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78. [Nortmost] Twenty Days Up, Part Five
🕑 Added 2024-12-09 22:44:39 +0000 UTCCortland Finiron, Hammer Master of the 12th Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, sinking
Carina Goldstone, Logician of the 3rd Renown, and Vitt Secondson-Salvado, Hunter of the 9th Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, in the embrace of allies
***
14 Meltzend, 61 AW
Ascending the Nortmost Mountain
Day Fifteen of the Trial
Cortland was surprised by how little it hurt to be dragged into the mountain. The opposite, really. The aches and pains of these last few weeks, the ever-present burning chill across his toes—these sensations were gone in an instant. Nothing replaced them.
Was this how it felt for Ben? He’d spent his last moments choking on his own blood, a wound in his throat that even magic couldn’t close. When had the peace of death set in for him? When had he begun to sink?
It took Cortland a moment to realize he was dazed—that there was a ringing in his skull that made these disconnected and dreary thoughts seem acceptable. He pulled a sharp, clarifying breath in through his nose.
Cortland did not want to sink.
He activated [Unmovable] and struggled against the stone walker’s grip with his [Strength+]. But in that momentary fog, the stone walker had already dragged Cortland down to his waist. And now, it was the stone walker who tried to pull away—its grip loosened from Cortland and it tried to swim backward into the mountain. Cortland found himself clawing at the thing, trying to maintain a connection.
Cortland had seen what happened to bodies left in the rocks. He would be sheared in half—his legs pulverized within the Nortmost, his torso left propped up as a warning.
“Fuck you,” Cortland snarled. “You don’t get to have me.”
Cortland clung to the stone walker and prepared to activate [Bull Rush]. He would fling himself upward and hope to hold the stone walker until he cleared the mountain. It would work. It had to work or—
“Hammer master!”
Cortland heard the shout a split second before a spinning hand axe sunk wetly into the meat of his shoulder. He cried out from the pain—the axe bit deep, though the gods protected him from sustaining undue damage.
Theo Adamantios, the balding axe master of Penchenne, stood twenty yard down the trail. He had been following behind them all these days, though he never approached until now. A chain of arcane energy ran from the axe in Cortland’s chest to the second axe in Theo’s hand. The other stone walker—the one not attached to Cortland—had turned to slowly advance on Cortland’s would-be rescuer.
“Hold on!” Theo bellowed. “I’ll pull—”
Grunting, Cortland grasped the energy chain. Then, he activated [Bull Rush].
The earth rumbled as Cortland shot forth into the sky—chunks of stone ripped up in his wake. He could still feel the stone walker on his back, the creature turning brittle and crumbling as Cortland broke the connection the mountain. At the same time, Theo wheeled back on his heels, tightening the energy chain and swinging Cortland. The chain slashed through the other stone walker at an angle, shearing the creature clean in half.
Cortland landed with a crunch, fell to his knees, and bounced back upright. He swatted Theo’s axe out of chest and spun toward the stone walker that had grabbed him. The creature was still active—strangely elongated now, like an experimental sculpture. It had tried to hold Cortland and cling to the mountain. Still, the stone walker wobbled toward him.
[Hammer Toss]. [Weapon Return]. [Hammer Toss]. [Weapon Return].
“It’s done, sir,” Theo said quietly. “Rubble.”
The axe master was right. Nothing moved on the mountainside except the two champions. Cortland clenched the smooth, marble coolness of his new hammer. Pain laced through the back of his skull and there was a flapping gash on his shoulder. [Recovery+] would patch him up in time.
“I had it under control,” Cortland said.
“It meant to drag you into the mountain. I found my axes and a luckily placed spruce to be useful when they tried the same to me.” Theo glanced at Cortland’s face. “I am sure you had a trick of your own ready.”
“Someone or something always trying to push or pull me toward a place I don’t want to go,” Cortland said. He paced away from Theo. “But I won’t be maneuvered. You hear me? I’m the fucking mountain. Me.”
“Ah,” Theo said.
The axe master was wise enough to understand that these words weren’t really for him. Even Cortland himself wasn’t sure who he wanted to hear them.
Cortland turned back to Theo. The axe master kept his dopey face carefully neutral, though Cortland knew it was in his nature to smile. Theo didn’t take a step back under Cortland’s hard stare.
“This changes nothing between us,” Cortland said.
“What is there between us?” Theo asked.
“Nothing,” Cortland said.
“Right,” Theo said. “That’s fine.”
“Good.” Cortland nodded up the path. “Come on.”
***
15 Meltzend, 61 AW
Ascending the Nortmost Mountain
Day Sixteen of the Trial
Patricia growled, steady and long, the nightstalker’s sinuous body bowed and ready to pounce. Next to her, Vitt seemed of the same disposition.
“This is madness,” he said. “You’re going to get us killed.”
Carina considered that possibility for a moment. She shook her head. “No. It’s working. I feel it.”
The solitary stone walker had stopped advancing toward them. The creature had gone still—indistinguishable from a jutting rock formation, if not for the human features etched across its surface in ribbons of mineral. The thing resembled the wooden backdrops they used in plays to make scenes look more crowded.
Carina took a step forward. She had used [Enthralled Defender] on the stone walker. At first, she hadn’t been sure the ability would work at all, but it had stopped lurching toward them as soon as she’d drawn upon the Ink. Now, Carina could sense her connection to the stone walker, like a slowly fraying thread stretched between them. The creature was bound to protect her, but she sensed that she wouldn’t be able to maintain that hold for as long as she had with Kendrick Branchbull. The stone held more resistance than the man.
Even so, she had time. Wondering what she might do with the stone walker, Carina took a few more steps forward. She sensed Vitt reach out a hand to stop her, then quickly drop it back to his side.
The wind picked up. Carina’s eyes watered and she wiped her sleeve across his stinging nose. They had stopped on an outcropping that bridged two narrow crevices. The air up here was cold and thin and the heavy clouds were close enough that Carina’s ears popped.
The stone walker shifted position and Vitt let out a noise. But the creature didn’t come toward them. Instead, it walked—no, Carina saw now, it was more appropriate to say that it churned—on a looping route around Carina. The stone walker pulsed faintly and expanded, growing wider and thinner, its façade stretching into a maniacal grin, until it provided Carina a shelter from the wind.
“Did you see that?” she asked Vitt.
“Of course I saw it,” he replied. “You make me nervous, logician.”
Carina waved him off. “I wonder what else it might do.” She snapped her fingers. “You should command Patricia to attack me.”
Vitt and the nightstalker exchanged a look—the cat had proven useful since they’d ditched the lumberjocks. She was good at picking out the subtly advancing stone walkers from the rest of the rocks, although her claws and teeth did little damage to their marble flesh.
“I think not,” Vitt said. “What if this thing decides that the best way to protect you is to drag you down into the mountain?”
“Then I would see the inside of a mountain,” Carina replied. “It can’t hurt me.”
“You’re wasting time.”
Carina frowned. “We’re ahead, Vitt. You can indulge me for a few minutes.”
She hadn’t yet told him that today was the day they crossed paths with the others. They were close to the top now—only a few more days of trekking up this mountain. Since they left the champions of Fornon behind, the trail had been quiet. Carina had allowed herself a peek into the future. She saw a narrowing of possibilities—the others, the snowstorm, the fall. Perhaps it was dangerous and desperate to toy with a stone walker like this, but Carina would grasp for any advantage she could find.
Carina ran her gloved thumb across the inside of her wrist. “Have you ever used her blood for ritual?”
Vitt stared at her. “What’s this now?”
“The cat,” Carina said. “If we were to open her throat for a bit of rune-work, would the gods honor that bargain? Or is there no power in her blood on account of her being summoned from Ink? Have you ever noticed if her blood disappears with her body when she dies?”
“I have no idea,” Vitt said. Next to him, Patricia sat back on her haunches and surveyed Carina, her green eyes sparkling despite the overcast sky.
“These are essential facts about the nature of your abilities. You should know,” Carina replied.
“Well, I don’t.”
“I wonder if we could create a binding ward,” Carina said, moving on. “Trap our friend here. Or, better yet, transport it elsewhere. They can travel through stone, so it seems safe to infer that we might coax it into a rock, ward the rock, and then transport the stone walker elsewhere.” She glanced around the ledge. “I wonder what size stone we’d need.”
“We’re not doing that,” Vitt said. “Any of that.”
“Why not?” Carina faced him, caught up enough to turn her back on the stone walker. “We might learn something—”
“Isn’t it enough to learn that you can keep one still?” Vitt sighed. “I’m going to get rid of it.”
Carina raised an eyebrow at that. Without Breck Bucksap around to encourage pointless battle, they hadn’t bothered to kill any of the stone walkers. Arrows and swords weren’t the most effective weapons against creatures made of flowing rock, anyway. While Vitt's arms had been mostly useless, his [Open Weak Point] ability had proven to be a boon whenever one of the creatures plodded too close. Carina had seen the hunter use the Ink to great effect against the gargoyles in the Underneath, their stone bodies parting to reveal the arcane core within. Similarly, the flattened bodies of the stone walkers peeled apart when Vitt used his Ink, but they hadn't seen any glowing cores to destroy. The stone walkers didn't stick around to give the champions time to attack their interiors—the mere exposure to the open air caused them to flee down into the mountain.
“Now, hold on—”
Before Vitt inevitably ignored Carina’s protest, they heard voices and footsteps crunching up the icy switchback below. The stone walker must have registered these noises too, because it dropped the protective posture it had assumed and rumbled forward, as if to guard Carina from whoever approached.
Orryn es-Salvado, red-faced and winded, clomped into view first. He yelped at the sight of the stone walker and groped for one of his knives. With him was a woman Carina didn't know, but the logician recognized the archaic uniform she wore as belonging to Guydemion's host.
“Settle, all of you,” Carina said. “It’s tamed!”
She stumbled between the new arrivals and the stone walker, not exactly sure who she was even trying to protect. In that moment, Vitt used [Open Weak Point].
The stone walker's smooth marble flesh peeled apart with a sound like earth splitting. Instead of retreating down into the mountain like they had seen the creatures do before, a dark cloud of particulate flowed forth and buzzed around Carina's head. Carina's feet slipped as pebbles the size of gnats battered her face. She snapped her mouth closed and her eyes shut—it was as if the insides of the stone walker still sought to protect her, to cling to her. For a moment, sensations that belonged to something very old flowed through her—cold, and loneliness, and a desperate hunger. The Ink across her chest went hot in response, as if it recognized this other force. And then, as quickly as it had come, the cloud dissipated and sprinkled inert at her feet. Carina opened her eyes just in time to see the stone walker's body crumble and fall, no more than another pile of rocks.
Still off balance, Carina found herself held upright by a pair of strong hands.
“Hello, princess,” Watts Stonework said. “Leave it to you to figure out how to kill one of those things.”
“I think it was Vitt, actually,” Carina mumbled as she rounded on the bouncer-turned-champion. She wasn’t surprised to see Watts—her [Future Sight] had given her a clear idea of who Guydemion would choose to represent Soldier’s Rest—but that foreknowledge hadn’t lessened her anger. Carina slapped Watts across his chest, right where his Ink was hidden beneath his coat.
He grimaced. “What’s that for?”
“You shouldn’t have taken the Ink,” Carina said sharply. “You have a family.”
“I won the coin flip against Hellie for the honor,” Watts replied. “You know how it is with us. One of us was always coming.”
“Honor,” Carina repeated. “Is that what you’re calling it?”
Watts tilted his head. “To fight on behalf of our people? What else would I call it?”
Pursing her lips, Carina’s gaze slid over his shoulder to where Henry Blacksalve had reached the ledge. The gaunt healer ran a hand over his face, brushing ice out of the patchy beard he’d grown since beginning the ascent. Carina waited, but no one else seemed to be following Henry up—she’d seen different possibilities of who could be present. She felt a sense of relief in her shoulders, which quickly tightened up as Vitt sauntered to her side.
“Well, well, at last Henry’s champions of the slums catch us up,” Vitt said. He meant this to be jocular—the type of needling he’d gotten used to doing with the champions of Fornon—but it received only steely looks from Watts and the uniformed woman. Even so, Vitt blundered on, extending his hand to Watts. “Good to meet you, champion. I am Vitt Secondson-Salvado.”
Watts stared at Vitt’s hand for a moment. He flicked a bit of frost from the lens he wore over his scarred eye, then shook Vitt’s hand. “Watts Stonework,” he said simply.
“Strong name,” Vitt said. “Tight grip.”
Orryn intervened then, tugging at Vitt’s other arm. “Uncle, I need to speak with you.” He flicked a look at Carina. “Grandfather is… displeased.”
“Look at you, Orryn!” Vitt exclaimed. “Did I not tell you that you’d be made champion this year? And I didn’t even have to exert any leverage over the hammerhead.”
“He abandoned me with these…” Orryn lowered his voice as he managed to drag Vitt away from the others.
“The man put out my eye and he doesn’t even remember me,” Watts murmured, more stunned than offended.
“Better that way, isn’t it?” Carina said. “Appointing two men as champions who the Secondson recently tried to kill isn’t one of Bel’s subtler maneuvers.”
“Traveon will be pleased that you thought of him,” Watts said, his gaze lingering on Vitt. “Perhaps not so happy that you’ve grown close with that one. Our Traveon tells a story of brutality and kidnapping, princess. An ugly Solstice for you all.”
Carina didn’t know which part to object to first. “Where is Traveon?” She steadied her voice. “Where is Cortland?”
“Behind us somewhere, we hope.” It was Henry who answered. The healer ambled over and placed a hand on Carina’s shoulder, squeezing with a warmth that Carina hadn’t felt in weeks. “You look better than the last time I saw you, logician.”
“Thank you for that, Henry,” Carina said. “It’s good to see you, too.”
Henry breathed out a misty sigh, surveying the quiet uniformed woman who stood apart from the rest, and then the furtively conferencing Salvados. “Strange bedfellows,” he muttered. “We’re glad to find you, though. I’d hoped you might use your skills to locate Cortland and Traveon. Better if we conclude the ascent together.”
Carina looked out over the edge of the mountain—the bitter sky, the drop, the rocks and ice. In her mind, she could imagine the dogged footfalls of the hammer master. He would catch up to her eventually.
She nodded once.
“Yes,” she said. “I can try.”
***
16 Meltzend, 61 AW
Ascending the Nortmost Mountain
Day Seventeen of the Trial
Like a picket of marble, a half dozen stone walkers stared upward, their bodies tilted away from the Nortmost’s uppermost pass. The mountain terminated in four great chimneys of rock, like pedestals that had once stood proud but now leaned precariously against each other. There were two ways to the top—either climbing up the shear face of the rock, or squeezing through a series of mazelike crevices carved into the columns.
“Look, sister,” Wrathful Elephant said. “They come no further.”
“One test at an end, so another might begin,” Laughing Monkey replied.
The two assassins stood at the mouth of one of the inclined crevices. Flurries of snow whipped down through the channel. It would be like trying to navigate to the tip of a finger via the lines in a palm.
“You know the way?” Laughing Monkey said.
“I do. But, again, I must note my disapproval in your plan. We should ascend together. You’ve spread enough rot already amongst the others. There’s such a thing as quitting while you’re ahead.”
Laughing Monkey turned to face her fellow champion. Ice grew in the curl of his mask’s trunk. There were none closer to the top than them. It would be no great challenge to finish the climb and take the Ink. But, though the fresh power called to her, there were other delights to be had on the frozen mountain.
“Your prize is at the top,” Laughing Monkey said. “I must wait here for mine.”
Comments
iridium248
I wonder if they can manage a fatality here. Maybe incapacitating someone and leaving them to the stone walkers will be sufficient to kill them?
