Chapter 24: The Mountain Path
Far behind them, miles behind them, where the destroyed caravan still lay buried beneath the snow like a broken skeleton, something moved.
The snow shifted without wind.
A giant figure stepped out from between the dark pine trees, silent, placing its paws where snow hadn’t been touched. It was larger than the others.
It was an eyeless wolf. An alpha.
Its body was covered in thick, grey-white fur crusted with ice, but where its eyes should have been, there was only smooth, scarred skin stretched tight over the skull. No eyes. Never had eyes.
It stood silently among the remains of its dead pack, sniffing the cold air.
The other eyeless wolves lay scattered across the snow, bodies stiff, blood black and frozen around them. The worm meat, the caravan, the battle - all still there, buried but smelling.
The creature lowered its massive head. Slowly. It sniffed the ground where its brother had died, where Danny’s plank with the nail still stuck from its mouth.
Blood. Two kinds of blood. Wolf blood, old and dead. And human blood, fresher, from rope cuts, from the grey-haired man’s arm.
Its ears, large and bat-like, twitched, turning forward.
Then it let out a low growl, so low the snow vibrated.
Its body began to tremble, not from cold, but from rage. Muscles bunched under fur. The sight of its dead pack had driven it into a frenzy, a mourning fury that eyeless wolves are known for. They never leave their dead unavenged.
It lowered itself toward the ground, nose almost touching the snow, and found the faintest trail - three sets of footprints, dragging, bloody, leading away from the destroyed caravan toward the forest detour.
The wolf began running. Not fast at first. Loping. Conserving. Nose to the trail.
It wasn’t going to stop. Not until the blood scent stopped.
---
Several hours later...
Danny climbed the mountain path, the detour the grey-haired man had chosen to bypass the fallen trees. It wasn’t a path anymore. It was a goat trail cut into the side of a stone mountain.
His breathing was heavy, ragged.
"Haa... haa..."
He grabbed the side of the mountain wall for support, fingers scraping frozen rock, and pulled himself forward. The rock was so cold it burned even through his wraps.
The path was narrow. Too narrow. Only one person wide.
On one side was the mountain wall, wet and icy.
On the other...
A steep, straight drop. No trees to catch you. Just white and grey and wind, down hundreds of meters to sharp rocks and snow.
Danny looked down without meaning to.
His stomach twisted instantly, turning over. His legs went weak.
They had already climbed so high that the ground below, where the forest was, looked distant, like a white map. The fallen trees that blocked the road were tiny dots.
One wrong step... one slip of his worn boots...
He swallowed, his throat dry.
_And I’m dead. No wolf, no worm, just gravity. That’s how I die._
Danny quickly looked away, pressing his forehead against the cold mountain wall for a second.
The cold air entered his lungs with every breath, sharp like knives, yet somehow, under the dead man’s coat, he was sweating. Cold sweat.
His legs were exhausted, trembling with each lift. His arms felt heavy as iron from holding the rope all night yesterday. The cuts on his hands throbbed with each grip.
He wanted to stop. To sit. To cry for a minute.
But he couldn’t complain. He couldn’t.
The grey-haired man was already ten steps ahead of him, moving steady despite his wounded arm, not looking back.
The thin prisoner was following right behind Danny, breathing just as hard, but he wasn’t going to stop either.
Neither of them was going to stop just because Danny, the kid, was tired. If he stopped, they would leave him. He knew it.
So Danny continued.
One step. Dig boot in. Grip rock.
Then another. Dig. Grip.
His foot suddenly slipped on a patch of black ice hidden under thin snow.
Danny’s heart jumped out of his chest.
"Ah—!"
He slipped sideways, his body tilting over the drop, arms windmilling. For a half-second, he was falling.
He quickly, desperately, grabbed a nearby jutting rock with both bleeding hands.
His body slammed and stopped at the very edge, half his foot over empty air, stones falling down the cliff, no sound of them hitting.
For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Only hear his own heartbeat.
He looked down. Nothing but the steep mountain below, wind howling up.
Danny’s hands tightened around the rock until his cuts reopened and blood smeared the stone.
_That was close. That was too close._
He slowly, inch by inch, pulled himself back onto the path, onto his knees, then standing, legs shaking so violently he had to crouch.
The thin prisoner behind him looked at him, eyes wide, and said, genuinely scared for once, "Careful, kid. Don’t look down. Look at the wall."
Danny didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He just nodded, sweat dripping despite the cold.
He continued climbing.
His legs were shaking now constantly. Every step felt heavier than the last, like his boots were made of stone. The mountain path stretched ahead of them, turning around the mountain face, no end in sight.
There was no easy way back down either. Down was death too.
The grey-haired man finally stopped at a slightly wider ledge and looked back, seeing Danny’s face white as snow.
"Keep moving. We need to get over the ridge before night. We can’t sleep on this path."
Danny nodded, not having the strength to answer with words.
He continued upward, hand over hand, foot over foot.
And far behind them, far below them at the bottom of the mountain, where their footprints started the climb...
A pair of large claws dug into the snow, leaving deep gouges.
The eyeless wolf had reached the base of the mountain. It lifted its blind face to the wind, caught their sweat, their blood, their fear on the cold air.
It began to climb.
It was getting closer, and this time, there was no tent, no rope, no fire to hide behind.