rivers and streams flow through. This particular section in northern Culdovia just doesn’t fit that description.”
“Yes,” Rodden went on, “I think it has something to do with the effect of the Montino Mountains being so close. For once we get further south tomorrow, we’ll see much more in the way of grasses and shrubs, and even a few smatterings of trees. It’s just that today’s journey will be rather bleak.”
Bryn didn’t like the sound of that, but there wasn’t much he could do about it but press his heels into Ash and continue on down the road. He daydreamed about what Baden would look like. Tall spires stretching so high they almost touched the clouds; the lake of clearest blue teaming with fish, ready to be plucked right out by hand; marketplaces overflowing with goods, so much that the beggars even had too much.
The dreaming ceased when they ate lunch around midday. The scenery was still the same, and they rode on. The leagues passed under their horse’s hooves, but in the distance the horizon began to lose its flatness. What appeared to be hills grew into mountains, their tops white.
“The Montino Mountains,” Rodden said, pointing. “We’ll be near their base by nightfall.”
T he mountains gradually went from specks on the horizon to significant shapes ahead of them. They grew ever larger as the day wound to night. The landscape grew more rocky, and the ground less flat. Soon the mountains were towering on their right, gray slats of stone, jagged and sharp, pushing ever upward toward the clouds. It began to grow dark, but they continued on, even when the road became difficult to see, although Bryn had no worries about stumbling off of it since it had followed a near straight line all day. The mountains loomed up, becoming lost in the shadowy darkness, but Bryn knew they were growing closer and closer. By the time it was near pitch darkness and the only light was that of the half-moon in the sky, Halam pulled a stick and some cloth from his bag, wrapped them together, then took a dagger and struck some sparks on his flint stone to make a torch. The road brightened around them, a small globe of light surrounded by darkness. Halam led them off of the road for quite a ways, and soon they were rising in elevation ever so slightly. He came to a stop and got down from Juniper.
“This seems like a good spot to sleep for the night,” he said. “We’ve come about as near to the base of the Montinos as we will, and it’s getting too dark to continue on.”
They pulled their bedrolls from their saddlebags and sat down to another night of bread, cheese, and sausage. They decided not to make a fire as the night was warm and they were all tired. After eating, Bryn lay down and was soon asleep.
* * * * *
The sun was rising when Bryn woke, and he was startled to see the land around him. Sometime in the darkness of the night they had reached the very base of the mountains and now before him lay an immense wall of rock, rising near straight up from the dirt and weeds of the plains around him. They had apparently made camp where large round rocks began to rise from the valley floor, slowly growing higher and forming loose piles of smaller stones, until they suddenly jutted straight up toward the heavens. There was nothing gradual about their ascent. Bryn figured that there were hundreds of feet of sheer rock wall that rose straight up, interrupted only by the rocks moving inward a few feet, then continuing to rise a few hundred more feet before doing the same, all the way to the top, which he couldn’t even see because of the swirling clouds obscuring his view.
Rodden stepped over to Bryn and looked straight up with him. “They rise sheer from the floor and reach thousands of feet,” he said. “The scholars believe it’s from a transition in the rocks, with an escarpment forming that causes them to jut strait up like this. Quite a sight, eh?”
“Amazing,” Bryn replied. “They just shoot
“Yes,” Rodden went on, “I think it has something to do with the effect of the Montino Mountains being so close. For once we get further south tomorrow, we’ll see much more in the way of grasses and shrubs, and even a few smatterings of trees. It’s just that today’s journey will be rather bleak.”
Bryn didn’t like the sound of that, but there wasn’t much he could do about it but press his heels into Ash and continue on down the road. He daydreamed about what Baden would look like. Tall spires stretching so high they almost touched the clouds; the lake of clearest blue teaming with fish, ready to be plucked right out by hand; marketplaces overflowing with goods, so much that the beggars even had too much.
The dreaming ceased when they ate lunch around midday. The scenery was still the same, and they rode on. The leagues passed under their horse’s hooves, but in the distance the horizon began to lose its flatness. What appeared to be hills grew into mountains, their tops white.
“The Montino Mountains,” Rodden said, pointing. “We’ll be near their base by nightfall.”
T he mountains gradually went from specks on the horizon to significant shapes ahead of them. They grew ever larger as the day wound to night. The landscape grew more rocky, and the ground less flat. Soon the mountains were towering on their right, gray slats of stone, jagged and sharp, pushing ever upward toward the clouds. It began to grow dark, but they continued on, even when the road became difficult to see, although Bryn had no worries about stumbling off of it since it had followed a near straight line all day. The mountains loomed up, becoming lost in the shadowy darkness, but Bryn knew they were growing closer and closer. By the time it was near pitch darkness and the only light was that of the half-moon in the sky, Halam pulled a stick and some cloth from his bag, wrapped them together, then took a dagger and struck some sparks on his flint stone to make a torch. The road brightened around them, a small globe of light surrounded by darkness. Halam led them off of the road for quite a ways, and soon they were rising in elevation ever so slightly. He came to a stop and got down from Juniper.
“This seems like a good spot to sleep for the night,” he said. “We’ve come about as near to the base of the Montinos as we will, and it’s getting too dark to continue on.”
They pulled their bedrolls from their saddlebags and sat down to another night of bread, cheese, and sausage. They decided not to make a fire as the night was warm and they were all tired. After eating, Bryn lay down and was soon asleep.
* * * * *
The sun was rising when Bryn woke, and he was startled to see the land around him. Sometime in the darkness of the night they had reached the very base of the mountains and now before him lay an immense wall of rock, rising near straight up from the dirt and weeds of the plains around him. They had apparently made camp where large round rocks began to rise from the valley floor, slowly growing higher and forming loose piles of smaller stones, until they suddenly jutted straight up toward the heavens. There was nothing gradual about their ascent. Bryn figured that there were hundreds of feet of sheer rock wall that rose straight up, interrupted only by the rocks moving inward a few feet, then continuing to rise a few hundred more feet before doing the same, all the way to the top, which he couldn’t even see because of the swirling clouds obscuring his view.
Rodden stepped over to Bryn and looked straight up with him. “They rise sheer from the floor and reach thousands of feet,” he said. “The scholars believe it’s from a transition in the rocks, with an escarpment forming that causes them to jut strait up like this. Quite a sight, eh?”
“Amazing,” Bryn replied. “They just shoot
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