He crouched on the ledge above me, looking perfectly at ease. One of the dragons was sitting on his head. Its blue glow only intensified the color of his hair—it was as if his whole head was alight.
I let out an incoherent noise. He smiled, seeming pleased by my shock.
“Now, Kamzin,” he said, “you don’t really plan to climb down there without a belay, do you?”
“Yes, I do,” I said, once I had recovered myself. “I’ve climbed this peak before. I don’t need a belay.”
“On a night like this, you do.” He reached behind him, gathering up a length of rope. Attached to one end was a leather harness. “Come on, Elder’s daughter. I may be half-mad or more, as your father put it, but you have to admit, you’re not acting particularly sane yourself at the moment.”
My already red face grew even redder. Rather than reply, I snatched up the harness when he lowered it to me. It was awkward pulling it on at that angle, but I managed it, sliding first one leg through the loop, then the other.
“There we go.” He drew an iron nail from his pocket and pounded it into the side of the mountain with a rock, then looped the rope through it. Finally, he tied the end of the rope around his waist using a rat’s-eye knot. He did all this within a few seconds, moving with practiced ease. I couldn’t help staring.
“Carry on,” he said, making an elaborate motion with his arm.
Shaking my head, I lowered myself down another foot. There were plenty of handholds in the cliff face, though many were deceptive—large rocks that seemed solid, but were dry and cracked from the cold, and would fragment under too much weight. I chose each movement carefully, sometimes pausing for as long as a minute to select my next step.
I could hear River’s voice as I went—fragments of it, jumbled by the wind. It sounded like half a conversation, but who could he be talking to? Himself, I supposed. Wasn’t that what mad people did? The sound died as I put more distance between us. Now I could no longer see the glow of the dragons.
“Tem!”
I heard something in response, again from my right. It didn’t sound like a voice, exactly—I wasn’t sure what it was. I craned my neck, trying to see. It was then that the rock I was standing on gave way.
Immediately, I punched my feet back into the crumbly mountainside. One of my hands slipped, but I held on with the other. The cliffside was impenetrable; I couldn’t find a spot to wedge my feet in. Grunting, I slowly, shakily, lowered myself down the cliff, supporting myself with only my arms. Finally, I found a solid crevice to rest on.
My entire body shook. Suddenly I was immensely grateful for the harness River had given me.
A flutter of movement out of the corner of my eye. There—a narrow ledge with a broken tree leaning over it. Beneath the tree was a dark shape, motionless. At the lip of the ledge, a small, pale blot paced back and forth, shaking the snow from its coat. A yak.
Fighting the urge to hurry, I inched myself down to the ledge. Once I had tested it with my weight, I released my handholds and scrambled over to the body that lay crumpled against the cliff face.
The yak, which couldn’t have been more than a month old, nosed up to me as I crouched by Tem’s side, seeking warmth or food or some combination of both. I ignored it, and examined my best friend.
He was alive—I almost cried with relief. From the branches crushed under his body, I guessed that the tree had broken his fall.
I ran my hands over his body, but I couldn’t find any sign of broken bones. When I placed my hand on his face, he muttered something, half opening his eyes.
“Tem,” I said, fighting back tears. “It’s all right, I’m here.”
There was a gash on his head—my hand came away sticky with blood—but I couldn’t tell how bad it was. I pulled off my harness and slid it up his body.
I gave the rope three short yanks, wondering if River would know what that meant. If he didn’t, I was going to have to haul Tem up the mountainside myself, and I didn’t like my odds with that. But, after a moment, the rope tensed three times in quick succession, and then there was one longer tug. Tem slowly began to rise up the cliff. River was a few yards away horizontally, so there was some awkward bumping and jostling as Tem’s body drifted slowly sideways as it ascended. I grimaced as his shoulder hit a rock jutting out of the cliff.
I watched until Tem was out of sight. I didn’t like the idea of following him up that dark slope after my near-fall but I didn’t have much choice.
The calf grunted. I turned and found it watching me with large brown eyes.
“No,” I said sternly. “I’m sorry, but no.”
The calf grunted again. The wind gusted over the ledge, and the beast pressed itself against the shelter of the mountainside, shivering.
With a ferocious curse, I snatched up the calf—more anxious grunting—and slung it over my shoulders. The animal didn’t weigh much, but it was enough to throw me off balance. I pressed my face and chest into the mountain as I climbed. If I leaned even slightly in the wrong direction, the calf’s weight would pull me inexorably into the vast emptiness at my back.
Fortunately, the calf didn’t struggle. It was exhausted, and content to simply enjoy the warmth of my body. The yak’s long hair soon had me blinking sweat in addition to melting snow from my eyes. My shoulders burned.
Of course, climbing blind is always a dangerous last resort, and I was soon confronted by a problem: a sharp overhang in the rock directly above me. I could have scaled it alone, but as it was, I would have to find a route around. I made my way sideways for a while, over a slick wall of granite with few handholds, before starting up again. After a few desperate minutes of scrabbling up a wet, grassy slope more treacherous than anything before it, I found myself standing on solid ground, at the crest of Kunigai Spur.
The yak had fallen asleep. It started awake when I placed it on the ground, then followed at my heels.
A green light bobbed ahead. I whistled, and the dragon trotted toward me. It was snowing only lightly now, but a chill cloud had descended on the mountain. I couldn’t see past a few feet, and so when I stumbled upon Tem and River, I was so startled that I yelped.
Tem was sitting up, drinking from a flask that River must have given him. The blood running down the side of his head seemed to be drying, and apart from that, he looked unhurt. He let out a joyous cry at the sight of me.
“Kamzin! River was about to climb down for you. We both thought—”
“I’m all right,” I assured him. “I was carrying some extra weight. Slowed me down.”
Tem rubbed the calf’s ears. “Look at this idiot. I almost killed myself running after him when he escaped his pen, and now he thinks he’s going to get a treat.”
“How do you feel?” I examined his head in the wavering light.
He brushed my question aside, gazing at me as if we hadn’t seen each other in months. “Kamzin, you never should have gone after me alone.”
I made a dismissive noise. “Come on. Kunigai is no match for me, even in this weather. There was never any danger.”