Here, they were bared to the varteron winds but, as Ulran had predicted, the gales turned, to their good fortune, and blew to the ranvarron as dusk encroached.
The slope was gradual and slippery.
In places, winds had bared pieces of rock and these helped them stop themselves careering down the mountainside as their momentum increased when slipping.
They descended in this stop-go fashion then Ulran called a halt at the brink of a sheer ice-wall drop.
The entire ice-covered rock face was glinting red in the dying sun’s rays.
Ulran scanned about for somewhere to fasten a rope and tie a slipknot when Rakcra called out, “Over here, Ulran – another chimney!”
To their left, partly concealed by a fresh fall of snow, was a gaping hole in the rock.
They peered down and it was evident that the hole came out at the base of the ice-wall. “We’ll try it,” Ulran declared.
Alomar said he would hold the rope and follow last with it.
So the other three backed down, taking most weight on their own but using the rope as an aid and anchor should they slip.
Finally, Alomar followed without incident till about two marks from the bottom, when a section of rock gave under his weight and he tumbled feet-first down the remaining funnel to land in a muted crash upon compacted snow. He was unhurt though he cursed a few times.
“This is as good as any a place to camp,” Ulran remarked and all agreed, Fhord and Rakcra grateful to stop at last, their packs off their backs no sooner than Ulran had spoken.
The feeling at first was weird, walking without a pack: Fhord tended to float forward in comparison, almost feeling light-headed.
Later, Ulran decided they would eat some of the honey-loaves the Devastators had baked beneath their camp fires.
There was more scope for survival through this night, Alomar declared, and withdrew his sword. Then he began to carve out blocks of frozen snow from the cornices behind the boulders on the slope. Rakcra helped move the blocks to the base of the chimney and Ulran and Fhord constructed a wall of the blocks as a windbreak.
As they worked, the sun seemed to set several times, because now there were layers of cloud that kept drifting in; and the sun would abruptly explode behind them, then reappear, casting the Saddle Mountain’s shadow out onto an immense ridge of snow that snaked on to other peaks unnamed that were all purple and brown whilst those nearby were white and pink.
Nobody talked of duels this night.
They huddled close to conserve body-heat.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
PRE-ORDAINED
Weakness impairs judgement.
– Tangakol Tract
First Dloin of Darous dawned with the sky filled by mares’ tails, drawn out and wispy.
“Winds to mandunron,” said Ulran and rolled up his blanket.
Breakfast consisted of an apple and a square of honey-loaf each.
They must have spent a warm night, Fhord realised, as her hair was barely damp, the hoar-frost having thawed. Alomar’s drooping moustache looked bedraggled: the warrior and innman still shaved themselves each morn with their honed poniards.
But the intense cold and knifelike winds soon froze every breath from their mouths upon their furs and facial hair.
They descended the snow-scree, plunging legs knee-deep at times, jarring those selfsame knees repeatedly till they constantly gave way when weight was applied.
Fhord wondered how she would have fared had she tackled these mountains straight from Lornwater.
At last they came to the hog’s-back, winding towards Glacier Peak, the spine of the formation about a half-mark in width.
Ulran led with Fhord, Rakcra and Alomar following in that order.
Winds battered them as they walked. Heads down, they constantly watched their feet and, blinking against the flurries of upswept snow, braced as frequent but unexpected gusts lambasted them.
And yet on they trod, never halting in case they baulked and lost balance and were pitched over the side: there was a steep slope on each side of the narrow crest, falling off to dizzying grey depths.
Snow-glare inflamed Fhord’s eyes, and her lips were becoming dry and cracked with the insidious cold. She knew she must close her eyes before she was blinded and jeopardised their mission.
She only hoped her faculties were not reluctant in answering. Eyes shut, she concentrated on listening beyond her own footsteps and the haunting wind-whistle, reaching out for the crisp crunch of Ulran’s foot-falls. And as she did so she threw out mental feelers, and was rewarded before fear forced her to open her eyes: vaguely, she detected the bulk of the innman, just ahead.
Rakcra too was in a bad way and stumbled on two separate occasions. Before panic hurled him off the hog’s-back, Alomar was there, steadying, his big hands lifting the Devastator up, urging him on.
But the incident had instilled Alomar with the feathering of alarm. “Ulran!” he called. “Ulran!” And as the innman stopped and turned, with Fhord following suit, Alomar added, “Can we rope together? It may prove safer!”
Ulran agreed whilst inwardly wondering why he had let such an elementary precaution slip his mind. Once roped together, they went on.
To make matters worse, the snow was not firm, so every footstep could precipitate a fall. Ulran slipped once, near the end of the spine, but neatly corrected his balance and went on. Nobody else felt as much as a tug on the line.
They reached a crescent shape of stagnant ice, earthy material and boulders: the dead ice at the snout of the glacier. The terminal moraine gaped where a small runnel showed. A stream of melt-water gushed down into the depths to Ulran’s left.
“Keep to the right,” urged the innman as they joined him.
The sun had reached zenith.
Snakelike, the glacier wound down towards them, its source firn hidden from view high up near the peak. Up each side showed irregular bands of discoloration of the lateral moraines, formed by rock debris on the glacier’s surface. Down the centre, the medial moraine, over which melt-water streamed and glistened. The left-hand side was impassable, scattered with jagged ice-pinnacles and loosely packed snow that crumbled at the touch of a breeze. Across the immense breadth of the glacier too were great gaping cracks – crevasses.
Ulran hoped they could cross the glacier further up, near the source, and thus skirt the peak. He mentally shook himself: his head felt bloated, eyes puffy. They had been standing here at the snout of the glacier too long: time to move!
The right-hand side of the glacier was negotiable but proved difficult.
Twice they came upon gullies about three marks deep, which they descended then climbed the opposite side, using swords to cut foot-holds.
Wind howled intermittently; the sound whistled about their ears. Eyebrows and other facial hair were matted white by now, numbing lips and foreheads.
Heads bowed, they trudged higher till Ulran halted on the lip of an ice and rock overhang, under which the glacier had cut its ancient path. From here he swung his sword, pointing higher along the glacier’s length, where it widened further up.
“Ice-fall,” the innman said, sneezing. “Beyond that, I believe the glacier spreads out a bit.”
Fhord thought the innman’s voice sounded nasal, half-choked. Ulran seemed to blink more than usual too. A hot clammy fear clutched the base of her spine and sweat collected there, damp and uncomfortable.
At the foot of the ice-fall was a labyrinth of deep clefts and ice-pinnacles, with crevasses intersecting. Above this, the glacier steepened, like an ice-wall. A few pinnacles jutted out from this wall, casting long shadows.
Without any warning, one of these pinnacles broke away from the shoulder of the glacier and plunged down the ice-fall. Fhord was speechless. At least the size of a Lornwater mansion, the pinnacle crashed down, tearing with it huge ice-columns from the fall itself. The thunderous sound filed her with fear and awe.
Stopped in their tracks as the plumes of snow and ice
-particles billowed above the ice-fall’s base, they exchanged glances.
“I don’t like it,” murmured Alomar. “That could have set up a chain-reac–”
At that instant a shattering, tumultuous roar reached them, unmistakably coming from above, to their right.
Fhord saw billows of powdery snow in the air above the next slope.
“Avalanche!” yelled Ulran, walking towards it.
Fhord stumbled after him. “No – don’t –!”
“We must swim through it, come on!” Ulran called over his shoulder.
Then huge powdery airborne blasts roared down onto the innman, cutting him off from sight.
Snow rode over Ulran’s head. He tried swimming against the deluge, using breast-stroke, dog-paddle, anything to stay on top. Pounding filled his ears. He couldn’t breathe. His eyes ached with constant buffeting and he couldn’t see.
Alomar, who had been ten paces behind Ulran when the avalanche hit, was as swiftly engulfed, his world abruptly dark and cold. He reached out blindly and hit a rock, grazing his hands to no avail. He tumbled backwards, head over heels and felt the line snap. And behind him, Fhord was swamped also. The time under the black cold weight stretched to a lifetime as she tumbled upon her nightmarish descent.
Rakcra had been beside Fhord when the sight of the avalanche stunned him into immobility; he was hurled pell-mell down the track they had painstakingly made. The snow not only obliterated their tracks, but also him.
A sudden, eerie silence settled as the last remnants of the avalanche tumbled down over the hog’s-back, down to the mauve depths.
Ulran was buried up to his waist. As he craned his neck round to look down the mountainside, he proceeded to use his hands to dig his way free.
Fifty marks below, Alomar was shaking snow off himself and his shield. Miraculously, his helmet was just visible a couple of paces away: the crestless dome glinted in the after-morning sunlight.
The rest of the mountain was devoid of life.
Alomar made to climb up to help free Ulran. “No!” Ulran called. “Start searching for the other two!” He scooped snow to one side. “I’ll join you as soon as I can. We haven’t much time – their chance of survival is halving as we speak!”
“Aye – I’ll use my scabbard!”
Alomar trudged slowly down the powder-snow clad mountainside, imprinting his own tracks upon the spotless carpet. As he went, he rammed his broadsword’s scabbard into the snow. He hoped to meet some kind of obstacle: hard, yet slightly yielding.
Ulran was free as Alomar yelled, “Here, down here!” The immortal warrior sank to his knees and tore at the snow with his scabbard and shield.
It was Rakcra, spread-eagled face down.
With great haste Alomar turned him over onto his back.
Ulran slid to a halt beside them.
Both had clear evidence of the avalanche’s tremendous force and their own fortunate escape: one of Rakcra’s legs was twisted back grotesquely, shattered in several places, the bloody protruding bone frozen. And the young Devastator’s face was covered with a mask – a coating of ice. “He must have been alive when he was deposited here,” Ulran observed. “See, he was breathing till his breath froze.”
“Aye, poor devil – but where in the gods’ name is Fhord?”
Ulran used his scabbard as well, widening their search area.
They poked through the snow, and then Ulran found her, just less than a scabbard’s-length below. Fhord was almost in the foetal position, though her arms were wrapped round her face and afforded a small breathing space. She was only semi-conscious as they hauled her out and brushed the snow off. Her clothes were saturated but, surprisingly, not frozen.
Wind howled.
Ulran feared that whatever little heat and spark of life Fhord’s body held would swiftly be blown away on the savage gusts now assailing them.
Dusk stalked the sky.
They heaved Fhord between them and began to trudge up the slope once more at the side of the glacier.
On their way they stopped by Rakcra. They had grown to like the young Devastator and admired his own brand of courage, but survival now dictated they forget him.
Ulran paused to cut loose Rakcra’s pack and they carried it between them. Besides, another fall of snow would bury him better than they could ever manage.
They set off again and hadn’t covered more than three marks with their sodden and teeth-chattering load when Ulran halted, eyes drawn to a patch of uneven shadow in the white to their right. “Hang onto her while I check.” Leaving Fhord with Alomar, he loped across the intervening snow.
The avalanche had scooped up some snow-pockets to reveal the small mouth of a cave, permafrost strata glinting red in the sunset. Frozen soil, subsoil and bedrock showed like a mantle round the cave mouth.
“Quickly, let’s get inside and dry her!” Ulran urged as he ran to give Alomar a hand.
After a great amount of scuffling and unfastening of packs, Ulran squeezed through on his belly. Then Alomar shoved Fhord into the opening and the innman heaved.
Alomar shoved the packs through and crawled in after them just as Ulran sparked his tinder-box.
A spill from the innman’s oil-soaked wadding caught hold and the cave flickered into uncanny coruscating light.
Shadows in uneven surfaces fluctuated as he moved the light to scan the cave’s confines.
They appeared to be in a circular cavern; another hole to their left seemed to tunnel deeper into the bedrock.
Whilst Alomar began unfastening Fhord’s hide jacket, Ulran crawled over to the hole. He held the flaming taper into the hole and discovered it was but a small tunnel of barely a mark’s length. His eyes, he fancied, were playing tricks on him.
Involuntarily, he sneezed: his fears crystallised. Angevanellian, he could do without; the last time he had suffered a relapse, almost two years ago, he had ailed terribly. Because his senses and body were so finely attuned, the presence of the dread Angevanellian had sent him awfully awry. No herbal medicaments helped alleviate it. He had to fight it unaided.
He looked into the tunnel again. “I think we’re expected,” he said levelly though nasally.
Alomar scrambled over Fhord and leaned on Ulran’s shoulder. “Looks like a fire, all made up...” His nose twitched. “Food – I swear I can smell food, Ulran.” Heated but left to cool, its aroma lingering.
“Me also.” The innman squeezed through the hole. With the lambent taper held aloft in front of him, he snaked along the short tunnel and through into a larger cavernous area.
A constant drip-drip-dripping sounded somewhere, beyond taper-light.
His eyes had not deceived him.
Three seating-stones had been placed round a cluster of dry twigs, and upon each stone was an earthen bowl of broth, crammed with chopped vegetables.
He turned: they could stand, albeit with a crouch that would prove uncomfortable if prolonged. “Bring Fhord, will you?”
Ulran helped from his end and eventually they were all inside the inner cavern.
Both proceeded to undress Fhord by the glow of the now alight fire.
“You noticed how many places?”
“I know, Alomar. Either we were expected and whosoever prepared for us didn’t know we would bring along Rakcra... or, they knew Rakcra would be with us, but wouldn’t make it to this cave. Either way, it looks like our actions up to his point seem to have been pre-ordained.”
“Fhord would like that.” The immortal chuckled.
The naked city-dweller was dried off with a cloth from Ulran’s pack and dressed in dry clothing. “Not a lass, but a woman,” mused Alomar. “A brave woman.”
All of their hide clothes were draped around the fire to dry. Steam crawled to the cave ceiling. Earlier, they had located more prepared bundles of firewood.
Both Ulran and Alomar conjectured about the destination of the other hole leading even deeper into the mountain. “I’m tempted to find out,” said Ulran. “Bu
t I can’t afford to be side-tracked. It could prove a shortcut, to the Astrey Caron Pass – but I’m not risking it. Of course, you could investigate if you like, Alomar – this did not begin as your quest.”
Courdour Alomar shook his head of lank hair. “No, I’ll stay with you. As I said at The Inn, I’m curious to learn what Yip-nef Dom did with that girl. Besides, I’ve noted this cave entrance by the stars – I can find it again, if my wandering brings me this way.”
Ulran too had noted the entrance and was determined to return one day.
Each took a watch by the fire and kept an eye on Fhord and the two entrance holes to their cave.
The air was smoke-filled but not overwhelming: the tunnels acted as ventilation shafts.
Ulran woke to see Fhord staring at him, dark eyes shadowed, whites only showing. Her brows beetled and her forehead creased.
“What is wrong?” the innman whispered.
Alomar was by his side almost at once.
Slowly, her lips, dry and cracked, moved as with great effort: “Osasor will help me,” she croaked, or rather an alien voice said through Fhord’s lips. There was a mellifluous quality to it that hitherto she had lacked. “I had a vision... we will be all right.”
Both onlookers exchanged glances.
Fhord’s eyes blinked and then they shone. “You saved my life,” she said levelly. And she shivered, despite the warmth emanating from her. She took in their surroundings with barely a glance. She didn’t seem surprised. “It would seem my mountain-idol served us well, after all.” She smiled, half-serious. “Rakcra perished, I take it?”
“Yes,” Alomar responded. Ulran could see by the look in the immortal’s eyes that he was shaken a little by the transformation of Fhord.
The city-dweller’s physical and moral fibre had strengthened during their trek to the Sonalumes, but only gradually. Yet, within a few orms after scarcely cheating a frozen grave, she had steadied into a formidable woman. Something had happened to her, of that Ulran was certain.
He scanned the craggy surfaces of their cavern. Could this place be connected in some esoteric way? Unlike Alomar, he could believe in the magical nature of some idols. He studied Fhord and was unsure.
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