Last Stand (The Black Mage #4)(83)

No one could muster the words to speak.

We shared another helping of broth, not even bothering to remove the scum that rose to the top; we were too exhausted to care.

The next morning when I awoke, it was just as bad as before. The one good thing, if you could classify it as such, was that we were leaving the rawhide contraptions behind. We couldn’t scale a rise of ice with a racket attached to our boots.

Killian, a man with the arms of an ox who had grown up in the heart of the Iron Range, spent the first part of our morning demonstrating how to scale the mountain face.

“Feet parallel.”

I exchanged a look with Ella as we spread out behind a line of others. We would be taking the face on two at a time. Alex, who was doing the very best he could to swallow his fear, was going before us. In the event he slipped, we wanted to be able to cast him to safety.

Everyone was relying on someone else.

“Hips in. Left shoulder back to get a good swing.”

We mimed the movement with our picks in hand.

“Push hips out and then climb… Parallel.” There was a pause between the instruction. “Make sure your body is center to the pick.” He continued, “Swing again.”

I’d scaled boulders during my youth and a cliff or two during the apprenticeship—rock climbing was one of my strengths—but ice was a different sort of test. For one, our boots had little traction and we exerted a lot of magic just fighting to keep our hold.

Every so often, I put a bit too much weight into my swing. Then I was at the mercy of the pair spotting me below. They were all that came between me and an untimely death.

Killian was the last one up; his skill kept him from unfortunate mistakes. Still, I didn’t release my breath until he was fully over the ledge.

It took us most of the day to reach the top. By the time the last of our party had recovered enough to continue, the sun had set and the air had dropped to an unbearable chill.

It was all we could do to make one final camp.

We didn’t have to worry about a patrol spotting our fire late into the night; the summit’s plateau was the highest peak in the Glacial Pass. That, and the Crown’s Army sentries would never expect someone coming from the west.

“Get some rest because we set forth at dawn.” Quinn chugged down the final bit of his broth, doing his best not to grimace like the rest of us. The marrow was long gone and the only flavor was from some rather tasteless herbs.

Little did he know those “herbs” were crushed valerian root treated with magic. Alex had found the flowers in Jerar not two days after we came up with our plan and saved them for our final night in Caltoth. The powder, he had promised, would buy us three hours before the others awoke.

My brother had wanted to administer the root at dawn, to give us time to recover, but I had insisted on tonight. Every hour that passed was another hour the war waged somewhere down below.

I didn’t care if my stamina was somewhat drained. I didn’t care if the cold stole my breath and left a skeleton of ice.

I needed to leave now.

A rational part of me knew I was being reckless.

But the sane part of me knew it was the only way.

A half-hour later, Alex, Ella, and I had finished dragging the bodies into tents and wrapping them up in the remains of our rolls. We couldn’t keep a fire burning by magic, so the mages were paired together for warmth. We’d done our best to heat small chunks of granite and metal pots, tucking them in with their furs to help stimulate warmth.

The others would never survive the night without a fire, but they would for three hours thanks to the precautions we took.

“Was I wrong not to trust Quinn?” I stared out at the leader one final time, shouldering my pack. The wind howled behind us, and my fur-lined hood was just barely keeping my face from the worst of it.

I tucked the ends of my scarf into the neck of my cloak. I was sweating after heaving ten bodies across ice and snow, but I knew it wouldn’t last long. I didn’t want to think how much worse it would get.

“You had no choice, Ry.”

My gaze fell to Ian sleeping soundly next to Ray.

I had no choice.

My friends would never forgive me. If we survived.

I’m not picking Darren over Jerar. My fingers curled around the stolen map. It would never come to that. This was about giving the king a chance.

Ella finished adjusting her scabbard, and then we were off.

The stars lit the way.



*

Two miles in the dead of the night and all around us the granite glittered with ice, sharp and translucent. It was almost ethereal to be someplace so deadly and enchanting in the same breath.

We took the ridge slowly as we began our descent. The pass had been aptly named. Snow compacted into ice, frozen solid by years of neglect in a land with only one season. The summit sloped down and led to a cavernous passage littered with glaciers.

Everywhere we turned, there were beds of black ice and snow-dusted rock. It would have been so easy to fall and slip, impaling oneself on a jagged rock or, worse, over the ledge. We couldn’t spot anything from the top of the pass; the mountain descended steeply into a second, lower peak where the overlook was kept. It was there we would finally be able to see the war waging below.

By the end of the second hour, we were numb from the waist up. Even with the constant movement and the heavy furs lining the inside of our cloaks, it wasn’t enough. The temperature had continued to plunge, and we needed a moment to reheat our limbs or risk losing them to black frost.