Haladras

Nineteen

"We shall have to cross the Boldúrins," said Krom on the morrow following their partial reunion. "There is no way around them. From pole to pole, those fierce ridges stretch. Arsolon lies directly west of here. If the weather holds, it will take a week. If it doesn't...there's little chance of us making it through alive."

It was a somber morning. The gray curtain of low-hanging clouds had reconvened some time during the night. An even colder air bit at their fingers, ears and noses. The companions spoke little. All thoughts were heavy and pensive after the previous night's events.

Krom and Skylar had made a sort of reconciliation, Krom offering a stolid and terse apology and Skylar half-heartedly accepting. Yet, Skylar couldn't help feeling some tension between them.

Skylar ate his cold but filling breakfast―more than he'd eaten in the last two days. It gave him a strength he didn't realized he lacked. Strength he knew he would need. Endrick had returned to him his bag and satchel, which he had left at camp on that fateful night. He thought how cruel and ironic it was to have what he least cared about restored to him.

Somewhere overhead, above the cloud's cover, a low hum passed as the companions shouldered their packs and set off into the mist. Not one of the companions halted to look up. Skylar himself had only half heard the sound.

"Let us hope," said Krom, "that we may not find Arsolon infested with Tarus' soldiers."

The day advanced slowly, one monotonous step after another. Skylar followed behind Lasseter as a man consigned to some dreadful fate. Scarcely did he lift his eyes from the ground on which he trod. His mind was full of thoughts which often flashed scenes of Grim's death. They panged his heart with grief. He wondered how he could go on hurting so.

As the day grew older the clouds grew denser and darker, as if echoing Skylar's mood. By midafternoon they began pelting the travelers with raindrops.

Wrapping themselves in their oilskins, the companions continued walking. The rain fell with greater intensity. A short time later, they entered a dense forest. Its canopy of branches did little to protect them from the cold downpour or from the angry winds that were growing ever stronger. Thin trees were bent almost to the ground under its force. The older trees groaned and creaked as they shivered at its strength. Thunder rumbled all around like giant boulders crashing together. Within a matter of minutes, the rainfall had become a fierce tempest.

Skylar had never beheld such a terrible display of nature's wrath. At any instant he expected all the trees around them to come crashing down.

Krom halted the group and tried to yell above the storm. "There's no sign of this abating. We must find some shelter."

"I think I saw something," yelled Endrick, pointing toward the deeper forest, "over there."

Krom nodded his head. "Lead the way."

The group turned and followed Endrick. In the darkness of the blinding rain, Skylar could scarcely see the ground at his feet. Occasional flashes of lightning bathed the forest in a burst of white light, just enough to tease their eyes. They moved slowly, navigating their way deeper into the forest. No longer were they following a clear path, but forging their way through thick brush and over fallen tree limbs.

Lightning flashed.

Skylar thought he glimpsed what Endrick had seen. He could not be sure. A hundred meters away, he thought he saw something very angular...square, almost, like a building. The last thing he expected to find in that forest was a dwelling. His eyes were playing tricks on him.

As they drew nearer, however, and the lightning flashed several more times, Skylar felt sure it was something manmade. A cottage, it appeared. Soon they were standing in front of it; a small hut made of rounded bricks and wooden roof. Faint slivers of orange light seeped out from the cracks in a wooden door. Skylar felt he'd never seen anything so wonderful in all his life.