The Travels of Scout Shannon: Books 4-6

Chapter 15

15

When Scout woke, the tent was almost uncomfortably warm. The dogs had moved away from her to sprawl their legs out. She had taken her coat off at some point.

The little glowing heater wasn’t even on anymore.

Daisy was already awake. Or, perhaps more likely, she had never slept. When she saw Scout’s eyes were open, she immediately set a mug of something steaming within arm’s reach.

“I was about to wake you to get going,” Daisy said as Scout sat up and sipped at the beverage. She had no idea what beverage it was trying to be, only that it wasn’t quite pulling it off.

“Yeah, I know,” Daisy said, seeing her face. “The water up here boils too soon to make a proper cup of tea. But it’s hot and has an extra shot of caffeine, so drink it up anyway. The storm stopped a few minutes ago.”

Scout wondered how she could tell, as silent as it had been inside the tent all night long. She tried not to grimace as she drank the tea. She could feel the caffeine stirring up inside her, so much less unpleasant than the stim had been.

Daisy opened a container of some sort of meat in a rich sauce, and the dogs were awake in a snap, rushing to fill their bellies. When they finished, they sat back to lick the gravy from their lips and quite willingly allowed Daisy to fasten the booties to their paws.

Scout found a protein bar in the side pocket of her pack and munched on that while she straightened her own clothing, rebraided her hair, then reached for her coat.

That was odd. She could have sworn it had been distinctly heavier the night before. How far up the mountain had they come?

“I took some plates out of it,” Daisy said when she saw the look on Scout’s face. “It will make you lighter.”

“Why?” Scout asked.

“The snow has blown up in some interesting arrangements,” Daisy said. “We might need to test a few places that look like they’re on a trail but aren’t. I’m too heavy, and I can’t make myself any lighter.”

“So I’m going to be walking in the front?” Scout asked.

“Yes, Scout,” Daisy said with a wry smile, “I’m asking you to scout.”

“I don’t think I can push up a trail as you did,” Scout said.

“You won’t need to for you or the dogs,” Daisy said. “About an hour ago we had a brief blast of sleet; then the temperature dropped very low. The snow has a nice crust on it now. You’ll be able to walk on top of it now that I’ve reduced your weight. Plus, I’ve consolidated the packs to just what we need, so you won’t need to carry one.”

Scout looked around and saw that indeed Daisy had an oversized pack beside her, and the one Scout had been carrying was mostly empty, sitting like a deflated bladder beside it.

“Did you sleep at all?” Scout asked, feeling guilty for how deeply she had been slumbering while Daisy did all this work.

“I require very little,” Daisy said. “But I promise you I got what I need. I’m not irresponsible.”

“No, I wouldn’t think so,” Scout said.

“Finish that protein bar,” Daisy said. “You’re going to need the energy, and it’s too cold out there to unwrap your face if you get hungry later.”

“It’s going to be a long day,” Scout sighed.

“I’m afraid so,” Daisy said. “And we can’t dawdle in getting it started.”

Scout stuffed the last of the crunchy, fruity, honey-sweet bar in her mouth, then started layering her goggles, hat, and scarf over her head.

Daisy was fitting little balaclavas over the dogs’ heads. She had sewn in goggles to fit over their eyes and a more breathable fabric over the noses of the balaclavas so that the dogs, too, would have their faces completely covered. With the vests and the booties, they should stay perfectly warm this trip.

Daisy left her pack on the floor as she headed out the opening in the tent, pushing snow away ahead of her as she cleared the tunnel she had dug the night before that the storm had almost completely refilled.

Scout looked at the empty pack. That might come in useful later. She folded it tightly and stuffed it inside Daisy’s pack.

Then she saw the gun lying on the canvas floor of the tent. It had been underneath the pack, and Scout wondered if Daisy had forgotten it was there.

It was more likely to come in handy than the empty pack, but still, she was loath to touch it.

Without letting herself give it a second thought, she snatched up the gun and tucked it in the loop at the back of her marshal’s belt, where Gertrude Bauer’s gun had gone before Scout had lost it.

That little bit of extra weight just felt right. But that rightness made Scout almost sad. What sort of life was she choosing for herself? Or being driven to choose?

Weak sunlight suddenly filled the tent and Scout knew that Daisy had broken out. She grabbed the pack and dragged it behind her as she climbed up through the snow to the world above, the dogs scrabbling up after her.

It was intensely bright in the morning light. There was very little exposed rock left, just a world plastered with fresh snow that reflected every bit of light from every possible angle. Scout was grateful for the tinted goggles.

The dogs beside her were confused by the booties on their feet. It was like they didn’t know how to put their paws down or weren’t sure through the fabric if they were actually touching the ground or not. Shadow clambered about with paws spread wide like a four-legged spider, a staccato dance that seemed to deeply startle him.

Gert, as usual, minded the change less.

But neither of them were slipping on the slickly frozen snow. Daisy had been right about the gripping soles.

“Let’s get up there first,” Daisy said, pointing up. Scout’s eyes took a moment to pick out the rocky promontory that jutted high into the air. The snow sticking to all of its sides made it blend with the distant strands of white cloud behind it.

“What about the tent?” Scout asked.

“We can’t spare the time to dig it out,” Daisy said. “I have the other from your pack. I doubt it will snow so hard again.”

“I hope not,” Scout said, but she couldn’t argue about the time it would take to dig the tent out. It had been buried under nearly two meters of snow. No wonder it had gotten so warm on the inside.

The dogs saw Daisy climbing the rock and raced to follow her. Shadow danced over the frozen top of the snow, but like Daisy, Gert was too heavy and kept busting through. The poor dog found this very frustrating, as it slowed her down considerably.

Scout followed Daisy up to the highest point on the rock. The mountain itself was behind her, the dome atop it gleaming even more brightly than the snow. The mountainside spread out before them, all uniformly white now.

“There’s the village,” Daisy said, pointing as if she knew Scout couldn’t make out any details. “The cabin, and the other cabin.”

“I see them,” Scout said, although she wasn’t sure she did. The dots were so tiny. Had they climbed so far already?

“And there are our pursuers,” Daisy said, pointing again.

There were three separate groups of dots, not much bigger than the dots that made up the village, only these dots were moving. One group was following a ridge, walking in single file. Another was scaling a rock face with the jerking start and stop motions of climbing. The third was following the trail they had taken the night before. Scout guessed they had just passed the flat place where the three assassins had tried to ambush them.

“There might be others we can’t see,” Scout said. “They might be closer.”

“Maybe,” Daisy said. “But I wouldn’t worry. None of these are making any effort not to be seen. They know we know where they are. They just don’t care. They’re that confident.”

Scout remembered how they had just disappeared before blowing up the tram station. Whatever camouflage they had used then, they weren’t using it now. “So what do we do?” she asked.

“Get to the city before they get to us,” Daisy said like it was the simplest thing in the world. Then she turned to face the mountain, scanning everything in front of her before pointing off to her right. “There.”

Scout had to shade her eyes from the gleaming of the city’s dome to see what Daisy was pointing at, and even then she wasn’t sure if she was seeing anything at all.

“A trail?” she ventured.

“It will be clearer when we get closer,” Daisy said. “Just go back down the promontory and start following the ridge off to our right. The dogs will follow you, and I’ll bring up the rear.”

“Okay,” Scout said nervously. She wasn’t sure she was up for this responsibility, but she couldn’t work up the courage to say so out loud.

It was weird. That feeling of not wanting to disappoint Daisy was growing even stronger than her fear that Daisy would find out what Scout had done to her sister. But she needed Daisy to get to the city; she would never be able to do it alone.

Scout walked carefully over the top of the snow. It squeaked beneath the soles of her boots, and although the top was all little whorls and ridges like dunes of sand, it didn’t give under her weight, not even enough to leave a boot mark where she had gone.

Occasionally something far below her would shift. The icy crust didn’t break, but she could feel just how much snow was between her and solid rock, and just how treacherous it could be. If the crust she was walking over cracked, all that snow was waiting to swallow her up. Swallow her up and carry her like a river far down the mountain, under the icy crust, into a deep, cold darkness she would never escape . . .

Scout gave herself a little shake and forced her mind to stop imagining worst-case scenarios. If she did fall into a hole in the snow, she’d likely just be pinned up to her knees until Daisy pulled her out. Daisy and the dogs were only a few paces behind her. Nothing irreversible could happen in less time than it would take for Daisy to get to her. She would be fine.

The sun climbed higher into the sky, finding a less glaring angle off of all of the snow, if not exactly warming the air. Scout looked back at her dogs trotting happily behind her and was immensely grateful for the sleep Daisy had given up in favor of fabricating little outfits for the dogs.

At some point in the future, long after Shi Jian was no longer a threat to the galaxy and the fate of Amatheon had been decided in the tribunal court, when she had a moment for such things, Scout was going to have to find a way to properly thank Daisy.

Somehow; she had no idea what Daisy liked, what gesture would be meaningful to her.

The ridge ended in another plain of snow and Scout drew to a halt. She could see the snow on her right ending in a feathery edge and remembered what she had seen when looking around from the promontory. She suspected this was one of the curlicues of snow blown off a ridge to curl downward in a frozen wave.

“Why are you stopping?” Daisy asked as she and the dogs reached Scout.

“I’m not sure how much of this is rock and how much is snow with a long drop below it,” Scout said. Daisy scanned the plain, moving her head in tiny deliberate adjustments from left to right.

“Stay closer to the left,” she advised. “Even if it is just snow, it’s very thick here and frozen on top and bottom. It should be strong enough to hold your weight.”

“But what about your weight?” Scout asked.

Behind her goggles, Daisy was giving her a dry smile. “Just stay closer to the left. We’ll both be fine.”

Scout nodded and turned back to face the plain. She took a deep breath, and then she took a step.

Then another. And another. It felt just as solid beneath her as it had before. Which wasn’t entirely heartening—the image of a river of snow waiting to swallow her up still lurked in the back of her mind—but it was the best she was going to get.

Scout risked a glance up from her own feet and saw the plain ending in what looked like the snowy outline of a human-made bridge. The sides were so straight and so parallel, and its body rose at such an even, gentle arc to the center before falling away again. Surely snow didn’t just blow itself into such an even shape?

And behind the bridge was something very like a road, one side hugging the side of the mountain, the other a sheer cliff, but its edge was clearly defined by stone markers that stood starkly up out of the snow. Walking up that path was going to be a joy.

Scout stepped out onto the bridge. The cold snow still squeaked under her feet, but there was no deeper creak or rumble, no feeling of deep beds of snow shifting beneath her. She continued on over the arch of the bridge and down the other side to the waiting road.

The snow wasn’t so deep here, close to the mountain. This must have been the leeward side of the mountain last night when the winds were blowing the snow around. It had been spared.

Scout grinned at the feel of solid rock under her feet, then turned to put her hands on her knees as the dogs came charging down to her.

This had to be a road that led all the way to the city. Why else would there even be a road here?

Daisy’s head appeared over the apex of the bridge, and Scout gave her a friendly wave, not sure if she was even looking up enough to see her.

Then her shoulders were visible, then her swinging arms, and she must have seen Scout waving at her then, as she raised a hand in salute.

And then she was gone, without so much as a crash of snow or a yelp of surprise.

She was just gone.