Chapter 43: Thunderous Strike
The eyeless wolves crouched low, all of them at once, like they shared one mind, one breath.
Their claws dug deep into the snow, scraping against the old stone beneath the road, finding grip, finding purchase for the lunge that would end it. Snow puffed around their paws.
Danny held his breath until his lungs burned, until black spots danced. He couldn’t even do his Tch. There was no air for it, no space for being Danny.
The grey-haired man tightened his grip on his sword so hard the old leather of the grip creaked, his whole body a coiled spring, bent knees, shoulders up. Ready to swing even though he knew, every soldier knows, one sword cannot stop six wolves at once. You can kill one. The others take you while your blade is stuck.
Then—
BOOM!
Not a growl. Not a howl. Not a wolf sound at all. A real, deep, thunderous strike that echoed through the entire mountain path, through the old stone under their boots, through their chests like a drum hit inside their ribs.
The ground shook beneath their feet, snow jumping off the rocks like it was alive, like the mountain flinched.
Before the wolves could move, before they could jump, before their muscles could release —
Something massive came crashing down from above, from the cliff that overhung the old imperial road, from where the smoke was.
CRASH! The air itself seemed to break. Pressure hit their ears.
A giant hand slammed into the eyeless wolf in front, the wounded one, the one bleeding from the old man’s cut, the one that had tried to take Danny first.
Not a human hand. Not flesh. A hand the size of a whole man, made of cracked stone and old, hard-packed snow and black moss, grey and white and ancient, with fingers as thick as tree trunks, nails like slabs of slate.
The impact crushed the creature into the ground with a sickening, wet crunch, like stepping on a rotten fruit with a boot. It didn’t even yelp. No time. Its body flattened under that weight, bones snapping like twigs.
Blood and snow exploded into the air, spraying Danny and the others in a hot, red mist that steamed then froze on their coats.
Danny’s eyes widened until they hurt, until his eyes watered from cold and blood, his mouth open, no sound coming out, just ragged breath.
What the hell was that? What the hell was THAT?
The other wolves immediately raised their heads, all at once, their eyeless faces snapping upward, away from the humans, toward the source of the thunderous noise. For the first time since Danny had seen them, they looked afraid. Their ears flattened against their skulls, tails tucking.
Then—
CRACK! Like the sky breaking, like ice on a lake giving way under weight.
A huge chunk of rock came crashing down from the cliff above, the size of a cart, tumbling end over end, throwing snow off it as it fell.
Then another. Then another. The whole overhang was giving way, shaking loose.
Heavy shards of ice, some as big as swords, some as big as doors, some clear as glass, began raining from above, whistling as they fell, catching weak sun.
The wolves panicked. The perfect half-circle, the practiced pack, broke in an instant. They scattered in every direction, howling not their low hunting howl but a high, terrified yelp, scrambling, claws slipping on snow and stone, desperate to escape the falling mountain, forgetting the humans completely.
Humans were not the apex here.
CRASH! A boulder smashed into the ground where two wolves had been a second ago, where their paws had dug in. It left a crater a foot deep, snow and old stone pulverized.
BOOM! Another struck the mountain path behind them, behind the three men, blocking the way they came, sealing them in with a wall of rock and shattered ice that sent a wave of cold dust over them.
The sound of breaking ice and stone filled the air, deafening, louder than any storm Danny had heard in the lower forest, louder than the caravan breaking.
Danny instinctively covered his head with both arms, curling into a ball behind the grey-haired man, rock still uselessly in his hand, knuckles white around it.
Chapter 39 Part 2: The Mountain Moves
"What is happening?!" The thin prisoner screamed, his voice thin and cracking, on his knees, hands over his head, looking up and seeing only falling white and grey death. "The mountain is falling! The mountain is falling! We have to run! The curse! It’s the curse!"
The grey-haired man didn’t answer at first. He looked upward, squinting through the snow dust, through the blood mist that hung in the air, through falling ice, and his expression suddenly changed.
From soldier-ready, from hard and ready to die swinging, to pure, child-like terror. His face went white under his beard, whiter than the snow. His sword lowered an inch without him noticing, his hand shaking for the first time Danny had ever seen.
He had seen wolves, seen death, seen the imperial army. He had not seen this.
"Move!" He shouted, voice raw, torn, and it wasn’t a command anymore, it was pure instinct, animal. He grabbed Danny by the shoulder, his grip like iron, fingers digging through coat into skin, and pulled him backward with all his strength, away from the center of the path where the boulders landed. "Get back! Get against the wall! Now!"
More rocks fell from above, smaller now, but still deadly, size of heads, size of fists, bouncing off the old broken statues that lined the road, shattering noses that had lasted a hundred years.
The mountain itself seemed to be collapsing, the old road shaking itself apart after a hundred years of waiting for someone to walk it again.
Danny looked up through the falling snow, through the dust that stung his eyes, trying to see what had attacked the wolf, what hand that was. His eyes streaming.
He couldn’t see clearly. Only a massive shadow moving somewhere above them, on the cliff top, shifting, much, much bigger than a man, bigger than a house, blocking out the weak sun that tried to come through clouds. Snow slid off it as it moved.
Its outline was like a man, but broken, hunched, wrong. Made of the mountain itself. Shoulders too wide, arms too long, head too small for its body.
Then another piece of ice came crashing down, right between Danny and the grey-haired man, exploding on the old stone, sending sharp shards everywhere.
BOOM! The mountain shook again, and a long, dark crack ran up the stone wall beside them, dust pouring out of it, hissing.
The grey-haired man shouted, pulling Danny again, dragging the thin prisoner with his other hand by his coat, both of them stumbling, boots slipping.
"Run! To the arch! Run!"
He pointed further up the path, to the old imperial arch that still stood, half-buried but solid, that might shelter them from falling rock, from whatever was above.
But before anyone could move far, before they could take two steps toward it, before the wolves finished fleeing —
Something enormous shifted above them, and leaned over the cliff edge to look down. Slowly. The cliff groaned under its weight. Snow and pebbles rained from its body.
A face, if you could call it a face, made of cracked stone plates and old ice, looked down at them.
Danny looked up, snow in his eyes, blood on his face drying, his jaw dropping open on its own, breath gone.
His eyes widened until he thought they would fall out of his head.
What... is that?