"It seems awfully dicey, love," she frowned.
"We're dealing with a god here, Jesmind," he sighed. "It's the only way it's going to happen. We can't fight him and we can't trick him. The only thing we can do is make him beat himself. Val may be a god, but he was once mortal, and somehow I get the feeling that alot of his human personality is still in him, like impatience. We have to use that against him, or it won't work."
"Isn't what you're trying to do tricking him?"
"No. I'm trying to hold his attention, first off of you and Jasana, then off of the fact that the Elder Gods just Teleported in an army to attack his forces. There's a big difference."
"If you say so," she said uncertainly. "That's all you need me to do? Take Jasana out of the place where they're holding her?"
He nodded.
"Why me? Wouldn't Allia have been better? I've seen her run, my mate. She's faster than me." "Jasana will obey you without question," he told her. "That's going to be very important, Jesmind. If she resists or disobeys because I don't go with you, she may cause a fatal delay in getting her out. I can't risk that. When you tell her to shut up and go, she'll do it without argument." He looked at her. "Besides, she's our daughter, Jesmind. It's our duty to get her back, and it's only right that we're the first people she sees."
She gave him a warm yet fierce smile. "You're right. I wouldn't have felt right sending someone else to get back our daughter for me."
"I know. And I feel more comfortable with you being with me. At least you understand me, my mate. You can sense what I'm thinking, and that's going to help us when the time comes to get our daughter back. You'll pick up on things nobody else would notice, not even Val himself."
"I hope so," she nodded, then she yawned and stretched. "I'm getting sleepy," she admitted. "Let's make a tent or something and get some sleep. I get the feeling that we're going to be on the move quite a bit tonight."
"You'll have to put it aside for now, my mate," he told her. "You can take a short nap, but we'll be starting out again in just a while. It's dangerous to travel at night because of the cold, even for us. We have to use all the daylight we possibly can. The only reason we stopped now was because we spent most of the night running, and we both needed some rest."
"If we need to use the daylight, then let's go," she said, standing up. "The food refreshed me, and I won't get sleepy if we're running. I can save that for tonight."
Tarrin folded up the map and put it in the book, then sent the book into the elsewhere. "You're right," he agreed, rising to his feet gracefully. "We're wasting daylight."
"Then let's go."
"Yes. Let's go."
They travelled through the gentle rolling foothills of western and central Ungardt without incident, and without being spotted by the locals. Two experienced Were-cats were not about to be spotted by anyone that they didn't want to see them. Tarrin didn't doubt that they found their tracks and puzzled over them, since they were so unique, but not one Ungardt spotted Tarrin and Jesmind as they ran at a steady pace towards the mountains. They would run well into the night, until it got so cold that it forced them to stop, usually indicated by when sweat began freezing to their skin. The cold wouldn't hurt Jesmind for short periods of time, but if she exhausted her regenerative abilities, she would become vulnerable, so Tarrin always made sure they stopped well before that became a possibility.
Again Tarrin paused to wonder why he still sweated whenever he physically exerted himself, even though the heat could no longer affect him. Perhaps it was a ingrained biological function that would occur whether he truly needed to do it or not.
By day, they moved swiftly yet carefully, not letting the Ungardt see them. When they did stop for the night, they chose secluded places easily concealed, built small fires and relying on Tarrin's Sorcery for their warmth. They hunted caribou mostly, felling the beasts often as they crossed paths with migrating herds, eating at the site of the kill and moving on to leave the remains to the wolves, foxes, and other scavengers prowling the snow-choked hills.
Every night, Tarrin would go out to where he could see the stars and study them and the moons for hours on end, often at the cost of sleep, carefully studying their movements and checking them against the book that Phandebrass had given him. He spent whole nights watching the moons rise and fall, becoming intimately familiar with how fast each one moved, trying to learn how to gauge how much time would elapse between where a moon was and where he wanted it to be. He knew that his ability to gauge that time without using any kind of timing device was going to be critical to the timing of his plan, so he needed to become quite adept at it very quickly.
But as each day passed, there were changes in them. Jesmind began to get more and more impatient, wanting to go longer and longer each day and waking up earlier and earlier. She'd started out very accommodating to him, but as the time passed and the days restored a sense of familiarity between them she began to get more and more hostile. It wasn't because she was doubting him, it was because she was anxious and worried, and Tarrin was the only means available for her to vent her building frustration and impatience, feelings that only grew stronger as more days passed without her daughter with her, and the days leading up to getting her back dwindled steadily in number. Tarrin ignored or endured those spats of anger from her, concentrating almost inhumanly on his study of the skies, his attempt to master judging time by the distance the moons travelled.
Tarrin's focus on the skies only seemed to aggravate her more, but he also grew more and more distant from her. The time was getting closer and closer for him to get back his daughter, and his every thought began to center obsessively on that, on the moment when he saw his daughter and Jesmind spirited her out of the pyramid and to safety. But he didn't go over it in his mind, knowing that Val may pick up on what he was trying to do. Without the ability to think through it, it only left thoughts of getting it done, and thoughts of getting there.
He allowed them to move faster and faster, realizing that unless he took some serious precautions, they were never going to make it to the pyramid. Val would catch them on the open tundra, and they'd be killed there. So he let Jesmind push him faster and faster, trying to reach the edge of the mountains, where they could hide easily, so he could stop and attend to the problem of getting them there without Val sending his entire army after him to stop him from reaching the pyramid, to kill him and take his amulet.
Because they were pushing, they reached the eastern edge of the Frozen Mountains in five days. The mountains appeared on the horizon after a steady snow one brisk morning, jagged points of reddish rock capped with white snowy peaks thrusting out of the foothills ahead, high, steep, and very daunting. The mountains were extrememly rugged and incredibly high, some of the highest mountains on all of Sennadar, towering upwards of twenty thousand spans up into the sky.
Jesmind looked at them with trepidation when they stopped for a brief rest. "We have to cross those?" she demanded.
"There are passes," he said. "They're on the map."
"How can you be sure about that map?"
"It's a map Conjured by Druidic magic, woman," he told her. "That makes it absolutely correct. The land doesn't lie." He retrieved the book and took out the map, checking it. "That's this peak right here," he said, pointing to the highest of the peaks they could see, then pointing to it as she came over and looked at the map with him. "That means that the pass we need to find is about twelve longspans south. We'll have to take it at night."
"Why? Miners?"
He nodded. "They use that pass quite a bit. See, look at all these mining sites on the map. It has a road through it. That'll make the going a little easier, but it's going to make it harder to sneak by the Ungardt."
"They won't notice two cats, my mate," she told him calmly. "We can shapeshift and hide until they pass."
"Good point. I forgot your amulet won't let you lose your clothes."
"It's about to come in handy," she said. "Though I wouldn't mind
showing you a little something," she teased, swishing her tail at him sensually.
"As cold as it is, I may only see goosebumps," he drawled in reply, which made her laugh.
The humor was a good sign, he realized as they started south. She'd not been very friendly the last few days, combative and hostile, but maybe seeing the mountains reminded her that they were in fact making progress. It was hard to make jokes or laugh when both of them knew that Jasana was being held prisoner, with that crushing weight over them, but Jesmind was at least trying. Maybe five days of waspish comments and flat looks at him had run its course.
It didn't take them long to go twenty longspans, but the clouds above began to thicken and darken as they moved. He could smell snow in the air, and that concerned him. He'd be hard pressed to keep them moving if a blizzard slammed into the mountains while they were in them, where snow piled up by the span and could bury a house in a matter of days. All the time they'd gained could be lost if they got snowed down, forcing him to resort to using powerful magic, like an Elemental, to get them over. That kind of display left a mark in the Weave, and he didn't doubt that Val would sense it instantly. Despite being in a void, he was still a god, and he wasn't going to take any chances. Spyder said he would get more and more powerful the closer they got to him, and at this distance he didn't want to take any risks at all.
They needed to hurry before. Now they needed to race the weather to avoid getting trapped.
Tarrin picked up the pace, a pace that Jesmind could easily maintain as they ran up into a division between two of the reddish, mighty mountains, quickly coming across a rutted road just before reaching a large stand of fir trees. The trail was steep, and the road was forced to follow slight ridges in the side of the foothill, zig-zagging its way up through the small wood towards the pass. The two Were-cats simply went straight up the hill, moving with speed and grace, ghosting through the trees and easily avoiding a large caravan of wagons trundling its way down the hill, towards a small village visible from breaks in the trees at the foothill's base. They paused as the tail end of it went by, skulking down behind a rather large fir tree, as armed men on horseback escorted the wagons both ahead, behind, and with pairs flanking every wagon.
"Why the armed escort?" Jesmind asked in the silent manner of the Cat.
"Goblinoids," he answered. "There aren't many of them left up here, but they do wander up from Daltochan and the Petal Lakes sometimes, trying to catch the mining camps off guard."
"I don't smell any. Why the concern?"
"Humans think there's an enemy behind every tree," he shrugged. "Then again, that's a healthy attitude," he added absently.
"Don't backslide on me now, my mate. I'm starting to like you again."
"Well, you're always the first enemy I keep my eye on, love," he teased lightly. "You're more dangerous than most of the others."
She elbowed him in the ribs, then she set off as the last pair of mercenaries disappeared around a bend in the road.
They moved up into the pass itself quickly after leaving the caravan behind, rising up a thousand spans into the mountains very quickly, leaving the stand of trees and becoming exposed to a howling wind that funnelled up through the pass, screaming into them from behind. The wind was raw and very cold, and it carried on it the definite smell of snow. The two Were-cats had to shift into cat form and hide from parties of Ungardt several times as they climbed higher up into the pass, which was a narrow gorge cleaved between two towering peaks, but at least the floor of the gorge was relatively flat and easy to travel, and its edges held many large rocks and boulders which gave their small cat forms plenty of places to hide when it was needful.
The pass crested and looked down on a small plateau of sorts surrounded by rising snow-capped peaks, a bowl in the mountains which held a rather large mining town in its center. Black smoke rose up from the short, stout chimeys of several connected buildings in the center of town, with smaller high-roofed buildings surrounding them.
"What are those buildings in the middle?" Jesmind asked, shouting over the whistling wind, which made hearing difficult.
"I'd think they were a foundry, but it's too deep in the mountains," he shouted in reply. "They'd have to cart the coal up here. It's probably just a really big smithy. They probably go through alot of picks and shovels and things like that, and it'd be easier for them to make them here than try to cart them up the road from the village."
"Probably. Which way do we go?"
Tarrin looked around the bowl, and pointed to the northwest. "The map says there's a narrow pass there that leads into a series of interconnecting valleys," he answered. "We'll follow those valleys all the way across."
"I certainly wouldn't want to have to go up and down!" she shouted over a particularly loud howl of wind. "It wouldn't be very fun!"
"It would take forever!" he called in reply. "Well, let's not just stand around up here where anyone can-"
He cut himself short when something peculiar in the howling of the wind caught his attention. It was higher pitched than the wind, and it only lasted a moment. He turned just in time to see a large winged form diving at them from behind, using the tailwind to build up immense speed. It was a huge creature, some twelve spans tall and with feathered wings and a vulture's head, but it also had a vaguely humanoid body, like a twisted Wikuni, a bipedal frame with heavy elements of a vulture, including a vulture's feet and tail. It was carrying a huge polearm, like a glaive but with a wicked triple hook on the backside of the single-edged blade, and that polearm was levelled at them like a lance wielded by a charging Knight.
Immediately, Tarrin knew what it was. He'd fought them before. They were called vrock, and they were Demons.
The first had found them. Tarrin laid back his ears and realized that he had to kill this one before it could report their position back to the others.
Pushing Jesmind aside, Tarrin squared himself and set to deal with the flying charge. The vrock, seeing that it was discovered, shrieked in fury, the sound Tarrin had heard, and levelled that polearm right at Tarrin's heart. Tarrin knew Demons, and he knew that the first thing the Demon was going to try was Teleporting right before it reached him and appearing behind him, where the full force of its flying charge would impale him on its deadly polearm. Teleporting behind someone seemed to be their favorite trick. Reaching out and putting his will against the Weave, Tarrin pulled it away from the vrock, isolating it from the magic of the Weave, and thereby cutting it off from the source of its Demonic powers. Tarrin couldn't directly affect a Demon, but he could strip them of their powers.
The Demon sensed it immediately, and its dark eyes turned flat with hate as it pulled in its wings and descended. Tarrin could see that it would pull out just before reaching the ground and attack head-on. It swooped down and its wings opened, pulling it up level and bringing it right at the pair of Were-cats faster than any horse could possibly run. With a scream of triumph, the vrock adjusted its aim to impale the Were-cat through the middle, and the Were-cat did not try to get out of the way.
Timing was everything in a situation like this, and the endless hours of training with someone with Allia's inhuman speed finally paid off. In an absolute blur, Tarrin twisted aside at the last instant, the tip of its polearm just barely grazing the edge of his vest as he spun out of the way, and a viper-like paw lashed out like a whip and struck the top of the polearm as it passed, even as the Were-cat ducked under a wing moving with enough speed to decapitate him if it had struck.
He didn't strike it very hard, but he struck it hard enough. The downward strike on the polearm changed the vrock's trajectory in the air, dipping it down in a course that would plow it into the ground. The Demon opened its wings when it realized that it was now flying towards the ground, but it did not react fast enough. With a frightened squeal, the Demon slammed into the ground, digging a two span deep trench in the rocky ground with its beak, then it struck a rock it could not move and was catapulted over it. It rolled and tu
mbled on the rocky ground for about fifty longspans, as Tarrin and Jesmind raced behind it with weapons readied. Not even a crash like that would do more than temporarily stun the Demon, since it could not be harmed by the ground, but the impact and the physics at work in such an impact would still serve a vital purpose. Such an impact would stun the creature, possibly give it a concussion, as its brain rattled around in its skull like a clapper in a ringing bell.
There were ways to get around a Demon's invulnerability.
The thing rolled to a stop on its belly some three hundred spans away from where it had initially struck, and it never got a chance to so much as rise up on all fours and shake its head. Both the Were-cats were on it instantly. Jesmind jumped on its back and drove all ten metal talons of the Cat's Claws into its back, pinning it down. It squealed in sudden pain as the wounds registered to it, but that squeal died abruptly when Tarrin's black metal sword took off its head. The head bounced a little off the ground, then rolled to a stop a bit away upside-down, its eyes still glowering in abject hatred.
"Get off of it!" Tarrin barked in command, but Jesmind was already jumping free. She knew what was going to happen. The body immediately began decomposing, melting it a horridly smelling, sizzling, acidic black ichor that started burning its way into the rocky ground.
"How do I clean these?" she asked, holding up the smoking talons of the Cat's Claws, smeared with Demon blood.
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