*****
Tyler wasn’t thrilled when the steady rain was replaced by a soggy vapor. The sky was still cloudy and the damp fog made it hard to see. He couldn’t think of a worse time to be climbing a mountain occupied by a Necromancer. Zombies in the mist would be highly appropriate considering the atmosphere. He repressed a shudder.
Behind him, Grandpa was having a hard time. He was breathing heavily and, like the rest of them, kept slipping on the slick and muddy terrain. Tyler was half afraid he might have a heart attack, except that Tyler and Sarah were breathing just as hard. The air was thinning the higher they climbed.
Tyler tried to suck in oxygen and hold his footing as he trudged up the slope. He used trees growing out of the rock at angles to help propel himself up. Unfortunately, the vegetation thinned to sparse shrubbery and Tyler suddenly found himself faced with a craggy wall of rock. They reached a sheer cliff face that went straight up. Grandpa and Sarah paused next to Tyler, the three of them craning their heads to see how far up the wall was. Left Paw had run off to locate Benji’s current position.
“We’re below the shelf where Thana lives,” Grandpa told them between deep breaths.
“How far up is it from here?” Sarah asked. Grandpa shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter,” Tyler put in, “we’ll have to go around. We can’t climb that.”
Grandpa nodded again. He tried to catch his breath before speaking. “If we go that way,” he pointed to the east side of the vertical rock, “we should reach a path that will lead us to the ledge.”
The three of them nodded, no one wanted to waste breath talking when they didn’t have to, and began advancing east. They didn’t speak again even when Left Paw came back and told them Benji was nearing Thana’s house. Tyler’s anxiety rose. They needed to move fast to get to Benji. They were so close.