We ran. At a sprint, our feet dug into the new muck and came down hard on the firm ground beneath it. Feeling rusty, I flashed [Vigour : Endurance] to shake off the weight in my shoulders and the ringing in my ears, and forged on. Rain ran rivulets down the craggy outcrops, pooling briefly in cracks before spilling over in rushing streams that carved paths into the plains that were bone dry only two hours before.

  Alator and I took the lead. His broad shoulders were unwavering, and I found the strength in my own made the way at least somewhat bearable. Akishen was a few steps back, even her lithe legs stomping heavily, weighed down by her soaked leathers, shielding her face from the cold sheets of rain with her hand. Lenya, falling behind often, clung to the hem of her hood and pressed her staff to her chest. If she had magic that might help, she had no opportunity to reach for it.

  Perhaps, as she has to draw on the elements, drawing on a storm like this is too dangerous, I mused.

  And we made it to the foot of the mountains. The path widened suddenly into a broad, rocky pass, flanked by jagged cliffs on either side, and two others wound away on either side, and down one I could see it split again to drowned goat’s paths a few yards in.

  Lightning crackled overhead, harsh light illuminated the shattered and shattering landscape. A deafening boom followed from right overhead, sounded like the mountains themselves were groaning under the storm’s wrath. Yet there was something else — an eerie undertone beneath the thunder like a keening wail. Carried and echoed off the stone, hollow and disjointed. Cries of mad, wrathful spirits.

  A BUZZ in my right ear near popped an eardrum. SYS launched into her tirade, speaking straight into my mind but voice as deep and loud as She could make it:

  // SYS : Witness, oh bold traveler, the unfathomable heights of the Edin-Baraz, the steadfast crown of Uruk’s southern gates! Behold, where the mountains rise not as stone, but as titanic spires carved by the hands of gods, their edges sharp as bronze blades, scraping the heavens themselves! //

  “I don’t care about the mountain edges!” I screamed, roaring over the elements.

  // SYS : Marvel at the cascading mists that coil like serpents through the jagged passes, hiding both peril and wonder in their ghostly embrace. //

  “There’s no mist here, you arse!”

  // SYS : Gaze upon the white-gold peaks, kissed by the eternal suns, and the crimson streaks that trickle down like veins from wounds ancient and forgotten! //

  “Can’t see the bloody peaks!”

  // SYS : Listen as the winds howl with voices from epochs past, carrying the songs of fallen heroes, the whispers of ancient spirits, and the roaring challenge of the mountains themselves! //

  “By Jove, can you just —”

  // SYS : Stop interrupting me, this might be useful . . . Ahem . . . Brave soul, do you dare tread the labyrinth of shadowed valleys and glittering ice caverns, where each step echoes with defiance against the crushing weight of time itself? Do you dare face the trials etched into the bones of the Edin-Baraz? Keep to the path! Only the unyielding shall pass unbroken! Keep to the path! Only the steadfast shall earn the right to behold Uruk's sacred bowl beyond! Keep to the path! //

  “Yeah, real useful, thanks! Can’t you at least do something about the weather?”

  // SYS : I’m not a god, Talbot. We command the essence of spent souls, nothing more. //

  “Useless System,” I grunted.

  I crunched up the side of the mountain as the pass steepened, gravel underfoot running wet with white water. I focused on the terrain. The rocky ground was strewn with broken trees, branches twisted and shattered. Yet, curiously, the larger boughs had been shifted, their weight pressed heavily into the ground. Some branches had been severed cleanly, not splintered by wind or rain.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Despite the mania and painful, pelting rain, I couldn’t help but walk close by one and spent a moment centring myself, reaching inside the stream of my inner power, which seemed far away, for [Survivalism] once more. The cut wasn’t weathered — the severed edge was smooth and the heavy rain tumbled over saw lines. It was deliberate, precise, and more, fresh. Not storm damage, something big did this, with a massive serrated edge.

  But I couldn’t dwell. Another flash of lightning illuminated the path ahead, and we made further in. Flanked by the tall walls, pressed against one side, the rain was less fierce, but the wind was even stronger.

  “Hold a minute!” came Akishen’s shrieking voice. Glancing behind, past her concerned mandrill face, I saw Lenya had collapsed against the side of the wall.

  “Alator!” I roared over the noise. He turned and, with a mixture of rage and empathy both, stopped in his way and came back to us all.

  We huddled together against the safer side of the rockface. Lenya tore her head up to look at me. She wore her exhaustion heavy on her face, and her eyes were gleaming.

  She mouthed, “Sorry, I can’t.”

  Got to work on her Constitution. The way her SYS seems to function is that it distributes points according to her lifestyle — this should work!

  Each thunderclap had us flinch and I glanced about, expecting to see rocks fall, everyone die, but for a little while at least we were safe there, and we let the worst of the storm pass. As the dark clouds finally moved over, leaving the sky overcast bright white but with only a very light rain, Akishen jumped away from the rock and put her palms together.

  “Praying?” I asked.

  “My patha said that these storms are born of old grudges.”

  “Does seem it was summoned by that racket we heard before we reached the mountains,” I said. “They’ve been cutting up trees as well, gathering firewood, it seemed to me. They’re probably still around.”

  “It’ll be the Taruk-Tal, only things I can think of that might be able to do that, though I’ve not heard of it myself. They’re the giants of Edin-Baraz.”

  “Tak-tak-tak?”

  “Yeah, they’re named that for the clattering sound of their stone skin grinding together,” Akishen explained with a quick smile, clearly thanking her father for what education she did receive. “They always move in tribes, so if we see one, we better hide.”

  I turned to Alator.

  “Hear that?”

  After a few moments of meeting my eye with an imperceptible look, my companion nodded. “Heard.”

  The rain continued as we walked along the mountain paths. The suns fell and dimmed and disappeared, and we luckily found a thin crag, only just wide enough for us to squeeze into, which opened up into a small cave with a pool of shockingly cold water which Alator confirmed (after brazenly trying some) was fit to drink.

  The next day, the rain had stopped, but loosened the mountainside, and all morning we climbed a steep, rocky stretch at an awful angle. High above, thick snow was lit glistening, and with every rush of wind some was whipped up by the wind, and thrown about — sent out to powder. The loose earth and debris had tumbled over much of the Trade Road and limited it in parts to only a couple of feet, which we sidled along, daring ourselves to glance down at the near-sheer drop a hundred feet to rushing water. I felt perfectly sure-footed until the moment shale gave out or the pebbles proved too shallow and a leg shot out over the precipice and my heart leapt. Akishen or Lenya were always at my back to steady me, and if I heard any sudden movements from behind me, I was always able to lightning fast turn and catch them before they tumbled.

  “This will take weeks to clear. . . . Do you think this was intentional, as well?” I heard Lenya ask Akishen over the wind.

  “The Taruk-Tal being defensive? I couldn’t imagine it. . . .”

  Then like the grumbling from a colossal throat of a waking beast, a rumble began as we walked, which grew and grew. Louder and more immediate, waves of sound rushing towards us and building each time, it became a deafening roar as a WALL of snow, mud and boulders cascaded down the slope a few hundred yards ahead.

  As the world exploded, our position became shifting, churning noise and mania. One foot rose and the other fell, but ultimately the mountain seemed to be mercifully holding us. I reached into the perfectly clear flowing stream in my mind’s eye and clutched hold of [Battle Tactics : Metavision]. My vision was lit up with contour lines, criss-crossed, like topography or a video game devlog, and my attention was caught instantly by a dozen or so accidents waiting to happen; a pitfall under footing, a broken junt of shale that seemed a steady handhold but would fall with a half ounce of weight, and another sheet of snow set to fall, but much further away than the first.

  Then in my periphery I saw a handful of stones like a bullet soaring down from the peak of the mountain. Without thinking, I grabbed Alator by both arms and threw him into the rock to his right. The

  Within another moment, it was a savage winter wonderland. The air filled with snow so thick it became mist, the noise ricocheted off every surface and rebounded through my skull to have me near fall to the floor, clutching my head.

  “Is everyone all right?” I yelled in the silence, bedlam still racking my mind, blinking with squinted eyes through the white. Three calls came back to me, all very close-by. “Don’t move until it clears!”

  This took some minutes, but eventually the texture of the world reappeared to reveal a completely new scene. The Trade Road was cut off entirely by what looked like a newly-formed mountain of precarious, built-up earth and snow.

  Guess we’re not keeping to the path.