by Shelley Cass
“No … I would take care of myself … if anything should happen I can simply leave the group. I w-would not stay if I was slowing you down,” he begged, looking haggard.
“Is there nothing we can say or do to make you stay in the City?” Thale asked, knowing the Forest dwellers wouldn’t hold him.
Agrudek appeared unsure of himself, but shakily nodded. “I would follow.”
We were all quiet for a moment, until Noal spoke.
“It is worthy of you to step up,” Noal said quietly. “And we cannot stop you.”
The soldiers stayed quiet, following Noal’s decision despite their darkened expressions and reservations.
I contained my own contempt for Agrudek with a great effort, forcing the anger in my voice down until I could clearly convey my own reply to the scientist.
I leaned forward and he couldn’t help but draw his eyes to me as he felt my stare.
“I respect Noal’s choice,” I enunciated every word distinctly. “But should you ever hurt one dear to me again, you will not be human in my eyes. You will be exactly the beast that Darziates sought to have. And you will be treated as such.”
He squirmed where he stood, licking his lips. But he nodded, and after darting a look at the hostile faces around him, he fled back into the darkness.
Chapter Forty Eight
Dalin
The morning dew was still wet upon the grass and the City had a sombre feel as we climbed our way out along the slope for the last time.
The Krall men were not boisterous now, but had their armour in bundles tied onto their packs, and they had their sabres buckled back in place.
Agrudek kept out of the way of the hulking soldiers – his small legs stepping quickly as he bent under a satchel on his back. His own bags were as heavy as everyone’s, filled with supplies that would not spoil in the damp mountain air.
Ten Elves had come to escort the twenty of us – all Elves who had helped us many times before. And they each offered their hands to two of us at the top of the slope. Then Frey called for the Elves to follow, and he burst into a sprint, burning away the distance so that the City disappeared quickly behind us.
I forced myself to look ahead, and if I focused through our blurring motion, I could make out even the fine hairs on each slender, green blade of grass that rushed past, and it felt as if I was barely touching the ground itself as I moved my legs.
When we stopped at night and the Elves released our hands we all felt an odd mixture of serenity and bone deep weariness after an entire day of enhanced movement. We collapsed around a fire that the Elf Alvar made and ate what Vidar put in front of us.
I dimly heard Frey conversing with Kiana as I stretched out to sleep, and he asked which path through the mountains she planned to take.
“The Midroone Pass?” he repeated her answer. “It is known to be hazardous.”
“In colder months,” Kiana admitted. “But the Lady will have ensured it is still warmer outside.”
“Even in summer the mountains are perilously cold and wet. But you are likely right to take that road,” Frey replied. “It will not be snowed under for much of the way, and the scarcity of growth and shelter on that path deters the Griffins from haunting it.”
“It means that we will have to head in a more westerly direction tomorrow,” said Kiana.
“And that circles us further away from Cursed Valley,” Vidar noted in appreciation.
“Running with Elves is amazing,” Thorin yawned then, sprawling out dreamily near me.
“I certainly wouldn’t mind feeling like that every day,” Tane agreed.
“I’d get a headache if I had that many thoughts and details to register every day,” Thale closed his eyes.
I was starting to fall asleep as I heard Kiana speak again. She was as untouched by the day of running as the Elves were.
“I’m going to see if I can fly and keep up with you tomorrow,” she was saying. “It’ll show me how fast I can travel, and it’ll be good training with quick twists and turns.”
I hadn’t registered passing into sleep, but it seemed barely moments before a deep voice, very different from Kiana’s, woke me.
“Raiden.”
I stirred and blinked up at Quidel’s face hovering in the dark, noticing that his bone white hair stood out against the early morning sky.
He clapped me gently on the shoulder as I nodded and sat up, then he moved on to Noal as the men around us stirred into wakefulness too.
“I heard you say you were going to be flying today,” I commented as Kiana appeared at my shoulder to press an apple into my hands.
“I may tire of keeping up by myself eventually,” she reflected, biting into her own fruit. “Right now flying seems comparable to running, where the wings take energy from the rest of my body just as my legs do. I need to learn to take energy from Nature.”
“All set?” Phrixus asked, scratching his stubbled cheek. “Frey said the Elves are ready when we are.”
“We’re ready,” I said, and took some quick bites to finish the apple before shouldering the weight of my pack once more.
I crossed to Frey, and soon we were all hurtling through the Forest again – but this time with Kiana soaring with ease along beside us at our incredible pace. And I was transfixed as I watched her gracefully glide through the air, spinning easily around every tree and over every hollow log as if she’d been flying for all of her life.
Chapter Forty Nine
Noal
“Oh Gods …” I heard Lydon gasp as we slowed to a halt just inside the last trees at the end of the Forest.
My own eyes were wide as I beheld the dark Jenran mountains, soaring upwards before us like mighty houses of the Gods themselves.
I’d never imagined that Nature could create such massive landforms, and I found myself tilting backwards as my eyes travelled up the stark incline, which started just beyond the trees and ended at last with snow capped peaks.
“No wonder they don’t make contact with the outside world,” Dalin commented, squinting up at the rocky slopes in front of us.
“It’s definitely not as welcoming as Sylthanryn,” Thale said finally, tearing his eyes from the intimidating forms.
“We have to cross those?” Ferron asked incredulously as he blurred to a stop with Vidar and Aiolos. “That’ll take years!”
“We’ll manage,” Kiana remarked, letting her wings disappear.
“Do any of you want to help us to cross those big nasty mountains?” I asked the Elves with chagrin.
“We wouldn’t want to reveal our willingness or ability to aid your Quest yet,” Vidar answered regretfully, and I could see the worry in his eyes as he regarded the brutal, miserable climb ahead of us.
“For now, this is where we must part,” Frey said with a heavy tone. “But we will see each other again.”
“And we can only thank you with our love and friendship in return.” Kiana told the forlorn Elves. “We will miss each of you on this journey.”
“Be well, and I hope we shall meet again,” Thale said huskily to the Elves.
“Be well, and I hope we shall meet again,” Frey told us all.
And I felt a wave of sadness as they hesitantly turned from us, backing further into the trees, until they had disappeared back into the dense Forest.
Silence descended over our glum group as we lost sight of them. But Kiana stepped forward resolutely.
“We can’t remain,” she told us. “We have to be careful and move on swiftly.”
“It is time we set out,” Dalin agreed with growing resolve, and we all turned towards the two of them. “It’s best we head into the mountains while daylight is still on our side.”
“We don’t want to be without shelter when night comes,” Kiana affirmed. “I’ll be leading us through the Midroone Pass, which is a lonely, treacherous passage even in the light.”
“Great,” I shivered.
Despite the sun shining gloriously above, I felt the chi
ll flowing down from the high, snow peaked caps.
“I just can’t wait,” Tane informed Kiana cheerfully as he adjusted the weight of his pack. “You make the climb sound so appealing.”
“It’s even worse in real life,” she said over her shoulder as we followed. “But after I attempted multiple entries when I journeyed here, I discovered it’s the shortest, least Griffin infested path. And we do need to get to Jenra before the tenth age begins.”
“Griffins,” I heard Agrudek almost squeak to himself in apprehension.
“Murderous, winged beasts that haunt Jenra,” Kiana explained.
“Oh joy,” I groaned at my first step onto the slope of the mountains.
And as our hike progressed my calves began to burn while countless loose pebbles slipped under my shoes. I heard some of the men already panting and cursing as they skidded on the wet rocks and slid back down the distance they’d just toiled up.
“Step carefully,” Kiana cautioned as we followed her in a begrudging line. “We can’t afford to be slowed down by one sprained ankle.”
So we all pushed to keep up, placing our feet warily without ever seeming to get closer to even the knees of the base of the mountain.
Finally, in the late afternoon as the shadow of the second mountain began stretching grimly across the mountain we were gradually climbing, we neared the place where the two looming formations joined.
“The Pass is close if I remember correctly,” Kiana said, stepping lightly around a series of boulders and peering at the rocky walls between the two joined mountains.
“We aren’t going through there are we?” Cadell asked, eyeing the dark, narrow gap.
Kiana pulled herself up onto a ledge, frowning through the shadows beyond where she perched. “I can’t see if that’s the path there or not,” she said. “Wait here a moment.”
She expertly slid down the rocks and disappeared behind them, and we heard a light echoing thud as her feet landed on the crumbly, rocky ground on the other side.
Moments later she scaled back up and beamed at us. “We’ve found the beginning of the trail. You’ll have to drag yourselves over. There’s a bit of a slide down to the bottom.”
Dalin was first to grimly move forward to tackle the boulder Kiana had climbed. He manoeuvred his way up until Kiana was within reach, helping him to haul himself over to sit on top of the rock with her.
“Come on,” he beckoned before wiping his brow. “One at a time.”
Thorin went next and Kiana and Dalin helped him before sliding down to the other side, and we each followed the same process of helping the next man.
I waited until last, with only Agrudek left to go up before me, and he thanked me timidly as I helped to boost him upward to Vulcan’s waiting hands, while I tried not to think about the early death that this man had nearly granted me.
Then it was my turn, and I was sliding down the other side of the boulder into the dark to land amongst the rest of the men.
Dalin and Thorin held out their hands and both caught one of my arms each as my feet came upon slippery stones. And abruptly I found myself cut off from outside warmth, surrounded by a dim, roofless cavern.
Impossibly high walls of hard grey rock hemmed us in and the trail ahead ran off into a series of twists and turns so I couldn’t see very far along it.
“Well, this is nice,” Tane commented.
“Who votes on going back into the Forest?” Purdor asked dryly.
But Kiana was already moving forward again and we obediently trailed behind her, walking in single file between the high, looming walls.
“It won’t always be this narrow,” Kiana called softly back to us. “Or this easy to follow the path. Sometimes the trail is wide from storms, snow or floods. Sometimes the whole path has broken away beneath falling boulders.”
“Welcome to Midroone Pass,” Phobos muttered bleakly ahead of me.
“Where boulders can obliterate both you and the solid rock path you stand on,” Ferron added behind me.
“I’d planned on us singing some cheerful marching songs,” I heard Tane remark in disappointment. “But the echo might loosen things up top. What a shame.”
“A tragedy,” Wolf’s voice carried back in a wry tone.
“It’ll get harder than missing out on choirs and symphonies,” Kiana warned. “In fact,” she said, peering the long distance up to where a slit of the sky still showed above us. “We’ll be stopping soon, before the light is even near failing.”
“It’s long before sunset,” Vulcan protested from down the line. “We normally use every moment of light to cover distance.”
“We will need time to ensure we find shelter every night,” Kiana explained. “As we climb into higher altitudes the temperature will drop, and when dark comes it will be near freezing out in the open. We can’t risk being unable to find refuge. I did that once in one of the other passes, and it wasn’t pretty.”
The echoing, crunching sound of our feet was all the response that she was given as an increasingly morose mood fell over our group.
“Tonight and tomorrow it won’t be so bad,” she said in an effort to be reassuring. “We’ll cope with just setting up camp against the walls. After that we’ll need to burrow down.”
Then, just as she’d said, we stopped barely an hour later and began to roll out our cloaks. And even though the sun was only just setting, the light faded fast as it was blocked by the rocky walls – and as the light fled, so did any remains of the day’s warmth.
We shuffled closer together as we chewed unenthusiastically on our dinner, each of us staring about ourselves as night crept through the tunnel-like road. And eventually the darkness was so deep that it seemed as if we sat on a precipice surrounded by nothing.
Adding to the eeriness of the Pass, the wind picked up to whistle and moan through the rocks, echoing mournfully up and down as if someone was crying out. Warning us that we should have stayed in Sylthanryn.
Chapter Fifty
Dalin
In a matter of days it felt as if we’d been surrounded in unchanging rock, falling streams of pebbles, and whining wind for all of our lives.
The monotonous hours felt endless, and our calf muscles strained at the hard and dreary work of following the jagged turns of the winding upward slope. Every time we rounded another bend we found a new length of path identical to what we’d just left.
We had been fortunate each night as, just as we all felt too depleted to continue, and just as we began to worry that we would freeze in the unbearable dark, Kiana would lead us into a shallow nook in the rock wall that she’d sheltered in on her own journeys.
We would rise just as exhausted as we’d been the night before, and each night grew colder than the last as we climbed higher, where the air made our clothes feel constantly damp.
We shivered in the gloom at night, with no comfort against the bitter chill. But then, despite the freezing cold, we grew so hot from climbing during the day that steam seemed to swirl about our bodies.
I was also beginning to feel starved of colour. There were no patches of green and no flowers to break up the sight of grey rock, until finally the narrow path widened and one of the walls declined in a dip so that we could see the sky and the world again.
The sight invigorated us, and the path had opened far enough for us to walk as a group instead of in a line.
But as the days passed, the relief of seeing the sky was almost forgotten as we climbed to such heights that all we could see was mist that swirled through the gaps in the rocks, as if souls from the Other Realm were reaching out with beckoning fingers to claim us.
Worse, we discovered that the twisting and winding road had in many places been blocked by fallen boulders, and time had to be spent climbing over them. Then sometimes deep, bottomless ravines would suddenly open on one side of us as the path fell away altogether, and we had to inch our way over the remaining ledges as they crumbled and groaned beneath our feet.
At one p
oint the quieter soldier named Rendor nearly slipped into the deadly drop and only a lightning fast grab from Ferron saved him from the fall. Then later, while I glumly filled my flask from a trickling trail down the rock face, I felt Thorin roughly push me aside. When I lurched sideways a fist sized rock missed my head to crunch upon his knuckles instead, immediately leaving a flourishing purple bruise.
“Even,” Thorin winced, shaking his already swollen fingers and referring to when I’d saved him from falling from the Forest ledge.
But as we trudged wearily onward it began to feel that memories of the Forest could not truly be real. Surely the entire world was unchanging rock and life was just a series of shuffling feet, cold fingers and noses, white clouds of breath, and saturated faces.
We were hardly surprised one night when Kiana grimly warned that the path ahead would become even more hazardous, and that shelter could become even increasingly rare. After all, there was nothing we could do about it.
Chapter Fifty One
Dalin
“Does she always have to be right?” Wolf groaned as he saw another pile of boulders beyond the pile he’d just climbed. “Frarshk it all to the Other Realm,” he gasped, his hands on his knees, his dark hair scraggly and clinging to his face from condensation.
“How many more obstacles are ahead?” Thorin called, yet to join Wolf at the top of the current climb.
“I could count them for you. But we don’t really have the time,” Wolf replied.
“That many?” Thorin winced.
Then when we’d conquered those countless piles, it felt like only moments of being back on our single file trek along the narrow path before Kiana was stopping us again.
“What is it?” Thale called from the back of the line.
But I was close enough to see that before Kiana’s feet there yawned a massive break in the stone floor where the entire path now dropped down into nothingness, and it was too far to even leap across to the other side.
I heard Vulcan and Phrixus’ echoed curses as word of the problem spread, because we all knew that edging our way all the way back from where we’d come was not an option.