by Gabi Moore
Visibility was practically gone; the clouds hung so low on the mountain that Nemlach actually stood within them now, like a fog. The trees were becoming scarce as he climbed, which meant struggling upward through blank stretches of lonely wind-blown snow. The mountain surface was not smooth here; ravines dropped and crags rose, and Nemlach felt sure that if he didn’t find Laova soon they would both end up dead, buried beneath a white and frozen shroud.
He’d gone thirty struggling paces when he heard the voice again, much clearer. It wasn’t Laova.
“Taren!” he called.
“Help!”
“Keep yelling!” Nemlach scanned the snow, but didn’t see the boy. “Where are you?”
“I slipped down a ravine!”
Nemlach’s stomach dropped into his boots. How far had Taren fallen…? “Are… Are you injured?”
“No, I’m stuck! The snow—it’s too heavy—I can’t get out!”
At least his legs weren’t broken. Nemlach dug through his pack, searching for his rope. He wondered how he would have explained to Laova—if he ever saw her again—how he had left Taren to die. There was no way to get an injured man out of a ravine, much less back down the mountain safely. Not in this weather.
“Are you still there?”
“Here.” Nemlach followed the voice cautiously. He caught sight of a dip in the snow, and the closer he approached the deeper it became until he stood perilously close to the edge of a blessedly shallow ravine. In the dark, he could just make out a figure, mostly buried at the bottom. No wonder he couldn’t get out; Taren’s legs were both securely rooted. It was lucky he’d fallen in such a position. It would be fairly easy to drag him straight out.
“Nemlach!”
“Here.” Nemlach threw down the rope, and Taren tied it under his arms.
“What are you doing out here?” There was a crackly suspicion to his tone that made it sound less appropriate for the lucky recipient of a rescue.
How grateful of him to ask, Nemlach thought with a sigh. He labored to drag Taren free; the boy was relatively light, but still burdened with snow and heavy clothes. Nemlach had to take one step at a time, gasping for air all the while. His gloved hands held the rope tightly, but he still almost dropped it twice when his grip unexpectedly slipped.
Slack appeared in the line, and Nemlach rotated his head on his neck to try and see past his hood and hair; Taren had gained the ledge, and his arms were scrabbling for purchase. With the end in sight, Nemlach drove further still, dragging on the lightening rope until Taren lay spread-eagled in the rising snow.
“Are you—all right?” Nemlach asked again. The air this high on the mountain was wispy and insufficient. It was the opposite of trying to breathe water, or mist; it felt as if he drew in nothing. Nemlach looked up at the mostly-obscured crags of Star-Reach and tried to guess how far up Laova might be. She might do better than himself, being smaller. He had hoped the cumulative weather and thinning air might slow her down enough for him to catch up.
Taren, meanwhile, fought to his feet. The wind nearly blew him back down the ravine, but Nemlach scrabbled for a grip on his coat and dragged him safely away.
Impatiently, Taren batted his hands away. “You—shouldn’t be out—here.” Taren was feeling it, too. Just the strain of getting to his feet had left him laboring.
“Neither should you,” Nemlach replied.
Taren glared at him through the dark; their night-sight was good. Not as good as a wolf’s or a snow-panther, but better than an elk or deer. Elk or deer didn’t have to try and read each other’s faces, however, and with his scarf pulled up to his nose, Nemlach only had Taren’s flat and impetuous eyes to go off of.
“You should—go back,” Taren said.
Nemlach stared at him. The snow railed down, endlessly, blinding them to anything beyond twenty paces or so. He almost physically felt something in his chest snap back, like a child who’d been hanging on a tree branch and finally let go.
In a half-wild flurry, Nemlach flew at Taren. He couldn’t remember, later, what had gotten into him, but he punched Taren straight across the nose and felt a crack, even through three layers of gloves. Taren staggered backward.
Nemlach froze. “Gods, why did I do that?” he muttered with a sigh. He stepped forward carefully. “Here, let me see—”
Nemlach doubled over as Taren delivered a clumsy, heavy kick to his abdomen.
“That’s for Laova,” Taren hissed.
Oh, we’re doing this, are we? Nemlach glared up at Taren, and couldn’t imagine a more inconvenient time or place for this particular scuffle.
But the gods rarely give us a choice in when events boil over, and Nemlach had had enough of Taren’s moody sulking and little fits. Taren wanted to fight; Nemlach was surprised to discover that he wanted to, as well. It was a relief, as he and the boy swatted and battered back and forth at each other in the barren reaches of the gods’ territory.
They didn’t have a barest extra breath to talk or jeer at each other; that was unnecessary. The fact that they were losing time and Laova was getting further away seemed less vital, as if perhaps she was waiting politely for them to hash out their differences before proceeding with her escape into the night. There was a desperation and an urgency in the physicality of battle, even a minor one such as this, and by the time both of them were panting and gasping for air in the swirling—and worsening—snowfall, it seemed as though some tension had broken lightly into pieces and vanished.
Taren tried to swing another comically slow punch; Nemlach saw him coming without difficulty and waved him away, rasping. Taren didn’t need to be told twice. He dropped his arm and refocused on the task of getting air into his lungs.
It was some time before either of them had the breath to speak, and by the time they did, Nemlach’s blood had fully cooled and he grimaced at all the time they’d lost. Laova could be a half a league ahead, by now. Of course, Nemlach wasn’t aware that at that very moment, Laova was curled up in a rocky nook with a mountain wolf, sleeping, warm and safe. If he had known this, perhaps he’d feel less crushing guilt at acting the fool now, pummeling this confused youngster on this frozen slope in a malevolent, darkening gale of storm and snow.
“I wish--she’d never—met you.”
Nemlach glanced over at Taren. Both their face-scarves and hoods had been knocked askew, and finally Nemlach could see Taren’s face clearly.
“But she—did,” Nemlach replied, hardly loud enough to hear over the wind in their ears.
They stared at each other, waiting. With a sigh, Nemlach spoke again.
“She isn’t… yours. She isn’t mine, either. We were—weren’t made to be—owned or poss—possessed.” Nemlach took a moment, breathing deeply. “You have no right… to be angry at her… for choosing me.”
Taren’s expression jolted, and Nemlach knew he had the right of it. “And you have no right to be angry with me… for loving her back.”
“How dare you?” Taren snapped. “I have every right! You don’t even know her!”
“You’re right,” Nemlach agreed; which shut Taren up for a moment. “I don’t know her. But neither do you. You think you know everything there is to know about Laova. Yet, here we are. You knew a girl - the Laova that ran out into the snow tonight is no longer that girl. You just can’t see it. You just don’t want to see it.”
Taren seemed to be visibly shaking, either in rage or from the cold. Nemlach waited, hoping he still had the energy to fight, if that’s what Taren was after. Somehow, that didn’t seem likely.
“I hate that you’re right,” Taren shouted over the storm.
Nemlach shrugged. “I hate that we’re out on this damn mountain in a storm.”
“I should have stopped her,” Taren admitted grimly.
“Yes, you should have.”
“Next time I will.”
“Let’s make it through this time, before we plan next time.”
***
“Why me?” Laov
a asked out loud. Her voice was small, and her steps were smaller, still.
The answer came to her, in the waking world, twined about the falling pellets of snow and riding the bitter wind. Because you came to me when I asked. I reached out to you, and you answered.
Upward, always upward. Laova was in disbelief of how high she had climbed. The mountain, here, cracked through the snow. The wind was fierce. So fierce, she had to shelter between rocky shelves if she wanted to move at all. She’d been knocked down by gales that blasted around corners, gusts that she’d walked into unexpectedly. The snow was thin on the ground here, at least. She walked on a frozen layer that held her weight, and only had to shuffle through knee-deep drifts.
The wolf had disappeared. He’d seen her a good way up the last stretch of passable terrain, before this alien world of windswept rock and snow began. She hadn’t noted the exact moment he left her side, but she felt the isolation draw around her as she fought through the low cloud of the storm. When she’d fallen and had been forced to pick herself back up, that was when she noticed for certain he’d left her.
Her dark hair hung half out of her hood, and she tried to tuck it away. The strands kept blocking her vision, and she had precious little of it to begin with. But then, there was only one path, anyway, and her feet seemed stuck to it, stubbornly resistant to the thought of turning around.
“I’m on—my way,” she whispered between breaths.
I know.
“Why don’t—you—make this—easier?” she gasped, exasperated. She felt something like amusement answer, whispering over the wind, wordless.
If it were easier, there would be nothing remarkable in the fact that you have made it this far.
Laova pressed on, one foot before the other. It was a strange time to dream of it, but she thought of Nemlach. His fever had broken; if she’d stayed, they could be wrapped together in the shelter now, entwined in warmth and security, surrounded by friends. That would have been wonderful.
But to have that, she would have had to turn away from the nagging voice in her head, not the voice of the god but her own curiosity that always asked… what if? Where? How far?
The fact of the matter was, she admitted to herself as she moved along, one hand on the rock wall beside her for support, that Laova did truly love Nemlach and desire the warmth safety of his arms. But it wasn’t enough. That was why she was a hunter; safety, security, routine and predictable, was not enough. There was more in this world, and she wanted it.
The thought caused her a moment’s despair, and her steps faltered. Perhaps this meant that she was never meant to be satisfied. Or that she was cursed to adventure herself into an early grave.
“Please, don’t let that be,” she murmured, placing both hands on the wall and shoving herself on. Forcing herself on. Struggling against the forces of the world around her and forces of doubt within her.
I have no say in that matter.
The voice answered, though Laova hadn’t expected it to. She felt along with her boots as the snowfall grew worse, worse, and the clouds seemed to close around her. Her breath ran fire through her chest, never enough, always seeming as though part of the air she drew in was missing. The skin around her eyes was the only part exposed, and it felt immobile with cold. Even under her face scarf, her jaw ached with it; her nose was long beyond the realm of feeling.
It was so much worse now than when she began. The wind seemed to be trying to lift her off the mountainside, it was so strong. She could see nothing. She was feeling along the rock, and if a ravine opened under her feet she was doomed.
Still, she took step after step, because there was nothing to do but continue forward. She’d come this far. Too late to turn back.
The wind blasted like a physical force with sudden life, sudden intensity. Laova did not stop.
And suddenly, she stepped out into open air. Her boots crunched through snow that rifled gently along in a calm breeze, and the black fog and driving snow vanished. There was light. Moonlight. Laova spun around, and saw the miasma of the storm just below, but above, the clear sky was almost close enough to touch. Stars glimmered, and she could not look away. She’d never been at such a height in her life, and even while she still struggled to breathe, it was calm, now, calm enough to afford a moment of wonder.
Her hood had been torn back off her head, and it was cold, but Laova hardly paid it attention. The ghost moon was wide and round. It was full, the full moon of her ritual hunt.
And then, as if they had been waiting for her, the spirit lights. They began as wispy hints of color against the sky. Laova watched in fascination as the colors stretched and undulated, waving at her, beckoning her nearer. In red and yellow-green and purple, they beckoned, and Laova answered the call.
***
Nemlach froze.
Taren, who’d been barreling stubbornly forward with his head burrowed into his chest, diving into the wind, ran right into his back and nearly bounced off into the nearest snowdrift. Indignant, he righted himself.
“What are you doing?”
Nemlach didn’t answer. He made a small gesture with his hand, not turning to look at Taren, but it was too small a movement for Taren to take note of in the dark.
Taren meanwhile, strode up to stand even with Nemlach. They hadn’t stopped in hours. Both were perilously exhausted and the storm was not lightening, but Taren still expected to see a ravine or a sheet of rock at Nemlach’s feet, for how suddenly he’d frozen.
“Why are you stopping?” Taren shouted.
Then he looked. Then he froze, too.
Sitting five paces—less than five paces—ahead crouched a shape in the snow. Details were impossible to make out; the veil of the cloudy storm assured that. It sat stock still on its haunches, great shoulders rippled gently with each breath. Two green-gold glimmers picked out of the darkness, watching the men approach.
Taren could almost feel the teeth in his shoulder again. He shivered.
“She came this way,” Nemlach murmured.
Taren nodded; he felt it, too. The creature was unnatural. He’d known the minute it sank its fangs into his body. Laova’s behavior, also, was surreal. That the two were connected seemed simple, expected.
“We’re on the right track.”
Taren looked up at Nemlach. He was staring at the wolf with something like excitement, with a thrill of fear. It all fell into place suddenly, and Taren looked back at the creature.
“Do you think it will let us… go to her?” Taren asked quietly.
“If it wanted, it could have killed us already,” Nemlach replied.
Nemlach moved forward, walking towards the glowering mountain wolf as if it were a happy dog with a wagging tail. Taren’s heart was thudding like drums in his ears, but he couldn’t let Nemlach be so brave while Taren cowered. He shadowed the old hunter’s steps carefully; watching as the vague shape in the snow grew clear.
A low growl welcomed them as they approached; Nemlach ignored it and kept walking, even though the sound send ripples of chills up and down Taren’s skin under the hide coats. Maybe it was just the memory of those teeth in his chest, those eyes so close to his own, but Taren was having a difficult time forcing his feet to move closer to the creature.
Their progress up Star-Reach had felt slow and pathetic, but it was far too soon that the two hunters stood close enough to see the hairs rising on the hackles of the wolf. It growled again, but did not moved. Taren was beginning to doubt Nemlach’s confidence, but they kept walking, calmly, past the wolf, up the mountain, through the storm.
“She came this way,” Nemlach said again. “We’re almost there. I know. We’re almost there.”
Taren had never heard Nemlach speak so much as he had tonight. They battled and clawed up the slope, through crags of black rock and winds so fast they had to hold onto each other to stay grounded. Onward, after Laova.
Onward, towards whatever had called her to chase this mad quest.
It never occurred t
o either of them that they might suddenly come upon Laova’s frozen corpse. It was not possible. Without having to say it, they both understood that something more than a mere storm was in motion, something pervasive, something that had brought them all here.
Something that wanted Laova, and it wanted her alive.
Sure enough, they stumbled across no corpses.
Chapter 11
“They’re probably all dead,” Khara mumbled miserably.
Ghal snorted his agreement, but it lacked his usual gruff spirit. His lined, gray face had never looked quite so sagging and lifeless. His dark eyes were hooded with a solemn melancholy, one they all felt sharply as the four left behind huddled close around the fire. Perhaps it hadn’t really grown colder in their sheltering tent. Then again, feeling the void left by those that were missing, maybe it had.
Bamet lay on his back with his head near the fire, staring up at the low canvas ceiling.
“Could you tell a story, Ghal?” he asked softly, feeling and sounding like a child. “Something to… pass the time.”
The time until the storm broke. The time until they departed, hopeless, never knowing… No one spoke it. Instead, three hesitant gazes rolled to fix on Rell. They darted away almost as quickly. No one wanted to draw her attention.
Since Nemlach had left, Rell hadn’t said a word. As if there was nothing to say—she had watched in shock, with the rest, as he tramped off to certain death. Then she’d turned without comment or sound and taken a seat by the fire.
The others had gone about arranging their campfire and a good store of wood, enough to last out another day or two. No one needed to be told that there was no chance of safely escaping Star-Reach’s foothills while this snowstorm raged, so they assumed that blocked themselves in, stopping up the gaps in the tent walls and doing everything possible to keep in heat, was the best way. The snow helped; as it buried them, it insulated their walls.
