Stepping upward in long strides, he relished a new sense of accomplishment. The valley floor fell away below him; the heavens—and more mountains—beckoned 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 pass, 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 massive rocks, sheer cliffs soared upward to the pinnacles of the two mountains. The only way through the pass 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 pass—just 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 passage 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 pass.
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 gods, 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 damned 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 stitch 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 scraped 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 firewood-light, sundried 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 pass. 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 pass.
It took him all morning, but finally he reached the summit. He paused to rest—the climb had been extremely wearying—and 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 assaulted 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. Shaggy 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
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.