The Destroyer (9 page)

Within a quarter of an hour of shadowing the canyon precipice, we arrived at the edge, where the cliff made an acute right turn to head north. The other side of the cliff was about sixty feet away. I studied the gap for a few moments and wondered why I believed that I might easily make the jump across the chasm.

Nadea crouched down and crawled to the sudden edge. I followed, trying to keep my focus on the task at hand and not the way her leather pants wrapped around her pert ass. On the road six hundred feet below us were two dozen soldiers, garbed in the cream and yellow colors of Vanlourn. They yelled and laughed to each other but I could not understand most of the words. I turned my head to the right and confirmed that the road continued for another hundred yards or so and then bent to the east. The brown, mossy walls of the cliff hid the eventual destination of the road from my view, but I imagined that it would continue northward into Brilla's border.

Careful not to disturb any dirt or rocks, we crawled back from the edge. When we were about thirty feet from the side, we stood up and faced each other.

"Let's go to the guard post." I pointed to our right, where the canyon bent to follow the road. I wanted to get a better idea of how many guards were stationed at the border and how long it would take us to travel there.

"Good. Yes." She nodded. I smiled at her and set off, bounding from rock to rock. The wind pushed from the south and it felt invigorating. The raised cliffs we traveled atop made up a series of foothills, which gave way to larger mountains that folded in on the canyon like the edges of a bowl. I understood how the ridge to the north would make an excellent border for a country. Especially if there was only a single road through them.

In a few minutes the road veered right like I had seen earlier. We continued on the path and I noticed more switchbacks in the walls of the canyon beneath us. I guessed that the elevation of the road was gradually rising to meet us. I leapt over a small stream blocking our path, its flow of cold water cascaded down the side of the cliff like the islands in my dreams. My legs begged to sprint faster, but before I could do so, Nadea called out behind me.

I slid to a halt across the slick mud, moss, and tropical flowers on the edge of the stream. She was covered in sweat and breathing in ragged gasps. She raised her arm, signaling me to halt and I bounded back to her in a few steps.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. You are fast. I can't keep up." She smiled and let out a painful breath. "Can we break?" I nodded and handed her the water skin I still carried. She took a long drink and sat down on a rock, exhaling while she looked at me. I took back the water skin and sipped on it again. Then I filled it up at the stream.

By the time I returned Nadea seemed ready to move again.

"You lead," I said.

"Thank you," she said as she set off wading through the cool current of the stream. I did the same, even though I had cleared it before with an easy leap.

After the stream our makeshift path grew rockier. We were traversing the fifty or so feet of bare, coarse ground that separated the dense jungle from the edge of the drop four hundred feet to the road beneath us. Up ahead the trees were drifting closer to the edge, so I imagined that we would have to hack through the jungle to keep going.

"I don't think we can go any farther because of the jungle," I assumed Nadea said to me seconds after I made the same conclusion.

"We can cut through with the sword," I tried to say. I might have butchered the words, but I pointed to the jungle, then the sword on my back, then made a cutting motion. She frowned for a moment and considered.

"It is getting late. We need to go back." I understood her, but she pointed to the sun, back to where we came from, and made the sleeping motion with her hands.

"We need to check the guard post." I pointed at my eyes and then pointed down toward where I thought the guard post would be.

Again, she frowned as she considered. Her lips were full from the exertion of our hike and moist from the perspiration running down her face. Her thin shirt was drenched with sweat and I could see the shape of her stomach muscles and the outline of her breasts beneath the light brown fabric. I recalled our conversation a few nights ago and decided that spending the night up here might be a better idea. That way there would be no one to interrupt us.

I think she noticed me admiring her body. Her cheeks flushed and her frown turned into a playful smirk.

"Okay. One more hour, then we go back. Yes?" I nodded before I set off through the jungle, long sword drawn and hacking through the thick dripping foliage. The excursion would dull the blade quickly, but it would have taken me forever to rip a path for us with my bare hands.

The inside of the jungle smelled heavily of life; the wind couldn't penetrate the thick blanket of vines, trees, and mud. As I cut through the branches, small animals scurried out of our way and disappeared into the surrounding foliage. I hadn't seen creatures larger than my hand since we began the journey, but I guessed larger fauna lived deeper in the jungle from the far off trampling noises I heard.

After an hour of cutting, we made it out of the foliage and into another clear area that ran for the next eight hundred yards. I knew we were running short on time, but that was Nadea's prerogative. I didn't want our companions to worry, but spending the night alone with her was what I preferred. The canyon switchbacks to the north seemed to straighten out, and I figured that we were close to the guard post. We skirted the edge and worked our way as close to the next jungle patch as possible before crawling to the edge.

We had passed the guard post by a few hundred yards. It was made of large logs and stood two stories high. There were fifteen alert guards milling around the timber gates, and about twenty travelers with wagons waiting in line to enter. I glanced to my right and saw the road continue on for another eight hundred yards before it turned into another set of steep switchbacks. This part of the canyon was two hundred feet above the guard post, so it would be much easier to descend.

I crawled back from the ledge and stood up over by the tree line. Nadea looked back and forth a few more times and then joined me.

"Maybe we can climb down over there," I said, as I pointed down the road toward Brilla. She nodded.

"I just worry about Jessmei making that climb."

"It will be okay," I said and smiled at her. If we attached the rope at the top it would be easy enough to pull them up the sheer face.

"Good idea," she said as she pointed at me and then at my head. “Let’s go back.” I smiled to indicate my assent, though I was disappointed that we would make it back on time.

We checked the entrance to the canyon on our way back and saw that the number of soldiers had increased. There were almost two hundred of them now, pacing in neatly packed lines. They must have known this would have been our only way out.

"We should climb up tonight," I said to Nadea. I wanted to explain why, but I didn't know the words. She nodded and we jogged back to the spot where I had left the rope. The sun would set in another hour, and this climb would be tough to pull off at night. How important was Jessmei? I hadn't understood royalty or what a king was from Paug's explanation. I was trying to compare it to what I knew of the Elven culture, which was coming back to me in spotty pieces of fog. I assumed that it was similar to a chieftain and his or her offspring. But the amount of guards here made me think that she was significantly more valuable than I had guessed.

Nadea quickly set up two of her larger pitons in the rocks, hammering them in with practiced ease and running the rope through them. Then she tied the rope off to a nearby tree and tested the line by yanking on it. It didn't budge.

"Try," she said, as she handed me the rope. I tensed my body and tugged. The tree bent slightly under the weight but did not snap. I walked toward the edge and prepared to go down first while she inspected the lighter rope she had tied us to on our way up the cliff. With a quick motion she untied it from the top and lashed it around her waist. Then she nodded at me and I went off the cliff.

My hands burned against the rope as I used my feet to push off the edge and release my grip. I slid down twenty feet before I tightened my hands again. Next time, I controlled my release and went down with more precision. It seemed that Nadea had done this before, since she was right above me, easily keeping pace. The rope she tied around her waist slipped through the loops attached to the face of the cliff and made a soft sound while she descended.

Suddenly, the taut rope above us slackened. I looked in horror as the top of our tether, which should have been tied to the tree, came loose and began to slip.

It happened in slow motion. Nadea's body fell away from the wall of the cliff a split second before mine. I reached out with my right hand and made a grab toward the line. I missed and started to fall, while she let out a surprised gasp.

Another jut of rock came out ten feet below us and I tried to grab onto the edge. This time my right hand connected and my fingers dug into the soft rock. My other arm snaked out and made a grab for Nadea's body. Our hands and arms slipped around each other and made a snapping connection. I grunted in pain as the full weight of her fall impacted my left hand, traveled through my arms and shoulders, and into my right hand. My whole body numbed for a second, and I realized I was about to lose my grip. Luckily, the feeling came back almost instantly and I held on to the rock my hand grasped.

Nadea hung three hundred feet off the ground, her right arm extended as my hand gripped hers. I thought she would be terrified, but her face wore an intense mask of determination. The rope made a soft scraping motion as it continued its fall past us, but neither of us could make a move to grab it.

I looked up to the top of the cliff, wondering if someone had cut our rope. No one looked over the edge to see if their work had been successful. I guessed that an animal might have chewed it off, because if the tree had been uprooted, the slack would have been more gradual in nature.

"Kaiyer," Nadea called out below me to get my attention from the top of the cliff. I looked down at her, dangling like a fish at the end of my arm. "Swing me over there," she pointed with her other arm toward the hooks on the cliff face. I slowly moved my arm back and forth. It was easier to hold her now after the first impact. After a few swings, she reached across and grabbed the rope that ran from the ground, up through the loops and hooks to the top, and back down to her waist. She muttered quick, angry words that I guessed were curses that Paug had not taught me yet. She shook her head in frustration and began to untie the line from her belt.

I lost track of time. I tried to see any movement on top of the canyon, until Nadea called me. I looked through the rocks and foliage to see her moving down the line quickly. She had tied off the top part to another hook so it was stable. I pulled myself up on the ledge and waited for her to get down to the jungle floor. Within minutes she was there and waving up at me.

With a quick glance back to the top, I leaped down to the rope, caught it, and made my way down its length. A few rocks were disturbed by my quick descent, and they tumbled down with a painfully loud crescendo. I hoped that Nadea had moved out of the way.

“The rope was cut,” she said with concern as she handed it to me. It did look like a single blade had cleaved it cleanly. “Let’s go back to camp.” I nodded and followed her into the thick jungle as the sun set behind the cliffs and the coolness of the night crept upon us.

“And then I called out: ‘HOLD THE LINE LADDIES!’ as the Vanlourns hit us. Within ten minutes we won the battle. We lost a few brave men, but their entire brigade was crushed! Even with my great intellect, I couldn't count how many of the greasy bastards I killed. Perhaps eighteen of them, of course, I was a much younger lad then, a few year’s junior to our studious Paug here. I can easily slay a score or so of them at my current state of experience and physical fitness.” Greykin finished, with a long guzzle from his coveted wine skin. We had drunk from it a scarce few times during the trip. Greykin passed the skin back to Iarin.

"Twenty is a large number Greykin. I also have problems counting that high and would need to call upon the aid of my toes," Iarin said with a deadpan face before taking a sip from the skin. His mouth contorted and I imagined the big man had put something stronger than wine in there.

"A hero's greatness cannot be measured in numbered feats lad." Greykin didn't seem to understand Iarin's sarcasm. The bowman's face turned into a smirk as he tried to hold back laughter.

A very stressful dusk descended around us and Greykin helped pass the time with some stories that may or may not have been true. Jessmei tried to look interested while she nibbled on a piece of bread, but I imagined that she had heard all of these accounts already. The tales were new to us, so Iarin and I were fascinated. Without warning, Nadea and Kaiyer bounded into the small clearing as Greykin took a deep breath, ready to begin his next tale.