-Trails and Trials-
They stood at the precipice, looking down on nothing more than fog so thick it looked like the clouds had taken refuge on the ground.
Faint glimpses poked through the dense mist, but Jordan couldn’t pick out anything recognizable.
The southern Ruins.
Sareth and Red had told her enough about the northern Ruins for Jordan to know this was a completely different beast. Where the northern destruction consisted of broken buildings and strange houses and streets, this large swath of land looked like it had plunged into itself. The fog-covered area was far below them, making Jordan feel like she was at the top of a mountain looking down on a hidden valley.
Her two companions seemed just as stunned as she was. They stood without speaking, taking in the strange silence that hung over the land. They had only needed to walk four or five hours after the Trucesan bridge to stumble on this anomaly.
“And Eithan and Winsom told us not to take a rowder,” Sareth snorted under her breath. “This is madness. How will we even get down to the valley floor? And then navigating through fog as thick as stone… clearly the ancients should have picked people who had already visited them to guide others who would seek out the Forgotten Trio.”
“Even if we wanted to take a rowder, we don’t have access to one,” Jordan pointed out.
Red had gotten down on her hands and knees and was approaching the steep ledge that dropped into the cloudy, hidden landscape below them.
When she reached the edge she reached out a hand, feeling the oppressive fog.
“This isn’t regular fog or mist,” she commented. Removing her pack from her shoulders, the auburn-haired warrior removed a round fruit and threw it into the mist.
The three of them listened intently, but they never heard the fruit land.
“Does anyone have rope?” Red asked, fastening her pack shut once more after taking out another piece of fruit.
“Why bother wasting more food when we didn’t learn anything from your last attempt?” Sareth said.
“This one is for me,” Red grinned, taking a large bite of the fruit before taking the rope Jordan offered her.
“Would anyone like to be our brave volunteer and find out how far the ground is?” Red asked, tying the rope around her belt. “I would go myself, but I don’t think either of you could support this much muscle.” She flexed, laughing.
“I guess I can…” Sareth began, but Jordan interrupted her.
“I’ll go. The two of you are out here because of me. It’s only right that I take the risk.”
“You already took the risk with those lightstruck weiver abominations,” Sareth pointed out.
“Using the sword shouldn’t count,” Jordan countered. “That would be like thanking Red for using her strength. I’ll go.”
“And if something goes wrong? The prophecy specifically talks about you. We’re just here to help you not die before you reach the Forgotten Trio,” Red pointed out helpfully. “I like to think we’ve done a pretty good job so far, personally. No need to ruin our good fortune now.”
“We all take risks. Let me take mine.”
Red shrugged her shoulders good-naturedly. “I won’t stop you.”
After checking to make sure her sword was still firmly tied at her waist, Jordan raked her blonde hair back away from her eyes, tucking it behind her ears before carefully approaching the ledge where Red stood, a pillar of confidence and strength. Sareth stayed farther away from the edge, trying to pierce through the fog with her keen, icy eyes.
Taking the rope in both hands, hands that were wrapped in fabric after her last swing, Jordan lowered herself over the edge and into the fog.
As soon as the mist enveloped her, Jordan lost her grip on the rope, falling in a mind-numbing panic. The fog felt warm, like Orenda, and seemed to slow, but not stop, her sudden descent.
She was blind in the thick, heavy mists. It felt like gravity had come lose of its chains and Jordan was falling up into the clouds, toward the stars and whatever lay beyond them.
Eyes closed, trying to focus, trying to breathe, she felt for her scabbard.
If there was ever a need for the sunsword’s blazing light, it was now. Fingering the intricate hilt of the sword, she pulled the blade free.
The bright, overwhelming gleam of the sun cut through the fog like a beam, burning through the mists and darkness.
Below her was a mountain covered in what seemed like ice or snow, getting closer with every passing moment.
And nothing to arrest her fall.
Winsom and his brother had said something about the importance of the journey. How was there a mountain this large in a strange valley, covered in snow and the sheen of ice at the tail end of the summer months? It was warmer this far south.
Twisting in the air, still firmly grasping the sunsword, she sent up a silent prayer to the Gatekeeper.
Solid ground. Please—
The mountain was getting closer, and the fierce wind was tearing at her clothes, her hair, almost blinding her as it whipped in her eyes. Tears started to gather, and she blinked through them.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Please, please…
She had to make it through this. The prophecy, whatever it entailed, had filled her with a sense of purpose ever since she’d first heard about it in the book Flage had given her.
Someone, or many people, were counting on her.
She looked back down at the mountain below her feet. The ice and snow were gone, inexplicably. Only the ebony black stone of the mountain remained.
Acting on a hunch, Jordan pictured a rowder underneath her, swooping in to save her, to stop her uncontrollable fall. Closing her eyes to keep the wind out of them, she sheathed the sunsword once more. It had cut through the unyielding fog with ease, but using such a powerful sword would be useless in an otherworldly space like this, where reality seemed to be what she believed it was.
Just as she sheathed the sword, the breath was forced from her lungs as she landed on something, something radiating heat and churning up the ripped fog and mist.
Eyes opening, Jordan clung to the thick neck feathers of the creature under her—a rowder. The creature was almost completely black, with a proud white head.
Jordan breathed a deep sigh of relief and thanked the Gatekeeper. The rowder under her cried out and bunched up its massive dark wings before shooting toward the mountain below.
The majestic creature, which seemed larger and more powerful than the few rowders Jordan had encountered, landed with complete finesse and control. The cold instantly penetrated through Jordan’s thin tunic, and she could see her breath in front of her. Although the top of the mountain they had landed on was nothing but gleaming black rock, all around them was a thick, rich layer of snow, glistening like millions of small crystals. And growing in patches on the mountain’s surface, strange plants with cruel-looking spines and thorns. Quenchers. Desert plants in the middle of this icy tundra.
The rowder gave a hearty cry and made eye contact with her. Its large round eyes were pure gold, reminding her of Flage and his strange, divine Orenda. The creature seemed to tell her something before spreading its mighty wings and taking to the sky once more, vanishing in the thick fog that covered the heavens, completely hiding Sareth and Red from view and leaving Jordan utterly alone.
***
Red gasped and instantly pulled the rope holding Jordan back in. Sareth turned in concern, stiffening when the rope came back without their blonde companion.
“As soon as she entered the fog, I couldn’t feel her weight anymore. Like this strange, blasted mist devoured her!”
“I’m going in to find her,” Sareth said decisively, fighting back the urge to fiddle with her knife, like she always did when she was anxious.
“What, so you can disappear too? Not happening.” The mighty redhead folded her massive arms across her chest as though daring Sareth to make it past her.
“The only reason we’re here is to accompany Jordan and help her reach the ancients. If we do nothing or take our time deliberating, we might not ever find her again. I’m going, and you can’t stop me.”
Growling, Red unsheathed her battle ax in such a swift, fluid motion that Sareth was tempted to take a step back. “There’s no point in splitting up,” the redhead said, her voice deep and threatening, like a breaking thunderstorm.
“And there’s nothing keeping me here,” Sareth shot back. “Jordan would never leave either of us out here. She was willing to stay behind and fight a whole horde of those terrible creatures so we could make it safely across.” Sareth eyed the bandage around her upper arm, where the weiver had sliced through her skin.
Red started to protest, but although the warrior was stronger and more trained than Sareth, she hadn’t grown up half-starved and desperate to survive.
Sareth took off at a sprint and dove into the unnatural mist as though she were diving into a pool of water. Red shouted, but as soon as Sareth entered the fog the warrior’s voice was cut off abruptly and all Sareth could hear was a powerful rushing, like she was falling down a waterfall. The fog shifted and moved around her like water, carrying Sareth down into the hazy expanse of gray.
There was nothing natural about this. It defied understanding or reason. So she didn’t fight it, simply closing her eyes and keeping her arms and legs tightly against her body as she shot through the rolling fog down toward the depths.
Glimpses and images slipped in and out of her mind as she traveled through the mist. A sky, perpetually darkened. A never-ending silver expanse of something that looked like ice or glass. And the strangest weapon Sareth had ever seen, without a blade or edge yet somehow far more deadly, in her pale hands.
She wanted to drop the strange sword or spear, but the image sunk back into the void, leaving Sareth grabbing at nothing.
And then she was plunging into steamy, warm water, fighting and kicking to reach the surface, coughing water out of her lungs, her dark hair hanging limply around her face. Although the fog continued to persist above her head, she could see enough to examine her surroundings.
The air was warm and humid, almost stifling. Sareth could already feel her clothes sticking to her, was already brushing the sweat out of her eyes. Long, thick vines hung from massive trees whose trunks reached down under the steamy pool of water she’d landed in. Everything around her was an oppressive layer of greenery, like nature had become a weapon. The trees around her reached far beyond the mist, making it impossible for her to tell how tall they really were. And the vines were so tangled and numerous she was unsure how she would make it through even two feet of the dense growth once she swam to land.
She started kicking her way to the muddy bank before abruptly stopping, noticing a slight wavering in the tangled maze of vines. Two red eyes, and a forked tongue, whipping out before slithering back into the creature’s mouth.
A deadlyone, the same color as the vines, its long, slick body undulating as it watched her.
***
Red wanted to scream at someone or slam her battle ax into something satisfying, like a training dummy at the academy.
In just a few minutes she had been left alone on the cliff overlooking the deadly, mysterious fog. She hadn’t heard screams or the thump of a body landing below, but as much as she shouted Jordan’s and Sareth’s names, she received no reply. As though the two women had never existed.
This was nonsense. The journey to reach the three ancients was supposed to test them, and Red guessed that the tests and trials started now.
“A little bit of cloud cover never stopped me,” she growled under her breath, wielding her battle ax out in front of her as she stepped into the fog. Although once she entered she could see nothing but the oppressive, heavy mist, the fog under her felt as solid as stone. She pressed forward with the ax held out in front of her, bracing herself for any sudden impact.
When she reached out to either side of her she felt the same stone-like substance, even though everything looked like a wall of gray smoke. Hoping the light from her Orenda would maybe cut through the haze, Red summoned her garnet light, wrapping the power around her battle ax and then holding the weapon above her like a torch. The fog didn’t diminish, but her Orenda seemed to be pulled in a certain direction. Small particles of the red light broke off from her weapon and drifted forward, guiding her toward something in the invisible distance.
Red was used to being uncomfortable. The academy was nothing more than a series of bruises and cuts, sore muscles and aching feet. But as her march through the fog seemed to stretch into hours, she started to wonder if the oppressive mist would ever evaporate.
“By the Gatekeeper, show me the way,” she murmured under her breath. “How long will I wander through this valley?”
As she continued her march forward, following the sparks from her Orenda-infused weapon, the walls and floor of fog around her gradually seemed to solidify into thick slabs of stone.
Kneeling down, Red felt the ground beneath her feet. It was cold and solid, like stone. The walls were made of the same rocky substance. And ahead of her, instead of just a screen of fog, was a light, growing brighter every moment. She started to feel heat, as though she were approaching a blazing, roaring bonfire.
Exiting the stone tunnel or cave, she saw a massive stone structure taking up most of the horizon with its substantial, intimating bulk. It looked like an ancient Forlorn castle, and standing in front of the stone castle was a snapping fire, surrounded by the strangest warriors Red had ever seen.