“Where exactly does this cave system end?” she asked, genuinely curious.
“I don’t really know,” the elf said with a light air to his tone.
Jahrra gave him a bewildered look, her expression exaggerated in the flickering torch light.
Ellyesce only smiled. “The Serpent’s Tomb has never been completely mapped, and it is said to wind and twist through several of the mountains here in the Hrunahn Range. Our exit point, however, ends where the string of small mountains meet up with the Great Hrunahn Range, about halfway up the mountain that cradles the legendary cloud city.”
Jahrra furrowed her brow. “The cloud city?”
The elf nodded. “Nimbronia. Its name means ‘of the clouds’.”
“I thought it was a city made of ice,” Jahrra pointed out, remembering what she had learned from Jaax and Hroombra.
“It is,” Ellyesce agreed, “but it’s located far above the clouds and was given that name by the Creecemind dragons.”
The Creecemind dragons. If Jahrra had anything to look forward to, it would be seeing the famed dragons for the first time. She was eager to learn if they were as massive as she had been led to believe. She brought this up to Ellyesce.
Her companion laughed. “The Creecemind make Korli and Tanaan dragons look like lap dogs.”
Jahrra tried to picture this in her mind, but she could never imagine Jaax as a lap dog. The sudden thought of her guardian brought a pang to her heart, and she quickly brushed it aside.
“Tell me more about Nimbronia,” she commanded, leading Phrym around a small crop of stalagmites.
“What would you like to know about the cloud city?” the elf asked.
Jahrra shrugged. “Whatever you’re willing to tell me.”
Ellyesce thought about that for a while, then drew in a breath and said, “As you know, Nimbronia is made entirely of ice, and its frozen spires rise for many hundreds of feet into the air. Like Cahrdyarein, the city encircles a mountain peak, and at the very top you can find Ethoes’s Sacred Pine.”
Jahrra came to attention at that, and if she didn’t know any better, she would have sworn one of the beads on her wooden bracelet warmed against her skin.
“Truly?” she wondered aloud.
Ellyesce nodded. “Truly. It clings to the merciless mountain and defies every form of weather Ethoes has thrown at it. It is not tall and straight like the pines of the forests, but crooked, gnarled and stunted. It has been warped by wind and weather, but it is bursting with life, if you are permitted the chance to draw close to it.”
“Will I get to see it, while we’re in Nimbronia?” Jahrra asked with a tight voice.
Her elvin companion smiled and cast her a warm look. “Visiting the temple is limited to a rare few, and the trail leading to the Tree is treacherous.”
The two of them fell silent after that, the sounds of dragging hooves, the gentle whiffle of the horses, the whispering flicker of the torchlight and the occasional cough coming from Erron the only intrusions upon the relative quiet of the cavern. Gradually, the great open space narrowed and grew just big enough for the riders to pass through without scraping their heads on the dripping stalactites hanging above.
The cave suddenly sloped upward, and Ellyesce pulled ahead of her, encouraging Gliriant into a quicker pace. At the top of the incline, Jahrra could make out his silhouette, outlined by the light cast from the torch he held above his head. His other hand was raised to signal the group to stop. Only when the loose gravel on the floor of the cave settled did Jahrra realize why the elf had wanted them to come to a halt.
“Can you hear that?” he murmured, his voice ricocheting off of the curved walls.
Jahrra strained her ears. For a few seconds, all she could detect was the breathing of the horses and her own heartbeat. Then, slowly, like the way the rising sun gradually stains the dawn with its brilliant color, she heard it. Not just the dripping of the weeping points of stone above, but a cool, gentle trickle, and coming from somewhere even farther ahead, a smooth rush of sound.
“Water?” Jahrra asked quietly.
Ellyesce nodded, his green eyes seeming to glow in the darkness. “Not just water, running water. If my suspicions prove true, then we are very close to our destination. There is an underground river running through these mountains. Well, there are several, but the one I’m thinking of marks the exit we must take to finish our trek into Nimbronia.”
“So, how much farther must we go?” Whinsey asked from somewhere behind them.
Ellyesce turned in the saddle, and the leather squeaked with protest. He pointed his free hand to the ceiling just above them. “Have you noticed how it’s grown much damper over the past few miles?”
Whinsey nodded, her pale face like the moon hovering in the dark.
“It means we are getting closer to the river, and I would say no more than an hour, probably less.”
He straightened, then in a more somber tone he added, “It has been a very long time since I’ve traveled this road. My calculations might be off a little.”
Jahrra furrowed her brow at that, but made no comment. Ellyesce nudged his semequin forward, and soon, the whole lot of them were traveling on level ground once more. Several minutes passed by, and the cavern opened up into another massive space, the ground this time covered in a thick layer of sand instead of mineral deposits. Jahrra couldn’t help but notice the darkness had begun to subside as well.
“Look! Up there!” Dervit rasped in wonder.
Instinctively, Jahrra glanced upward and felt her jaw fall open when she spotted what the limbit had been talking about. Gaping holes in the cavern ceiling yawned open above them, letting in plumes of light. The floor beneath the horses’ feet was smattered with brilliant spots of white, and long tendrils of roots hung from above like the rotting sails of a ghost ship. Somewhere, not too far ahead of them, the sound of rushing water grew stronger, more pronounced. Jahrra craned her neck, trying to peer past Ellyesce. He had snubbed the torch out earlier, using the damp walls to kill the flame. It was bright enough now because of the natural skylights and what Jahrra assumed was an opening to the outside world somewhere up ahead.
The flash of sunlight sparkling off the surface of running water was the first thing Jahrra noticed. She pulled Phrym up short, gaping at the sight. A fast river, pouring from another enormous tunnel heading back into the mountain, churned and sloshed its way to an even larger opening up ahead on their left. Two ancient stalagmites rose unevenly on either side of the river just before it plunged out into the open air beyond, with a smaller collection of stalactites above.
“The Dragon’s Maw,” Ellyesce said, his voice almost reverent.
“What?” Jahrra asked, blinking away the brightness of the daylight. It had been so long since any of them had seen the sun.
“That’s what this cave entrance is called. The Dragon’s Maw. The stalagmites,” he indicated the two spires of rock, “are like fangs, and the mist from the waterfall like a plume of smoke.”
Jahrra smiled. A fitting name indeed.
Whinsey, Erron and Dervit caught up to them, and for a few minutes, they all admired the view of the mountains beyond the open mouth of the cavern.
“Let’s take a short rest,” Ellyesce suggested.
He climbed down from his semequin, his boots sinking slightly in the loose sand. Everyone else followed suit, stretching and yawning and digging through their packs. Ellyesce untied his bow and proceeded to string it. Jahrra shot him a curious glance, and the elf gestured for her to move closer. She complied, making use of the crutch he had recently found for her.
“I want to hope that Jaax’s and Pendric’s efforts have not been in vain, and that they have stopped the Tyrant’s men in Cahrdyarein, but the truth is, I don’t know for certain.”