Orsfin Ironblood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Orsfin drove his pick into the west ridge before dawn and dug through ice the color of old glass. By midmorning the slate against his ribs felt warm with promise. The blue veins ran deeper than at any of the failed sites. He had cut two feet down when the wind changed. The sky above the peak turned the color of bruised iron. Fog rolled up the slope in thick ropes and swallowed the ridge below him. Then the hail came. Stones the size of his fists struck the rock around him and cracked the ice he had just opened. The wind spun the fog and hail together into a churning column that climbed the mountain. Orsfin shouldered his pack and ran. A hailstone struck his shoulder and dropped him to one knee. Another split the wood of his pick handle. He saw a dark slit in the rock face above a snow shelf and made for it. The opening was too narrow. Orsfin shoved his shoulder against the rock and felt it give a finger's width. He braced his boots and pushed again. Stone scraped his coat and tore his sleeve. He could not fit through with the pack on his back. He dropped it in the snow beside the opening, shoved his shoulders through the gap, and dragged himself inside. His axes, his tent, his food, his medkit, the slate — all of it sat outside in the storm, half-buried already. He turned back toward the slit and watched the hail bury the straps. The cavern was cold and black past arm's length. Wind poured through the opening behind him and found other openings deeper in. The howling doubled and tripled as it moved through the hollow, louder inside than out. Orsfin set his back against the wall and listened. Something in the dark was not wind. A slow scrape of weight on stone, far back where his eyes could not reach. He drew the short knife from his belt — the only blade he had carried on his body — and faced the dark. The storm had taken his gear. The cavern had taken his retreat. Whatever shared the dark with him would have to be met with eight inches of steel and nothing else.