Several times, I spotted crumbling cities, most smaller than the one we’d left. One thing they all had in common, however, was the slow creeping of nature, trees and brush and grass steadily destroying what humans had built centuries ago. It was a constant reminder that nothing was permanent, least of all us.
We were all temporary.
I lost track of days.
There’d been several more attacks after that first one, most too far ahead of this end of the caravan for us to have time to help; the centaurs—it was usually centaurs—had too few numbers to engage us in a battle that lasted longer than a half hour. But we heard about the skirmishes, the small raids and attempts to creep in during the night. Security around the caravan grew tighter as the months passed us by.
Then, quite suddenly, the world grew cold, and the caravan shifted, moving not alongside the mountains, but aiming through them. The caravan fore curved ahead of us, moving up and over crumbling roads. And high above them, the mountaintops turned bare and white.
I had no clue how Meuric knew where to go, but he must have, because every day we set out with a purpose. Though here at the end of the line, our purpose was mostly keeping up with the rest of the travelers. And not freezing to death.
The cold snaked into everything, like a living force. My throat and eyes ached from the frigid, dry air, and when I took off the cloth protecting my mouth and nose from dust, I could see my breath misting before me.
“Do you think Janan is worth all this?” I asked Fayden as the wagons rumbled through the mountains. The road here was treacherous and narrow—too narrow for him to ride his horse next to us. Below, Stef cursed at whatever he was building. Some kind of defensive device.
“All this what? Ages of travel?” Fayden sat opposite me, his voice not quite lost beneath the wind and grumble of our passage. Other voices echoed above and around us.
I nodded. “Yes. That. But also the Community burning. Abandoning the old city, and the plague victims quarantined inside.” A blast of frigid wind sent us both shivering, and I wrapped my arms around my middle. I already wore almost all the clothes I owned—plus new wool items we’d traded for—but even so, I’d never been so cold in my life. “Being here, too. In this place.” I gestured around, toward the mountains rising all around us. With so much strength and height, it seemed they were holding up the sky. “This place is alien. We don’t belong here. It’s so cold and different. Do any of us even know how to survive here?”
Fayden shrugged and pulled his jacket tighter over his shoulders. Like everyone else, he wore a cloth over his nose and mouth, and a knitted hat drawn down to his eyebrows. Only his eyes were uncovered, and they were narrowed against the stinging cold.
It was hard to believe we’d ever been warm, or longed for a day of cooler weather.
“We’ve lost even more people to plague and sickness on this journey.” I slumped and massaged my temples. “This place is going to kill us. If not the attacks, it’ll be because we all froze to death.”
My brother glanced downward. “I know.” We’d both helped bury some of the bodies.
“And everything Meuric does just seems so suspicious.” I peered north, but I couldn’t see the beginnings of the caravan around the winding mountain road. “I keep seeing riders around his wagon.”
“He is our acting leader. He has a lot of people to order around.”
I shook my head. “Sometimes they leave the caravan altogether, and I never see them again.”
“You’re not always watching for them, are you? Maybe you don’t see their return. Or maybe they die.”
“But why? Where are they going? What are they doing?” I tugged off my hat and ran my fingers through my dust-stiff hair. “What could be killing them?”
“More centaurs? I don’t know.” Fayden braced himself against the roof and repositioned himself. “He swears we’ll be there soon, though.”
“Where?” I gazed north, but all I could see were endless mountains dusted white with snow. Golden sunlight caught the knifelike ridges, making heavy shadows contrast the glow. “Where are we going?”
“To rescue Janan.”
And I still couldn’t understand why.
Why all of us? What had Janan been doing in the first place? Maybe there was a good reason for everything, but we hadn’t been told enough. We’d been expected to follow. And those who hadn’t had been punished.
Killed.
Meuric was acting so harshly in Janan’s name. Was that how Janan had ruled, and we’d just never noticed? How did we know that we were doing the right thing by following?
I couldn’t be sure anymore. I didn’t know what was right. Or if it even mattered.
We were all going to die one day anyway.
The wagon followed a long curve around the mountain and I saw it: our destination.
How I knew, I couldn’t say, but something deep within my soul shifted and I had no doubts.
“Look,” I breathed. Mist fell from my lips.