The Ascent of Bone-Peak

Candice and Norman battle the relentless winter and the ever-present threat of the shamblers as they navigate a treacherous, collapsing bridge. Hope for refuge is overshadowed by immediate peril and the crushing weight of their bleak existence.

The bitter north wind tore at Candice's parka, whipping strands of dark hair across her face, stinging her eyes with ice crystals. Each breath was a shallow, painful gasp of freezing air, raw in her lungs. Below her, the Chantry Bridge groaned, a dying beast in the iron grip of winter. Twisted girders, like shattered ribs, jutted out over the churning grey-green river below, where chunks of ice the size of small carts slammed against the remaining pilings with dull, sickening thuds.

"Hold!" Candice's voice was a ragged shout, barely audible over the gale. She flattened herself against the rusted decking, her gloved hand gripping a frost-slicked cable. The cable hummed, a low, unsettling note beneath her palm. It was a song of metal fatigue, of years of neglect, of a world that had forgotten how to maintain itself.

Norman, a few paces behind her, froze, his boots skidding dangerously on the verglas. He was smaller than her, gaunt, his face a pale oval framed by a thick, hand-knitted scarf. His eyes, wide and perpetually haunted, darted from the chasm below to the skeletal outline of the distant city, a promise of shelter that felt like a cruel jest. "What is it?" he called out, his voice thin, almost theatrical in its strained formality.

Candice pointed with a mittened hand, her finger trembling slightly. "The stress fractures. They spiderweb this section. Move wide. And quickly, for the love of… move quickly."

He nodded, a jerky motion, and began to shuffle sideways, favouring a section where the grated steel still seemed somewhat intact. The bridge swayed, a slow, sickening pendulum swing, as a fresh gust of wind slammed into them. A shiver, not entirely from the cold, ran through Candice. The rumour of the ‘Haven of the North’ had brought them this far, a whisper carried on the frigid air from desperate mouths. A place where warmth and food might still be found. It felt a foolish, desperate chase.

"We are not alone," Norman murmured, his voice a dry rasp. He was looking back, over his shoulder. Candice already knew. The low, guttural moans had been carried on the wind for the last hour, growing steadily closer. Just a few, perhaps. Perhaps more. The frozen landscape often tricked the ears, twisting distant sounds into immediate threats.

She peered through the swirling snow, her eyes scanning the approach ramp. Three figures. Stumbling, lurching, their clothes tattered flags of a lost time. Shamblers. Their persistent hunger, even in this punishing cold, was a testament to the horror that had consumed their species. They were slow, thankfully, their movements stiffened by the deep winter, but relentless. And they were always, always drawn to the living warmth.

"Keep moving, Norman," Candice ordered, her voice firmer than she felt. "They gain no purchase on this ice. They are slow. We are faster."

He pushed onward, a desperate urgency in his steps. But haste, here, was a dangerous gamble. One boot slipped, sending a spray of ice shards into the air. Norman let out a yelp, his arms windmilling. For a terrifying second, he was a puppet on severed strings, teetering precariously over the abyss. Candice lunged, her own balance precarious, grabbing the back of his parka, the coarse fabric biting into her fingers through her mitts. She hauled him back, his body a dead weight, until he scrambled to regain his footing, breathing heavily.

"Careful!" she admonished, her tone sharp, almost angry. "One misstep, and the river claims all we have endeavoured for."

Norman pushed off her hand, his face pale and clammy. "Forgive me. My foot… it caught a weakness in the grating. The metal is thin here."

Candice looked down. Indeed, a section of the grating beneath their feet looked suspiciously dark, a thin sheet of ice covering what could be a corroded hole. The bridge was a sieve, perforated by time and decay. The Haven of the North, if it even existed, demanded a payment in near-fatal risks.

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### The Iron Veins Tremble

They pressed on, the wind a physical shove against their backs, pushing them towards the perceived safety of the other side. The shamblers, though slow, were persistent. Their low moans seemed to intensify, creating a chilling chorus that resonated with the groaning metal of the bridge. Candice glanced back, estimating the distance. Perhaps a hundred metres now, to the safety of the far bank. The shamblers were fifty metres behind them, a dark, undulating mass against the stark white of the snow-covered approach.

"They draw closer," Norman stated, his voice tight, his breath misting in the air. He fumbled in his pack, his fingers clumsy with cold. "The flares. Did you bring the flares, Candice?"

Candice reached into an inner pocket of her parka, pulling out a single, red-capped signal flare. It was one of their last. A desperate measure, usually reserved for truly dire circumstances. But the thought of those hollowed-out eyes, those grasping hands, made this circumstance dire enough.

"Hold fast," she commanded, her fingers fumbling with the cap, the plastic stiff with cold. She pulled it off, revealing the igniter. With a sharp twist, a hiss, and a burst of acrid smoke, the flare ignited, showering sparks. The brilliant crimson light cut through the gloom, a startling splash of violent colour against the bleak, monochrome world.

She hurled it back, a desperate arc through the wind. It landed with a soft thud amidst the shamblers, who stumbled into its fierce glow. For a moment, they faltered, their primitive minds unable to process the sudden, blinding light. It offered a reprieve, a few precious seconds. But the light also illuminated more of them, emerging from the swirling snow further back on the approach, attracted by the flare's sudden brilliance.

"More!" Norman cried, a note of despair in his voice. "Many more follow! The flare has merely drawn them from the periphery!"

Candice cursed under her breath. A human error, a tactical miscalculation. The gambit had bought them time, but at the cost of revealing a larger threat. The numbers were not overwhelming, not yet, but the relentless pressure, the sheer volume of their adversaries, was disheartening. Each one was a reminder of what they had lost, what they continued to fight.

"Then we must outpace them," she declared, though her heart was a cold, heavy stone in her chest. "We cannot engage them here, on this failing structure. The bridge will not endure such a conflict."

She scrambled forward, her eyes fixed on the distant promise of land. Her boots crunched on ice-encrusted rust, each step a gamble against the integrity of the metal. She was acutely aware of the distance, the wind, the low, rising chorus of the shamblers behind them. Her shoulders ached, her legs burned, but the sheer desperation to survive propelled her onward. Norman, though visibly trembling, kept pace, his own fear a potent, if silent, motivator.

The air grew colder still, a biting, relentless chill that seemed to seep into their very bones. The thought of warmth, a flickering hearth, a cup of something hot, was a luxurious fantasy, almost painful in its impossibility. Their rations were dwindling, the last of the hardened jerky tasting like ash in her mouth. The Haven of the North had better be real. If it was another cruel mirage, another ghost story, she didn't know how much more they could bear.

Suddenly, a high-pitched shriek of metal ripped through the air, overriding the wind's howl. The entire bridge shuddered violently, a sickening lurch that threw them both off balance. Candice stumbled, falling to her knees, her hands scraping against the frozen metal, the pain a sharp jolt. Norman cried out as he slid, clutching desperately at a rusted handrail. A section of the decking, just ahead of them, buckled inwards with a thunderous roar, showering sparks and twisted metal into the river below. The ground beneath them pitched and groaned again.

"The pilings!" Candice screamed, scrambling to her feet, her eyes wide with terror. "They have given way! We are cut off!"

The gaping chasm between them and the relatively stable ground ahead was now impassable. But just as quickly, the section behind them, the very part the shamblers were now crossing, also began to disintegrate. A cacophony of groans and snaps, and then a cascade of metal and ice into the dark river. The shamblers, caught in the collapse, were swallowed by the churning water with broken, guttural cries, their forms disappearing beneath the violent surface.

The immediate threat was gone, but they were stranded. A narrow, precarious stretch of bridge remained, separating them from the bank they so desperately needed to reach. The other side, the path to the fabled Haven, was now tantalisingly close, but utterly out of reach.

"What now?" Norman’s voice was a whisper, a stark, hollow sound against the continuing wind. His eyes, fixed on the impossible gap, reflected the crushing defeat of their situation. He slowly turned to Candice, his face etched with a desperate, questioning plea. "Candice... what now?"

The remaining section of the bridge, their last fragile foothold, swayed precariously, a discordant symphony of stressed metal and groaning cables. The chasm yawned before them, a final, unyielding barrier. A new, more terrifying moan echoed from the depths of the river below.

Candice looked from the impossible gap to the turbulent, icy water, then back to Norman's frightened face. A fresh gust of wind, laden with the smell of distant pine and cold, unforgiving stone, tugged at her, as if the world itself sought to pull her into the abyss. The answer, if one existed, felt as cold and unforgiving as the winter itself.

"There is no way back," she stated, her voice barely a murmur. "Only forward, into the… into what must come next. We have but one choice."