Conven walked silently beside Reece, gripping the hilt of his sword, and turned and faced the others. “For Thorgrin,” he said, “I would go to the ends of the earth.”
Reece felt emboldened having his tried-and-true Legion members at his side, these people who had become as close to him as family, who had ventured with him to the ends of the Empire. The five of them stood there and stared back at the two new Legion members, Krog and Serna, and Reece wondered if they were going to join them. They could use the extra hands; but if they wanted to turn back, then so be it. He would not ask twice.
Krog and Serna stood there, staring back, unsure.
“I am a woman,” Indra said to them, “as you have mocked me before. And yet here I stand, ready for a warrior’s challenge – while there you are, with all your muscles, mocking and afraid.”
Serna grunted, annoyed, brushing back his long brown hair from his wide, narrow eyes and stepping forward.
“I will go,” he said, “but only for Thorgrin’s sake.”
Krog was the only one who stood there, red-faced, defiant.
“You are damn fools,” he said. “All of you.”
But still, he stepped forward, joining them.
Reece, satisfied, turned and led them to the Canyon’s edge. There was no more time to waste.
Reece clung to the side of the cliff as he inched his way down, the others several feet above him, all of them making the painful descent, as they had been for hours. Reece’s heart pounded as he scrambled to keep his footing, his fingers raw and numb with cold, his feet slipping on the slick rock. He had not anticipated it to be this hard. He had looked down and had studied the terrain, the shape of the rock, and had noticed that in some places, the rock went straight down, perfectly smooth, impossible to climb; in other places it was covered in a dense moss; and in still others, it had a serrated slope, indents, holes, nooks, and crannies in which one could place one’s feet and hands. He had even spotted the occasional ledge to rest on.
Yet the actual climbing had proved much harder than it had seemed. The mist perpetually obscured his view, and as Reece swallowed and looked down, he was having a harder and harder time finding footholds. Not to mention, even after all this time climbing, the bottom, if it even existed, remained out of sight.
Inwardly, Reece was feeling a mounting fear, a dryness in his throat. A part of him wondered if he had made a grave mistake.
But he dared not show his fear to the others. With Thor gone, he was their leader now, and he needed to set an example. He also knew that indulging his fears would not do him any good. He needed to stay strong and to stay focused; he knew that fear would only obscure his abilities.
Reece’s hands were trembling as he got a hold of himself. He told himself he had to forget what lay below and concentrate just on what lay before him.
Just one step at a time, he told himself. He felt better thinking of it that way.
Reece found another foothold, and took another step down, then another, and found himself starting to get back into a rhythm.
“WATCH OUT!” someone yelled.
Reece braced himself as small pebbles suddenly showered down all around him, bouncing off his head and shoulders. He looked up to see a large rock come hurling down; he dodged and just missed it.
“Sorry!” O’Connor called down. “Loose rock!”
Reece’s heart was pounding as he looked back down and tried to stay calm. He was dying to know where the bottom was; he reached over, grabbed a small rock which had landed on his shoulder, and, looking down, hurled it.
He watched, waiting to see if it made a noise.
It never did.
His foreboding deepened. There was still no sense of where the canyon ended. And with his hands and feet already trembling, he did not know if they could make it. Reece swallowed, all sorts of thoughts racing through his brain as he continued. What if Krog had been right? What if there really was no bottom? What if this was a reckless suicide mission?
As Reece took another step, scampering down several feet, gaining momentum again, suddenly he heard the sound of body scraping rock, and then heard someone cry out. There came a commotion beside him, and he looked over to see Elden, beginning to fall, slipping down past him.
Reece instinctively reached out a hand, and managed to grab Elden’s wrist as he slipped past. Luckily Reece had a firm grip on the cliff with his other hand, and was able to hold Elden tightly, preventing him from sliding all the way down. Elden dangled, though, unable to find footing. Elden was too big and heavy, and Reece felt his strength slipping away.
Indra appeared, scaling down quickly, and reached out and grabbed Elden’s other wrist. Elden scrambled, but could not find footing.
“I can’t find a hold!” Elden screamed back, panic in his voice. He kicked wildly, and Reece feared that he would lose his own grip and go falling down with him. He thought quickly.
Reece recalled the rope and grappling hook O’Connor had shown him before their descent, the tool of choice they used to scale walls during a siege. In case it comes in handy, O’Connor had said.
“O’Connor, your rope!” Reece screamed. “Throw it down!”
Reece looked up and watched O’Connor pull the rope from his waist, lean back and impale the hook into a nook in the wall. He sank it in with all his might, tested it several times, then threw it down. The rope dangled past Reece.
It couldn’t have come a moment sooner. Elden’s slippery palm was sliding out of Reece’s hand, and as he began to fall back, Elden reached out and grabbed the rope. Reece held his breath, praying it held.
It did. Elden slowly pulled himself up, until finally he found a strong footing. He stood on a ledge, breathing hard, back to his old balance. He breathed a deep sigh of relief, and so did Reece. It had been too close.
They climbed and climbed, until Reece did not know how much time had passed. The sky turned darker, and Reece dripped with sweat despite the cold, feeling as if any moment could be his last. His hands and feet shook violently, and the sound of his own breathing filled his ears. He wondered how much more of this he could take. He knew that if they did not find the bottom soon, they would all have to stop and rest, especially as night fell. But the problem was, there was nowhere to stop and rest.
Reece could not help but wonder, if they all became too exhausted, if the others might just begin to fall, one at a time.
There came a great clamor of rock, and then a small avalanche, tons of pebbles raining down, landing on Reece’s head and face and eyes. His heart stopped as he heard a scream – a different one this time, a scream of death. Out of the corner of his eye he saw plummeting past him, almost faster than he could process, a body.
Reece reached out a hand to grab him, but it happened too fast. All he could do was turn and watch as he spotted Krog, airborne, flailing, shrieking, falling backward, straight down into nothingness.
Chapter Three
Kendrick sat astride his horse, beside Erec, Bronson, and Srog, out in front of his thousands of men as he faced down Tirus and the Empire. They had walked right into a trap. They had been sold out by Tirus, and Kendrick realized now, too late, that it had been a great mistake to trust him.
Kendrick looked up and to his right, and saw ten thousand Empire soldiers high on the ridge of the valley, arrows at the ready; to his left he saw just as many. Before them stood even more. Kendrick’s few thousand men could never possibly outfight this number of soldiers. They would be slaughtered to even try. And with all those bows drawn, the slightest move would result in the massacre of his men. Geographically, being at the base of a valley, didn’t help them either. Tirus had chosen his ambush location well.
As Kendrick