He was not among them, she was sure. She knew he would not carry a weapon, and each man here was armed. Renir, with his great axe, the wiry old warrior had his two swords, and the dark man carried a huge double handed bastard sword, something she had never seen before. She had been around swords all her life, and she thought she knew every shape possible, but never had she seen its like. It would take a man of his size to hold it steady, let alone swing it with any accuracy.

She examined her new companions as they fled up the side of the quaking mountain. It was hard work, fighting the incline and the shifting ice and rock underfoot. She was tiring faster than she expected as they climbed, fallen into silence long ago. The air seemed to press on her lungs as they rose along the side of the mountain.

There was no sign of pursuit below. She wondered how the white rahkens fared — if they were as strong as the rahkens she knew, the Protectorate would be hard pushed to hold them back.

The pathway lurched suddenly beneath her feet, and she stumbled toward the sheer drop at the side. Renir’s hand was around her arm before she could teeter any further toward oblivion.

“Been like this all week. You get used to it after a while. The trick is, pretend you’re at sea,” he said with a grin, and let her go.

She smiled back, with a mumbled ‘thanks’, but could spare no more breath for talking. She was at her limit.

Just how much longer would it be? If the rahkens could destroy their enemies, they would still be hard pushed. If this quaking and the ash tumbling through the air were signs of the wizard awakening, she dreaded to think what would happen when they met. Even if the Protectorate on the lower slopes were utterly annihilated, they might still die at the hands of the mountain.

It shimmied again, and she swayed this time, found her footing almost immediately. It was, she thought with a quiet smile, just like being aboard a ship in a gentle wave. She looked down and saw shale sliding down the slope, gathering pace and snow as it fell. She risked a glance up — never a good idea to look up when on precarious footing — and blanched as she saw the overhanging ice above her. One more quake and the whole lot would come down on their heads. It was a wonder it hadn’t fallen already.

She gritted her teeth and ignored the dangers. If it was her destiny to die on this rock face, then why all the talk of prophesy? She didn’t trust prophesy entirely, though, so with one careful eye on the rocks and ice above, she stumble on, ever onwards, no time for conversation or foolish tears, but an endless trudge along the precarious rockface, higher and higher, leaving the world behind until the battling warriors below turned to shapes obscured by the falling snow and ash, and then to mere specks, glimpsed occasionally through the clouded skies.

She climbed where she had to, walked where she could, her lungs burning and her limbs aching, leaden. At last, she thought, when she risked looking up, they were stopping ahead. Roth was waving them on urgently, even though the beast seemed at rest, its pose almost languid, like it, too, belonged on these frozen slopes. How easily its clawed feet could climb these mountains. No foolish sandals for Roth.

She cursed under her breath that she had not thought to come prepared…but then when had she had the chance to equip herself with winter clothing? In Beheth, where it was always temperate and the citizens had never needed, let alone seen, a cloak?

Her feet and hands were frozen, her breath frosted the air. At least if she kept moving she would not freeze to death. But she was deathly cold. Perhaps, in the mountain’s heights, it was the cold as much as the altitude that stole the breath and sapped the energy.

She followed on, staring at Renir’s broad back, rather than at the sheer drop below or the ominous sheets of ice above.

As if sensing her discomfort, he stopped and turned to face her.

“I’m a fool. My wife always said so, and I’m inclined to see her way of things these days.” He shrugged off his thick cloak and handed it to her.

“I cannot! You’ll freeze to death.”

“Somehow I don’t think I will. I might be cold, but I’d rather be cold than watch someone else freeze to death. Take the cloak. It is warm. Besides, I’m sweating now. Oh! I don’t mean I’ve made the cloak sweaty…it’s quite clean…it doesn’t even smell…I’ve been wearing it all week…” he paused for breath, looking slightly red in the face. “That’s another thing my wife always said, I talk too much. I’d be grateful if you’d take the cloak.” He held out the cloak — perhaps smelly, perhaps sweaty, but above all warm — bashfully.

“Thank you, Renir. If the gods be kind to us, we’ll both be warm before this day is out.”

“Don’t see how, Tiri, but I’ll drink to that. Warm, in a nice comfy bed. I can’t remember the last time I was warm, or slept in a bed. I think I might smell of Teryithyrian, too. They don’t make the most comfortable of sleeping partners. Not that I’ve slept with one, if you know what I…ah, never mind me.”

They had caught up the others, and for some reason Tirielle found that the strange warrior had made her smile. His countenance was terrible, but under the grime and the beard she realised he did not have the look of a slayer, but of an ordinary man, with kinder eyes than usually.

Behind her, a massive slab of ice cracked and fell loose, crashing to pieces down the side of the shifting mountain. Shivers racked her body, then, and she hugged herself. The cloak was comfortingly warm, with the warrior’s body heat. It cut out the piercing wind, too.

She was not one to overlook the little mercies. She was thankful for what she could get.

“Perhaps we should wait for your friend,” said Roth to Cenphalph, where they were paused before a great, smooth round boulder, incongruous amongst the ragged rock and fragile shale.

Tirielle looked round and saw an old man walking up the side of the mountain. He wasn’t sticking to the path, but leaping nimbly over rock and crag with the ease of a mountain goat. His beard reached his waist, and his hair was even longer.

Drun Sard, her mind supplied. He was everything she had imagined and more. No man could climb the rock as swiftly without the aid of magic. Not at his age. He must be ancient for his white hair to grow as long. She smiled at the sight of him.

“He’ll catch up,” said Shorn. Tirielle noticed his voice lisped slightly, no doubt a result of the blow he had taken to his face. She took pains not to stare.

She felt she should make some form of introduction, but she was too short of breath join in the conversation.

“How are we to move it?” said Quintal, eyeing the rock baring their way. It was as the map had described it. Worn thin with age and the inhospitable weather, Tirielle could see the markings described in the scroll. It was the entrance to the depths of the mountain. She could think of many places she would rather go. A small, snide part of her piped up…and what if it never moves? How long till the soldiers catch up? How long will we last against an army?

She shook herself and looked at the old man climbing steadily toward them. He would be there soon.

“I think this is why I came,” said Roth. It seemed sad, and spared a glance at Tirielle. She wondered what it was she saw there on Roth’s face. It was something she had not seen before. It looked, to her, like acceptance. Always before it had fought, never giving in. Now it seemed as though the mighty beasts will had crumbled.

“Look at the marking. It is a hand.”

“But it’s massive…” said Quintal, and tailed off. “I see.”

Roth merely nodded, and placed its right hand on the rock. Its hand fitted the carving perfectly.

A beautiful humming accompanied the giant’s actions, and Tirielle looked around for the source of the resonating song…it was coming from Shorn’s sword, clenched in his good hand — he had obviously damaged the other, for it was encased in a silvery brace, with a sharp, flared blade along his forearm.