At dawn, the mist in the valley looked like a lake of gray milk.
Silas stood on the edge of the ridge, his shoulders hunched against the biting wind that swept down from the peaks. He pulled a thick, gray woolen scarf from his neck and held it out toward Artyom.
“Take this,” Silas said. “Your coat is too thin for the early watch.”
Artyom accepted the scarf, wrapping the heavy wool around his neck. “Thank you, Silas.”
“I do not like the path down to the lower well when the light is like this,” Silas said, his fingers twitching against his belt.
“The path is straight,” Artyom said.
“Not when the shadows move,” Silas said, looking down into the gray gulf of the valley. “Sometimes I think the mountain is waiting for us to make one wrong step.”
Artyom rubbed his bare left wrist, his fingers finding the pale skin where the silver watch had been. “The mountain does not care about us.”
“The Captain does,” Silas said, his voice dropping. “He was asking the cooks about the ration weights again.”
