One afternoon there was a stirring on the mountainside above them and they looked up to see white, horned beasts bounding to cover. One stopped on a ledge, looking down, and an arrow from Herilak’s bow sought it out, dropped the creature tumbling down the cliff face. Its fur was curled and soft, the flesh, when they cooked it that evening, delicious and fat. Har-Havola licked the last of the grease from his fingers and grunted happily.
“Only once before have I eaten mountain goat. Good. Very hard to stalk. They live only in the high mountains. Now we must think of fodder for the mastodons and wood for our fires.”
“Why is this?” Herilak asked.
“We go higher. Soon there will be no trees, then even the grass will be thin and scarce. It will be cold, very cold.”
“Then we must take what we will need,” Herilak said. “Without the tents the travois are lightly loaded. We will cut wood, load it. Young branches as well with leaves for the beasts. They must not starve. Will there be water?”
“No, but it does not matter since there will be snow to melt. It can be done.”
Although the days were still warm they found frost on the ground now when they awoke in the morning, while the mastodons rumbled their discomfort, breaths smoking in the chill of dawn. Although there were complaints about how thin the air was and old Fraken gasped loudly and could not walk so rode instead on one of the travois, Kerrick found himself filled with a happiness that was new to him. The clarity of the arr pleased him, as did the silence of the mountains, the stark cleanliness of sky and rock. So different from the damp heat of the south, the sweat and insects. The Yilanè could have their swamps and endless summer. They were suited for it. They would find life here unbearable. This was not their world here—could they not leave it to the Tanu? Although he looked always at the sky Kerrick saw none of the great raptors or other birds that might be marking their passage. Perhaps the Yilanè would not follow. Perhaps they were safe from them at last.
“That is the highest pass, there,” Munan announced one afternoon, pointing ahead. “Where those clouds are, where it is snowing. I remember now how the clouds sweep up from the west so that it snows there more often than not.”
“We cannot wait for the snow to stop,” Herilak said. “There is little wood and fodder left. We must press on.”
It took a long day of continuous struggle to reach the summit of the pass. The snow was deep and the mastodons broke through the crust and foundered in the heavy drifts. It was an exhausting struggle for them all, pushing ahead step after slow step. At nightfall the sammads were still on the slope and were forced to spend a sleepless night there, with the beasts squealing in discomfort through the darkness. Unable to light fires they could only wrap themselves in furs and shiver until dawn. At the first light they went on, knowing only that frozen death awaited them if they did not.
Once past the crest the going was even more difficult, working their way down the steep and icy slope. But they could not stop. The feed was gone and the mastodons would not survive another night in the snow. They went on, feeling their way through the banks of cloud that rolled up the slope to them. They reached the broken scree of rocks and boulders in the afternoon and found that it was even harder to walk on than the snow had been. It was almost dusk when they broke through the clouds and felt the setting sun warm on their faces. The valleys opened out below them and, far distant yet, there was a trace of green vegetation.
Darkness fell but they stopped only long enough to build a fire and light torches. In their flickering light the exhausted sarnmads stumbled onward. It wasn’t until they were aware that the ground was softer underfoot that they realized the ordeal was over. They stopped then, on a slope beside a rushing stream of snowmelt where the ground was tufted with clumps of grass. They dropped, exhausted, while the mastodons squealed and tore out great clumps of grass with their trunks. Even the preserved murgu meat tasted good that night.