CHAPTER 20: THE STAIRS

The steps going down, carved into the rock, were smooth and stretched from the wall, and ended in a drop down the chasm to Falinor’s right side. For their width, the stairs gave Falinor somewhat of an approximation to two paces in length.

“Stay near the wall,” he said in warning as he glanced down into that chasm. The bottom was there—visible, but far. If any of them fell, it would surely be their doom.

Moving forward, he glanced about warily, listening for any more signs of a presence, for the sound that they heard, had surely been a presence, possibly unnatural to this biome.

With each step he took, a subtle echo followed that travelled through the circular chasm before them. He just hoped those sounds did not reach the ears of an enemy. And perhaps the sounds they had heard had been the sounds of a natural rock fall—or a living creature, scurrying about.

In any event, it did not matter. Sound or no, the swordsman was alert, ready for combat should the need arise to defend himself and his companions.

Glancing down again, Falinor saw nothing.

“What is it?” whispered Orvan.

The swordsman glanced toward the small, learned fellow and shook his head silently. Then he brought a finger over his lips to signal for quiet. The other man nodded and Falinor continued leading them down.

Time passed, and Falinor worked up a thirst.

He could drink water at the bottom.

The swordsman wanted to increase his descending gait—to get them down sooner, but the noise such movements would make would increase dramatically from what they were currently producing.

It was now that he wished he had chosen the school of arcane mysticisms. Then he could cast a silence spell upon their footsteps. With just such a spell, the trip could run down the steps—nay, they could dance down them—and not be heard.

Even as a learner in the School of Hessin, a far easier Arcanum—he had failed. Falinor simply did not have the aptitude for the magical arts. He was a swordsman, a warrior and a mercenary.

And now he was an adventurer and a protector—protector to Princess Harrkania. He would have never dreamed of such a thing, but the winds of fate brush a man to peculiar places throughout his life.

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Pushing up near the wall, Falinor stepped down another stair, then down another, and another. The repetition alone was beginning to bore him, even in his state of heightened awareness, of wariness for possible enemies nearby and their need to stay as silent as possible.

Something then made a noise and he glanced up, looking for it. When he looked to the others, they too had their eyes up, searching the bottoms of the stairs that had been carved into these solid rocks where the noise had come from.

Harrkania glanced into his eyes and shrugged with a question.

Whatever the noise had been, it sounded to Falinor like a skittering of some kind of beast. Probably nothing to worry about—an animal living in this area, and if giants and humans came this way, surely beasts from these wilds roamed, searching for food and shelter.

The skittering came again, a fast, scurrying of legs, light and scratching upon the stones. For the sounds, Falinor suspected the beast to be the size of large loaf of bread—a large loaf of bread bakes within the kitchens of giants.

There was a sucking of breath behind him, quick and gasp-like. It was Orvan, and when Falinor saw him, the man shook his head and glanced away, unable to move?

Falinor followed his gaze and saw something hanging over the stair above them. It was elongated, yellow-orange in color with darker brown pigmentation at the bulbous end, a stinger or claw-like protrusion grasping the rocky surface.

It was surely the beast that had skittered about.

Glancing to Harrkania, who had a look of mild alarm on her face as she slowly removed her boat ore from her back, Falinor nodded. Then using his tongue, he blew air through his teeth, making a subtle hissing sound to catch Orvan’s attention.

The man look at him, his breathing heavy and his eyes wide.

He was the wrong man to be on this quest, and had they not possibly been pursued, Falinor would have told him to stay behind with the sloop. Harrkania however could look after herself. Save for her clumsiness, she still had more strength than even Falinor—and she was quite athletic besides.

As they regarded him, Falinor jerked his head, indicating that they were to continue, and he moved on.

For the little beast on the rocks, weather dangerous or no, there was nothing they could do. It rested too high to strike at, and without being attacked, there was no reason to make a ruckus in this place attempting to kill it.

While they descended the circular stairs, the beast made no more sounds. It was just some wild thing that lived in these sheltered places, most likely eating smaller creatures as it roamed about in search of food.

Falinor believed the thing harmless.

An echo came from below, a striated and multifaceted echo of many limbs scurrying and scratching. Stopping, the swordsman sucked in a breath, realizing that those skitterings were the sounds of more of the little beasts, yet unseen by any of them save for a mandible.

Now there were many more ahead. Perhaps dozens.

They moved.

They spread out.

They came closer.

When they had come close enough, Falinor realized they were moving in a manner, and close enough to the party, that they would have to react—and so he murmured over his shoulder, a word to the others. “Prepare.”

“Oh gods,” wheezed Orvan.

“Shh!” Harrkania hissed, the sound of her shushing the teacher far louder than Orvan’s complaint.