I looked down. The world span, readjusted, and there was Estrada, small and far below. Of its own accord, a small part of my brain estimated the distance, what it would be like to plummet across it and what exactly landing would feel like. All of a sudden I found myself shaking so hard that I almost lost my grip, and I grasped the net frantically.
I had to do something. Saltlick was exhausted, he was hurt, and I knew with a cold certainty that he wasn’t going to make it. “Wait,” I said. “Just wait, Saltlick.”
He paused, hugged the cold stone. His breath was coming in ragged shudders. He’d never admit he was worn out; not because he was stubborn or arrogant, as a man might be, but because he was too damn decent to stop. He’d climb until he reached the top, or until he died trying — and if I’d had any doubts of the likelier outcome, those torn gasps of air were all the evidence I needed.
“Are you all right?” I asked him. “Can you hold on?”
Rather than answer, Saltlick nodded — and the netting danced beneath me.
“All right! Stop that. Can you move in any closer? Don’t nod. If you can do it, do it.”
Saltlick grunted, a low rumble. I took it for a no, until he began to shift. By degrees, he moved to splay his hands and feet, flattening against the stone.
I gritted my teeth, tried to push from my mind the image of the beach far below. I’d thought I could climb at least half the cliff face — well, this might not be the half I’d set my sights on, but here was my chance to prove it.
“Hold still,” I told Saltlick. “Whatever you do, hold still.”
I crept to the very edge of the net and — realising how I’d set Saltlick trembling, his fragile balance disturbed — hurled out a foot in panic. I scrabbled at stone, certain I could feel Saltlick’s grasp slipping, and dashed out my left hand for a lip of rock. With that hold, I abandoned the netting altogether, throwing my whole weight against the rock wall, hoping my tenuous grip would be enough.
Only when I was sure I wasn’t about to fall did I dare hiss through gritted teeth, “Are you all right, Saltlick?”
“Good,” Saltlick agreed.
“I’m going to climb past you,” I told him. “I’ll find you a path.”
Not waiting for an answer, I began to do as I’d said. I’d been right; it was far easier for me than for Saltlick. Whatever ancient catastrophe had carved this rut and deposited the boulders below, it had left a smashed and rugged surface in its wake. The hardest part was overtaking Saltlick; the worst moment the one when I realised that what I’d mistaken for a jut of stone was in fact his fingers. Saltlick being Saltlick, he didn’t even protest, merely clung on for the instant it took me to understand that stone didn’t squish that way under a boot heel.
“Argh… sorry! Damn it, hold on…”
I shifted my weight, hauled myself higher, narrowly avoided repeating my mistake by trying to use Saltlick’s head as a foot rest and finally reached a point where I knew I was clear of him. Already, my limbs were beginning to ache. I pushed the discomfort aside. Whatever pain I was in, Saltlick was hurting more. It was a mere matter of hours since he’d last saved my life; just this once, I had to at least try to return the favour.
So I climbed — and the climbing was hard enough. But all the while, a part of my thoughts were occupied in plotting Saltlick’s route, spying any ledge or fissure that would accommodate his fat fingers and bulbous feet, while I pointed them out in breathless gasps: “There… do you see? No, not that one, to your left. Got it? Now, your right foot… the hole. That’s it. All right, now the hand again…”
I’d never concentrated so hard. All sense of where I was or what I was doing soon vanished, reduced to simple mechanical processes: Move my hands and feet; move Saltlick’s hands and feet; hang on; put aside the pain. Thus it was that when the slope petered into a steep rut, and then a soily incline that I could ascend on hands and knees, it hardly occurred to me that the ordeal was almost done. Even as I hauled myself over a rim of matted grass and tangled roots, my mind was still feverishly questioning what would or wouldn’t support a giant foot.
It took Saltlick crawling up beside me and flopping into the long grass to make me realise we’d made it. I lay still, letting my fatigue subside, and my brain return to something like normal operation. Only when I had my breath back and thought I could view the landscape without measuring it for giant-sized handholds did I try to look around.
Upon our right, the cliff side continued in a series of abrupt rises that eventually dissolved into a mountain range. Or rather, the jutting corner of one — for, tilting my head, I could see the march of the peaks back towards the Castoval, and with less effort their encroachment inland, until the point where they became ghostly on the horizon, merging into distant, rolling hillside. If my geography was right then somewhere on the other side of those nearest mountains lay the Ans Pasaedan capital of Pasaeda.
Looking to my left, I saw that the mountain range, bleak though it was, might be as interesting as the view was about to get. In a sense this land was much like what I’d seen of Ans Pasaeda: tracts of grassy steppe reaching farther than my eye could measure. In Ans Pasaeda, however, there had been towns and cities, farmland, often a river in sight… whereas here in the far north there was nothing. If I stared I could make out faint undulations in the turf, the hint of shallow hillsides, and surely there must be water running somewhere, for the grass was vibrant enough.
For all that, the landscape was uncompromising in its emptiness. Where there were trees, they clung in knots, as though afraid of what might happen should they stray too far apart. Nowhere was anything that deserved the name of a forest, or even a wood; compared with the endless verdure of the lower Castoval, or even the sun-scorched reaches of the Hunch, it all seemed desperately barren. All I could hear was the occasional screech of hunting birds and the crash of the sea, as it beat and beat against the shore behind us. All I could smell was a faint hint of peat, sea salt, and the grass itself.
So this was the far north. Now I could see why Moaradrid had gone to so much trouble to leave. And small wonder no Ans Pasaedan king had ever made much effort to seize this inhospitable land; I was only surprised they’d never taken the time to wall it off.
I turned my attention back to Saltlick. He was sat on his backside, legs outstretched, hands perched on knees. His eyes were closed; his breath came in short tugs through half-closed lips. The bandage on his hurt leg was showing splotches of fresh blood, bright against the wormy grey of his skin.
“Can you stand?” I asked, doing my best to sound gentle.
As if the question had been a command, Saltlick struggled to his feet. He swayed for a moment and then, planting his feet firm as any tree roots, offered a vigorous nod.
I wasn’t fooled. Then again, I had no choice. I had to reach Kalyxis’s camp, had to bring back help for Estrada and the others — and Saltlick was my only transport.
“Are you ready for this?” I asked him. “You’ll have to go fast — as fast as you can.”
“Ready,” Saltlick agreed.
Of course, I hardly needed to tell him. In fact, I could see from the grim set of his jaw that he was already excavating whatever reserves of strength he had left; my contribution would more likely be to stop him running himself to death. If anyone was prevaricating, it was me. I wasn’t sure that I could bear to watch Saltlick cripple himself. I didn’t know if I could choose between that and dooming Estrada and the others. Those just weren’t the sorts of choices I was used to making.
“Ready,” Saltlick said again — and this time it was an order, however politely phrased.