Duncan looked up, squinted into the wind, and as he took stock, he thought he detected motion. There came a loud cracking noise, and suddenly, a huge icicle, perhaps twenty feet long, begin to separate. His heart plummeted as it released and came straight down for them, like a bolt of lightning from the sky.

“MOVE!” Duncan shrieked.

Duncan shoved his men out of the way then jumped himself, rolling several feet down the mountain as there came an enormous crash behind them. He looked back to see the icicle, like a giant sword, thrust into the earth and shattering into pieces. Fragments flew everywhere, and he covered his head with his hands, deflecting them, the chips painfully scratching him.

The icicle then tumbled down the cliff, towards his men, and Duncan looked back over his shoulder and watched with dread as his men jumped left and right to get out of its way. More than one man slipped to his death, while one soldier, he saw, was impaled by it, his shrieks filling the air as he was crushed.

Duncan lay on the ground, shaken, and looked over to Seavig, who exchanged a look with him. It was a look of dread.

Duncan turned and looked back up the cliff, and he noticed hundreds more icicles, all perched warily along the edge, all with their tips pointing straight down at them. He was finally beginning to understand just how treacherous this ascent was.

“No point waiting here,” Seavig said. “Either we climb now, or we wait for more of those things to come down and find us.”

Duncan knew he was right, and he regained his feet. He turned and walked back down the mountain and took stock of the dead and wounded. He knelt beside a soldier, a boy hardly older than his own, and reached up and lowered his eyelids, a pain in his heart.

“Cover him,” Duncan ordered his men.

They rushed forward and did so, and Duncan moved on to the wounded, kneeling beside a young soldier whose ribs had been pierced by the icicle. He clasped his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the boy said. “I can’t make it up the mountain. Not like this.” He gasped. “Leave me here. Go on without me.”

Duncan shook his head.

“That’s not who I am,” he replied, knowing that, if he did, the boy would die out here. He came to a quick decision. “I shall carry you myself.”

The boy’s eyes widened in surprise.

“You’d never make it.”

“We’ll see about that,” Duncan replied.

Duncan squatted down, slung the soldier over his shoulder as he groaned, and then walked back through his ranks of men, all of them looking at him with wonder and respect.

Seavig stared back at him as he reached the front, as if wondering how he could attempt this.

“As you said,” Duncan said to him, “we have no time to lose.”