Page 58 of HaL

Behind us, the avalanche is no longer something I can see. It’s something I can feel. The air itself seems to shake with its fury. I glance ahead. The ridge is close, but we are not clear yet. And the mountain is already swallowing everything behind us.

A small hand clamps around my arm, and somehow, that is all my beast needs. Something inside me snaps back into focus.

The next tic is nothing but fragments—wind screaming, snow exploding around us, my beast moving with a speed and precision I could never have commanded. I am not in control anymore. Something else has taken the wheel.

I do not know if it is the Lord of Light.

I do not know if it is some buried knowledge I never knew I possessed.

All I know is that one moment we were racing for our lives, and the next, we are standing motionless atop a jagged peak overlooking the main valley. I stare down, breathless and bewildered. How the frack have we gotten here?

Then the mountain answers.

A deafening roar rolls through the valley as the avalanche comes crashing down behind us. A wall of white swallowing everything in its path—trees, rocks, earth—turning the mountainside into a living wave of destruction.

It thunders past below us, shaking the peak beneath us before finally grinding to a violent, destructive stop.

I can only stare.

We should have been buried beneath it.

We should have been dead.

Yet somehow, we are still here, alive.

“WHOOOOHOOO, big guy, now that was some damn good driving!!”

I look over at Dawn, who has this huge smile on her face, and simply shake my head. I expected her to be scared out of her mind but instead, she is cheering.

“We almost died.”

“Hell, that’s becoming a daily thing for me, but guess what? We DIDN’T! Shoot, that right there got the old pumper working. Who knew the abominable snowman should have been a NASCAR driver? That was quite impressive.”

I lean forward, running a shaking hand through my facial hair, trying to gather my thoughts.

“Are we stuck out here now?”

“No, Hallister is not a large planet, so if one way is blocked, we will simply head another. The cruiser seems not to have sustained any real damage, so we should be fine.”

“Do you think the mammoths made it?”

“Yes, they were moving long before we even realized what was happening. I will have Bane send out a drone just in case, because even if one got stuck, the rest of the herd would have stopped sending out distress signals to locate it.”

“Did anyone live out this way?”

Her words stop me as I gather the names in my head that reside in this area.

“Several, actually and this is one of the things that weighs heavily on me. Yes, the compound is an advancement that many do not appreciate, but it provides a measure of safety that the planet itself simply cannot. It always saddens me to watch them pack up after market and head back out, because I know firsthand how difficult it can be to face such extreme conditions completely on your own. Let me call this in so that Bane can get on that too.”

She rubs my arm for a tic before looking out over all that has just occurred all around us while it hit my comm unit.

“Bane, there has been a huge avalanche in the western sector and there were some mammoths in the area with calves that may need to be checked on.”

“Already been notified by Gelid because the stupid fracker was out corralling a lost calf when he got trapped in the pass.”

“Has he stayed in contact?”

“Yes, but even though he has not said it directly, I believe he is hurt.”