The Doom of Kings_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [86]
They were all up with the sun and ready to attack the mountain. It was still a daunting chunk of landscape to search. Broadleaf trees hugged the lower slopes, giving way to the thick dark green of pines and firs higher up. The peak, shining in the morning sun, was a cap of bare rock dotted with thin patches of grass like hair on the head of a bald man. Dagii rode a little farther along the old road to get a different view and came galloping back to them. “There’s a saddle just around the mountain and about halfway to the peak,” he said. “We should be able to reach it. Using Aram there should eliminate the need to search at least half the mountain.”
It was frustrating to leave the road again and re-enter the green world of the forest. The trees seemed particularly thick on the mountain. Within paces of leaving the road, they had lost site of it. It took a long while before the ground started rising, and they had to stop and wait at least twice while Chetiin climbed a tree to check their position. The second time he came down, he said, “I see the saddle,” and led them off at an angle to the way they’d been heading.
The ground began a sharp ascent shortly afterward. By mid-morning it was too steep to ride the horses, and they had to dismount. Even Chetiin got off Marrow and let the worg pad about on her own. The speed of Tariic’s magebred horses had ceased to be a benefit days before. Geth was glad that they had also been bred for endurance.
“Should we leave them behind?” he asked Dagii after a particularly difficult stretch that left them all sweating. “We could go faster on our own without them.”
“I’d rather haul them up the slope than risk something happening to them. We’ll still need to get out of the mountains and back to Rhukaan Draal.” The warrior was covered with dirt and leaf mould from slipping face first to the ground during the climb, but he still managed to keep his stiff manner. Maybe he was even more stiff, as if trying to hold onto his dignity. Geth felt the distinctly unheroic urge to push him down again, just to see if he could get him to laugh.
He didn’t have a chance to act on the urge. Marrow, who had been wandering ahead, came loping back. Her black fur stood on end, adding bulk to her neck and shoulders, and she was growling. She trotted to Chetiin and said something in the snarling language of worgs. Chetiin stiffened, and his ears flicked.
“What is it?” Dagii asked, and suddenly his stiffness didn’t seem so out of place.
“Bugbears. Marrow caught their scent. They’re not close, but we’re in their territory.”
“That’s not good, I guess,” said Ashi.
Dagii shook his head. “The Marguul tribes of the mountains have resisted swearing allegiance to Haruuc,” he said. “A few Marguul tribes are loyal, but others only acknowledge their oaths when it’s convenient to them. Tribes in the high mountains often don’t even bother to pretend.”
“And these are the high mountains.”
“Oh, yes.”
Chetiin listened to a few more yips and growls from Marrow. “There’s a hunters’ trail a short way ahead.”
“We need scouts,” Dagii said. “Chetiin, Geth, Ashi—follow Marrow and see what we’re dealing with. We’ll wait here.”
“Mazo,” said Chetiin. Geth shrugged out of his pack, Ashi did the same, and the three of them slid into the forest after Marrow.
The trail was only about thirty paces away. If they’d kept going, they would have blundered right into it. The four of them crouched in the brush a short way off the trail and watched for a short while. When there was no movement, they crept closer. Geth gestured, and Ashi stepped out into the open while Geth and Chetiin remained behind, hands on weapons. Ashi walked a few paces up and down the trail, then rejoined them.
“I don’t know what bugbear footprints look like, but a lot of big creatures on two feet use this trail frequently,” she said, and pointed first south, then north. “They walk that way with light