Crooked Jaw did not want to wait. Thus, after a short farewell to Finbar's
team (and that
wretched donkey), the Longs, the wolves, and their two civilian companions
started
up the High Path around the flank of Scarred Mountain. The Longs paused for
lunch when
they reached the snowy mountains and exchanged their usual forest camouflage
for winter whites.
Xavier's dark fur took more camouflaging than most and he slogged along,
panting, toward the back
of the group. Drift, unsurprisingly, didn't need any help blending in and
walked steadily
alongside Arla in the center. The day itself turned out surprisingly warm,
with a cloudless
sunny sky and a warm wind from the southeast that brought the sharp scent of
fresh snow and pine
forests up among the mountains ahead. After several hours of climbing, the
samoyed looked up the
curved, forbidding slope of Scarred Mountain on their left, its barren stones
strangely scored
with streaks and gouges running parallel to the ground. Then he shielded his
eyes against the
mid-afternoon sun high in the clear sky and craned up at the snow-laden
mountains they would be
passing later in the day. "Arla," he finally remarked, "as impressive as these
mountains look up
close, there's something I've been meaning to ask."
"What is that?" the collie-morph asked, quietly surprised that Drift was in
good enough shape
not to be panting from the effort of the climb up the saddle between the
mountains.
"I don't mean to question the judgment of you Longs, but I'd really like to
know why we're
heading into an area Finbar was suggesting we turn back from."
"Crooked Jaw insisted we go on. He says he's 'had enough of living in
caves'. If we went
back, we'd probably have to wait for late next spring to get up here again."
"Nothing like-" Drift paused, his foot resting on a fallen aspen trunk.
One of its ends was
propped up off the ground by a large rock, and it bowed slightly under the
load. "Hmmm," he
murmured, shifting his weight on it to see how resiliently it bounced back.
"Interesting."
Arla eyed Drift quizzically. "What did you say?" she asked, having not
quite caught his
murmured musing.
The samoyed looked up, his mouth twitching into a mildly embarrassed smile.
"Sorry… my mind
wandered for a moment. Nothing of immediate importance." Stepping over the
log and hurrying to
catch up, he continued, "Speaking of immediate importance, isn't this move
rather last-minute,
what with winter coming on? Wouldn't it be better to wait until spring?"
Arla's ears flicked in amusement. "At the risk of answering a question with
a question, do
you know how Crooked Jaw got his name, Drift?"
"That was my next question, actually," Drift replied. "His jaw doesn't
-look- crooked."
"The lutins gave him that name. In their language, if they say someone has
a crooked jaw, it
means they are considered strong enough and tenacious enough to have it broken,
survive whatever
broke it, and then to recover afterward. (Given the state of most lutin
medicine, that last
requirement may be the most difficult.) Once he sets his mind to something,
especially if it's
something he considers for the good of the pack, it's very hard to talk him out
of it. If we
don't go with them, then they won't get to where we want them to go and may
settle down someplace
more likely to bring them into conflict with our logging crews or our farmers.
We also would
come out looking like poor allies, which is not something we want."
"Hmm. Put that way, that does make sense." Drift pondered for a bit more
and then half
unslung the bundle of rope tied to his pack and suggested, "Why not climb down
the cliff face
once we get around this mountain, and take the Low Path the rest of the way?"
Arla chuckled. "Have you ever tried lowering a tied-up dire wolf before?
Besides which, if
we did that, then the wolves wouldn't know the way out of the lake valley if
they needed to
leave."
"Good point," Drift said. "I think-" He stopped mid-sentence, his jaw
dropping as they
crested the mountain saddle. "Oh, wow," he breathed, struck almost speechless
by the scale of
the river valley unfolding before them.
The land sloped gently down between the mountains for several hundred yards
before dropping
precipitously away into a vast chasm over a mile wide, as if a giant had
dragged an enormous
shovel through the mountains and left a broad furrow behind. The entire town
of Euper would have
fit comfortably inside its breadth. To the right, it disappeared out of sight
around the flanks
of Scarred Mountain (which had finally given up its gouged, slightly concave
look for a more
traditional tree-and-snow slope), and was concealed to the right by a high
ridge coming down from
the mountain on that side. If the far canyon wall was any indication, that
ridge would be the
first of many. The canyon wall rose many times as high as Metamor's curtain
wall, zigzagging up
and down in sharp ridges and low hanging valleys as if the river valley had
been cleaved through
the feet of the mountains. Even so, none of the mountain valleys approached
even a third of the
way down to the main valley: instead, several of them emptied cascading,
ice-encrusted waterfalls
down the cliffs that vanished into the forest of evergreens that lined the
edges of the canyon,
with a few nearly bare broadleaf trees mixed in for variation. The mountain
runoff then
reappeared as small streams that bounced down the sloped valley floor before
feeding into the
main river. The majority of the canyon, though, was treeless, and was buried
deep under gently
drifted snow where the river and the streams hadn't washed it away.
As the group got closer, even the Longs (who had seen it before) paused to
take in the
staggering view. When Drift asked why the trees were only along the edges,
Laura explained, "The
bottom of the canyon is mostly grass, because the ground is very rocky. We
don't know exactly
why it's like that, but that's not important to our mission." Turning her
attention to the
ridges and mountains they would have to traverse in order to reach their
destination, she
continued, "Finbar said that a camp had been set on a high ridge midway between
here and Ice
Lake, and that we shouldn't have any problem reaching it well before sundown."
"It always makes me nervous when someone says we 'shouldn't have a
problem'," Padraic
commented, sotto voce.
"Smart man," Laura replied, nodding in wry agreement. "This is avalanche
country. We'll be
traveling low on the mountainsides, so I don't think we'll trigger anything,
but that puts us a
lot closer to the canyon wall than I'd prefer and accidents can still happen.
I want everyone
alert and ready to run for the ridges on a moment's notice. That should get
you out of the slide
path." She pointed up at the first that they would have to cross, its spine
well-forested with
evergreens. "Get to the trees, grab hold, and hang on. Arla, make absolutely
sure that the
wolves understand that." Once she was certain that had been taken care of,
Laura turned and led
the way. "All right, people, let's be about it."
The snow conditions made for slow travel as they climbed over ridges and
trekked across
valleys. The top several inches of the snow pack were wet and heavy, but a
foot placed too
forcefully would punch through to a dry, powdery layer below. The powder
provided poor traction,
and the dense snow above dragged at legs and feet. The wolves, with their
broad snowshoe paws,
generally managed to avoid this, but the Keepers were soon slowed and wearied
by the slog. By
the sixth ridge, Drift had shifted into taurform and taken the lead, clearing a
path like an
icebreaker on a sea of snow. Xavier was starting to grumble again, but
apparently decided that
helping flatten down the snow in Drift's wake was more productive than stewing
in an ill mood.
This improved the pace somewhat, but not enough for the three young wolves.
They soon grew bored
and, despite warnings to stay close to the group, were soon chasing each other
across the slopes
in a rampaging game of tag. Cloud Walker in particular dashed around with
abandon and Crooked
Jaw finally chased him down and thrashed him to get him to settle down.
Drift winced, remembering similar thrashings in his own youth, but it didn't
seem to slow
Cloud Walker down much. He was soon dashing about again, a little closer to
the group and
keeping a watchful eye on his father's temper. After a few laps around the
party, the young wolf
leaped up onto the upturned roots of a fallen tree and looked down on them all
with a mischievous
twinkle in his eye. Seizing a dangling pine branch in his mouth, he shook it
vigorously. Snow
cascaded down on them all, drawing yells from Xavier and several of the Longs.
Xavier and Allart
in particular competed for the loudest, longest complaints when snow went down
their backs.
When the leopard spotted Cloud Walker still laughing at them from his high
perch, though, he
got his revenge. With one quick gesture from him, a swirl of wind shook the
trees above the young
wolf and they unloaded their remaining branches right on top of him in a shower
of snow and shed
needles. Xavier smiled and walked on. To his surprised friend, who had
stopped breaking trail
to watch, he remarked, "What? Did you think lightning was the only weather
effect I knew?"
"Good point," Drift replied while Cloud Walker shook out from under the snow
Xavier had piled
on him and jumped down from his boulder. The samoyed turned east to look out
over the next gully
they would have to cross. Cloud Walker's fallen tree had toppled into it,
limbs poking up
through the snow, tapering out about halfway to the bottom. It looked like
snow had drifted up
against it from the north, toward the forbiddingly barren peak above. Oddly,
most of the
branches on the valley side of both ridges were missing, but it didn't occur to
Drift to wonder
what had caused it. Instead, he was just glad that he didn't have to push
through them, like he
had had to do on most of the previous ridgetops. Pausing to rub his taur
shoulders and
forelegs, which were starting to ache from climbing and descending through deep
snow for most of
the day, Drift twisted around to look back for the party leader. "Hey, Laura,"
he asked, "how
far is it to the camp that Finbar told us about?"
Laura crunched through the snow to Drift's side, pulled a spyglass from her
pack, and surveyed
the area. "I think we've still got a few more ridges to go," she said,
snapping the glass closed
once she'd finished. "And if it isn't within two, then we'll find a
comfortable spot for
everybody to take a rest. If you're tired, though, somebody else can take over
trailblazing."
"No, I'm all right," Drift replied, waving her concern away while he flexed
his four legs in
the snow to work the soreness out. "I just need to add some elevation changes
to my daily run
once I get back. I'm not used to going up and down so much."
"Okay, but don't wear yourself out. It takes longer to recover from fatigue
up here in the
mountains than it does back in Metamor Valley."
Drift nodded and moved forward again, testing his footing as he started
downhill. Crooked
Jaw, ever the leader, walked alongside him on top of the snow, and Xavier and
Arla followed
behind while Laura continued to scan the area with a feeling of growing
concern. Reaching out to
the tree next to her, she stroked its bare, limbless side, trying to figure out
why it bothered
her so much. She looked up toward the mountain again, and suddenly the
snow-laden, treeless
expanse above the two ridges registered, as did the funnel shape of the gorge
between them. She
turned to cry warning… just in time to see Cloud Walker make a running leap
down the tree trunk
and off into the pristine valley snow. "No, don't!"
The young dire wolf cratered the snow when he landed, the snow pack
collapsing in a six-foot-
wide circled around him with a loud WHOOMP! Immediately, it started to slide
down the slope,
taking a yelping Cloud Walker with it. The developing slide didn't restrict
itself to those six
feet, either. Fractures in the snowpack radiated out in all directions. Some
bolted across and
down the ridge, lancing toward the trailbreakers, others raced uphill toward
the mountain, and
still more surged up the ridge toward the rest of the party.
Laura lunged for the tree next to her as chaos erupted. Longs and wolves
leaped for whatever
handhold or secure footing could be found in the bare moment it took for the
snow to disintegrate
around them. She heard Allart yell in pain and looked to see Silent Stone yank
the flailing
child-man from the slide by a firm, toothy grip on the seat of his white
camouflage pants. The
rest of the Longs and the wolves looked okay in the second she spared to check
them before
returning her attention to the gorge and its mayhem. Drift, Crooked Jaw,
Xavier, Arla and Cloud
Walker didn't have a chance to grab a handhold, and she strained to spot some
sign of them amid
the dissipating cloud of powdered snow as the slide in the gorge ground to a
halt.
She didn't have to wait long. Drift popped up almost immediately, and then
hauled his friend
Xavier to his feet a moment later. Both of them helped Arla up; the collie
looking breathless
but otherwise none the worse for wear. Crooked Jaw and Cloud Walker both
surfaced a moment after
that, burrowing out and shaking off in nearly identical motion.
"Is everyone all right?" Merideth called out. Into the replied affirmations
(and one
indignant "He bit my ass!"), Swift Shadow interjected a short, sharp bark of
alarm. The young
she-wolf stood high on the bundle of tree roots that Cloud Walker had just
departed, her eyes and
ears fixed intently on the mountain at the head of the gorge. A moment later,
as silence fell on
the group, everyone else heard it, too: a high, groaning strain as the entire
mountainside
creaked and shivered.
"Get out of there! Get to high ground, now!" someone shouted. It might
have been Laura; it
might have been Allart. It might even have been both at once, a warning to the
trailblazers
still in disarray down in the gorge. Whatever the case, the shout was almost
completely buried
by a tremendous cracking bang. A deep crevasse opened in the snowfield on the
mountainside high
above, and a massive slab of snow began to slide downward. At first it seemed
to move
deceptively slowly, but it rapidly built speed with a roar like rolling thunder.
That roar was met with a rising scream as Xavier, realizing that the
avalanche would be on top
of them before the trailbreakers could get to safety, met it with all the power
at his disposal.
The gust he called built from a tree-swaying breeze to a snapping wind to a
howling gale and
beyond, racing up the gorge to meet the oncoming wave of snow and blast it to
powder. It wasn't
enough. The leading edge of the slide blew away like a cloud, only to reveal
large tumbling
blocks of snow too massive to be balked even by the desperate hurricane Xavier
was throwing at
them. Forked lightning detonated the leading blocks with ear-shattering peals
of thunder, but
they were quickly replaced by the slide's seemingly inexhaustible supply.
Indeed, the wind and
the thunder were worsening the slide, shaking even more snow from the
mountainside and sending it
cascading inexorably downward.
"Blow it sideways!" Drift yelled over the din, waving his arm to the left as
if to push the
slide himself. "Dump it in the next valley over, if you can!"
"I can't!" Xavier shouted back through gritted teeth, windborne snow
whipping past him in
disintegrating sheets stripped from the ground around him. "I'm barely holding
onto this as it
is! If I try to turn it, it will run amok!"
The samoyed taur reached out and snatched Xavier off his feet. He then
tossed the leopard
over his left shoulder and dashed as fast as he could up the slope toward the
safety of the
ridgetop. "Then let it! You've done all you can- now it's time for us to get
out of here!"
The winds reeled drunkenly as Xavier's concentration broke. Drift staggered
as they buffeted
wildly about the valley, whipping up whirls and blinding eddies. Farther up
the slope, the winds
slapped Arla off her feet entirely, knocking her to the ground. Beyond her,
Crooked Jaw
stumbled, but then bowed his head into the swirling storm and bulled through to
safety at the
ridgetop. "At least one of us made it," Drift shouted, his voice barely
audible over the twin
roars of avalanche and windstorm.
"No-one else will, though," Xavier gasped. Drift's burly shoulder had
nearly driven the air
from his lungs. His eyes locked on Cloud Walker's behind them, the young wolf
wild with panic as
he tried desperately to catch up. Then Xavier looked beyond to the avalanche
that was nearly on
top of them, and his eyes widened. With a rumble like a thousand caravan
wagons all crossing a
bridge at once, the unleashed winds whirled themselves into a massive tornado,
a swirling white
wall that slammed into the oncoming avalanche like two mighty waves colliding
in the ocean. "So
that's how it's done," he murmured, for one awe-inspiring moment able to watch
the winds perform
their ultimate dance of destruction.
For a moment, the right side of the avalanche was checked by the right side
of the whirlwind,
balked by the tornado's spin, the rampaging storm shielding the fleeing Keepers
and their lupine
friend. The left side of the funnel, its winds blowing with instead of against
the avalanche,
accelerated that half of the slide past them and off the cliff into the river
valley below in a
cataract of powdered white. In that moment, Drift reached Arla, lifted her
with his strong right
arm and, with every ounce of strength his taur body possessed, hurled her up
the slope and out of
the snow slide's path. In that moment, he prayed, /Oh, Eli, forgive me all/,
knowing neither he,
Xavier, nor Cloud Walker would make it out.
Then the moment passed. The tornado, already starting to dissipate, moved
aside and a
towering wall of ice and snow engulfed the three creatures still in its path.
When it passed on
and over the cliff, only silence remained behind.
TO BE CONTINUED... (right after Anthrocon)
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