by Zoe Chant
Cora had long since stopped feeling the cold. Sweat dripped down her back inside her insulating layers. Every breath burned like fire in her lungs. Her fingers cramped around the rope.
Thinking back on it later, it couldn't have taken them more than three hours to reach the crossing. At the time, trudging grimly through the darkness, pushing through the pain, it felt like they'd never get there at all.
Cora didn't even notice Eric had stopped moving until the rope snapped taut in her hands and wouldn't budge when she pulled.
She turned her head. "Eric?" Her lips felt numb.
"We're here," Eric said. Cora followed his gaze until the beam of her headlight caught on the twisted pillar of rock that marked the beginning of the crossing to the East Face.
"Oh," she whispered.
They'd made it if as far as they could go. There was no way to safely navigate the narrow ridge in the dark. She could stop.
Tears gathered in her eyes. Cora blinked them away. No time for that now. They still had to put up the tent, and she ought to check on Andrew…
"Sit down." Eric caught her gently by the shoulders, urging her down onto the mat he'd unrolled on the ground. "Get some rest, I've got it from here."
Some part of Cora wanted to protest. This wasn't how she operated. She'd always insisted on pulling her own weight in every expedition she'd ever been part of. But even she could admit that right now, Eric was in better shape than she was. Now that she was off her feet, she hardly knew how she'd ever manage to get up again. Everything hurt. Her eyes were blurring from exhaustion.
She gratefully accepted the mug of tea Eric placed in her hands. Maybe just this once, she could let herself lean on someone else.
Despite his own obvious fatigue, Eric moved quickly and efficiently, putting up their tent in the wind shelter of a pile of rocks and dragging Andrew inside.
Cora must have closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them again, Eric was in front of her, one hand on her arm, pulling her up. She stumbled the few feet to the tent, Eric's grip on her elbow the only thing keeping her upright.
Inside the tent, their mats were already unrolled on the floor, their tiny camping stove going in one corner below a pot of slowly-melting snow. Andrew still hadn't woken, but even with the oxygen mask concealing half his face, she could tell that his color looked healthier.
She collapsed gratefully onto her mat, drinking the mug of fresh hot tea Eric handed her and then, a little while later, a mug of soup. She hadn't been aware of feeling hungry, but the second the smell of the soup hit her nose, it felt as if her entire body woke up and took notice. She drank it down with a sudden hunger so intense it was almost painful, and followed it up with greedy bites from the protein bars Eric wordlessly pushed into her hands.
Finally she dropped the last empty wrapper and sprawled onto her back with a deep sigh. God, it felt good to be lying down. She curled her cold hands around the warm, sated feeling in her belly.
"Feeling better?" Eric gave her a smile.
"Yeah. Thank you." She rolled over onto her side so she could look at him more easily. "I'm sorry. I wasn't exactly much help just now."
Eric paused, his mug of tea halfway to his mouth.
"Are you kidding? I can't believe you were even still moving after that trek up the mountain, never mind helping me get him all the way down here. I'm a shifter, and I barely managed to keep going, and shifter strength's pretty much cheating."
He leaned down to brush a tender kiss over the corner of her mouth. "I've never met a human who could keep up with me the way you do."
His breath brushed warm against her cheek. Cora buried her face against his neck, closing her eyes, losing herself in his touch. For a moment, all her aches and pains seemed very far away.
But her exhaustion wouldn't be pushed away for long. Cora drew back when she felt her eyes slipping shut. She lay face-down and motionless on her mat, too weighed down by fatigue even to sleep, for long, timeless moments.
Her watch told her that half an hour had passed by the time she realized Eric wasn't in the tent. She dragged herself up with a groan. Cora hadn't taken off anything but her boots, so it was easy enough to get dressed again. She pulled her hood deep into her face, huddling up against the cold, and pushed the tent flap open.
Eric was sitting on his mat in the shelter of a large snowdrift. He'd put his flashlight down beside him. It cast him a soft yellow glow over his body, warm and welcoming in the cold blue Himalayan night.
He turned at the sound of her steps in the snow, shifting aside to make space for her on his mat. "Can't sleep?"
"Mmm. In a little while."
In truth, she was exhausted enough that she thought she could drop off as soon as she let herself close her eyes, but she didn't want to leave him sitting out here by himself.
She didn't have to ask why he wasn't sleeping; the tight lines around his eyes told her enough. He was worried about tomorrow's descent. It nagged at her, too.
"It's going to be bad, isn't it?" she said quietly.
"Probably." His voice was just as soft. The both turned to look at the tent, where Andrew slept, unconscious, oblivious to the dangers that awaited them.
Eric poured a cup of tea for her from his flask. She let herself slump against his side, gloved fingers wrapped around her cup. Eric put his arm around her, tugging her tightly against him. She tilted her head until she could rest her cheek against his shoulder. Eric twisted his head around, pressing a slow, lingering kiss against her mouth.
"Come on. Let's get some sleep."
They managed to zip three of the sleeping bags together so they could fit all three of them, if just barely, and piled the other two bags on top for extra warmth.
Eric and Cora lay down on either side of Andrew, huddling close to try and conserve as much body heat between them as possible.
Cora's cramped, frozen hands were finally thawing. She gritted her teeth against the prickling ache of returning sensation.
But even when that pain finally eased off into a not unpleasant warm throbbing, sleep didn't want to come. There was something eerie about how still Andrew was, motionless except for the steady rise and fall of his chest; too cold or too deeply unconscious even to shiver.
Eric stretched one arm across Andrew's side to lace his fingers with hers. He wasn't sleeping, either. Cora stroked her thumb over his warm, calloused fingers.
Tomorrow's descent was a looming, heavy weight in her mind. How on Earth were they going to get Andrew down even as far as the Balcony? And even if they did, could Tashi really manage to pick him up from there? In the thin air, the helicopter would be generating just barely enough thrust to stay in the air. How Tashi ever planned to get it off the ground again once she'd landed, Cora had no idea.
The thoughts wheeled around and around in her mind, even though she knew there was no point in fretting now. The best thing she could do would be to get as much sleep as he possibly could.
A movement next to her jerked her from her unhappy thoughts. For a moment she almost thought she'd imagined it, but then it came again: a shudder running though Andrew's entire body. He made a low, unhappy noise, curling in on himself in a sudden convulsive motion, and then he started shivering for real, small tremors that turned into wracking shudders.
It looked terrifying, but Cora had seen people come out of hypothermia before. She recognized it for the good sign it was. The stage where the body grew too cold to even shiver was by far the most dangerous. This was just his body trying to warm itself up.
And Andrew had moved. He'd made a sound. That death-like unconsciousness was finally starting to loosen its hold on him. The medicine, the descent or both had started to work.
Eric squeezed her fingers. Without any words said between them, Cora knew that they shared the same hope.
Chapter Six
Cora dragged herself out of the cozy warmth of their shared sleeping bag at the first ray of light. The cold hit her like a slap. Her body had
stiffened overnight. Every muscle burned, every joint ached.
From the face Eric made as he crouched in the middle of their crowded tent, he didn't feel much better.
She handed Eric the case with their meds so he could give Andrew his morning injection. When Eric pulled the sleeping bag down, Andrew opened his eyes. "Cold," he mumbled unhappily.
For a moment, both Cora and Eric froze.
"Andrew?" Cora knelt down beside him. "Andrew, are you awake?"
Andrew squinted and twisted his face away from the sunlight hitting his face. "Cold. Please." His voice was heavy and slurred, and he didn't seem to understand where he was or what was going on, but he was awake. With some gentle coaxing they even managed to get him to swallow a bit of warm, heavily sweetened tea.
Andrew curled in on himself after that, closed his eyes and fell back asleep. But it wasn't the deep unconsciousness of the previous night. Occasionally he'd stir a little in response to sounds or touches.
Cora hugged her arms around herself, trying not to let the almost painful feeling of hope in her chest overwhelm her. Andrew was getting better. If they could only get him down, he'd have a real chance.
If they could get him down.
Eric and she hardly talked as they packed up their equipment and secured Andrew on his makeshift sled. They both knew that the hardest part of the descent was yet to come.
"We should at least try getting down the South Face." Eric turned towards the East, facing the cliff, his face creased with worry. "It'll be a nightmare getting him down the wall. If there's any chance we can make it through the avalanche and avoid that… It was cold enough the past two nights, maybe the snow's frozen over enough that we'll be able to get through."
Cora hesitated. If they wanted to reach the Balcony today, they didn't have much time to lose. If they tried the South Face and had to turn back, they might lose hours they couldn't afford.
On the other hand, Eric was right about how hard this was going to be. If there was an easier way…
"Let's go have a look. We'll leave Andrew, the equipment, everything, go down and see what the snow is like. We'll move a lot more quickly that way. If it looks good, we'll come back up and get him. If we can't get through, at least we won't have lost too much time."
Eric unstrapped his pack before she'd even finished speaking. "You're more familiar with this part of the Rai Parvat than I am—lead the way?"
Cora swallowed the glad, secret spark of joy at finally having found a partner who'd take her suggestions seriously. They needed to hurry.
Leaving Andrew gave her an anxious pang. He'd be safe for an hour or two, packed up warmly and sheltered in the tent, and yet she still hated to let him out of her sight. But the faster they got down, the faster they could return to him.
They were barely past the next bend in the path when they reached the field of debris the avalanche had left behind: enormous loose piles of snow that covered the entire trail, strewn with rocks, a few scattered blocks of ice the size of trucks leaning precariously on the slope.
Cora carefully picked her way between the obstacles. The surface of the snow had frozen overnight. If she placed her feet with enough care, it proved able to take her weight.
Snow shoes would make it a lot easier not to sink through, but in snow shoes she'd take a tumble and probably break a leg the first time she hit a patch of ice. She'd have to make do with her boots and crampons.
Eric followed in her wake, taking care to place his feet in her footsteps. "You know, I'm glad we tried this—this might actually work."
"Don't jinx it," Cora was about to say, and then she heard Eric give a hiss of indrawn breath, followed by a loud crunch of snow.
When she whirled around to face him, she saw that the layer of frozen snow that had held her had given way beneath Eric's greater weight. He was buried to the waist.
Eric hauled himself out with the help of her outstretched hand, swearing under his breath.
"Maybe it was just a rotten patch," Cora offered weakly, knowing perfectly well that it was worse than that. This was exactly the thing they'd been afraid of: the fresh snow hadn't yet frozen firmly enough to safely carry their weight.
"Let's keep going a little further," Eric said, but he already sounded resigned.
They didn't even make it another thirty feet before the frozen snow cracked under Eric again, burying him to the chest this time. He smacked his open hand against the snow in frustration.
"Guess we'll be going down the hard way. I'm sorry, Cora."
"If you weren't so big and strong, we wouldn't have gotten Andrew down as far as we did. We'll manage somehow. Come on."
She caught both his arms and heaved, and managed to pull Eric free. He rolled to his back, sprawling in the snow, momentarily defeated. Cora bent down to kiss him, brief and gentle, letting herself take comfort in his presence for a moment. Eric wordlessly wrapped his arms around her.
"Let's get going," he finally said.
Andrew was still asleep when they returned to the camp, and he didn't rouse despite all the jostling when they packed up the tent. Cora refused to let herself worry about that now. They'd done everything they could do for him up here. What he needed more than anything else was to get off this mountain.
***
So far they'd been walking side by side, pulling the sled together, but there wasn't any room to do that on the narrow ridge of the crossing.
Eric wordlessly reached for Cora's rope, and she let him take the lead in equal silence. Out of the two of them, he was inarguably the stronger one, and if only one of them could pull, it needed to be him. With every other partner, that concession would have stung, but with Eric, the division of labor felt only natural. There'd be other obstacles to face, and she knew he wouldn't mind letting her take the lead in a situation that played a little more to her own strengths.
Cora walked behind the sled, occasionally reaching down to steady it when it swerved on the slippery ice. On the exposed ledge, the snow was frozen hard enough that she'd unclipped her ice axe from her pack for some extra support, swinging the tip into the frozen ground with every step.
Eric's shoulders bowed as he strained against the weight of the sled on his own. The safety rope that connected his harness to hers went slack every time his pace faltered. Cora wished there was something more she could do to help.
It took them fifteen minutes to reach the most narrow part of the crossing. The ridge was maybe three feet wide here, steep cliffs falling away on both sides. Occasionally their steps dislodged a clump of ice which went tumbling down the side of the mountain in a series of hollow thuds.
Cora tried to keep her eyes away from the drop. A lifetime of climbing had left her almost completely free of vertigo, but there was something sickening about being that close to the edge with an unconscious person depending on them.
She breathed easier once the path widened again. There was enough space now that they could have almost walked side by side…
Except that was wrong, wasn't it? It had taken them almost thirty minutes to traverse the narrow part of the ridge on the way up, and they couldn't have moved any more quickly now, not with the sled slowing them down.
Her warning shout was drowned out by the crystal chime of ice shattering apart. Eric gave a yell of alarm as what looked like solid snow broke apart beneath his feet.
The treacherous cornice of frozen snow that had made the ledge look wider than it was gave way just slowly enough to give Eric a split-second of warning. He launched himself towards solid ground. His hands slid over the smooth ice, not finding any purchase, even as the falling snow dragged him inexorably towards the abyss beneath them. He dropped the rope that connected him to the sled so it wouldn't be pulled down along with him.
Cora's hand closed automatically around the rope that ran from Eric's harness to hers, even as she realized with the frozen clarity of horror that she wouldn't be able to stop his fall. Eric was taller, broader and more muscular than her. He o
utweighed her easily. Maybe Cora could have held him if there'd been anything to anchor herself to, but she was standing on slippery ice herself, completely exposed on the narrow ridge.
The second that line went taut between them, she'd be pulled over the cliff herself.
Cora's ice axe was already in her hand. A single swing of the razor-sharp tip would slice easily through the rope. Eric would fall, but she'd be safe. Andrew's sled was still safely balanced in the middle of the path; he wouldn't fall. But she'd have no way to get him down the mountain by herself. She'd have to leave him behind.
For a single frozen fraction of a second she could see it all too clearly: climbing down the mountain on her own, no one to slow her down, the route one she'd taken a dozen times: easy, quick, as safe as anything ever was in the mountains. She recoiled from the thought.
Ice cracked and splintered. Eric lost his last handhold, his eyes widening in horror as he fell.
No time left to decide.
With a scream of sheer terror, Cora threw herself off the opposite side of the ridge.
For a long, weightless heartbeat she was in freefall, the endless drop beneath her. Then the rope went taut, caught on the ridge between them, and arrested her fall. The impact swung her into the side of the cliff like a pendulum.
For a moment both of them hung there, balanced on the rope like two weights on a scale. Cora groaned, half dazed from the impact. And then Eric's greater weight asserted itself, and she was slowly dragged upwards by the harness.
Right now, her own weight and the drag of the rope on the ridge acted as brakes; if she let herself get pulled onto the ridge itself, she'd be dragged down the other side after Eric, sending both of them to their deaths.
Cora twisted around on the rope, swinging her axe and ramming the tips of her crampons into the ice covering the wall of the cliff. For a moment she was dragged along, and then the ice axe caught, the crampons bit in, and she could finally stop the upwards slide.