Direbound (The Wolves of Ruin #1)

Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

F ar above us, we hear a scream, then yelling and the sounds of something crashing down further to our right.

I’ve seen violence. I’ve dealt violence. For sport, for money, sometimes for my own satisfaction.

But this is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. This— this —is the noble tradition that our Bonded warriors ceremonially endure?

This is what those entitled Bonded families willingly send their loved ones to do each time there’s a Bonding Trial?

Another scream echoes off the rock and ice. Then another. And another.

I grit my teeth and begin to climb.

Izabel forges our path, to start. “We’ll trade off who’s scouting and who brings up the rear,” she explains casually as we get going. “Both have their challenges. Although to be frank,” she says, slowly and steadily moving up the rock face, “Venna is definitely the better climber of the two of us. I mean, look at her.”

We both glance down at Venna. Her special climbing gloves allow her to find handholds in the smallest indents in the rock. Clambering up after us, she looks almost inhuman in her grace.

“She’ll lead when we get to the trickier parts.”

Trickier parts? I think, already breathing heavily from the exertion of the climb. Great.

“But for a climb like this,” continues Izabel, “it’s important for the leader to stay fresh, focused. So it’s good to switch off. So that we can take turns scouting the terrain and also, um, listening for hazards.” Another scream echoes off the mountain, far to our left, as if to punctuate her words.

We climb on in grim silence.

The falling bodies slow as the morning wears on, presumably as groups spread out and focus on surviving their own climb. Still, every so often another echoing scream comes, and we all press ourselves as tight as we can against the craggy, icy rock.

A couple times I feel them passing near us, their fall creating an eerie wind. One time, the guy was still alive, falling close enough to touch, and his hand knocked into me briefly as he fell, too fast for me to think to do anything.

I wouldn’t have made it even this far without Venna’s tips as she climbs, shouted up from below.

“Grab that left handhold, watch for the ice on the right.” Every time she calls up an instruction, I follow it carefully, not wanting to take any chances. Venna seems to have a preternatural sense for the smoothest path upward. My respect for her grows.

After the second time that Izabel pauses to survey the route above her, starting again only to lead us at a different angle than before, I call up to her.

“How do you know the way up? It all looks the same to me.”

She pauses in her ascent, wedging an arm against the rock ledge she’s currently climbing. Her feet are balanced on a small outcropping, barely wide enough to provide a place to rest. With her other hand, she grabs for her waterskin, taking a few swift gulps.

“They teach us all,” she says. “The ones from Bonded families, I mean. Our families want us to make it to the top. We’ve been training for this a long time, hearing stories and directions and advice…”

Her voice sounds exhausted. Below us, Venna’s also paused to survey the area.

“We also have our own tricks, each family,” Izabel continues. “Tips on which routes to try. Landmarks to look out for. Sharing information with anyone outside of the family is… not encouraged.”

“Well, I’m lucky then, to have you two as guides,” I say lightly, hauling myself up to where she is so that our faces are level. I carefully balance my feet and let myself rest for a few blessed moments.

The longer I stay motionless, the more my own sweat cools against my skin, making my clothes cling to me like ice.

“Shall we?” I joke, as if we are taking a nice evening stroll. Izabel laughs, and shifts her weight—and the ledge her feet were resting on gives way, tumbling down toward Venna.

I shout a warning, though Venna’s a step ahead. She’s secured herself against the rock, one arm over her head to prevent any head injury.

Shards of rock rain down on Venna’s arm and back, but she has a thick coat on, and none of the pieces are that large. She should be fine.

Izabel needs my help though, and fast. She’s hanging on by the left arm she had wedged into a space between the rocks and is using her right hand to reach for the next handhold, something to get her to a more secure position, but all she’s grabbing is air.

“Hang on, just hang on,” I say and spring into motion.

There’s a larger resting spot just above us, and I quickly calculate the least dangerous route up, and then haul myself up to it as fast as my muscles will take me.

“Rope, above you,” I call, looping one end around a stubborn tree that has somehow managed to survive up here, then tossing the other down to Izabel.

It’s lucky that she insisted we all put harnesses on from the start, even before we get to the ice climbing where it’ll be really necessary. Izabel’s face is white and her hands are shaking, but that doesn’t stop her from quickly and efficiently pushing the rope through the loops of her harness.

Bracing my feet against the tree trunk and an outcropping of the rock, I haul Izabel toward me far enough that she eventually finds another grip and can climb up to me on her own.

There’s barely room for the two of us on the ledge, and the wind is howling stronger, slicing through every small opening in my clothing, but as Izabel and I pant and grin at each other, I find I’ve never loved a slab of rock more.

Moments later, Venna’s head pops up over the ledge.

“Should we move on, give Venna a chance to rest on this beautiful, beautiful rock?” My words come out labored as I struggle to regain my breath.

Izabel nods, and I watch as she visibly shakes off the near-fatal experience. She unwraps the rope still securing her to the tree and holds it back out to me. I tie it back at the top of my pack, in easy arm’s reach, as she begins to make her way further up.

Only moments later, though, she stops again, sooner than I expect based on the pace she’s been setting.

I pull myself up next to her. “What is it?”

Izabel’s brow is furrowed as she takes in the dangerous mix of ice and gravel and sheer rock face above us. “This route should have avoided terrain like this. It must have shifted since the last time our family brought information back.” She stares at the treacherous path above her.

I scan the ridge, looking for other options.

“Maybe—” she starts, looking to the left, her body poised for movement but then Venna, just below us, calls out:

“Wait, not that way.”

Izabel pales.

“What is it?”

“Venna saw something I didn’t at first,” Izabel says. “See the way the light is hitting that patch of ice? It’s not thick enough there—wouldn’t take much for it to all come loose.”

Venna scrambles up past us and carves a route to the right, putting her superior climbing skills and instincts to use, taking the lead for a while. We follow after, carefully using the same hand and footholds that she did as we go.

Lee was right. I never would have made it half this far without allies, I think as I finally pull myself up to a larger shelf in the mountain’s face. Thank the goddess for that beautiful man and his advice.

When I behold the sheer icy wall in front of me, I shudder.

I’m not sure how much farther I’ll make it, period.

We all take a short rest, doing our best to ignore the mangled body of a climber that came before us toward the other edge of the frozen platform. I shove some of the hard-packed army ration in my mouth, and gratefully accept when Venna offers me something from her pack that looks like a meat jerky.

“Thanks,” I say, heartfelt.

She nods, efficient, then stands and holds out a hand. “Ice pick?”

“She’s going to show you how to use the picks,” Izabel clarifies for me. “And also good technique for this next section, now that we’re going to be climbing mostly ice.”

They spend easily twenty minutes showing me how to best use my crampons to lock a foot in before removing my ice pick; how to test the ice’s stability before giving it my weight. We bring out our rope and the twins show me what knots to use on my harness.

Sure hope they’re right about the knots. I can too easily imagine the harness giving way, the fast slip through icy air…

Acid fills the back of my mouth.

Ten minutes into our slow crawl up the face of the icy wall, and it happens.

I’m removing my right pick from the ice when my feet slip, and my stomach does a sickening flip as the world falls out from under me.

I’m in the air, out of reach of anything solid, for forever and no time at all, when my harness catches me, and my momentum swings the rope I’m on like a pendulum and slams me against the ice.

It takes all of my training from Igor to keep my cool and not let go of the precious ice picks.

My left shoulder screams from the impact and I lick my lips and taste blood—my nose must have smashed against the ice wall too.

I’m still attached, though. Still alive.

It takes me a few more breaths to tune into the advice Izabel is yelling down to me, properly reattach my crampons to the ice, leverage my picks, get back into the rhythm of climbing at least for a few feet to reduce the pull on Izabel and Venna’s harnesses—and the danger that the ice they’re clinging to for dear life might simply crumble from the pressure.

We shake off the panic and start to climb once more.

After the adrenaline leaves my body, exhaustion replaces it. I’m used to hard labor, used to being on my feet constantly, straining my muscles at work and training all day just to use them all night.

But even though it gets frigid down in the city, it’s nothing like the temperatures here. The ice wall bounces the wind back onto us, so that it lashes into us from all directions. My entire body is compressed by the tension of trying to retain heat, maintain control of what I’m doing, not let a shiver or a moment of tiredness turn into the fall that actually kills me this time.

Thinking about Saela helps me keep focus. Lee, too. Find my sister, return to him . It repeats over and over in my head like a religious chant.

I’m not sure how much time has passed when we finally crest the seemingly endless sheet of ice, pulling ourselves up onto a rock ledge that’s blessedly big enough to sit down on, even lie down on, without fear of tumbling off.

“Thank you,” I say, wincing at the helplessness I feel at the words. They should be so much bigger.

Izabel squints at me. “You saved me, too, remember? So we’re even.”

I bark a laugh. “Fair enough!”

Venna smirks. “You know, you’re heavier than you look,” she says and snorts.

“It’s all the muscle,” I say boastfully.

“Yeah, that and the humility,” Izabel retorts.

It’s surprisingly nice to laugh. Weird, too, to be laughing with women my own age. I stopped spending much time with other girls when I dropped out of school at twelve. In the years since, all the friends I once had have grown into soldiers, or mothers.

In a different life, I could’ve had friends like Izabel and Venna. It’s a bittersweet thought. I’ll likely never see them again once they bond.

Venna and Izabel are taking turns vigorously rubbing heat back into each other’s hands through their climbing gloves when I hear the sound of voices.

“Heads up,” I say sharply to them, and they both pivot, staring at me.

I gesture toward the other side of the ledge, where another group of climbers is just cresting. “We have company.”

The three of us are all thinking about the bodies that lie shattered at the base of the mountain, or broken and bloodied on the rocks on the way down. I don’t have to look the sisters in the eyes to know that. Our positions grow subtly defensive, but I at least try to keep a casual stance.

No sense inviting trouble if these people don’t want to cause any.

“Hey there,” calls the woman who seems to be their leader.

She lets out some slack in the rope attaching their harnesses together, and edges over toward us—there’s a part in the middle where the ledge gets thin, enough to make anyone nervous, before it widens out again.

“Good to see some others have made it this far. Pretty brutal down there.” Her tone is friendly, but it has a little edge to it that I don’t like. I can tell instantly that she’s commoner-born, too. Her clothes and gear are worn.

“How have things been going for you all?” Izabel asks, her casual tone belied by subtle movement as her hand slowly inches toward one of her ice picks, where it’s been re-strapped to her pack.

“Nice-looking picks you guys are carrying,” the woman says, and all of our hands go toward weapons as she reaches around to her own back for a pick. She holds it out in front of her with both hands like an offering, and the tension comes back down a notch. “Problem on our side is, we didn’t pack any extra. And as you can see, this one’s not worth the weight at this point.”

The pick has snapped in two, so that the handle is being held on just by a few leather straps.

She tosses it down at her feet. “You guys seem to have more than enough… care to share?”

“Not happening,” I say simply. I follow the track of the woman’s gaze down toward Izabel’s pack—she was still tightening straps, readjusting weight—so I’m ready to intercept when the woman lunges in suddenly, grabbing for Izabel’s equipment.

Her two companions, both lanky men who look like they haven’t eaten enough in years, were waiting for her movement as well. In moments they’re also on our side of the ledge, and then it’s too tight of quarters to see what everyone else is doing.

My brain flips through every tip Igor has ever given me about fighting in dangerous terrain, in small spaces, anything. I dodge in front of the woman and get a few punches in, only to realize she’s been letting me hit her.

It’s a distraction, so I don’t see that she’s reached for the knife strapped to her leg.

I dodge to the side—into the mountain, not toward the drop—and narrowly miss being stabbed in the side. She’s fast. She feints like she’s about to stand, and then instead brings her knee up into my nose.

Dammit, that just stopped bleeding from the hit against the ice wall. I meet her knife with my own, pushing her back, back.

I don’t know what the endgame is here, because as much as I hate the idea of letting these idiots get away with taking anything from us, I don’t want them dead. The woman ducks down and shoots forward, and I brace for impact, knowing I don’t have room to get out of her way.

But the impact never comes.

Her progress is suddenly halted, like she’s a child’s toy on a string, snapped back. And then I see what’s happened.

One of her friends has slipped backwards, off the ledge entirely. The other is hanging on with just his pick to the edge of the cliff of ice.

The slack rope tightens, pulled down, down by the weight of her friend.

It yanks the woman backward, back into the man hanging on to the ledge for dear life.

He yowls once with surprise.

And then they’re gone, all three slipped over the side.

Izabel, Venna, and I look on in silence for a minute.

Eventually, I walk over to the edge and unhook the man’s ice pick from where he left it, jolted from his grip by the weight of the woman slamming into him.

“At least now we don’t have to switch off,” I say darkly, and tuck the pick into my belt.

But even as I try to sound confident, I can’t hide the way my hands are shaking.

Three people are dead, just like that—and it could’ve just as easily been me.