Wayfarer (Wanderlust 2)

Chapter Twenty-Two

On the third day of travelling, they came across an obstacle.

Jale stopped the kyloe and hopped off of the carriage. In front of them, snow lay in patches over what looked like ice. The ice wasn't contained to the road—it spread out on either side, with trees poking out of the ice. Like the whole section of forest had flooded and frozen.

Tanden guessed that was exactly what had happened. As he and Soren joined Jale at the edge of the ice, he said, "So... is this normal?"

"Normal enough," Jale sighed. "We had some warm days, which melted a lot of the snow, so it flooded. And then froze. This is the problem with the road being in a valley."

"But if the ice is strong enough, can't we just walk across it?" Tanden asked.

"It isn't all ice." Without another word, Jale kicked at the end of a stick that was poking out of the snow. When it wiggled, she grabbed it and wrenched it out of the icy ground. Then she tossed it further up the road. Instead of skittering across the ice, it broke through. "See? The top is sort of frozen, the bottom isn't. We couldn't even walk across it, the kyloe definitely can't. And we don't know how deep it gets."

"Certainly not very deep?" Tanden asked, trying to be somewhat positive.

"Probably not," Jale agreed. "But I'm not making the kyloe walk through icy water, anyway. Not only is it too cold, they could cut their legs on the ice. We'll have to go around." She eyed the forest on either side of the road. "Which is going to be hard."

Tanden followed her gaze. The forest was dense, with wide trees growing close together and lots of underbrush. Not to mention the snow. It was definitely going to be hard to fit the Wayfarer through the trees. "What if we can't?"

"Well, we have to try," Jale said. "Or we can hope for a colder day to freeze it solid. Or, we can leave the carriage behind, walk the kyloe, and hopefully make it to Morie Caro in a few days. But I'd rather take the Wayfarer."

"All right," Soren said. "Tell us what you need us to do."

It didn't take long for Jale to decide that their best bet was to backtrack until they could get to higher ground. She drove the kyloe back along to the road, searching for the perfect place to head into the forest. Tanden and Soren tried to point out places they thought would work, but Jale never agreed. Finally, she found a spot where there was less underbrush. The evergreen trees were tall and full. They had served to both protect the ground from most of the snowfall, but also protect whatever snow had fallen from the sun.

"This is it," Jale announced triumphantly. "Soren, pull out the tool crate."

He dragged it out from under the bench as she turned around to drop into the back of the carriage. Once Soren had removed the lid, Jale started pulling out tools and lining them up on the bench. Two hatchets, a strange axe, a pile of spiky straps, a pile of thick metal rings and a large coil of rope.

"Take these." She handed each of them a hatchet, then got to work unravelling the straps. "These are for tying to our boots if the ground gets too slippery. This," she waved her hand over the rings and rope, "is if we need to help pull the sleigh once the ground is steeper. For now, I'll lead the kyloe, and you two can clear the way for us."

"And the axe?" Tanden asked.

"That's for climbing," Jale said. "Let's go. This is going to be a very long, tiring afternoon. Let's get as far as we can before sunset."

"You don't think we'll be back on the road before nightfall?" Tanden asked, as he and Soren followed her out of the carriage.

"I know we won't be back on the road." Jale walked around to kyloe, and started to talk to them cheerfully in Tallenese.