Chapter 29 #2
But here, with Luna, he instinctively knew nothing would happen, so he could focus on magic completely.
“Sort of,” he said with a warm smile. “I think I’ve partly realized how important to me you are.”
Luna started turning red, looking aside. “I told you to stop making it weird.”
Alsen shook his head. Not the reaction he expected.
But he wasn’t lying. His build, as of right now, was an extreme specialization.
That left him with glaring gaps when it came to the overall picture of adventuring.
With Luna also being heavily specialized, just in different things, she complemented him perfectly.
If he wanted to continue his current path, he needed her to stick around for the foreseeable future. And he was even going to spend skill points on it. Just needed to hit level twenty.
“I should get back,” he said. “I’ve already made things weird. Sorry.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t argue. His momentary honesty threw her off, so she could use a moment to recuperate.
“Stay close tomorrow.” Without waiting for an answer, he flew back to camp.
Kern awaited him, seated on a boulder, watching him approach and land. His eyebrows noted the coat. They performed a complex analysis that Alsen chose not to interpret.
Alsen settled back into his spot. Arleria shifted toward him in her sleep, her shoulder finding his arm. The goat fur coat was bulky enough that the contact felt different, a layer of warmth between them that hadn’t been there before.
He slept better than he had in days.
Morning came with wind and the promise of a whole lot more wind.
The sky had turned the color of a bruise, dark gray streaked with purple where the dawn tried and failed to break through the cloud cover. The temperature had dropped overnight, enough that breath didn’t just mist but hung in the air, reluctant to dissipate.
Alsen sat up. The goat fur coat had kept him warm through the night without his heating spell, which meant he’d slept with a full mana reserve. That alone was worth the upcoming argument.
Malick noticed first. He was repacking his gear, hands moving with their usual efficiency, when his eyes snagged on the coat. He stopped. He looked at the coat. He looked at Alsen. He looked at the coat again. “Where did that come from?” he asked.
Alsen formed a faint smile. “My attendant is resourceful.”
“Your attendant?” Arleria snapped from behind. “I thought she left.”
Alsen took a second to formulate his thoughts. He had to be very careful about the answer. “She has left the group, not the general area. Don’t worry. She won’t make any problems.”
Derell looked over from where he was strapping his armor. He studied the coat, then Alsen, then returned to his straps without comment.
Arleria studied him for a moment with narrowed eyes. She also said nothing.
“We move in ten,” Malick said, extricating Alsen from the interrogation.
Thanks, Alsen said in his mind.
They broke camp under the bruised sky. The path ahead climbed steeply along the ravine wall, the terrain transitioning from snow-covered rock to something approaching a goat trail. Kern scouted ahead, his footprints the only marks in the fresh snow.
The wind picked up within the first hour.
It came from the north, channeled through the ravine like a bellows, carrying ice crystals that stung any exposed skin.
Alsen pulled his coat tighter, the goat fur blocking the worst of it.
He kept his heating spell in reserve, saving it for the moment of necessity.
Arleria walked beside him for the first stretch, but the path narrowed, forcing them into single file.
She fell in behind him, her green cloak whipping in the wind, her hands tucked into her sleeves.
The enchantments on her cloak were working, but the wind found the gaps.
Every gust that hit her from the side made her flinch, a tiny motion she suppressed almost instantly, but Alsen noticed.
By the second hour, she started visibly shivering.
Alsen glanced at her. “Are you all right?”
She looked up. Her lips had a blue tinge. The start of hypothermia. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” He stopped walking, let her catch up, and pulled the coat off. He held it out. “Put it on for a moment.”
With a little blush, she took it, and draped it over her robes. “Won’t you be freezing?”
Alsen pushed his mana into the heating web, feeling it settle around him like a warm blanket. “I still have a heating spell.”
“Thank you.” The tension in her jaw eased. Her hands came out of her sleeves. The coat was too big for her, the shoulders hanging past her frame, but the fur was thick, the coverage generous.
They continued climbing.
The ravine steepened past a series of switchbacks that tested everyone’s footing.
Kern marked the stable ground, but the fresh snow concealed loose rock underneath, and every third step threatened to slide.
Derell climbed with his shield strapped to his back, using both hands on the rock.
Malick wedged his warhammer into crevices for leverage, pulling himself up with his arms when his boots lost purchase.
Alsen partly climbed, mostly flew up over the parts that looked risky to climb over. It felt a bit strange to fly when others struggled, but practicality often beat appearances.
The ravine opened onto a steep slope that ran between two cliff faces, narrowing as it climbed toward a ridge perhaps three hundred feet above.
The snow here was deeper, thigh-high in the drifts, packed to ice where the wind had hammered it.
The path, such as it was, hugged the left cliff face, a ledge barely two feet wide with a drop on the right that disappeared into cloud and rock.
Kern waited at the base of the slope. His expression communicated everything the group needed to know about what lay ahead. He already held his rope in his hands.
They roped together. Kern first, then Derell, then Malick, then Arleria, then Alsen on the rear anchor.
The rope was thick hemp, heavy and rough, tied at intervals with knots that served as handholds.
Standard mountaineering. Alsen hadn’t done this before, in either life, but the principle was obvious enough.
They climbed.
The ledge was worse than it looked. Ice made the rock slick, the snow on it compacted into a surface that offered no grip.
The wind hit them from the right, from the open face, gusting hard enough to make the rope sway.
Below them, the slope fell away into nothing.
Alsen couldn’t see the bottom through the cloud.
Alsen fired a scan from time to time. This one pinged a bunch of harpy signatures ahead. They were already moving. Some remained clustered in the cave system, but several had moved, spreading outward, taking positions along the ridges above. Sentries.
He pushed the information forward, leaning to Arleria. “Harpies up ahead.”
The information passed through the group. Everyone took out their weapons. They kept the pace.
The first scream came from above and behind.
It hit like a physical force, a wall of sound that resonated through bone and mana simultaneously. Alsen’s heating spell vanished. His grip on the rock face slackened. The world turned white at the edges, his vision contracting to a tunnel.
He braced.
The second the scream cut off, he pushed out his power. The scream passed through the air, so he formed a disc of concentrated power on the ground around himself, straight underneath the surface layer.
Two harpies dropped from the ridge above, wings folded, diving at the line. Kern immediately released an arrow. It hit a harpy in the chest. It didn’t slow it down.
They hit the slope thirty feet ahead, between Kern and Derell, their claws digging into the ice as they arrested their descent. Ice crystals erupted from their spines, catching the gray light.
Kern already had the second arrow nocked. He released it in a single fluid motion. This one pierced the lead harpy’s shoulder. It screeched, a shorter burst, a pain sound rather than the focused disruption of the first scream, and lunged at him.
Derell drew his sword, stepping forward on the narrow ledge, putting himself between the second harpy and the rope line. The ledge he stood on was barely wide enough for one person.
The second scream came from the left.
A third harpy, clinging to the cliff face above them like a spider, its wings pressed flat against the rock. It screamed down at the rope line.
Alsen’s vision whited out. His right hand came off the rock. His left foot slipped on the ice. For a horrible, stretched second, he teetered on the ledge, his weight shifting toward the open drop, his fingers scrabbling at rock that offered nothing to hold.
The harpy jumped, spreading the wings, floating around the cliff. Another harpy joined it, the fourth one. Both floated toward the rear of their formation.
Alsen barely came to his senses seeing one harpy descending directly at its back. He pulled on the power in the disc he set up.
Up-cleave.
The disc released its energy in a single blade of force. It flew up, cut the harpy vertically in half, and continued up to disperse into the sky. The two harpy halves, landed by his sides, spraying their teal blood on him.
It froze even through the clothes. Where it hit his skin, at the back of the neck and on one hand, intense cold and pain fired through him.
The fourth harpy landed between him and Arleria, releasing another screech. This one up ahead. Its residue still hit Alsen, his concentration shaking. But Arleria lost all composure up ahead, covering her ears with her hands.
Alsen slashed his hand through the air, released a jolt of power.
Curved cleave.
The spell slashed at the harpy. It dodged, jumping sideways. The spell cut the rocks and snow up ahead. It still caught the harpy’s leg, nearly severing it off. It pounced at him.
He still had power in the disc.
Up-cleave.