by Duncan Pile
He stood up and stretched, pleased to find he felt rested and strong. “Thanks Emmy” he said and opened his arms. She did a strange little skip and practically threw herself into them. She squeezed him tight, pressing her cheek against his.
She drew back and looked him in the eye. “I’m so sorry Gasp,” she said. “We should have made up ages ago.”
“It’s fine,” he protested.
“It isn’t!” she insisted. “I just couldn’t get over the fact that you lied to me. Everything seemed different. You seemed different. But you came to rescue me, and then when you got injured my heart nearly gave out! I was so afraid for you.”
“If it helps, I promise you I will never lie to you again,” Gaspi said, smiling. He couldn’t get the grin off his face. It was such a relief to have Emmy back to normal again. He felt happy and whole in a way he hadn’t since she arrived at the hermit’s shack. She placed her hands on his cheeks, lifted herself up on tiptoes and kissed him, her lips pressed hard against his own. Gaspi kissed her back, his arms slipping around her waist and drawing her tight against him. He didn’t think anything had ever felt so good. They drew back from each other and he took her hand.
“Let’s join the others,” he said. Emmy murmured in agreement, and the two of them walked over towards Taurnil and Lydia. Taurnil flashed him a grin when he saw them coming, and Lydia sprang to her feet. Emmy slipped from Gaspi’s side and ran to hug her friend. Gaspi sauntered over and sank down next to Taurn, who clapped him on the back.
“Nice one mate,” he said.
“Thanks,” Gaspi responded, his cheeks starting to ache from grinning. He had almost lost his life in Ironhall, and the Darkman was closing on them moment by moment, but right then, nothing could wipe the smile from his face.
…
They ate well that night, supping on one of Heath’s tasty broths and sharing their stories of the invasion of Ironhall. Zaric said it was probably the last chance they’d get for a hot meal before the territory became too dangerous to light a fire, so they made the most of it, enjoying the comfort of soft grass and hot food as if they’d never be able to do so again. After the meal, Zlekic and Zaric started to weave together twigs and strips of bark to make the harnesses for Loreill and Lilly. They’d grown particularly fond of the elementals, and insisted on being the ones to do it.
Gaspi and Emmy sat curled up together, as did Taurnil and Lydia, and Rimulth sat between the two couples, comfortable in the company of his friends. The tribesman was very much the hero of the hour, his failure to stay awake during his watch entirely forgiven and forgotten. Everyone wanted to hear about the whirlwind he’d summoned, and how he’d rescued Gaspi and the girls. As Gaspi had suspected, the air spirit had gone berserk the moment he’d been wounded, urging Rimulth to save him. The tribesman had summoned up a whirlwind and flown in across the town, ripping the Foreman’s house right out of the ground. As he spoke, his eyes were lit with fervour, savouring the memory of elemental power. As he spoke, the air spirit returned from the clouds above and rested on his shoulder, its storm grey eyes fierce and its bearing proud.
Listening to his friend talk, Gaspi had no doubt the air spirit had chosen the right bond-mate. Rimulth was already a master of his element! Glancing at Lydia, he noticed she was watching the air spirit with a pained expression – envy perhaps, or maybe something sadder. It must be hard for her to be exposed to the intimacy of the bond. As always, the fire spirit lingered near her, its chitinous form reflecting the firelight. Its eyes never left her, even though she studiously ignored it. Gaspi looked around the circle, studying the faces of his friends, and realised that there was another unhappy person in the group. Heath sat only feet from Sabu on one side and Talmo on the other, but to Gaspi he looked a thousand miles away. Although he wore a carefully composed mask of attentiveness, Gaspi could tell the druid was suffering. He resolved to speak with him as soon as he could, but given the closeness of their chosen campsite, it would probably have to wait until they were on the trail.
Gaspi leaned into Emmy and slid his hand into hers, squeezing tightly. She squeezed back, the pressure of her fingers speaking more eloquently of her feelings than any number of words. There was nothing he could do for either Heath or Lydia in that moment, so he let his worries go. With the scent of Emmy’s hair in his nostrils, he allowed himself to be infused by happiness. His right hand tingled as contentment stole over him, and with a full heart, he soaked up the grace of the night, blessed by a thousand stars.
Twenty-three
The next day, they were awoken by an icy blast from the north, whipping around their camp and robbing them of the last hour of sleep. They got up as quickly as possible, wrapping their cloaks tightly around their shoulders and huddling together as they broke their fast.
“Let’s get going,” Voltan said as soon as they were finished. Pots and pans were scrubbed in the pool, packs were stuffed and tied to their backs, and within a few short minutes they were ready to go. Loreill and Lilly were placed in their new harnesses and strapped to Zlekic’s and Zaric’s backs, their heads protruding from the top and peering over the twins’ shoulders. The companionable mood of the previous evening was scoured away by the wind, though for Gaspi nothing could erase the happiness he felt at being reunited with Emmy.
They set off on the trail, which rose steeply, a narrow pass cutting between the first true peaks of the Broken Ranges. At points they passed between sheer cliffs, looming above them on both sides of the trail and blocking out much of the light. The wind whistled down those rocky stretches of the pass, snatching at their cloaks and howling in their ears, leaving no room for speech and isolating each person in a wearying bubble of their own. They walked bent at the waist, leaning headlong into the wind and making exhausting headway one foot after another. In the end, Rimulth called a halt and released the air elemental, which flashed into spirit form and went out in front of them, diverting the powerful winds over their heads. They could still hear it whistling and shrieking, but it wouldn’t numb or slow them anymore.
“Rimulth!” Talmo said, gripping the younger tribesman by the shoulder. “Voltan doesn’t want us to use magic.”
“Don’t worry Talmo,” Voltan said. “I can’t sense elemental magic except by its effects. It’s as if it’s not magic at all, but something else altogether. Anyway, if I can’t sense it, then neither can an ogre shaman.”
“As you say,” Talmo responded, letting go of Rimulth’s shoulder.
They made much better time after that. It was a steep climb, but they carried on determinedly, trudging endlessly after the air spirit, which tumbled and played in the wind before them, exulting in the turbulent conditions.
Gaspi found himself pondering the strangeness of elementals as he put one foot in front of the other. He felt so connected to Loreill, but even though the spirit’s presence was familiar, there was an otherness there that Gaspi couldn’t touch. Normally he didn’t think about it, but the air spirit was so chill and fierce and brought it back to mind. The way it took obvious joy from adverse conditions reminded him forcibly that the spirits were not like humans at all. Loreill and Lilly felt safer to him because their energies were focussed on healing, but in reality they were just one side of the elemental coin, and the other, more destructive side was shown in the air spirit, and even more dramatically in the fire spirit.
Not only that, but the spirits had their own agenda, hidden from everyone else’s eyes – even Heath’s. As a druid, Heath lived in service to the spirits but even druids didn’t understand the mysterious minds of elementals. He watched the fire spirit tagging along behind Lydia. It was nothing if not persistent! Lydia ignored it so diligently it should perhaps have been disheartened, but it never flagged in its interest. With the exception of the time they spent in Ironhall, you could guarantee that wherever Lydia went, the dragon followed. Gaspi was baffled by its insistence and unsure of its purpose. Did it want to bond with Lydia as the first spirit had? If it did, it was probably v
ital to their quest that she let it happen. The spirits didn’t do anything by chance, and if the fire spirit wanted to bond with Lydia, there was a good reason for it. Having said that, he understood Lydia had been devastated by the loss of the first fire spirit. Having the bond severed had done her great harm, and he didn’t fancy the fire spirit’s chances of winning her over.
“Why are you frowning?” Emmy asked, peering at his furrowed brow.
“I’m just thinking about something. I’ll tell you later,” he said.
She tugged playfully on his elbow. “Don’t think too hard okay? You’ll burn a hole in your forehead!” Gaspi laughed, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling that Lydia’s refusal to bond with the fire spirit was becoming a problem.
…
They climbed on throughout the day, stopping to eat and occasionally to rest. Gaspi kept hoping he’d get the chance to speak with Heath, but the opportunity never presented itself in such confined quarters. They became increasingly tired as the afternoon wore on and, as evening drew near, the trail started switching back and forth, weaving between broken spars of rock. Increasingly, they had to clamber over recent rock-falls, fractured piles of stone cracked from the very substance of the mountain by the cold and the wind. As they were climbing over one such pile, a rush of smaller stones rattling against the walls of the pass above warned them of an imminent rock-fall. Voltan, Emmy and Gaspi threw up shields simultaneously, and the cascade of rocks bounced off the invisible barriers over their heads and piled up on the trail around them. Smaller rocks continued to rattle off the shields until the rain of pebbles dried up completely.
Everyone had thrown their arms over their heads, hunching instinctively and freezing in place. It was a funny sight, and Gaspi would have laughed if not for Rimulth, who looked genuinely terrified. The tribesman was huddled against the ground, his face a mask of raw fear.
Gaspi dropped his shield. “Rimulth!” he said, stepping over to him and holding out his hand to help him up. Rimulth looked at him blankly, as if not even seeing him, but then recognition blossomed in his eyes and his expression relaxed. He didn’t take Gaspi’s hand, but stood up on his own, fidgeting needlessly with his cloak. “Are you alright mate?” Gaspi asked.
“I’m fine,” Rimulth answered, flushing red in the face and refusing to meet his eye. It was clear the tribesman was embarrassed, so Gaspi clapped him on the back and walked away, wondering what had spooked him so badly.
Voltan still held his shield over the group. “I don’t like it, but as long as we’re in danger from rock falls, we’re going to have to sustain a shield,” the warrior mage said. “We’ll do it in shifts.”
“I’ll do it,” Gaspi said. “It’s easier for me. I’ll just draw power from the winds – no effort whatsoever.”
Voltan nodded. “I’ll leave that to you then,” he said.
Gaspi summoned a shield and stretched it over them. He establishing a draw from the potent winds blustering in the skies above and tied it off so the spell would be sustain itself. “We need to stop for the night,” Voltan said. “True dark is only an hour away.”
“Where can we stop?” Baard asked, looking up and down the trail expectantly, as if expecting to see a cozy little spot like the one they’d stayed in the previous evening.
“Right here,” Voltan said, gesturing to the exposed stone of the pathway.
“Yer kiddin’!” Baard said. “That’s cold, ’ard ground!”
“This is as good as it gets I’m afraid,” Voltan said with a grim smile.
Baard muttered to himself as they got ready to sleep, and though no-one else said anything, he clearly wasn’t the only one unhappy with the situation. The air spirit shielded them from the wind and Gaspi’s shield kept them safe from falling rocks, but the stony ground was hard and cold, and there was nothing they could do about that at all. Gaspi considered using his powers to make the campsite more comfortable, but there wasn’t even any moss to grow into beds. He thought for the briefest moment about summoning all the birds in the vicinity to donate a few feathers each, but the scale of that summoning would be vast up here in the mountains, and besides, Heath would go spare at the selfish use of forceful magic. Why should a thousand birds miss a few feathers each just so they could be comfortable? The druid was already perturbed by sleeping under Gaspi’s summoned shield as it was. He kept glancing up, his face a stern mask.
The group slept poorly that night, the hard, cold ground beneath and the persistent shrieking wind above making it impossible to get any kind of real rest. The air spirit protected them from the wind itself, but the air was cold enough to set them all to shivering, however tightly they drew their cloaks around them. The only exception was Emmy, whose enchanted cloak kept her at an even temperature, regardless of the weather. She tried to make Gaspi take it back when she felt him shivering, but he refused, so she’d buried her face under it and had a better night than the rest of them. There was another rock-fall in the middle of the night, but although it woke them up, Gaspi’s shield protected them from any harm.
Sometime after the rock-fall, Gaspi heard a chorus of hooting sounds in the distance, a sound that made the hair on the back of his arms stand up. He sat up and listened intently for any further sound. There it was again - some pack of wild, mountain creatures were out hunting.
Zlekic was on watch and must have heard him moving. “Shhh,” he whispered. “Those are Balthars.” Gaspi didn’t know what a Balthar was and he didn’t want to find out. They both waited in silence for the sound to come again, but when it did, it was much more distant. The Balthars were moving in the other direction. “Go back to sleep,” Zlekic urged.
Gaspi lay down again and closed his eyes, but he struggled to fall asleep. He must have drifted off some time before dawn, however, because he was awoken from sleep the next morning by a crow, hopping into their camp and cawing loudly.
Rimulth sat up as if burned and grabbed his bow. His free hand found an arrow, which was nocked and drawn in a heartbeat. The crow hopped, once, twice, and cawed once more, no doubt looking for carrion, but it was the crow that became carrion. Rimulth let his arrow fly, catching it in the breast and skewering it right through.
“What are you doing?” Heath asked, horrified. Rimulth was rising unsteadily from the ground, looking around him nervously. He was still holding his bow, and had drawn another arrow. “I said what are you doing?” Heath demanded, jumping to his feet and approaching the tribesman. Heath’s green eyes flashed with anger, his large hands closing into fists.
“Heath!” Gaspi said sharply. He didn’t know what was going on, but he figured he was looking at the two most vulnerable members of the party right now. He understood some of the reasons for Heath’s discomfort, but he had no idea why the cracks were starting to show in Rimulth. “Just leave it. Rimulth didn’t mean any harm.”
“How can he not have meant harm? He shot it for no good reason!” Heath insisted, his deep green eyes glaring accusingly.
Rimulth stared at the corpse of the crow for long moments and then slowly lowered his bow, his shoulders dropping as the tension left him. He looked positively haunted. “I’m sorry Heath,” he said. “I thought it was…” Rimulth trailed off into silence, and Gaspi’s heart went out to him. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a sorrier-looking sight.
“It seems you are not yourself,” Heath said more gently, his fists uncurling. “We will let it pass.”
All the noise had woken the remaining sleeping members of the group, including Baard, who opened his eyes to find a dead crow less than a foot away from his face.
He sat up and picked it up by its legs. Its wings dangled uselessly below its swinging body. “Breakfast?”
…
They didn’t eat the crow for breakfast. Voltan insisted that eating carrion birds was a bad idea, which was why Heath had been so angry. He understood killing to eat or to protect yourself, but killing for no reason was an affront to nature. The druid buried it under a pile of roc
ks with Rimulth’s help. He murmured a brief word over the tiny cairn, and Rimulth knelt beside him, his head bowed until Heath was done. Gaspi noted with some relief that when they stood up, both of them looked happier. Heath even touched the tribesman on the shoulder as they parted, and Rimulth looked relieved to have made amends.
With the exception of Emmy, they were all exhausted from the appalling night’s sleep, but even so, they were keen to set a good pace and say goodbye to the windswept corridor of rock that had become their nemesis. They walked solidly until lunch, stopped briefly to eat a cold meal, and then carried on again.
A few hours later, the climb ended as abruptly as it had started, the walls of the pass falling away to either side as they emerged onto an exposed plateau, rocky and windswept with only a couple of tough, thorny bushes clinging stubbornly to cracks in the ground. The view was both breath-taking and forbidding at the same time. They could see for miles and miles, craggy mountains stretching away into the distance. Ice-capped peaks towered above them, massive snaking rivers of ice creeping down the slopes, from which gushed tumbling, splashing rivers that made Gaspi shiver just to look at them. Huge slabs of rock had shattered under the influence of the ice, giving the peaks the broken appearance that lent the range its name, and the scree from those slabs had slid down into dark, cold valleys that showed almost no sign of greenery. It was a staggering view – utterly inhospitable, but beautiful in its own way.
“Let’s get out of sight,” Voltan urged, leading them quickly off the plateau. They stopped a few minutes later in a sheltered gully that even had a thin covering of grass and a couple of hardy shrubs. The warrior mage gathered them round to make plans. “Let’s take a rest,” he said. “That was quite a climb.”
“Yer tellin’ me!” Baard said, slumping to the ground.
“It won’t be getting any easier from here either,” Zaric said.