CHAPTER TWELVE
After coming across the dead horse, he followed the narrow, rutted path into the woods, emerging on the other side to find the air chilly, the sky black with threatening clouds. Before him, a mere hundred paces or so, the mountains soared upwards, their peaks shrouded in grey mist, their sides jagged. Little if any vegetation grew here, the bare rock hard and unforgiving. The entire area hung heavy with foreboding as if the very ground itself formed a natural barrier to further advancement. Beneath him, his horse shied away and, despite his almost constant urging with boots slamming into its side, the animal refused to budge. Dismounting, he looked at it and saw her eyes wide and white with terror. Reluctantly, he led the horse back to the tree line and tied the reins to a
