Nestled between peaks that towered upward on the right and left was a stone wall with an archway. Beside the archway, embedded into the stone, was a bronze plaque.
Terbulin Pass, 17889 feet. Beyond this gate, the Empire cannot protect you.
And if I hadn't kissed Guenevieve, I'd have been in a warm bed snuggling up with Sarina at this very moment. I'd push my fingers into the frazzled, kinky mass of her hair. She'd laugh and tell me to leave it alone. Later, she'd lean back in a warm bath and close her eyes, and allow me to comb it out, massaging her scalp with olive oil.
We'd be married. On the run from the Invisible Hand instead of marching into a war where men go in and don't come out.
My fingers wouldn't be numb, either.
To the right of the archway was a totem twenty feet tall and half covered in ice. Goat stood at the apex atop Cougar, Falcon, Rattlesnake, and Wolf, and at the foundation was Orca.
We entered through the archway into a snow-packed courtyard scarcely twenty by twenty feet, an oblong square built more out of respect to the adjacent mountains with only a cursory nod to geometry. On the far end was another archway with a large, oaken door barricaded by three heavy iron bars and not one, but two closed, iron portcullises.
Portculli. Portcullix. Whatever.
On each side were narrow, vertical slits that let through slivers of blue sky, angled on the interior for archers to have any attack they desired, and adjacent each were baskets of arrows with a dusting of snow all over the fletchings.
The rampart above had stone crenellations that came up shoulder height, and there were two men up there. Each was adorned in a black fur coat with metal armored plates peeking out from beneath. They turned to look at us as we came up; the bottom halves of their faces were covered in woolen cloth. One of them called out, "Zaken! Fresh meat!"
Davod turned to me with his brow furrowed. From the side came the creak of iron hinges as a door swung open and smacked against the stone, and another man emerged. He, too, had a heavy fur coat, but his face placed him well into his middle years. His long, dark-green hair hosted more than a few strands of white and was pulled behind his shoulders. The collar where his coat and armor ended hinted at muscles enough to mark him as a man not to be trifled with.
He stepped up to us, sniffing the freezing air.
Davod spoke first. "We've been called to arms. We're supposed to go…"
"Ye boys been smokin?" His voice was a deep baritone with the thick accent of the Beaver Clan, and his words came out more as a statement than a question. His eyes shifted among us.
"Huh?"
"What?"
"Me?"
Ales answered him more decisively. "Yes we have, sir."
Zaken stepped up to him, his nose inches from our friend's face, and passed his eyes up and down his body. "Honesty. Good quality." Then he turned to the rest of us. "What o the rest o y'all?"
Faren raised his droopy eyes to the man. "I've got more…"
"Not anymore, ye don't!" Zaken snapped at him. "That'll get ye killed down there, and I don't want yer blood on my hands, ye hear?"
Faren froze. He'd struggled to breathe since the path through that last escarpment, and coming up to the gate he was dizzy. Those words snapped him to attention.
Zaken shook his head and turned to each of us as he continued. "Keep yer mind sharp. At all times. That man down there'll get ye killed. And no drinkin, neither. Survive down there, and ye get to stay up here."
Faren glanced at me briefly with icicles in his lashes and took a deep breath. It wasn't lost on me that he preferred this cramped, frigid outpost at ungodly heights days from civilization to being down there.
Davod went next. "We've been called to arms. We're headed to Carthia…"
"Obviously," the man snapped. "Ye spend the night here and set out in the mornin."
Davod glanced briefly at the sky and shrugged. "But it's barely noon."
"Ye won't make the Lake of Doom before nightfall."
Geraln's voice trembled. "The Lake of…"
"Do NOT be out after dark. Ye hear?"
Even with the ramparts surrounding the small courtyard, the wind coming off the high mountains bit hard and nearly froze me in place, but those words, the way his voice drilled them into my soul sent an unnatural shiver all over my skin. I looked at Geraln; his mouth gaped. With a puff of white breath, he turned his bulging eyes to me.
"Sir," Ales tried to speak. "What's wrong with…"
Zaken turned towards the door and interrupted him. "Come. We got a fawn been marinatin in ale for days. Got warm beds, but first wash up…"
"Sir," I said. "May we see what's on the other side of that wall?"
The man looked me up and down, then pointed at a small door tucked into a corner that was short enough to force most children to duck through it. "Through there."
Faren looked sullen and withdrawn. He and Geraln went along with the older man, while Davod was just hungry. Ales and I went to have a look.
The door itself was like the others with iron braces and rivets, and there was a sealed barrel beside, half buried in snow and long since iced over. As we pulled it open, the hinges cried out in protest. Inside was a cold column with a spiral staircase that went up on the left following a faint amber light that danced across the stone, and down into darkness on the right. The space was tight, and I nearly tripped several times thinking I had the rhythm of the steps, but they were horribly uneven. We climbed one flight to a small landing where, in a small stone recess in the center column, a solitary candle clung to the remnant of what wick it had left amid a pool of solid wax. Opposite that was another heavy wooden door, and we pushed that open.
Our eyes were flooded with sunlight, and before us, between the stone crenelations, pristine blue sky rose above an endless expanse of clouds.
The Terbulin ridge extended out to the east and to the west, a sheer cliff face of rock curved inward to the horizon as far as the eye could see, marbled in gray and black and too steep to host any snow caps save for what little was saddled between peaks that reached heights I couldn't grasp with my mind. Everything else was beneath a blanket of clouds. The side of the cliff hosted a long outcropping of rock that angled down sharply to suffice for a road that dipped beneath the clouds, but otherwise fell straight down who knew how far.
Ales's hair danced in the freezing wind, and his eyes were wide as they scanned the ocean of clouds before us. He chuckled lightly. "I never seen clouds from this side before."
That made me smile. "It's surreal, isn't it?"
He nodded emphatically. Beneath us, waves seemed almost frozen in time, as though they swelled and flowed in slow motion, fluffy pillows of cotton that refused to give us so much as a hint of what lay beneath be it hills or valleys, farms or cities. White mixed with shades of gray kissed hy the overhead sun with touches of amber, all beneath the clear sky, hemmed in by the endless gray-black wall of rock towering above us.
I mustered some words. "I feel so small."
Ales smiled. "I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this; it looks like you could just take a boat through it."
A voice came from the side. One of the men with us on the rampart, draped in a dark fur coat over heavy armor, had his dark-green hair cascading down his back. "On a clear day, you can see Carthia right over there," he pointed.
He was a sturdy man of average height, Herali, with a line of scar trailing down the left side of his otherwise soft face. He wasn't much older than us, if at all. The place where he pointed was but a crest of pillowy clouds.
"What's your name?" I said.
"Timeu of Raouna."
"Where's that?" Ales asked.
"It's in Ozaria."
Ales huffed. "You're from diamond-tree country, too."
Timeu nodded. "Yeah, there's a lot of us."
"Is it like this all the time?" Ales asked.
"This time of year?" he nodded. "All day every day. In winter you can see everything. The River of Unending Torment, all the way to the sea." His finger traced a wavy pattern in the air and led our eyes off to the right, towards more clouds.
That name again. We had to reach the River of Unending Torment, in the Valley of Misery, which was beyond the Lake of Doom. And according to Dariana, men go in, and don't come out. I tried to shake it off.
"You survived down there?" I asked.
Timeu lifted his eyebrows for a fleeting moment, then scratched at the scar running down the side of his face. "Barely."
Ales quizzed him, "what's the secret?"
Timeu glanced his dark-green eyes back and forth between us and leaned in close. "They're going to tell you a whole bunch of shit, and it's good shit, but honestly… just… whatever the natives tell you, listen. Learn the language, talk to the natives. They're… most of them are good people, and they know what's what…"
"OK," I nodded.
"... but no matter what, don't be out after dark."
Ales and I looked at one another; a cold feeling of concern passed between us. We almost asked together, "what happens after dark?"
Timeu shook his head and took a deep breath. "How's this: during the day, your enemy is other people."
"And at night?"
"Hey!" Davod called out to us from the courtyard below. "What do you cocksuckers see up there?"
Ales shook his head. "Nothing but clouds, dunderhead."
"Uh-huh. Need you to run an errand. He says they got a bowl with some thyme and onions nearby. Need you to go get some."
Timeu slapped my shoulder and, though his mouth was covered in black wool, his eyes smiled. "Looks like it's your turn. We'll talk later."
They gave us directions back along the road to one of the footpaths we'd passed earlier that morning. Light gravel crunched beneath our boots, and we climbed to a small ledge that spiralled down into a deep bowl of rock and mortared stones. At the bottom, the soil was moist and the air was much warmer than it had any right to be at that altitude. Several crops were planted about.
Ales waved his hand through the air, a look of pure astonishment plastered over his meaty face. "How the fuck?"
I couldn't help but laugh that off. "Mountain tricks, man; there are places like this all over the highlands. Some of those ancient clans still don't believe in the Empire. Actually, one of those clans gave Father Yewan that bow I carry. Chief's wife was having a difficult labor, and they summoned Mother Searnie. She brought me along to help, and that bow was their idea of payment. Also, don't tell Davod I told you this, but there was this girl, Nalanya; he had a huge crush on her."
"OK," he still looked amazed. "But… how? It's freezing up there, down here…"
"The way I understand it, the sun heats the rocks, and the snow melts higher up, bringing moisture, which traps the heat and waters the soil."
Ales nodded, then grinned. "Alright. But what happened to Nalanya?"
I chuckled. "Her brother told Davod that if he couldn't beat him in a fair fight, he couldn't court his sister."
"Got his arse kicked?"
"Sure did!"
As we gathered up the items from our shopping list, I noticed off to the side some blackberries trained along a wooden trellis. I took one.
"Those any good?" Ales asked.
"I can't tell," I said, the sweet juice lingering on my grateful tongue. "I think I need to try another to be sure."
He nodded and came over to where I stood. "Sounds like you could use a second opinion."
Together, we plucked enough blackberries to paint our fingers an incriminating purple, incurring more than a few thorns. I spent the whole time on the trail back trying to pick those seeds out of my teeth.
Absolutely worth it.
Zaken had said we could wash up. The bath was but a small washbasin scarcely large enough to sit in, tucked into a closet with a drain in the middle of the floor, buried deep within the mountain with naught but an oil lamp for light, and the water had a thin sheet of ice over it. They gave us a rag and soap, and with it I scrubbed as quickly as possible hoping to mitigate the cold all over my skin.
It didn't work.
Faren had been drafted into laundry duty with some other men from the garrison, which was fortunate as I was on my last change of clothes.
That evening, dinner included blackberry marmalade with fresh sour bread, sweet potato mashed up with a torturous amount of nice pepper, and that venison he'd promised from before. They also had pitchers of some yellow-orange colored juice that was as sweet as anything I'd ever tasted and tart, and we managed to empty the first one within seconds while the men of the garrison laughed at us.
The room was small, walled with rough-hewn solid stone on one side and mortared blocks on the other that held a window of amber-colored glass in a hashed frame. The dark, wooden table filled the space, and all the meal was set in the center alongside an iron candelabra with numerous fresh candles. It was the five of us along with Timeu, Zaken, and three other men of the garrison. One of them was a burly Herali man with a tattoo over his brow marking him from the Porcupine Clan in Lavega County. He had only a thumb and two fingers remaining on his left hand, with a scar that ran the length of his forearm.
Faren was silent while Davod, seated at the head of the table, grabbed up a generous serving of food.
It was Ales who spoke first. "What's down there?"
The men of the garrison glanced at one another and smiled. The Porcupine man grimaced and spoke. "Well, there are only three things you need to watch out for." We watched him closely as he held up his hand and counted them off on the three fingers he had left. "There's the things that'll eat you but won't bother to kill you first, there's the things that'll kill you but don't care to eat you, and then there are the things that'll kill you and eat you. That's it. You watch out for those three things."
The others laughed, but we didn't. Another man added, "there's a hundred different kinds of snakes down there. But don't worry, only ninety-nine of them are poisonous!"
Another man chuckled, "the other one will swallow you whole!"
Geraln had a mass of sweet potato on his fork and was about to bite it, only to freeze in that position and look over at me with his eyes wide open and his mouth gaped.
Zaken, seated opposite Davod, chuckled heartily with a satisfied grin while his men tormented us. Timeu continued, "don't touch the yellow vine."
The porcupine man continued, laughing, "and don't let it touch you, either!"
Davod pulled the slab of meat from his face; a patina of fat saturated his cheeks while a tiny glob of meat clung to his lips. "What do you mean 'don't let it touch you'?"
Another man turned to Ales and spoke to him directly. "You're from the coast; you ever seen a twenty-foot alligator?"
My jaw dropped. "How big?"
The others laughed. It was Timeu's turn again. "The ants will kill you. The mosquitoes will kill you. The bees will kill you. The heat will kill you. Drinking the water will kill you. The mud will kill you…"
Another man interrupted, "packs of wild dogs. Had a guy tried to pet one of them; he's dead now. You know what a dæguwa is?"
None of us did.
"It's like a cougar, but bigger and stronger, and yellow with spots. They wait in the trees for you to walk underneath, and by the time you realize he's there, you're dead."
Another took the baton. "You could be walking along, thinking you're on a trail. Bushes and trees are so thick you don't see the edge until you walk right off it. Then you fall, hurt so bad you can't move, waiting for your friends to come help, and some random thing comes along and takes a bite out of you."
"Stay on the main road, but the main road is boobytrapped. Move slowly to avoid traps, but move quickly else the Sewu'oni will find you."
Ales spoke up to that. "Is that the enemy we'll be fighting?"
It was Zaken who answered. As he spoke, the whole table fell silent. "Carthia been there over a century. Started as a tradin outpost, grew into a refuge for pirates, runaway slaves, and other outcasts. Then, about twenty years ago, the Great Umeazi Plague swept through Uhui. Lots o people died, and the survivors blamed us. The Sewu'oŋi are one tribe, but they built an alliance throughout the whole region hellbent on gettin rid o us."
"What about after dark?" Ales asked.
The men of the garrison exchanged fearful glances. Then the Porcupine Clan guy said it. "vɪta'o."
Geraln spoke up. "What's vita-o?"
As before, the men took turns layering their words on top of one another. "Picture giant lizards. Tall as a man."
"With talons like an eagle, several inches long and razor sharp."
Another took the baton. "And serrated teeth. When they bite you, they shake their heads like this," he bobbed his head back and forth, "carve right through you like a saw blade."
"They move through the forest, quieter than the wind, and they blend in with the trees. You could have one right next to you and you won't see him. Until it's too late."
"... and faster than anything you've ever seen. You ever seen a cougar barrel down the side of a mountain at full clip? Faster than that. And, they're smart."
"Real smart. They hunt in packs, talk to each other through chirps and clicks—sounds just like the rest of the forest. And, they know we can't see shit after dark."
"They don't much care for human politics, neither; we're meat."
The mood fell silent. I tried to will myself to take a bite of something, then it occurred to me to ask, "these vɪta'o… do they go after the enemy the, uh…"
"sewu'oŋi," they reminded me.
"Will they go after the Seu-oni after dark? Are both sides subject to the same rules?"
The men nodded a strong affirmation.
Then, finally, Davod remembered his priorities. "What about girls?"
The men of the garrison looked at one another as if shocked we still had the nerve to ask such a thing.
Ales's eyes perked up and he stared at Davod wide-eyed, his eyebrows raised. Faren still stared empty at his plate of untouched food as though lost in thought, but Geraln leaned forward and listened. I doubled down, "what kind of girls do they have down there? What are they like?"
Zaken let out a wry smile while the man from the Porcupine Clan grinned wide and spoke. "Man, they got women down there that'll absolutely blow your mind."
Ales spoke, "in a good way or a bad way?"
"Both!"
Another clarified, "at the same time!"