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“Annie,” Dec said softly. “Honey, we have to keep going.”

She nodded. He got to his feet and drew her up with him. As soon as they were mounted, she put her arms around him and all but collapsed against his back.

Shit. Could she fall off?

Absolutely, she could.

He drew back on the reins, lifted his leg over the horse’s head—not the safest way to dismount, but he was afraid to let Annie dismount by herself—and lifted her down. Then he remounted the horse, this time with Annie in his arms.

Riding double wasn’t great in the best of circumstances. Riding double with her in front of him was even less efficient, but this way he could cradle her in his arms and keep her from falling.

Her head fell back against his chest.

He pressed his lips to her hair, told her that he loved her, and tapped his heels against the horse’s flanks. His instinct was to urge the animal into a gallop, but he suspected the rough up-and-down motion might be bad for Annie.

He didn’t want to risk her vomiting again.

It would only dehydrate her further.

He felt her weight against him increase, felt her breathing slow. Good. She was asleep. Rest might help her get through whatever illness had claimed her.

Hours went by.

The mountain they were going to cross loomed on the horizon, never seeming any closer. It didn’t look terribly high. If it wasn’t, if he could see an immediate, easy way up, they might still get out of this without confrontation.

Normally, Dec would have welcomed the chance to face the enemy, but his first, his only priority was getting Annie over the mountain, to the coast—and home.

At last, the view began to change.

They were still riding through sparse vegetation, but now the landscape was also home to big boulders. A giant’s chessboard, Dec thought as he looked around him. The view ahead was changing as well; he could see the mountain with greater clarity.

Shit.

It wasn’t a promising sight.

They’d climbed a forested mountain a couple of days ago. It had made for doable if slow going.

What lay ahead was what could only be described as a slab of granite. A monolith, if you wanted to get fancy. A giant tombstone, if you didn’t. No trees grew on it unless you counted a handful of skinny things that looked as if somebody had decided to create tortured bonsai.

No plants.

No grasses.

Just one motherfucking piece of stone.

Dec slowed the horse, tilted back his head and looked up.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

Fuck, indeed.

He could see only one way up and it was little more than a series of chancy handholds and footholds.

He clucked to the horse and they rode slowly along the base of the mountain for a little while—a little while was all they had to spare—before returning to where they’d started. What he’d seen at first, that series of miniscule fissures leading up the mountain, was it.

Difficult, but yeah, he could manage. He’d had lots of climbing training and experience.

But that didn’t matter.