Weekly Writing – November 9 2024

What a cold climb it had been, a purposeful caravan turned to a funeral procession of two. They had ridden in silence and, soon, in soaking rain that turned the dark to a stinging, hostile force, howling and lashing at them from within itself, trying to sink its frigid claws into them and rip them from the mountainside.
Any promise of wealth, any errand of glory would have shrunken to the same wet, mean metre of trail then, lit fitfully by the lantern he’d hidden in his cloak. They had forged on not for duty, but because there was no comfort where they were, and flesh turned stupid and demanding by cold and hunger could only plaintively hope there might be some ahead.
Even before the mountain had swatted their comrade and supplies off its shoulder, they’d had no intention of stopping to make camp. The trail ran and dodged relentlessly narrow through the dark, with no safe clearings or even overhangs to show mercy for their weariness. A horse’s tread behind him, his companion had carried the reason for their quest, and that had made him uneasy long before it had led to disaster. If he could have traded them for the lantern, traded his place at the front for theirs in the sullen back, he would have. But the trail had shown no pity, either, for decisions regretted.
He couldn’t say what sort of thoughts tormented his companion during the climb. For his part, though knowing only a bare summit and dangerous task awaited them, he spent the endless switchbacks trying to convince his dense, suffering flesh that there would be relief when they did inevitably end.
If he had focused instead on the rain spitting contemptuously at the edge of his lantern’s frail corona, he might have noticed when a shape more solid and looming than stone intercepted the downpour ahead. He might have been able to warn his companion in time that the path to the summit was guarded.