Kael and Bram did not stop running. They threw themselves down the treacherous, icy slopes of the Ironspine ridge with a reckless, frantic desperation. The howling blizzard whipped violently around them, tearing at their heavy woollen cloaks and stinging their exposed eyes with sharp shards of flying ice. They used their momentum to slide down the steep scree fields, completely ignoring the painful scrapes and bruises forming beneath their thick armour.
They needed distance. They needed solid earth between themselves and the central load-bearing pillar they had just rigged to explode.
"Thirty seconds!" Bram shouted over the deafening roar of the freezing wind. He planted his heavy boots into a deep snowbank to arrest his rapid descent, quickly turning back to look at the towering black peak they had just abandoned.
