Jahrra paled at that, but then remembered their earlier journey. “Can’t you use your magic to find out?” she whispered urgently.
Ellyesce gave a tired shake of his head. “I tried. There is too much magic this close to Nimbronia, magic the Creecemind dragons employ to protect their city. It’s obscuring my own, so I cannot get a good read.”
Jahrra didn’t understand how the elf’s own magic worked, but she could imagine a surplus of it somewhere else might make it more difficult. Like trying to discern one’s own torchlight while standing beside a raging bonfire.
“What I’m trying to say,” Ellyesce continued quietly, “is that I don’t know what is waiting for us outside of these caverns. My instinct tells me we have the advantage and we should make it to Nimbronia unscathed. Experience, on the other hand, has taught me to expect the unexpected and to always be overly prepared.”
He smiled at her, and Jahrra grinned back, despite the slight prickle of dread shivering over her skin.
“So, I’m going to have my weapons ready, just in case we meet some overachieving troops, or perhaps cross paths with a protective mother boarlaque.”
Jahrra’s eyes widened, but she said nothing.
“I need you to do the same, if you wouldn’t mind,” the elf added.
For the remainder of their short respite, Jahrra took out what weapons she had: her bow and arrows, the sword Jaax had given her in Lidien and her small collection of daggers. When she’d untied her sword from Phrym’s side, she had paused a moment to consider it. She had used this very weapon to fend off her attackers at the Round back in Cahrdyarein. There were a few nicks along the blade’s edge where the mercenaries had struck it with their own weapons, but nothing more. She wondered who had had the sense to retrieve it for her after she’d dropped it in the snow. Ellyesce? Dervit? She would have to thank them later. Finding the sword’s scabbard, she attached it to Phrym’s saddle so that she might be able to draw it quickly if need be, then did the same with her other weapons.
With his bow strung across his back, Ellyesce remounted and led Gliriant to a less turbulent section of the river. “We must cross and find the trail on the other side,” he said, his voice raised so it would carry over the sound of the rushing water. “It will lead us out of the caves and back into the mountains. You cannot see it from here, but Nimbronia sits atop the next mountain peak north of this point. It won’t take us very long to reach the outer gates if we don’t dawdle.”
Without so much as an acknowledgment that they’d heard him, Jahrra and her other companions followed the elf, the horses and semequins carefully picking their way over the flat stones protruding above the river’s surface.
Once on the other side, the trail hugged the wall of the cavern with the river on their left. Icy mist rose up to coat their clothing and leave their hair damp, and Jahrra only hoped the weather proved pleasant outside.
Ahead, the trail curved to the right, wrapping around the outer mouth of the cave. Beyond their safe haven, the sky was an endless blue, and the mountains were a series of rough, jagged lines of white and violet. Ellyesce kept his semequin tight against the mountainside and disappeared out of sight. A few moments later, Jahrra understood why. The trail took them out of the cave and right onto the side of the mountain. Jahrra gasped the moment she and Phrym stepped out into the full light of day. The trail was only ten feet wide, if that, and blanketed with snow. To her right, the mountainside continued to rise and to her left, it fell away for thousands of feet to the lesser peaks below. Jagged rocks and scraggly pines, clinging to the frozen ground, adorned to the slopes in a random disarray of determined survival.
They traveled a good half an hour more, winding up the mountainside, before coming around a bend and finally getting a full, unobstructed view of the tallest peak in Ethoes. And crowning that summit was a sight that stole Jahrra’s breath away. Crystal blue and white spires, bright and sparkling in the strong sunlight, rose to pierce the sky. Waves of puffy clouds skimmed the peaks of the smaller mountains below, making the city resemble an inverted chandelier floating on a sea of snow.
“Nimbronia,” she murmured to herself, unable to believe it.
Ellyesce had told her about the magical city, but picturing it in her mind and seeing it were two very different things. Jahrra had always thought she had a good imagination, but clearly it had failed to conjure up an image to do the City of the Clouds any justice.
Behind her, someone gasped, and Jahrra realized it must be Erron waking up from his nap. She turned in the saddle to find the boy and his mother gazing in stunned wonder at the vista ahead of them. Dervit, who had been riding on Rumble in the back of the line, pricked his fox ears forward, his brown eyes larger than Jahrra had ever seen them before. She smiled, glad her friends had something beautiful to discover after their terrible ordeal in Cahrdyarein.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?”
Jahrra jumped in the saddle and whipped around. Ellyesce had brought his semequin back down the trail, to see what was taking them so long, most likely.
To answer his question, Jahrra simply nodded, not knowing what else to do. Before they got the horses moving again, something pale and slender rose from the ice city in the distance. A split second later, a similar shape joined it. Jahrra narrowed her eyes and then cried out in surprise.
“Are those dragons?” she wondered aloud.
Before Ellyesce could reply to her, she got her answer. The reptilian creatures rose into the sky, spreading wide wings as pale as their hides, then dove through the air like agile fish in a pond.
“Yes. The Creecemind dragons of Felldreim,” the elf said, his voice tinged with reverence.
The small party watched the dragons perform their aerial dance a few minutes longer, then Ellyesce cleared his throat and pronounced, “The day is slipping away, and we had better get moving if we want to reach the gates of Nimbronia before nightfall. We’ve had the advantage of the caves, and luck has been with us so far, but there is no guarantee the Crimson King’s soldiers remain in Cahrdyarein, especially if they have learned of our departure.”
That announcement froze Jahrra’s blood, and suddenly, she wanted to fly up the trail with Phrym, the way she and Ellyesce had raced into Cahrdyarein.
As if hearing her thoughts, Ellyesce said, “We’ll keep our pace brisk, but not move so fast to risk danger. And another thing,” he called over his shoulder, “do not make any sudden movements or shout. We don’t want to cause an avalanche.”
Once everyone was resettled in their saddles, the elf led them onward through the thick snow. It was slow going at first, but fortunately, the trail was relatively flat, and the horses seemed undeterred by it. From the position of the sun in the sky, Jahrra surmised it wasn’t quite noon yet, which was a good sign. She figured it would take them a good three hours to reach the base of the city, if not longer.
An hour into their trek up the mountain, Rumble wedged his foot between two rocks hidden beneath the snow. Half hour after that, Erron became suddenly ill, and they had to stop while his mother attended to him.
“Altitude sickness,” Ellyesce said grimly.
Whinsey’s eyes grew wide. “But, Erron was born in Cahrdyarein. He is used to the thin mountain air.”
The elf shook his head. “Nimbronia is far higher in the mountains than Cahrdyarein.”
Pendric’s wife furrowed her brow at that. “If it is altitude sickness, then why aren’t the rest of us feeling ill?”