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We all turned to stare flatly at him.
“People actually climb things on holiday…for fun?” Lucius asked, looking baffled and disgusted.
Appius frowned at him. “It’s an enjoyable challenge.”
I took another look over the edge, holding onto the remaining part of the bridge as I did. It wasn’t as far as it could have been. We weren’t that high up in the mountains yet. A stream raced through the narrow valley at the bottom of the chasm, and honestly, that would probably be the most difficult part of the obstacle. It looked to be about as wide as some of the smaller tributaries of the Wolf River at home, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I spotted one or two fallen trees that were wedged between the walls of the chasm. So we might not need to deal with the rushing stream at all.
“Well,” I said with a sigh, “at least we’ll get to use our climbing equipment.”
There was nothing for it but to break out the crampons, fasten them to our boots, make sure all of our packs and equipment were secured, then to make our way down into the chasm.
We were lucky that the walls of the chasm were tilted just enough that if we clung closely enough to them, we weren’t in danger of slipping and falling to our deaths. And Darius did slip at one point. He and Leander had tied themselves together—which was either touching or morbid, considering that if there was a slip and one didn’t save the other, they would both plunge to a bloody death together—and that was enough to keep Darius from more than ripping his trousers and bloodying his knee.
Getting down one side of the chasm was relatively easy. Shimmying across one of the fallen trees wasn’t that hard either, although Mara slipped at one point and dropped her climbing ax into the rushing current. Luckily, we had spares.
It was getting up the other side that proved a challenge.
“I didn’t think it would be this strenuous,” I panted as I inched slowly upward, searching out a new foothold and praying my crampons would give me the additional grip they were supposed to.
“You’re doing great,” Appius said, just a few feet behind me. “It’s like you’ve done this before or something.”
I laughed humorlessly. “I can assure you, I haven’t.”
“Then this particular chasm is good practice,” Darius called from higher up the cliff face. “It’s not that big.”
“I thought you liked it when things were big,” I called back to him.
Both Darius and Leander laughed, which made me worry they would slip like they had on the way down. This time, they might knock me off the cliff wall, then I’d hit Appius, and we’d both slam into Mara and Lucius which would be…something I didn’t want to think about.
I forced myself to concentrate on one foot at a time, on moving steadily up to the other side of the chasm. I made the mistake of looking down once when I was halfway up the cliff. We’d climbed high enough that I felt more than a little dizzy and had to press myself flat to the stone until my heart stopped pounding.
“Are you alright?” Appius asked.
I sucked in a breath, nodded tightly, then answered, “Yeah,” in the most unconvincing way possible.
It felt like it took forever, but I knew I had to succeed at this. I thought about Neil, Peter, and Jace and the way they climbed a huge tree to escape over the walls of Hedeon. I wasn’t the only Son who had to make a dramatic escape. And unlike their experience, we didn’t have to contend with feet of snow on the ground.
At last, my hand grabbed hold of the edge of the cliff, and since Leander and Darius had already made it up, they grabbed me and pulled me up with them. I crawled quickly away from the edge, then took a moment to rest on my hands and knees, panting until I’d caught my breath. Within minutes, Appius, Lucius, and Mara had climbed to safety as well.
We’d done it. All six of us had made it past the first obstacle in one piece. It was a cause for celebration, and we paused to hug each other and rest, rationing out a little more of our food and sitting in the shade of some trees on the far side of the chasm.
“Easy,” Leander said, winking at me. “We’ll be on your side of the mountains, fucking around with all your friends, in no time.”
“I’m sure we will,” I said, laughing with sheer relief.
It was a nice thought, but we came to the next obstacle even before nightfall that day. We walked for hours after our rest and midday meal, and for part of that time, as the spring sun shone overhead and the green of the scrubby forest around us filled with birdsong and rustling wind, it was easy for me to trick myself into thinking that we’d succeeded in escaping.
But just as the sun was starting to set in front of us, we came to a section of the pass that had been blocked by an avalanche.
“Um, they weren’t joking when they said there was an avalanche,” Darius said as the six of us approached the massive pile of rubble.
It was as good as another mountain in our way. Several yards of jagged rock clogged the wide road for as far as we could see. Of course, the pile was so high that we couldn’t see beyond it, which was the point.
“What do we do?” Lucius asked. “Stop here for the night?”
I studied the pile of boulders, then my friends, then the woods we’d just crossed through. I wanted to get home as quickly as possible, but I had to be reasonable about it.
“Let me see what we’re up against,” I said, marching up to the rock pile.
