Relic Hunters, Tome 3 : Ring of Ruin

My father is a goddamned sadist.”

The words were muffled by the woolen scarf I’d wrapped around the lower part of my face, but they nevertheless seemed to freeze briefly in the air. It was damnably cold and would undoubtedly get a whole lot worse, given we were only a third of the way through a decidedly insane eleven-miles-round-trip hike up Ben Nevis, Scotland’s tallest mountain.

In the winter.

In the fog and the rain and the occasional flurry of snow.

The figure immediately ahead of me chuckled. Like me, my brother was dressed from head to toe in waterproofs to keep out the weather, and multiple layers underneath to keep in the heat. He was also wearing a backpack filled with tea, water, and food. Strapped to the back of this was a black sword that, even though it was fully sheathed in a silver-coated leather scabbard, emanated dark fury.

It was the sole reason we were on this goddamn mountain.

We needed to safely get rid of the thing, and that meant handing it back to the old gods who’d made it.

Presuming, of course, said old gods were home and that one of them would deign to talk to me.

There was never any guarantee, because the old gods could be cranky old bitches and bastards at the best of times.

“You’ve got the ‘god’ part of that right,” Lugh said. “But I think the only sadist here is you. It was your idea to risk the climb on such a shitty day; no one else’s.”

Despite the fact the wind was at our backs and should have been snatching his words away from me, I could hear him quite clearly. I’d created a small “weather bubble” at the beginning of our climb, not only to ensure that we could hear each other, but also to keep the three of us out of the very worst of the weather. Maintaining it tugged at my strength, but it also made moving through the storm easier, so it basically evened out.

“True,” I replied, “but it wasn’t like we had any real choice.”

We’d already wasted two days waiting for the weather to clear, and the feeling that we were running out of time had grown so sharp, it felt like I was being knifed. I might have been a late bloomer when it came to second sight, but to date it had proven remarkably accurate. I didn’t dare ignore the warning.

Thankfully, we’d pre-arranged a guide to take us up to the summit, and while he hadn’t been too pleased about the prospect of a possible nine-hour trek in inclement weather, he’d also agreed that today was as good as it was likely to get for at least the next week. He’d charged us double for the inconvenience, of course. If there was one thing to be said about dwarves, it was that they never wasted an opportunity to make an extra buck.