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A rock toppled off the cliff face to glance off his right shoulder before spinning off into the darkness below.
"Ugly!" Alfdis exclaimed, clambering nimbly around him. "You stop that right now!"
"Not an it," the voice grumbled. It sounded petulant, now, like a small boy's. "I am a man." Only the last, emphasized word fell to a pitch that might actually be produced by a grown man.
"Show yourself, then, if you would claim manhood," Eirik growled.
Alfdis tossed her head in exasperation. "It's not his fault you can't see him, priest's son. Come on, Ugly will show us the way." Her spirits seemed to lift along with her confidence. "I've done this before."
Eirik had to struggle again to keep up with her swift ascent. Steps seemed to have formed abruptly, where before there were none. The climb was far from easy, though; it was still steep, wet, and dark. The icy rain was soon overwhelmed by the spray of the falls drumming to their right. "He's mad I can't see him, but you get to call him ugly?" He glanced behind himself, and swallowed hard. There was no sign of the path leading down the way they'd come. The rocks swallowed it back up on his heels.
Eirik understood, then, that the voice came from the mountainside itself, and that he walked across the features of a hill troll.
"Yes," Alfdis threw over her shoulder, sounding almost happy. "Hill trolls can't abide blind flattery, which is mostly what they get from those come to spy out the hidden ways."
"We're on a hidden path?" Eirik forced himself to ask.
Alfdis paused long enough to shoot him a puzzled glance.
"I told you he was stupid," the rocks said smugly.
"But nothing changed," Eirik protested. "We're still where we were. The falls, the night—everything is the same." As they ascended, the waterfall sounded less like thunder and more like rushing wind, but this, too, was familiar.
"He keeps thinking like that, and he'll be dead before dawn."
Eirik growled. "Tell your ugly friend I can hear him."
Alfdis grunted, and leapt for the top of the cliff. The rocks beneath her feet seemed to rise and push her over. She disappeared for half a second, and then her head peaked out over the edge. She panted lightly. "Ignore him," she advised. "And be thankful he let you follow."
It vexed Eirik to be indebted to one who scorned him so openly, but he reminded himself that he considered pride an unattractive trait. "Thank you, path maker," he said, somewhat stiffly, and vaulted himself up unaided, to join Alfdis at the summit of the rocky trail.
The voice trailed after him, no more than a whisper. "You are welcome, stupid."
Eirik grimaced. "At least he spoke to me." That felt like a triumph.
Alfdis rolled her eyes. "Men! Come on." She turned and hoisted her cloak and skirts above the mud of the bank to slosh upriver. The waters were deceptively calm, though the falls roared in warning just a leap away.
"How much further?" Eirik dared ask.
"I don't know," came the expected answer.
They were running, again. The rain had passed, and with it the heaviest of the clouds. Low on the western horizon, the moon struggled to shine through layers of filmy haze, touching the land with the barest hint of silvery light. The ground hardened into lumpy rock, slippery moss, and thick veins of black ash. This unforgiving mix stretch away from the river as far as Eirik could see, broken only by scattered patches of never-melting snow. Out of habit, he scanned the limits of the darkness as they ran.
Twice, Alfdis stopped to crouch and hug her knees as the summons pulsed through her. When she rose the second time, she tightened her grip on Eirik's arms as he tried to pull away, expecting her to run on. Panic flitted across her features.
"Not that way," she gasped.
Eirik frowned. "Are you sure?"
Alfdis spun in a full circle, as if disoriented. "Yes," she said finally. "Yes, I'm sure." She pointed across the frozen wasteland. "The pull comes from there."
Eirik stared. "There's nothing
there. You can see yourself. It's empty moss and ash and snow, for miles."
He was unsurprised when Alfdis plunged towards empty moss and ash and snow. With a curse, he followed.
His eyes picked out the marker stones before Alfdis's; her sight might be better, but he was looking. "There!" he cried. "Cairn ahead!" Alfdis angled towards it, her hood falling back to let her long golden waves swing free in her wake.
