He yanked his hand away from her mouth and popped up to his feet. She repeated herself and he resisted the urge to laugh at the sentiment. He wasn't entirely used to such openness. Instead he held out his hand to help her up.
"Well what did you have planned? It's cold enough to kill a bear out here. I swear there are dragons up there cursing us with this snow."
Through bushy limbs of the tall, thin pines around them one could see the great jagged crests of the Hornematt, Faustben's highest peak. It swirled with the grey threat of fog and snow, a menace of bare craggy rock and ice. The list of people who had been to the summit was not even one-third as long as the list of those who had died trying.