Kith-Kanan sat up, leaning against the back wall of the ledge, and watched Sithas gather his equipment. It was nearly dawn.
"Take some of my arrows," he offered, but Sithas shook his head.
"I"ll leave them with you, just in case."
"In case of what? In case that ram comes looking for revenge?"
Suddenly uncomfortable, Sithas looked away. They both knew that if the hill giants returned, Kith-Kanan would be helpless to do more than shoot a few arrows before he was overcome.
"Kith . . ." He wanted to tell his brother that he wouldn"t leave him, that he would stay at his side until his wounds had healed.
"No!" The injured elf raised a hand, antic.i.p.ating his brother"s objections. "We both understandwe know that this is the only thing to do."
"II suppose you"re right."
"You know I"m right!" Kith"s voice was almost harsh.
"I"ll be back as soon as I can."
"Sithasbe careful."
The Speaker of the Stars nodded dumbly. It made him feel like a traitor to leave his brother like this.
"Good luck, Brother." Kith"s voice came to Sithas softly, and he turned back.
They clasped hands, and then Sithas leaned forward to embrace his brother. "Don"t run off on me," he told Kith, with a wry smile.
An hour later, he was past the water hole, where he had stopped to refill his skin.
Now the pa.s.s loomed before him like an icy palisadethe castle wall of some unimaginably monstrous giant. Carefully, still some distance away from the ascent, he
selected a route up the slope. He stopped to rest several times before reaching the base, but before noon, he began the rugged climb.
All the time he remained conscious of Kith-Kanan"s eyes on his back. He looked behind him occasionally, until his brother became a faint speck on the dark mountain wall. Before he started up the pa.s.s, he waved and saw a tiny flicker of motion from the ledge as Kith waved back.
The pa.s.s, up close, soared upward and away from him like a steep castle wall, steeper than it had looked from the safe distance of their campsite. The base was a ma.s.sive, sloping pile of talusgreat boulders that, over many centuries, had been pried loose by frost or water to tumble and crash down the mountainside. Now they teetered precariously on top of each other, and powdery snow filled the gaps between them.
Sithas strung his bow across his back, next to his sword. His cloak he removed and tied around his waist, hoping to maintain full freedom of movement.
He picked his way up the talus slope, stepping from rock to rock only after testing each foothold for security. Once several rocks tumbled away beneath him, and he sprang aside just in time. Always he gained alt.i.tude, pulling himself up the sheer face with his leather-gloved hands. Sweat dripped into his eyes, and for a moment, he wondered how, in the midst of this snow-swept landscape, could he get so Abyss-cursed hot? Then a swirl of icy wind struck him, penetrating his damp tunic and leggings and bringing an instant shiver to his bones.
Soon he reached the top. Here he encountered long stretches of loose scree, small stones that seemed to slip and slide beneath each footfall, carrying him backward four feet for every five of progress.
Kith-Kanan, of course, had been right. He was always right! His brother knew his way around in country like this, knew how to survive and even how to move and explore, to hunt and find shelter.
Why couldn"t it have been Sithas to suffer the crippling injury? A healthy Kith-Kanan would have been able to care for both of them, Sithas knew. Meanwhile, he wrestled with overwhelming despair and hopelessness, and he was not yet out of sight of their base camp!
Shaking off his self-pity, Sithas worked his way sideways, toward steeper, but more solid, shoulders of bedrock. Once his feet slipped away, and he tumbled twenty or thirty feet down the slope, only stopping himself by digging his hands and feet into the loose surface. Cursing, he checked his weapons, relieved to find them intact. Finally he reached a solid rock, with a small shelf shaped much like a chair, where he collapsed in exhaustion.
A quick look upward showed that he had made it perhaps a quarter of the way up the slope. At this rate, he would be stranded here at nightfall, a prospect that terrified him more than he wanted to contemplate.
Resolutely he started upward again, this time climbing along rough outcrops of rock.
After only a few moments, he realized that this was by far the easiest climbing yet, and his spirits rose rapidly.
Stepping upward in long strides, he relished a new sense of accomplishment. The valley floor fell away below him; the heavensand more mountainsbeckoned from above. He no longer felt the need for rest. Instead, the climb seemed to energize him.
By midafternoon, he had neared the top of the pa.s.s, and here the route narrowed challengingly. Two huge boulders teetered on the slope, with but a narrow crack of
daylight between them. One, or both, could very easily roll free, carrying him back down the mountainside if they didn"t crush him between them first.
No other route presented itself. To either side of the ma.s.sive rocks, sheer cliffs soared upward to the pinnacles of the two mountains. The only way through the pa.s.s lay between those two precarious boulders.
He didn"t hesitate. He approached the rocks and saw that the gap was wide enough to allow him to pa.s.sjust barely. He entered the aperture, climbing upward across loose rock.
Suddenly the ground beneath his feet slipped away, and his heart lurched. He felt one of the huge boulders shift with a menacing rumble. The rock walls to either side of him pressed closer, narrowing by an inch or so. Then the rock seemed to settle into place, and he felt no more movement.
With a quick burst of speed, he darted upward, scrambling out of the narrow pa.s.sage before the rocks could budge again. His momentum carried him farther up the last hundred yards of so of the ascent until finally he stood upon the summit of the pa.s.s.
Trees! He saw patches of green among the snowfields, far, far below. Trees, which meant wood, which meant fire! The slope before him, while steep and long, was nowhere near as grueling as the one he had just climbed. He glanced over his left shoulder at the sun, estimating two remaining hours of daylight.
It would have to be enough. He would have a fire tonight, he vowed to himself.
He plunged recklessly downward, sometimes riding a small, tumbling pillow of snow, at other times leaping through great drifts to soft landings ten or fifteen feet below.
Exhausted, sweat-soaked, and bone-weary, he finally reached a clump of gnarled cedars far down in the basin. Now, at last, his spirits soared. He used the last illumination of
daylight to gather all of the dead limbs he could find. He piled the firewood before an unusually thick trio of evergreens, where he had decided to make his camp.
A mere touch of his steel dagger to the flint he carried in his belt-pouch brought a satisfactory spark. The dry wood kindled instantly, and within minutes, he relished the comfort of a crackling blaze.
Was this the curse of the G.o.ds, thought Kith-Kanan, the punishment for his betrayal of his brother"s marriage? He leaned against the cliff wall and shut his eyes, wincing not in pain but in guilt.
Why couldn"t he have simply died? That would have made things so much easier.
Sithas would have been free to perform the quest instead of worrying about him like a nervous nursemaid worries about a feverish babe.
In truth, Kith-Kanan felt more helpless than a crawling infant, for he didn"t have even that much mobility.
He had watched Sithas make his way up the slope until his twin had disappeared from sight. His brother had moved with grace and power, surprising Kith with the speed of his ascent.
But as long as Kith-Kanan lay here upon this ledge, he knew Sithas would be tied to this location by their bond of brotherhood. He would explore their immediate surroundings, perhaps, but would never bring himself to travel far beyond.
All because I"m so d.a.m.ned stupid! Kith railed at himself. They had made inadequate preparations for attack! They had both dozed off. Only the sacrifice of brave Arcuballis had given the first warning of the hill giants.
Now his griffon was gone, no doubt dead, and he himself was impossibly crippled.
Sithas searched alone and on foot. It seemed inevitable to Kith-Kanan that their quest would be a failure.
Sithas dried his clothes and boots, every st.i.tch of which had been soaked by sweat or melting snow, by the crackling fire. It brightened his night, driving back the high mountain darkness that had previously stretched to infinity on all sides, and it warmed his spirits in a way that he wouldn"t have thought possible a few hours earlier.
The fire spoke to him with a soothing voice, and it danced for him in sultry allure. It was like a companion, one who could listen to his thoughts and give him pleasure. And finally the fire allowed him to cook a strip of his frozen meat.
That morsel, seared for a few minutes on a forked stick that Sithas plunged into the flames, emerged from the fire covered with ash, blackened and charred on the outside and virtually raw in the center. It was unseasoned, tough, imperfectly preserved ... and it was unquestionably the most splendid meal that the elf had ever eaten in his life.
The three pines served as a backdrop to his campsite. Sithas sc.r.a.ped away the small amount of snow here and cleared for himself a soft bed of pine needles. He stoked the fire until he had to back away from the blazing heat.
That night he slept for a few hours, and then awoke to fuel his fire. A mountainous pile of coals radiated heat, and the ground provided a soft and comfortable cushion until the coming of dawn.
Sithas arose slowly, reluctant to break the reverie of warmth and comfort. He cooked another piece of meat, more patiently this time, for breakfast. By the time he finished, sunlight was bathing the bowl-shaped depression around him in its brilliant light. He had made a decision.
He would bring Kith-Kanan to this valley. He didn"t know how yet, but he was convinced that this was the best way to insure his brother"s recovery.
His course plotted, he gathered up his few possessions and lashed them to his body.
Next he took several minutes to gather a stack of firewoodlight, sun-dried logs that would burn steadily. He trimmed the twigs off of these so that he could bundle them tightly together. This bundle he then lashed to his back.
Finally he turned his face toward the pa.s.s. The slope before him still lay in shadow, as it would for most of the day. Retracing his tracks of the previous afternoon, he forced his way through the deep snow, back toward the summit of the pa.s.s.
It took him all morning, but finally he reached the summit. He paused to restthe climb had been extremely wearyingand sought out the speck of color that he knew would mark Kith-Kanan"s presence on the ledge in the distance. He had to squint, for the sunlight reflecting from the snow-filled bowl brutally a.s.saulted his eyes.
He couldn"t see the ledge, though he recognized the water hole where he had collected their drinking water. What was that? He saw movement near the stream, and for a moment, he wondered if the sheep had returned. His eyes adjusted to the brightness, and he understood that these could not be sheep. Large humanoid shapes lumbered through the snow. s.h.a.ggy fur seemed to cover them in patches, but the "fur" proved to be cloaks cast over broad shoulders.
They moved in single file, some ten or twelve of them, as they crossed the valley floor, taking no notice of the depth of the snow.
With a sickening realization, Sithas understood what was happening: The hill giants had returned, and they were making their way toward Kith-Kanan.
14.
Immediately Following.
Sithas studied the hill giant that led the column of the brutes, perhaps two miles away and a thousand feet below him. The monster gestured to its fellows, pointing upward. Not toward Sithas, the elf realized, but toward . . . the ledge! His brother"s camp!
The dozen giants trudged through the snow of the valley floor, making their way in that direction.
Sithas tried to spot his twin, but the distance was too great. Wait ... there!
Kith-Kanan, he realized, must also have seen the giants, for the wounded elf had pulled a dark cloak over himself and was now pressed against the far wall of the ledge. His camouflage seemed effective and would make him virtually invisible from below as the giants headed toward the cliff.
The column of giants waded the stream. The one in the lead gestured again, this time indicating the path in the snow that Sithas had made in his travels back and forth for water. Another giant indicated a different track, the one made by Sithas on the previous day.
That slight gesture gave him a desperate idea. He acted quickly, casting around until his eyes fell upon a medium-sized boulder resting in the summit of the pa.s.s and cracked loose from the bedrock below. Seizing it in both of his hands, grunting from the exertion, he lifted the stone over his head. The last of the giants had crossed the stream, and now the file of huge, grotesque creatures was nearing the cliff wall.
Sithas pitched the boulder as hard and as far as he could. The rock plummeted down the steep, rock-strewn pa.s.s. Then it hit, crashing into another boulder with a sharp report
before bouncing and smashing again and again down the mountain pa.s.s, Breathlessly Sithas watched the giants. They had to hear the commotion!
Indeed they did. Suddenly the twelve monsters whirled around in surprise. Sithas kicked another rock, and that one too clattered down the pa.s.s, rolling between the two huge boulders that he had slipped between on the previous day"s climb.
Now the beasts halted, staring upward. Breathlessly Sithas waited.
It worked! He saw the first giant gesturing wildly, pointing toward the summit of the pa.s.s, toward Sithas! Kith-Kanan was left behind as the entire band of the great brutes turned and broke into a lumbering trot, pursuing the elf they probably thought they had "discovered" trying to sneak through the pa.s.s.
Sithas watched them advance toward him. They plunged through the deep snow in giant strides, each stride taking them farther from Kith-Kanan. Sithas wondered if his brother was watching, if he had seen the clever diversion created by his twin. He lay still, peering around a boulder as the monsters approached the bottom of the pa.s.s.
Now what could he do? The giants had almost reached the base of the pa.s.s. He looked behind him. Everywhere the valley was blanketed by deep snow. Wherever he went, he would leave a trail so obvious that even the thick-witted hill giants would have no difficulty in following him.
His attention returned to the immediate problem. He saw, with sharp panic, that the giants had disappeared from view. Moments later he understood. They were so close to the pa.s.s now that the steepness of the slope blocked his vision.
His head seemed fogged by fear, his body tensed with the antic.i.p.ation of combat.
The thought almost brought a smile to his lips. The prospect of facing a dozen giants with his puny sword struck him as ludicrous indeed! Yet by the same token, that prospect seemed inevitable, so that his amus.e.m.e.nt quickly gave way to stark terror.
Carefully he crept forward and looked down the pa.s.s. All he saw were the two monstrous boulders that had bracketed his ascent of the pa.s.s on the day before. As yet there was no sign of the giants.
Should he confront them at those rocks? No more than one at a time could pa.s.s through the narrow aperture. Still, with a brutally honest a.s.sessment of his own fighting prowess, he knew that one of them was all it would take to squash his skull like an eggsh.e.l.l. Also, he remembered the precarious balance of those boulders. Indeed, one of them had shifted several inches merely from the weight of his touch.
That recollection gave him an idea. The elf checked his longsword, which was lashed securely to his back. Quickly he unlashed the bundle of firewood and dropped the sticks unceremoniously to the ground. He hefted the longest one, which was about as long as his leg but no thicker than his armstill, it would have to do.
Without pausing to consider, Sithas, in a running crouch, crossed through the saddle and started down the slope toward the two rocks. He could see several of the giants through the crack now, and realized with alarm that they were nearly halfway up the steep-sided pa.s.s.