The mountain was no longer silent.
Since leaving the plateau of vision, Ahayue felt its weight shifting around him, restless as if stirred awake by the trial he had just endured. The snow underfoot whispered and cracked. The ridges moaned as wind screamed between their jagged teeth. Each gust stabbed needles of ice into his skin, and the thin air turned every breath into a shuddering gasp.
He pressed onward with a stubbornness that was more instinct than strength. His crippled leg burned with a pain sharpened by the cold. Yet he dared not stop—every pause only tightened the frost around his chest, every hesitation invited the mountain to swallow him.
The words of the guardian still lingered like a bruise in his skull: "Climb higher, or be buried."
He did not know whether those words were blessing or curse, prophecy or warning. But in this place of frost and thunder, every echo might as well be law.
The Storm Gathers
Clouds rolled over the peaks with a speed that defied reason, dragging the world into a dim, muffled twilight though the sun had not yet set. Snow began to fall, first as a light veil, then in thick, angry sheets. It clung to his hair, weighed on his shoulders, blinded his sight.
Ahayue leaned into the wind, forcing one foot after another through drifts that rose nearly to his knees. His breaths rasped, each one tasting of blood and iron.
"I will not be buried here," he growled, his voice almost stolen by the gale.
But the mountain answered. A deep rumble rolled through the ground beneath him, low and ominous.
The Avalanche Breaks
It began with a crack—a sound like a whip tearing across the frozen sky. Then another. Snow shifted above him, a massive shelf breaking loose, sending tremors through the slope.
Ahayue froze, dread crawling up his spine.
"No…"
The world roared. A thunderclap of ice and stone tore down from the heights, devouring the slope in a white fury. The avalanche came not like a wave, but like the mountain itself collapsing, a beast of snow and gravity.
Ahayue ran.
He hurled himself down the slope, crippled leg screaming with every jarring step, but speed no longer mattered—only survival. The avalanche raced faster than thought, swallowing trees, shattering boulders. The ground vanished beneath his feet as he slid, tumbled, clawed at rock and ice.
The roar filled his skull, drowning out everything but terror. His body pinwheeled, smashed into frozen earth, rolled in suffocating white. Snow poured into his mouth, his nose, choking him, blinding him. He flailed for breath, for space, for anything solid.
For a moment he thought the mountain would take him whole. That this would be his grave.
But then—a jutting rock, black against the blizzard. He struck it hard, pain flashing like fire through his ribs, but his hand clung to its frozen edge. The avalanche thundered past, a wall of death rushing downward, dragging half the slope with it.
When it finally passed, silence returned, heavy and suffocating.
Ahayue lay sprawled against the rock, chest heaving, face caked with ice. His entire body shook—not only from cold, but from the nearness of death.
He was alive. Barely.
The Beasts in the Snow
He pushed himself upright, every bone aching, and staggered into the settling mist. The snow around him was a broken sea, ridges and waves frozen in mid-crash. He spat blood into the whiteness, forcing breath back into his lungs.
That was when he heard it.
A growl. Low. Hungry.
Ahayue froze, his ears straining. The growl came again, joined by another. Shadows moved in the mist, four-legged, sleek, predatory. Eyes glimmered, pale and cold as the moon.
Snow wolves.
But not ordinary ones. Their forms seemed twisted, their fur patchy with frost that steamed in the air, their movements sharper, unnatural—like things sculpted by the mountain's rage. Their teeth gleamed long and curved, dripping with icicles.
Ahayue's pulse hammered. He was weaponless, half-buried, his body too battered to run far.
One wolf padded forward, its breath clouding the air in steaming plumes. It lowered its head, lips peeling back from its fangs.
Another appeared to the side. Then another. Three in all.
They circled.
The Fight for Survival
Ahayue grabbed a splintered branch half-buried in the snow—more stick than weapon, but it would have to do. He raised it with trembling hands, forcing himself to meet the wolf's gaze.
"You will not take me," he whispered.
The first wolf lunged.
Its weight slammed into him like a hammer. He staggered back, thrusting the branch into its side. The wood snapped with the impact, but the beast howled and recoiled, blood darkening the snow.
The second wolf came from behind, jaws snapping for his leg. Ahayue twisted, falling hard on his side, the bite closing on empty air. His ribs screamed in agony, but he rolled away, scrambling to his knees.
The third circled, watching with uncanny intelligence, waiting for weakness.
Ahayue's breath came in ragged bursts. The stick was useless now, broken in half. His arms shook from strain.
The wounded wolf snarled, blood dripping from its flank, then leapt again.
Desperation seized him. He rammed the jagged end of the branch upward as the wolf descended. It pierced flesh. Hot blood spilled across his hand. The wolf shrieked, thrashing violently, but Ahayue held on with all the strength of terror.
The beast collapsed, writhing, then fell still.
But the other two were already upon him.
The second lunged low, snapping for his crippled leg. Pain like fire shot through him as teeth grazed flesh. He kicked wildly, boot connecting with its snout, sending it snarling back.
The third wolf struck from the side, jaws closing on his arm. The force ripped him from his feet. Agony exploded in his shoulder. He screamed, pounding his free fist against its skull. The beast shook him like a rag, dragging him across the snow.
"NO!"
With a surge of desperation, Ahayue drove his bloodied hand into its eye. The wolf howled, releasing him, thrashing blindly.
Ahayue staggered up, arm bleeding, ribs screaming, vision swimming. He grabbed a chunk of rock from the snow and hurled it with all his might. The stone cracked against the injured wolf's skull. It fell, twitching.
The last wolf hesitated. Its icy eyes studied him, hackles raised.
Ahayue bared his teeth in defiance, raising the jagged stick like a spear. Blood dripped from his wounds, steaming in the cold.
"Come, then," he hissed.
The wolf snarled—but did not leap. Slowly, almost resentfully, it backed into the mist. Its pale eyes lingered one last time before vanishing into the storm.
Collapse
Ahayue stood trembling, chest heaving. The snow around him was stained red. His arm throbbed, his ribs burned, his leg screamed with every shift. He had survived—but only just.
The wind howled louder, as if displeased. The storm thickened again, burying the battlefield under new layers of white.
Ahayue staggered forward, leaving the bodies behind, seeking any hollow, any cave, any crack in the mountain that might give shelter. His limbs felt like stone, his blood freezing against his skin.
At last he saw a dark slit in the snow—a cave mouth, narrow and half-hidden.
He stumbled inside, collapsing onto the cold stone floor. His body curled, shivering uncontrollably. His vision blurred, darkness pressing at the edges.
Before he surrendered to unconsciousness, he thought he saw something deeper in the cave. A glow. A flicker. Or perhaps only a trick of exhaustion.
Then all was black.