Empire of the Saviours (Chronicles of/Cosmic Warlord 1) by A.J. Dalton Page A

upwards and his muscled arms pulling when his footing chanced to slip. Even among the mountain people, he was considered small for his age, but that meant he had good strength for his size and was one of the fastest when it came to scaling a rock field.
    He rose quickly, fighting against himself as much as everything around him. The snow forced itself into his eyes and made him miss his steps and holds. It was only a matter of time before he broke an ankle or wrist, and then it would all be over. His lungs burned and he gasped for a clear breath, but fists of snow forced their way down his throat. He realised he was in the jaws of what some of the elders called a Wolf Winter, a sudden snap that arose with so little warning that none could outrun it. The best that could be done was to hide yourself well and pray that it couldn’t find you.
    Aspin now knew he would never reach the pass. He had to find shelter instead. Perhaps a cave … but there were none in this part of the range. Could he descend back beneath the snowline? The firs there might offer him some sort of cover, but never enough to protect him from the cold or exposure. There would certainly be no chance of a fire either.
    With a sinking heart, he realised there was only one hope, although that word was the last he would have normally used about the crazy old man called Torpeth. Only the truly desperate, those harbouring evil desires or those who were similarly crazed, sought out that lunatic. Some of the elder tribe members referred to him as the holy man , saying he was touched by the gods, but the way the man harangued the tribe’s youth on festival days – about some payment or other being due, always some payment – Aspin thought of him as a demon more than anything else.
    Torpeth had always lived well away from the rest of the tribe – some might consider him holy, but they didn’t need him worrying their goats, urinating on the main fire of the large tribal home or leaping out at them on a dark night. He was the only one on these particular mountain slopes – who else would be crazy enough to live in such close proximity to the territories of the blood-soaked lowlanders? But now he was the only one who might offer Aspin shelter and any hope of survival.
    The wind howled around him, all but knocking him from his feet, tearing at him like a frenzied pack of wolves. He knew he wouldn’t last much longer in this storm and that he couldn’t afford to hesitate for even a moment. Life or death. Choose now, warrior. He ploughed forward and then broke left onto a rapidly disappearing goat-track along a ridge. The footing was treacherous and the wind was intent on hurling him from the top of the mountain, to be smashed on the rocks below, but he had the balance and sure-footedness of one of the mountain people and was not about to give up his life easily.
    Head down and teeth gritted, he reached the end of the ridge and plunged down into a more sheltered gully, where he could at least draw an unencumbered breath or two. The wind above shrieked and snarled in frustration, hurling down snow at him and reducing visibility to little more than a few arm lengths. He made his way carefully along the gully, worried that at any moment he would stumble into a hidden chasm, and finally emerged onto the top of a large slope. He glimpsed the dark shape of a long, low turf-walled construction below and threw himself down the incline towards it.
    As he slid, he was helpless to slow his momentum and smacked into the back wall of the house with bone-jarring force. Dizzily, he made his way round to the other side of the dwelling and pounded on the door.
    The door creaked open several inches and a beady eye peered out at him from the darkness. ‘Took your time!’ whispered a voice with unidentifiable emotions running through it. ‘Left it any longer and you wouldn’t have survived at all. Then how would you have made me and the gods look, huh? Embarrassing it would have