Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) (59 page)

“No?”

“It felt like… U’lfer,” he said. “Faint, like a memory you can’t quite grab onto, but it was there. For the briefest moment, I felt like I was among my own people.”

“That is strange.” Squinting in the harsh silver light of the sun streaming through the thick clouds overhead, Bren thought he heard the distant rumble of thunder and turned his head in its direction. Somewhere on the other side of the mountain, the sea battered at the cliffs. “What do you think it was then?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “A memory. Our fathers came to this place years and years before the War of Silence to search for the Horns of Llorveth, though for what purpose I’ve no idea. My brother and I never heard the story of Llorveth and Madra before we came to Dunvarak. We only knew there was a battle between Llorveth and Foreln and our god lost his horns. The U’lfer believed they could change their circumstances if they found those horns, maybe Llorveth would hear us again.”

Brendolowyn returned his gaze to Lorelei, who was waving to them from across moss-colored stone and patchy, yellowed grass, calling out for them to come and see what she’d found. By the time they tethered the horses and joined her, she was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet, excitement lighting up her face and reddening her cheeks.

“See,” she pointed to the near-smooth stone. “There it is. Right where I remember it.”

“What?” Finn leaned inward, eyes scanning the rock around the place the tip of her finger was pointing. “What am I looking for?”

It glinted, only briefly, but enough to catch Brendolowyn’s eye. Fading magic he could only just feel the ebb and flow of, he pushed forward. Edging past Finn, he knelt down on the carpet of moss and studied the symbol carved into the stone. The ancient Dvergr magic that once sustained it would have acted as a beacon to brothers coming from afar to the aid those who dwelt within the belly of Great Sorrow. It was subtle, fading and he guessed it had been centuries since it had actually been seen by living eyes.

Casting only the barest glimmer of its essence, Brendolowyn realized Finn probably wouldn’t be able to see it because he lacked any type of magical affiliation whatsoever. He wasn’t surprised, however, that Lorelei found it easily. There was far more to her than they could have ever dreamed, an apparent fact that could no longer be denied. He traced his finger over the nine-pointed star and the smooth rune carved in the center. He felt the faintness of its magic moving through him and shuddered as it warmed him and then flickered out again.

“What is it?”

“It is as she says,” Bren told him, rocking back on his heels and withdrawing his hand. He could still feel the barest hint of ancient magic tingling through him, even though it disappeared before he’d even withdrawn his hand. “This symbol marks another passage into Great Sorrow.”

“It would only make sense for there to be another way into the mountain,” Lorelei added, uncertainly asking, “wouldn’t it?”

“Absolutely,” he agreed. “The main entrance would have been well-guarded and protected by all manner of magic known to the Dvergr, but magic is not infallible. If they faced an enemy proficient in its conjurations...” The words dwindled on his lips, the warm exhale of his breath casting the faintest, hoary puff through the chilly air that quickly dissipated. “They would have no-doubt created several passages in and out of the mountain in case they needed reinforcements or another means of escape if things went badly and the mountain was lost. Of course I highly doubt such passages would have been marked on any maps we possess. They would have been kept secret, passed from one brother to the next, perhaps only in a verbal or shared memory capacity. Closely guarded, they would have been kept hidden from anyone who might wish to penetrate their fortress beyond the stone.”

“If the drakoren doesn’t know about this passage…” Lorelei started, her voice trailing into the soft wind as she contemplated.

“It could still be a trap,” Finn proffered.

“It could be,” Brendolowyn agreed. “But I’m beginning to think not.”

“The passage you found,” Lorelei turned to Finn. “You said it was obvious, the dark magic there. That you could feel it before you even got near the mountain and it only grew stronger the closer you came.”

“Well, yeah, but…”

She looked to Brendolowyn, as if somehow confirming what she thought should be obvious to them all. “I feel nothing.” And then as if she felt the need to correct herself, she added, “Nothing but drawn to this path. Did you feel drawn in?”

“Sort of, but against my will.”

“This doesn’t feel like that at all. There’s nothing… threatening here.”

“No,” Bren agreed. “There isn’t.”

The mage still didn’t trust the path. It felt… too easy. Lifting his gaze, the stone jutted dangerously, inclining at the most uninviting angles. For a moment his assessment of too easy was laughable. Such a passage would no doubt be fraught with treacherous and narrow paths upon which footing would be difficult to maintain, one false step could send them tumbling down the rock face to their death. Turning his eyes upward, he attempted to follow the craggy and uneven flow and knew instantly they would be forced to leave their horses behind. The passage was too thin and steep.

“We will have to go it alone if we decide to take this passage,” he noted. “It looks downright treacherous, so narrow in some places the horses will never make it.”

“Well, it would be cruel to tether them. There’s no telling how long we will be away from them and they’d be defenseless,” Finn pointed out, feeling smug and proud of his assessment. “And we can’t just set them free. Hodon would never forgive us, and besides, how would we get back?”

“We would have to walk back to Dunvarak if the horses are lost,” Lorelei said, and though she shrugged a little when she spoke, there was guilt in her tone. “And besides, if we take the other passage, who’s to say we will be able to ride the full way? We could get halfway up the mountain and have to send them back down.”

He hated to admit she was right. Taking that path made him far more nervous than he already felt about the end-result of their journey in the first place. Magic he could feel could be protected against. Whatever awaited them on this new passage, he wasn’t so sure.

“So we take whatever we can carry, leave the horses here and hope they are at least close by when we come off the mountain.”

“If we come off the mountain,” Finn muttered so quietly Lorelei didn’t hear him, but Brendolowyn did. The two exchanged momentary glances, an unspoken promise on Bren’s part that Finn, at least, would be coming back with her.

They debated a little while longer, trying to work out the details, but Lorelei could not be budged from her decision. In the end, she reminded them it was her quest and the two of them were only along to protect her. With that settled they took what they could carry from the horses, said their farewells to the beasts and began hiking the narrow and treacherous passage scaling the mountain.

That passage was not made for the resting warrior. It was designed, they soon discovered, to encourage fast-paced movement up the mountainside.

It was the first time in days Bren was not required to use his magic to keep them hidden, and though it was a relief, the energy inside him restoring close to its full-strength, it felt strange not protecting them as they scaled the mountain. There were any number of protective charms he could have employed, old spells he could have called to mind to maintain their footing, to protect them from injury should they fall, but he did nothing. Only climbed.

He fretted constantly he would live to regret relaxing his magic, but mid-morning passed into afternoon without any serious injury, and they were fortunate enough to find a narrow passage upon which to rest their backs against the stone and replenish their energy with a small bite to eat.

No one spoke. Finn didn’t even seem to possess the energy to argue with Lorelei, as he was prone to do, and in the short time Bren had known her, he’d never seen Lorelei more driven to get to their destination. It was as if something inside her snapped, and the only thing left was to get to the mountain, hunt down the drakoren and get it all over with so they could either get on with their lives, or not. They had bigger wyrms to slay, or so to speak.

He wished her ambition would rub off on him, but the physical exertion coupled with how little he’d slept over the last few weeks exhausted him. He could feel the ache in his bones, pressing down hard on his soul again when she was finished sating the hunger in her belly and ready to move onward and upward again.

The passage was on the western side, the sun moving behind the mountain much of the day, but eventually its waning light cast across their backs as it journeyed toward setting. The final hour of daylight always felt brightest, the most earnest light of the day, his mother always said. Shielding his eyes, he stopped, loose pebbles trembling and threatening to give way beneath his dusted boots. He dug his toes into the sheepskin interior, knowing it wouldn’t hold him upright, but feeling a boost of confident defiance. Tilting his head downward, it felt as if the world dropped out from him when he realized how far they’d come. How long the drop to the ground was. He couldn’t see the horses anymore, hadn’t been able to for hours. Even the trees were starting to look like bite-sized vegetables spread across the plate of the world beneath them.

Higher and higher, they climbed, the air growing thinner and the stone becoming slick with trickling water. There was a gushing spring somewhere up ahead, the water that once supplied the inhabitants of the mountain hall leaking out through the cracks in the stone and running so fierce above them Brendolowyn heard the constant whisper of it hushing in his ears. It grew louder the higher they climbed, increasing his nervous energy as the power of that force of nature ebbed and flowed inside him.

“What the hell is that?” Finn’s voice echoed off the stone, carrying into the valley below and reverberating back in muffled question.

Following the tilt of his companion’s neck, Bren’s eyes narrowed across the object in question. It looked like an old bridge, thin and narrow as it stretched across a gaping ravine leading to the summit ledge where Brendolowyn assumed some entry into the mountain waited. “It looks like a bridge.”

Scaling the wall of stone, it grew harder and harder to find sturdy nooks to place their feet and propel them upward, but they kept going until Lorelei finally called over her shoulder, “I think we’re getting close.”

They continued climbing, one careful step after the other, inclining upward, the rushing water’s roar growing louder and louder. The passage grew so narrow as they neared the rock ledge cropping out overhead, he wasn’t sure they would make it at all, but she was light, moved with the agility of a cat and pulled herself up onto that thin shelf and stretched to her full height to take it all in.

The sound of her astonishment rebounded all around him, a whooping call that made him nervous as it echoed through the valley below. Then she darted forward and disappeared from the edge.

Finn’s ascendance wasn’t as easy, the warrior pulling the bulk of his body with difficulty up over the ledge, kicking a shower of pebbles and dust down the mountain. Brendolowyn pressed his thin body against the stone, gripping tight to the rock in front of him. He waited until they were both in place on the ledge before making the climb himself. He scrambled up over the stone lip, nearly losing his grip as he glimpsed the bright green garden of stone stretching out before them.

Much larger than he’d anticipated from below, the place before them was a peaceful refuge, an outdoor temple decorated with blocky, crumbling stone statues worn by weather and time. The faces carved into them were scarcely visible anymore. In the center of it all was a broken altar where sacrifices had once been made to honor and appease Dvergen. He scanned the garden, eyes resting on the falling water carving its way down the mountain and pooling in a small, rippling lake tumbling over the eastern edge of the platform and down the side. The water he’d heard while they were still halfway down the mountain, he could feel its timeless energy reaching out to him, drawn to his magic with yearning.

It had been a long, long time since travelers reached that summit, he realized. The water’s loneliness suggested an age or more passed since it knew the warm frolic of bodies in its cool depths. As the soft wind kissed his face, he swore he could feel the ancient memory of the people who once dwelt there and it made him shudder. So much pain and rage, desperation and conviction haunted that place. Their will to survive, once so strong, thwarted by the gods without warning. Their lingering spirits didn’t seem to know there was no hope for them. Their future was already lost.

He imagined the emotional resonance of the Dvergr would be far stronger within the Halls of Great Sorrow, but that brief glimpse shuddered through him, evoking the strongest melancholy he’d ever experienced.

Swallowing hard, his emotions felt like a tight ball in the center of his chest.

Lorelei started toward the pool, Finn not far behind her, but Brendolowyn’s attention was drawn to the long, rotting bridge that stretched across a broad ravine, and would likely carry them to the secret passage into the mountain. Lorelei set aside her fear of heights while climbing the mountain itself, calling out more than once that so long as she didn’t look down she didn’t feel like the whole world was being yanked from under her feet.

Getting her across that bridge, on the other hand, wasn’t going to be easy.

It swayed in the cool, rising wind, the rotting rope suspending it across the gaping stone landings creaked and groaned like old bone and sinew. Time made it unsteady, unpredictable and dangerous, and yet they’d come all that way. There would be no turning around, no going back down the mountain from that passage. It was designed for incoming reinforcements, and they would be forced to find another way out and down when all was said and done.

She and Finn were already shrugging off their heavy packs and dropping them onto the lush grasses leading to the pool.