by Eric Vall
“That’s what it wants you to think,” I muttered as I crossed my arms. “Alright, let’s go--”
Before the final word left my mouth, the pyrewyrm crouched hard and pushed off to launch itself into the air. The wind ripped my sentence away from me, and the air whistled in my ears as we rose with dizzying speed.
My pyrewyrm released a quiet shriek of glee, though it was careful not to scream loud enough to hurt Erin’s ears. My monster sure did have some compunctions when it was convenient for it.
“This is amazing!” Erin yelled as she stretched one arm out to feel the air rush past us.
“Sure is,” I had to agree, even though I chastised my monster through our bond.
It ignored me and continued to shoot through the sky with incredible speed and power.
“Do you see our team?” Erin asked as she scanned the mountain below us.
Parts of the peak were obscured by clouds, and I narrowed my eyes to try to see past the fog and mist below us. The mountain looked incredible from this height, and the trees were no more than tiny dots on the white snow below, so I wasn’t sure if I’d even be able to spot our team at all.
Through our bond, I asked my pyrewyrm if it saw anyone, and it growled back a response in the negative.
“Seems like they’re not here,” I yelled over the wind. “Unless they went all the way to the peak, or something? Those clouds are so difficult to see past.”
“Let’s check further back on the trail,” Erin suggested. “Maybe they doubled back to go to town. In fact, they might be there already.”
“Good idea,” I agreed as I ordered my pyrewyrm to do as Erin suggested.
We swooped in a tight circle, and my monster dipped slightly lower as it turned to fly the other direction. It was warmer today than yesterday, but we still both shivered as the chill wind hit us with no protection.
“There!” Erin cried as she pointed to the ground below us.
My pyrewyrm followed my command to fly even lower, and the three colorful pinpricks in the snow below began to resolve into three distinct figures. If we were right, those people were Ashla, Nia, and Varleth, and I was pretty sure we were right.
“They’re looking for us,” I realized as I watched them skirt the base of the mountain. “Let’s go down!”
My pyrewyrm plunged toward the ground as it let out a warble of obvious excitement, and the three figures on the ground looked up as we dove near.
Three alarmed faces stared back at us, and I could clearly make out the distinct features of Nia, Ashla, and Varleth as we rushed past them. My pyrewyrm’s shadowy wings kicked up a light dusting of snow, and my friends shielded their faces as we came in for a landing.
My monster skidded to an ungainly stop in the deep snow, and it recovered its balance as I waved at our three teammates.
“Gryff, Erin!” Nia cried as she ran over to us through the deep snow.
I slid off my pyrewyrm’s back before I turned and helped Erin down as well. The mimic stumbled as she slid to the ground, and I smiled as I held her shoulders while she readjusted to the ground.
“I need to get a flying monster,” she gushed. “I thought your pyrewyrm was cool when I rode with you in battle against those sprucebores, but this is even better. Flight without having to press a single button! Ah, I love it.”
“Looks like Erin’s okay,” Nia commented as she grinned at the flushed girl by my side. “How about you, Gryff?”
Her blue eyes bored into mine as she examined me with an intense stare. She frowned as she looked over the fraying rips in my coat and pants, and she lifted a hand to brush some loose snow out of my hair. I must have collected it when my pyrewyrm took off and landed.
“We both lost our hats,” I said ruefully as Nia cleaned me up, “but we’re fine. Erin’s travel pack is gone, too, but that’s the worst of our damage.”
“Tell her!” Erin squeaked out as she grinned at us. “Tell her what we found.”
“Erin managed to do the impossible,” I announced as Ashla and Varleth arrived at our sides. “She found another permanent rift location by complete accident.”
“You’re joking,” Varleth said as his eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You literally fell into a rift location?”
“Well, Erin tunneled through it with her overkill firepower,” I explained dramatically. “She nearly burned a hole through the earth.”
“I did not,” Erin protested. “I merely had to melt us out of our ice hut.”
“Ice hut?” Varleth asked with an incredulous quirk of his eyebrows. “What on earth did you two get up to while we were gone?”
“We thought we’d have to haul your half-frozen asses out of the valley by hand,” Ashla explained. “Nia saw Gryff use his bullet bass, so we figured you’d lived, but we couldn’t make it to you during the blizzard.”
“We couldn’t make it anywhere during the blizzard,” Nia corrected. “I used my earth magic to construct a shelter, and I heated it with a campfire made from some nearby dead trees.”
“She did most of the hard work,” Varleth admitted. “I just collected firewood.”
“Anyway, we couldn’t so much as move until the blizzard stopped this morning,” Nia continued with a concerned frown. “By the time we could come looking for you, it seemed less and less likely you were alright.”
“We were pretty worried,” Ashla added. “It was going to be hours more before we reached the base of the avalanche, and Varleth was sure you guys were toast.”
“I expected you two would find a way to survive,” Nia told us. “I didn’t think your conditions would be good, though.”
“We’re totally fine,” Erin assured her with a warm smile. “Just a lot of snow packing and melting it into ice. Oh, what happened to the bear?”
“I can’t believe you’re concerned about the bear,” Varleth groaned. “Of all the things to worry about, you pick the one that nearly killed us.”
“The bear was gone when we left our shelter,” Ashla clarified. “I’m sure she and the cub are fine.”
“It was the mountain that nearly killed us,” Erin pointed out. “Not the bear’s fault a bunch of snow fell down.”
“It might be our fault, though,” Nia put in quietly. “I’m so sorry for my error. If I hadn’t tried to but in with the spell, you two would never have fallen.”
“Hey,” I interrupted her guilty line of thought. “We all make mistakes sometimes. And seriously, there was no way to know your spell would trigger an avalanche. I mean, the odds are incredibly low.”
“Plus,” Erin added with a firm look of determination, “we never would’ve found the permanent rift location without it. You and Ashla helped the mission, if anything, and nobody got hurt.”
“One freak accident against us,” Varleth mused, “and one freak accident in our favor. Seems appropriate.”
“Sure does,” I agreed. “Now, let’s stop worrying about it. We’re all here, the weather is fine, and we know exactly where we need to go. How about we ferry over on my pyrewyrm and take a look?”
The group agreed with varying levels of excitement, and of course Erin’s obvious glee was the most enthusiastic.
My pyrewyrm could reliably carry three people at a time, and I had to be present so my monster would follow my orders. In the first trip, I took Varleth and Erin, and it was funny to see the contrast between their reactions to the short flight.
Erin whooped and hollered when we ascended, and Varleth clutched tightly to the nearest chitinous spike that ran down the center of my pyrewyrm’s back. I turned back to look at my flying companions, and I noticed Varleth clenched his jaw hard enough to work a vein in his temple.
It wasn’t too hard to spot the valley with the melted furrow in it, especially since I knew where it was already. From the air, I realized the valley looked much more significant than I originally realized. Cinder Mountain was taller, and it abutted the valley closely due to old rockslides that brought them together, but the valley itse
lf was fascinating. It was shaped like a perfect bowl, and there was a ridge of tall, craggy rock around its edges, almost like another mountain had tried to form but never quite succeeded. The valley looked incredibly difficult to surmount without a flying monster, but there certainly was something appealing about the perfect shape of it.
“That’s a volcano,” Varleth shouted over the wind in startled realization. “It’s not an ashen mountain because of some random forest fire, it’s ashen because it used to literally spout lava and ash!”
My pyrewyrm landed, and I deposited my friends into the powdery snow below.
“I can’t believe it,” Erin breathed. “We were camping out in some kind of dormant volcano this whole time, and we didn’t even realize it!”
“I’m not surprised we didn’t realize,” I replied with a grin. “Maker, look at the size of this damn thing! It’s the biggest volcano I’ve ever seen.”
“Forest fire,” Varleth scoffed. “There’s nothing special about a wintry mountain that gets forest fires. Now this, this is something special.”
We laughed in delight as we stared over the bowl of the volcano and reveled in our discovery.
“How long ago do you think it exploded?” Erin asked as she looked around with wide eyes.
“Must have been centuries at least,” I guessed. “Probably over a thousand years, is my estimate. Back when it was active, the underground magma must have heated the mountain and kept it habitable for monsters to come and go as they pleased.”
“So, things have changed since then,” Varleth hummed. “I wonder what that means.”
“Let me get Nia and Ashla,” I proposed, “then we can figure out what to do about this.”
“Agreed,” Erin said.
I launched my pyrewyrm with a command, and it swirled into the sky with lazy wingbeats. Now that it had no Erin to impress, it took the casual route back to Nia and Ashla.
“Very sly,” I muttered at my beast, “but I know you like showing off for that pilot. You’ve liked her ever since she flew with us in battle.”
My pyrewyrm rumbled discontentedly, and I grinned as my comment hit the mark dead-on. Monsters had such interesting quirks if you knew where to look.
Next were Ashla and Nia, and they waited patiently as I landed in the snow next to them.
“It’s a volcano,” was all I told them as I leaned sideways and helped each woman board my monster. “You have to see it to understand.”
“Uh, okay?” Ashla answered in confusion, and Nia gave me a skeptical frown.
Of course, I completely understood why it was a surprising discovery out here in the frozen landscape next to Svellfrer’s Rest.
Once we were in the air, Nia and Ashla both let out astonished gasps as they realized what I meant. Nia’s eyes traced eagerly over the formation, and I knew her quick mind was coming up with more ideas that hadn’t even occurred to me yet. Ashla whistled to herself and just enjoyed the view, and she seemed to like the cold wind that blew past us at this height.
We landed, and Nia instantly hopped off my pyrewyrm before she strode over to join Varleth and Erin’s conversation.
“It used to be hotter here,” Nia began in a terse, quick explanation. “Now it isn’t, and there aren’t many monsters arriving in the north anymore. I think this permanent rift is all but unusable for Phi’s purposes.”
“It might be unusable,” Varleth debated, “or it might not be. Even if it isn’t ideal, we can’t know for sure that Phi won’t use it.”
“Why would she?” Nia argued. “There’s nothing up here for an Archon anymore. She’d be smarter to use the one in Ortych Sands or the one in Njordenfalls.”
“I’m not so sure,” Varleth disagreed. “Phi doesn’t want to just destroy the Enclaves, she wants to get rid of all of humanity. She’s going to get rid of Svellfrer’s Rest eventually, so what difference does it make to her if she starts here or down there?”
“If she starts here, her army suffers in the cold,” Nia shot back.
“If she starts here, so do ours,” Varleth returned just as quickly.
“Guys,” I interrupted as I slid from my pyrewyrm and raised my hands. “Let’s not argue. I know you both like to reason things out, but the reality is that you’re both right. We could be playing right into Phi’s ruse if we ignore this rift location, but we could also be wasting unnecessary resources if we do focus on this rift.”
“What do you suggest?” Erin asked as she twisted her hands together worriedly.
“We pick the less devastating option,” I proposed. “What’s worse, wasting a couple soldier platoons, or leaving a city of thousands completely unguarded to potential slaughter?”
“Leaving the city unguarded,” Nia admitted reluctantly, and she cast a discerning glance across the valley toward the hidden city. “Fine, we do it your way. Varleth and I stay to guard this rift location while you three fetch Sleet’s platoon.”
“You and Varleth?” I asked as my mind stalled at her assumption.
“You and Erin survived the winter’s night here,” Nia explained, “but it wasn’t nearly as easy for you as it was for me with my earth and fire power combined. In this kind of climate, I think multiple elements is the right choice.”
I thought about her argument, but I had to admit it made a lot of sense. I was reluctant to leave Nia behind when she was more attached to Varle Enclave than Ashla, but Ashla couldn’t heat a shelter on her own. I was willing to stay behind, but I could neither build a shelter nor heat one. Nia’s powers were the best choice, so she had to stay.
“I agree,” I told the ashen-haired mage reluctantly. “You and Varleth stay, and the rest of us will go back. I’ll tell you the same thing I told Layla and Cyra, though.”
“Be careful and don’t take any unnecessary risks?” Nia guessed as she quirked a small smile at me.
“Well, yes,” I laughed. “Exactly that. I suppose I don’t have to tell you two.”
“We are pretty careful,” Varleth agreed neutrally as he gazed out at the field around us.
“The question is,” Nia asked as a thought occurred to her, “how are we going to deal with a rift if one opens here? I realize we probably can’t close a permanent rift with banisher magic, but if we can’t even get into this valley, that might be a big issue, too. Enemies could simply camp here and bide their time until we’re at a disadvantage.”
“You’re right,” I agreed, and I pondered the question for a moment. “We have to build some kind of ramp into here, and maybe a shelter nearby.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Nia agreed. “Ashla and I can complete the ramp in maybe a couple hours, and the shelter will be even faster.”
“We also need to take a complete transcription of the writing on this stone,” Ashla added. “There could be good information on here, even though the other rift stone didn’t have much.”
“Alright,” I ordered as I pointed at my teammates, “Varleth is in charge of copying down the words on the stone, Erin and I are going to clear the ground for the ramp, Nia is going to build the shelter, and Ashla is going to focus on the base of the ramp.”
“Where should the shelter be?” Nia asked as she tightened her braid of ashen hair.
“We’re going to fly just outside the rim on my pyrewyrm,” I answered, “and I’ll show you where it should be made.”
We got on my monster and took off again in a swirl of powdery snow. My pyrewyrm wheeled as I scanned the ground, and I directed my beast to the spot I thought was best.
We ended up landing at the base of the volcano. It wouldn’t be fun for soldiers to climb up the rocky hillside, even though it wasn’t as tall as Cinder Mountain. If the platoons had a shelter at the bottom, it would open up possibilities for defence.
“I think here is good,” I said as I pointed to a spot near a group of spruce trees.
“It looks good,” Nia agreed. “I’ll get to work.”
The ashen-haired mage spun out a fire spell and me
lted a large swath of snow away to expose the earth below. Her use of fire magic was much more controlled and delicate than Erin’s was, and I smiled as I watched Nia work so carefully.
She raised the walls from the earth, and they came up nearly smooth and perfectly straight. Her shelter slid from rock and dirt with an impressive speed, and within half an hour, she declared it done.
The building was large for a shelter, at least thirty feet across and thirty feet back. It was more like a small house than a temporary structure, though it looked decidedly strange with its thin rock roof and thicker dirt walls. The shape was basic and square, but it would do the job if the soldiers wanted something to fortify when they got here.
“Looks good,” I told Nia as she turned to face me.
“It looks like a pile of garbage came to life,” she corrected. “It will do, though.”
I chuckled at her honesty, and her severe expression lightened into a rewarding smile as white and bright as the snow around us.
“Come on,” she told me. “I have plenty of mana left, and we have a ramp to construct.”
“There’s one thing I never thought I’d do on a mission to take care of monsters,” I joked as I gestured my pyrewyrm over to us.
“Prevention is just as important as running into fights,” Nia stated.
“A fact I’m beginning to really see the value of,” I agreed.
We hopped up onto the back of my pyrewyrm, and my monster shook out its cold muscles as a single shudder ran down its spine. When it was ready, it bunched its legs up and sprang from the snow with powerful wingbeats.
“Do you think Phi will actually attack here?” Nia asked as she raised her voice over the wind.
“Not really,” I admitted with a shout. “I just can’t accept the consequences if I’m wrong, though.”
“You’re smart to do this, then,” she told me, and she leaned against me from behind in a silent show of understanding.
“I’m going to miss you,” I said, and the words fell from my mouth like ash. “I hate to leave you behind again.”
“Sometimes what’s best for Mistral isn’t what’s best for us,” Nia told me, and her voice was warm and close behind my ear.