The cold hardened as the light shortened.
Snow no longer fell clean. It blew and packed where the wind allowed it to stay. What had been road remained only where weight passed often enough to hold it. Everything else filled in.
He kept moving.
The horse went slower, head down, testing each step. He let it. When the wind cut across the road, he turned his face from it and leaned into it until it eased.
They passed a stand of trees where the snow lay thinner.
A deer stood there, ribs showing, foreleg scraping at the ground. It lifted its head once as they went by, then went back to digging.
By the time the light failed, he left the road and turned into cover.
The ground dipped and the trees grew close. He cleared snow down to earth and stone and made a small fire where it would hold. Food stayed simple. Bread cracked when he broke it. Meat had to be shaved thin to chew. Snow melted down to little in the pot.
He fed the horse and tied it close.
When the fire burned down, he lay back and slept some.
—
The wind woke him.
It came harder than before, carrying snow that stung where it struck. By the time he was moving again, the road had thinned to nothing more than guesswork.
He tried to keep it.
The horse picked its way forward a few steps at a time, hooves slipping where snow hid ice beneath. He let it choose the pace. When the wind cut across the road, he leaned into it and waited until it eased.
Snow thickened as the day wore on. Distance closed in. Sound flattened until even the horse's breathing faded.
Markers vanished one by one. He followed the shape of the ground instead, keeping to what little rise he could feel beneath the snow.
By midday, the road was gone.
He went on anyway.
When the ground dipped and stone showed through the drift, he took it. A shallow cut in the rock broke the wind enough to matter. He led the horse in as far as it would go and tied it short.
The storm came on fully then.
Snow drove low and thick, piling at the mouth of the shelter. He worked with his back to the stone, shielded the flame until it caught, and let it burn down on its own.
He sat and listened. Wind. Snow. The horse shifting once and settling again.
When he lay down, the stone held the cold without giving. He settled deeper against the stone and kept still.
The fire burned down to coals.
—
The cold did not lift when the fire failed.
It pressed in deeper instead, slow and exact, working through leather and wool until it reached bone. The stone beneath him held it and gave nothing back. His breath fogged and thinned, each one taking more than the last.
He shifted once. The movement brought a sharper ache into his shoulders and hands, then settled again.
The cold was not new.
He had known worse.
Stone at his back, the ground climbing away beneath him. Wind cutting clean through cloth, tearing heat away as fast as the body could make it. Air so thin it burned going in and out, lungs pulling at nothing that wanted to stay.
The climb had taken days. Weight dragged at every step, straps biting into shoulders already rubbed raw. Fingers numbed until fastening buckles took both hands and time they no longer had.
They had gone up before the sun and kept moving after it was gone.
The mountain had not changed for them.
Snow packed hard against exposed stone. The path narrowed until stopping meant falling. Wind struck from the side and stayed, scouring skin raw where it found it. Feet lost feeling, then shape. Some hands stopped answering altogether.
One boy stumbled where the path pinched thin. His boot slipped. He windmilled once, arms useless against the wind, and screamed as he went over the edge. The sound tore free and vanished almost at once.
No one stopped.
Another leaned into the rock and slid sideways, slow, like rest.
Near the peak, the runestone lay half-buried where the stone broke through the ice. Old. Carved deep. Heavy when freed. Cutting it loose took time. Time they no longer had.
They took it and turned back.
Not all of them.
The cold there had not waited.
It took.
The stone beneath him was not that mountain.
He drew his cloak tighter and kept still.
The memory thinned as the last of the coals faded.
By morning, the storm had spent itself. Snow lay high and smooth beyond the shelter, wind-carved and quiet. The horse breathed steadily nearby, frost crusted along its mane.
He rose stiffly, worked feeling back into his fingers, and broke camp without haste.
He went on.