It was less than an hour before they had to light their saddle-lanterns; the small lamps, fueled with resin, cast dim light for a few feet in every direction, but beyond that the light scattered into fog against the curtain of the falling snow. The trail was beaten deep between rocks, and Magda was glad, for the snow blotted out landmarks, and they might stray from the trail and never find it again. But when she said this to Jaelle, the other woman laughed through the muffling of the scarf.
“Just keep going up until there’s no farther you can go! Myself, I’m glad of the snow; so near to Sain Scarp, Scaravel is no pass to travel alone in good weather. I have no doubt that is how your friend was taken! But on a night like this, even a bandit would be home by his own fireside!”
Higher and higher they rode, and Magda began to feel the dull, internal ache in ears and sinuses, born of the high altitude, which no amount of yawning or pressing her fingertips against her ears could completely dispel. The cold was bitter, and they began to feel the wind of the heights, which set the thick snow streaming almost sidewise against their faces and heaped it under their feet till they sank knee-deep in drifts and they had to dismount and lead their protesting horses. They moved slowly against the wind, each woman isolated in her own cocoon of darkness and silence. To Magda the world had shrunk to a circle less than ten feet wide, containing herself, the front half of her horse, the tail of Jaelle’s saddle-horse just ahead and the soft crunching of the antlered pack beast that plodded along on his broad hooves after her lantern. Outside this narrow circle was nothing; only darkness and a wind that screeched like all the demons of Zandru’s legendary ninth hell. Up, and again up, with the protest of knee muscles with every step, and her breath short. She wrapped her thick scarf heavily over her chin, and felt the wind freezing it, from the moisture of her breath, to an ice-mask.
She felt herself bump into something hard and soft at once, recoiled from the intrusion of something else into her private cocoon, and discovered it was Jaelle, who had turned her horse somewhat so it stood side-wise of the trail to block it. She put her head close to Magda’s and shouted, “Let’s stop for some food; it seems hours since we ate, and higher up it’s dangerous to stop!”
They formed the animals into a triangle, nose to tail, and stood at the center of this crude windbreak, chewing on some dried-meat bars and fruit, which were the first things Magda could find at the top of the saddlebags. The world had shrunk so small that Magda found herself staring at the small pattern of blue birds knitted into the back of Jaelle’s woolen mittens, and wondering if Jaelle had knitted them herself.
Then above them, sweeping down from the heights and even drowning out the shrieking wind, came a shrill, eerie cry; a long, paralyzing howl that made Magda’s ears ring and almost physically paralyzed her. She gasped with the sound, then knew what it must be, even before Jaelle said: “Banshee. I was afraid of that; let’s just hope the wind distorts its sense of direction. And remember it would rather have the horses than us, so keep in their shelter.”
Magda had heard about-but never actually heard the shattering, paralyzing scream of the great flightless carnivores who lived above the snowline and were attracted by the warmth and movement of their prey. Again the ghastly screech came, and it seemed to her that the meat-bar she was chewing had turned to leather in her mouth.
Jaelle was trying to make herself heard above the howl of the wind again. “What, Jaelle?”
“This is where we have to decide. I’m not an expert on Scaravel, but I have been over it in daylight, and I gather you haven’t. Above here the trail narrows, so we can’t turn around, and there’s not even a level spot to spend the night. Beyond here, we’re committed, because there’s no stopping till we’re on the other side. But it seems to be open now. It’s a risk either way, but it’s your risk, and your neck. Try it in the dark, or wait here? It’s not a particularly good trail even by daylight.” Magda thought of the narrowing trail, the terrible carnivores of the heights, her own aching legs and wind-burned face. And Jaelle, beside her, was not really well enough to travel. Ifs not Jaelle’s mission at all. If I lead her to her death. .