by T R Kerby
As the weeks passed, the temperature dropped until their breath froze on the air and water iced in their mugs. They huddled below deck, bundled in blankets and furs.
Cirrus shielded his eyes against the morning glare. Brown streaked the ocean and the dolphins fled. "We're close to the river."
"How close?" Tegedir blew on his fingers and rubbed them together.
"That's it there." Cirrus thrust his chin toward a wide expanse of beach. Sediment-filled water churned to white caps as it slashed into the ocean, spitting chunks of ice with it. Snow coated its northern banks and clung to the towering pines lining the shore.
"Is our timing right?"
Cirrus checked the sun. "We're at the verge. It's a risk."
"If what you say is true, it always is. Your Captain wants that egg."
Aldo stepped aside as Cirrus took the wheel and swung the nose of Advantage toward the river.
Chapter 12
Tegedir ran down the steps and stuck his head below deck. "Everyone hang on to something and close this hatch. It's about to get rough." He coiled a rope around his waist and tied it to the rail.
"Did I mention we're not a seafaring people?" Randir knotted his own rope next to Tegedir's.
"The sooner we get through here, the sooner your feet touch dry land."
"Then bring on the wind."
Salty gusts shoved the ship toward the river's mouth. Rounded swells lifted and lowered her. This wasn't too bad. Gulls wheeled and screamed overhead. Randir pointed across the bow.
That was no gentle swell. The wave grew to the height of the ship and white mist sprang from its crest. Tegedir tightened his grip on the rope and braced his hip against the wooden rail. Advantage dropped into the trough of the wave preceding the monster and lurched upward like a rearing horse. A grey-green wall of water rose in front of them and the rigging popped and cracked like a falling tree. Angry water sluiced over the deck in a knee deep flood, nearly sweeping Tegedir's legs from under him. He adjusted his grip as the ship crested the wave. Blue sky and mountains seemed a surreal contrast to the river bent on their destruction. Wave after wave marched into the distance. How would they ever survive them all? He'd chosen this route for his people only to drown them.
Advantage hung for a moment, balanced on the knife blade of water, then plunged like a dolphin seeking the depths. She hit the bottom of the trough with a tremendous slap that rattled the decks and shot frigid salt water over Tegedir's head, blinding him momentarily. The rope snapped tight around his waist as his grasp on the rail ripped free. He collided with Randir, who snagged his breastplate and tugged him to his feet.
The next wave crashed into them. Cirrus wrestled the wheel and shouted at the waves like a madman. His white-blond hair matted to his skull and water sheeted off his clothes.
The wave twisted the ship like a length of rope. Wood shuddered and screeched. She listed sideways until the deck dropped and slammed into the bar with a terrifying crack. Tegedir and Randir slid away from the rail and clung to their ropes. Cirrus yelled and hauled on the wheel, his elbow crooked around the handles. "Up, you bitch! Up!"
Tegedir's body slapped the deck as Advantage righted herself. He crawled to his feet as she careened into the next trough. This one didn't seem as deep or as violent. She straightened and stuck her nose into the oncoming wave. From its crest, he saw the following waves growing less threatening until they dropped to a low chop on the river. They were going to make it.
The ship took on a sluggish feel Tegedir sensed was wrong. The river appeared closer to the rail than when they started. Surely it was fear and imagination? She plowed through the wave and the churning mass got even closer.
Trinn burst through the hatch followed by the others. "We're taking on water!"
The waves lost some of their intensity and Cirrus steered the ship toward the beach. Advantage drug her flat bottom along a sand bar and dropped off the other side. A wide stretch of rock strewn beach lay ahead. Cirrus aimed straight for it.
The ship rammed aground. Tegedir caught Trinn as she skidded past. Others crashed into the mast base and piles of supplies. The river swung Advantage sideways until she rolled partially onto her side among the rocks. The ship groaned and creaked, but stuck fast, the flow shoving relentlessly against it.
Ropes snapped with a whip-like pop and supplies fell in a deadly rain, sweeping people off the listing deck and pinning them between rail and boxes. When everything stopped, moans and shouts filled the sudden stillness. Tegedir released Trinn, who lit on her feet atop a haphazard mound of gear. He dropped beside her.
Chaos surrounded them. Those left unhurt aided others not as fortunate. Lalaith knelt beside Aric, his leg pinned beneath several bags of wheat. Randir tossed them aside and towed Aric to his feet.
Tegedir lifted Lalaith. "Are you hurt?"
"No, but you're drenched. You'll freeze."
Tegedir ordered every spare body into the trees to search for wood and build fires. He wasn't the only one who might suffer frostbite. A scream snatched his attention and he ran to where Aric and Randir knelt beside Erien.
"Don't touch me!" She clutched her thigh. A wooden shard protruded between her blood-slicked fingers.
"It's a splinter," Aric said. "Don't be a baby."
"It's the size of my wrist and I'll stick it up your ass if you touch it again."
"You get cranky when you're uncomfortable." Aric forced a smile, but his face was pale.
Lalaith eased Erien's hands away and examined the wound. A fire crackled to life in the tree line and Lalaith nodded to it. "We have to move you so I can remove this."
"Do it." Erien bit her lip, then screamed as Randir and Aric lifted her from the ground.
"Find my bag," Lalaith said to Trinn.
"How bad?" Tegedir asked as Trinn sprinted toward the listing ship.
"It's close to the artery. If there's a nick, I have to find it. She won't be able to travel." She met his gaze and the rest went unsaid.
"I'll see to the others." Tegedir stumbled his way among the icy rocks from one huddled group to another. Two were beyond any aid. He took responsibility for their deaths. This quest was personal and they volunteered. The losses stung and he clamped a lid on his emotions. Those must wait until later.
Cirrus and Caeth sat in the rocks with Aldo's body between them. His eyes stared at the perfect sky. Locked open in death. Cirrus sighed and got to his feet. "Fine mess here."
"The fault is mine," Tegedir said.
Cirrus considered the carnage strewn over the rocky coastline. "Good of you to take that burden, however it's not yours. My ship. My choice."
"Made under duress."
"You overvalue your influence." Cirrus took Tegedir's offered hand and got to his feet.
"I'm sorry for your man."
Caeth rocked back and forth on his knees, hugging himself, teeth chattering.
Tegedir dragged him up by his soggy collar and aimed him toward the fire. "Go get warm."
They salvaged what they could from the wreck, stacked it around the fires, and sat on it as their bodies fought the frigid air. The wounded lay shrouded in piles of fur and blankets. Aric sat next to his sister, watching her as if in a trance.
Tegedir led Lalaith to the perimeter of the woods and motioned for Randir and Aric to follow. "We have five people who cannot travel which means we must leave people behind to aid them."
"I stay," Lalaith said. "They need my skills if we don't want to increase the number of our dead."
"If she stays, I stay," Aric said.
"I need you to come with me," Tegedir said.
"Badger Company stays with Lalaith."
"No one is more Badger Company than me. She's my mate, but you're the scout."
"He can scout." Aric jutted his chin toward Randir.
"I don't have your skills," Randir said.
Aric's eyebrows rose. "Was that a compliment?"
"An acknowledgment."
Lalaith touched Aric's
arm. "Go with them."
"My place is protecting you."
"Remember when I asked Badger Company to look after my children? To transfer their love and loyalty to them?"
Aric inhaled and looked skyward. "I do. And I know where you're going with this."
"My children need you to go after the egg. I need you to. Please."
He bumped his fist to his chest. "As you wish."
Back at camp, they laid their dead together on a single pyre, swords on their chests. Flames crackled into the dark sky, melting snowflakes as they fell. By morning, nothing remained except ashes and memories.
Chapter 13
They trudged north along the spine of granite cliff. Fresh powder whisked around their ankles and clung to their shoulders. Tegedir rested his pack against a tree trunk and rubbed his stinging left forearm. He took Caeth's weapons from his gear and returned them to him. "Something tells me you'll need these. I trust you won't use them against us."
Caeth brushed his shaggy hair off his face. "You're four swords to my one. I have no death wish."
"And if the odds were better?"
Caeth buckled his sword around his narrow hips and stuck his matching daggers in his belt. "We share a goal. It would serve no purpose to betray you."
Randir and Trinn studied the forest as they waited for Aric. The five of them ventured alone into a land said to be crawling with enemies. Maybe they'd pass unnoticed. Or maybe they'd never return.
The rest of their party stayed behind with Lalaith and the wounded. Three headed home from the cove with the horses. What Tegedir planned to do with speed and strength, he now must do with stealth.
Aric emerged from the heavy snow like a ghost. "There's something you should see."
"You found a way?" Tegedir asked.
"Maybe. If you don't like it, we'll find another." Aric's tactful method of saying the climb might be more than a one handed man could manage.
"Let's have a look," Tegedir said.
They followed him around several rough juttings of the granite cliff. He stopped beneath a towering overhang split by a narrow cleft barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through. Brush and fallen rock choked the entrance.
"This leads to the top?" Trinn peered suspiciously at the tight chute.
"I believe it does," Aric said.
"Did you go in there?"
"Nope."
"How do you know it's the right way?"
"Look closer."
Tegedir studied the stone. He let his gaze sweep the opening and climb the walls until snowflakes lit on his eyes. Nothing struck him as unusual, but Aric's sly grin told him something was there. He backed away, softened his vision, and tried again. This time, it jumped out at him. "Alimarae guide me."
Aric pointed a finger at him. "Exactly."
Worn almost smooth by water and wind, and partially obscured by mature pines, the twin carvings rose on either side of the narrow entry. Two massive dragons scaled the stone and stretched their thick necks, pointing their muzzles to the sky. Their chins nearly touched above the thin granite crack. Clawed front limbs dug into the rock and tails formed a threshold as high as Tegedir's boot tops.
Tegedir leaned forward, then took several quick steps closer to the stone. His fingers tingled as he stroked the hindquarters of one of the carvings. His gaze lifted, drawn upward by the beast's exquisite body, armored with scales weathered nearly invisible by time.
They existed here. The Drakur. He felt it to his marrow. How many ages ago? Did they still live here, waiting for him? The carvings were centuries old and the way through the cliff unmaintained.
Aric grinned at Tegedir. "Thought it might stir your blood." Randir and Trinn rushed to help him tug away the brush. When the entrance was clear, they moved aside to let Tegedir have the first look.
Frigid air gusted through the opening. Ice formed frozen sculptures on the rock, crystals as long as Tegedir was tall stretched to the ground. Treacherous stairs ascended into a grey fog. Snow danced and swirled across each ice slicked tread. Blue hued spikes threatened to impale yielding flesh. Even on the warmest summer day, these stairs would be deadly, their footholds barely wide enough for a man to stand on. One misstep would send a body tumbling to the bottom, breaking into slivers as it bounced.
Tegedir peered into the falling snow, but it obscured much. His guts knotted and it felt like a horse stood on his chest. He sighed as the earlier exhilaration fled. This passage was impassable if they wanted to live to see the top. "There must be another route.”
Aric stretched onto his toes to see over Tegedir's shoulder. "Can you grow claws like the dragons?"
Tegedir studied his leather clad stump. Claws? He'd need fingers first.
"I can try it first," Aric said.
"No. It's too dangerous. We'll go around."
Aric tightened his pack as a breeze blew a blizzard of fresh powder from the trees. A musty scent washed across them, somewhere between rotting vegetation and sewage.
Trinn wrinkled her nose. "Geez, Aric."
"That's not me."
Randir bundled his fur collar tighter around his throat. "If this is summer, I'd hate to spend winter here."
"Shhh." Caeth cocked his head. "Into the pass! Now!" He elbowed past them onto the stairs.
"He's lost his mind," Randir said.
"What is it?" Tegedir glanced between the deep woods and Caeth's scrambling form.
"You'll be dead before you can ask again. Move!" Caeth didn't curb his breakneck pace.
Tegedir glimpsed something ghost-like and powerful bearing down on them through the trees. Powder churned into the air as it ran. Hair prickled on his neck and he shoved Trinn and Randir toward the canyon. He lunged in behind them, stumbling and skidding across the perilous footing. Pain jolted through his ankle as it jammed between two rocks. He wrenched it free and jumped for higher ground.
Aric and Randir caught his breastplate and yanked him to the ledge as a massive grey-white head slammed through the opening below. Obsidian eyes assessed them with practiced skill. Yellowed canines showed as the beast opened its mouth and scented them. The bear grunted several times, then rolled his mighty shoulders and shoved into the entrance. Rocks and snow rained around him as he crammed his way deeper into the canyon.
"Climb!" Caeth led the way toward the rim, using his dagger like an ice ax.
The predator dropped his head and forced his body forward. His enormous paws hooked a fallen boulder, five inch claws grasping like bony fingers. The huge stone rolled under his strength as he dragged himself closer.
Randir hurled a rock the size of his fist. It bounced off the beast's nose. The bear flinched, surged forward, and swiped a paw at Tegedir's foot. Monstrous claws arced around his boot and jerked him off his feet. Air whooshed out of him as he slammed into the stone steps. He clutched at the slick rocks as the bear dragged him toward the edge.
"No!" Trinn skidded down the stairs toward them.
Randir grabbed Tegedir by the back of his breastplate. The bear dragged them both toward his gaping mouth, sliding them down the stairs with no more resistance than a seal across pack ice. Tegedir aimed a kick at the animal's face. It glanced off with no apparent effect. A ripping sound screamed into the air. For a split second, Tegedir wasn't sure if it was his flesh or his boot.
"Let go, Ran!" Tegedir didn't want both of them to slip into the bear's range. Images of Brannon and Neva flashed across his vision. Narthan would care for them if he couldn't. He gave up clutching at the impossible stairs and fumbled for his dagger. He refused to be an easy meal.
His leather boot shredded under the claws and freezing air rushed across Tegedir's ankle and bare foot. The bear clamped his teeth into the mangled boot as Aric caught the other side of Tegedir's plate and hauled him upward. The empty boot dangled from the bear's mouth and he shook it like a dog shaking a rat. Strips of leather whipped around his head.
Tegedir crabbed his way beyond the bear's reach. The animal lunged, but his b
ody fit no deeper into the rocky chute. Aric helped Tegedir to his feet.
"Damn, he got my sock, too." Tegedir wiggled his naked toes on the blistering cold step.
"He's starving," Caeth said. And it seemed he was right. Despite the creature's enormous size, ribs and hip bones protruded beneath the thick coat.
Tegedir gazed toward the top of the slot and the impenetrable expanse of cloud. Snow obliterated his view of the exit. There was no way to tell how far the climb was, but they couldn't go back. The enraged bear blocked their retreat.
"We could kill it," Aric said. "Get your boot back plus several new pairs."
The bear met Tegedir's gaze and grunted twice. Despite the fact he'd tried to make dinner of him, Tegedir understood the animal. Desperation became more familiar each day. "No. We'll go out the top."
Caeth tossed his woolen cloak on the slick treads. "One step at a time, very slowly. Keep a good distance between yourselves. If you slip, you won't take everyone else with you."
They spread their cloaks and took every step with painful precision. The bear's protests over his missed meal echoed through the canyon. The wind increased as they emerged from the cleft. Stinging snow whipped into their faces and clung to their hair. Tegedir snapped the snow from his cloak and settled it across his shoulders.
Bright spots punctured the heavy cloud cover and promised sunlight. He turned his back to those and faced northeast. Somewhere in that expanse was a volcano. And under it was an egg.
Or at least he prayed there was.
Chapter 14
Thera lay on her side in the grass. Neva sat across the game board from her, face screwed up in serious contemplation of her next play. The gems glittered in the mid-day sun and sent sparks of color across the polished wooden board.
Murdoc dozed, eyes closed against the warmth. Splashes of sunlight dappled her dark hair and fine features. She swatted at a pestering fly.
Thera shifted a large sapphire diagonally across the board.
