A black fissure split the top of the snowy wall. Ceaseless thunder crackled across the canyon as the entire surface of the snow slid free. The land echoed with booming destruction as the sudden rush of snow began crashing down, a wave of unrelenting frost and stone.
“The whole hill’s coming down!” Duck yelled.
Keech could see that the majority of the tumble would miss them and smash into the valley between the Suffering Bluffs, likely burying Black Charlie and the pursuing thralls. But a massive portion of the slide was sweeping toward them.
Straining to be heard, Strong Heart shouted, “There!” She pointed to a giant outcropping of stone that stood against the gray sky. Beneath this rocky overhang was a shallow recess, a space where they could hide from the toppling ice and debris.
Bounding back into their saddles, the Lost Causes raced toward the overhang. Hector shot ahead of the group, kicking up snow, zigzagging between tangles of dead sagebrush. The rumbling intensified.
Duck and Strong Heart were two steps behind him, but Quinn and Lightnin’ had come to a dead stop. The pony was in a panic, rearing up on his hind legs. Quinn spilled out of the saddle and landed in the snow. Keech pulled back on his reins. Despite Hector’s own terror, the horse turned back.
Duck and Strong Heart raced past them as Keech hollered at Quinn. “Get up!”
Quinn tried to grab Lightnin’s reins, but the pony refused.
Thick frost whipped the air, obscuring Keech’s vision. He pushed Hector closer and tried to reach for Lightnin’s loose reins, to arrest the animal’s tantrum, but his fingers fell out of reach. “Leave me!” Quinn yelled.
“Not a chance!” Keech swiped at the reins again. His fingers seized the leather, and he yanked down, stopping Lightnin’s next outburst. “Here!” he called, showing Quinn the reins.
Quinn stumbled through the snow and grabbed the straps. He jumped back onto Lightnin’ and shouted for them to hurry.
“Ride!” Keech said. “I’m right behind you.”
The second Quinn started forward, Hector shot after him. All around, the world became a collision of tumbling stone and ice, exploding with terrible power as the avalanche annihilated the mountainside. An entire hill of husky evergreens snapped like twigs, and sprays of stinging snow harried the front of the wave.
Duck and Strong Heart had reached the recess, the outcropping rising above them like a barricade against the wave. The girls huddled close to the protective wall. Achilles had made it to safety with them, cowering near the hooves of Flower Hunter and Irving.
With the speed of a cannonball, a chunk of granite landed just ahead of Quinn, puffing up bursts of snow. “That was close!” he shouted as they skirted the stone. Glancing up, Keech saw a terrible white cloud bearing down on them, a deluge that would bury them in seconds.
They weren’t going to make it.
There was only one way to survive. Keech raised his hand and shouted a Black Verse from the Ranger’s journal. He tasted something rancid, like sulfur, then a surge of energy pulsed through his body. The curious power of the Prime coursed down his arm and launched out of his fingertips.
The raging whitecap crashed against an invisible barrier, leaving them untouched.
“What happened?” Quinn shouted.
“Just keep going!”
They rode the final few yards to the recess and squeezed in next to Duck and Strong Heart, who simply shook their heads in disbelief.
The Lost Causes waited next to their exhausted horses as the avalanche crashed around them. The mountain air was a frenzy of frost and thunder. They cupped their hands over their ears in a vain attempt to dampen the drumming.
After several more minutes of chaos, the terrible collapse quieted.
“I reckon now we know what knocked the town off the cliff,” Duck said.
As the white mist thinned, the gang began chipping away at the snow that had formed a waist-high wall around the alcove. Achilles pitched in, using his front paws to dig a dog-sized hole through the snowpack. When they were done, they turned their attention back toward the switchback they had just fled. Gone were the trail and the stone foundations where Tranquility Overlook once sat; a smooth white slope replaced them, as if the gorge had never been there at all.
“Black Charlie and those thralls are done. Nothing could’ve survived that,” Quinn said.
Duck peered around suspiciously. “That avalanche came along at the perfect time. Too perfect. I don’t believe in that sort of luck.”
“Neither do I,” Strong Heart said. “Strange whirlwinds appeared across the ridge.”
Keech had seen the whirlwinds, too—a perfect line of them before they scattered and tore up the hillside. “Whatever happened, we shouldn’t be too sure Black Charlie’s finished,” he said, hoping to shift the subject away from the avalanche. He didn’t want the others to find out he had used the Black Verse again, even if it was to save Quinn and himself. “We should get moving.”
Achilles barked as if in agreement, then scurried off over the snow, heading toward the massive peak that towered in the distance.