Assail by Ian C. Esslemont

Author:Ian C. Esslemont
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780765329981
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2013-11-06T13:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

ORMAN JOGGED NORTH without pause, ever upwards; he collapsed only when it became too dark to see. The next dawn he drove himself onward again. He stumbled and tripped the entire way. He found himself missing handholds, or falling over rocks as he misjudged them. He cursed the throbbing blindness of his left eye then. He also knew he was climbing faster than he should for his own safety. The change in altitude was making him light-headed. His nose bled. He was so short of breath he sometimes gasped, bent over, almost blacking out. His legs burned as if he was dragging them through coals, and the vision of his one eye swam.

Yet he pushed on. Soon the bare rocky rises and ridges gave way to snow cover. It was dense and heavy and wet. A white fox yipped at him as he waded through the knee-deep crests. After half a day’s journey across these broad fields of whiteness, he came to a halt at the barrier of a sapphire face of sheer ice pockmarked by streams of run-off. The roaring of the combined waterfalls seemed to shake the heaped gravel he stood upon. His breath plumed while he searched the sculpted gleaming ice face for the best route up. Satisfied, he tore strips from his trousers, wrapped them about his hands, and started up.

His fingers immediately became numb. His route sometimes took him past cave openings that gushed icy waters. The spray soaked him and sent him into uncontrollable shivers. A few times he nearly lost his grip upon the knobs and undulations he clung to and so he drew his hatchets and proceeded up by hacking and hammering at the ice face.

Halfway, he paused to glance back and behind. The massive shoulders of the Salt range descended below in gigantic sweeps of ash-grey stone and misted forests. Low foothills obscured the Sea of Gold. He knew that if he could see it, it would appear no larger than a puddle. And he was only halfway up this enormous slab of ice. It must be a good four chains thick.

He climbed on and at last pulled himself up on to a vast plain of gently undulating snow and ice. He’d reached the top of one of the ice-rivers that dominated the upper crags of the Salt peaks. What some named the Frost Serpents. He stumbled on. Winds of stinging ice rime lashed him, yet he hardly felt the cold. At night he wrapped himself in his plain cloak and curled up next to ridges of naked gleaming ice that reflected the night sky like mirrors. He felt as if he were floating among the stars. He awoke with a solid layer of iced hoar frost over his thickening beard.

On the third day of climbing, the crackling of ice halted him. He paused to listen. All this time he’d heard the distant booming and grinding of this massive ice tongue. Only now did the cracking and snapping sound near. He edged one foot forward, hunched, knees bent, meaning to test the ice.

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