From the town of Shdraudra three trails lead to the east, each separating out to find one of the very few passages through the Shdrast Mountains not blanketed by snow every day of the year. These passes reach great height at their most elevated point, though neither quite the same, but differ in both total length and the number of truly elevated ridges that must be crested. The shortest route, requiring a nine day journey assuming no delays or difficulties – a very dangerous assumption in such conditions – possesses only one high peak that must be surmounted, but it is known as the Bleak Path and reaches the greatest height of all by far. Rather than a ridge, it is practically a mountain summit and at its center there is a three day stretch where even the surefooted yaks, who will brush away snow to find submerged grass and shrubs, have no forage at all. This path also accumulates terribly deep snow and is only considered accessible for three months of the year. The Dragon Expedition, having reached the foot of the mountains early in the sixth month, was too early to dare that route. It was unsafe, and no traders had come to Shdraudra by that trail.
The second pass requires breaching three points of height, each of significance, but it the most open and hosts the widest campsites and greatest quantity of forage. This crossing requires some twelve days, and in the aggregate demands the largest change in elevation of any route, a significant burden upon the travel's endurance, and that of their animals. It is, however, the most commonly utilized pass, for the slopes preferentially face south and are open to the sun, allowing five or in some years even six months worth of accessibility.
The third pass is the longest trail, a winding and slow procession over only two heights that demands fifteen days at least to make the crossing, and inefficient caravans have been known to take up to twenty. Most years this pass is open between four and five months. The elevation change here is the least of the three, and in terms of physical challenges it is considered the easiest. However, the trails here are narrow and require the navigation of many cliffside cuts, leaving any travelers vulnerable to ambush by the mountain bandits.
It was the second pass that was chosen by the Dragon Expedition, a decision made in consultation with the yak driving merchant, Fadahm, who had only days prior to our arrival finished the year's first east-west crossing and could confirm the trail was clear of blocking snow. This offered the additional benefit that the remaining snowpack had been pressed down by the stamp of the yaks, which would allow for a greater rate of travel and ought to prevent several days of delay clearing deep accumulations. Though late spring snows are possible on the peaks, this had not, by the grace of the Divines, occurred since. It should be noted that it is cold enough atop the Shdrast Peaks that even in high summer it never rains, only snows, though summers are usually dry and feature much melting.
We departed with the dawn on the sixty-eighth day out from Crisremon. Not an auspicious day compared to the following one, but the prospect of waiting in Shdraudra was not to be entertained. The little town was not easily capable of hosting a group of our size for long, nor was it wise to delay and allow word to race ahead of our progress and potentially reach the ears of bandits. Our soldiers, imperial guard and mercenary alike, were highly confident in their ability to repel any bandit attack, but Erun cautioned all that even a clear victory might be costly upon the brutal terrain of the mountains. Ice and snow can carry away winner and loser alike in battle.
Upon leaving the town, any party proceeding eastward joins a winding track that snakes steadily toward the towering snow-capped and barren heights of the Shdrast range. A world of black and white, devoid of the colors of living lands, awaits. Even the brown tine of dust that commonly covers hills and cliffs was absent, swept away by powerful winds that howled around the spires. Perhaps, somewhere, there are other, higher, points jutting upward from the embrace of the Lady of the Earth, beyond the edge of known maps. The homeland of the yaks, if the legends of their origins are true, might well be such a place, faraway in the distant east beyond Shdustu. In such high, piercing places the eye can almost see the joins that bind Nakiat and Tiphupha close together, the eternal marriage of earth and sky. To my knowledge most of the summits of the Shdrast have never be mastered by human hands, lest the mountain bandits have done so in ancient days. I suspect that such climbs are impossible without mystic aid, for the air thins bitterly in such realms. Even at the heights of the passes, barely half the reach of the great summits, each breath comes in a gasp and fires burn fitfully, flickering strangely and seeming to flow in lurid patterns as fuel sputters weakly. We ate our meals partly cooked at best in those camps.
One of the Redbone Explorers asked Fadahm to point out the highest summit in the range, and after the yak driver had done so, asked its name. He was told it was called Ezaniez, a word taken from the forgotten language of the ancestral residents of Nla-Shdrast. When questioned as to whether any had ever climbed so high, the merchant offered only that the bleached bones of the fools who tried adorned the slopes beneath the ice. As this story made the rounds of the expedition our apothecary, after having the black-sided pyramid of stone that formed the summit indicated to his sight, opined that only through the use of powerful potions to strengthen the lungs could any human survive such a climb. He knew such mixtures, or so he claimed, but considered them a waste of ingredients. Both the healers and the Lady Indili echoed this sentiment when the question was put to them. Mistress Adnal told me that such altitudes caused the lungs to fill with fluid, as if the climber was drowning. Their arts could treat such things, but only following a swift descent.
This declaration heartened the explorers, who carried inside their hearts the dream that no place in the world should forever be forbidden the tread of human feet, all of Tiphupha given to our wandering, even, somehow, the depths of the ocean. I confess that, at first, I thought it a vainglorious vision, for though they possessed stark beauty, the heights were empty and desolate. Not even birds could be seen near the summits. Little would be learned from such a conquest. Yet, it later came to me that had Fadahm given the name of some legendary mountaineer who had conquered the summit long ago I would surely have included their name within this chronicle. To do something no one else has done, no matter how outwardly pointless it might appear, has an impact all its own.
Was chasing a dragon so very different?
The trails through the mountains follow the courses of narrow, plunging streams changing to raging white froth by snowmelt. Up and down is constant along the edge of such deep gorges, with gaps bridged by crumbling assemblies of poles that seem wholly incapable of supporting a loaded horse or mule but somehow manage the task one animal after another. Water, cold as ice, runs down the stony walls the form the inside edge of most trails and inevitably soaks through boots and gloves alike, making for a miserable and cold day. There is little fuel, and piles of dried yak droppings are cached in the saddles and caves used as campsites in order to provide for the fitful fires. With few good options for cooking, the traveler subsists of beans, jerky, gruel, and similar chilled foods mixed with lukewarm water most days. The nights are spent curled together besides one's companions and animals in order to share heat and block the terrible canyon-racing winds.
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It is a slow, dream-like procession, one compounded by the strange sense of detachment the thin air and brilliant reflections such heights inflict upon the mind. Never have I stood so close to the infinite realm of the Lord of the Sky, and perhaps humans were not meant to breach such elevations where we stand above the flight of birds. Others, however, face no such obstacle. There are goats here, or perhaps they are a form of sheep, the animals are far too skittish to approach closely. They are powerful creatures with elegant gray-brown coats and great curving horns that reach to the length of a tall man's arm, and sometimes greater. These stride across the heights with an ease that seems almost cruel, compared to our stumbling, halting procession. At sunset, if one is careful, a keen eye can catch the sight of lanky wolves that prey upon these hoofed mountaineers. These swift and elusive predators, with pale gray pelts of their own, seem to have little fear of humans and run along the ridges in open sight of our observance, though they know not to approach the trail itself. It seems the mountain bandits do not hunt them, perhaps considering them somehow sacred, folly though such a thing is. The Enlightened Revelation, as all know, is clear that all animals are equal in the sight of the Divines.
To reach the first of the high saddles of the pass takes five days. The Dragon Expedition was blessed with good weather throughout, though each night the meltwater descending from high above spilled over the trail and froze again, covering all surfaces in a film of ice. This had to be shattered for the first few hours of travel each day, until the sun reached the trail and melted it once more. In order to insure a safe crossing without wasting time, Erun ordered the Winged Cavalry, whose warhorses were heavily built and iron-shod, to march at the front, breaking apart this crust and allowing sure footing for those who followed. This method was effective, but served to swiftly tire the mounts, and the soldiers led their animals at a walk from morning onward, with extra care during descents.
The day after descending from the first pass all travelers face an even greater rise, the worst portion of the crossing as the very center of the Shdrast Range is breached. At the top one stands upon a great divide and looks west to the fertile lands of the empire and east to the barren wastes of the Shdus Desert. Both appear brown and drab from afar, seemingly identical in the gaze from such imperious heights. Each breath comes in a weak gasp here, best taken through a scarf or veil over mouth and nose, and the wind cuts to the bone. To linger in such a place is a struggle, and even I, taking advantage of this clear vista to quickly sketch out a map of the range, could not bear to remain any longer after the last member of the expedition had passed.
The yaks led the march from this point, steady creatures but slower than horses and the descent to the cold campsite stretched the expedition out across a wide distance, unfinished even as the sun dissipated behind the peaks to the west and light swiftly vanished into shadow.
To attempt to spend a night exposed on the heights is death, but at the same time the trail cannot be taken in darkness. We had few torches, and their glare impairs the care needed to make a descent. It was at this point that the apothecaries proved their value to the effort for the first time. The three young apprentices proceeded to backtrack up the trail carrying a strange powder that, when spread upon the end of wooden brand, provided a steady glow of blue-tinted illumination considerably stronger than any torch or oil lamp. This provided essential vision for those still to complete the descent, including myself, near the very end of the march. Though there were stumbles and many bruises acquired, none suffered an injury of such magnitude that they were unable to continue. Fadahm claimed this act was a blessing from the Divines, and personally strapped each of the exhausted women onto the backs of his yaks the next morning that they might ride instead of walk.
After surmounting these paired heights the way grows considerably easier. The final height, three days onward, is the least of the trio and also the easiest asent. Walking between the vales and canyons found at the center of the range the scenery changes from impossibly stark to something almost pleasant. There are hardy plants in some places, growing into mounded forms as if they were blankets. Signs of past human presence can be found along the trail, piles of stone, carvings in the rock faces, and stony weirs impressed on certain streams. All that has been left behind by some ancient age.
The Shdrast Range seems the sort of place, isolated and unbowed by human hands, that would attract mystic beings, if perhaps nothing so grand as a dragon, but when I posed the question to her the Lady Indili answered otherwise. Thin air and icy temperatures can kill such beings just as they kill humans, and they too must eat, making the lack of forage a significant barrier to habitation. Mystic creatures are more common in wild and desolate places not due to some preference for them, but because they have fled humans to seek refuge there. She did, however, suggest that if the mountains harbor deep caves it was likely that strange things did in fact sleep below our feet, but who could find them?
Aside from the blanket-like mounded plants, only scraggly grasses, mosses, and lichens grow here, rare patches of green amid the black backdrop of the bedrock. These are themselves close-cropped by the browsing of yaks and sheep. This absence of forage means that the crossing does grow easier, in a sense, day by day, as supplies are consumed and packs lighten, but this raises in the mind the specter of hunger and desolation, for there is no charity to be found in these mountains, and if a traveler's supplies fail, they become one of many who never emerge. Careful rationing of food and fodder is needed to make this crossing, and much discipline. Injury is also unavoidable when spending so much time on narrow, stony trails. Stumbles and falls occur, no matter how carefully steps are chosen. Such accidents cost the Dragon Expedition two horses, two mules, and one yak, all to broken legs. These animals were swiftly slaughtered, the meat cooked over their hair, bones, and skin, and then distributed to all. It made for a welcome respite from dry fare. Two of the caravaneers and one of the explorers also suffered injury in the mountains. One broken leg, a shattered ankle, and a serious concussion of the skull. All three spent the remainder of the crossing tied to saddles.
The central region of the Shdrast Range, between the heights of the passes may be the easiest portion of the crossing on knees and backs, but in a different sense it is by far the most dangerous. It is here that the mountain bandits slink along sheep trails over seemingly impassable cliffs to assault the trail and prey upon the trade of the continent.