Kriz’s hesitation was slight, fractional enough to be easily missed, but Clay saw it and knew her next words to be a lie. “Out,” Kriz said, smiling and nodding. “Yes.”
They moved on, tracking back along the road that had brought them to the island then resuming the same route as before. No more Blues appeared to trail them and the unbroken, waveless water took on a tedious monotony. Clay began to wonder if this place would consist of yet more sea all the way to the end, if it actually had an end. The tedium was finally broken when Sigoral trained the spy-glass of his carbine on the road ahead and reported the sight of land.
“Blessed be the Seer,” Loriabeth said, moving to Sigoral’s side. “How’s it look?”
“Steep.”
The cliff came into view a short while later, a dark grey wall rising from the surface of this strange sea to over two hundred feet in height. Clay trained his own carbine on the top of the cliff, finding a dense mass of tree-tops and beyond them, the unmistakable sight of a mountain slope.
The road ended at the base of the cliff where it met a series of stone steps carved into the rock. They ascended in a zigzag series of flights to a height of about twenty feet whereupon they disappeared. It seemed a section of the cliff-face had become dislodged at some point in the past, taking the upper two-thirds of the staircase with it. Although Kriz’s command of Mandinorian was still limited, she had developed a fondness for certain words. “Shit,” she sighed before raising her gaze to the cliff-top.
“We’re climbing, huh?” Clay asked. This drew an exasperated glower from Kriz and he understood that, for the first time, she had no notion of what to do next.
“Shouldn’t take more than a few hours,” Sigoral said, surveying the cliff with a critical eye. “I can see three relatively easy routes from here.”
“You’re joshing us, right?” Loriabeth said.
“Certainly not, miss,” the marine replied, stiffening a little. “I used to climb the bluffs on Takmarin all the time. It’s a common pastime for children. Market traders would give you a quarter-crown for every dozen puffin eggs you brought back.”
“No puffins here,” Clay said, playing the spy-glass of his carbine over the cliff-face. “No drakes either, for which we should be grateful.”
Sigoral led them to what appeared to Clay to be an unremarkable stretch of cliff. The marine divested himself of his pack and weapons before looping their one length of rope across his chest. “It should be long enough to reach,” he said, hands exploring the rock for a moment before finding a hold. “I’ll fix it up top and you’ll use it to follow.”
“What about the gear?” Loriabeth asked.
“We’ll haul it up after us. Someone will have to wait here and tie them to the rope, though.”
Clay opted to be the last up the rope, waiting as he tracked the others’ progress with the spy-glass on his carbine. Sigoral’s expertise was evident in the way he navigated the cliff, hands and feet moving with steady surety as he made an unhurried ascent, reaching the top in less than an hour whereupon he cast the rope down for them to follow. Loriabeth went next, her progress considerably less fluid and subject to repeated pauses, but still reaching the top after a lengthy effort. Kriz’s climb was faster, the woman displaying a natural athleticism in the way she hauled herself up the rope and Clay found his spy-glass lingering on her slender form as she climbed.
Not a good idea, he reproached himself, head suddenly filled with visions of Silverpin. Something his uncle had once said came to mind as he lowered the carbine: No room in my company for a man who needs to learn the same lesson twice.
Once Kriz had crested the cliff-edge he slung his carbine across his back, tightening the strap over his chest before taking hold of the rope and beginning to climb. His years in the Blinds had provided ample opportunities to educate himself in the finer points of scaling a wall, but a cliff proved more of a challenge. The uneven surface and the length of the climb soon birthed an ache in his limbs. Although his miraculously healed leg stood up to the strain, it became apparent after the first fifty feet or so that he had yet to fully recover from the trauma suffered in the forest.
He forced himself up another dozen feet of rope before stopping to rest, sweat bathing his face as he slumped against the rock and tried to figure the best way of manoeuvring his canteen to his lips. It was then that he felt a hard tug on the rope followed by the deep, guttural rattle of an angry drake.
Clay splayed his hands against the rock and slowly eased his body away from the cliff-face, raising his gaze to find it met by a pair of slitted yellow eyes. The Black was perched on a ledge about eight feet above, its long neck curving a little as it moved its head from side to side, the angry rattle still issuing from its throat as it opened its mouth to display an impressive set of teeth. Although its body was hidden by the ledge, Clay judged from the size of the Black’s head that it was considerably larger than the other breeds they had seen so far, as large as an adolescent Red in the world above.
A torrent of thoughts ran through his mind, principally concerning the prospects of getting a grip on either his carbine or the product in his wallet. He discounted the product almost immediately, as the beast would be upon him long before he could get a vial to his lips. However, he calculated the odds of bringing his carbine to bear in time as scarcely any better. Instead, he opted to remain completely still and continue to stare into the Black’s eyes.
“I ain’t your enemy, big fella,” he told the drake in a whisper, searching its gaze in the faint hope of finding some measure of understanding. “Even made friends with one of your cousins up top.”
The Black’s eyes narrowed as if in consideration and they continued to stare at each other, Clay feeling a tremble creep into his limbs as the strain of clinging to the rope started to tell. The moment stretched and he began to suspect he would fall to his death long before the beast decided whether to eat him. In the event, his cousin chose that moment to resolve the issue.
“Seer-dammit, Clay!” she yelled. “Get clear of my sights!”