Interminable as the last league’s journey had seemed to all in the cohort, it came eventually to its end. Ahead, barely discernible in the gloom that had swallowed the world, an edge came into view. The ragged rim of the chasm hewn of leaden stone, silvered at its broken clefts, and beyond that rim a terrible riot of greyish-black vapor. Now, more than ever, it seemed their journey had taken them to the very end of the Vast Land, to the edge of an impenetrable abyss. Impenetrable to thought, and yet shortly the cohort would actually enter into that place. They would have to look over the rim into whatever chaos lay below, and then would have to descend.
Vhaasa shuddered, hoping the others would see it only as a reaction to the chill wind whipping up out of the chasm. Charcoal grit rode the winds, staining the cohort black with soot, making them appear a gang of chimney sweeps lost in the wilderness. The cohort slowed as they approached the rim, a few among them drawing their weapons almost unconsciously. Some among them shivered, while others were sheathed in soot-blackened sweat.
Just as it seemed they would call a halt, Mallock picked up his pace.
“To the edge. Now. You rotters slow up here, I’ll never get you moving again,” he said.
The Captain marched directly up to the rim and went down on one knee, looked over and down. The rest followed him; Mogrus, Ghetti, and Oodo dropping likewise to a knee to look into the gulf. Vhaasa milled just behind them with the others, thinking he ought not to crowd them.
“We at the right place, maven?” Mallock asked.
“No,” Mogrus answered.
There was an uncomfortable pause.
“Well?” Mallock prodded.
“Right. Aye,” Mogrus said, rooting the map out and weighing it down with his rock-hammer and kit knife, “I’ll figure it, Mallock. Twist up a smoke, alright?”
The Captain stepped away and dug in his poke to oblige. The others stepped back a bit as well, unsure what to do with themselves. The wind’s voice was a muted ululation below, its pitch rising and falling eerily, suggestive of temple music with its broken cadence and strange flourishes. Vhaasa fixated on the image of Mogrus Un’Akuhl, on his knees with a tattered map before him, set against the background of that horrible abyss. The sight was filled with a grim significance, some memory that Vhaasa could not call to mind. I know this, he thought, with no idea what such an inane thought could possible mean.
Mogrus furled the map after some time, “West. We need to head a bit to the west. There should be a defile or a canyon of some kind. Only way down without wings.”
Mallock nodded curtly, struggling with his patience, “Alright, all. West! Step to the march. We’re not stopping here.”
The cohort moved on along the rim, keeping a stone’s throw from the edge at Mogrus’ advice. The maven had said there was no telling how stable the rock-shelf would be along the edge, and he didn’t want to risk it until they reached the defile. Soot-stained, sweating and shivering all the while; they made their way west.
When they reached it, the defile looked as if some great titan had cleaved into the rim of the chasm with his sword; a gash in the stone that cut down at a steep angle from the ground above, dropping into darkness. Mallock must have caught some hint of hesitation from his Second, and cuffed Bandrell over the head, shoved the man forward. The rest of the cohort would risk no such hesitation in front of Mallock. They all hurried forward into the defile, each and every one of them wondering at the line between bravery and madness as they did so. Each man stepping into that gorge in the leaden earth watched himself do so as from a great height, the first step swift and resigned.
Single-file, the cohort worked their way along the narrow crevasse, some tapping the ground ahead with weapons and staves, others feeling frantically with their feet, none daring to slow the pace from that of the man before them. Vhaasa was fifty paces in before he realized that he had taken the lead. He glanced behind him into Ghetti’s oddly soft eyes, and the man smiled in answer to his unasked question.
They descended.
Several hundred paces into the twisting defile, the path fell away into the greater chasm beyond. Vhaasa saw the terminus of the channel ahead and watched, dizzied, as scree loosened by the footsteps above cascaded over the edge. The distance beyond the end of the defile was obscured by the wind-blown soot and foul vapors exhaled by whatever gods or demons lurked in the chasm below. Vhaasa halted, turned and pointed out the situation to Ghetti, who in turn shouted something back along the line.
The walls of the crevasse widened slightly here at its end, allowing Vhaasa to clamber up their sides onto a slim ledge, thus clearing way for others to move forward. Mogrus and Mallock were awkwardly jostling their way forward, and as they came near Vhaasa pointed out the drop ahead.
The captain crouched down and crawled up to the lip, careful not to trust his weight to any surface covered with scree or likely to crack beneath him. The ore-laden stone cut into his hands, the blood clotting black in the soot coating his skin. He called back to Mogrus above the voice of the wind,
“There are pitons here. Old ones driven right into the ore. I think we’re meant to climb, old man.”
Vhaasa saw Mogrus’ shoulders slump slightly as the maven rolled his eyes in frustration. Mallock was banging on the ancient iron pitons with a climbing pick he’d produced from his kit, testing their sturdiness. Vhaasa clambered spiderlike along his little ledge to get closer to the Captain and see if he could help. He’d brought a fine length of rope along that he’d gotten from Mhiist, and climbing was one thing he’d learned well in the alleys and on the rooftops of Uhl’iir.
“Need help, Captain?” Vhaasa asked as he reached a ledge above Mallock’s shoulder.
Mallock looked up, a bit startled, “Vhaasa… You climb well, do you?”
“Truth. That’s truth, I do. Shift up-path a bit and I’ll drop in where you’re at and see if I can use those hard-points.”
“Aye, alright,” Mallock crabbed his way back up the defile a few paces.
Vhaasa dropped into his place and started checking the old pitons. They seemed about as sturdy as any he could imagine, and he thought he might split the rock if he tried to drive new ones. That wouldn’t be good. He started uncoiling a bit of his good rope, avoiding looking down for now. When it came time to rappel, Mallock would likely push them all one by one if they hesitated. No reason to get anxious about it yet.
He tied a lizard’s-claw knot into the loop on the end of the piton and tested the rope. Hard. Mallock winced as he tugged.
“I’d rather it break now, Captain,” Vhaasa said.
“Truth,” Mallock shuddered, turned to survey the cohort above, “Can you tie a harness?”
“Sure, but we’re down a lot o’ rope. Two men that ran off, y’know? They had a good bit of ours on them when they dipped out.”
“For Ghetti and Mogrus, then?”
“Sure, aye.”
Vhaasa tossed the knotted coil of rope into the abyss, stifling a wave of vertigo as it unspooled in the air, then disappeared from sight. He took out the tack-ropes he’d taken off some of the dead iryx and fashioned two harnesses with some creative knot-work and handed them up to Mallock, who nodded.
“You ready when I start calling them to the rope, Vhaasa? I’m going to want you to get the old men rigged, then rappel down on point, right?”
Vhaasa swallowed, nodded, “Good. Right.”
Captain Mallock turned, started bellowing orders, and one by one, the descent began.
* * * * *