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ORIGINAL DRAFT - PRE-EDITING

This story was written as part of the 2016 National Novel Writing Month. It was written without edits between 12:01am, November 1st and 11:59pm, November 30th.

This story was written by David J Rust, aka Sylvan Scott, and is in a pre-edited state. The characters, situations, and concepts herein are property of the author and may not be distributed or altered without express, written permission.

Skylands: the Scorpion Spear, Part One - "Saeldrin", Chapter Five: Worshipping Death

©2016 Sylvan Scott

Their cloaks were spent. Almarra Balmyrra had no strength to augment them again. Such was the way the magic of the goddess worked. B?nor, when petitioned with traditional stoic grace, granted strength and power to those who knew her rituals of appeasement. But those divine gifts came at a cost. In the end, her blessings never helped anyone fully evade the final destination towards which all their lives flowed. Ered had lived alongside priests and holy people his whole life. But while there were many rites and rituals he had never seen, none of them had circumvented that fundamental, immutable principle of their goddess.

"Omneire monem."

All things die.

The ultimate truth of B?nor. Something to simultaneously embrace and resist; it was the paradox of being dagdarra.

Orven looked at him, askance.

Ered caught the glance and realized he had given voice to the saying. An unnerving slip. In addition to the storm and the sporadic, increasingly-noticeable ramessin howls, it was an additional, unlucky omen. It looked as if both Tel and Oben had heard him, too.

A towering whorl, a slender tornado twice as tall as himself, spun towards them as they made their way up and around a jagged hill. In its wake, snow was tossed in an ethereal manner. Ered raised his hand to halt. The others obeyed.

The foothills surrounded them. Of the Salt Sisters only one as visible, looming above and only a few miles away. It's from-a-distance conical shape, now up-close, was revealed to be lined with vertical cracks. Chasms of grey and black striped the southeastern-most Sister like jagged lightning bolts. The air, here, despite the snow and storm, was achingly sterile. Breathing through their nostrils, dagdarra could smell the natural preserving nature of the salt in the ground all around them. Snow-slides and the storm had stirred the scents even more.

"They're staying at bay," Ered said. He didn't have to elaborate on who. He gestured behind him at a bare face of exposed, greenish rock. It had unusual contours that almost looked like a three-quarters profile of an aged dagdarra with broken antlers and no lower horns. "The Verdant Face looks to Alapak," he said. "From here, it is but seven miles. But it is a seven miles that meanders along narrow tracks; some, along drop-offs greater than sixty feet."

"What do you recommend?" Orven asked.

There hadn't been a hunting howl in over an hour but that was more worrying than its presence.

"Safety demands single-file, slow march. But expediency..."

"We run," Orven finished for him.

Ered nodded. "We run." He looked over his shoulder at the wind-scoured face. "Were we to follow his gaze up and over that ridge, over there," he pointed, "we would arrive at Alapak's northern gate in but a few hours. However..." He paused in thought.

Oben spoke up. "However, the howls; they've been louder out of the hills, ahead. It's either a consistent echo or indicates the direction they've been moving."

The young buck was right. Again, the ice-band's leader nodded. "Agreed. We should take the longer way and loop around to come at the settlement from the southeast. It will take twice as long and have more treacherous footing in the storm but it puts us less likely to walk into an ambush."

The members of the band traded expressions of grim agreement. Without another word, the dagdarra acted to break up their belongings.

These were the Dead Hills. Nothing flourished here save some salty plants that loved sandy soil. Purple kehkt and three types of yellow frond hopes' ear could be found during the late spring and summer. Now, they would find nothing edible on their trek. But considering the nearness of their goal, they abandoned their sleds and, instead, each took up a large pack. With that done, they began to make their way to the left of the stone face's gaze, down into a cleft, and along a deepening drop-off.

Tremors shook the ground every now and then. Their crescent-shaped hooves splayed as they paused and, fighting back fear at the uneven ground beneath them, held their balance. Up beyond their antlers, there was enough snow for a lethal landslide. As they went deeper into the arroyos that marked the start of the canyon system, they saw signs of avalanche in one cleft or another. Worse, many covered their path with snow, ice, snapped trees, and other debris. Ered's original estimate of how long it would take now seemed naively optimistic.

The wind also was more of a problem than he had anticipated. It was blowing from the wrong direction: down the length of the caverns from behind them--funnelled around the Salt Sisters--rather than blowing by, overhead.

Moaning with deadly portent, a sustained, powerful gust pushed them all forward and caused a shelf of ice and snow, above, to break free. It rained down on them but, luckily, was not the harbinger of an avalanche.

"Almara Balmyrra: is there nothing you can do about this ... wind?"

The old woman trudged along near the back. If she heard Ered, she made no sign of it. Even her young acolyte kept her antlers down as they forged ahead as quickly as they dared.

Another moaning blast caught them off-guard and, this time, Ered felt Orven strike him from behind. His broad hooves slipped and he skidded forward and down. Top-heavy, he fell back and watched with helpless doe-eyes as the cliff edge raced to consume him.

He grabbed for any anchor he could find, but snow and ice concealed everything.

A solid grip caught his right branch of antlers. He twisted with the abrupt hold but felt his muscles in his neck sear with pain. Nonetheless, he was able to throw his weight to the right and roll over, coming to a stop. Face-down, he felt his right leg dangling off the edge.

"Hang on; we've got you!"

Oben's voice was surprisingly steady. It was soon joined by Tel's as more hands pulled him to safety. Slowly, he stood. He winced at the pain in his shoulders and neck. Something inside was torn. He could tell.

Orven was hurt as well. His left leg had twisted in the fall that had propelled him into Ered. But he didn't complain. He got to his feet and nodded that he was ready to go on.

But little more than a dozen yards later and they all heard it: the distant, amplifying rumble of falling snow. Several tremors swept the canyons around them sending showers of ice down upon their heads.

"Get against the cliff wall! Press flat!"

Ered wasn't sure anyone heard him. He could barely see Orven, less than three feet away, as snow cascaded over and between them. The avalanche roar filled the canyon before them. The trail shook and it was impossible to tell what was tremor and what was snow-and-ice-catastrophe.

The huddled in the flimsy shelter of the stony overhang, above. Ered hoped the luck of his ancestors would stymie B?nor's harvest, this day. "My life for theirs," he muttered under his breath. "I swear it, great B?nor; do not force our mission to fail and you may take me in the most painful of deaths."

They held their ground. Even elder Balmyrra demonstrated her dagdarra heritage by standing strong against the elements.

Minutes passed and elongated until Ered was no longer sure that he had ever lived in a stable, warm world. But eventually, as the small ice-band stood their ground, the trembling faded. The avalanche passed. Ahead of them, the trail was covered but only a few feet deep. The canyon to the left was also filled. Another fifteen or twenty feet and they would have been swept off the ledge and buried as they fell to their deaths.

"It is not our time," Balmyrra said.

And, for once, the old priestess' proclamation stirred Ered's heart.

"Proceed; but be careful ahead," he said. "The snow is not heavily packed in the canyon. Should you step too far off the path, you could vanish before anyone can catch you."

The group moved on, treading through the snow with all the strength they had left. None of them faltered and each helped the others. More time passed and when they reached the far side of half-mile swath of avalanche remnants, Ered could hear the winds had lessened.

His deer-like ears swivelled to the heights above them. In truth, it had been a sound that he had noticed early in their descent. But, now, he understood it. The raging winds were lessening. Somewhere, far beyond the Dead Hills, those walls of cloud and storm were less strong than they had been an hour or two, before. That and the wrong-direction winds and meandering trail had conspired to, for once, no longer harry them quite as hard. Ahead, he saw two spires of twisted stone. He knew that place; maybe a mile distant from where they stood.

"The Alapak Twins!" he shouted. "We're almost there!"

Perhaps a hundred yards away, if the trail was true, there would be a path back and up towards the settlement. There, they could come from the lower gate and enter Alapak for shelter.

Pain erupted, red, from his shoulder. It was followed by a thunderous boom that echoed trough the canyon. The force of it pushed him like a wrestler, charging for the grapple. He tried to stand against its uneven, sudden shove. His injured neck and shoulders, however, were too weak. He tried to resist but found himself off-balance. He spun, falling to one knee. Blood burned hot against the icy air as his shoulder felt numb. Bursts of light swarmed his vision as pain enveloped him.

Howls of wolves filled the air.

"Ramessin!" shouted Orven.

Each of them moved forward along the narrow ledge. They could barely stand one-and-a-half wide but raced to surround their leader. Tel threw a spear forward and up. It vanished into shadows beneath an overhang twenty yards ahead. A sharp cry of pain echoed in return.

"Rise! Get up, you great, mammoth fool!" Balmyrra's voice. Harsh and grating.

Onid was lifting under his unwounded right shoulder from behind while Oben tried to lift him to his feet from in front.

It was chaos and Ered pushed the pain away from his mind.

Is this your payment, dark-one? he thought to B?nor. Aloud, though, he took control as best he could.

"Find the rest of them; that was just the first volley. Guard our flank!"

Indeed, just as he boomed his command, howls arose from behind them. Three-wide, an armored patrol of white-furred ramessin came running after them, following the path the dagdarra had trudged through the avalanche.

Like wolves, the ramessin were savage but smart. They held their intellects, though, in great esteem: using them to build unnatural cities and craft dark, dangerous tools such as guns. They hunted in packs and would try to surround individual dagdarra: crippled, old, inexperienced, or weak.

Barely half the height of a single dagdarra, they were nonetheless a fearsome foe.

Unnerved, he realized that with the attack to the front, thanks to the others rushing to help him to his hooves, it left left Almara Balmyrra alone, to the rear.

"Tel! Defend the almara!"

The gaunt man nodded and spun about. His first spear had either dissuaded or killed the sniper, ahead. He aimed his second towards a point where the trail, narrowed. Waiting until the first two ran through it, side-by-side, he hurled his spear at the third.

His throw was so strong it caught the ramessin off-guard, pierced his metal, fur-lined armor, and sent his corpse tumbling back into the two behind him. With a single blow, he had knocked three from the ledge. Those behind them faltered; abruptly reconsidering their charge.

Ered smiled at Tel's tactic. The two who had led the attack were running at an angry dagdarra without expected reinforcement. The pack tactics of the ramessin were breaking.

Almara Balmyrra, however, did not use the chance to dart forward and maybe move past Tel. Instead, she turned and raised her voice to the storms, above.

The foremost ramessin held a drawn blade, red and gleaming in the grey light, and was mere feet from the elder priestess. She boomed in defiance, moaning a cry to B?nor that made his soul shiver.

Orven helped him forward, pressing against the pain in his shoulder. Onid raised her thick muzzle to the sky as well and keened, low and haunting, in counterpoint to Balmyrra. Oben did the same but drew his metal-capped club--his batonekt--and pushed past Tel as the older man prepared his third spear.

Perhaps sensing the sudden lack of aide, the lead ramessin, slowed his charge and brought his blade up, as if to parry the promised spear or club. Ered, pain spreading to darken his vision, raised his own muzzle to the sky and joined the others in the call of the dead.

Tel joined in as Orven helped Ered down the trail.

The call had its desired effect as the charging wolves broke their run: slowing in trepidation.

Tel hurled his spear and Oben surged forward past his sister and Balmyrra, to swing his batonekt at the second of the ramessin who had surged past their leader.

Tel's spear caught the wolf between her eyes and Oben's swing caught her in the chest of her mail. The young buck's strength collapsed the metal inwards, taking bone and life with it.

The ramessin crumpled to the ground.

Their leader, with his red sword, fell back and drew a dreaded weapon: a small gun. It could throw death hundreds of feet, if not yards, and its injuries often festered and left even survivors sickened to die, later.

Oben ran forward, raising his batonekt, but slowly. Ered could see his young fate, clearly, as the ramessin raised his gun faster than Oben could counteract.

Then, the ice attacked.

Ered didn't know what he was seeing.

In a flash, through the pain and blood, he saw ice break off from the ledge, above, and flow like glistening water down to strike the wolf's muzzle. He saw Onid, moving her hands as if sculpting a clay pot on a wheel, and the ice-become-water followed her movements. In seconds, the small deluge forced its way down the ramessin's throat.

He fell to his knees, gagging, as the others ran forward.

Tel shouted to Oben and Onid to retreat while grabbing Balmyrra and dragging her after Orven and Ered.

Although the narrowness of the ledge gave the dagdarra some advantage in limiting how many ramessin could attack at once, the damnable guns made up for it. Further, they had clearly chosen this point for their ambush. Tel was right to sound the retreat.

The dagdarra had to move.

"Forward!" Ered cried. "All of you: forward!"

As the drowning ramessin hit the ground, his gun fired and Ered pitched forward.

At first, he wondered if he had been hit and that, somehow, he felt no pain.

But then he saw the blood beside him...

...The blood pouring from a small hole in the back of Orven's head.

The seasoned dagdarra warrior no longer held Ered up. He pitched forward into B?nor's inevitable embrace. Other ramessin did not seem to have guns but one fired arrows from midway through the spent avalanche. Most missed, tossed by the tumultuous winds. One struck Tel in his spear-throwing arm and the powerful man gritted his teeth in pain.

Oben picked up Ered, taking over for Orven, and helped their leader ahead.

The ice-band made their way forward. In a hail of wind-spent arrows, they rounded a bend and put cover between themselves and their snarling adversaries.

Ahead, Ered saw the side-path leading back and up to Alapak. He could even see firelight cast warmly against the underside of the clouds, above. The settlement was close.

But this was an entire patrol.

"We can't ... lead them to the south gate," he sputtered. "Oben: we must lose them in the canyons."

Oben nodded and, taking more of a risk than Ered had anticipated, led the group down a sharp decline both off the ledge and away from the upward trail. It happened so fast, Ered almost didn't know what had happened. But the young buck had noticed that the descending ledge was getting increasingly close to the snow bottom of the canyon they had been following.

Although it was dangerous, and the incline was sharp, they were dagdarra and the hills were their homes.

They made their way down, moving like nimble giants between old boulders and narrow ledges. They stumbled several times with both Onid and Tel taking further injury in their mad rush for freedom. But, within minutes, the pursuit had stopped. They reached the bottom of the canyon and had a long, icy path leading south.

Ered gasped for breath; pain in each intake of air. "Good ... job, Oben. Now ... we must ... reach the canyons' end..."

But, then, painful darkness claimed his thoughts and, sagging into Oben's arms, he said no more.

Ahead of them, the canyons widened and sprawled through the ebbing hills and the tundra as night fell. Beyond them raged a wall of storm clouds. Behind them, wolves howled.