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So, I was caught off guard when we rounded a bend, only to find heaps of metal and rope torn to shreds and scattered on the slope.
”Hah!” I sucked in a breath, throat burning from the cold as Alhayda landed beside me suddenly.
He reached down and grabbed a link of the chain that used to ascend to the heavens.
“I suppose this is the chain you mentioned we would use?”
It didn’t appear to me that the chain broke from natural causes. Even buried in the snow, the metal still shined like new, and the rope bisecting it was frayed but not unraveling. The pathway had surely been destroyed on purpose.
But by who?
I had no time to investigate. Time was of the essence, and we had wasted enough of it coming here.
“I thought I knew a shortcut. I thought wrong,” I told Hadi curtly.
“What do we do now?” Kiar asked, frowning at Clem who shook violently, even under Bracken’s wing. Kiar rubbed his cheek, and I cocked my head to the side, wondering if he knew how sweetly he now treated Clem.
“We climb. The hard way. Before the sun sets.”
For some hours, none of us spoke. The silence didn’t bother me. I needed all of my attention on each step forward.
The mountain grew even more treacherous. The sleek areas of exposed rock became more slippery, eventually turning to ice.
It stung my hands when I had to hold onto it in places to climb up higher.
“Let me carry you,” Bracken said, when I slipped for the third time.
I was shaking so hard that it was almost ridiculous to argue, but I had to, especially once I saw the pallor of Clem’s skin.
“Hold him,” I ordered. “Keep him warm.”
Clem glowered, presumably because I was making him accept care when I would not allow him to care for me the same way.
“We all need our energy,” I said as Bracken lifted him to hold against his chest.
“I can hold you,” Kiar suggested, but I shook my head.
“Not for long. It will tire you out.”
I felt for Kiar. Most of his body was directly against the icy ground and powdery snow. At least only my feet and hands had to come into contact with the painful cold.
Bracken seemed to be having the easiest time. Even carrying Clem did not slow him down.
Every time the terrain became too difficult, he jumped and used his wings to propel him to the next point of solid ground.
“I will find the safest path,” Kiar told me, and for a while, he moved ahead of me, testing the mountainside for the most secure spots for me to step and climb.
It worked for the most part, until it didn’t. I supposed that a long snake body had little in common with human feet and when I took a step, going in the direction that Kiar had found, the earth suddenly crumbled without warning.
I slipped as what had been a sheet of ice disguised as solid rock fell from under me.
I tried to catch myself, but there was nothing solid to stop me as I went over the edge of the mountain. One second, I was standing and the next, I was falling. A gasp barely left my mouth before my fall was just as suddenly halted.
For a moment, I hung in mid-air, shocked. Then I realized that something had caught me around the ribs, and I looked up in wonder to find Alhadya clutching a line of his web above me. He had caught me.
Gritting his teeth, he hoisted me up, then again until I could nearly reach the ledge I had fallen from. I attempted to crawl up on my own, but his four hands caught me and pulled me up with ease.
He set me on my feet but didn’t release me.
