Chapter 43: Akton
These weren’t his mountains, but Akton could still feel them talking to him. They were similar enough—the slow rise ever up, the steeper faces, the dips. The damp smell as the first flurry of snow flickered through the trees and tried to cover the tang of rotting leaves. He’d forgotten how much earlier winter seemed to arrive in the mountains.
“How are you even seeing a path?” asked Talfryn from behind him, and he smiled.
“It’s a deer run.” They’d been advancing single file for hours now, Akton in the lead, finding a way through the trees that the horses with their gear could take. Talfryn had been growing increasingly on edge—Akton suspected he was not used to the heights.
“It’s all covered with leaves and snow. I don’t see anything. s**t!” They passed by a gap in th
