“It should be. Animals come and congregate there in large numbers when the season is right and the new growth bursts forth. The High Counselor thinks this time is now. Let’s hope it is so. But we must make it there first.”
“Why wouldn't we?”
“It’s a rough pass through the mountains. The road is treacherous.”
Addie recalled Chele’s words the next day and deemed them a major understatement.
The passage that led to the other side was a trail, of sorts. The kind that daredevils and adrenaline junkies of the world would love to conquer. Steep, at no less than nine percent incline, it twisted along the mountainside like a seizing snake. No more than four feet at its widest, it narrowed down to barely one foot across in some places.
A solid wall of forbidding rock rose to one side. On the other, the sharp edge of a cliff dropped into a bottomless abyss. Looking down the cliff induced a powerful case of vertigo. Looking up at the rising wall caused disorientation. The constant turning and twisting of the trail brought on nausea.
Addie concentrated on looking under her feet and nowhere else, calculating her chances of making it through alive. She gave it fifty-fifty.
The tribe, stretched into a single file, was moving slowly, but even their snail speed was beginning to overwhelm, the uneasy trek exacerbated by the constant lashing of cold dry wind blowing into their faces and by the tumbling rocks occasionally raining down on them.
Chele and Oh’na brought Addie’s rear. Melmie was walking directly in front of her, with Illied ahead of Melmie. The surefooted women navigated the narrow trail with apparent ease, but their lack of usual chatter belied the concentration they were giving to the terrain.
At one place the “road” widened to about twelve feet across, enough to allow people to pass each other and switch positions in the line. Zoark was waiting there until Addie passed him and slid in after her and in front of Chele.
“Are you checking on us?” Addie turned back as she spoke to him and stumbled.
“Use your spear as a walking stick,” he said sharply.
“I am!” she quickly righted her posture, the healing ribs under the shifting load of her pack giving her only a slight twitch. “I was, until you showed up for no reason. You’re distracting me.”
He said nothing. She was about to turn her head back again when he barked, “Donotturn around!”
“Well, you aren’t answering,” she grumbled but kept her eyes firmly on the trail that had narrowed again. “Since you’re so all-knowing, tell me, how much longer?” She sounded petulant and whiny, and she couldn't help it.Hecame to her, not the other way around. Sohewould have to put up with her bad mood.
“We’re about halfway,” he replied in a maddeningly unruffled tone.
Oh’na, having heard him, groaned loudly.
“That isn’t the answer I hoped to hear.” Addie sighed.
“Then why did you ask the question?”
“Touché. At least tell me that the road gets easier?”
After a slight hesitation, he said, “It does. It’s wider on the other end.”
Addie didn’t like the hesitation, but, placated, did not dwell on it.
They walked in silence for some time when suddenly a thought occurred to her. “What if another tribe comes in the opposite direction and we meet in the middle of this overpass?”
“I don’t know that it ever happened,” he said. “Tribes rarely cross the mountains.”
“But what if it happens?”
“One tribe will have to turn around.”
“But which one?”
“The one with more women in it.”
“What? Why?” She almost turned around again to look at him.
“That’s the rule. They count heads, and the one with more women loses.”
