Page 33 of The Thrice-Bound Fool

And so it went.

Right up until the middle of the third day, when I realized I couldn’t tell which of the mountains around us was three-headed. I looked at the letter and map I’d had up my bum, and it looked like we might have passed our destination.

But how the kark do you walk right by the highest mountains in a range?

I know the constant glare and sun was making our eyes miserable sore and we couldn’t see so well. But for fuck’s sake, that three-headed mountain should have been as plain as the eyebrows on a Spanth, those that were blessed with two.

During one of our many rests, both of us gulping air wishing we were dead—she because she was looking forward to it, me because I was dreading telling her we were possibly lost—we saw a couple of mountain goats up high, finding wee rocks the sun had melted free, and kicking wee spills of snow.

They looked majestic.

They looked noble.

They looked fucking delicious.

I got my bow off my back and strung it as quiet as I could, nocked an arrow.

Galva squinted at me as if to tell me it was too far, but I thought I had a decent chance, what with the wind at last being near still. Which was odd in itself—the wind was always a bastard this high.

I drew.

Galva swiveled her gaze from me to my target.

I loosed, hoping the sound wouldn’t make the billies start.

They didn’t.

The arrow soared up against the chalky blue sky, then down.

“Bolnu!” Galva said when the goat jerked, the red fletchings visible sticking out of the beastie’s ribs. It turned in a circle, and I was thinking, Just drop, my lovely, but he had some life in him yet and ran up and over a ridge with his fellows.

We followed.

He was leaving a trail of blood and tracks any eejit could have followed, and losing too much blood to stay long on his hooves. It was just a question of how far he’d lead us before he felt like a lie-down. Or so it seemed to me; but then, I was only a decent hunter, and only in field and forest, not ice and stone. What I mean is that we shuffled our snowshoes over a ridge, and what should we see but the kind of sight that makes you yell No! even when you shouldn’t.

“NOOOO!” I said, watching as the panicked karker and his two mates went diving right off the edge of a drop.

It just came out of me.

It echoed in the mountains, NOOOO—noooo—nooooooooooo.

Of course, that’s when the rumble started.

Behind us.

I looked at Galva, and she at me, and then we both looked behind.

It was coming.

It was like a wave of snow about to break on us.

And there was absolutely nowhere to go.

I had very much changed my mind about the wishing-I-was-dead thing.

But at least I’d never have to tell Galva I’d got us lost.

I held her, and she didn’t punch me.