They didn't stop for the evening. Though they were tired, worn out, physically and mentally drained, they pressed forward. Barret led them north, trying to take rocky areas where they could to mask their trail. Though the forest grew dark, and every branch that snapped caused everyone to jump to high alert, they did not rest. They could not rest. He was coming. They knew it. Finally, they stopped for food and sleep around midnight. No fire was lit, and they all fell into a restless sleep, huddled together next to a rock. Before dawn, they were awake again, moving.
They tried to cover their tracks, but they knew it would be impossible to do so without investing a large amount of time and effort. But Fate smiled on them. Keith heard it first, then Barret. A river. Twenty feet wide, and flowing slowly south, it came from the foot of the mountain range. "It's going to be cold, but the water will wash our tracks away." Barret said. "Bundle up. This is our trail for as long as we can handle it, and then we keep to it for a little longer." The splashing of water filled their ears, along with the chattering of teeth. They walked up the middle of the river, as it only went up to their knees at most. The crystal clear water shone in the afternoon sun as they trudged ever northward.
"H-h-h-how f-f-f-f-ar do we have t-t-to go?" Trace tried to speak as clearly as he could, but his legs were numb, and the feeling was spreading up his whole body.
"We'll take a break on that rock. Let the feeling back into our toes." Barret said, pushing his way through the water. As they got to the boulder in the middle of the river, they all climbed on as best as they could. Back to back they sat, trying to stay out of the icy water.
"How are you not cold?" Natani said, a fire over her hand as she used magic to heat up her legs.
"Me?" Barret asked as he pulled his feet up onto the rock. "Oh, I'm frozen right now. I just know how to not show it. I've spent my entire life without a roof over my head, endure countless blizzards and winter storms, and learned how to fire a bow without shivering out of necessity. I'd actually love to light an actual fire right now, be able to hold a torch and feel it's heat while we walk, but we can't risk leaving a trail at all. The water will cover our footsteps and this rock will dry off, but a used up torch? That's a sure way of letting everyone know where we went."
"I suppose…" Zen shivered. They spent an hour warming up on the rock, drying off their feet and legs, before bitterly dropping back into the water. They waded closer to the shore where the water wasn't so deep and continued upstream. The day passed and the shadows lengthened before they left the river, shivering and wishing they were back at the inn, in their warm beds, with a hearty stew that had been cooked over a roaring fire, laughing without a care in the world. But they were not there. They were here. In the woods, in the cold, in the early days of winter.
That night, they risked a proper fire. No tents, but the heat was enough to raise their spirits a little. Barret checked their bags for everything that might be useful, from knives and daggers in Zen and Nat's bags, the fabric in Flora's, some maps and a compass in Keith's, and some spare cloths in Trace's. After looking at everything they had, he turned toward the group and sat. "We don't have enough supplies to make it over the mountains yet. But if we start gathering supplies as we go, we can make it. We're going to need wood, lots of it. I can make us some sledges for us if I can get my hands on some large enough logs. Some walking sticks would be good too, use them to make travel easier, and to break snow if the weather goes that way. Once we get higher up into the mountains, food won't spoil, it will be too cold to actually go bad, but we also will need to bundle up as much as possible too. Anything we hunt, we bring with us. It might be gross, but I can carve up the pelts for us to drape over our shoulders."
"Where are we going to go once we get to the other side?" Flora asked. Barret shook his head.
"We can worry about that if we get there."
"When." Trace corrected. A smile touched Barret's face.
"Right. When we get there. We have a few days before we get to the foothills proper. Once we begin the climb though, we will be completely cut off. Wood will be nearly impossible to find, and food even more so. Water is the only thing we can find plenty of, all we have to do is melt some snow and ice. We keep to the valleys as much as we can, only going as high as we must, and keep moving whenever we can." Faces were downtrodden, and Barret sighed. "Fate has brought us this far. Now, we make our own path, whether Fate wants us to or not."