The two noble mountaineers, weighed down by their leathers and hoods and frost-encrusted beards, were less than an arm’s reach apart and within touching distance of the summit; yet the brutal, howling, all-engulfing blizzard made both distances seem insurmountable.
“Victor!” Dudley screamed over the torrent of snow, both his voice and parched lips cracking with the effort, “I must tell you something – on the ridge, when I slipped and cried out,” he said, sniffing back a tear, “I confess that I may have–”
A gust as stinging as the back-hand of God brought both men to their knees; grimacing with the effort, Victor lifted his partner, took him by the shoulders and reassured him as one would a brother. “That’s alright old chap, I myself became somewhat emotional back there, what with our predicament and the thought of abandoning– ”
“It’s not that,” Dudley again sniffed, eyelash pearls solidifying behind his goggles. “…I…it appears that I… I am bleeding.”
Made pale by the shame, Dudley frowned to those red drips trickling from his trouser leg, the collar of his boot spilling over like a brimmed goblet. Upon registering the trail of bloodied, sunken, staggered footprints his partner had impressed in the snow, Victor withdrew his embrace; his expression, previously genial, became as cold and hardening as a rock face. Having pulled on the straps of his leathers and jutted his chin, he delivered his verdict as though a judge. “Well, old chap… One must prioritise. At least you’ll be able to find your way back to camp unaided, what with your trail of breadcrumbs, hey?”
And with that, a job to be done and nothing more to be said about it, the victor turned and continued on, consigning his partner to the snow.
Scott Tierney’s writings include the sci-fi epic Tomorrow is Another Year, the novella Kin, and the comic book series Pointless Conversations. His short-stories have been published on Liar’s League, Horror Tree, Bristol Noir, After Dinner Conversation, and HumourMe.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 