The Fickle Winds of Autumn

31. The Chasm

Kira stretched and flung a reckless right arm back out over the gaping chasm; her body lurched closer to the crumbling edge; it cracked and splintered beneath her weight; she arched and reached for Ellis with every sinew in her battered, winded body - with every desperate, resolute hope she possessed.

Ellis kicked and thrashed his limbs wildly; effort and terror strained across his despairing face. The terrible gravity of the ravine sucked him down into its deadly maul. The horrified blood pounded and sank through Kira's frame; the bleak caustic acid tormented her innards; she urged her fingers to extend, to grab, to claw for him, the boy whose kindness had saved her from the slavers.

The trajectory of his forlorn body tumbled away from her, past the level of her eyes; down, down towards the fearful sombre distance below; a sudden rough jarring pain snatched at her skin; his hand ripped down her arm; she clenched her fingers, determined to hold on; his arm rasped through her grip; she seized at his writhing, plummeting wrist; her stubborn fingers stung and latched on; his fierce hand gripped hard.

The jolting shock of his falling weight tore through her shoulder and arm; her joints wrenched; her body dragged closer to the perilous edge; her head and shoulders lurched and dangled down; the blood thumped to her hair; Ellis slid deeper, hauling her further into the deadly chasm; but she would not let go - she could not.

A ravenous black wolf bounded close behind Ellis; it leapt across the gap after its prey; its jaws snapped angrily, its salivating incisors resolved to sink into the soft meat of Ellis's legs. It kicked and twisted; its anguished paws thrashed for a ground that was no longer there; the sudden stark, brutal realisation of its fate shocked through its bulging eyes. A pitiful, despairing yelp reverberated across the valley as it thudded down the sickening side of the mountain, and the terrified creature was taken up into the Eternal arms of the Great Surrounder.

The frayed edge of the path bit deeper into Kira's shoulders and ribs; her bruised frame scrambled and battled to support Ellis's pendulous weight; she tried to remember to breathe as more stones crumbled and splintered away from the vulnerable fractured boundary; they spun and skipped as they crashed down into the full, horrifying depth of the chasm below.

Ellis's swaying weight yanked and heaved at her arm; she kicked and scrabbled; her feet searched for a solid hold as she slithered and slid further over the edge; her desperate knees tried to dig in; she pressed down, determined, onto the rough uncertain pathway; her thoughts reeled and shuddered, terrified at the prospect of sharing the fate of the predatory wolf.

Her head and arms and shoulders drooped precariously over the edge of the abyss; her panic-stricken eyes were forced to stare straight down at the dizzying vertical drop which fell away beneath her.

The cold rushing wind stood still, silenced by the adrenaline pumping through her; an awful halting of time stretched away into a dizzying eternity; a cold sweating sickness; the fear of losing Ellis, and her own life, swept across her suspended trembling frame.

She fought and focused; a solitary thought resonated through her body - she would not let go, she would never let him go.

Her legs slid further and scraped cruelly along the cold rocks; her swaying shoulders were dragged further down; Ellis's weight swung and lurched; her body stretched and racked to its painful limits; his terrified grip crushed her wrist; but she saw nothing and felt nothing; she peered down at the face of the young man, the fresh, hopeful life, which dangled from her aching arm; the earnest, unconditional blue of his eyes burned back up, transfixed on hers, desperately needing her and trusting his life to her; the magnetic pull of his gaze drew her full focus and blocked out the giddy vertigo, the hungry, desperate battle with gravity.