Fistandantilus Reborn - Douglas Niles [109]
“If you harm her…” Danyal didn’t complete the threat, but the fury burned hot in his eyes. Kelryn Dare-wind merely shrugged.
“Let’s see… we can ascend the peak just about anywhere,” Foryth Teel suggested, anxiously changing the subject. “It doesn’t look like a real tricky mountain to climb.”
“I think we should follow that gully,” Dan suggested, pointing to a ravine that scored deep through the rough ground on the mountain’s lower slope. “At least we’ll stay out of sight from the lair.”
The others agreed, and they used the waning hours of daylight to reach the foot of the conical summit. The lake of steaming water was nearby, off to their left, and even from a quarter mile away they could see that the surface of the water actually boiled in places, bubbles gurgling explosively upward, a roiled swath of waves churning into steam. A thick plume of water vapor rose from the lake, shrouding the valley in a nearly eternal fog, and they were grateful for the added concealment, even as the clammy air kept the perspiration on their skin from dissipating and matted their hair and clothing into a perpetually damp mess.
Despite the boiling lake, the air chilled rapidly with the coming of night. A cool wind blew down from the heights, and their breath frosted in the air as the four companions and their brutal enemy started the ascent.
At least the gully proved to be a good choice of a route. Though they occasionally had to maneuver around large rocks or short, precipitous drops in the sloping floor of the ravine, the party was able to climb in a trench with walls rising twenty or thirty feet high to either side. For hour after hour, they made their way upward, pausing rarely for a few minutes of rest, but then immediately turning back to the challenges of the steep ravine floor.
By mutual, unspoken assent, Danyal led the way. He and Emilo were the most nimble of the companions, but in the last days, the kender had seemed to lose some of his bold, carefree nature. Dan wasn’t certain whether this was because of the frequency and violence of the recurring spells, or because of concern for Mirabeth. In any event, the change had been dramatic and saddening.
The lad carried a loop of short rope, the line one of a few things they had salvaged from the ruins of Loreloch, and over the steep stretches of the climb, he braced himself at the top and dangled the rope as an added handhold for his companions.
In these sections, Kelryn Darewind climbed one-handed, keeping a tight grip on the knife and Mirabeth with the other. Any thoughts Danyal had about dropping the rope were quickly dashed when he saw that he would inevitably injure the lass as well as the bandit lord.
It was after midnight when, having just completed a fifteen-foot stretch of vertical ascent, they paused for another gasping rest. It looked to Danyal as though they were only halfway up the steep, high mountain, and he suppressed a twinge of fear, not wanting to imagine what would happen if daylight revealed them to be far from cover, fully exposed on this craggy summit of bare rock.
“Tsk – there’s a hole here,” Foryth said wearily. “I almost fell in.”
A waft of steam in Dan’s face was the first indication that there was a deep break in the ravine floor. Following the warmth, Danyal came around a large rock to see a black hole in the ground, a gap large enough for a person -but certainly not a dragon-to squeeze through. “Ifs a cave!”
Danyal exclaimed. “It could be a vent for the dragon’s lair,” Foryth suggested thoughtfully, coming to stand beside the lad.
“Let’s go in here, then,” the lad suggested. The warmth of the air felt so good that for a moment he was able to quell the emotions of fear and hate that were raging in his mind.
The others agreed, so once again the human lad led the way. Danyal crawled on his belly, feeling the passage open up within a few feet of the first entrance. Trying to move silently, he reversed himself so that his feet