Izabel squints at me. “You saved me, too, remember? So we’re even.”
I bark a laugh. “Fair enough!”
Venna smirks. “You know, you’re heavier than you look,” she says and snorts.
“It’s all the muscle,” I say boastfully.
“Yeah, that and the humility,” Izabel retorts.
It’s surprisingly nice to laugh. Weird, too, to be laughing with women my own age. I stopped spending much time with other girls when I dropped out of school at twelve. In the years since, all the friends I once had have grown into soldiers, or mothers.
In a different life, I could’ve had friends like Izabel and Venna. It’s a bittersweet thought. I’ll likely never see them again once they bond.
Venna and Izabel are taking turns vigorously rubbing heat back into each other’s hands through their climbing gloves when I hear the sound of voices.
“Heads up,” I say sharply to them, and they both pivot, staring at me.
I gesture toward the other side of the ledge, where another group of climbers is just cresting. “We have company.”
The three of us are all thinking about the bodies that lie shattered at the base of the mountain, or broken and bloodied on the rocks on the way down. I don’t have to look the sisters in the eyes to know that. Our positions grow subtly defensive, but I at least try to keep a casual stance.
No sense inviting trouble if these people don’t want to cause any.
“Hey there,” calls the woman who seems to be their leader.
She lets out some slack in the rope attaching their harnesses together, and edges over toward us—there’s a part in the middle where the ledge gets thin, enough to make anyone nervous, before it widens out again.
“Good to see some others have made it this far. Pretty brutal down there.” Her tone is friendly, but it has a little edge to it that I don’t like. I can tell instantly that she’s commoner-born, too. Her clothes and gear are worn.
“How have things been going for you all?” Izabel asks, her casual tone belied by subtle movement as her hand slowly inches toward one of her ice picks, where it’s been re-strapped to her pack.
“Nice-looking picks you guys are carrying,” the woman says, and all of our hands go toward weapons as she reaches around to her own back for a pick. She holds it out in front of her with both hands like an offering, and the tension comes back down a notch. “Problem on our side is, we didn’t pack any extra. And as you can see, this one’s not worth the weight at this point.”
The pick has snapped in two, so that the handle is being held on just by a few leather straps.
She tosses it down at her feet. “You guys seem to have more than enough… care to share?”
“Not happening,” I say simply. I follow the track of the woman’s gaze down toward Izabel’s pack—she was still tightening straps, readjusting weight—so I’m ready to intercept when the woman lunges in suddenly, grabbing for Izabel’s equipment.
Her two companions, both lanky men who look like they haven’t eaten enough in years, were waiting for her movement as well. In moments they’re also on our side of the ledge, and then it’s too tight of quarters to see what everyone else is doing.
My brain flips through every tip Igor has ever given me about fighting in dangerous terrain, in small spaces, anything. I dodge in front of the woman and get a few punches in, only to realize she’s been letting me hit her.
It’s a distraction, so I don’t see that she’s reached for the knife strapped to her leg.
I dodge to the side—into the mountain, not toward the drop—and narrowly miss being stabbed in the side. She’s fast. She feints like she’s about to stand, and then instead brings her knee up into my nose.
Dammit, that just stopped bleeding from the hit against the ice wall. I meet her knife with my own, pushing her back, back.
I don’t know what the endgame is here, because as much as I hate the idea of letting these idiots get away with taking anything from us, I don’t want them dead. The woman ducks down and shoots forward, and I brace for impact, knowing I don’t have room to get out of her way.
But the impact never comes.
Her progress is suddenly halted, like she’s a child’s toy on a string, snapped back. And then I see what’s happened.
One of her friends has slipped backwards, off the ledge entirely. The other is hanging on with just his pick to the edge of the cliff of ice.
The slack rope tightens, pulled down, down by the weight of her friend.
