Untitled - BoG-Archive

When day dawned, the clouds were skimming away above, but the air was
still cold and wet. They awoke shivering; the tree had provided some shelter, but
their cloaks were damp and heavy. Faramir sat up, rubbing his arms to warm
them. Very shortly, their packs were hefted once more and, staves in hand, they
continued along the trail through the forest. The ground was wet and boggy and
swathed in flowing mists, making for treacherous footing as the path grew
steeper.
By midday they had come to the end of the sparse forest. The limbs of the
last trees creaked with a sheen of ice over the frost-patched ground. As they
rested briefly, Faramir began gathering up fallen branches, breaking them over
his knee.
“Do you think we will need that?” Boromir asked, eyeing him. “We would
go faster without the extra burden.”
“That is true, but we don’t know what we will meet higher up, if it is
already so cold here. And we won’t take too much,” Faramir replied.
“You are likely right,” Boromir mused, nodding. “And we would surely
want a fire if we didn’t bring any wood, I guess.”
They also took this last chance to find a trickle of water through a tiny iceladen
streambed and fill their bottles.
They made their way up without marker or trail for many hours, through
places where nothing grew but dark, stunted bushes and sun-blanched clumps of
grass, and over piled stones as big as houses, bounding nimbly from one to the
next. They scrambled up hills of scree, and dark stones the size of fists tumbled
noisily down in their wake. They climbed low cliffs, wedging fingers and feet
into any tiny crack or crevice they could find, as if they were born to it. Boromir
found himself grinning as he was reminded of their secretive exploits of years
ago, climbing the inner walls of the White City to stand upon rooftops and stare
out at the horizon.
The air, already chill, soon became utterly cold. It seemed to carry scents of
winter and ice from above; a hint of blue shadows stood beyond the darker peaks
that loomed above their heads. It does not seem so when one looks at mountains
from afar, but all mountains deceive: when a climber thinks he has reached the
topmost precipice, he often looks out and sees yet another, taller and more
treacherous, beyond it.
Soon they found themselves staring up a long expanse of pure whiteness
that led to the peak. All was cold and colorless, and the sky was pale though the
sun shone brightly enough they had to squint against its light. Their breaths
made plumes of mist. After a little while, footprints could be seen in the thin
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