Chapter Fourteen
It was an arduous climb from the depths of the mountain stronghold to the surface, made all the more difficult by their wounds. Worse than that, the tonic Nellise had made to instil them with energy finally ebbed, leaving them exhausted and barely able to walk. It reminded Aiden of the first time he had gotten drunk on some cheap wine Pacian had ’procured’ from his father’s cellar.
For reasons unknown, there were no signs of pursuit from the insane dwarves of Ferrumgaard. Whether they were uninterested in leaving the safety of their ruined city, or they assumed Aiden and the others had been slain by the serpent, they would never know.
They were an exhausted, miserable bunch by the time they finally saw a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, leaning on each other for support and to stave off the chill from their soaked clothing and when they finally emerged from the cave into the night air, Aiden toppled over in relief.
The ground before them was covered in a thick layer of fresh snow, which glowed eerily in the moonlight filtering through the clouds. Their breath misted in the frigid air as even more snow drifted down from the grey skies above. Aiden guessed they had emerged somewhere in the Calespur ranges, for there were thick pine trees silhouetted against the snow as far as the eye could see. It was almost picturesque in a way, which made the things they had witnessed down below seem all the more surreal.
“How long were we down there?” Nellise whispered, looking around in disbelief. “It felt like less than a day.”
“You lose track of time underground,” Sayana replied wearily. “It may have felt like hours, but it was much longer.”
“Probably closer to eighteen hours,” Aiden surmised, guessing that it was late at night on the day they'd entered Ferrumgaard. “I have no idea where we are though,” he added.
“Must be in the southwest of the ranges,” Colt muttered, looking around at the picturesque scene before them.
“We need shelter or we’re going to freeze to death,” Nellise mumbled, leaning heavily against the stone.
“There’s an old cabin around here somewhere,” Colt responded. “We just need to keep moving.”
“I don’t think I can make it,” Sayana whispered at the thought of pressing on.
“Sorry Sy, but it's gotta be done. I have a solution though, if you're not too proud to accept my help.” Colt picked her up in his arms as if she were made out of feathers then turned and led them through the snow.
Each step through the freezing terrain was painful, requiring monumental effort just to put one foot in front of the other. Aiden had never been so exhausted in his life and he couldn’t stop shaking. His damp clothing clung to his body and chilled him to the bone, yet after a few minutes there was still no sign of the cabin Colt mentioned and Aiden despaired they weren’t going to find shelter in time.
Without warning, Aiden suddenly fell face-first into the snow where he lay unmoving, unable to take one more step. He vaguely heard someone else fall to the ground nearby and he knew this was going to be the death of them all. As his consciousness slipped away, Aiden felt an odd sensation of being dragged through the snow, right before everything went dark.