43 lines
No EOL
2.4 KiB
Markdown
43 lines
No EOL
2.4 KiB
Markdown
Eris returned before dusk, breath misting in sharp bursts, her braid half-frozen and cheeks raw from wind. She moved like a shadow slipping between snow-laden boulders, silent until she stood before Telaryn.
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“They’re coming,” she said, voice low, urgent. “From the valley below. At least five—maybe more. Moving fast, on foot.”
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Telaryn’s expression darkened. She turned toward the narrow ridge path they'd begun ascending. Sari and Halven drifted closer; Weylan stood at a distance, watching with a hand on his spear.
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“Who are they?” Telaryn asked.
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“Strangers,” Eris said. “Armor not of the mountains. Their cloaks were dyed deep—red, I think. Mismatched plates, but disciplined movement. Not clansfolk. And… something wrong with the air around them. Like the wind didn’t want to touch them.”
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Tuaru stirred beside a gnarled pine root, his hand tightening on his staff. “The spirits recoil from those men,” he murmured. “There is blood on their breath.”
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Halven looked sharply toward Telaryn. “The Empire.”
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Telaryn nodded once. “Scouts. Or worse.”
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“They’ll reach the lower slopes by morning,” Eris added. “And if they’re tracking us by scent or sorcery, snow won’t slow them.”
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For a moment, the party stood in tense silence. Snow flurried around them in fine crystal threads, the air thin and brittle as cracked bone.
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“Then we climb,” Telaryn said.
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“To where?” Sari asked quietly. “The higher routes are deadfall and scree. No paths. Not for many winters.”
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“Then we find a way,” Telaryn said. Her voice didn’t rise—but something in it steadied them.
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Tuaru closed his eyes, and the wooden fetishes on his staff rattled softly. “There are ways not carved by hands. If the stone permits, I will shape them.”
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A wind gusted over the ridge, sudden and sharp. The trees creaked in protest.
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“We don’t have long,” said Eris. “Whatever they are, they’re not climbing blind.”
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Telaryn looked toward the peaks. Already, twilight bled into violet shadows along the spines of the mountains. Far below, darkness pooled like a rising tide.
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“Then we climb until the mountain says no.”
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With that, she turned and began up the pass, boot crunching ice, cloak snapping in the wind.
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The others followed—princess, scribe, storm-caller, mountainbinder, warrior, and boy-soldier—ascending into unknown white.
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Behind them, the Mourning Peaks whispered.
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And below, the shadows kept coming. |