The Firelord's Crown

Descent

Descent

Falath stared in horror at the wall of ice crystals hurtling towards him. He cowered back against the rock face and braced himself. The wind punched into his thin frame and buried needles in his exposed flesh. It tore sobs and curses from his lips and howled laughter at his hurting. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone.

He dared to breathe again and loosened his grip. Raw fingers ached as he kneaded the numbness from his side. Light, he was so damned pathetic! The constant bickering of his father's nobles had driven him to seek solitude in the wild but now, with storm and darkness closing in around him, he bitterly regretted his folly. Why, why had he deceived Ilin, the one sworn to protect him? Because you craved some time alone, he reminded himself. Time to deal with the demons that haunt your dreams; time to consider how best to spend what little future remains to you. But the snowstorm had caught him out.

Falath sucked in more ice and stumbled on. Half blinded by the sleet, he almost missed the thornbrake that signalled the edge of the track. He swerved to avoid its barbs but his foot caught and he fell headlong. The tumble robbed him of his breath and he lay in a sodden heap, cursing the weakness that pinned him there. Seventeen summers old? He felt more like seven hundred!Perhaps he should just let nature take its course. After all, there were worse ways to die.

His left hand throbbed angrily and he looked at this new hurt. The stumble had crushed the small stone he clutched into his palm. When he scaled the White Falls earlier, with the intention of never coming back, the stone had sparkled in a glint of winter sun and distracted him. Return. Go back. He is coming. The voice echoed in his mind; compelling his obedience. Return. Go back. He is coming. Go back to the life which choked him? Back to the father who ignored him? Why? The doom you sense is not certain. You shall be needed. Go back.

Such was the majesty of those words that he did step back from the edge but the thought of returning was easier than the deed. The Ridgeway was treacherous at the best of times and the squall made it doubly so. Falath stowed the stone, his promise of hope, in his belt-purse. As he straightened up, however, a rogue gust caught him off-balance and the sheer gully faces spiralled into view. Falath threw himself backwards but he slipped on more loose scree and pitched downhill with a stricken yell.

The iced bracken was crystal-smooth. Falath slid freely along the steep incline, down towards the rocky crag that marked the cliff edge, fingers too numb to catch at ferny stems to slow his fall. Sharp chippings rattled round his ears. He flung up his bladearm to shield his head then, a cry to the Light on his lips, he thundered -

- to a halt.

He lay a moment, stunned, until the slap of the rain revived him. Then Falath laughed and accepted the sleet’s embrace.

When common sense returned a few moments later he struggled to a sitting position and attempted to stand but, with a strangled "What the - ?" he was jerked back down. He twisted round, mouthing vitriol, only to discover his saviour. His sleeve had snagged on a thorny sapling. Falath reached back to disentangle it, before the bush decided to uproot itself, but the plant refused to cooperate and he was forced to hack off the offending piece of cloth. Victorious, the sapling sprang upright, its trophy flapping wildly in the wind.

Falath hugged his battered arm to his chest, nursing the fresh scores made by the thorn bush, and shuddered when he saw the cliff edge a few yards to his left. Another second or two and he would have joined the dozens of unwary travellers that plunged to their deaths each year. Even now his foot sent fresh scree scudding into darkness. It would be so easy to just…