‘Get up! On your feet!’
Sharp pain in his shoulder dragged him from sleep. Rennic stood over him, firm hand on his weak shoulder. Around him, the world was white.
‘Move your hide, boy, or you’ll die on this mountain.’ With that, the big man was gone, vanished into the blankness that surrounded them.
Chel struggled to his feet. The fire still burned, reduced to ember glow, but the mountainside had been transformed. The air was the colour of the snow, the horizon and surroundings impossible to discern. Delicate flakes drifted through the air, settling with a feathery touch on his shoulders.
Foss loomed out of the white, a dark tower. ‘Come, friend, stow your roll and grab your prince.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Dawn. Or what should be.’
‘What’s the rush? We can’t travel in this, you can’t see a thrice-damned thing!’
‘We can’t stay out in the open.’
‘It’s hardly snowing. We get far worse down south.’
‘Not this, friend, but what follows.’
‘And what follows?’
‘Aye, fuck, what’s the yapping?’ Lemon was beside them. ‘Let’s get a wiggle on, tubers.’
She dragged them on, scooping up Tarfel as they went.
‘What’s happening?’ the prince asked. His hair was dusted with snowflakes, and for a moment in the dazzling white he almost looked like his brother.
‘Storm’s coming, princey. One that might kick the arse clean off us.’
‘Oh. Oh dear.’
***
Whisper was off, bounding into the haze as the others stumbled along in her wake. Chel concentrated on his feet, his weakened hand clinging to the bundled bedroll pressed against his body. Nobody spoke, not even Lemon, although the light snow continued to drift on a gentle breeze. The dread suffused them. Every time the wind picked up, Chel felt the others around him tense.
They slogged for hours, although time was lost to them. From instinct more than a reading of the swirling grey-white, Chel guessed it was noon before they paused, sheltering beneath a thick cluster of trees at the apex of what might once have been a goat-trail.
‘Are we nearly there yet?’ Loveless said with a giggle, bent double as she recovered her breath.
Rennic’s face was grim. The snow that stuck to it made him look like the broken old beggar that Chel had first sighted in Denirnas, and he shivered.
‘Ah, come on, it’s not that cold,’ Lemon said from beside him. She produced a smattering of rations from one of her sacks, handing out salted meat and now well-dried bread. Whisper took hers with a nod, then vanished into the darkness beyond the trees. Chel realized he’d never seen her eat.
‘Why doesn’t she eat with everyone else?’ Tarfel asked, looking after her. ‘Is she hoarding?’
‘Ever tried eating in polite company without a tongue, princeling?’ Loveless wasn’t smiling.
Tarfel looked blank. ‘No?’
‘Let me know if you’d like to try it.’
They chewed in silence, while around them the snow thickened, and the trees creaked in the wind.
***
‘We’re close now.’ Rennic was leaning hard on his staff, hair blowing across his face. The snow on the ground had reached Lemon’s knees. ‘We’d see them if it weren’t for this piss-licking cloud.’
‘Which are we going for?’ Even Foss was flagging. The dull burning in Chel’s legs was by now an old friend.
‘Whichever we can.’
They were halfway across a steep, open slope when Chel heard the prince stumble. He turned back, wading through the snow in the direction of the fallen prince, reaching him just before Lemon who was bringing up the rear. Between them, they levered him upright, frost-dusted and spluttering.
‘Aye, come on, princey, we’re falling behi—’
It was like being hit by a wall of ice. The gust blasted them sideways, whipping them with frozen shards, howling in their ears like demons. Tarfel shrieked and wailed, and all three landed back in the snow. Then it passed, leaving a strange void in its wake, a moment of eerie silence in the white before the sounds of the – invisible – world returned. From somewhere down the valley, Chel heard the wind come howling again.
The glare shifted, and Chel saw shapes ahead, little more than dark smears. ‘Come on,’ he urged, heaving himself upright. ‘We can’t risk getting separated.’ He called away to the others but the growing wind swallowed his cries. At least they had stopped to wait. Lemon was up, her orange halo festooned, arms beneath the re-fallen prince.
‘Give me a hand with this, will you, wee bear?’
They drag-stumbled along the slope, making for the shapes, as the wind rose again and scoured them with waves of ice crystals. Chel was rasped and numb, no longer able to feel the stinging of his exposed skin, his toes a memory. He snatched a glance over his shoulder, toward the shapes, into the teeth of the storm.
‘Shit.’
The shapes were trees. They’d lost the others.
‘Shit.’
***
‘Ancestors’ grace,’ Lemon whispered, looking down at her blue-tinged hands. ‘That fucken smarts.’
They huddled closer against the ancient, scarred tree trunk, shivering and shedding ice. Somewhere down-valley, the wind howled again.
‘Is the storm over?’ Tarfel said, his skin the colour of the snow.
‘Don’t know, princey.’
‘Where are the others?’
‘Don’t know, princey.’
‘What are we going to do?’
Lemon turned to Chel. ‘How do you stop yourself just punching him all the time?’
The howling came again, and Lemon froze. Chel read her expression. ‘That’s not the wind, is it?’
Lemon shook her head. ‘It is not, no.’
Tarfel looked panicked. ‘What? What is it?’
When Lemon didn’t answer, Chel met the prince’s gaze. ‘Wolves.’
‘Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’
‘Still, there’s one piece of good news,’ Lemon said, cracking a bloody grin. ‘If them wolfy bastards are coming out to play, that’s probably it for this shitehawk storm.’
‘Oh,’ Tarfel said, his expression brightening. ‘Well, that’s something.’
‘Aye, right. Ain’t it just.’
Chel squinted at the drifting haze beyond the trees. The baying echoed from the slopes around them, but it was getting louder. ‘I think the fog’s lifting. How far away do you think they are?’
Lemon was rummaging in one of her sacks, grim-faced. ‘Hard to say. Maybe close enough to get wind of us.’
‘Maybe they’ve found Hurkel and his friends.’ For a moment, the image filled his mind of wolves tearing into the stricken confessor, and he felt his stomach lurch. He couldn’t be sure if it was horror or guilt. ‘We can fight them off, right? You’re the champion wolf-slayer.’
She coughed. ‘Aye, right, well … There might have been a little, to use an Hacademy expression, hyperbole.’
Chel paused. ‘Hyperbole?’
‘A touch of old-fashioned exaggeration, if you prefer.’
‘You made it up? You’ve never killed a wolf?’
‘Oh, fuck off, pal. I’ve smashed in more living things than you’ve eaten, and that’s a fact. Just not, uh, your actual wolf.’ She wiped at her nose, then pulled a short, fat blade from her bag. ‘Fuck-all good these’ll do us, wee bear. By the time friend wolfy is close enough to jam one of these in his guts, he’ll likely be enjoying a good munch on your gullet.’
She replaced the knife in the bag and went back to rummaging, muttering as she went. ‘To think I left Clyden for this. Eaten by a fucken dog with a hairstyle.’ She paused her delving, looked momentarily wistful. ‘Go out, see the world. Return in triumph at the completion of your tour. Seemed pretty straightforward.’ She shook her head at Chel’s blank look. ‘We have a Clydish word, tourist. You might consider me a tourist. Ancestors, you people know absolutely nothing.’
‘We can’t stay here. The fog’s lifting; if we move fast we can find the others’ tracks. We have to assume they’re looking for us already.’
‘Aye, if the wolfy bastards didn’t get them first.’
A little voice at the edge of his mind interjected: Why are you in such a hurry to chase after the mercenaries who kidnapped you? Why not make a run for it with the prince? Break for freedom?
‘Shut up,’ he said aloud.
‘Eh?’
‘Nothing. Let’s go.’