The wind picked up, howling down the pass. Shadow snorted and jerked at his reins. Eyes tearing against the wind’s icy bite, Tol tightened his grip on the halter, and doggedly ordered them to press ahead.
By late afternoon, they were through the gorge known as H’rar’s Graveyard and on a wide, flat plateau. They’d encountered no other travelers, which was as Tol had expected; the usual flow of trade through the mountains had been choked off by the war between Tarsis and Ergoth.
On boulders, though, they found messages left by previous travelers. “Spit with the wind,” “Make your water downhill,” and other such sage advice was scratched into the rocks. Spotting one he couldn’t read, Tol asked Felryn, the most educated member of the party, if he could translate.
“That’s Dwarvish,” the healer said. “I haven’t read the dwarf tongue in a long time.” He frowned thoughtfully and followed the lines of script with his finger. “ ‘The Hammer of Reorx opens and closes all doors.’ I think that’s right.”
“Who’s Reorx?” asked Kiya.
“A godling, Corij’s squire, though the dwarves and gnomes revere him as the highest deity of all,” Darpo said.
“So a pithy proverb known only to dwarves,” Miya said dismissively, face red from the ever-present cold wind. “Let’s move on. I’m frozen!”
At the far end of the plateau, the passage into the high pass was flanked by two huge, irregularly shaped columns. From a distance, they seemed to be natural rock formations, but as the party drew closer, they were revealed to be statues, ancient, weathered figures of colossal size. They stood erect, with one foot forward and their arms tight against their side. The southern statue was headless (its head lay broken on the ground). The northern colossus was intact, but its features were so worn as to be unrecognizable.
The group halted, awestruck by the size and obvious age of the monuments. Practical Miya finally broke the spell. “What sort of fools would go to all the trouble to raise such things in this forsaken place?” she said.
“The Irda.”
Felryn looked at Tol, surprised. “You know their ancient history, my lord?”
“Only a little.” He had learned a few things from the well-read Valaran. “Ruins of the Irda are found only in remote places. All other traces of their reign have been plundered away.”
There was no way to know who the great colossi were meant to represent. Gods, kings, or heroes-after such a span of time, it was impossible to say.
The icy wind abruptly died. Darpo, glancing back the way they’d come, called their attention to an odd sight.
Spilling up from the lower pass behind them onto the plateau was a thick white fog. In spite of the stillness of the air, the vapor was slowly spreading across the open ground as though pushed by unseen hands. In moments, as they watched, it bulked up several paces high, then began to twist and writhe. The breeze picked up again, but it had changed direction. It now rushed toward the fog, as though the vapor drew it in.
As they stood transfixed by the peculiar sight, Felryn’s face suddenly took on an expression of alarm.
“We must go!” he cried, seizing his horse’s bridle. “Now, my lord! Run!”
None questioned the healer but immediately sprinted for the gap between the ancient monuments, dragging their horses after them.
What had been a rushing wind quickly became a blasting gale. The white fog had spun itself into a tornado and churned toward them, scoring a ragged line in the stone of the plateau. They were bombarded by flying grit. The wind rose to a deafening roar.
Frez, last in line, was lifted off his feet. Only the weight of his horse and his grip on its reins kept him from being sucked into the thundering white column; Kiya saw him and shouted for help; the big woman was fighting for all she was worth to maintain a grip on her own terrified beast.
Tol hurled himself onto Shadow’s back and rode to his man. So great was Shadow’s fear of the tornado, Tol was forced to dig his spurs into his sleek hide.
When he reached Frez, Tol grabbed him around the waist. Frez let go his reins, and his horse, screaming in panic, galloped straight into the white cyclone. To their horror, the spinning wall of wind and vapor shredded the animal to bits, like a ripe apple thrown against a grinding wheel.
Tol hauled Shadow around as Frez slid onto the saddle behind him. This time no spurs were needed; the gray horse galloped headlong away from the tornado and back toward the rest of the group.
The others had taken shelter behind the headless colossus. As he thundered toward them, Tol shouted for them to get moving.
The passage beyond the statues was exceedingly narrow, no wider than the girth of a single horse. Trying to make haste, yet hampered by the tightness of the passage, Miya went first, leading her mount. Kiya followed, then Darpo. Tol and Frez dismounted, and Tol pushed his comrade ahead of him into the passage.
The tornado had almost reached the statues, yet for some reason Felryn had lingered behind. The healer was hunched by the mountain wall, standing over a square block of stone carved out of the plateau itself.
Tol bellowed at him to follow them, but Felryn turned and shouted back, “This is the hammer! The Hammer of Reorx! Remember the inscription? We must strike the hammer!” Felryn gestured wildly at the loose rocks by Tol’s feet. “Strike the stone!”
Tol didn’t fathom him in the least, but in the face of imminent death, he chose to trust his old friend. Bending, he picked up a stone the size of a loaf of bread.
A surprised cry brought Tol’s head around. The advancing tornado had pulled Felryn off balance. The healer’s feet flew out from under him, and he was drawn backward. His large, strong hands scrabbled vainly for purchase against the side of the mountain.
“Strike the hammer!” he shrieked, before vanishing into the gap between the statues.
Every muscle straining, Tol raised the stone over his head and dashed it onto the carved block. A loud, metallic clang resounded.
The wind yanked him this way and that, and Tol lost his grip on the heavy stone. His hobnailed boots skittered over the ground as he was pulled toward the cyclone. Like Felryn before him, he flailed his arms wildly, seeking a handhold.
Just as he’d given up hope, Tol beheld an amazing sight: the colossi were beginning to move! Pivoting on their bases, the giant statues slowly turned inward to face each other. A tremendous grinding noise, audible even above the thunder of the tornado, reverberated through the canyon.
The giants plowed ahead, closing the distance between themselves. The gap between them had been six or seven paces; soon, it was barely two. Felryn had wisely interpreted the meaning behind the Dwarvish inscription. Striking the carved block-”Reorx’s hammer"-opened and closed the passage. The time-worn Irda statues were not mere monuments: they were an ensorcelled gate.
Danger wasn’t done with Tol yet. The roaring column pressed against the colossi, seeking to squeeze between them, and Tol was held against the statues by its force. Up close (too close!) he could see the white surface of the tornado was made up of tiny, glittering shards. Ice, mostly, with some fragments of loose stone. Where the spinning crystals touched the statues, the surface of the stone was polished away.
The bases of the colossi finally touched, choking off the passage and the wind completely. Tol dropped to the ground. His head pounded from the sudden silence, and his body ached as though he’d fought a battle.
“Husband?”
Kiya crouched by him. Miya was staring in awe at the statues. She asked about Felryn. Tol did not answer. Felryn had saved them all but doomed himself.
Tol’s face was red and raw from the flying dust. Memory of Felryn’s terrible death brought a stinging to his eyes that had nothing to do with dust. Kiya helped him to his feet.