"No!" The cry came from multiple throats, but there was nothing any of us could do but watch in horror.
Cutting through the chaos came a roaring sound like that of another avalanche tumbling down a mountainside, but then I realized that it was the distinctive roar of a dragon.
A massive shape plunged through the swirling snow, scales gleaming like polished copper in the aurora light. The dragonia—for it was clearly female, given her smaller size and more graceful build—dove after the falling group with impossible speed.
Time seemed to slow down as we watched the rescue attempt. The dragon's wings folded close to her body as she streaked downward, her rider barely visible against her scales. At the last possible moment, her wings snapped open, and she disappeared into the clouds below.
"Did she catch them?" Codric's voice shook. "Did she?—"
Another roar answered his unfinished question, this one triumphant. The dragonia burst up through the cloud layer, her massive form a welcome sight. She carried one shape in her claws, and four others dangled from the rope they were still attached to.
It was impossible to tell whether any of them were alive, though. From where we were, they seemed to be hanging lifelessly from the rope.
The dragonia wheeled gracefully, banking upward toward what I assumed was a place she could safely land with her cargo.
"Everyone, stay where you are," Lysara shouted. "Press against the mountain face until we're sure there won't be another slide."
I became aware that I was shaking, though whether from cold, adrenaline, or the aftermath of the hallucinations, I couldn't tell. The rope connecting our quintet thrummed with similar tremors from the others.
The wind continued to howl around us, but the immediate danger seemed to have passed. Small streams of snow still slid down the slope, but nothing like the massive surge that might have claimed the lives of those pilgrims.
Had it been another sabotage?
It would have been easy to set up an avalanche. A small explosive would have been enough, and with the howling wind, the sound of the blast would have gone unnoticed.
We all wanted to find out whether any of the five were alive, but we were at a standstill. Hopefully, the medics were already rushing to their aid.
When Lysara gave the order to start moving again, I focused on putting one foot in front of the other and trying to ignore both the hallucinations that twisted my perception and the echo of those screams that seemed to linger in the wind.
38
KAILIN
Death on the mountain isn't rare, but it never becomes easier to accept. I pray to Elu that the dragonia was able to save the five pilgrims swept away by the avalanche, but I brace for bad news.
—From the journal of Kailin Strom
The wind died down to an eerie whisper, as if the mountain itself was holding its breath. Our five trudged up the trail, the rope connecting us feeling much less secure now that I had seen how ineffective it was against the power of the mountain.
"They were saved," Shovia said, but her voice lacked conviction. "The dragonia reached them in time."
I wanted to believe her. The image of the copper-scaled dragon diving through the clouds replayed in my mind, her powerful form breaking through the storm clouds like an arrow loosed from Elu's bow. My heart had soared with hope, and I had cheered along with the others when she'd emerged with the quintet, but now that I had time to process what I had seen, I doubted that all five had been alive when she'd picked them up.
I'm not sure how long we'd been shuffling our feet up the trail with a silent melancholy draped over us like a dark cloud. I was so numb emotionally that I didn't even register the gnawing hunger or the blisters on my feet. But then the first pair of medics appeared, coming down the trail carrying a stretcher.
I held my breath as we plastered ourselves against the mountainside to make room for them, waiting to see the extent of injuries the person on that stretcher had sustained. My heart sank when I saw that the body was entirely covered with a thin sheet, the kind that was used to cover the dead.
"Drak," Shovia cursed under her breath.
Beside me, Morek made a choking sound in his throat.
Alar and Codric remained silent.
The medics' grim expressions should have prepared me for what I was about to see, but hope was a hard thing to kill, even when it defied reason.
When a second pair of medics made their way down the path, I already knew that they weren't carrying a survivor.
We all waited with bated breath for the rest of the victims to be carried down the mountain in a similar fashion, but no more came down. The survivors must have been taken to the summit, which was closer than the bottom of the mountain. I just worried that there was no proper medical facility up there. They might have a small clinic, but could they reset bones and fashion casts?
