The Other Cave

---Aaron---

The wind howled. Snow fell in harsh, diagonal streaks, cutting my face and hands. Even though I was bundled up in a thick fur coat, I felt the cold penetrating my body and chilling me to the core. My body wanted to freeze up and never move again.

"I think the cave is this way!" Indigo shouted over the blizzard. She took a few steps through the knee-deep snow in the eleven o'clock direction. I followed in her footsteps—literally—and tried to keep the rope between us slack.

The world around us was gray and white as the blizzard attacked relentlessly, surrounding us with swirling snow that moved so fast all we saw were blurs. When I looked back towards our cavern, I saw nothing; even our footsteps, the knee-deep holes we made, had already been wiped away. Indigo's back faded in and out in my vision, despite the fact that she was only a couple of feet in front of me. I lost all sense of direction; it was an endless expanse of snow in every direction for as far as the eye could see, and visibility was very low. I found myself veering off track sometimes, and Indigo had to tug on the rope between us to redirect me. I have no idea how she managed to keep walking in a straight line against the forceful wind.

We trudged for what felt like hours, but it was probably only fifteen minutes, since the two caves weren't that far apart. Indigo paused as she touched solid rock.

"Look for the entrance!" she called back at me.

I ambled up to stand next to her. We began to slowly moving towards the left of the rock wall, our hands feeling the rocky surface. I didn't see any firelight or hear any conversations, but then again, how much could I see and hear in this blizzard?

The wall ended. I managed to make out a large concavity in the rock surface that looked suspiciously like the entrance. The only problem was that it was covered entirely by rock, as if a giant had merely made a dent in the rocky wall.

"Should we check the other side for an entrance?" I asked Indigo. She ran her hands over the edge of the indentation.

"No, I'm positive that the entrance is on this side. This must be it."

"Are you sure? This whole thing is just rock. Maybe we should keep looking?"

"I'm guessing Lionel covered the entrance with a large boulder from the inside. We can try shouting to get his attention." Indigo knocked on the center of the indentation, but it was solid rock and made no sound. I guess making a racket is the way to go.

"LIONEL! HEY, LIONEL! IT'S AARON AND INDIGO. WE CAME FROM THE OTHER CAVE TO CHECK ON YOU GUYS, PLEASE LET US IN!" I put my face as close as I could to a crack on the edge and shouted at the top of my lungs. I felt silly just screaming into a rock; was Indigo absolutely sure this was the entrance?

"HELLO? ANYONE? CAN ANYONE HEAR ME? THIS IS AARON KANE. I AM HERE WITH INDIGO TO SPEAK WITH LIONEL. PLEASE LET US IN; THIS IS NOT A TRICK BY LORD VICTOR."

Indigo and I pounded on the rock as we took turns shouting. I put my ear against the rock to listen for any indication of a response from the other side. Finally, after we've shouted our throats hoarse, we heard a faint voice from the other side. "If it's really Indigo and Aaron, then answer this question: What happened when Aaron first met Lionel?"

"I was with Katherine, and we mistakenly identified Lionel as an enemy leader, so we tried to assassinate him!" I answered confidently.

"What happened when Katherine became conscious again?" The voice inside asked again.

"Aaron punched Lionel in the face and broke his nose." Indigo answered.

There was a buzz of voices inside, and a different voice floated through the crack. "Aaron, Indigo, this is Lionel. We're going to open the entrance by moving a boulder, so please stand back."

"Got it, Lionel!" Indigo replied and then pulled me five paces back. "I told you it was a boulder on the inside, Aaron."

"I'm impressed, Indigo. I never would've thought of that." I told her, my eyes locked on the stone wall. With a rumble, the rock began to slide to the left. The entrance was slowly revealed as a group of soldiers strained to push a large boulder aside from the inside. As soon as the crack was large enough for us to pass through, Indigo and I headed in. Lionel stood at the entrance.

"Indy! Aaron! I'm so happy to see you two." With a wide smile, he began to brush the snow from Indigo's coat. "The blizzard is still going strong?"

"Yeah, it took us forever to make it across." Indigo pushed her hood back and shook her head to get any stray snowflakes out of her hair. She quickly untied the rope between us. "Aaron, tug on the rope to let Katherine know we've arrived safely."

"Oh, I nearly forgot!" I walked back outside and gave the rope two hard yanks. A moment later, I felt two tugs on the rope, which meant that Katherine had received our signal. Lionel motioned for the soldiers to close up the entrance and secure our end of the rope to something sturdy. Rachel and Lucian emerged from the depths of the cave, and the five of us settled down near the campfire that Lionel was at before we came in.

"So, this is the other cave." I looked around. The rocky walls and hard stone floor was similar to our cave, but this one was noticeably smaller in width. Everyone was closer to each other here, whereas in our cave, there was a lot of space for everyone to stretch and move about.

"Yes. It was a tight fit, but we managed." Lionel offered us some water and beef jerky. "How are you guys doing over there?"

"We're okay, though the soldiers are getting a bit bored. Our cave is colder because our entrance is completely open to the elements." Indigo answered. "It's ingenious of you to use a boulder to cover the entrance, Lionel."

"Ah, the boulder. It was just inside the entrance, so we thought, why not put it to good use? It's difficult to move though, so we don't move it often. We certainly weren't expecting visitors, so please excuse us for not letting you two in sooner." Lionel made a small apologetic bow towards Indigo and me.

"I honestly think this blizzard is weird," Lucian said as he snacked on some crackers. "Like, why would there be a blizzard right as we are heading toward Lord Victor's stronghold?"

I nodded. "That's what I thought too, but if Lord Victor can control the weather, then our chances of succeeding just plummeted. He could very well just trap us in the blizzard until we run out of food and freeze to death. I really hope it's just freaky weather inside this mountain range."

"It's hard to tell. Because of Lord Victor's presence, the stormy weather may have been aggravated to extremities," Rachel added. "My spells are next to useless against something of this scale."

"Well, there's really nothing we can do except to wait it out," Indigo said. "Even Lord Victor can't keep a blizzard going forever."

We all nodded. We weren't powerful enough to fight and win against Lord Victor with combined powers, much less by ourselves. The only thing we could do was wait.