'Her meat will be a bit stringy, but it'll do when we're starving on the crags.'
'She's not for eating,' scowled Saark. 'That would be a crime!'
'Aye. A crime to my belly, is what I'm thinking. But come on. We have a long way to go.'
They rose from Kingsman's Tarn in the basin valley, and within an hour the wind was howling across the rock faces and cutting through their clothing. Each pulled on extra woollen shirts and dug out thick cloaks, as high over the ridges snow danced and threatened heavy falls.
'I expect,' said Saark, grunting as he jumped down into the old stream bed and turned to guide Mary, 'that the snow can easily block our passage. Render our journey impossible. That sort of thing?'
'Aye,' said Kell, panting, putting his hands on his hips to gaze up the narrow incline ahead. Although snow was present, it was surprisingly shallow and banked to one side of the old stream bed. Kell picked a path to the left where his boots could still grip the stones, and he led the way up the slope.
Their progress was slow, and before long all four were panting, and struggling to move forward. Despite cold and ice, the small rocks of the old stream bed shifted under boots, making the scramble difficult.
Still, they pushed on.
Out of the wind it was hot work climbing, and they played an annoying game of removing clothing, then suffering the bite of wind and putting it back on. Saark cursed more than the others, and Nienna was silent, her face strong, eyes focused on the task, pushing herself on much to the silent pride of Kell. She is definitely of my blood, he thought. She has the strength of ten lions!
Darkness was gradually falling as they reached the final section of the steep trail, which grew worse for perhaps the final hundred metres of ascent up to Demon's Ridge. The ridgeline had vanished now, and all they could see was rock and ice, boulders and channels in the mountain rock.
Saark stopped, and glanced back at what they had climbed. He grinned over at Nienna. 'You're doing well, girl.' She nodded, but no smile came to her face. She was exhausted, hands cut, feet sore, the cold seeping into her bones, the wind shrieking in her brain. 'I am trying, Saark. Really trying.' Her voice was the voice of a child again, and weariness her mistress.
Now, the climbing got harder and they struggled on, clawing at the frozen rocks, dragging themselves up steep inclines and past huge boulders. Mary the donkey was, as Saark predicted, surprisingly agile, but as he peered further and further up the trail, he wondered for how long she'd be able to manage.
They struggled on, sweat pouring down faces, making their hair lank and skin chilled by the wind. Myriam suffered the worst, for with her savage cancer she had grown weak, and grew weaker with every passing day. Her face and eyes were fevered, and she drank water often, hands shaking with fatigue and dehydration. At one point she stumbled, and Saark was there in the blink of an eye, moving with incredible agility and speed, grabbing her arm before she toppled back down the steep road of stones. She smiled in gratitude to him, leaning on him heavily as she fumbled for her water bottle again. Saark scowled, and let go.
'I should have let you go,' he snapped.
'You're still sore about that knife wound, aren't you?'
Saark said nothing, but moved ahead. Myriam watched him with bright fevered eyes.
Kell was first to reach the summit and stand on the heady heights of Demon's Ridge. He planted a boot either side of the ridgeline, hands on hips, hair and beard caught by the wild, whining wind, and gazed out over the stacked ridges and endless teeth of the Black Pike Mountains. They filled his vision like nothing else ever could, and Kell caught a breath in his throat, filled with emotion, filled with dread, and filled with a deep certainty, an intuition that this was his last time in the Black Pikes. He knew, as sure as night follows day, that he would die here. The Pikes would claim him. For Kell, this time, there was no going home.
Melancholy hit Kell like a fist. He helped Nienna climb up and stand beside him on the high ridge, gazing out across the staggered realms of hundreds of mountains which stretched off to a distant, dark horizon. Trails of dry snow curled in the air, and each mountain was subtly different, many purple or black or grey, many with snow on flanks and peaks; but they all shared one thing in common. Each was a savage barbed pike, a threat to life and love, and without an ounce of mercy in the billions of tonnes of rock which carved out passes and channels, gulleys and scree slopes. These were the Black Pike Mountains. All they brought to humanity was suffering and death.
Saark arrived next, panting, his dark curls drenched with sweat. Mary the donkey followed him, struggling up the last section, but once on the ridge was surefooted and seemed unconcerned by the vast drops surrounding them. Saark patted her muzzle and looked to Kell. 'You move fast for an old fat man,' he said.
'And you climb well for an effete arsehole.'
Saark gazed out. 'I don't like the look of that. Too many places to die!'
'It's beautiful!' said Nienna, voice filled with awe.
'Yeah,' muttered Saark, taking in great lungfuls of air, 'as beautiful as a striking cobra. Girl, this place is no place for mortals. The Black Pikes were put here by the gods to keep us away from the Granite Thrones!'
'The Granite Thrones? What're they?'
'Tsch,' scowled Kell. 'That's a myth.'
'In my experience, nine times out of ten myths are based on fact.'
Kell shrugged. 'Whatever. That does not concern us. What does concern us is getting to Silva Valley; it's a long, hard haul my friends.'
Myriam climbed the final stretch, and stared at the donkey's arse blocking her path. Saark clicked his tongue, and Mary moved out of Myriam's way, eyes flared, ears laid back along her dark-haired skull.
'This is no place for an ass,' said Myriam acidly, stepping up onto the ridge.
'I wish everybody would stop complaining about my donkey,' moaned Saark.
'Who said I was talking about the donkey?'
They laughed, and stared out in wonder. The world seemed much larger, a vast sweeping canvas. Nienna turned a full circle, eyes absorbing the magnificent splendour as the wind swooped and howled, crackled and snapped.
Kell laid his hand on Nienna's shoulder. 'Is this what you wanted, girl?'
'What do you mean?'
'That day, when the Army of Iron invaded Jalder. You said you were bored. You wanted a taste of adventure. Well, you've been given adventure all right. You've been given adventures enough to last you a lifetime!'
'It's not what I expected,' she said, in a small voice, remembering the evil people she had met, the pain she had endured, the friends she had lost. And most of all, she pictured Kat, a victim at the hands of Styx's Widowmaker crossbow. Nienna realised she was glad Styx was dead. He was a bad man, and had deserved everything. 'I realise now. I did not understand. It would have been better to stay at home, go to university, raise a family.' She took a deep breath, and looked up into Kell's eyes as the wind whipped her dark hair. 'But I am here now, and this thing is happening to our world. The Army of Iron will not stop, the vachine will not stop – not unless we stop them, right?'
Kell chuckled. 'An old man, a haunted child, a cancer-riddled woman and a foppish dandy. What chance, in the name of the Bone Underworld, have we really got?'
'You sell us short, old man,' said Saark, smiling, his eyes twinkling as his gaze moved back down the trail they had traversed. The smile dropped from his face, as if he'd been hit by a helve. Distant, by the tarn, where the pass led from the Cailleach Fortress, something moved. 'We have company,' snapped Saark, hand on the hilt of his rapier.
The group turned, looked down, and stared.
Distant, two pale-skinned figures emerged. They were tall, lithe, athletic, and moved with a balanced ease across uneven ground. Even from this great remoteness it was clear they were Graal's daughters, the vachines who had attacked Kell and Saark earlier. They were the Soul Stealers. And they still hunted Kell's blood.
'I thought we'd scared them off,' said Saark, voice little more than a whisper.
'No chance, lad,' said Kell, eyes hooded. 'And look. This time they brought friends.'
Behind the two women, on long chain leashes, came the cankers. There were three of them, but these were smaller than previous beasts and appeared, almost, like bow-legged horses. Only these seemed to have no skin. Bloody, crimson flesh gleamed, even from this distance. One of the skinless cankers screeched, and the sound echoed through the basin valley like a woman being stabbed, reverberating on high spirals of wind. It was a chilling sound.
'Time for us to move on, I think,' said Saark, mouth dry, voice a whisper.
