Misty Mountain Hop

[Risk]

Risk remembered the last time he'd woken up in a tree. Not the night before, but definitely that morning. Twelve miles from camp, naked, and being poked at by tiny, angry, painted weasels. He liked those weasels. They were very aerodynamic.

Unlike himself, apparently.

He lay in the tangle of broken pine branches, counting all the spots on his body that ached. There were far more than usual. One spot in particular, just under his ribs, hurt the most. He found a piece of branch sticking out. He gave it a gentle tug, and decided to let it be for now. He couldn't see if it was too wide to patch up.

He very carefully rolled over, twisting his body in segments, to better grip the branch with all four paws. Pine nettles fell out of his ears. The broken branches under him shook free and crashed down after. He watched them drift with the snow, fading quickly into the black. It could have been a long way down. 

He looked up, to where he thought the road might used to be. No lights. Just snow slinging into his eyes.

Clinging to the branch, he let himself slide around it until he was hanging upside-down, and with his footpaws hooked around it let himself swing towards the trunk. He twisted his upper body around at the last second and gripped the bark with his claws. From there he let his legs drop back beneath him, and was able to descend the tree almost as if it were a spiral staircase- ducking and tucking through the gaps between the branches.

He perched himself between the mountain and the base of tree to catch his breath and pad some snow on his wound. He snapped off a lower branch, stripped it of sprigs for use as a ski pole and began to slide down the snow on his back. With his knife in his other paw, he was able to keep his descent steady.

He came to a rest on a pair of rats, who were unappreciative of his dexterity, and also dead.

"Talk about a cold reception."

He reflexively ducked a little, and immediately felt ashamed for saying it. It was a terrible thing to say. Pyracantha would have hustled him off stage for it, or let the rain of rotten rhubarb do it for her. Then again, he was fairly certain he did not have a job anymore. He could make all the puns he liked.

A sense of liberation wafted down the mountain.

Suddenly he couldn't think of anything further to say. So instead he cussed- and the wind cussed back, bitter and sharp as any old sailor, spit-fleck snow scalding his cheeks.

Risk crouched, ears straining for any signs of life. There wasn't a fleck of light to be seen, nor crunch of snow to be heard. All he could smell was pine and rat. Two days from Yew, who knew how many more to Carrigul, and it seemed that he was the only survivor again. He'd have to keep that up.

He hustled the rats' clothes off their backs and tossed them aside. Too small to wear without... Damn, he'd miss Gashrock. Where in Hellgates was he going to find another tailor who just made things fit? Back to washing his own clothes, too...

Oh, and she was probably dead. That was also a shame. No, no use thinking about them all right now. Just had to hope it had been fast for the ones he'd liked.

Right now, he needed a tent. He spun his knife around his knuckles, pondering. More likely a sleeping bag. Something to keep him warm besides his moleskin cloak and shabby tunic. Pyracantha didn't like them traveling in the good stuff.

The knife sliced purposefully in the dark, from tail to throat. The rest came back to him gradually. Hold this back, don't pierce too deeply there, get those out of the way... Yet mistakes were made, and he growled in disapproval at his work. The second one would come out better.

So focused was he on his grisly task, it came as quite a shock when a short plume of flame leapt from the darkness not twenty feet away. Risk's neckfur bristled and he made as if to leap at the monstrous face that appeared within the hellish glow. Instead, his knife caught in the rat and he only succeeded in ripping his new bedroll.

"A survivor," the face croaked.

Risk glowered. It was just the toad. It had made a hole in the snow and only its face peered out at him.

"You were with the clowns," the toad continued.

Risk nodded.

"I heard you cuss. Mimes would be more amusing if they cussed."

"Ain't no mime."

"Your silence had me fooled."

Risk begrudgingly trudged toward the fire. The snow was deep in spots, and his footpaws punched holes that sunk him down to his haunches. Progress was slow. He retrieved the rats' clothes as well as the half-finished skin and continued his work in the light and warmth, scraping it clean.

"That's my rat you've skinned."

"Ah. You want 'im?"

The toad scoffed. "Not much use to me now, are they?"

Risk glanced over at the corpses far off at the edge of the firelight.

"I'd think mayhaps a little more, now."

"...Elaborate."

"Ah... But they're a little big for you, aren't they? Can't really... see how that would work."

The toad just stared over the fire. Risk sighed and fetched the fleshless one, dragging it over by its tail. It left a trail of darkness on the snow behind it. Risk dropped it beside the toad. He sat down and went back to work. The toad continued to stare at him. Risk grunted in mild annoyance.

"You need my knife?"

"You have completely lost me, ferret."

It took Risk a few moments to figure out the gap in communication.

"You didn't claim them for eatin'?"

"I'm not a savage. Didn't think your lot believed in that, anyway. I could do with the skins, though."

"You ain't met many clowns." Risk snorted out another batch of needles. Hellgates those things got in deep. Wonder he had both eyes still.

"Are you going to eat them?"

"Nah. Yew's not far enough to stoop that low. I can make double time on my own. I'll eat snow. You headin' back, too?"

"No. Still going to Carrigul."

Risk finished with the skin and bundled it up, tossing it in an arc over the fire. The toad caught it and immediately spread it over his shoulders, fur side down. He hunkered lower in his hole, rumbling a little.

"You have a pine branch in your gut," said the toad, as if just noticing.

"Aye," said Risk. He looked down. It wasn't as bad as he'd thought it was. He tugged it out with nary a grunt and tossed it on the fire. It crackled and hissed, spitting like a kitten, and just as warm.

"That cart wheel's not gonna last all night," said Risk. "But pine burns good, see."

"Mm."

Risk leaned back and stretched his stomach to get a good look at the wound. He dug a claw into it and twiddled it around, searching for stray bits of bark or nettles. There was nothing. Good. He rolled up one of the rats' knit-cloth caps and used one of their belts to keep it against the hole. He sucked the blood off his claws.

"I don't suppose there is any way to convince you to help me finish the journey. Ferrets are good tunnelers. So are toads. We can easily dig out any others and carry on."

Risk hooked his claws around his footpaws, drawing his legs in close, and rocked on his lower back, thinking. His tongue stuck out a little.

"Alright. But if you start to die on me, just know I ain't got patience for all that quiverin' an' moanin'. I'm just gonna slit you."

The toad almost chuckled.

"You are an honest beast, ferret."

"Not really."

They kept quiet for a while after that. Risk prodded the fire once in a while to keep it strong against the snowfall piling up around them.

He got up again with the intention of bringing over the second rat to begin skinning, when a sudden wind nearly took the fire out, and the sound of wings thunder-clapped through their sullen silence. Risk dove into a snowbank headfirst, whispering "Hell's fang!" The toad flattened himself further, becoming no more than a bloodied, inside-out skin on the snow.

Something heavy crunched very near them.

"Aharrumph... your tail is sticking out."

A moment or two passed, then Risks's tail slithered into his hole. The snow above bulged and bubbled, then his whiskers popped out where his tail had been. He bared his teeth.

"Captain Noonahootin," the owl said, with nary a bob or ruffle of feathers, though his moon-shine gaze was soon captivated by the sight of the skinless rat. "How many survivors are with you... ferret?"

Risk pulled himself a little further out and hid his teeth. He didn't glance toward the toad.

"Can't say. They were dead when I found 'em."

"Be you with the merchants, or one of the Dewhurst?"

"Ah... Dewhurst."

"Very well. Above the treeline there, on the next ridge, is the rest of your troupe. I would caution you to snuff this fire before you draw survivors down here. There is no way off this plateau save for-"

A keening wail cut through the night air. Both Risk and the Captain's heads swiveled to look up at the mountain. Risk was glad his tail was out of sight now. He never looked very good trying to imitate a squirrel.

"- save for climbing up," the Captain finished. "Can you manage?"

"Aye."

"Do not tarry," said the Captain, as he took off to the skies. Again, the fire flickered from his wing beats.

The toad popped up from his hole. So did Risk, albeit slower and more wary of showing his hindquarters. That scream... Only once before had something like that so thoroughly chilled him to the bone. This mountain pass would have its job cut out for it if it wanted to be the third thing.

"Why did you not tell him I was here as well?"

Risk rubbed the back of his neck. "I look like a mediator to you?"

The toad didn't reply.

"Shoulda popped out yourself," Risk grumbled. 

He began creating a makeshift haversack out of the rats' cloaks and the remaining belt, which he used to stuff the rest of their clothes into. He tossed his knife into the snow near the toad.

"Cut a spoke off that wheel, see if it'll make a good torch. Didn't happen to find any other loot before settin' that wheel on fire, I suppose?"

"No."

"Where'd this come from, anyhow..." Risk scraped the melting snow around the fire away with his footpaw. This revealed that the wheel was still connected to what seemed to be a more or less intact cart. Risk shuddered. Could too easily have been him under that snow, beneath the cart, and all those rocks...

"It isn't feasible to carry much," said the toad. "I say we leave it."

"For now, aye. If we can climb up to the others, we at least know this is here. Gettin' down again shouldn't be too hard. Ah... but there could be somebeast inside. Give me the knife."

Risk kicked snow over the fire and tore the remains of wheel off the axle. He knelt and began working the knife into the sideboards, managing to pry a few nails free from the charred wood. He got a piece of wood loose, dug his claws in, and snapped it off. He stuck his paw into the hole.

"Can't feel nothin'." He put his muzzle against the hole. "HULLO? Ah... Well, if there's anybeast, least now they can breathe."

He looked up. The toad was gone. Risk grabbed his new haversack and bounded after him. Cheeky devil! There was barely anything to track, only a faint glow moving through the trees. For a fat glob of an amphibian, the toad sure managed to cover a lot of ground between prints.

Climbing the mountain side was not as easy as Risk had been expecting. The snow was loose and the pines grew sparingly. With his haversack looped around his sheathed knife and slapping against his flank, he dug in with his pine staff, grabbed onto branches where he could, and zig-zagged to keep from sliding backwards.

He caught up with the toad a little over halfway up, resting against a snapped tree. The gelatinous beast looked winded. But to Risk, all toads looked winded, and like their diet consisted solely of rotten oranges, and like their mothers had kicked them in the face every day of their... tadpolehood? Toads were strange, very odd indeed. That was all there was to it. It was against the natural order of things, growing legs after the fact. And being born out of an egg. That was what fish and birds did. Just strange. That owl, too- definitely strange. Probably also ate rotten oranges. Strange and odd.

More screaming drifted down the mountain. Not as chilling as the first, but more urgent. There was blood in these screams.

Neither of them spoke to the other. The toad leapt onward shortly after Risk arrived. Risk saw that the ground was beginning to level out and took a breather of his own, leaning against the pine tree. He kept his eye on the toad until it vanished, either from the torch going out or from going over the ledge. He took a gulp of freezing air, sneezed a flurry of crystals out of his nose (that was new), and did his best to catch up.

The toad was just staring. Risk topped the ledge, leaned heavily on his staff, and stared as well. This was different from the battlefields he'd known before.

"It's worse when there's been a real fight," he said quietly. "Just imagine them all like your rats, except not that many all in one piece, and despite bein' dead three days, they're still warm, and stinkin' in the sun..."

He trailed off as his eyes wandered to a nearby boulder.

"Aw, shame, Raul... Hell's fang. Poko."

"Poko?" said the toad. "Is that what counts as a cuss these days?"

Risk dropped his haversack and staff and circled the boulder.

"She's Des... Desdemona! No..."

He dropped to all fours, scrabbling through the snow to wrap his arms around Desdemona's shoulders, scraping away the pine branches surrounding her, covering the scuffed snow that he'd already failed to notice. The jill was stiff. He just held her head against his chest and slumped against the boulder.

The toad sidled up to watch, but kept his distance. Risk gradually relaxed his grip on the dead ferret jill. He got up and circled around it again, this time taking note of the slope of the land. He kicked a furrow through the snow behind the boulder, went around to what he now considered the front, and began to push. It wasn't round. It barely budged at first. He dug in deeper, straining, grunting, roaring- blood seeped out of the wound in his gut, his paws went white-

And then the boulder moved, tipping on its edge. It was all Risk could do to hold it there.

"Look!" he howled. "Toad! Get over here an' look!"

"For what?"

"P-Poko!"

"What is a Poko?"

"Ferret!"

"I don't-"

"Shut your gobsmacked bruise of a face an' bloody look for her!"

The toad was beside him in an instant, flat on the snow, peering under the boulder.

"There's nothing!"

"Are you certain?"

"There's dirt. No ferret."

Risk let go of the boulder. A tiny avalanche cascaded off a nearby pine. He rested his forehead against the stone.

"Help me," he wheezed. "Help me dig... toad... you will help me dig."

"And if I don't?"

"There's no 'don't'. You help."

The toad looked about to say something, but thought better of it. Risk fell over onto his side and crawled away to start pawing at a likely deep patch of snow.

"Not to dirt... just deep enough for now... Keep scavengers off 'em... I'll come back later... No- over here, just one... bury them together..."

It was simple work, and over in a trice. Risk pulled Raul in first and put a light veil of snow over the ferret's bulging eyes. Rather than pulling Desdemona, he picked her up and carried her into the hole, laid her gently down atop her husband. He kissed her brow, laid her paws over her stomach, and murmured a few words of parting.

He climbed out of the hole and they filled it in together. Risk marked the spot with his pine staff.

"C'mon... need to find Poko."

"Poko," said the toad again. "Curious name. Do you even have a name, ferret?"

Risk retrieved his makeshift bandage and began re-applying it to his stomach.

"Ah... Dewhurst's Players called me Cookie. You? Suppose I oughtn't keep callin' you 'toad'."

"Greenfleck."

"Greenfleck, I think this might be the beginnin' of a, ah... some kind of friendship?"

"Vulpuz, I hope not."

"I think I'm gettin' my sense of smell back..." Risk grinned at Greenfleck. "Gonna need to snuff a few more nettles soon. Ah... pawprints!"