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It hit us.

It was not so unlike getting caught in water, so I swam, and Galva tried to do the same, but it was harder going for her in her chain mail shirt.

And everything went white.

Then black.

And I fell.

Thing about getting caught in an avalanche, it’s confusing. In the Low School, where I studied thieving, they teach you that whatever your circumstances, panic is the one thing you mustn’t do. Pretend it’s happening to someone else, and like, try to imagine what would be best for that person. Which way is up seemed like an important thing to sort out, so I took stock. One of my arms was out of the snow, so I figured up was that way. I dug, squirmed, and struggled. I felt something solid under my foot and pushed on that, hoping it was ground and not Galva.

I birthed my head up over the snow and saw that I was on a sort of shelf below a rock face. Right. The goats had gone over that, and now so had I. Or we. Here was the goat I’d feathered, half in and half out of the snow, blood bubbling out of its nose as it died.

“Sorry, mate,” I said. “I’d have et you, and no regrets, but I’m sorry I killed you for nothing.”

Where was the Spanth?

I heard a goaty baaaah followed by an accented, “Fuck off. Fuck off now,” and peeked over the edge of my shelf to find another shelf not so far down. I saw the head and one shoulder of Galva dom Braga, and she was squirming to get an arm free. Meanwhile, a goat was making to headbutt her while she was in that helpless state.

I threw snow at it.

“Hey, she’s right, fuck off now. It was nothing personal.”

It ran at her and gave her one in the side of the face. Luckily, its horns were the back-facing kind, not the nasty, pointy ones. It also wasn’t very big, probably a juvenile. Still, nothing you’d want battering your head while you were buried in a snow-hole.

It was getting ready to do it again, and Galva’s arm was almost free.

I needed to distract it.

Snow hadn’t worked, nor reasoning with it, at least not in Holtish.

So I spoke to it in its own language.

“Baaa-aaah-ah-ah,” I said.

Have I mentioned I studied animal talking in the Low School? Not really talking to them but sounding enough like them to fool a guard or the like into thinking you’re a horse, or a dog, or an owl.

But apparently, I had a real gift for Thrall mountain goat.

It looked up, cocked its head like, “You sure that’s what you want to say to me in this situation?”

I nodded for emphasis, and added, “Aaaah-ah-ah-ah.”

Now Galva had her arm out and grabbed the thing’s leg.

It didn’t like that, and tried to pull away, but pulled too hard and went fucking off over the edge. I peeked over.

Rocks down there.

I’ll spare you the details.

Far off, I saw the last goat, who’d fell luckier, and who’d been watching. He went hopping and picking his way on ice and rock, away from the scene of the tragedy, no doubt to tell the rest of the herd what a pair of murderous karks we were.

I judged the rock face between here and there, sorted my twisted pack, my bow and daggers, and started the climb down to Galva’s shelf as she finished wriggling out of her hole. It wasn’t the easiest climb I’d ever made, and the stakes were fair high, but I dropped down next to her in just a moment or two.

Her eye and cheek were already swelling where the nanny had socked her.

“Do not say anything,” she said.