Ghost stopped and turned to me, her jaws wide in a happy grin. “Here’s the path, Big Dog.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked.
I stared in helpless dismay at the huge fallen tree that in years, perhaps centuries past, had toppled across the canyon and rested upon the far cliff top. Melted snow, now a sheet of solid ice, reflected the sunlight off its deadly surface. Far below, the wide angry river raced over buried boulders, white foam shooting high. Anyone falling into that maelstrom would instantly be crushed between the dense water and solid rocks. If one survived the rocks, the cutting edges of ice would finish the job. The rushing river Rufus had jumped into, with me on his back, was like a swift, gurgling stream compared to this. This screamed death in less than a second.
“It’s quite safe,” Ghost insisted, resting her front paws on the massive trunk. “I’ve crossed it many times.”
“You also weigh as much as a naked rat,” I snapped.
I half-expected outrage from either Ghost or Darkhan with this harsh comment, but received none. Ghost merely wagged her tail and Darkhan bent his head to gaze deep into the canyon and its watery mate, death, far below.
“I can do it,” Tashira said.
“Hooves and ice don’t mix well,” I growled. “Don’t be an idiot.”
“Stop fussing. You know I hate fussing.”
“This is your life, dammit.”
Tashira bent his head. “It is indeed. Go on, I’ll follow.”
“This isn’t safe–”
“Are you a wolf or a pussy? Life holds no guarantees. Get your black butt moving.”
Choked and furious, I set my paws on the deadly, ice-coated tree. Its huge roots buried in the rocky soil and covered in snow, it didn’t budge as I stepped onto it. Almost as wide as a road in Soudan, it had been worn down and flattened by the feet and hooves of animals since time out of mind. A proper game trail, it permitted the crossing of creatures that owned less than a quarter of my weight and only a fraction of Tashira’s.
“Don’t look down,” Tashira advised as I stepped out onto the ice sheet.
“Gee thanks,” I muttered, my muzzle down and sniffing for treachery.
Was that a groan I heard? I paused, listening. If it gave voice to its distress, the tree kept its mouth shut after that one protest.
Venturing further out, I glanced down. Over the edge, the river clashed and broke apart on the deadly rocks. The canyon, and its endless tree, was perhaps sixty rods across and one wide. Time had erased all the trunk’s branches, creating a smooth, plank-like surface, bare of bark. Only the slippery surface threatened to pitch one headlong into an icy death far below.
“Did you stop for lunch?” Tashira inquired politely from behind me.
I walked on. That bloody tree did groan. I distinctly heard it whine at the first introduction of my massive weight. How old was this damn thing? A hundred years? Two hundred? Too damn old for my comfort, anyway.
“I don’t like this,” I muttered.
“Stop talking to yourself and move your ass.”
I took a few more halting steps, listening to the distinct creak of very old wood pushed to its limit. My paws slid slightly as the trunk shifted, giving way a few inches. Bracing myself, I waited a few moments, listening for the splintering of wood as the trunk cracked apart and sent me plummeting into my watery death.
After that single complaint, the tree settled and offered no further comment. I walked on, my claws digging into the ice for purchase until I jumped safely down on the far bank.
“Tashira,” I called. “I’m coming back. This is no good, it won’t hold you–”
“Don’t be an old maid,” he replied crossly. “I’m sending the kids over.”
“No, we can find another way.”
“You seem to forget you’ve a very important appointment. We don’t have the time. Go on, Ghost, ladies first.”
Her ears back, her expression worried, Ghost fairly scampered across. The log didn’t mind her light weight at all and offered no vocal protest.
“Big Dog,” she began, dancing on her toes with her tail tucked. “I’m sorry, I thought this would be easy.”
“Not your fault,” I murmured, my eyes filled with Darkhan as he crossed more slowly and without Ghost’s confidence. His nose to the ice, he glanced over the edge several times as he walked, as though calculating his chances should the tree split apart and send him crashing down to the rushing water and huge rocks. Not a chance in hell, my son. I held my breath until he, too, jumped safely to solid ground.
“Tashira,” I groaned, my heart in my throat.
“No worries,” he replied lightly, stepping out onto the slippery wood. His hooves made a dull clumping sound, a hollow bonging, its echoing reverberations clear even over the din of the river. Like Darkhan, he held his head low, his ears perked to catch any evil sound the tree might make. I ceased any and all breathing.
Making steady progress, he passed the point the log complained the most and offered me that tiny bit of give; that small threat to split and break. Maybe he’ll be all right. He’s already halfway across.
I took a breath as Tashira’s head came up and he walked forward with more confidence. His hooves found purchase on the wicked ice. All right then, I thought, relieved. Call me a pussy next time–
A flat cracking sound rent the air.
Tashira froze, casting a wild eye past his own massive shoulder to the sudden and very wide fissure that sprang from the tree’s roots and travelled at breakneck speed toward his feet. Ice shattered as the wood groaned and broke apart, revealing the dark, rotted splinters of its inner core. With a jolt, the tree sagged in the middle as though an immense axe chopped it nearly in half.
As though it made its vile threat, it suddenly and coyly backed off. The tree held firm, balanced precariously and canted at a slight incline. Its groaning sounds ceased.
Tashira’s hooves skidded backward on the slick ice, dragging his huge body past the point of no return. Should his great weight hit that central break, it would give way altogether. The last I’d see of my black friend would be his huge body falling, down and down, and smashed onto the evil rocks below.
In a scream that made my throat hurt later, I yelled, “Run!”
Digging his hooves in, he bunched his hindquarters under him for that massive sprint across the slippery uphill slant. On he galloped, his neck and ears flattened. At his sudden onrush, his thrashing movement, the tree split further. The horrible rent at last broke the entire tree apart. His Tarbane speed couldn’t outrace the lightning fast rip that fractured the ancient log. Under his very feet, the wood shattered with a coughing roar.
He leaped.
Tashira jumped up and out, away from the broken remains of the pathway the forest creatures used to cross the canyon for better forage and hunting. Behind his hurtling body, the ancient tree sundered in half. With long, drawn-out groans, the roots opposite and the top beside me broke away from their respective cliffs. In slow motion, they slid lengthwise, splinters flying high, into the canyon. I didn’t watch as they vanished into the depths.
Like a shadow Tashira flew, a horse airborne without wings. His front legs tucked beneath him, his hindquarters stretched out behind as he propelled himself up and out. His heavy tail flagged the wind. His neck bowed in a perfect arch, his mane whipped up and back, a war-torn banner.
My heart pounding in my chest, I prayed his immense Tarbane power would catapult him across the open space and land him safely on my side of the canyon. Yet, I’d seen in that last crucial instant where his impulsion, his massive hind hooves, slipped a tiny fraction on the slick ice. That miniscule slide was enough to cancel that massive power, to prevent the few crucial feet more of Tarbane propulsion.
Our eyes met and clasped in an instant of perfect clarity.
A mere foot or so short of the edge, Tashira hit the solid rock of the cliff.
From a dim distance, I heard the jagged pieces of the great tree cr
ash into the raging river far below.
Tashira’s hooves clawed for purchase at the cliff’s edge and found none. His great brown eyes, wide with panic, sought mine for a brief instant. He vanished, his wild mane whipped over his face by the wind. Broken stone fell with him as he scraped and bounced his way below.
My heart breaking within me, I choked back a howl of grief as my friend fell into the canyon.
Strangely, I heard his body strike rock not far away from my paws. There was no distant splash of a huge equine body hitting water and granite boulders. Small stones bounced off the cliff edge and rattled their way down, silent until the tiny sounds hit the rushing river.
Gasping, panting in horror, I ran to the edge and peered down. To either side of me, Darkhan and Ghost also looked down, their whines caught in their throats.
Tashira had not fallen into the river. About ten rods down, he’d crashed onto a sturdy stone ledge. Tashira’s body lay crumpled and broken on it, his long mane and tail waving in the light wind beneath the small rocky outcropping. Blood from many cuts and scrapes from the slide oozed bright against unforgiving rock, but my heart soared when his head lifted slightly.
“Tashira,” I yelled.
“Hey, Raine,” he said, his voice faint and thick with agony. Half on his side, and half on his chest and belly, he bent his neck enough to peer up at me. “You gonna to say ‘I told you so’?”
“Count on it.”
His head fell back. “I deserve it. Crap.”
“I’m going to get you out,” I said, urgent. “Just hold on, you hear me?”
“You won’t,” he answered. “My leg is broken.”
With Ghost and Darkhan silent beside me, I pondered this black proclamation. With a broken leg, Tashira couldn’t stand nor walk, with or without my help, to climb up. He’d need four solid legs with which to walk. Three legs, however strong, weren’t enough.
“This is the part where you humans put your horses out of their misery,” Tashira said, his muzzle rising and his dark eyes meeting mine.
“Don’t say that,” I growled.
“Broken legs and equines….” He sighed. “Not a good mix, that.”
“Shut up.”
“You remember what you told me about Wind Spirit?” he asked.
My blood grew cold. “I remember.”
“You were kind to her,” he said, his voice thick with pain and effort. Despite the icy air and frozen rock beneath him, sweat bloomed on Tashira’s neck and flanks. Yet, his agony-tightened expression held no fear, no panic.
“Do me the same favor, brother.” His dark, soft eyes latched onto mine with a grip I couldn’t break. “You killed her to spare her great agony.”
I panted in panic, my paws frozen into the ice and snow, my heart in as much agony as Tashira’s body. I couldn’t, I cannot do it, I cannot–
“Use your magic.” Tashira’s soft voice floated upward, over the sound of the swift rapids below. “Send me home to my mother.”
“Tashira–” I groaned.
“Do me this one last favor,” he said. “As you love me.”
“No!” I screamed, skidding backward from the brink. “There must be a way, dammit, there has to be.”
“Raine.” Tashira’s voice floated up to my ears as I paced wildly back and forth. “Do what you have to do.”
“No, I can’t,” I gasped, trotting in circles, a frozen snarl on my lips. “I can’t, there has to be a way, think, dammit, think–”
“Grow a spine, you stupid coward,” Tashira groaned. “Do what’s right. Don’t make me roll off this ledge.”
“I can’t kill him, I can’t, for gods’ sake, I can’t–”
“You know what you must do.”
Darius’s voice echoed Tashira’s in a way that froze my blood. Kill Tashira? End his life with the same effort it took me to step on a bug? Gods.
Chapter 10
White Death
Under the rabbit pelts and within the shelter of my arms, Tuatha shivered violently.
Too wolfish to whine, he expressed his suffering with his pleading eyes turned up to meet mine through the blinding snow. White dusted the dark fur around his eyes, his muzzle and his cheeks, giving him the appearance of a wizened and wrinkled old man.
He wanted what we all craved: a camp with hot fires and warm tents, shelter from the howling gale pouring down from the menacing peaks high above. Unfortunately, stopping wasn’t a viable option. The pass leading higher and higher into the mountains had narrowed into a deadly canyon. We rode single file along a bare cliff-face, a path wide enough for a single horse and rider. At a careful walk, each horse planted his feet into the prints of the one ahead.
If the lethal canyon with its sheer drop wasn’t bad enough, a winter blizzard struck the mountains with wind gusts hard enough to topple a horse and rider into the choked trees and cracked rocks several hundred rods below. Too often Mikk slowed his pace to brace himself against the powerful currents that threatened to send all three of us to our deaths. I rode, my hand frozen on my reins and my heart thudding in my chest, peering through the whiteout at the greyish-black spot that was Kel’Ratan’s stallion’s tail.
“You don’t have much farther,” Bar said, flying high above the storm. “I scouted the canyon earlier. It’s about a mile long and you’re halfway through.”
“I hope you’re right,” I answered, my teeth chattering too hard to speak aloud. “Is the storm letting up a bit? From your point of view?”
“I haven’t seen an end yet.”
Despite the leather covering my lower face, my breath frosted the fur of my hood. Ice clung to my eyes and crusted my jacket; my feet felt like wooden blocks in my stirrups. Mikk’s mane lay buried under a coating of white, his breath steaming as he snorted snow from his nostrils. How far was a half-mile? On level ground, a horse could traverse it within minutes, even at a walk. Surely we’d be through this and on the other side shortly.
I couldn’t see Rygel and Shardon ahead of Kel’Ratan leading the way through the canyon, though I tried to peer into the sideways blowing snow. An occasional drop in the wind permitted me a swift glimpse of Kel’Ratan’s back and Rygel’s black cloak he wore over his fur jacket. Shardon’s silver coat utterly vanished in the swirling murk.
This is lunacy. Maybe we should stop and wait it out where we are.
“No,” Bar answered. “You keep going and you stay on that horse no matter what.”
“If we shelter behind the horses, we can stay warm enough until it blows over.”
“You’ll freeze to death,” Bar snapped. “Don’t stop.”
“Where are the wolves?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care.”
I made the mistake of turning my head to look over my shoulder, hoping to see Digger or Thunder at Mikk’s flank. All I received for my efforts was a blast of icy snow forced by the howling wind into my hood. A half-hearted swipe of my mitten across my eyes cleared some of my vision, but tiny icicles formed on my eyelashes. Tuatha’s anxious whine reached my ears over the noise, but, as usual, I’d no idea what he said.
I fretted over the absence of the wolves. They’d all been there at the start of this mad journey into the canyon, when the snow first fell in large, swirling flakes. Did they trail behind, in single file as we did, following in our tracks? Surely they didn’t hare off on a hunting expedition. I could ask Tuatha had I understood his language. Trying to communicate in a winter gale like this one was as useless as chewing rocks for sustenance.
The wind screamed again, a thick guttural cry that ended on a high piercing note. Terror seeped into my veins, freezing my gut. That’s not the wind. That was the panicked shriek of a stricken mule. Those animals carried our very survival on their backs–food, heavy tents, extra hides, and the charcoal we used to stay warm at night when the winter mountain temperatures dropped below killing levels. Losing even one mule and pack could mean death for us all.
I didn’t think–not even twice. Off
Mikk in a flash, I braced myself against the terrible wind and ran past the line of horses. I heard my name yelled, but from whose throat I’d no clue. I didn’t care or hesitate. The swirling snow parted enough for me to see the shadow of a rearing horse. But whose horse? The mule screamed again, closer now. On I ran, the frozen mountain air striking my mouth and lungs with all the force of a hammer. My boots slipped on the ice coated rocks of the canyon, and twice I nearly fell.
At the far end of our train, the last mule bucked and plunged, its heavy pack loose within its binding ropes. The horse connected to it reared. If I didn’t stop them, all three would go over the edge. Close enough to see through the whiteout, I recognized Tor trying frantically to rein in his pale mare. Despite the strides he’s made as a warrior, his riding skills were yet in their infancy. He couldn’t control both horse and mule in this dicey situation.
“Tor!” I yelled at the same instant a ripping snarl rose from the rocks above me.
I wheeled around, reaching for my sword, and came face to face with the reason for the mare’s and mule’s panic. A lion, young and with a half-grown mane, crouched amid the tumbled boulders that marked the high pass. Perhaps starvation forced it to attack against almost impossible odds, thinking the mule the easiest target. Only desperation could drive it into a conflict with humans in the midst of this terrible blizzard.
“Go,” I screamed at Tor, not daring to turn my back on the lion. “Get away.”
My leather mittens didn’t fit right around the hilt of my sword, but I pointed it at the lion anyway. I hoped the confrontation would intimidate the beast enough into flight; that it would recognize its need to gain a meal wasn’t worth a fight with a human. Or wolves. Where were the wolves, anyway? Why would a lion dare attack and horse and mule train with the sounds and scents of our enormous wolf pack all around?
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