Check out the cave

Your gaze swings back to the cave, contemplating the path up to it in the fading light. It represents the best shot you have at secluded shelter for the night, provided it doesn't lead straight to Hildaran's forces. And if it does, well, that makes your life easier, right?

The path can only be classified as treacherous. You'll have to negotiate a rough-looking boulder field, capped by a rockslide, then free-climb a wall that looks about 20' high to get to the ledge at the front of the cave. While the trek will be far from easy, it does make this cave less likely to be a high-traffic area, either for an army or for any creatures in the area. A cold breeze blows through, and, while your cloak handles it rather well, it does tell you the night will be far colder. You're going to need the shelter.

With one last glance at the setting sun, you step off the road and begin walking toward the cave. At first, the going is pretty easy, just rough stone underfoot, with the odd house-sized boulder in the way. It takes you all of ten minutes to hit the base of the boulder field, and that's where things get worse. It turns out the boulder field is actually part of the rockslide, and recent at that. The elements haven't had time to wear down the stone much, and the massive boulders are interspersed with an ever-increasing amount of smaller, shaky-looking stones between them.

Groaning inwardly, you begin to traverse the field. The stone here is much rougher than what you've experienced so far, with sharp, jagged edges everywhere. It takes you all of a few minutes to snag your cloak on several different boulders, tearing it in a few places, before you finally just pull it off and stuff it back into your pack. The cold breeze immediately makes its' presence felt, biting into the exposed skin of your upper arms and torso, and you resolutely continue to pick your way towards the cave.

Without the cloak snagging on everything, you find yourself making better time. The stone, while sharp, doesn't so much as scratch your corset or pants. However, you can feel every sharp edge beneath your feet, pressing deep into the leather, but you don't let the discomfort slow you. You do, however, feel every time they catch on an edge, and feel the draft on the outside of your right foot from a tear in the leather. You continue to climb towards the cave mouth, working your way carefully over, around, and sometimes between, boulders. One of those squeezes between boulders almost proves disastrous. In the dim twilight, you find yourself presented with a narrow gap between two large boulders, leading up between them. The gap is barely wide enough for you to squeeze sideways into, your pack and the cups of your corset scraping against rough stone. The best foothold is on the edge of a smaller boulder, wedged between the big ones, and you stretch your left leg towards it, managing to plant the ball of your foot on the lip of the stone.

Grabbing onto two likely handholds, you push upwards with your left leg, and immediately begin to feel your foot slide away from you. Before you can stop yourself, your foot slides, a faint tearing sound accompanying the press of cold, sharp stone against the bare skin of your foot as it stops sliding. Your torso tips precariously the other way, rough stone scratching at your pack, your right corset cup shifting sideways, slamming your bare nipple into cold stone, before you stop sliding.

Regaining your balance, you use your arms to haul yourself upright and through the cleft, ignoring the pain of the edge beneath your foot digging into your sole, and the stone grazing against your breast, and you clamber free of the cleft a moment later. An extremely brief check of yourself shows, aside from some scrapes on your shoulders, you're unhurt. Your gear can wait until you're in the cave.

You find yourself at the last few feet before the wall, and you hurry to it, ignoring the cold breeze against your exposed nipple, and the jab of stone through the sole of your left boot. Grabbing the first finger- and toeholds you find, you begin scrambling up the rough stone of the wall, wincing each time your right nipple brushes the rough stone. Twice, you miss a foothold, toes scrabbling disconcertingly against the wall, leather snagging on sharp protrusions, before finding purchase.

Just before you go to heave yourself over the edge of the ledge, a strange sound carries itself to you. It sounds like speech, though its' chitters and screeches you can't make out. You can't tell if its' coming from the cave or being carried on the breeze. With no option but to get into the cave, you scramble onto the ledge, then step into the mouth of the cave, as the last of the light fades from the sky. The wind thankfully stops hammering you, and you find your eyesight is better than expected. While not cats-vision, it's at least enough to make out the wall in front of you, where the cave curves into the mountain, despite the lack of light. To your left, there's a small, out-of-the-way cubby buried in the rock. It would be a little tight, but it would keep you out of sight of anything not actively looking for you.