Thorik, Brimmelle and Gluic walked east along the dirt path, which ended at an ancient great road leading up the cliff, and hopefully across a plateau, through the Go’ta Gorge and up to Surod. Finely carved street stones now lay slightly askew from the ground underneath giving way. Column bases bordered both sides, some with columns still standing on them.
Thorik envisioned what it must have looked like when the road had first been built and thousands of people paraded on its grand path.
Every few hours the road expanded into a round open area, often providing stone roofs for shade and wells for water. The Nums took pleasure in both whenever it was available. However, many of these structures had fallen from battles long past, as well as some that looked more recent.
Snaking its way up the first steep cliff, the road reached the top of the plateau where the Lagona Falls fell from, and yet they had just begun their hike up into the mountains. But before crossing the plateau, they needed to rest for the night after the day’s long trek. Avanda and the others were still not within their view.
Gluic cleared a section of stone road to make way for her gems, crystals, and stones she had picked up along the way. “Come out of those stuffy purses and get some fresh air.” She then placed the items on the road in flowing patterns. “Enjoy and revitalize.”
Thorik set down his backpack and removed his wooden coffer so he could access his flint for Brimmelle.
Camp duties had changed over time. Thorik could recall when Fir Brimmelle wouldn’t lift a finger to help; now he was in charge of the fire. Gathering wood and stoking the fire somehow gave him a feeling of importance that he missed from his days in Farbank.
Brimmelle got the fire started just as Thorik returned with roots and a few small prairie gophers for dinner. “It’s not much, but it will keep us going.”
Brimmelle set another log on the fire. “It will do.”
Thorik nodded and prepped the food for dinner. “Brimmelle, can I ask you something?”
“What is it?”
“It’s about my mother.”
Brimmelle’s shoulders tightened, but he did not reply.
“Did you mean what you said about making the wrong choice and saving me instead of her?”
Using a thick stick, the elder Num poked at the beginnings of the fire. “Yes.”
“Oh.” Thorik pondered the answer. “Do you really hate me?”
“I never said I hated you.”
“Then why have you treated me the way you do?”
“I’ve been trying to make a responsible man out of you. Someone that your mother would have been proud of me to raise in her absence.”
“This isn’t about me, is it?”
“What do you mean? That’s what we’re talking about.”
“No, I think we’re talking about you, your guilt, and your living up to my mother’s expectation of how to raise me.”
Brimmelle broke his stick and tossed it into the flames.
Thorik watched the fire coil into the air. “You’ve been so fearful of making decisions about me that she wouldn’t have approved, that you avoided making any decisions outside of the Mountain King’s words.”
“The King’s words are wise. All should follow them.”
“True as they are, they could never provide me with the warmth or guidance I needed from a father, or in this case an uncle.”
“Where is all this coming from?”
“I was just thinking about Ericc. He never had the opportunity to grow up with his father. Whereas, I grew up the past several years with you, and yet it felt like you weren’t there.”
“I was always there for you.”
“Physically, not otherwise.”
“A village Fir is busy. I didn’t have time to play games with you all day.”
“I never asked for that. But from time to time it would have been nice to have been praised for what I did accomplish.”
“You’re fortunate to have what you did. My father passed away when I was eleven. I had no father figure after that.”
“Yes, I am fortunate. But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t have told me I did well now and then, or congratulate me after a successful hunt, or even allow me to show you the maps and notes I’ve taken on this journey so we can teach others about what’s beyond our valley’s mountains.”
Fussing with the fire, Brimmelle sighed. “Fine, show me your sketchings.”
“Really?”
“Yes, under one condition.”
“Name it.”
“You close that box of notes up and stop wasting time with them.”
“Forever?”
“At least until we have safely retrieved Avanda. You need to keep your focus on her until then.”
“Agreed.” Thorik opened his coffer and pulled out a stack of paper from within. Notes from over a year filled the pages. Maps of their travels with journals from events brought memories back to them both, causing even Brimmelle to chuckle a few times.
It had been the first time in Thorik’s life that he felt a positive bond with his uncle.
Brimmelle on the other hand recalled what he loved so much about his sister, her sense of adventure.
Time passed quickly and the mountains continued to grow as the Nums moved southeast across the plateau. The ancient road eventually crossed and then followed the thin river to the base of the gorge, before riding up the north face of the Shi’Pel Range.
The river they followed had etched the sandstone gorge out to a smooth shape. Jagged red rocks had fallen from higher elevations and had embedded themselves across the canyon floor and in the river, causing violent rapids. Solid black outcroppings looked like tumors among the various reddish hues of the surrounding soil, and the water dripping from melted snow far above them looked black in the shadows of the mountain.
The south side of the Go’ta Gorge was also the north side of the Shi’Pel Peaks, a cold, dark and lonely place, even in midday. The mighty peaks continuously shaded the road from direct sunlight, which explained why the columns that normally bordered both sides of the road had been replaced with stone vats. Empty now, Thorik assumed they had once contained oil, lighting the road up the mountain to Surod.
Glaciers melted from the high peaks in the summer heat. But instead of giving life to the valley, like it did near Farbank, the water carved out rough grooves in the mountainsides. And instead of large flowing rivers, water perspired from the rocks themselves, dripping constantly as it worked its way down into the base of the gorge.
After traveling up the mountain in the peak’s shadows, an off-white building could be seen hanging onto the side of a cliff. But it was more than just a building with walls and a roof; it resembled an enormous ribcage protruding from the mountain. Each rib bone connected to the rest with a thin dark skin, like a chest of a man who had starved to death. Nearing the neckline of the structure was a light shining through a round flat crystal, nearly the width of Santorray’s arm span.
Above the main building was a smaller one in the shape of a skull breaching the mountain’s side. Above them, a third even smaller structure was in the appearance of a hand pointing to the sky as it held another large crystal embedded in its palm.
The entire structure reminded Thorik of the Mountain King statue, only stripped of robes and flesh and more encased into the mountain itself. The size of the body was approximately the same but it didn’t give off the feeling of tranquility as the one in Kingsfoot did.
The road that lay before Thorik and his family crossed a bridge and worked its way up the mountainside before ending at the skeletal building. “This must be Surod,” Thorik said to himself.
Brimmelle stopped to rest, placing his hands on his knees as he breathed the thin cold air. “We didn’t make it in time to stop them before they entered. They’ve been captured.”
“We don’t know that. They may have snuck in.”
“Santorray, Avanda and Ericc?” Brimmelle said. “They most likely screamed war cries as they charged the plac
e.”
“Grewen may have talked them into a plan.”
“Not likely.”
Thorik looked at his resources for the siege on Surod, which consisted of his uncle and his grandmother. “We don’t have enough for this. We’ve only succeeded this far because of Grewen and Santorray.”
Brimmelle’s face turned red. “After all I have done to help you survive on this venture to our deaths, you don’t see me as an asset? I know I don’t have the omniscient attitude of Ambrosius, or the smell of a Mognin, or the uncontrollable temper of a Blothrud. But whether you know it or not, I have been constantly protecting you and our family.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Thorik hadn’t planned on starting a fight.
Brimmelle walked toward the bridge, without him.
Gluic put her hand on Thorik and smiled. “He’s grown a lot since we left Farbank. I’m very proud of both of you.”
It was an odd statement to come from his grandmother. “Thank you Granna. Are you well?”
“Remember, strength comes from within you, and you have a lot yet to give.” She escorted him down the road, behind her son.
The stone bridge before them crossed a deep ravine, which opened up into the Go’ta Gorge. The long bridge had eroded over the years with some missing stone floor tiles. Those that remained were worn down soft and wet from the moisture given off from the melting glaciers.
Thorik stepped out onto the bridge. “Careful, it’s slippery.”
Nearly halfway across, Thorik noticed an odd smell getting stronger as they proceeded. Following it forward, he found the source. A large section of the bridge had been eaten away by some type of acid. “What could have done this?”
Brimmelle held his mother’s hand tight as he walked across the bridge, trying not to look down over the sides. “Nothing natural. Looks like something from Avanda’s purse of catastrophe.”
Thorik realized his half-joking comment could be correct. “There could have been a battle here, but how long ago?”
“Not very, seeing that it’s still spreading.”
The acid was still dissolving the stone at the center of the bridge. Several of the keystones where gone, with only one remaining. If it continued to spread to the last keystone, the bridge would collapse; assuming it would last that long.
“We need to get off this bridge.” Thorik helped his uncle and grandmother over the narrow remaining block. “Run for it.”
It wasn’t as simple as that. Many of the floor tiles had fallen, leaving holes in the bridge. Those that remained were uneven and difficult to run on without tripping in the shadowy darkness.
Gluic tripped, taking Brimmelle down with her.
Thorik turned back to help them, tripping himself in doing so. Rolling forward, his lower half fell into a hole where a stone tile was missing. Grasping at the slick floor around him helped very little. Thorik slid down into the hole up to his chest, with his legs dangling below the bridge.
Brimmelle helped Gluic to her feet before he noticed Thorik. Running over, he tripped and slid toward Thorik, too fast to stop in time.
Brimmelle plowed headfirst into Thorik, pushing him off the bridge, into the hole.
Thorik knew he had a choice of grabbing his uncle or allowing himself to fall. If he were to grab Brimmelle, he most likely would drag him down the opening with him, killing them both. Gluic would be on her own. He couldn’t do that to her. She needed him, even if she didn’t think so.
Falling backward after butting heads with his uncle, Thorik reached his hands out to grab the sides of the surrounding bridge tiles. He missed.
Brimmelle reached down and grabbed his Sec’s wrist, causing his own body to pull forward into the hole until it abruptly stopped.
Gluic had grabbed onto Brimmelle’s leg and anchored her own feet in the unleveled section of the bridge, which Brimmelle had tripped over.
Thorik opened his eyes and looked up at his uncle’s strained face. Their hands grasped each other’s wrists. It looked too far to climb, and he could see the agony on Brimmelle’s face from holding onto him. “Brimmelle-”
“Shut up and grab my other hand.” Reaching down with his second arm, he met Thorik’s other hand by the third swing. “Now climb me.”
“I can’t. I don’t have the strength.”
“I’m not Grewen, I can’t lift you. I’m not Ambrosius. I can’t use E’rudite powers to just push you up here. All I am is your fat old uncle, so use me as one and climb up on my back.”
“I don’t have the strength. I can’t.”
“Yes you can.”
“But-” Thorik began before being cut off by Brimmelle.
“Get yourself moving. Now!”
Thorik didn’t question him again. He knew that tone, and when it was released Thorik had learned to do as he was told regardless of anything else going on, so he did. Hand over hand he struggled to climb his uncle’s outstretched arms until his hands clasped around the back of the older man’s neck and under his armpit.
Brimmelle strained from the pain as he cradled his neck up to give whatever support he could. Clasping his own hands together, he gave Thorik a foothold, which allowed his nephew to climb the rest of the way with much more ease.
Now with Thorik out of the way, Brimmelle had an excellent view of how high they were, causing his body to start going limp as he began passing out.
Rolling off of Brimmelle, Thorik helped his uncle out of the hole before Brimmelle fell unconscious. “Ambrosius and Grewen have nothing on you, Uncle.” Lying on his back, he panted for air.
Also on his back, Brimmelle rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s Fir Brimmelle.”
Thorik laughed. “I’m glad you were here for me, Fir Brimmelle. Thank you.”
“I’ve always been there for you. But it was stupid for you to have us running across this slippery bridge in the first place.”
Thorik grinned at the closest thing to emotional appreciation he would ever receive out of his uncle. ‘You’re welcome.’
Gluic closed her eyes as her hands spread out on the stone tiles. “They say we should leave. We don’t have much time.”
“Agreed.” Thorik stood and helped them up before they quickly walked to the far end of the bridge and onto the cliff side road.
Crossing his arms behind his back, Brimmelle stopped and turned back to the bridge. It still stood firm in spite of the warnings from both of them. “Apparently you two aren’t always right about these things.”
Nearly on cue, the center of the bridge began to crumble down before both ends ripped from the ravine’s sides and tumbled inward, crashing into the shadowy darkness.
Brimmelle sighed at the sight, and then turned back to his family. “Not a word, Thorik. Not one word.”
Chapter 38
Temple of Surod