by GARY DARBY
She brings her head around. “Hooper, in life, there’s always another mountain to climb. There are those like this one before you, and then there are those of your own making. This one is far easier to scale than the other.”
“Oh really? If that’s the case, then remind me when the time comes to never make my own mountain.”
“I wish it were that easy.” She points her nose toward the mountain crests.
“This, will only take your physical effort to overcome, but that is just a matter of putting one step in front of the other. Those others take an inner struggle to ascend and overcome, and that is sometimes much, much harder to do simply because it is so easy to give in and give up.”
She pauses and then murmurs, “Especially to give in and give up when that way seems so much easier.”
She turns and looks at me. “Like now.”
She gazes up the trail where the others are slowly trudging up the incline. “I cannot carry you, Hooper, for the path is too narrow and I would place us in danger.”
I nod and mumble, “I understand. Besides, you’re carrying Scamper, the sprogs, and your own little one, so no, I don’t want you to endanger either yourself or them.”
“Thank you, Hooper. But two things I would share with you in the hope that they might ease your way. First, look back down the trail. See where you began and where you are now? You see, it’s not so much how far it is still to go, rather, it’s how far you’ve come.
“It’s not that these things have gotten easier to do, Hooper, rather it’s your ability, and your strength to do the hard things that have increased.
“Hooper, there are no great accomplishments in life without there is desire first, followed by hard work, and finally, the willpower to see it through to the end.
“Just as no one ever reaches the mountaintop, whether it be here, or in life, without the same.”
With that, she stands and plods along. I pick up Alonya’s sword and trudge ahead, my head down, my eyes staring at the ground.
“How does she do it?” I mutter to myself for there’s no one near to hear me. “How does she know what I’m thinking? What I was about to do?”
The golden’s lesson is not wasted on me, and because of it, instead of quitting as I wanted to because of the fire in my leg and chest, I push ahead, head down, eyes on the ground, putting one step in front of the other.
Dragging that awful weight up the mountain, I can’t concentrate on anything else but taking the next tiny, sometimes halting step. I don’t see anything else but the next piece of ground where I’ll place my foot and then the next foot and the next.
I keep repeating to myself, “It has to come to an end, every journey comes to an end, doesn’t it?”
Because I’m so focused on the trail right at my feet, I almost run into Cara, who’s stopped to wait for me. “You’re going too slow, Hooper,” she whips out in an accusing tone. “We have to get past the crest before the Wilders return.”
I take a deep breath and nod. “I know,” I puff between breaths, “it’s just—”
“Just what?” she snaps in an exasperated tone.
“It’s my leg,” I admit. “It hurts worse that I can ever remember. It’s like someone is pressing hot coals to my skin.” I grimace when I finish. My voice sounds small and my excuse feeble.
She takes a deep breath and looks me straight in the eye. Her face is like stone, her eyes as hard as the emerald jewel. “Hooper, we can’t slow down or stop. You don’t see Alonya halting, do you? Yet, her leg is ripped almost to the bone and her arm slashed in a half dozen places.”
“No,” I sputter, “but she’s a warrior, I’m—”
“Hooper!” she lashes out. “Helmar bought us this time, gave us this chance, and maybe gave his own life in doing so. To quit now, to just give up would be dishonoring him. Remember that the next time you want to stop; hurt leg or not.”
She might as well have used a Proga stick on me. Her words, the rebuke are worse than any beating I’ve ever had, or Proga stab I’ve had to endure. She hates me and for some reason—will blame me if Helmar dies.
She glares at me. I can’t stand her piercing stare. I’m embarrassed and guilt-ridden for forgetting about Helmar.
I lower my eyes, but an instant later, I snap them back up and return her glower with my own. I’ve tried my best to do my part, to be a good soldier in the company.
Obviously, though, in her eyes, it hasn’t been good enough and it never will be. I will never be a Helmar in her eyes, nor anything like him. I know what she’s thinking, that she wishes I had been the one to sky out and meet death at the hands of the Wilders instead of Helmar.
If that’s the way she wants it, then so be it.
Without a word, I roughly push past her. I focus my bitterness on my footsteps and forge ahead, pushing aside the pain with my seething anger.
Cara paces past me, neither of us glancing at the other and squeezes by the golden. I’m not all that sorry to see her go and think that Cara and Helmar were meant for each other. Two of a kind.
Vain. Prideful. Hateful.
The mountains begin to cast shadows as the afternoon wears on. It’s all I can do to put one foot in front of the other in an agonizing, torturous trudge up the mount.
I’m so focused on taking the next step and the next that my mind barely registers the fact that we’ve finally reached the crest and slipped over to the mountain’s backside.
Fotina calls a halt. I’m drenched in sweat, my leg is a blaze of searing pain, my chest feels like it’s full of hot coals.
Alonya is slumped against a craggy rock, but I complete my task and let her sword clang onto her shield next to her. “Thank you, Hooper,” she rasps.
I take a few steps away, place my back against a rounded boulder and slide to the ground. Never did hard ground and rock feel so good. Scamper is already off the golden and nosing about but I don’t even have the strength to call to him.
I glance over at Alonya. Though draped in shadow, I can see that her face is ashen. She’s clenched her hands tight against her blood-soaked bandage. A line of red runs from the dressing down her leg onto her sandal. It’s obvious that she’s reopened the wound, and it’s bleeding.
Phigby shuffles over to help the Lady Fotina minister to Alonya. He draws out several long white strips of cloth from his bag and wraps them tightly around her red-stained bandage.
I hear him murmuring to her, but I don’t understand his words. Alonya nods but doesn’t answer.
Master Boren limps over, his own face set in pain and asks Fotina, “How much farther before we can stop for the night?”
Fotina gestures down the slope. “It will grow level and then just beyond is a small waterfall. Follow the stream; not long after you will reach the Steps of Geb. That’s where you’ll shelter for the night.”
Something in the way Fotina addresses Master Boren causes me to perk my ears up. Master Boren must have caught it too, for he says, “You speak as if you’re not staying with us.”
“I’m not,” Fotina announces. “I’m going ahead. There is just a chance that a patrol from Dronopolis might be using the same shelter we seek. If so, I will come back and warn you.”
She leans down to Alonya. “Rest before you move on.” Alonya nods and the two clasp hands together before Fotina strides off.
Phigby and Master Boren watch her pace away for a moment before Phigby goes back to tending to Alonya’s leg. Master Boren shuffles over to sit beside his daughter.
I peer at the lot of us and can’t help but think that we are a bedraggled group. The journey is wearing on us heavily, and it’s evident our collective strength is waning.
I gaze at Master Boren and Cara, who sit propped against Wind Song. They’re not speaking, but their faces are cloaked in somber sadness, and I know why.
Helmar has not returned. It’s obvious that if he was going to come back, he would have found us by now, having known the route we were to take beforehand and the a
dvantage of skying his dragon if he needed to search for us.
Cara has both arms wrapped around her father’s arm, her cheek pressed against his shoulder. Neither speaks, but I can see the glistening in Cara’s eyes.
For an instant, I see a tear roll down her cheek; even in the shadows, it has a delicate sheen. It hangs on her chin, a tiny, silvery orb before it falls to the ground.
Our little company has lost one of its own, and we all feel it deeply, personally. I squirm as my earlier thoughts surface again. How wrong I was.
A vain or prideful man wouldn’t have risked his life. A hateful man wouldn’t have faced the Wilders to save others. No, Helmar is none of those and I’m ashamed that I ever thought so ill of him.
Other thoughts arise and I latch onto them. I once thought that of all the people I knew, in some ways I most wanted to be like Helmar. His strength, his forcefulness, his stature. Now I’m not so sure that I could ever be the man he is—the man he was.
And neither is Cara the person I thought. It wasn’t hate that she was speaking, it was love and concern and I should have recognized it for what it was.
The sun slides behind a distant row of jagged peaks. The shadows grow and deepen until evening’s dusk begins to throw darkness over the mountains and the little dell where we rest.
It won’t be long before Master Boren gives the word for us to renew our trek. The good thing is that from this point on, I can now ride the golden. That is if I can manage to get myself and my throbbing leg up to her saddle.
It’s not long before Osa, the First Moon, peeks through a high mountain pass and bathes us in soft light. I see Master Boren slowly stand, and I know it’s time.
Suddenly, Golden Wind and the other dragons spring to their feet and snort. They peer down the uneven, boulder-strewn slope.
Amil and Phigby jump to their feet, as do Cara and her father. Cara notches an arrow and aims toward the open field though there is nothing to see.
Alonya struggles to rise and finally manages to stand. She sheathes her sword and reaches for her bow and quiver.
I ease next to the golden and whisper, “What is it? Wilders?”
“No,” she whispers. “I hear heavy footsteps, but no dragons.”
“Mountain trolls!” I mutter.
“No . . .” she again answers. Then she snorts, “They are of Alonya’s kind.”
I snap my head up. The dragons! If the Golian warriors spot the dragons, they’ll think we’re Wilders and unleash a barrage of arrows. In spite of my pain, I stagger over to Alonya.
“I think that what the dragons hear may be Golian warriors. They may mistake us for Wilders.”
“What?” she sputters. She peers intently at me. “Are you positive?”
I nod in answer. She whips her head around to stare at the dusky valley. I can’t see anything, but the dragons are still agitated. “They must be lying unseen among the boulders,” she whispers.
“And close enough to put a flight of arrows into the dragons and us,” I answer.
Alonya hesitates before seemingly coming to a decision. In a loud voice, she calls out, “Daughters of the domain! There are no enemies of Golian here. I am one of your sisters, and with friends. The Wilders pursue us and are close by.”
There is no answer from the dark. Everything grows still and quiet. I hold my breath, hoping that Alonya’s fellow warriors don’t think that this is some sort of trick and let their arrows fly, anyway.
Alonya calls again. “Sisters, I tell the truth, there is no menace here.”
A moment later, a voice from the darkness declares, “If you are indeed our sister, name yourself and let us see you.”
Alonya hesitates and motions for everyone in our company to lower their weapons. She takes a step away from the boulder into the full moonlight. “I am Alonya.”
There is a long moment of silence, and fortunately, no arrows come flying out of the gloom. Then I hear footsteps grinding gravel underneath leather soles and in the dim light, I can see a giant figure striding toward us. Alonya takes several more steps out into the open to meet whoever it is that’s pacing our way.
A moment later, the Golian stops a few steps away from Alonya and behind me, I hear Cara suck in a breath, and Amil mutter, “Wha . . .”
My own mouth sags open, and I can’t help but just stare wide-eyed.
Alonya faces her exact twin.
The two giant maidens both stand rigid, staring, and neither says a word. Then, Alonya’s twin takes another step forward, her eyes big and round.
“What sorcery is this?” she hisses as she lifts her sword slightly. “First, we find a dead dragon rider in our land, yet he is not a Wilder, and now it’s as though I’m staring at myself.”
Her eyes grow hard. “What are you, a demon disguising yourself as me?” The point of her sword circles menacingly, and I can see Alonya’s hand edge toward her hilt.
“I am no demon,” Alonya growls in return. “What’s more, I could say the same for you. I named myself, now do the same for I would know who it is that calls me monster yet stares at me with a face I have seen only in a smooth mountain lake.”
A voice calls out from one side, “I will name her for you, Alonya.”
Fotina appears from around a nearby boulder and strides up to the two Golian maidens. She gazes at Alonya’s twin, and I can see on her face apprehension, but surprisingly enough, fondness as well.
She turns to us and commands, “Kneel.”
Uneasy, we glance at each other for a moment before, with a tiny wave of his hand, Boren motions for us to go to a knee.
Seeing us kneel, Fotina turns and starts to go to a knee as well, pulling Alonya down with her. “This is Desma, princess of Golian.”
She pauses, lets out a long sigh as if she were finally able to unload a burden that she has been carrying for a long time and says, “As well as your sister.”
19
“Sisters!” Alonya’s and Desma’s shouts are so perfectly timed, if I didn’t know better I would have thought that they had practiced to make them match.
“Yes,” Fotina replies and gazes at Desma. “But what she wears tells me that you are sisters only in face and form.”
My eyes go to Desma’s skirt and I realize that she wears the blood-red kilt of a Mori, Queen Gru’s notorious murdering Amazos.
“Impossible,” Alonya growls, “I am no child of—”
“Alonya, quiet!” Fotina snaps. “Say no more, this is not the time.”
From where I stand, Desma’s body is rigid, her face a mask of fury. “Just who are you,” she demands of Fotina, “to be giving orders?”
Fotina says, “No one that you would know, princess. I am called Fotina.”
“Fotina,” Desma mutters dismissively. “You’re right, I don’t know you, nor do I care. “But,” she continues as she points her sword at Alonya, “I would have whatever this thing is to continue speaking. I would hear her desecrate my mother’s name for they would be the last words she ever speaks.”
Fotina’s hand shoots out and clenches Alonya’s arm tight, holding her sword arm down. “There is a time and place for everything, and this is neither.”
Alonya and Desma glare, their faces like stone, before Alonya slowly takes her hand off her sword hilt. Desma hesitates for a moment as if still weighing the thought to attack Alonya, then calls over her shoulder, “Guard! Forward!”
From a row of boulders that gleam like dragon’s teeth in the moon’s rays, rise shadowy giants. They lumber forward, all with bows notched and at the ready. They pound across the open space until they stop a few paces in front of us, their arrow points leveled at our small company.
Sighting Alonya and Desma together, there is a low muttering among the ranks as if the female warriors cannot trust what their eyes see.
Desma motions toward our company. “Kill the Drachs and the dragons. Spare these two.”
“No! Wait!” Fotina shouts in such a commanding tone that the warriors hesita
te. Before Desma can speak or move, Fotina and Alonya spring to one side, putting themselves between the Amazos’ arrows and ourselves.
Fotina says in a firm tone, “Desma, before you unleash your arrows on us, hear what I have to say.”
Desma snarls, “I think I have heard enough, old woman.”
“Old woman or not, you haven’t,” Fotina answers and in a rush of words says, “If we do not move from this spot and speedily, we will find ourselves caught in a trap.”
She turns and points back toward the winding switchbacks, “From there, I saw at least a dozen or more Wilders crossing Two-Spire Pass and beating this way.”
She then points off to a narrow valley to our right. “And from there comes a large band of mountain trolls.”
I can see the uncertainty in Desma’s eyes. Fotina must have as well for she says, “If you don’t believe me, send one of your warriors up to that pinnacle.”
Desma hesitates before over her shoulder she orders, “Krista!” and points at the sharp knoll that rises just to our right.
One of her warriors breaks away in a dead run. She clambers up the high rock facing, her sandals sending a small avalanche of gravel spattering down. The warrior giant reaches the top, stops and peers into the distance.
Krista remains on the sharp knoll for only a moment more before she whips around and charges down the steep incline, raising a small cloud of dust in her wake. She dashes up to Desma and gives a quick bow of her head. “She speaks truly, princess, a host of Wilders and trolls headed this way.”
“And this is not the place to make our stand,” Fotina points out. “We are too exposed here.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, hag,” Desma scowls. “I know not who you are,” she points her sword at Alonya, “nor what magic brought this witch to life, but no one orders Desma around as if she were a palace servant.”
She again glowers at Alonya. “And as for this twin sister nonsense that you would pass off, we shall attend to that later.”
“Be that as it may,” Fotina replies, “but there is one other thing that you should know.”
Fotina calls out over her shoulder, “Hooper! Bring the golden forward, now!”
