I turned my back on Azar-at. “River? Can you hear me?”
But River neither moved nor opened his eyes. In the end, Mara dragged him into the cave, where I removed his boots and covered him with blankets. I didn’t like leaving him alone, so still and pale he resembled a corpse more than a living person, but I had no choice.
Outside, Lusha, her face pinched with pain, was preparing a concoction of healing herbs and berries in a pot over the fire. Though she knew the basic healing spells, she was by no means as talented as Tem, and it took us the better part of the day to make him comfortable. Mara assisted when he could, holding Tem’s shoulders while Lusha set and bound his broken leg, melting snow to clean the cuts on his face. Even Ragtooth seemed inclined to be helpful, curling himself up against Tem’s head to warm him.
As the sunlight faded, I remembered that I hadn’t eaten all day. Mara was preparing a stew, which was more broth than substance, but about as good as we could expect given our meager supplies. I helped Tem prop himself up so that he could drink.
Lusha sat beside me. “How are you, Tem?”
“Better, I think.” His voice was faint. He blinked a few times before focusing on Lusha. We had given him herbs for the pain, and a side effect was disorientation. “Kamzin, are you there? You keep fading.”
“I’m here,” I said, taking his hand. “You’re going to be all right.”
“He won’t be, without a proper shaman,” Mara muttered.
“That’s not helpful,” Lusha said. Our eyes met. There was no need for me to ask if my sister was thinking what I was—I already knew it. Mara was right—Tem wouldn’t soon recover from such injuries without the attention of a healer. But we were stranded. Lusha’s injury alone would make descending the mountain a hazardous feat—Tem’s condition made it impossible. Both our firewood and food were low, and we wouldn’t be able to stay where we were for much longer. To add to our predicament, clouds were massing against the peak of Raksha, and thickening and swirling their way toward us. The chill wind warned of a brewing storm.
Our prospects were suddenly very grim.
The others took shelter in the tent that night, but I wanted to be close to River. He was still asleep, still barely breathing, but at least he no longer seemed as pale as death. There was nothing I could do except make sure that he was warm. I adjusted the blankets around him and brushed the damp hair gently off his forehead.
I turned my attention to my feet. They had been aching for days, on and off, but something had changed after that day’s frantic trek in my heavy, cumbersome snowshoes. I drew my boots and socks off carefully, wincing.
The blisters on my heels had burst, and blood stained my socks. Two of my toenails were blackened and broken, and would surely fall away soon. But what worried me most were my toes—the two smallest ones were bent oddly and had a grayish tinge. Could it be frostbite? I massaged my feet. It was as if they were swathed in thick blankets, diminishing their ability to feel anything.
Next I examined my knee. The swelling had gone down somewhat, though my recent exertions and lack of rest had prevented it from healing properly. Even now, whenever I took a step, a shard of pain stabbed into the bone.
I lay down, forcing my thoughts away from my injuries. Ragtooth nestled against my head, his tail folded over my neck. Sleep took me as soon as I closed my eyes.
Some time later, I was jolted awake by crashing thunder and pounding hail. I lay there, listening, for what could have been a minute or an hour. I felt even more the strangeness of being there, stranded in the sky so far from home. As the storm crashed and the wind raged, it was easy to imagine that the mountain was trying to shake us off, as a yak would shake off a mosquito. I wished that I could hear River’s steady breathing in the darkness, but such sounds were lost among the clamor of the storm. I gathered my blankets around myself, shivering, praying that morning wasn’t far off.
TWENTY-FOUR
WHEN I OPENED my eyes, a faint gray light was spilling into the cave. I could hear voices outside—Mara’s and possibly Tem’s. I propped myself up on my elbows, blinking. Judging by the light, it was perhaps an hour after dawn, and the storm seemed to have broken.
I looked over at River. But instead of a mound of blankets with a tousled head sticking out of them, I saw only bare rock.
River was gone. So were his blankets and pack.
A shiver traveled slowly down my spine. I pulled on my boots, ignoring the accompanying wave of pain, and hurried out into the light.
The clouds gathering along the mountain peak were ragged, but the thick cluster lurking to the east warned that the storm was not entirely past. I could not see the sweep of the landscape; a blanket of fog covered all below us. The sun shone only intermittently through the clouds, like a tired eye opening and closing.
The tent flaps were tied back, exposing Tem to the heat from the campfire that burned low among the rocks. He lay asleep in a nest of blankets. Lusha sat beside him, murmuring a healing charm while she waved a bone talisman. Mara bent over a pot of melting snow.
“River’s gone,” I said as soon as I reached Lusha’s side.
She didn’t look up. “I’m not surprised.”
I stared. “He wouldn’t just leave. Not without saying something.”
Lusha gave me a dark look. “Why? If River Shara makes his mind up to do something, I doubt he pauses to inform anyone else. All he cares about is reaching the summit.” She threw down the rag she had been using to wipe Tem’s face. “And now we have no way to stop him.”
“He would have told me,” I insisted. “Something’s happened to him. I know it.” My mind was filled with images of the ghosts. Could they have returned for River? Or had he been so unwell that he had, in a daze, staggered off into the storm?
Lusha made an impatient noise. “What could happen to him, with that creature at his side?”
“When did you notice he was gone?” Mara said. To my surprise, he actually appeared to be listening to me.
“Just now,” I said. “But I don’t see his tracks in the snow.”
“The storm could have buried them,” Lusha pointed out.
“Only if he left when it was still raging. Why would he have done that?”
“I’ll go have a look around,” Mara said. “Before these clouds close up again.” He rose and was gone before I could even thank him. Lusha turned back to Tem, her lips pursed.
“Well done, Kamzin,” she said. “Now I’ll have another person to rescue if Mara gets himself lost.”
“He won’t.”
Lusha settled back onto the tent floor, massaging her leg. “I couldn’t sleep last night. What we went through yesterday more than undid Tem’s healing spells. If anything, the pain is worse. My ankle is broken.”
I stared at her. “You should have told me.”