THE GALE, resurrected in all its ferocity, tore across our path, whipped our clothes, our hair, and made our hands and faces ache. We leaned into it, I supporting the Firelord, he dragging at the donkey. The beast was weary, unwilling and terrified. Kallai, thrashed by the wind, clung to my gloved fist, his head hunched low. The snow was knee-deep, turning to slush, and our boots and cloaks were wet and freezing. The Firelord fell again, and I struggled to lift him. He rested against the donkey, breathing hard, his eyes closed. His beard and eyebrows were edged with ice, and his skin was grey again.

“Turn back, lord!” I cried, shouting against the gale. “This storm will kill us both!”

He shook his head. “A bridge ahead,” he shouted, hoarsely.” Then a cave, further on. We’ll stop there.”

To have both my hands free, I tied Kallai to one of the saddlebags for a perch, though he fought me over it. Then together my lord and I forced the donkey on, pushing, dragging it up the treacherous path. At times we passed between steep cliffs, and there was blessed calm from the wind. Then we were up on a ridge again, buffeted, reeling under the fury of the elements.

We came to the edge of a ravine, so deep and vast that the river below was a distant thunder, its turbulence lost in haze and the white rage of the wind. There were strange booming echoes in the depths, sounds strangled by the wind, cries and voices and distant, wasted howls. And across the abyss, tapering to nothing on the remote cliff, a narrow rope bridge, age-old and damaged, swinging crazily.

“We can’t cross that!” I cried, clutching my lord’s arm, terrified. “We’ll be killed!”

“I’ve crossed it many times!” he shouted back, stooping to check the straps holding the saddlebags, and checking the donkey’s halter. “We must cross, Elsha. There is no other way.”

I stared across the chasm, an awful fear sweeping over me. I backed down the path, away from the edge, the bridge, the howling, yawning gulf. The Firelord came back to me, and put both his hands on my shoulders. He shouted, and I could hardly hear above the wind. “Elsha, we have no choice! You go first, alone, then I will follow with the donkey. Hold tight to the hand ropes on either side, and walk slow and steady on the wooden boards. Where they are missing, cross the gaps slowly, your eyes straight ahead. If the bridge swings, keep as still as you can until it stops. Never look below. Keep calm. You’ll get safely across, I swear.”

“Cross with me!” I cried. “I can’t do it alone!”

“You have to! It won’t hold both us and the beast. And I’m letting the falcon go, Elsha. The donkey must not be distracted by him.”