Icebound

Chapter 26

"This is a bad idea," Tavra muttered darkly. Anyu couldn't help but agree with him.

The mountain rose up before them like a knife pointing at the heavens and sheering the sky clean in two. Anyu had never seen anything so immense before. The entire thing was completely coated in ice and snow, and the sun glittering off the ice gave it the appearance of a brilliant jewel sharpened to a point. This was a place meant for gods, not men.

"Come on," Anyu said determinedly. There was no getting around this. If an entire ocean stood between her and her home, she would cross it somehow. She only had to think of it as a test of her strength, the spirits' way of seeing if she was worthy to return, and she found hope. She pulled Shesh forward by the reins, and their long trek began.

Although Tavra insisted that his leg was nearly better, Anyu and Kano made him ride on Shesh's back. Shesh was by far the best climber among them. His tough hooves made him adept at finding even the tiniest crevices in the snow and rock to haul himself up, leaving Anyu and Kano scrambling to catch up with him. It was a grueling process, and exhaustion set in quickly. Anyu's fingers ached from climbing and her face stung from the cold. The fact that this was only the very beginning of their ascent wasn't very helpful in motivating her either.

The sky was clear, but the climb was no less treacherous. There was no convenient path carved into the mountain face, forcing them to either climb the cliffside along dangerously thin ledges or use what little climbing equipment they had from the supplies Denigi had given them. Anyu quickly developed a deep and intense hatred of rope, cursing the tool every time it scraped and burned her palms.

The progress they were making was heartening, but one look up towards the peak was all it took to call back all of Anyu's fears. Soon the cliff faces would be too slick for even Shesh to find a way up. Then the real hardship would begin.

In very little time, Tavra was forced to walk and climb on his own feet. Their position was growing higher, the cliffs steeper. Once, pulling herself up onto a higher shelf, Anyu chanced to look down. Her stomach immediately froze into a ball of prickly icicles. The ground was suddenly very far away, as far as the sun and moon, or even further. The icy tundra stretched out interminably behind them, an endless expanse of white interspersed with glaciers and other ice formations. She could just make out the surface of Kesuk Lake glittering in the distance. Anyu shivered just thinking about that place.

"Don't look down." Kano had walked up behind her, also looking at how very far away the ground seemed. He spoke as if he were commenting casually on the weather, and they were not in fact staring at a sheer drop that would mean certain death. "It'll just make you nauseous."

Anyu frowned and threw him a length of rope to pull Tavra and Shesh up.

"I don't understand how you can be so unconcerned in this situation," She griped as they secured the rope with an anchor and began to lower it.

"It's called being optimistic," He replied. How on earth anyone could retain a sense of optimism in this gods forsaken wasteland was far beyond Anyu's comprehension. "You should try it more often."

Ignoring his comment, Anyu walked over towards the ledge.

"All set?" She called down.

"Yeah," Tavra shouted back, accompanied with an affirmative neigh from Shesh.

Anyu checked to make sure that the rope and anchor were secure, and then she and Kano began to pull. The two of them alone were not nearly strong enough to lift Shesh's weight, but their combined effort was just enough to allow him to slowly scurry up the mountainside himself.

"So where exactly," Anyu paused to pull, grimacing as the rope blistered her skin even through her gloves. "Will we find Yahal?"

"Don't know," Kano replied through gritted teeth as they hauled on the rope again. "Somewhere in these mountains."