Chapter 26: The Old Path
The climb continued.
Danny’s legs were beginning to feel numb, not from the cold, but from exhaustion so deep it had gone past pain into a dull, heavy buzzing. Every muscle in his thighs and calves shook with each lift.
Every step became harder than the last, like the mountain was adding weight to his boots while he wasn’t looking.
Snow covered the narrow mountain path, a thin crust over black ice, making it difficult to see where to place his feet. One wrong placement and he would slide straight over the edge. The cold wind blew against his face, stinging his eyes and cutting his lips, but his body underneath the dead man’s coat was strangely warm, sweaty, from the effort of climbing. The kind of sick heat that comes before you collapse.
He was tired.
Very tired. Tired in a way he had never felt before, even in the cage.
His throat was dry, tongue stuck to his mouth. He kept thinking about the last sip in his water sack, now tucked inside his coat to keep it from freezing.
His water was running low.
And the weight of his belongings - the empty-ish sack, the heavy coat, the memories - felt heavier with every step, dragging him down.
The grey-haired man continued walking ahead of them, steady as always, though Danny could see his shoulders rising and falling hard now too. He was not as tireless as he pretended to be.
He stopped for a moment on a slightly wider turn and looked around, scanning the rock face and the snow.
"We need to hurry and find a path so we can rest. A real flat spot, not this goat trail. We won’t last at this pace until night."
The thin prisoner bent forward behind Danny, placing his hands on his knees as he struggled to catch his breath, wheezing loudly.
"Damn it... damn this whole mountain..."
He looked down at the trees far below, blocking the main mountain route behind them, the reason they were forced into this detour in the first place. The fallen trunks looked like matchsticks from up here.
"If not for those damn trees blocking the path, we wouldn’t have to be climbing a mountain like this. We could have just walked. We could have found a cabin or something."
He took a deep, rattling breath.
His chest rose and fell rapidly, fog bursting from his mouth.
Danny glanced at him over his shoulder.
The thin prisoner looked just as exhausted as he was. Maybe even worse. His face was grey, his lips cracked and blue. The man who had once held the whip now looked like he could barely hold himself up.
Neither of them had said much since they started climbing this morning. There was no energy for it. Talking burned water, burned air.
The grey-haired man looked toward the top of the mountain, where clouds were snagging on the peak, and his eyes narrowed, remembering something from long ago.
"In the old days, there used to be a path here. A proper one."
The thin prisoner raised his head slowly, hopeful despite himself.
"A path? What kind of path?"
The grey-haired man nodded, pointing with his good arm. His wounded arm was still wrapped, the blood frozen on the bandage.
"It led all the way to the top of the mountain. Straight to the ridge. There’s a road up there. An imperial road, stone-paved."
He pointed ahead, along a faint, unnatural straight line in the mountain where snow didn’t settle quite right.
"Merchants used that path to transport goods through the forest, before the forest took it back. Before the war. It was a shortcut over the mountain to avoid the lower woods and the wolves."
Danny listened quietly, but his ears pricked up at that.
A road.
That word alone gave him a little hope, a stupid, small spark in his chest. A road meant people. People meant towns. Towns meant food and maybe not dying tonight. A road meant this nightmare of trees and snow might actually have an end.
The grey-haired man continued, voice quieter, as if talking to himself.
"If we can find that old path, we’ll be able to reach the road. It will be flat. Wide enough for carts. We can rest there without worrying about rolling off in our sleep."
The thin prisoner straightened himself with effort, wiping snot and sweat from his face.
"So there’s actually a way out? There’s a road at the top?"
"There should be," the grey-haired man said.
The thin prisoner’s hope flickered.
"Should?"
The grey-haired man gave him a look, the kind that said don’t be naive.
"If the path hasn’t been completely buried or destroyed. It’s been maybe twenty years since I used it. Avalanche, monsters, time... mountains don’t keep things nice for us. But the road itself, the main one, that was built by the empire to last. That should still be there."
The thin prisoner sighed, a long, white puff.
"Of course. Of course it ’should’ be."
Danny almost laughed, but he had no breath for it. Of course. Nothing could ever be simple. Not for them. Not for him. It was always "should be," "might be," "if we survive."
Still, knowing there might be a road at the top, a real human road, made the mountain feel slightly less hopeless. It gave his legs a reason to keep moving beyond just not dying here.
They continued climbing.
The wind picked up, throwing fine ice into their eyes. The path got even narrower, and Danny had to put his back to the wall and shuffle.
The grey-haired man eventually looked back at Danny. Really looked at him for the first time in an hour.
The boy was struggling to keep up. His breathing was heavy, ragged. His face was pale, almost greenish under the dirt, and his knees were bending wrong with each step.
The grey-haired man slowed down, letting the thin prisoner pass him so he was now walking beside Danny.
"Kid."
Danny looked up, eyes dull.
"We’ll find somewhere to rest soon. Just over this next turn. I remember there was a small shrine cut into the rock. We can sit."
Danny said nothing, just stared at him through strands of sweaty hair.
"Just hold on. A little longer."
The grey-haired man gave him a small nod, trying to sound kind, trying to sound like a leader again.
"You can do it. You’ve made it this far, from the cage to here. You can do a little more."
Danny stared at him.
For a moment, he didn’t know what to say. Something hot and bitter rose in his throat that wasn’t thirst.
Then he looked away, down at his own shaking hands.
_Oh really?_
He tightened his grip on the strap of his bag until his bloody knuckles went white.
_What a nice guy. What a kind, caring protector._
His eyes narrowed, dark.
_You playing the good guy now? The father figure?_
Danny remembered the cage, the cold iron bars he had slept in for weeks. The chains around his wrists that had rubbed his skin raw. The little boy who had died in the snow next to him, coughing blood while these men argued over prices.
The whip that had left lines on his back. The plan to sell him at the border town because DoD boys fetch more gold when they’re broken in.
The grey-haired man had been part of all of it. He had been the one holding the keys. He had been the one who said "don’t feed it too much, keeps it docile."
Now he was suddenly acting concerned about whether Danny could keep walking, whether he was tired.
Danny didn’t trust him.
Not even a little. Not one word.
But he couldn’t deny one thing, no matter how much he hated the man.
The man was right.
They had to keep moving. Stopping here on this knife-edge path meant freezing to death by morning.
Danny lifted his head and looked toward the top of the mountain, toward the clouds where that old road might be.
Somewhere above them was an old road, a remnant of a world before this cursed forest.
A way out.
Maybe if they reached it, they could finally leave this forest behind. Leave the caravan, the worm, the eyeless wolves behind.
Maybe he could find food that wasn’t frozen roots. Maybe he could find shelter that had a roof.
Maybe...
He could survive. Maybe he could live long enough to not need any of them.
Danny took another step, boot finding grip.
Then another, knees screaming.
His legs trembled violently, but he kept walking, one foot after the other, staring at the back of the grey-haired man with eyes full of hate and stubbornness.
Behind them, far down the mountain, far below the switchback where they had argued over water, something moved between the trees that now looked tiny.
A large shadow, four-legged and too big for a wolf, crossed through the falling snow, nose to their trail, pausing where Danny’s blood had dripped on a rock.
Then it disappeared into the white, climbing with impossible surety on the ice.
The three survivors didn’t notice. The wind was too loud.
They continued toward the top, breathing hard, dreaming of a road that might not exist anymore.
Unaware that something was following their trail.
And getting closer.