The Fickle Winds of Autumn

Kira’s wet, tired feet stumbled on wearily, further up the crumbling ledge of mountain path. The bleak cold leached her warmth and will. The brooding, jagged drop to her right grew perilously steeper; she forced herself tight into the drenched unfeeling rocks of the mountainside.

A marauding wind buffeted her body and lashed her hair into her face.

If she became temporarily blinded, if she faltered and lost her footing now, she would perish.

She stopped and tore a strip from her tunic. Her raw fingers fought to tie the cloth around her forehead; their numbed, wrinkled skin blunted by the cruel, constant, spiteful weather. The rough fabric compressed her burning ears.

Aldwyn trudged on ahead; the whistling howl of the winds made it impossible to hear how close Ellis was behind. The fragile tapering slope of the pathway made progress slow and single-file.

The heavy grey clouds crowded down on top of them. Brittle flakes of snow threatened to gather; brief patches of white formed and crystallised against the brutal barren rocks; but the malicious winds blasted and scattered them, condemning them to swirl and drift endlessly without hope of rest.

She pressed forward, through the angry squalls. A loose stone and fatigue caused her to stagger and jolt; the dark howling void beside her lurched up; a caustic terror stabbed through her.

She steadied herself.

She must focus - she must not hurry her clumsy feet.

The vicious wind slashed at her raw streaming eyes; she grimaced and dragged her jaded body further up the slender path, higher into the hopeless, unending, impossible clouds; her exhausted legs did not want to keep climbing but there was no way back - the wolves and the chasm had seen to that.

Aldwyn stopped and pointed at the route ahead.

Kira squinted through the blurring sleet - a venomous rockfall had narrowed the pathway significantly, just as it turned a sharp, oblique corner. Clearly there was only room for one careful traveller at a time - but even then, there was no way of knowing what, if anything, lay beyond the blind bend.

Aldwyn signalled that she and Ellis should wait while he edged around the corner to check if the path beyond was passable.

She stood still and tried to nestle into the unwelcoming rock; the slow miserable cold engulfed her; her cramped legs complained that waiting was less comfortable than plodding forward.

She shivered as Aldwyn’s cautious shuffling silhouette dissolved away from her; his face pressed close to the rugged mountainside; his groping arms spread wide; his fingers and feet probing for a secure hold along the thin ledge which hung out over the sheer jagged drop below.

The insidious cold gnawed a resentful path through her clothing. She shuddered and watched on helplessly; the sombre knowledge writhed inside her that if Aldwyn should falter in any way, it would not be possible to help him.

Aldwyn slowly manoeuvred his way around the corner and disappeared from view.

The harrowing wind roared and deafened her senses; pellets of icy sleet stung hard into her eyes; she pressed her face to the bitter rocks.

A piercing blast of angry East Wind crashed into the mountain somewhere around the corner, in the direction that Aldwyn had just travelled.

Turbulent hostile doubts murmured and snarled.

Was Aldwyn safe?

Had the savage gale dislodged him?

She clung to the numbing rock-face a few moments longer; waiting; hoping; expectantly squinting into the dim obscurity of railing sleet.

But Aldwyn did not re-appear.

She blinked back towards Ellis through the blinding convulsions of hail; the sharp wind stung the unwilling tears from her eyes.

Ellis smiled a faint reassurance at her; through the swirling weather, she could not tell if it was sincere or just for her benefit.

She steadied her thoughts and tried not to sound alarmed.

“Shouldn’t Aldwyn be back by now?” she shouted.

“I’m… I’m not sure. Probably he’s fine…” Ellis replied.

Her numbed, empty core quivered and shook.

The unforgiving mountain robbed her of the energy or spirit to know how to react.

At least Ellis had made the effort to appear hopeful.

And perhaps Aldwyn was safe around the corner?

Or was he trapped somehow, and in need of her help?

She faced into the cliff and waited; the callous wind clawed at her back; her weary trembling legs did not want to continue, but her friend was missing and if she stood still like this much longer, she would freeze to death.

“I’m going to check on Aldwyn,” she shouted.

Ellis raised his eyes to look at her again.

Through the swirling sleet, Kira could no longer tell if the suffering etched into his anguished face was caused by their perilous situation and the vicious weather - or his troubled thoughts of Aldwyn.

“Be careful!” he roared back at her.

Kira shuffled her stiff unwilling limbs towards the blind corner.

“Courage,” she wanted to say to herself, but the cruel cutting elements had sapped her brightness and hope.

She spread her arms wide and edged sideways along the flimsy shelf of rock; her dulled legs barely responded; her icy fingertips fumbled helplessly; she pressed close to the wet stone and held her breath, terrified that her moving lungs might force her away from the rough surface; the damp icy foist of the harsh rock compressed into her nose.

She struggled towards the corner.

The stabbing wind heaved and pulled at her.

She must not to look down; she must not think of the consequences that one misplaced step would bring.

Her body heat haemorrhaged and bled against the unfeeling mountain; she scrunched her frightened toes and tried to grip the narrow ledge through the soles of her boots.

Her heart jabbed and thudded its disbelieving questions and anguish.

She must keep moving; her deadened legs trembled and doubted and distressed, but they edged her slowly toward the sharp bend - she could almost reach it.

Her cautious fingers searched and scraped around the jagged angle of the mountain; they clasped and latched on; she anchored her footing and wedged her trembling body hard into the forbidding stone; her anxious lungs sagged and breathed; she had made it to the corner - but she must not relax her focus or grip - she still had a job to do.

She cautiously stretched her neck and eased her head around the tight bend. A stinging white swirl of sleet burned into her face. She grimaced and peered ahead intently.

The path continued around the corner, distinct and steady across the

bleak grey landscape - it seemed to widen out a little and would be easily passable - but there was no sign of Aldwyn.

Her nauseous heart sank; a sickening panic growled and shuddered through her, its queasy acid burned deep in the pit of her stomach.

She screwed her eyes shut; perhaps they had deceived her?

Perhaps the cruel vagaries of the weather had fooled her?

She breathed deeply and tried to force the sleet and horror from her pulsing thoughts.

Her eyes winced through the misty eddies of hail and ice and checked again - ahead and upwards - through the swirling currents of sleet; but her gaze confirmed what she already knew - Aldwyn was gone.

Calling out for him would be useless against the power of the wind, and

there were no ledges or crags below the path on the steep jagged cliff where he could have fallen and survived.

She sank her forehead against the freezing mountainside; a crashing wave of harsh bewilderment gave way to the dreadful truth, the terrible fate that had befallen her kind and gentle guide - the cruel wind must have taken him for its own.

A painful spike pierced through her own dulling grief - how would she tell Ellis?

Perhaps he had already guessed?

Perhaps his face had already betrayed his true thoughts?

How could they go on without him?

A squalling gust of freezing air blasted and buffeted her sorrowful body.

She was trapped on a hateful mountain, tiny and insignificant, the weather and the wet and the stone determined to destroy her.

Perhaps it would be better if she did not pull her head back around the corner?

Ellis would surely read the awful truth in her face.

She paused to compose her tumbling, racing thoughts and squeezed

her body tight against the cliff, desperate to shield herself from the vagaries of the cruel weather and the cruel coldness of the world.

Back behind her, a fierce explosion of savage wind battered into the mountain, loud above the roaring din of the sleet. She pressed her face hard into the cold wet rock and grasped at it with frozen fingers, moulding her body to its stark, barren form.

She must turn back and tell Ellis - it was cruel to leave him in worried suspense, no matter how dreadful the news.

She pulled her head back from around the tight corner and turned to face him.

She squinted through the urgent whirling sleet and opened her mouth to shout; her eyes struggled to re-focus through the bitter weather; she scanned and scoured the pathway behind her; her frantic thoughts reeled and stung.

Where was he?

Where was Ellis?

She clung tighter to the freezing rock and fought to control her despairing mind; the driving sleet bit into her; a turbulent horror erupted within.

He was gone.

Ellis was gone.

And she was alone - utterly and overwhelmingly alone.

How could this have happened?

He was there - safe on the path behind her - just a few moments ago - the selfish roaring wind had claimed him too.

And now she would die - alone and unnoticed - wretched, on the edge of a bleak mountain.

She shuddered, deep and cold and afraid; her shocked fingers dug into the bitter isolating rock; a seeping icy despair squeezed her and sowed its dark heavy doubts in her lonely mind.

How could they both have gone?

Why had they left her there alone?

The nuns had been right - that she would perish in a wicked miserable deserving end.

A cold blast of fierce wind stung through her.

If she remained where she was, a cruel, perishing death would take her, and her companions would have died in vain.

She must fight through the panic and terror and grief.

Perhaps she should press on, forward and around the corner - there might still be a chance she could survive?

She must learn to face the world alone and somehow get back to the convent.

But how could she just walk off and abandon them?

Leave her friends there - alone and un-mourned, lost and taken by the deep ravines of the mountain?

Above her, the angry East Wind hurled itself down and pummelled into her thoughts. A sharp searing pain raked across her shoulders; she felt herself moving, drifting, falling. Her feet could no longer sense the solidity of the ground beneath them; her fingers could no longer touch the raw rough stone; the biting air roared through her ears and mind; her eyes would not open.

Her numbed will was too cold and too exhausted to care any more.

Perhaps a swift and painless death would be a welcome friend - the chance to join her kind companions in the eternal embrace of the Great Surrounder.

A dark grief floated endlessly; she swirled and was lost in a dense black fog; falling, falling; no longer aware of her focus or the importance of her own being; the icy depths of a forbidding darkness overtook her and a crushing emptiness extinguished all sensation.