Winter in the Mountains Ch. 09

For the next little while, I watched them trying to climb the cliffs. Though the day was warming, it was still very cold, and there was plenty of ice on the cliffs; they were very treacherous. I saw and felt several slip to their deaths. But they kept coming. Eventually I could see that they were making substantial progress on many fronts, and preparing for another assault on the main trail.

While we were waiting for this to happen, I saw the captain try something he'd thought might make a difference to the outcome. He summoned his falcon, and gave it a fist size rock. It took the rock in its talons, and flew out over the army. Then I saw the falcon dive towards the army. I felt the falcons burst of pleasure as it approached the fastest point of its dive and then lift out of the dive. The captain gave a cry of pleasure. I knew that his target had been the King. He hoped that with the King out of the way, the other commanders might be more willing to withdraw. I wondered whether we had hit the king. But the falcon had enjoyed that, and spent the rest of the battle finding stones to dive bomb the army with. They started firing arrows at it, but it was moving way to fast for them to hit it, and I think the arrows killed more soldiers than the falcon did.

All of a sudden, my life became very busy, as they started approaching the top of their routes. Some didn't make it, they found the route had simply led to a dead end. But enough were getting close that I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to hold them. Once they first of them made it to the top, I was busy co-ordinating several different battles. I didn't tell the men what to do, just kept them informed about who was coming their way. At first, they simply shot the climbers with arrows, but they kept coming, and in a few places they were able to make it to the top and get to hand-to-hand fighting. They enemy soldiers were exhausted from their climb, and could hardly lift a sword, but nevertheless they put up a good fight, better than I had hoped.

The worst trouble spot was at a point where they had two columns of men coming up near each other, and one column had made it to the top. Scar was at the top, and Sock had joined him. They were hard put, with Scar having to put his bow down and use his sword. All of a sudden I saw an enemy soldier creeping along the rocks behind Scar. How did he get there? I freaked, I should've known that he was there. He was quite close to Scar, behind him, ready to kill him. I cast an image of him to Scar, and saw Scar turn around and kill him with a single strike.

I scanned around the pass. Had I missed others? I become aware that there were quite a few loose soldiers near to the top or coming onto the top of the pass. As I watched, one drew a bow and shot one of the squad with an arrow. I felt Crunch's cry of pain, and then he fell forward and over the edge of the cliff. My eyes followed him down, and I noticed something that sent a shiver through my bones. There were a couple of soldiers climbing my pinnacle. I had thought it was impossible, but they were looking at me, and I could feel the hunger behind their eyes. I wondered how they knew about me, but I knew with certainty that I was their target.

Alarmed, I sent a message to the captain, things were starting to get out of hand, and it was obvious that we wouldn't be able to hold the pass for much longer. I looked down at the army, and saw that they were fully gathered at the foot of the trail, perhaps two thousand soldiers still down at the bottom. Time for the avalanche, as soon as possible.

The captain turned to his magic. It had involved quite a bit of preparation, mixing a small cauldron of black stuff he had made up. I had wondered what it was, hiding in our storage cave through winter, but he had always laughed, saying that I probably didn't want to know. He had taken the cauldron to the bottom the of the massive snowfield the night before, much to the disbelief of the other squad, who wouldn't go near it, and left it at the bottom. I waited, and while I waited I felt something that shocked me to the core. Sock died. It didn't seem possible that such a fun loving bundle of energy could have died. I turned to look, and as I looked, Scar killed the soldier that had killed Sock.

I felt the captain perform some sort of spell, and there was a massive sound from where the cauldron had been. I felt every single soldier in the area stop what they were doing and look towards the cauldron, which had disappeared in a cloud of snow. I waited for the avalanche, but nothing happened.

Nothing. I looked around, and realised that our position was now desperate. They were starting to flood the pass, indeed a large group was approaching the bottom of that snowfield from the other side and would soon roll us up. Two of us had already died, and several were wounded but still fighting. We were starting to run out of arrows, and there was more and more sword fighting going on. I was constantly busy warning my boys of threats around them, and only my organisation was holding us together. And soon, I would be dead. The soldiers coming for me were making remarkable progress. Only one of my boys was near enough to me to save me, and it was Scar, the only one I could not warn.

How I regretted my actions now. Why had I allowed pride and ease to stand in the way of sorting things out with him? How stupid I had been, now we would both die and we had lost our opportunity. I saw it clearly now, he was so in love with me, and that had been his problem, why he could not hardly talk to me about it. And I had made it hard for him. Why? Scar, the love of my life, the only one I could not warn. All this passed through my mind in a moment. But then I realised that there was something wrong with that – I had communicated with Scar before, saved his life. If I could do it once, I could do it again. I looked to him, he was resting on his sword with no soldiers around him. I cast him a picture of the soldiers climbing the pinnacle, and felt a distinct reply, concern and love for me. He started running in my direction.

But it was too late. He wouldn't make it, he couldn't. I cast my eyes around, we were done. It was all over. We would all die up here. I was looking at our destruction, and that of the people and the land. I sent some more images out, but I started to wonder what the point was. I only had a few minutes, and there was nothing I could do to make any difference now. At least my end would be quick, these soldiers wouldn't muck around with me. Their very ardour for the task told me that somehow they knew I was special.

If only the snow had avalanched, as we had hoped. How different things would be. In frustration, I lashed out at the snow. I felt it push back at me. My magic wasn't the right magic, we would all die.

The enemy soldiers were close now. I turned to check where Scar was, and saw him leaping from rock to rock, almost as if he was flying. I watched mesmerised, I could not believe what he was doing. He was desperate to reach me, to protect me. It was a form of magic, surely what he was doing was not physically possible. I measured the distances, it still wasn't enough. As a good bye, I cast him all my love, and felt his urgency and determination return to me.

At that moment I realised that I hadn't given everything, that I needed to give more. Scar's urgency and determination passed to me, and I knew that I could do one last great act. I felt myself filling with power, and I turned back to the snow that had pushed back at me. If it had pushed back at me, then I could push it harder. I turned my whole being, everything that I had, and pushed at the snow.

I felt it push back at me, and I felt it come alive. I could feel that it wanted to fall, to slide, it just needed to know the way. I felt it's vibrancy, the incredible tension running through it, and then I felt the weakness underneath it. But it was no use pushing at the bottom of it, the way the captain's magic had done. It needed a decent shove from the top. I gave it one, and felt it moving, slowly at first but then gathering pace. I felt the incredible power growing, and suddenly I saw what would happen. I pulled away from the snow and cast an image of the avalanche to the squad, along with a very clear image of them standing back from the edge of the pass.

For a couple of moments, I couldn't see anything happening. Just as I was giving up hope, I saw the snow starting to move, high up at the top of the snowfield, and the snowfield bulging and growing in the middle. Suddenly, very suddenly, I saw it burst, and snow went everywhere. Then I heard the sound, unlike anything I had ever heard before. Though I felt very weak, I managed to scramble back from the edge of the pinnacle myself, and wedged myself into a crevice in the rocks. I saw a hand reaching over the edge of the platform I had been sitting on, and then the avalanche finally broke over the rim of the pass, taking many enemy soldiers with it.

The next few moments are a confused memory in my mind. The snow fell into the valley like water into a bowl. I felt an unimaginably vast feeling of death as the snow hit the main army, still gathered below, and a windstorm of incredible magnitude suddenly blew out of the valley. The feeling of thousands of soldiers all dying at once overcame me, and I passed out.

I came to in Scar's arms, he was holding me tight. I looked around, and there was a dead soldier lying on my perch. Scar had made it, I was completely amazed. I looked up at him, and saw love in his eyes. "What happened?"

"The avalanche killed most of them, blew them off the cliff. I killed this one, the other was gone. You've been unconscious for about half an hour, we think we've cleaned up the few that are left."

We won. I started to relax, then realized that I would not one moment more go by without sorting something very important out. I gripped his arm. "Scar, I love you".

He smiled back at me, and looked at me with love and sincerity, and I felt his words echo through his very soul. "I love you too, Zia".