock with a violent crash.
At the same time, Conrad had carefully timed the moment of impact to coincide with the slamming of his pickaxe into the same granite that struck his body. The precision of Conrad’s swing was timed with his body’s forward momentum to carve a healthy cut into the stone, the pointed head of the tool burying itself a few inches into the rock like a piglet’s snout burrowing into a trough. With bent elbows, his shoulders were cinched up on the tool so that he was practically eye to eye with the iron head of the instrument.
But still Conrad’s combined tactics were not enough to prevent his body from ricocheting off the stone surface. His hips smacked hard against the mountain, then bounced back into space. His legs futilely kicked at the air as if swimming back to the wall’s shore. The pickaxe’s hold in the stone also relented, now dragging downwards to create a broken trail of gravel above him. The tool threatened to completely abandon the wall altogether as the metal head slowly inched back out from the rock. Conrad’s hands clenched the wooden neck of the pickaxe so tightly that his knuckles felt like they might erupt though the skin. His feet struggled for purchase as well in the stone to prevent him from toppling downwards with the sustained river of avalanche snow into the unending abyss below.
He roared. With eyes clenched tight, his chapped lips and unshaved whiskers crinkled with tiny pangs of pain as his mouth stretched into an oversized shape it barely ever employed. The cry was a loud and sustained rumbling born from the deepest and most primal heart of Conrad’s soul. He roared because there was nothing else he could do, a desperate appeal for survival that was howled as a plea to any higher power that might spare his life.
The booming bellowing blended with the incessant thunder of the avalanche’s flow, whose waves of snow continued to pour from the mountain slope from which Conrad had just jumped. Occasionally larger pelts of snow would slap against Conrad’s exposed and defenceless torso as the mountain mocked his puny endeavour to withstand the moment.
But while the bits of snow hurled from the avalanche attacked him like rotten produce hurled by a dissatisfied crowd upon a poor performer, the repeated blows also helped to pin Conrad back into the wall. One of his flailing legs even managed to find a tiny ledge in the wall to better secure himself as the lip of his boot’s toe dug into the firm foothold.
As the realisation slowly dawned upon him that he might actually survive this experience, albeit temporarily, the satisfaction of his newfound security swelled while his frightened hollering died. His hoarse voice ebbed back into silence as the avalanche itself similarly petered off in scale. Once the avalanche’s final flakes fluttered over the lip of the cliff, both man and mountain were silent again.
Conrad chuckled with surprised delight, a strained laugh that crackled with borderline madness as he reflected upon how he had somehow managed to evade an apocalyptic mass of cascading snow by hurling himself across a ravine to secure himself against a perfectly vertical wall of rock with nothing but a measly pickaxe.
Conrad only remained amused by the preposterous situation until the rational side of his mind gripped the dire precariousness of his situation. It took every speck of concentration to not dwell upon the fact of his being barely suspended over certain death. The thought of looking down made him dizzy, so he stared straight ahead into the stone.
An explosion of rock inches away from his head and the boom of a gunshot were a serviceable slap to the cheek to knock any lingering delirium from him.
Across the gaping fissure and back up the mountain slope, Conrad spied his former cohorts. In the tubular corridor of ice that emptied out into the open slope, every member of the party could be accounted for as they stood assembled along the ledge in a row like spectators in a bleacher. From Molor crouched down on his haunches on the left of the line, to Douglas who cockily rested himself on a raised knee, even the various porters under their guide, they all stood watching him as he now watched them. The only one of their number Conrad knew was up there but not standing with them was the poor, deceased Private Gregory.
Douglas’ miniature figure in the distance raised his arms to cup his hands around his mouth and yelled. “Quite impressive, old man!” By the time the voice reached Conrad’s ears, its distorted echo blurred the speech with an inhuman resonance. “I don’t know if you’re worth the bullets!” While none of the others bothered to project their voices for Conrad’s listening ease, he could tell by their bobbing shoulders and the tiny sputter that accompanied their synchronised motion that they were all laughing at him.
“Was it worth it?” Douglas’ mocking cry cascaded down the ice like a million laughing voices. “You’re going to die poor and alone save for your ethics.” A chunk of ice a dozen feet from Conrad’s head exploded from the wall, soon followed by the thunderous echo of another gunshot and the faint sounds of raucous, guffawing laughter.
As the sun was setting back behind the group, Conrad squinted at the direct light to better see the rascals. But when his eyes readjusted from the sun’s fiery flare, he saw something odd in the background behind his mutinous comrades. The avalanche’s glacial movement had long since terminated, but now in the ridge of white ice and snow above the men, a thing shifted and moved.
Despite the batch of murderers toying with his life, Conrad concentrated his attention on the mysterious new entity that had joined them. Squinting even more to discern white from white, Conrad saw the figure crawl forward along the steep curb of ice in a quick shuffling motion akin to a lizard, where a brief scamper covered a large swath of ground before an abrupt pause. The thing was larger than a bear and far more nimble, and bears were not indigenous to the high altitudes of the Himalayans. Besides, this creature had a tail almost as long as its whole body, and as it crept within range of the men, who all remained oblivious of its impending presence, Conrad could see it was double the size of any of them. Completely white and apparently covered in fur, the monster blended into the snow-covered background in seamless camouflage.
Even though that group of ruthless cutthroats had strived to kill him, the instinctively human need to warn them helplessly began to bubble up from the bottom of his throat to alarm them of this thing.
But the creature struck swiftly to pre-empt any alert Conrad could sound. With one long arm planted on the shelf above the troop, the beast swung down and into their tunnel like a small monkey on a tree limb, though its dexterity was more impressive given its massive size. As the beast landed, it slashed its long arm in a broad sweep that sent two of the Sherpas soaring backwards off the ground as if they were small dolls and not fully grown men.
Some men ran, but some could not run soon enough. A snapping backhand from the creature sent a third Asian tumbling. The creature’s lithe tail swung upwards with enough power to crush a fourth victim into the ceiling, even temporarily pinning the man into the roof of the cavern like a cigar butt being ground and extinguished. Then the deadly tail released the man to fall back onto the floor with a lifeless thud.
“Run, Rudy!” Sek cried aloud while drawing his sword. But Rudy had already begun to flee at the first appearance of the white fiend. The animal could not see its poor master’s wretched expression as the monster battered Sek’s head so strongly that it ripped from his neck.
As both Douglas and Molor were situated on opposite sides of the beast, each dropped into hunched fighting stances. The Indian remained superficially composed, his dual blades propped upwards and ready to impale. Douglas had his blade ready in one hand, a gun in the other, but his face was blanched with astonishment. The startled scoundrel even emitted a strange series of grunting hoots, an odd noise made in reaction to this odd monstrosity.
The creature’s skeletal face rolled from side to side to survey each of his foes, a guttural snarl trickling forth from its throat
in a pensive murmur. In a flash the thing leapt forwards toward Douglas, who yelped and fell back while discharging the firearm into the beast’s chest. The booming gun froze the monster in its progress, one of its hands defensively reaching to cover the wound. From the direct hit, Conrad spied a muddied patch of bluish blood on the thing’s otherwise pristine white hide.
With the monster’s decision to advance towards Douglas, Molor hopped forwards to strike from the rear. His right arm slammed down for one of his swords to hack into the creature’s tail. More so than the gunshot, this blow hurt the creature to a greater degree based on its brief but anguished yowl. The blade was only able to sink a few inches beneath the exterior hide of the tail where the man might as well have been chopping at a thick tree trunk.
The slash certainly diverted the monster’s attention, who now wheeled around to face the defiant Indian. Undaunted by this creature’s overwhelming size, Molor shouted some unknown cheer in his native tongue as a fierce battle cry before mounting his assault on the monster.
After a momentary pause and confused expression on its grisly visage, the monster barked back at the onrushing Indian and slammed its long right arm down at the angry man. With a dexterous step aside, Molor dodged the vicious claw and twirled his right blade into the beast’s left flank. Though the sabre ricocheted off, a thin streak of blue blood was evidence of a successful strike. Another two slashes darted across the monster’s body as it faltered backwards. Then a defensive swipe from the abomination forced the Indian to duck aside.
Conrad was all too aware of his precarious perch upon the steep escarpment, but he was too mesmerised by the wild melee to care.
With the beast on its heels, Molor pushed forward, his twin blades deftly circling through the air to strike the monster. While the giant beast was twice Molor’s size, its massive gait did not prevent it from rivalling the Indian’s speedy attacks. The beast’s large arms skilfully parried each stinging sword, even at the expense of some severe slashes upon its palms, forearms and wrists.
Molor swung one sword for the monster’s face, and the fiend tilted its head to block the blade with its horn.
But finally the creature’s defences were penetrated by the swordsman, and a lunging stab pierced the beast’s ribcage. A pained cry warbled from its throat as a black tongue slopped out over its long fangs.
Molor smiled and reared back with his other blade for an even more devastating attack.
But as the Indian leapt forward, his sword swinging in a broad arc with all intentions of murder, the monster simultaneously hopped backwards down the icy path. Molor’s would-be deathblow clattered down upon the hard ground, chipping away the ice into a small puff of tiny shards.
As the white demon jumped backwards, it also spun away. Whereas it had faced towards Molor, it now wheeled about to fully expose its broad back covered in a lanky, white fur like overgrown wild grass.
Revealing its defenceless backside was a curious tactic that puzzled Molor, as the creature’s combat skills were shrewd enough to preclude a move so foolish and cowardly. He pondered the monster’s strange antic up until the moment that the monster’s massive tail whirled around into his side with all the power of a steaming locomotive.
The tail’s vicious blow carried Molor off his feet and flattened him against the corridor’s inner wall.
He was so robustly driven into the side of the cavern that he was gasping for breath and bereft of strength. But the defiant Indian was still able to remain upright momentarily before stumbling down onto his knees. Then he fell flat onto his face.
A long gasp exited from his throat as he wrestled against his own broken body to raise himself up off the floor. With pink ice crushed into his beard and blood seeping from his eyes, Molor managed to lift himself just high enough to watch the triumphant beast hammer its palm down onto the back of his skull, stamping him out of existence as his head exploded between the monster’s hand and the unforgiving rock floor.
A chilling wind rose up to force Conrad to huddle back against the sheer wall to which he clung. With eyes closed and body crouched, he heard a series of scattered gunshots assail the monster, intermixed with the demon’s angry howl and the weakened yelps of frightened men.
Suddenly his body reminded him of its gruelling ordeal, his muscles threatening to seize and surrender from the weight. Looking up only offered an equally dizzying view to the top of the cliff, the rock proceeding indefinitely to vanish into the sky.
While scouring the surface above him, Conrad found a thin ridge. He released one hand from strangling his pickaxe’s handle to reach for the seam’s support. With his slightly advanced position upon the wall, another tiny shelf of granite helped him to climb another step back up the cliff.
In the distance behind him, a poor soul screamed and died where the finale of his cry drowned in a burbling spasm.
Conrad looked for another handhold above and found none. Wherever he scanned, there was nowhere to go. He buried his face into his shoulder, but before despair could fail him, he noticed another crease in the wall to his right. Though it meant retreating back down the surface, he shifted his weight to the new position and was rewarded with a new series of escalating holds to scale. With a chuckle at the strange luck that toyed with him, Conrad wrapped his glove around a wide protrusion like clutching a door knob.
The wild clamour of Douglas’ raging voice startled Conrad in his journey, giving him a pause and respite from the arduous work to revisit his old companions.
Looking back over his shoulder at the fray, the skirmish had relocated out of the icy corridor onto the fresh snow of the long incline of the avalanche. The monster was circled by a group of four men who unloaded ammo into it as quickly as their weapons would allow. The monster pounced over towards one of the porters, wrapped one hand over his screaming face and the other around his leg and lifted him aloft. With an anguished grunt, the fiend ripped the man into two even halves. The spray of blood that doused the creature made it wince.
Douglas stood behind the scrappy defences, screaming over their heads as he discharged his revolver. “Come on, you bastards, kill it!” But the monster was too strong, and the expedition’s porters were unskilled soldiers. Their reloading was slow, their poor aim moved further astray from their jilted movement. When the white demon descended upon the next man and clubbed him into oblivion, Douglas surrendered to fear and began running away up the mountain.
Another gust of cold air reminded Conrad of his own obligations, and he refocused upon the task at hand. The gunfire slowed to a drip, and the shouting grew quiet. The sunlight began to vanish and a rose-red patina began to glow across the white snow of the world.
Step by step and inch by inch, Conrad climbed the wall. After an hour, he had ascended a few dozen feet. But with each passing second, the growing darkness obscured his vision all the more to make his upward progress that much more difficult with the inability to locate new handholds.
He considered abandoning the pack of gear - blankets, some rations, a tin of oil, flint, the pickaxe and rope and whatever else might be stashed away in the bag – so that his load would be unburdened of their weight. But were he to somehow reach any safe ground, he could not combat the elements without such necessities. His shoulders shifted to realign the weight of the bag. While his body ached for release from the cumbersome equipment, he ignored the inclination and continued his climb.
As the day’s adrenaline dissipated, his body wanted to fail from the gruelling work, to simply stop and go to sleep. So he distracted himself by recounting his life. Starting with his oldest memories of boyhood, Conrad conjured long forgotten memories while his climb automatically advanced under this trance.
When the sun finally disappeared into night, the moon offered scant illumination for his climb. He proceeded upon touch alone, exploring the wall blindly while his hand scraped over its surface for any purchase. At a point in his progress, even Conrad’s mind rebelled against him. His fond memories turned so
ur as he now seemed to only conjure harrowing recollections of his sins and shames. He thought about the men he had murdered, the loved ones that had abandoned him, all the precious life wasted. And it made his eyes water. Even as he wiped the thin tears from his face upon his coat sleeve, he could feel them freeze into ice. But still he climbed.
Flinging his right hand up above him, it strangely disappeared into the wall. He hit his forearm on a hard corner of stone as his hand flailed to touch solid stone and could not. Staring up with weak and straining eyes, Conrad could not tell what had happened. A strange void opened up into the rock, the darker blackness of it was disorienting enough to make him feel turned upside-down. After he finally convinced himself to believe his strange fortune, Conrad realised he had accidentally discovered a deep breach in the cliff wall. While the incline continued forever upwards to the heavens, here was a hole that was big enough into which he could mercifully crawl.
With one arm reached fully into the crevasse, he lugged the rest of his weary body and loot into rift. The miniature cave miraculously extended just deep enough for him to stretch out completely to lay flat on his back. The small enclosure even protected him from the elements, and the relative warmth of the contained shelter was gratefully welcome as well. He panted weakly as his muscles shuddered at the sudden and incredulous relief from their hard labour. His eyes closed as his spinning memories now seemed to have returned all the way to the present as his mind summoned images of Baxter and the plan that damned them both to die upon this mountain.
At first Conrad let his arms lay at his side. Though he was exhausted, he still squirmed to find a comfortable position for his arms in the cramped little cave. He eventually settled upon folding them back over himself. He sunk his hands into his armpits like he was hugging himself.