"There are handholds all the way down," Denai continued. "It takes a while, but as long as you're careful, it's pretty safe."
"I take it there's a similar ridge like this on the other side?" Tarrin asked Sarraya.
"I'd assume so," she replied. "The magic that made this canyon split the earth. The other half of this formation has to be in the wall on the other side."
"That's how we climb out," Denai affirmed. "But that one's not as well formed as this one. We have to go up the wall a ways to reach it."
"In other words, we have to climb out," Tarrin grunted.
"Going up is much easier than going down," Var said. "Going down lends itself to greater mistakes, since you tend to lean out to see where you're putting your feet."
"Well, you absolutely are not going to climb down like this," Sarraya said hotly. "I'll conjure up a rope so you can tie yourselves together. Denai goes first, then Var, then Tarrin."
"Why tie together?" Denai asked.
"Because if either of you slip, Tarrin can keep you from becoming the next meal for the vultures," Sarraya said to her crossly.
"What happens if he slips?"
"Tarrin doesn't slip," Sarraya laughed in her face. "Why do you think he has those big, nasty claws? They do more than rip chunks out of things."
After Sarraya made the rope, they tied themselves together, and then began. Tarrin wasn't afraid of heights, not in the slightest, but it did take a little self-motivation to push his body over that edge. The thought of that much empty air underneath him was more than a little disconcerting, even for someone with no fear of heights. But once he got onto the ridge, felt his foot claws bite into the stone, he knew that he'd be just fine. There were indeed handholds, pits and ridges in the wind-worn stone that made the descent relatively easy for him. Var and Denai seemed to have no trouble either, moving along at a pace that didn't irritate the more agile Were-cat with its slowness.
Or it would have been easy in ideal conditions. The wind seemed to be trapped inside the canyon, so once they descended a few hundred spans, they encountered strange crosswinds that seemed to be generated by the canyon's topography. The wind suddenly made what had been an easy descent much more challenging. It bit and pulled on him, and all three of them began to choose their hand and footholds much more carefully, moving more slowly than before. Sarraya, who had been hovering near them as they made their way along the treacherous ridge, found the buffetting winds too much, and managed to make something of a wobbly landing on Tarrin's head. She anchored herself down in his hair and kept watch over them, prepared to use her magic in case something went terribly wrong.
Tarrin kept an eye on the other two. Both Var and Denai were in very good shape, but this kind of activity was something to which they were not accustomed. The strain of the descent began to show on both of them around noontime, as both of them began to sweat. Denai seemed more tired than Var, so Tarrin called for them to take a short break when all three of them found good foot and hand holds that would allow them to rest while clinging to the side of the canyon wall, while the winds tried to push them off.
It was only a longspan of distance, but the dangerous nature of their path made the going very slow, and the sun was well past noontime in the sky by the time that the ground below seemed relatively close. They managed to climb beneath the buffetting winds, and again found a respectable pace in which to move.
As they descended deeper into the canyon, Tarrin felt the curious changes. The air took on humidity, and the shade provided by the towering walls kept the air below cool, almost enjoyable. The shade also kept the canyon floor in a pleasantly dim light, not the blasting brilliance of the desert sun, but enough sunlight reached the canyon floor during the midday hours to keep the many plants that carpeted the canyon floor flourishing.
Denai, who had gone first, put her feet on the canyon floor in the midafternoon. Her arms were trembling, and she was breathing hard, and the very first thing she did was drop to her backside on the moist, grassy canyon floor, then splay out on her back and do nothing but rest. Var had to step over her, then he too flopped down onto the soft earth and tried to recover from the strenuous descent. Tarrin dropped down the last ten spans, then proceeded to untie the rope holding them together.
"By the Holy Mother's grace, don't you ever get tired?" Denai complained in a breathless voice as Tarrin stepped over them both and surveyed the twenty spans of terrain they'd have to cross.
"It takes more than that to tire me, Denai. I'm not human," he replied calmly. The canyon floor was not flat. It was irregular, with scruffy little hills that undulated all the way across the canyon floor. The ground close to the walls was littered with rocks of all shapes and sizes, broken off from the walls to plummet to the ground below. The ground was indeed ground, a life-supporting soil that was rich and moist, supporting actual grass.
Looking out over the area, he realized that it was like stepping into another part of the world. The canyon floor was primarily lush grassland, but there were many trees of different varieties here and there through the grass. Some grew together in groves and stands, and to the north there were enough to be called a forest. He realized that these plants were the plants that had grown here before the desert claimed the land, that the seeds had fallen into this vast chasm and found sanctuary from the blight that consumed the land above. There were even streams, and a few ponds within his view, from which several large reptilian beasts drank sedately. But there were more than reptiles. He recognized a flock of deer by those huge chisa, drinking their fill. This place was a refuge for the descendants of the animals that had called these plains home before the desert claimed them, and now they shared their habitat with the animals that had somehow managed to migrate down into the canyon's micro-ecosystem. It looked like the grasslands of western Sulasia, in a way, the strip of grassy plains that buffered the vast forest of the West from the Sea of Storms.
But there was much more to this place than what he saw. The scents of the place were powerful, almost overwhelming, triggering his Cat nature much more sharply than they had been awakened in a long time. The smells of grass and trees, of mice and moles and chipmunks, even squirrels, piqued his hunter's impulses. The smell of deer and elk, of wolves and wildcats, they were familiar smells to him, mingled in with the odd scents of chisa and kajat and inu and umuni. The canyon floor teemed with life, life from both the desert and the land of the past. He could hear much more than he could smell, from the faint baying of a wolfpack to the grunting sounds of the deer at that pond some longspan away from them. He could hear the fluttering of wings of the birds that managed to brave the buffeting winds and reach the lush paradise hidden beneath the floor of the parched desert above. The canyon floor awakened his animal side completely, and for a moment he had to just stand there and take it all in, allow his Cat self to revel in the sense of home that this place incited within him, before putting it aside and thinking about how to quickly leave it behind.