7.1
Corvus stopped without warning.
Blake turned around, and he froze.
For once, the inner workings of his mind came to a halt.
He opened his mouth but pressed his lips shut without saying a single word.
Jelani's arm was moving.
It was visibly moving, and Blake fixed his eyes on it, never blinking once.
"Set him down."
Corvus laid Jelani on the hard snow.
Blake's face was cold as he forcefully murmured, "Wow."
Jelani's face had a spiderweb of crooked, black streaks running from top to bottom.
Nikki and Eve, who had only made it so far up the mountain by mindlessly pushing forward, reluctantly checked their strides and turned around.
When Nikki saw Jelani, who hadn't moved in a week, shifting around as if in a light sleep, she let out an audible squeak.
Eve's hands hung so limply at her sides that they blew in the wind. Her eyes widened, her shaking arms shook even harder, and she staggered down the mountain.
She tripped, she fell, and her face smashed into the rock-solid snow. Blood poured out of her nose, but she dragged herself to her feet and lurched onward.
His expression had yet to clear, but Blake provided everyone with an objective analysis.
"He didn't tolerate the element, but, somehow, I think he's going to survive."
"That's right, dickhead!" Nikki shouted over her tears. "You're surprised, aren't you? You thought he was going to die all along, didn't you?"
She stabbed a finger at him, showing a teethful of grief and joy. "See? Even a genius like you can be wrong!"
Eve stood over Jelani, and his face was in her eyes.
"Blake," she said quietly, "are you sure he's going to survive?"
The very act of formulating words had become foreign to her.
"Yes," Blake replied. "I think he'll get away with those markings on his face and no other lasting effects."
Still, she couldn't take her eyes off Jelani's scarred face. "What does 'you think' mean?"
"He will," Blake rephrased confidently. His face had relaxed to its normal state.
Jelani continued to stir.
Nikki, who was rubbing tears from her eyes and gulping them down her throat, felt a sudden pang of sensation.
She averted her eyes from the living Jelani and looked out across the bare mountainside. Her senses had been dulled from excessive time spent in the frigid cold, but Jelani's revival sparked a little energy back into her.
"There's something…" she sniffled. "Something different."
Blake squinted his eyes and looked off in the same direction as her, but he couldn't make out anything on the empty expanse. "Let's get to a more concealed area."
Corvus grabbed Jelani by the arm, but again, he froze.
Despite the urgency of the moment, Blake didn't show a hint of impatience as he looked back over his shoulder. "What is it?"
Nikki peered around Corvus's back and actually fell over. She tripped over her own feet and fell.
He was back. Jelani had opened his eyes.
Lifting his head, he slowly raised himself into a sitting position.
Slouching forward, he rested his arms on his knees and gazed downward.
Finally, Blake spoke.
"It's good to have you back, Jelani."
Then, addressing all of them, he insisted, "We really should move. This area is far too open. Nikki, where exactly is the danger you're sensing?"
Nikki, who was still lying on the ground and staring incredulously at Jelani, didn't hear a word he'd said.
"Nikki. Nikki!"
"O-oh." She jumped up in surprise. "What?"
"Where are you sensing the danger?" he repeated.
"Uhhh… One's to the right, and one's behind us," she answered hesitantly, scrunching her eyes in focus. "It's hard to tell, but I think they're getting closer."
Blake looked up ahead. "We've made it a long way," he remarked. "It would be ideal to reach the summit before anything gets to us. I think we can make it."
"But we need to wait for Jelani!" Nikki exclaimed. "I really don't sense that much danger, so can't we just wait a little?"
Blake's response was final. "No. We can't afford to wait."
He took off his backpack and unzipped it. Reaching a hand inside, he pulled out a handgun and tossed it to Jelani. "I hope you can walk."
With that, he turned to continue his ascent towards the summit.
Corvus followed, but Nikki and Eve didn't move. It was impossible to turn away from Jelani.
Eve took a step forward and knelt in front of him.
"Jelani," she said, unable to stop her face from softening into a slight smile. "Let's go."
Her eyes sparkled, and she was happy to let her emotions show.
Jelani's head, which had been hanging low, slowly tilted its way upward on his rusty hinge of a neck.
Bit by bit, his eyes processed what was in front of him, and, finally, Eve came into sight.
He looked straight into her eyes.
Eve's expression faltered, and she instinctively shifted her weight backward.
Those were not the eyes she knew.
A great fear welled up inside her chest and she averted her gaze to the frozen ground. Strange thoughts leapt into her mind, overtaking any sense of logic, and she found herself on her feet, walking hard after Corvus and Blake.
Nikki watched in awe as Jelani placed one palm onto the hard snow and clasped his other around the grip of the handgun lying next to him. Gradually, he pressed his weight into the ground and raised himself to his feet.
He lifted one foot into the air and planted it onto the snow ahead of him. His next step was a little quicker, and then the next one.
By his tenth stride, he'd relearned how to walk.
Nikki blinked a few times, continuing to stare at the spot Jelani had risen from. She rubbed the side of her neck and glanced at the steeply descending terrain beneath her.
She sighed, but then she smiled. I'm glad he's back.
When, a few minutes later, Nikki caught up to the others, Blake asked her, "What's your status?"
"Oh! U-uhh, I guess they're closer."
"Are you still not concerned?" he asked.
"I mean… it still doesn't seem like enough for us to really worry," she replied a little too certainly.
"Good," he said with a small nod. "Let's go all out."
He picked up the pace even more, and they gulped in the high-altitude air as they took long strides towards the peak.
The peak.
Jelani lagged a little behind the others, but that distance remained the same no matter how hard they pushed down on the firm, crusted snow. He was operating like a machine.
The terrain only got steeper as they climbed, and, no matter how quickly they seemed to be covering ground, their progress was infuriatingly slow. Minutes turned into hours, and, as they cleared false peak after false peak, the mountain just seemed to go on forever.
Finally, Nikki mumbled over the screeching winds, "I think you w-were right, B-Blake. This feeling is g-getting worse as we g-go. Whatever is b-b-behind us, it's not ww-w-weak."
"It's fine. That's what I expected." His eyes were calm beneath his billowing hair. "We can still make it."
He paused and observed the surrounding skies, which had begun to darken again, posing a second threat of rain. "And we may be lucky to have this weather coming in. Our future doesn't look too bad."
"Y-you're glad it's going to start p-p-pouring again?" Nikki asked in annoyance. She wondered whether she would be able to survive another rainstorm.
"This weather could save our lives," Blake told her, not actually answering anyone's questions.
The five of them scrambled forward, chasing after some unknown goal and being pursued by some unknown enemy. The mountain grew steeper with every step, and they were forced to zig zag as they faced walls that were simply too sharp to summit.
"We must be almost there," Blake huffed, climbing on all fours to avoid tumbling to his death. "Don't slow down."
After less than an hour of continued struggle, they hauled themselves up onto a ridge, and when they followed its crest with their eyes, it climbed up towards the heavens before sharply stopping at what was evidently the highest point on the mountain. There was so much air beneath them that it felt like standing on a floating island.
"Good," Blake said between heavy breaths. "This is enough. We don't need to go any farther."
"T-t-this is b-bad," Nikki stuttered, perhaps from cold, or perhaps from fear. "S-something really d-d-d-d-dangerous is b-behind-d us."
Blake walked along the ridge, surveying the landscape beneath them. "It's down there, right, Nikki?"
"Y-yeah. Around t-there."
He squinted, trying to make out any signs of movement on the silent, frozen mountain. However, the shadowed clouds had finally closed in, and a thick fog once again began to envelop the monstrous pinnacle of rock.
"Shit," he muttered. "Eve!" he yelled over his shoulder. "Come up here and look!"
Eve had been sitting on the edge of the ridge, dangling her feet over the endless descent below and staring out into the distant horizon. Slowly, she responded to Blake's demand and stood, snow crunching beneath her boots with every subtle movement.
"Just walk along the ridge and look down there!" he yelled, although his voice could barely be heard, pointing at the general area beneath them.
Eve walked with her head turned to the side as she gazed down the slopes, and when she reached the spot where Blake was standing, she came to an abrupt stop.
"There are wolves," was what her mouth said.
Blake smiled. Elemental evolution.
"How many?" he asked.
Eve stared. "Thirty."
"Are they heading this way? And is there anything unusual about them?"
"Yeah," she replied flatly. "They're coming, and they're big… and fast."
"Oh my," Blake replied with an air of suspense. "How long do you think it will take them to reach us?"
Eve thought.
"Maybe… twenty minutes."
Blake nodded. "Let's go join the others."
The two of them traversed back down the ridge to where the other three sat, the wind telling them that they walked where they shouldn't have.
Nikki hugged her knees tightly to her chest and rocked from side to side, vainly attempting to keep the cold at bay.
"Let's move a little away from the edge," Blake announced. "We should find a good spot that we can hold."
The freezing hikers only had to walk a few dozen yards across the smooth, snow-covered mountain cap before they found a flattish area to set down their bags.
"Give me your handgun, Eve," Blake commanded. "I assume you'll want to find somewhere to shoot from."
Eve handed over her pistol and gave a curt nod. Taking a quick look around, her eyes eventually settled on a group of large boulders that jutted out from the slope, although they were still completely submerged in a thick layer of snow.
So it's wolves? Blake wondered. I've never seen one around here before, but there are dozens in the pack? Do they live exclusively on the upper parts of the mountain?
Blake had thought that maybe, because the mountain was so exposed, it would be possible for a few powerful beings to claim large amounts of territory, and, of course, powerful beings meant powerful elements.
A little disappointing, though, he lamented. I was hoping to find a deviation.