“I’m not prepared to give up yet!” Sithas said, more sharply than he intended. Truthfully, the same suspicions had lurked in his own subconscious for many days. What if he found no sign of the griffons? What if they had to march back to Silvanost on foot, a journey that would take months and couldn’t begin until snowmelt in late spring? And what if they returned, after all this time, empty handed?
So it was that Sithas began his eastward search with a taut determination. He pushed himself harder than ever before, going to reckless lengths to scale sheer passes and traverse lofty, precipitous ridges. The mountains here were the most rugged of any in the range, and any number of times they came very close to claiming the life of the intrepid elf.
Every day Sithas witnessed thundering avalanches. He learned to recognize the overhanging crests, the steep and snow-blanketed heights that gave birth to these crushing snowslides. He identified places where water flowed beneath the snow, gaining drinking water when he needed it but avoiding a potential plunge through the ice that, by soaking him in these woodless heights, would amount to a sentence of death by freezing.
He slept on high ridges, with rocks for his pillow and bed. He excavated snow caves when he could and found that the warmth of these greatly improved his chances of surviving the long, dark nights. But once again he found nothing that would indicate the presence of griffons—indeed, of any living creatures—among these towering crags. He pressed for two full weeks through the barren vales, climbing rockstudded slopes, dodging avalanches, and searching the skies and the ridges for some sign of his quarry. He pressed forward each day before dawn and searched throughout the hours of daylight until darkness all but blinded him to any spoor that wasn’t directly in front of his nose. Then he slept fitfully, anxious for the coming of daylight so that he could resume his search. However, he was finally forced to admit defeat and turned back toward the brothers’ camp. A bleak feeling of despair came over him as he made camp on a high ridge. It was as he rearranged some rocks to form his sleeping place that Sithas saw the tracks: like a cat’s, only far bigger, larger than his own hand with the fingers fully outstretched. The rear, feline feet he identified with certainty, and now the nature of the padded forefeet became clear, too. They might have been made by an incredibly huge eagle, but Sithas knew this was not the case. The prints had been made by the great taloned griffon.
Kith-Kanan squirmed restlessly on his pine-branch bed. The once-soft branches had been matted into a hard and lumpy mat by more than two months of steady use, and no longer did they provide a pleasant cushion for his body. As he had often done before—indeed, as he did a hundred or a thousand times each day—he cursed the injury that kept him hobbled to this shelter like an invalid.
He noticed another sound that disturbed his slumber—a rumble like a leaky bellows in a steel-smelting plant. The noise reverberated throughout the cave.
“Hey, One-Tooth!” Kith snapped. “Wake up!” Abruptly the sound ceased with a snuffling gurgle, and the giant peered sleepily into the cave.
“Huh?” demanded the monstrous humanoid. “What Three-Legs want now?”
“Stop snoring! I can’t sleep with all the racket!”
“Huh?” One-Tooth squinted at him. “Not snoring!”
“Never mind. Sorry I woke you.” Smiling to himself, the wounded elf shifted his position on the rude mattress and slowly boosted himself to his feet.
“Nice fire.” The giant moved closer to the pile of coals. “Better than village firehole.”
“Where is your village?” asked Kith curiously. The giant had mentioned his small community before.
“In mountains, close to tree lands.”
This didn’t tell Kith much, except that it was at a lower altitude than the valley they now inhabited, a fact that was just as well, considering his brother’s ongoing exploration of the highlands.
“Sleep some more,” grunted the giant, stretching and yawning. His mouth gaped, and the solitary tusk protruded until One-Tooth smacked his lips and closed his eyes.
The giant had made remarkable progress in learning the elven tongue. He was no scintillating conversationalist, of course, but he could communicate with Kith-Kanan on a remarkable number of day-to-day topics.
“Sleep well, friend,” remarked Kith softly. He looked at the slumbering giant with genuine affection, grateful that the fellow had been here during these months of solitude.
Looking outward, he noticed the pale blue of the dawn sky looming behind One-Tooth’s recumbent form.
Damn this leg! Why did he have to suffer an injury now, just when his skills were most needed, when the entire future of the war and of his nation were at stake?
He had regained some limited mobility. He could totter, albeit painfully, around the mouth of the cave, getting water for himself and exercising his limbs. Today, he resolved, he would press far enough to get a few more pine branches for his crude and increasingly uncomfortable bed.
But that was nothing compared to the epic quest undertaken by his brother!
Even as Kith thought about making the cave a little more cozy, his brother was negotiating high mountain ridges and steep, snow-filled valleys, making his camp wherever the sunset found him, pressing forward each day to new vistas. More than once, Kith had brooded on the fact that Sithas faced great danger in these mountains. Indeed, he could be killed by a fall, or an avalanche, or a band of wolves or giants—by any of countless threats—and Kith-Kanan wouldn’t even know about it until much time had passed and he failed to return. Growling to himself, Kith limped to the cave mouth and looked over the serene valley. Instead of inspiring mountain scenery, however, all he saw were steep, gray prison walls, walls that seemed likely to hold him here forever. What was his brother doing now? How fared the search for the griffons?
He limped out into the clear, still air. The sun touched the tips of the peaks around him, yet it would be hours before it reached the camp on the valley floor.
Grimacing with pain, Kith pressed forward. One-Tooth’s forays for wood and water had packed down the snow for a large area around their cave, and the elf crossed the smooth surface with little difficulty.
He reached the edge of the packed snow, stepping into the spring mush and sinking to his knee. He took another step, and another, wincing at the effort it took to move his leg.
Then he froze, motionless, his eyes riveted to the snow before him. His hand reached for a sword that he was not wearing.
The tracks were clear in the soft snow. They must have been made the night before. A pack of huge wolves, perhaps a dozen or more, had run past the cave in the darkness. Luckily he could see no sign of them now as he carefully backed toward the cave.
He remembered the fire they had built the night before and imagined the wolves sidling past, fearful of the flames. Yet he knew, as he studied the silent woods, that sooner or later they would return.
17
Sithas reached upward, pulling himself another several inches closer to his goal. Sweat beaded upon his forehead, fatigue numbed his arms and legs, and a dizzying expanse of space yawned below him. All of these factors he ignored in his grim determination to reach the crest of the ridge.
The rocky barrier before him loomed high, with sheer sides studded with cracked and jagged outcrops of granite. A month ago, he reflected as he paused to gasp for breath, he would have called the climb impossible. Now it represented merely another obstacle, one that he would treat with respect yet was confident that he would successfully overcome.
High hopes surged in his heart, convincing him to keep on climbing. This had to be the place! The night before, those tracks on the ledge had seemed so clear, such irrefutable proof that the griffons lived somewhere nearby. Now doubts assailed him. Perhaps his mind played tricks on him, and this tortuous climb was simply another exercise in futility.