Chapter 14 The Indignities of Feathers #3
That night, they made camp out in the open. With no shelter nearby, they had to hope the weather would continue to hold. Peppercorn and Boulder seemed to prefer it, happily cropping at the last of the season’s wild grasses.
They built a large fire, and the night was temperate. Brune wanted to bemoan the lack of body heat as an excuse, but Ridan seemed oddly contemplative. He was lying on his back, arms crossed over his chest, as he looked up at the night sky.
Brune knew this was the same sky he had always lived under, yet it felt different.
Even from the sky above the Stone Blade.
It was massive and clear. He felt as if he blinked too often the sky would absorb him, the ground and grasses would disappear, and he would be floating among pinpricks of light.
They looked not unlike a fire pit from a distance, a tiny sparkling point in a sea of darkness.
He couldn’t see the stars in Kaldonea. Between the high walls and the buildings, it was nearly impossible to catch more than a sliver of sky. Even the sun didn’t penetrate to the dim street.
Maybe if he could have seen the sky from the streets, he would have thought more about the wider world.
Wondered what those stars were, and how they seemed to be alive.
Moving from one night to the next. It was almost as if the stars were like the Clansmen ancestors of old, nomads moving in the bright light of day.
Constantly searching for something better.
“What are they?” Brune marveled, his eyes nearly burning with the strain of trying to pick out a single detail. Something that would give him the answers he wanted.
Ridan shifted a little and remained silent for so long, Brune thought he wouldn’t answer.
Finally, he inhaled. “My father used to say that if we had the answer to every mystery, we’d stop looking for things to amaze us.”
Brune found himself, not for the first time, wishing he could have met Corenus. “I think I would have liked your dad.”
“You remind me of him.”
Surprised, Brune turned his head to look at Ridan. “Smart? Strong? Handsome? Brave? Incredible? Indecriba—”
Ridan smacked him with a small smile. “No, just…comfortable with himself. He never questioned if what he was doing was right or wrong. He just did it.” He didn’t look over at Brune, but he still felt seen. “You’re like that.”
He studied Ridan’s profile. With the fire light on one side of his face and the rest obscured by the night, he reminded him of the dawn.
Like an inevitable war between day and night, each winning once, only to lose in the second battle of the day.
Ridan was constantly at war—with himself, with his expectations, with the clan.
Round and round, every dawn he fought the battle, only to find himself staring at another battle at dusk.
More than anything—even more than his overflowing garden—Brune wished he could fight those battles with him.
Shield him from attacks, strike blows beside him, and then hold him close when the battle was over.
Brush the hair from his bloody face and tell him it was all right, that he could rest for a moment. He would keep watch.
Ridan’s father must have felt the same way. He watched his mate lead the clan, and if the man was anything as described, he would not have hesitated to do what he could for her.
“Maybe he didn’t have to wonder,” Brune said finally, quieter than the fire crackling beside him. Ridan looked at him, flames caught in his eyes.
“He never had to wonder if what he was doing was right or wrong, because he had everything he ever wanted right in front of him.”
On the fourth day, the feather changed directions.
It wasn’t subtle. One moment the feather was straining at its bonds, facing the same direction it had been from the beginning, and the next it jerked with such force it nearly pulled Brune from Boulder’s back. He caught himself looking over his shoulder at Ridan with a big grin.
The feather took them west until they left the plains behind and began ascending a small series of hills.
The hills turned to rocks, and the rocks turned to massive slabs of granite.
Eventually, the rocks grew too numerous, and they had to dismount.
They found some outcropping of rock that would provide shade for the horses and tied them there.
With the feathers lead wrapped around his wrist, they continued through what turned out to be a large ravine.
Ages ago, water must have run through here, cutting through the hard earth until Ridan and Brune were standing at the base of two massive walls of granite.
They reminded Brune of the walls at Kaldonea.
But instead of the flat monotone grey, the granite was pockmarked with colors.
There was a particular vein of a soft white rock that seemed to sparkle in the sun.
Brune was busy picking at it when Ridan hissed at him. “Look.”
The feather was pointing straight up the eastern wall. It wasn’t tugging anymore, just quivering in midair. Following its pointed tip, Brune could see what looked like a cave opening halfway up the wall.
“That doesn’t look much like an evil magician's lair,” Brune mused, reining in the feather so he could tuck it into his belt.
“Oh? And what exactly does an evil lair look like?”
He paused. “Less granite?”
With a huff, Ridan walked closer to the wall to slip off his cloak.
He began removing anything he didn’t think he’d need, piling his supplies neatly.
Brune joined him. Unfortunately, his heaviest gear was the most important.
The Maladon’s Aegis had grown to be a second limb, and he wouldn’t undertake any kind of risk without it.
Securing his hammer with a leather strap on his belt, he looked up to judge the climb.
Lucky for them, there appeared to be plenty of holds on the nearly sheer cliff face. Still, the opening of the cave was high. Higher than Brune was comfortable climbing.
Ridan seemed to have no such compunction. He hopped up, scurrying up the wall as if it was nothing more than climbing a ladder.
Following a little slower, Brune found a decent sized crevice to slip the toe of his boot into before hoisting himself up after the limber blonde.
It only took a few minutes for Brune to realize that he was not designed for climbing.
His arms were shaking, fingers numb, and back tense.
He refused to look down, but for every inch he gained, he felt as if someone dropped a weight onto his back.
Occasionally he would look up, try to see where Ridan was climbing, but from his angle, it was almost impossible to see where his hands were.
The higher they climbed, the fiercer the wind became. It whipped through the ravine, kicking up dirt and sand that stung his skin and eyes. Sweat dripped down his face, and worse, his hands. Even with the dust on the rock, his fingers felt slippery as he clung to the vertical face.
Just as his arms were about to give out, he felt a tug from above. Panicking, he pressed close to the wall, only to look up and see Ridan. He had climbed over the edge and was leaning down, pulling at the shield on his back.
Flopping down over the lip of the cave, Brune heaved in dusty breaths. Every muscle ached. He didn’t even have the energy to look up and around until Ridan toed at his side. With a grunt, he heaved himself up to his knees.
The cave opening wasn’t particularly large, but it looked deep.
Sunlight only illuminated the first few stalactites before the darkness became too impenetrable to see.
Staggering to his feet, Brune pulled the feather out of its pouch.
Before he’d even opened the pouch fully, the feather zoomed out, catching the end of the lead and flipping itself over in midair.
More frantically than before, it pulled toward the back of the cave.
“Seems like we’ve got the right place,” he whispered as Ridan pulled his sword free, twisting it in his hand.
Even with the singes from Schok’s magic, the edges still looked lethal.
Following his lead, Brune tied the feathers lead around one wrist and withdrew his hammer with the other.
It felt just as good in his hand as it had at the festival.
Letting the natural curve of the cave wall guide them, they started forward.
Farther into the cave, he picked up a musty smell.
It was worse than just damp cave. Even worse than the barracks in mid-summer.
Wrinkling his nose, he glanced over at Ridan, who was blinking to let his eyes adjust to the dark.
Tiny cracks in the ceiling let in shafts of light, just enough that they could move without tripping over anything.
Rounding a particularly vicious stalagmite, they were surprised to find a large room.
Illuminated by a large skylight chiseled out of the roof, the room looked to be as big as three or four tents pitched together.
Smoother than the preceding walls, these looked as if someone had meticulously carved them into a perfect curve.
A dark opening at the back served as a second entrance, just outside of the ring of light spilling into the center of the room.
None of this held Brune’s attention. He was busy searching for the reason for the stench. There didn’t appear to be any water that could account for the musty smell, and for a reason he couldn’t quite articulate, the hair on the back of his neck rose.
Ridan seemed to feel the same, raising his sword as he glanced around. Skirting the edge of the ring of light, he traveled deeper into the cavern.
The clinking of steel on steel had them both swinging to face the noise.
Pressed against the far wall was a pile of bones.
Eerily white, they were picked clean. Legs, arms, and ribs were tossed aside.
The feather tugged at Brune, not towards the bones but the wall directly to its left where the light didn’t touch.