ASCENT AND DESCENT
Second watch proved uneventful but for the distant hoot of an owl at hunt, and Garth’s snoring. Karigan gazed up toward the sky and found Tegan’s weather sense profoundly accurate. No clouds obscured the panorama of the heavens, and the stars punctured the velvety dark with sharp clarity. The light of the half moon did little to diminish the appearance of the River of the Gods, the hazy ribbon of celestial light the starmasters believed to be formed by gaseous vapor and concentrations of stars beyond count. How they knew this, she did not understand, except that they had access to the best scopes with which to view the heavens, and the heads for surmising such things.
The moon priests, of course, had another explanation for the formation, that in fact it was an actual river of light in the domain of the gods to which only the truest of true believers could ascend, a paradise beyond all conception. Her connection to the god of death did not convince her the starmasters were wrong, or that the priests were right. Perhaps, she thought, both were right. Or wrong. She was, in any case, content, in that moment, to simply appreciate the beauty of the night and its ambient silence before the intrusion of dawn when all that was fraught in the world would awaken abuzz and animate.
She was rewarded with the sight of a falling star whisking across the sky. She smiled and took it as a sign that it was time to awaken Garth for third watch.
Karigan didn’t get much sleep on the rocky ground. She rubbed her eyes and yawned and forced herself out of her blankets. It was still dark, but the stars were setting and the moon was dipping down in the west, which meant it was time to help prepare a plainly unhappy Megan to ascend to the Eagle’s Landing. Megan was dressed in layers against the cold, and carried food and water and the spyglass in a knapsack. Karigan, Trace, and Garth escorted her to the bottom of the Sky Stairs. The sky had subtly begun to lighten enough for Karigan to make out the shapes of the eagle statues looming over them, wings half-spread, beaks open in fierce challenge.
“You know I’m gonna faint when I get up there,” Megan said. It was the effect the use of her ability had on her. “What if I faint before I reach the top? It’s a long way to fall.”
They had been over this. “If you feel it coming on,” Karigan said, “find a place to land. In fact, make sure you rest along the way. You don’t have to get to the top in one long ascent; do it in stages, and remember what the king said about the stairs above the landslide line.”
“I remember.”
“We’ll be here when you come down after sunset. Ready?”
“No.”
“Well, you still have to go.”
“I know.” Megan sounded as glum as she looked. “The ladies who used to come into the shop would never believe this.”
To Karigan’s surprise, Megan lifted off the ground without further prodding.
“Remember to breathe,” Karigan told her.
“I know, I know.”
“What is with all the breathing stuff?” Garth asked.
Karigan shrugged. “It gave her something to do when she panicked. Seems to help.”
“Think she’ll make it?” Trace asked.
“She is tougher than she seems,” Karigan said. “I think she’ll do fine.”
“Dunno,” Garth said. “She doesn’t seem cut out for this sort of thing.”
Recalling her earlier conversation with Zachary, Karigan replied, “Were any of us when we were called?”
“I sure wasn’t,” Trace said. “I was working in a shop, too. My grandpa’s mercantile, not a fine lady’s millinery shop, but still.”
Garth made a noncommittal grunt.
As the dawn grayed the sky and land, the three Riders gazed up the slope of the mountain. They saw no sign of Megan.
“No body dropping from the sky,” Garth said, “so that’s good.”
Karigan scrutinized the mountainside. She could not make out any sign of the Sky Stair, especially with this side of the range in shadow, but she could see where the rock slide had scraped the mountainside bare and left long piles of talus that skirted the slope. She stepped between the eagles and followed the overgrown path to where the steps began. The steps were huge slabs of granite, and it made her knees ache just thinking about climbing them all the way to the Eagle’s Landing as the kings of centuries gone by once had.
She returned to her companions, and they kept watch for Megan. They stared above the tree line until after the sun rose, but saw no sign of her floating or climbing above. Not that they would, given the immensity of the mountain compared to one small human.
“I guess we’ll find out after sunset if all went well,” Garth said.
They walked back toward their campsite.
“Anybody want to take turns keeping watch while the others nap?” Trace asked.
“Oh, I like that idea,” Karigan replied. “I choose napping for myself.”
“Nap all you want,” Garth said. “I like mornings.”
“Monster,” Trace said.
“I might well be a monster without my morning kauv,” he replied mournfully. No fire meant no hot drinks.
He sat away from their campsite where he’d have a good vantage to observe anyone on the move near their position. Karigan and Trace retired each to her own bedroll.
“You know,” Trace said, “I’ve been wanting to say it for a while, but there was never enough privacy to do so, so I’ll say it now: Connly should never have taken away your rank as Chief.”
Karigan rose up on her elbow in surprise. Trace and Connly were very close, and she would have expected Trace to support Connly’s position.
“What makes you say that?” she asked.
“The way you handle Megan, for one,” Trace replied. “I’m not sure anyone else could convince that girl to do what she’s doing. Connly chose you to come along on this mission because he knew that of anyone, Megan would listen to you.
“Before Fergal left for Sacor City,” Trace continued, “he talked about how you managed captivity with the Raiders and kept him and the others calm, active, and safe. Then, of course, there was the crossing of the Blanding and looking for the colonel. And just last night, you put Garth in his place, reminding him why he shouldn’t be teasing Megan. You were a really good Chief.”
“Thank you,” Karigan replied, taken aback but gratified. Even if Connly hadn’t appreciated her, at least others had.
“I told Connly as much,” Trace said, “but he would not discuss it with me.”
As well he should not, Karigan thought. It would not have been appropriate.
She fell back asleep with a feeling of pleasure, but it didn’t last. Her dreams were overlain with uneasiness like the restlessness of a dark forest, of dark roots slithering through her mind, and then—
Falling. She was tumbling from the sky. The ground rushed up at her.
She sat up with a yell, sweat cooling on her forehead.
“What the hells?” Garth demanded as he sprinted into their campsite.
“She’s been restless in her sleep,” Trace said.
Karigan’s heart pounded. She looked from Trace to Garth. “I think Megan’s in trouble.”
“What?” Trace said. “How do you know?”
Karigan wasn’t listening. She threw off her blanket, pulled on her boots, and grabbed her swordbelt, and ran. “C’mon!” she told the others.
She led them back to the eagle statues. It was afternoon, much too early for Megan to be making her return. She looked desperately into the sky and along the slope of the mountain.
“Do you see her?” she asked the others.
“Karigan—” Garth began.
“I don’t see her,” Trace said, “but I see trouble.” She pointed down before them where a dozen horsemen looked back at them. One had a bow and arrow, and he wasn’t aiming at them.
Karigan looked up again, then saw her, Megan dropping from the heavens, limbs flailing.
“Breathe!” Karigan yelled. “Control!” She did not think Megan could possibly hear her, but she had to try.
An arrow sailed overhead toward Megan, but fell short.
“Control!” Karigan yelled again.
Megan seemed to get a hold of herself as she fell. She halted in midair and hovered. Karigan glanced over her shoulder and saw the archer aiming another arrow.
“Megan! Down now!”
The arrow swept by Megan, but much too closely. She yelped and started to plummet again, but this time it was much more controlled.
When she landed beside Karigan, she angrily blurted, “No one told me they could get up there!” And she promptly keeled over in a dead faint.
“They’re coming,” Garth said, drawing his sword.
“I’ve told Connly,” Trace said.
Twelve against three. Megan, unconscious as she was, would be of no help. None of their special abilities would be of use, not even Karigan’s. The sunshine was too intense and the high afternoon sun meant few shadows to aid her fading ability. She could almost hear Nyssa telling her to run, that she owed it to herself to save her own skin.
“Up the stairs,” she said, “their horses can’t climb up.”
“What about Megan?” Trace asked.
Garth sheathed his sword and scooped up Megan and threw her over his shoulder. She hung limp like a sack of potatoes. As the horsemen rode up the final rise, Karigan led Garth and Trace between the eagle statues and onto the Sky Stair. They needed a good place to make a stand and—
An arrow clattered along the rocks beside her.
The steps, laid by unknown hands so long ago, were too large to simply run up. They required extra effort and her thighs were already burning.
Another arrow clacked somewhere into the rocky ground behind them.
“We need cover,” Trace said between ragged breaths.
“Garth!” Karigan cried. “Find cover, a good place to make our stand.”
He bounded past them, Megan’s body flopping on his shoulder. Karigan and Trace chased after him until he abruptly halted.
Karigan looked back and, through the scrub, could see their adversaries abandoning their horses down below and heading for the eagles. “Garth?”
“This way!” He sprang up several more steps and then off the stairs.
They scrambled up through scrub and low-growing forest, tripping over rocks and tree roots, crashing through branches. Eventually they emerged onto a ledge that was totally exposed, but Garth kept going to its far end where an outcrop forced them to a halt. They were trapped. The drop below them was breathtaking.
“All right,” Garth said, “gotta be careful with this part.”
“But there is nowhere to go,” Trace said.
“Watch,” he replied.
He pressed his body against the stone outcrop and carefully, with Megan still draped over his shoulder, inched around it, seeking purchase in the barest of finger and toe holds with only the long drop beneath him. It seemed to take forever for him to work his way around it.
When he disappeared on the other side, he said, “Easy. Just take your time.”
Karigan could hear the men on the stairs searching for them. They didn’t have time.
“Trace, go,” she said.
“I don’t know if I—”
“Go.”
Trace plastered herself to the rock wall, and murmuring to herself the whole time, sought the handholds Garth had used, which was difficult since he was so much bigger than her. She tried to straddle the part that jutted out to a point, but it was all taking much too long. The voices of their pursuers were getting close.
“Hurry,” Karigan said.
“I—I can’t,” Trace replied. She was frozen.
Karigan started to look for someplace to hide. Could she survive jumping that far down? Climbing up would only expose her, and that imposing bald face offered little to hold on to. She concluded she’d have to face the twelve on her own, but then a hand reached around the rocky projection, grabbed Trace by the collar, and pulled her out of sight.
Even as the men thrashed through the scrub to the ledge, Karigan threw herself at the outcrop, not worrying about handholds. She scrabbled at the rock with hands and feet and slid.
“Garth!” she cried as she slid some more. He reached around and seized her wrist, and swung her onto a much wider ledge with an overhang above their heads. She sank to her knees panting.
“No place to go from here,” Trace said, “but down.”
If anything, the drop was even greater from here.
One of the enemy, clinging to the outcrop, worked his way around. Garth very simply stepped over, unsheathed his saber, and stabbed the man who fell from the cliff screaming.
“It is defensible,” Karigan murmured.
Garth grinned, and waited for his next victim.