It surprised Einar, once they’d
started down, to discover just how far he had climbed that previous day, ascending
thousands of feet above the basin in what must have been only a few hours,
judging from the time he knew he’d spent waiting in ambush for Juni and then
waiting some more, while she sat trapped in the rock crevice. Rather a major feat it must have been, but
the time had passed in a blur, legs carrying him somehow up and over that immensity
of steep, snowy rock and timber and mind managing to stay sharp enough through
the whole thing to allow for an effective evasion and ambush of his
student. He shook his head, resumed
following Liz as she led the way down through an especially gnarly band of
timber, legs trembling and threatening to give out beneath him. Would be better if he was still climbing,
still measuring his own steps and in control of…yeah, that would really be better, wouldn’t it, if you were directing
this thing? So you could go right back to
pushing yourself up that ridge until you were all used up and fell down for the
last time, and that was the end of it.
Yeah, lots better than this. Now
be quiet, won’t you, and pay attention to the rocks before you really do fall
and go tumbling down this thing, right to the bottom. Fine mess that’d be, and besides, it’d delay
Liz’s plan for the day, whatever that may be…
Far from the devious
qualities Einar’s mind strove so hard and entirely without his bidding to
ascribe to it, Liz’s plan was very simple, and extended, for the time, no
further than getting all of them safely down the slope and back to the
cabin. This would, she knew, quite thoroughly
disrupt any further hopes he’d had for finishing Juni’s survival course, and
though this did concern her, by far the greater concern in her mind was the
strong likelihood that the instructor would not, himself, have survived the
remainder of the course. If he didn’t
see it yet, she could only hope Einar might at some time in the future come to
see the futility of such an exercise if actually carried to its finish, and
forgive her interference. Seemed to be
doing it so far, following with what appeared to her almost a disturbing level
of meekness and compliance; she would perhaps have found herself reassured by
seeing a bit more resistance from him, a bit of fight from time to time, but
rather than stop and make a try at determining just how serious the situation might
have become—she already knew, of course, but feared things might at last be
nearing their end, had he entirely lost the desire or ability to resist, which
as she had observed, always tended to grow stronger in him , rather than the
opposite, as the struggle became more desperate—she decided to take advantage
of it to make as much downward progress as possible, not knowing how long the
unfamiliar new trend might last and well aware that whatever its origin and ultimate
portent, she would be much better equipped to deal with the situation once
everyone was back at home safe and secure in the (soon to be) warm cabin.
She hurried, then, setting a
pace which proved a challenge to Juni and left Einar grabbing at trees and
bracing himself against boulders in an effort to keep on his feet as he all but
hurdled himself down the mountain, less than steady but entirely focused on the
task at hand, using the terrain to his advantage and managing, more or less, to
keep up. Until he bounced off of one too
many boulders in the barely-controlled slalom that was passing as his descent,
lost his footing and took a spill down between an angled slab of lichen-encrusted
granite and the trunk of an enormous (for that elevation) and long-fallen
spruce, the broken stump of one of its remaining branches getting all wrapped
up in the parka Liz had insisted he wear for the descent. Dizzy and a bit disoriented after a pretty
good knock to the side of his head as he went down he flailed about for a time
trying to free himself, but not wanting to damage the garment, he managed to
stop after a bit, still himself and look at things a bit more objectively. Not too badly tangled, really, was able to
work his way free after a good minute of effort and get somewhat shakily to
hands and knees, squinting out across the boulder field for any sign of Liz or
Juni and hoping they hadn’t noticed his absence. If they had noticed, they were not yet giving
any sign of it had not—thankfully—doubled back in search of him and determined
to keep things that way he redoubled his efforts at speed, hop-limping across
the remainder of the rocks before collapsing in a crumpled heap beneath the
cover of the nearest tree, world spinning thickly around him even as he fought
it with all the energy he could summon.
On his feet, eyes pressed shut in the hopes of quelling the dizziness as
he swept up the little spruce in a big bear hug, hanging on, swaying, sick.
Up. Stay up. She’s
gonna come back any minute and see you here like this, and then… Then what?
What’s the worst that can happen?
Afraid she’ll realize that you’re not too steady on your feet, or
what? Oh, she knows that already. Quit fooling yourself, you numbskull. She knows all about it, knows more than you
do, and while she may not mention it every time because she’s trying to spare
your dignity, you know there’s no fooling her.
And you’re not gonna gain anything by trying. True,
all of it, yet there was no way he could simply sink back to the ground and lie
there waiting for her to come and find him, so after a time he eased his hold
on the tree, took a few uncertain steps forward and soon settled into a rhythm
which seemed likely to go on carrying him forward. Which it did, but only for a few yards,
vertigo overcoming him once more and this time jerking the ground most
inconsiderately out from beneath him when he tried to rise.
Tried again, similar results,
and he was about to start crawling when he realized that he could almost
certainly walk with a stick, something to help steady him and keep the ground
in its place, and though the idea did occur to him that he absolutely must not
resort to any such thing, lest Liz see and realize that something was amiss, he
quickly dismissed the objection as so much mindless, prideful prattle, dropped back
to hands and knees and searched about until he found the appropriate implement,
which turned out to be the lower two thirds of a long-dead baby aspen, barkless
and blanched a smooth, sparkling grey by several years of high-altitude
sun. On his knees, testing the thing for
sturdiness, Liz found him.
“What are you doing?”
He looked up—busted—gave her
a lopsided grin and lowered his head, exhausted. “Gathering firewood. What’s it look like?”
“Looks like you’re
bleeding. What happened?”
“Bleeding? Where?”
“Your head, right here. What’d you do, run into a tree?”
“Oh. Didn’t realize…” raised a hand to the growing knot on the side
of his head, came away with cold-congealing blood. Well, she’d seen. Might as well be honest about it. “No, no tree.
Just had a little fall in the rocks.
No problem.”
“No.” She gave him a hand, pulled him to his feet
and retrieved the stick when he dropped it, started off down the slope without
another word. Einar, breathing a sigh of
relief, followed. It would be good to be
home.
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