Dennis McKiernan - The Dragonstone

That night after all was made ready, they bedded down on the ledge, though sleep eluded them until the wee marks before dawn. Yet in the few moments he slumbered, Egil had his ill dream, and Arin held him tightly in his throes, for not even the presence of a Drake nearby could stay Ordrune's foul curse.

"Eh, eh," meeped Alos, his face illuminated by the lanternlight in the last candlemark before dawn. "You just can't leave me alone with the Drake. He'll snap me up like a tasty morsel when all of you are gone."

"Stringy morsel, you mean," said Ferret.

Arin turned to the oldster. "Alos, thou canst neither rappel down the face of the stone nor clamber down through the rigors of the mountain. I would have thee stand watch here instead."

"Watch?" groaned Alos. "Stand watch? Watch for what?"

"Should we fail altogether, someone needs to bear word to the Mages."

"Bu-but, Dara, should you fail, the Dragon will kill all the rest of us."

"Nevertheless, my friend, shouldst thou survive, I would have thee bear testament to what we tried here today."

Ferret snapped a last hank of rope to her belt. "What makes you think he won't just run away?"

"Unlike before," quavered Alos, "I'll not desert my shipmates in their time of need."

"Oh, right," growled Ferret. She looked up at the old man, tears streaming down his face. "Ah, Alos, I'm sorry. It's just that I'm a bit nervous, stalking into a Kraken's lair. -Do the best you can, old man."

With a chill wind blowing down from the ice and snow above, dawn came at last, though where they stood in the shadow of Dragons' Roost the light was mostly in the sky. Both teams were set, and with a final embrace of one another, an embrace including weeping Alos, they each turned on their separate courses: Delon, Burel, and Aiko heading for the place marked on the lip of the ledge; Ferret, Arin, and Egil striding past Raudhrskal and into the dark of the vast cavern behind.

As she reached the back of the great cavity and came to the split where a narrow passage led inward and down, Arin turned in time to see Aiko, last in file, her swords fixed across her back, grasp the anchored line and step hindward over the rim.

Then, leaving moaning Alos alone on the ledge, hostage to the rust-red Drake, Arin turned and followed the bobbing light down into the blackness below.

Down she rappelled through the airy silence, but for the distant rumble of the Great Maelstrom afar, down through the shadows of Dragons' Roost, a chill drift of air rolling over the lip of the sheer drop from the icy heights above. The fall of dark stone filled her vision as she footed and fended away, dropping along a slender line down its gloomy face, one gloved hand high, the other at the base of her spine, the rope slipping between. By the time Aiko reached the first ledge and came to a stop near Burel, Delon had already reached the next ledge and Burel was busy lowering fifty-foot hanks of line down to him. As Aiko unclipped her snap-ring from the line above and joined him in this labor, she asked, "Any instructions?"

"None," replied Burel. "The stone above is sound, and so we will continue straight down."

Aiko grunted her acknowledgment and, lowering a hank, peered down at Delon directly below, where he was limned against the dark turning waters of the restless Boreal Sea. The bard received the coils from above and arranged them along the ledge.

Quickly the labor was finished, and then Delon called back up, "We can free-climb this section, so bring the down line with you."

As Delon set a jam into a jagged crack and tested its hold, Burel clipped onto the doubled rope and stepped backward over the ledge, while Aiko behind waited her turn.

Down through the blackness wended the trio, Ferret in the lead, Arin in the center, Egil coming last. Both Ferret and Egil bore lanterns to light the way, but Arin's remained unlit, the Dylvana seeing well by the light of the two. The stone all about them was dark and brooding, and a chill cold enfolded them in an icy grasp, and the lamplight seemed hard-pressed to push back the darkness all 'round.

The steep, downward passage twisted and turned, dropping down slides, wrenching around corners, upjuts and boulders blocking the way, cracks shattering off into blackness. At times the trio edged along precipices, with yawning ravines falling into silent ebon darkness just inches from their feet.

And the deeper they went, the colder the air, until they slid down a slope and stepped 'round a corner to see glittering whiteness ahead.

On the great ledge, Alos huddled shivering in the lee of a boulder, unable to bring himself to crawl to the edge and peer over the terrifying drop to watch his companions rappel down, unable as well to know how the trio in the underground passage fared.

It was not fair, not fair at all, for him to be alone and abandoned as he was, for surely were it the other way 'round he would not have deserted his shipmates, would not have left them in the company of a terrible Drake, would not have forsaken them as he had been.

What was that? A sound. It was Raudhrskal, frightful Raudhrskal, slithering toward the precipice to peer at those below, slithering to watch their progress. Alos, trying to make no sound of his own, scooted on his bottom 'round the boulder, keeping it between himself and the dreadful rust-red monster, a monster who would snap him up and swallow him whole without a second thought.

Tears ran down the old man's face at his unjust plight- abandoned, alone, trapped as he was, no friends, no help, no one to save him, an appalling beast ready to eat him…

… And then in the shadows of the great cavern at the back of the ledge, Alos saw his stolen saddlebags, left lying unguarded by the creature behind.

Aiko looked back overhead. Beyond a long stretch of easily climbed stone a length of rope dangled down from above, and higher still, past another stretch, dangled another line-one rope, the top one, was a hundred feet long, the other, fifty. They had not brought enough line to reach all the way down from the lip to the sea, and instead planned on free-climbing part of the way. In only those places found difficult did they leave rope behind.

Aiko turned and looked below. Burel was nearly free of the line, with Delon rappelling down another line farther below. When Aiko's turn came she would slide down this rope, then bring it after.

Again she glanced upward at the long climb above. Going back up would certainly be harder than coming down. And bringing Arin with them would complicate things, for the Dara was untrained in climbing.

As she thought of the Dylvana, Aiko's heart clenched, for the peril her mistress faced was incalculable, and the Ryodoan thought that somehow she should be there, her swords protecting the Dara. Yet Aiko was not at the Dylvana's side but instead prepared for her rescue.

Climbing upward with Lady Arin would be a relief, for it would mean she had survived.

But what if she did not come when the tide was low? Then the climb back up would be long and grievous, for that would mean something had gone dreadfully wrong.

Shaking her head to clear it of these somber thoughts, Aiko looked downward again. Burel was free of the rope and making ready to lower the remaining gear down to Delon below.

Aiko took up the doubled line and backed over the lip of the ledge.

"What is it?" asked Egil, the whiteness casting glints in the lanternlight as he looked out across the enormous crack sliding down at an angle rightward into unplumbed black depths below, a slanting white forming the left-hand slope.

"Ice," called Ferret, her breath blowing white, her voice echoing in the cave.

"Ice? Here underground?"

"From the heights above, I would think," said Arin. "This wide fissure must reach to the very top of Dragons' Roost."