12
By morning the orcs were gone. Pria saw them leave at first light, flying low through the mountain pass. It had been fortunate timing, as Sheldon arrived at the entrance an hour later. Once there, the Zaratan stopped to graze at the edge of the forest, as if he knew that there would be little vegetation to feed on during the journey ahead.
The team leaped to the ground and spread out, wary of any orc demons left to keep watch. The ashes of the fires were still warm to the touch and the dung from their Wyverns left a thick, pungent stench in the air.
‘They must know we’re going this way,’ Fletcher said, shaking his head. ‘The Ahool must have tracked our scent. We’re just lucky they thought we’re faster than we are – they’ve overshot us.’
‘If we were walking, we would still be in the swamplands,’ Othello said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. ‘If we were riding anything but a Zaratan, say Kirins or Hippalectryons, we would be well beyond this point. They must think we’re mounted, like the Dragoon Corps.’
‘That’s why they were so excited by these hoof prints,’ Sylva guessed, crouching near the indentations the shamans had examined. ‘Lucky for us, a wild herd of some demon or other must have passed this way recently.’
‘Aye,’ Cress agreed. She prodded a pile of Wyvern dung with a twig. ‘They must think we’ve got large, high-level demons we can ride – it’s not like they’d send a bunch of students with one or two years’ experience into the belly of the beast, is it?’
Fletcher grinned at her sarcasm, even if inside he was in turmoil. It didn’t hurt that their pursuers overestimated their power, but at some point they might reconsider and retrace their steps. Worse still, the crew had lost the cover of the trees and would be stuck on the only path for miles around. Migrating demons would be funnelled through the pass, from packs of wild Canids to roaming Manticores, looking for a mate. He didn’t like it, but they had no choice. They were running out of time.
As if Sheldon could read his mind, the Zaratan swallowed the last of the pulped leaves he had been stripping from the forest edge and began to plod into the narrow gully, ignoring the high, sheer walls of the mountain on either side. The team hurried to heave themselves on to the shell, their feet dangling above the ground as it juddered, tilting to and fro.
Soon they had all returned to Sheldon’s back, with Alice, who now had Tosk joining the pile of demons that draped themselves over her, as if they took solace in her calm demeanour. Ignatius even brought her scraps of jerky when the team ate, and spent most of his time in her lap – now that the fire was out, his temperature had gone back to normal.
Cress did not seem to mind her demon’s new sleeping companion – she spent most of her time behind Sheldon’s neck, giving him the occasional scratch and holding one-sided conversations. She had become quite attached to the gentle giant, and often bemoaned the fact that he was too high a level to make her own.
Fletcher smiled at the affectionate pile of demons and kissed his mother on the forehead. As he walked to the front of the shell, he wondered if it was strange to show such tenderness towards her. But it felt natural, and right.
‘It’s the perfect place for an ambush,’ Sylva said, interrupting his thoughts as she came to stand beside him.
She was right. They were in a winding chasm that followed the natural strata of the rock, with jagged turns that prevented them from seeing more than a dozen yards ahead. Above, deformations in the cliff walls created ledges and crevices, ideal for Wyverns hidden in wait.
‘We’ll have Pria keep watch,’ Fletcher said. ‘That will give us some warning at least.’
Only Pria would be unknown as one of their demons, for the others might have been identified by the Nanaues or goblins they had fought in the pyramid. Othello brushed her with the large scrying stone and handed it to Fletcher. The dwarf was reluctant to be away from her; he had spent the past hour experimenting with her transformations, amazed at the myriad patterns she could produce on her carapace.
As Pria hovered before them, Fletcher found it strange to see himself mirrored in the crystal, and he was struck by the change in his appearance.
His clothes and face were stained with a mess of soil, blood and dried sweat – he had not washed in days, limited to a brief splashing of water from the acrid puddles that Sheldon passed by. What wasn’t stained was torn from being caught on the spiky branches of the orc jungles and the ether’s forests. His hair was greasy, plastered to his forehead as if dipped in tar.
He smoothed his hair back, then wiped at his cheeks surreptitiously, until he earned himself an amused glance from Sylva. She had somehow managed to keep herself presentable. Her face was clean and fresh, while her hair was carefully braided, even if her clothes were only in marginally better condition than his own.
‘Come here,’ she said, pulling Fletcher to sit cross-legged beside her. She poured a splash of water on to a scrap of reasonably clean cloth and dabbed at his face with it, peering at him with her tongue poking from the corner of her lips as she worked.
‘You know, we won’t have many options if there’s no volcano on the other side of these mountains,’ she said in a low voice.
‘I didn’t think we had any options,’ Fletcher replied, unsure where to look as she leaned in and wiped his cheeks. He noticed her skin, usually pale and smooth, was lightly bronzed with a dusting of freckles, tanned from her days in the orc jungles.
‘We’ll have to risk flying to search for one,’ she murmured, shuffling closer so the others couldn’t hear. ‘Take some petals for the journey.’
‘Abandon the others?’ Fletcher asked, horrified.
‘We’d bring the flowers back once we’ve found a volcano,’ Sylva said, shaking her head. ‘It’s our only chance, and theirs. We split up to go hunting when we needed food the other day, this is just a little longer.’
‘How will we find each other again?’ Fletcher asked. ‘We won’t be a few hundred yards apart this time.’
‘We’ll find a way,’ Sylva said, furrowing her brow.
Fletcher shook his head. He didn’t want to leave his mother. But perhaps it was the only way.
‘Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ he said.
As he spoke, he realised that he had been ignoring the crystal in his lap and glanced down. What he saw churned his stomach.
‘Guys, you need to see this,’ he said, his heart pounding.
Even as he said it, he knew it was too late – Sheldon had just stomped around a curve in their path and the walls of the ravine fell away, revealing what Pria had seen moments ago.
A canyon. A huge, empty space, widening the ravine and then narrowing again, far in the distance on the opposite side. But that was not what had alarmed him.
Giant bones towered above, scattered about like the ruined pillars of a forgotten temple. They were thick and tall as tree trunks, each one bleached a glaring white by years of exposure to light.
‘What is this place?’ Sylva breathed, her neck tilting as they passed beneath a ribcage. The bones curved around them like the spars of a grounded frigate, casting bars of shadow over the group.
Ahead, a leering skull greeted them, the lower jaw missing to leave its ridged teeth buried in the sand. It was as wide and tall as Sheldon’s entire body, with eye sockets large enough for Lysander to fly through without touching the sides. Other skulls littered the way, revealing that scores of demons had died in the huge ravine.
‘It’s like an elephants’ graveyard,’ Othello said. He leaned out and knocked one of the bones, the hollow sound of it echoing around the canyon.
‘These are no elephants,’ Cress said.
Indeed, they were not. These demons were many times an elephant’s size. Fletcher couldn’t imagine how they had arrived in this place, for they could hardly have fitted through the ravine. Pria, still travelling ahead, had reached the other side of the chasm, and he saw the answer to his question. The path was far wider there, large enough to sail a fleet of ships through.
‘There was nothing this large described in our demonology lessons,’ Sylva said, still horrified by the size of the enormous skeletons.
‘I know what these could be,’ Othello volunteered, hesitantly. ‘There are legends about creatures this size, but never any confirmed sightings. Some people say they’re extinct. I read about them in an old book in the library, when we were studying for the exams last year.’
He looked closer at the skull as they passed it by.
‘The teeth are a herbivore’s, flat and ridged,’ he said, thinking aloud. ‘Look at its shinbones. From its size, it would be tall enough to graze on the tree canopy. They’re the tree-eaters. Behemoths.’
‘Whatever they are, it’s creepy as hell here.’ Cress shuddered and went to sit beside Alice, who seemed completely unperturbed by the macabre graveyard.
They spent the next half hour on edge, but the land was as dead and motionless as the bones that surrounded them. Even so, it was a relief when they passed out of the silent boneyard and into the wide ravine on the other side.
Sheldon was quickening his pace, as if eager to reach the edge of the mountains. He would be dehydrated, for though the others were able to drink from their flasks, his last taste of water had been from a stagnant puddle in the forest that morning. To add to this, the weather had changed – the sky had become brighter and hotter with each passing minute.
The shell swayed beneath them and the cliffs on either side were now too wide apart to provide cover from the oppressive heat that beat down from the glowing sky above. Soon they had lapsed into silence, crouched together under the Catoblepas’s pelt to take advantage of its meagre shade. It seemed that different parts of the ether had vastly different climates, despite being only miles apart.
Then they saw it, shining bright like a sheet of glass, rippling and swirling in the scrying stone as Pria flew out of the wide mountain pass.
It was a lagoon, with leagues of azure waters that were surrounded by pure white sand and rocky, vine-laden cliffs. Green jungles bordered its edges and a winding waterway stretched to their left towards the faraway ocean, running beside the mountain range until it merged with the distant waters. To the right, trickling waterfalls fell from jutting outcrops of black rock, feeding the calm pools that surrounded them.
Even as Sheldon hastened towards the water, the air began to turn humid, so much so that Cress’s loose red hair began to frizz before Fletcher’s eyes. Sheldon unleashed a groan of happiness and the shell bounced as he lumbered ahead, the walls of the mountain falling away on either side.
‘I think we’ve arrived at his destination,’ Cress said happily, ducking out of the cover of the pelt and crawling to the front of the shell. She patted his neck happily and then laughed aloud as he splashed into the water, spraying her. The Zaratan languished there, burying his head beneath the surface. His neck pulsed as he gulped.
Cress scooped her hand over the edge and cupped it to her lips.
‘It’s sweet! We can drink it.’
Fletcher didn’t need more encouragement than that. He ran and leaped into the water, for it was so clear that he could see the bottom. There was a shock of cold, but soon the cool liquid was heavenly on his skin, bathing his greasy scalp to leave his hair floating weightlessly.
The water was disturbed nearby as Sylva dived in beside him, a streak of white cloth and bubbles in the water. She had stripped to her undershirt and the short, knee-length pantalettes she wore beneath her breeches.
Fletcher came up for air, only to find himself splashed in the face by the laughing elf.
‘You look like a drowned rat!’ She grinned, splashing him again.
On the other side of the shell, Cress and Othello had entered the water, their happy cries out of sight. He knew they should be searching the horizon for a volcano, but at that moment he didn’t care. It could wait. All he saw were Sylva’s sparkling blue eyes. He splashed her back – and the look of incredulous outrage on her face as she spluttered made him laugh aloud.
‘Right, now you’re in for it,’ Sylva said in mock anger.
She ducked Fletcher’s head under the surface, only to find he had tugged her feet out from under her, dragging her beneath the water with him. They wrestled there, pressed chest to chest, her lean limbs wrapping around his own as they vied for position. Fletcher’s heart pounded as they tumbled on the soft sand of the lagoon bed, until the need to breathe brought them back to the surface.
They burst from the water and parted, catching their breaths as they took in the splendour of their surroundings once again. The sky was shining so that the water glittered like a handful of diamonds. Just for a moment, the fears of the past few days seemed insignificant in the face of such beauty.
Fletcher splashed Sylva again for good measure, then swam towards a gushing waterfall in the dark rock nearby. For a brief moment he revelled in the drumming of the water on his tired back. Then Sylva tackled him into the hollow cove beneath the ledge of pouring water.
He fell back on to a flat boulder, worn smooth and round by the water. She straddled his chest and pinned back his arms, the flowing water behind her like a wall that cut them off from the rest of the world, a glowing, undulating curtain that echoed in the dim chamber. The only sound was the rush of water and the ring of droplets falling from half-formed stalactites above.
She raised her eyebrows triumphantly and then, as Fletcher began to heave her off him, she leaned down … and the room darkened. Othello emerged through the waterfalls, shaking his head like a wet dog.
‘Hey, Sheldon’s on the move,’ he said, sprinkling them with water from his long hair and beard.
Sylva sat up.
And, just like that, the moment was gone.