It was a warm morning without a slight breeze. We sneaked out of our houses and met in front of the giant rock on the edge of the forest that we called our ‘secret place’. I changed my clothes quickly, but Senka lingered. His arms were trembling and he couldn’t tie his vest properly so I helped him out, but right after that Senka suddenly grabbed me and said

“Do you really think it is time for us to move?” his voice was barely audible.

‘Yes, we can’t wait any longer. I’m sure that Hina is already somewhere far away from here and we must catch up with her,’ Was my answer and then I added, ‘Do you remember our plan?’

‘Ye… Yeah… We go up to the root of the mountain where Hina was always pointing with her finger and try to find where her hideout was and then we will try to track where they went after…’ Senkas’s voice was trembling, ‘Are you sure that Mountain Witches won’t be mad if we pass the Cold Peak at night?’

‘Even if they are real, we have bows and knives to protect ourselves. We still don’t know if they are real or not,’ Last sentence calmed Senka down and he finished preparing.

During the winter, we were training every single day and now it was time to test our new abilities. We explored every single corner of the Cold Valley and once huge fields now felt so trivial. Now I understand why Hina lost her interest in us after such a little time. I suppose it was because she already had seen places much more stunning than the Cold Valley and this raging Ocean. However, Hina had particular interest in rocky cliffs near the village, she always charged there if we had no clue where to go. I assume you can’t find something like this very often and even she was amazed with never-ending battle of bubbly waves and sharp cliffs.

These thoughts swept through my mind as we were running through the field where she left us. The Cold Peak in front of us seemed unfriendly, yet, we were full of will to conquer the giant. Senka left his doubts behind and I saw how his eyes filled with courage.

‘Tariq!’ he yelled at me as we approached the root of the mountain, ‘I feel myself more alive than ever! I couldn’t imagine that our meeting back then on a cattle field would change my life so roughly!’

I only smiled at him, as I was only pretending to be confident and focused, on the inside my heart was shaking. Pretending to be cool, I have weakened Senka’s doubts, but my own fears never left. Giving the fact how excited he is, my plan to raise Senka’s morale worked, but who will raise my morale? Then after hour of running we finally approached the Mountain and we had to decide which way to go.

‘Tariq, do you have any idea where we need to start our search?’

‘Yeah, kind of. Look at the path that is going around the edge of the mountain.’

‘So, what?’

‘Senka! Have you forgot everything that Nimrod thought us? We were hunting deer by their traces and what we are doing right now is similar but only with people.’

‘Yeah… but how can that help us? I can see some footprints and trails, but they are pointing both ways…’

‘Damn it! This make everything much harder…’ I felt a slight hint of fear in Senka’s eyes and understood that we had same thoughts on our minds – we had to split up to make the search faster.

Our parents woke up very early every day to milk cows and feed catttle, so we had to find Hina‘s hideout before the sun is up, so we could run away from the pursuit that the villagers would set up after they find out that we went missing.

I was first to propose it

‘Senka, we have to split up. Whenever someone finds Hina’s hideout, he starts to whistle as loud as he possibly can, just like Nimrod taught us’

‘But what if no one finds it?’

‘We. Will. Find It!’ My angry voice suddenly changed Senka’s attitude. He did not answer me, just nodded, turned around and started running down the left side of the Cold Peak. There were still no signs of dawn, so we had some time to search for the cave, where Hina and her parents lived.

Searching the root of the mountain on my own turned out to be a lot more frightening than I thought it would be. I was left alone with the voice in my head that kept saying things like

‘You will never find this cave… and even if you find it what do you expect to find there? You know that they left this place months ago… and how could you tell which cave was their hide out? What if Senka won’t hear your whistle? What if Mountain Witches get you even before finding that damn cave? What if witches get Senka instead? What if your parents find out what you were doing here and find both of you in fields near the Cold Peak? What will everyone say in the village when they find out that children of cattle farmers tried to escape the Cold Valley pretending to be adventurers?’

The last thought stroke me so hard, that I had to stop and get my breath back from running. When I raised my head again, a murky cave emerged in front of my eyes. On the outside, there were no signs that someone lived in that cave before. Going in was the only way to find out if this had been somebody’s hideout.

I figured that leaving twigs in front of the cave in the shape of arrow will help Senka find me if he comes this way. I pulled out my pocket knife and had it ready if someone jumps right in front of me.

‘I hope I won’t miss Senka’s whistle inside if he finds Hina’s hideout…’ Was my last thoughts before stepping into the mysterious cave.