Chapter 29 #3
The remaining power of the disc slashed upward, severing the harpy in two as it approached him.
The slash released a torrent of blood. Alsen jumped off the cliff to avoid it.
He couldn’t afford to get hit in the face, and the rope was about to catch him, so he would swing back toward the mountainside.
As he released himself from the mountain, the harpy parts fell beneath him. One of them dragged the rope with it, as it got tangled in the spikes on its back, together with its loose end. He accidentally cut the rope with the curved cleave.
Shit!
He pushed power into the flying spell. For a split second, he stabilized midair. But the harpy half tangled in the rope pulled on him. His spell gave out in an instant, never made to carry more than his weight.
A rope tied into a lasso descended from the cliff above. It caught him cleanly around the waist. Like a pendulum, it broke his fall, and he swung into the mountain face.
The impact nearly knocked him out, breath forced out of his lungs. Pain shot through him.
But he still slashed with his hand underneath him. Curved cleave. The spell cut off the original rope, releasing the harpy remains.
He exhaled. Fuck. For a few seconds, he breathed it out. A mangled frost harpy fell by the mountain near him. Malick’s work, apparently.
The rope started pulling Alsen up. Not wanting to hang like a sack of potatoes, he caught the rope and used it to climb up.
Arleria was all right, holding onto the mountain, staring up ahead at the rope. Kern, Derell, and Malick were also done fighting, only the destroyed remains of the original harpy on the ledge next to Derell.
None of them held the rope that was pulling Alsen up.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: ENEMIES DEFEATED – FROST HARPIES (7)]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 3500]
[LEVEL UP!]
[CURRENT LEVEL: 19]
The rope pulled him over the ledge’s edge.
Luna stood ten feet back from the cliff, rope wrapped around her forearm and tied over her waist, her leg braced against a rock. She hauled him in with short, efficient pulls.
Three frost harpy corpses lay near her, each with one or more holes in them.
Alsen’s hands found solid ground. He dragged himself forward, rolling onto his backpack on the snow-crusted rock.
The sky above was the color of nothing, flat gray pressing down on the mountain like a lid.
His lungs burned. His ribs ached where he’d slammed into the cliff face.
The frost-harpy blood on his neck had frozen into a sharp, stinging patch of cold that refused to fade.
Luna let the rope go slack. She stood over him, hands on her hips, her mountain goat coat ruffling in the wind. Her expression held a particular blend of amusement and disapproval. “Where’s your coat?”
He blinked. Not the first words he expected from her, so it caught him off guard. He had just almost fallen to his death. “I gave it to Arleria,” he said from the ground. “She was freezing.”
Luna’s expression didn’t change. It didn’t need to. The stillness itself communicated everything. “I made that coat for you.”
“I know.”
“It takes a lot of effort to make one of these.”
“I appreciate that.”
“And you gave it to your girlfriend.”
Alsen sat up. His ribs protested. “She was shivering so badly her teeth were chattering. Her heating enchantments failed at altitude. I still have the heating spell.”
“Right.” Luna coiled the rope with quick, practiced loops, releasing him. “And it never occurred to you to, I don’t know, cast the heating spell on her? Instead of giving away the coat I spent hours making?”
It had occurred to him. But it was much easier to cast the heating spell on himself and hand over the coat.
Casting supportive spells on others was something he never practiced, and also a lot more hassle.
Though, he did understand where Luna was coming from.
“Don’t worry, I will collect it back the second she’s all right. ”
“You’ll collect it now.” She stepped to the ledge, looking at the rest of the party. She grinned down at them. “Should I help you up or do you need to vote on it?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Derell shouted back. “We got it. I ain’t apologizing for shit, but we could use a little help.”
Kern moved an eyebrow in agreement. Malick waved his hand, and Arleria only faintly smiled, hugging the fur coat tight.
She was going to go last. Luna threw the rope at Kern to help him up.
Alsen got up. No sign of additional harpies, so he went to help Luna with the pulling. The impact with the mountain rattled him a bit, but he had to help.
One by one, they pulled them up. Kern, then Malick, then Derell, and for the final one, Arleria. In the order they were tied on the rope.
They stood on the upper ledge, all six of them, for the first time since Luna had been voted out of the group.
Nobody acknowledged that fact directly. They didn’t need to.
The silence did it for them. Kern’s eyebrows performed a sequence so complex it could have been a short novel.
Derell flexed his shoulder, wincing, and said nothing.
Malick looked at Luna, then at Arleria, then at his warhammer, apparently deciding that the warhammer was the safest thing to look at.
Luna pointed at Arleria. “Give back the coat.”
Alsen opened his mouth to speak, but then simply closed it. Luna sounded like someone was going to get stabbed if things didn’t go her way.
Arleria straightened her robes. She reached for the clasp of the mountain goat coat, Alsen’s coat, the one Luna had made. She unfastened it, folded it once with care, and held it out to Alsen. “Thank you,” she said. “It kept me warm when I needed it most.”
Her expression carried something layered.
Gratitude for the coat, certainly. But underneath it, visible only because Alsen had learned to read her, a quiet satisfaction.
She’d worn the coat. Luna had seen it. Whatever that meant in the complicated arithmetic between them, Arleria was counting it as a win.
Alsen took the coat and put it back on. The fur settled against him, warm and familiar, smelling faintly of Arleria’s perfume now layered over the smoke and animal. Luna would notice that. Luna would absolutely notice that.
He glanced at Luna. She was retying the rope to her backpack, facing away from them.
“We should keep moving,” Arleria said. She’d returned to the clipped, focused cadence of a party leader.
Whatever personal calculations she’d just performed were filed and shelved.
“The harpies have pulled back, but they won’t stay gone.
If the nest is in the cave system ahead, we need to reach it before they reorganize. ”
“The cave system is maybe three hundred feet up,” Alsen said. He’d kept the scan running. “Though I’m not detecting all that many harpies.” Zero, to be precise. Which was suspicious, so they were likely hidden in a way he couldn’t detect.
“Luna,” Arleria said.
Luna looked up from the rope.
“You take point.” No further explanation. No renegotiation of the terms of her exile. A tactical assignment, given by a leader who understood that survival outweighed politics.
Luna’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. “Sure.”
They climbed.
Luna moved ahead, finding the path as if it was the most obvious thing to do. The rest followed, roped together again with their ropes. No one dared to suggest roping Luna into the chain.
Alsen noticed the difference immediately. Everyone did. The climb’s difficulty was easily halved, its pace increasing dramatically. A few stretches still were straight up a steep slope, but most were hidden goat paths, over rocks, and through sheltered routes.
Kern, in particular, seemed relieved. He fell back from his scouting position for the first time since the expedition began, settling into the line behind Luna with quiet gratitude.
The temperature dropped as they climbed. Alsen wanted to push the heating spell to help the rest of the group, especially Arleria, but he had to conserve power. They couldn’t camp here, so whatever strength he had left had to do until after they climbed down.
And he really had to keep enough strength for an emergency flying spell, in case Luna wasn’t able to catch him the next time he fell.