Alain climbs. He climbs as fast as he can, hand-over-hand, his eyes turned upwards to seek out somewhere he can come to rest, somewhere he can pull Roland up after him. Still, his progress seems frustratingly slow. He's strong and fit, but the tender new skin on his hands is already starting to blister, and he has a lot of weight to pull up on a rope he doesn't wholly trust. Besides, that same cold fear has come over him as Roland, and while it lends him strength, it also slows time to a crawl, makes the air thick as tar.

I won't let him die, he thinks fiercely, gritting his teeth and forcing himself to climb faster. I failed them once. Not again. And then, blessedly, he has hold of a solid branch, and he's scrambling up onto it, his leg an explosion of pain held back only by will. Only now does he look down, at Roland and the wolf, and is horrified to see how close it is. "Hold on," he mutters, as much to himself as to Roland, and straddles the branch, winding the rope around his arm and starting to pull.

If the wolf attacks now, can he get to his knife, send it down to land in the beast's neck or skull? Maybe. But not without dropping Roland, and that is something he can't do. He's helpless and God, how he hates it. All he can do is perch there, precariously tilting under Roland's weight, and pull.