Fool's Errand (24 page)

Azriel slid the spyglass back into the leather canister slung across his chest. “If we haven't made contact by suppertime, I say we come back down, spend the night in the foothills and go up again tomorrow. I don't think that's going to be necessary, though, for I saw movement upon yonder mountain,” he said, pointing to one of the nearer, smaller, less intimidating peaks. “And unless I am very much mistaken, it was a pair of woolly sheep. And wherever there are woolly sheep, there are sure to be Khan.”

“And Khan traps,” said Fayla grimly.

“And Khan warriors carrying Khan battle-axes,” added Tiny with a growl.

“Yes,” agreed Azriel cheerfully. “Shall we proceed?”

TWENTY-THREE

Eight-nine white beans left in the jar

T
HOUGH THE PEAK IN QUESTION
had looked to Persephone to be only a short hike away, it was mid-afternoon before they reached the base of it, distances apparently being difficult to judge in the shadow of the mountains that dwarfed everything in sight. Glad that no one seemed to have noticed how hard she was shivering or the fact that she could not seem to get enough air into her lungs no matter how deeply she inhaled, Persephone scrambled up the mountainside after the others. To her dismay, it was so steep in places that she had to use her hands to climb. Worse, it was covered with loose rock that was ever causing one of them to lose their footing, slide half a dozen hard-earned paces and crash into the climber directly below.

Persephone had just been thusly knocked off her feet for the third time when she heard a familiar scream.

Intensely grateful for the excuse to try to catch her breath, she looked down to the place in the foothills where the last of the old trees stood.

There, forlornly perched on the highest branch of the tallest tree, was Ivan.

Smiling fondly at the sight of the feathered friend who'd followed her so well and so far, Persephone lifted her tired arm in salute. “I'll be back soon, Ivan!” she called, her voice echoing over and over until it faded to nothingness.

In response, the hawk screeched once and burst into flight.

“Coming, Mrs. Azriel?” inquired Tiny, peering down at her from his place directly above her on the slope.

Just barely managing not to scowl at him, Persephone nodded once, dragged herself to her feet and resumed climbing.

In due course, they climbed high enough to trade the treacherous scree-covered slopes for the wintery world of the high mountain. There, the cold was as sharp as knives and the sun shone blindingly in a sky more brilliantly blue than any Persephone had ever seen in her life. Here a rock face or crevasse barred their upward path; there, a river of ice shifted, groaning in the eerie silence.

After what seemed like an eternity, Fayla finally stopped to ask Azriel if they were close to the place he thought he'd seen the woolly sheep. As she listened to him reply that he thought they were, Persephone suffered a sudden attack of dizziness. Not wanting to make a fool of herself by toppling off the edge of the snow precipice along which they'd been climbing, she hastily leaned over to brace her hands against her knees and was dully amazed to see two droplets of blood appear in the snow. Mesmerized, she watched as a third droplet appeared, ruby red and beautiful against the pure whiteness.

Even as it dawned on her that the blood was hers and that she ought to cover it up before somebody decided to make a silly fuss out of nothing, Rachel drew everyone's attention to it by crying out, “Persephone, you're bleeding!”

Squinting over at her friend, Persephone wiped her dripping nose with the back of her gloved hand and mumbled, “It's just a nosebleed.”

Moving toward her with surprising swiftness given the depth of the snow, Azriel cradled her head in his hands and tilted it upward so that he could get a closer look at her face.

The glare of direct sunlight was like having red-hot, four-inch nails driven into Persephone's brain via her eyeballs. Gasping at the pain, she squeezed her eyes shut and jerked her head out of Azriel's grasp.

“You're
sick,”
he said, his voice sharp with alarm.

“I'm
fine
,”she retorted. Staggering to her feet, she took three great sucking gulps of air, lifted her chin and said, “See?”

“You're standing lopsided,” whispered Rachel in an embarrassed voice as she gently pressed her finger against Persephone's shoulder to guide her into an upright position.

Muttering under his breath that she should have
told
him she wasn't feeling well, Azriel grabbed Persephone by the hand and pulled her as far away from the edge of the precipice as he could. Then, using his axe to sever a ten-foot length from the coiled rope that had been slung over his shoulder, he tied one end snugly about her waist.

“What … what do you think you're doing?” spluttered Persephone.

“Preventing you from falling off the side of the mountain,” he replied tersely as he tied the other end around his own waist. “We'll head down immediately—”

“No!” she protested as she tried in vain to untie or wriggle loose of the humiliating rope.

“Yes,” said Azriel, picking up his axe. “It's almost suppertime anyway, and we agreed we'd descend by then if we'd not made contact with the Khan—which we haven't. Do you think you can walk?”

“Of course I can walk,” huffed Persephone as she slowly began to list to one side again.

“Good,” said Azriel, pushing her upright once more, “because we've nothing out of which to fashion a sledge or a sled, and while I would most gladly carry you down in my arms, I suspect that I am going to need the use of them to keep myself from tumbling headfirst down the mountain and dashing my brains out on the rocks below. Let's go.”

Turning around before she had a chance to offer further protest, Azriel motioned for Tiny, Fayla and Rachel to start back the way they'd come. Unwell though she was, Persephone was so put off by her husband's bossy behaviour that she folded her arms across her heaving chest and dug her heels into the snow. Almost immediately, however, she was yanked forward by the short rope that now joined them. And thereafter she had no choice but to stumble along in Azriel's footsteps—or be dragged along behind him.

The companions soon left the lip of the precipice and struck out back across a great snowy bowl littered with chunks of rock and ice shed by the sheer slopes that loomed above it. Up until now there'd been no more than the odd whisper of wind; now there was not even that. For some reason, the stillness made Persephone uneasy and heightened her feeling that they were being watched by unfriendly eyes.

Like unwelcome fish in a barrel.

Knowing that they were in the very heart of Khan territory—and knowing the fate that generally befell fish in a barrel—Persephone was about to ask if anyone else shared her uneasy feeling when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye.

“Azriel!” she called breathlessly as she whipped her head around for a better look. “I think I see a woolly—”

“
Bear!
”bleated Rachel.

In fact, it wasn't a woolly sheep—as Persephone had assumed—or even a woolly bear, for that matter. It
was
a bear, however.

And it was charging straight at them.

Persephone fumbled for her dagger even though it seemed a ridiculously puny weapon with which to face such a beast. As she did so, Tiny and Azriel raised their axes, and Fayla notched an arrow in her bow. Rachel, meanwhile, floundered forward to put herself between Persephone and the bear—as though allowing herself to be eaten first was the only contribution she could think to make under the circumstances.

Fortunately, before any of them could attack (or be eaten), the great white mountain bear came to a skidding halt some twenty paces away from where Rachel stood trembling.

The beast was big, all right, though not nearly as big as Persephone would have expected it to be given Tiny's description. Moreover, it did not seem ferocious in the least. On the contrary, as it sat on its haunches examining them with its big head cocked to one side and its black eyes alive with curiosity, it almost seemed friendly.

“Claws and teeth to rip a man apart as easily as if he were a piece of wet parchment,” chuckled Fayla softly without lowering her bow. “I told you they were tales to frighten children, Tiny.”

“I don't think they were,” said Azriel in a voice so strained that it made the hair on the back of Persephone's neck stand on end. “Look at how downy his fur is, Fayla, and how big his paws are. This is no full-grown bear—
this is a baby!
”

Even as Azriel said this, there came a roar so fierce that it shook the earth and turned Persephone's knees to water. Looking across the bowl, she was horrified to see the baby's much,
MUCH
larger mother charging toward them with frightening speed. Her lips were peeled back to reveal her vicious teeth and her six-inch black claws were tearing at the snow crust beneath her huge, padded paws. Persephone—who could not imagine a blade or bow on
earth
that would not have seemed a ridiculously puny weapon with which to face such a beast—was about to turn and run when she heard a loud
crack
from somewhere high above them.

It sounded like a thunderclap, and for an instant after she heard it, Persephone heard nothing else—not the sound of her own pounding heart, not even the sound of the approaching mother bear.

Then she heard the distant rumble. Looking up, she saw that an enormous ledge of snow had broken away and was slowly beginning to slide down the sheer slope above them.

“
AVALANCHE
!”bellowed Tiny. “
RUN
!”

As if heeding Tiny's advice, the suddenly frightened baby bear gave a plaintive wail, turned and began galloping toward its mother. Tiny—evidently believing that his best chance would be to make it to shelter at the far side of the bowl—grabbed Fayla's hand and charged forward like a man possessed. Certain that she, Azriel and Rachel were too far behind to make it across the bowl in time, Persephone turned and began stumbling back toward the precipice. That the rope at her waist was slack told her that Azriel was close behind her; a glance over her shoulder revealed that Rachel was close behind him, that the charging mother bear—who had her bawling baby by the scruff of the neck—was close behind
her
… and that the roaring avalanche was hurtling toward them all.

Her eyes focused on the shelter of the rock face twenty paces away, Persephone tried not to give in to panic as she urged her leaden legs to move faster.

Now she was sixteen paces away … now twelve … now seven …

Suddenly, the ground beneath her feet gave way and she plunged downward so fast that her heart shot into her throat. She had no time to scream, however, because almost immediately her body jerked to a halt as the rope at her waist went taut. For half a heartbeat she dangled in midair with her head thrown back and her arms thrown wide. Then, before she could even
begin
to wonder how she was going to get herself out of this predicament, she started to slip. Over the roar of the approaching avalanche, she heard Rachel screaming; she saw the mother bear bound over the narrow opening of the hidden crevasse through which she'd fallen.

Then she saw Azriel's boots. He was desperately trying to dig his heels into the icy snow but it was no use.

Her weight was going to drag him in after her.

Wildly, Persephone looked over her left shoulder. When she saw nothing but nothing, she realized that she wasn't just going to drag him in—she was going to drag him to his
death
.

This knowledge caused her to give in to the panic she'd managed to keep at bay when she'd only had a snarling bear and a deadly avalanche bearing down on her. With a sudden surge of energy—and without the slightest thought for her own fate—she lifted the dagger that she yet clutched in her hand and began frantically sawing at the rope that connected her to Azriel.

Unfortunately for the handsome Gypsy—and to Persephone's complete and utter horror—she'd hardly severed more than a few threads of the thick, sturdy rope before Azriel's heels slipped, and he came tumbling into the abyss after her.

TWENTY-FOUR