Blade of Erogrund

Chapter Ten- Biren-Larath

The journey was long and hard.

Not that the terrain caused it to be such, no, it was the heaviness of Godric's heart that brought him weariness as he drudged along behind his companions. Mira seemed deep in thought, conscious of little that went on around her, which, strangely,  immensely vexed him.

The weighty truth that his father was a thief - and a murderer for that matter - hung more heavily on his shoulders than all the baggage carried by his fellows combined. The knowledge that his father, his own flesh and blood, could have done something like that shook him to his core.

His thoughts did, however, succeed in distract him. Before he knew it, the bright light of midday had receded into the dim shadows of the evening. The dense green forests that had populated the lands that Godric had always seen in Niron slowly fell away into stony hills that slowly grew out of the expanse of ground. As the moon peered over the horizon the hills gave way in turn to large cliffs that loomed out of the small saplings and shrubs that were all that remained of the forests. Moss and lichen clung to the ancient rocks that stood like enormous natural statues, guarding their path. The shear rocky faces were worn smooth by the howling winds that seemed only to get colder as they marched higher into the mountains. The frigid air brought on a glistening layer of frost over the landscape that set the world in a silvery sheen in the glimmering moonlight of the dusk. Strange sights and smells delighted his distracted and depressed mind while his feet brought him drudging forward.

Each hill brought on the sights of yet another set of cliffs that towered immaculately over the eerily silent landscape. Rocks and boulders gradually took the place of trees until even saplings were a rare sight in the stony ground.

Finally they came over a particularly steep hill, revealing a massive crescent of stone cliffs that arched around the north side. A fierce gale blustered from the high summits of the rocks, sweeping down like a freezing knife onto the hill's surface below.

Sarah stopped, pulling her cloak closer around her narrow frame. The long cape of it whipped around her, almost snapping with the ferocity of the wind. Thain halted near her and set Narn down on the stony turf.

The elf pointed toward the cliffs, which were at least a thousand yards away. "There is Oiron, the gate to Biren-Lareth!"

Mira squinted and said something, but the wind tore the words from her mouth. Sarah indicated that she could not understand, so the girl shouted above the breeze. "I don't see anything! Where are we going?!" Strands of stray red hair fluttered in the wind out of her hood as she yelled.

Placing the wolf back onto his back after stretching his shoulders a bit, Thain answered. "Only a bit yonder!" The answer was highly unsatisfactory in Godric's opinion, but, judging from Mira's distasteful expression, she did not care to fight the winds in order to voice a complaint. The dwarf barked something else, but the words were stolen from his lips and he only achieved displacing a large piece of frost that had collected amid a small blizzard that had formed on his beard.

Shrugging at the miserable cold that ate at him, Godric sought to pull his cloak closer, but the worn fabric was already drawn tight to his shoulders and it stubbornly refused to comfort him, which only further discouraged his already agonized mind. Nevertheless, Sarah dashed forward at the head of the group while the vicious gales tore relentlessly at their chilled bodies.

With every step they took closer to the threatening cliffs, the sharp towers of rock seemed to grow in size until they stood like stone walls stretching many thousands of yards into the sky. Their smoothed, sheer white faces were plain and bare like archaic shields set to guard over the hills. The bone-like color of the ashy stone sent shivers down Godric's spine until he hardly dared to look up lest he see them illuminated in all their haunting glory by the deathly rays of moonlight that cascaded on their pale faces.