"What's the matter?"
"Val just tried to find me," he answered. "He almost did."
"Can we do anything about that?"
He shook his head. "Nothing. So we just go on."
Jesmind looked decidedly nervous. "Alright," she said uncertainly.
That established a pattern of activity that lasted for ten days. Tarrin and Jesmind would move swiftly over the snow, stopping only when a vrock appeared in the skies over them, Val's searching magic swept over them, or they needed a short break. The probes against the power of his amulet became stronger and stronger, as if Val knew there was something there, but just couldn't find any evidence to prove it. They also saw a party of Trolls, trudging along the far side of one of the interconnecting valleys, their large frames plowing a path through the snow. They didn't slow down when they saw them, for they were too far away, and the light snow that was falling would make it even that much harder for the distant monsters to make out the very subtle visual evidence that they weren't alone in the pass. The weather didn't entirely cooperate during those ten days, going from sunshine to light snow mostly, but there were two rather strong snowstorms that rolled through and buried the land in another six spans of snow. The first happened when they were asleep, but the second struck late in the afternoon of the seventh day, and it was when it hit when one of the strange peculiarities of the water-walking power of the belts became evident. They could move in the snowstorm, but if they stopped in any one place long enough for snow to fall around their feet and cover them, it was as if they'd been set down into stone. They made that mistake, stopping as Tarrin checked the map, and when he went to move again, he found his left foot stuck under the snow. It had taken shapeshifting to get clear of it, but when he shapeshifted, the belt was put into the elsewhere, and its magic was removed from him and he sank deeply into the newly fallen snow. Jesmind had to pick him up and literally toss him into the air, so he could shapeshift freely, then reactivate the belt before his feet hit the snow.
As they travelled, both of them became much more intense. All banter and playful chatter ceased as they got closer and closer to their goal, and they got even more grim every time a vrock appeared in the sky. They were getting deeper and deeper into the heart of their enemy's power, and both of them were completely focused on the tasks at hand and very serious. They both knew that this was not the time for fun and games. Their hunter's instincts had taken over, and they knew that in this situation, they were not the hunters, but the prey. So they had to be eternally vigilent against attack, else they would be captured and the life of their daughter would be forfeit.
After ten days of travel, with only seven days left until Gods' Day, they came over a high pass and could finally see a break in the jagged peaks, and were looking down over a great distance to the flat tundra. They still had about a day of travel through a series of narrow valleys like the ones through which they had been travelling, steep, often treacherous gorges between high peaks whose floors were nearly as steep as the walls that surrounded them. They had descended several thousand spans, steadily coming down, and now they could see the rest of the way down to the tundra below.
"Is that it?" Jesmind asked as they stopped to look down between the two peaks, look down to a featureless white plain.
"That's it," he told her in a weary voice.
"There don't seem to be any foothills."
"We're too far away to tell. We'll be another one or two days in the mountains. Maybe even three."
"Why three?"
"We might slow down," he said, pausing to kneel and pull out the book of charts. He checked the date, then looked up in the afternoon sky to the eastern horizon, where the faint outling of Vala, the Red Moon, was rising behind the whitish Skybands. It was in an early rising cycle, just a tad past half full, a cycle of rising during the day that would get pronouncedly earlier and earlier for the next six afternoons. All four moons were going to do that, so they could be out in the middle of the day to form the eclipsing conjunction. "And we need to find a cave where we can rest until we come down onto the tundra."
"I don't see anything out there."
"The pyamid is about two hundred longspans northeast," he told her. "We'll find patrols out, but the main army is there."
"Two hundred longspans on flat ground? Tarrin, it won't take us two days to do that."
"I figured on that back when we'd have to go through the snow," he told her. "Since this is alot faster and easier, we may have to meander around up here in the mountains for longer than I anticipated."
"How long will it take us to cross the tundra?"
"Four days," he said. "That's what I'm planning on, anyway."
"Why so long?"
"Because there are going to be patrols out," he told her. "We'll have to avoid them, and that's going to slow us down."
She snorted. "It would be easier to go through them."
"And leave a trail a child could follow," he said shortly, looking up at her.
"Fighting them would make me feel better."
"Yes, well, think about this. If we fight, we can't use the belts."
"Why not?" she demanded.
"What is blood, Jesmind?" he asked bluntly.
"Ohhhh," she said. "Well, we'll have to use weapons. Our claws may not be able to get past the skin, but I don't think it'll stop weapons."
"I hope not," he said.
"Then we'd better make sure," she said, extending the talons on the Cat's Claws. "Make your belt stop for a minute."
He understood what she wanted to do. Nodding, he put his book away and then deactivated the belt. He immediately sank four spans into the snow, his feet hitting enough solid matter to stop him when the snow was up to his waist. It was a little surprising to him, and he nearly lost his balance trying to shift his weight in the snow. Jesmind began to laugh uncontrollably, literally dropping onto her backside, unable to stop.
Tarrin glared at her a moment, then blew out his breath. "While you're laughing, I'm standing here for any flying Demon to see," he told her bluntly. "Now let's test this and move on."
"Sorry," she said, turning suddenly serious. "But it is funny, my mate."
"Fine. We can both laugh when we're somewhere safe." He held out his bet arm, offering his elbow. "Be careful. Those are magical weapons, love. Anything you do to me, I can't heal."
"Then how are we going to test it?" she asked. "I'm sure they'd cut your skin no matter what."
"No they wouldn't," he answered. "There's water in you skin, Jesmind. If you can draw blood, you can sink them all the way into my arm."
She nodded in understanding, retracting all the blades but the one over her index finger.
"You've got the hang of that, I see."
"It's really not that hard. Now hold still," she ordered, reaching the point of the blade towards his bare upper arm, above the fur line. Tarrin felt the icy cold touch of it, and it left blood behind when she drew it away from the gentle touch. Even such a light touch cut him with absolute ease, a testament to the lethal edge on those metal claws. "They work," she said, retracting the blade, then hooking him under his arm and hauling him out of the snow. She heaved him up quite easily, since his weight didn't even come close to challenging her inhuman strength, and Tarrin reactivated the belt before his feet touched the snow. They struck the snow like it was a solid surface, and he settled them down easily as a tiny thread of blood trickled down into his fur. He Conjured a small leather bandage and wrapped it around the cut, not wanting even a single drop of blood to fall into the snow and reveal that he had been there.