Legacy: Infinity (Book 3)

Chapter 5: Games

Chapter 5: Games

The mountains were far different from the genial fields and forests down below. They were rough on a cat's paws and vicious to the mind. The desolate mountainside cast the pass in abject darkness all day and night, chilling the stone and the white-washed bones that lined the path, gruesome decorations.

Jay, however, reveled in the absence of life and the scent of death. She struck out upon the crumbling path with the fierceness of a tiger, stalking along it with the confidence that she could not be challenged and the exuberance of an adventurer on uncrossed territory.

For there was no evidence that any creature of any sort had inhabited the gray slabs of stones and uneven path, besides the bones that proved their demise. The path of the pass had, undoubtedly, been formed by an ancient river that at one time carried off loads of rocks and created a steep, pebbly path which had once been the stream bed of the ancient mountain river.

Amelia's opinion was that in heavy rains it would still carry water down from the heights, but it was so dry that Jay doubted it. The sky remained predominantly blue the first day, with varied clouds throughout the day passing through the narrow strip of sky that persisted over the pass.

The trip into the mountains was, altogether, mundane. Jay and Amelia made little time for sleeping and eating, wishing to make it through enemy territory as quickly as possible. And when they did sleep, they took turns standing guard.

Hunting was a more difficult problem. Once they got into the shadow of the mountainside, the area became abandoned. Their one endeavor had only the fruitless luck of a singular, measly shrew, which Amelia turned her nose up at with disgust, allowing Jay to scarf it down in a few heartbeats.

The air must have slowly become colder, for it was noticeably different by the time they had nearly reached the summit of the pass. Here, the trail fell away on one side and a long precipice ran down from the trail that was now only two tail-lengths wide.

Jay crept along the edge, enchanted by the idea of an invisible paw dragging at her fur as she leaned over the ledge where the shadows slept. She could see no bottom to the steep drop off and when she kicked a pebble over the edge, she listened to it clatter down the side, but there was no resounding drop, it simply vanished from her range of hearing.

Amelia suggested that she follow it to see where it had gone, but Jay was more than happy to let that mystery be for now. Jay was, however, irked that they had met no cats, as Leaf had warned them about. They found no cats, not even a lingering scent, though they must have been near the end of the pass by then.

At dusk on the second day, they reached the crest of the pass where they passed in between two mountain peaks that rose like towers on either side of them. The ground became level once more, though the mountain peaks still rose high above their head, gleaming in the last forgotten rays of sunset. Jay shivered, the warmth of the sun had vanished, leaving the stone as cold as ice and the breeze nippy on her nose.

The little mesa that the path went through was covered in scrubby, tough grass that wasn't soft at all and very sparse while little patches of snow still remained in the deepest shadows, despite it being nearly green-leaf down in the lowlands. Jay trotted forward with Amelia following cautiously behind, determined to see this new. unfriendly world she had entered in upon.

Jay could see that the path dropped off into a steep descent where the mesa ended, and she could see the high mountain peaks far in the distance. Which meant, as she was willing to conclude before she reached the edge, that there was a valley just ahead.

When Jay reached the edge, she could only stand and stare, her heartbeat escalating in unbound excitement. Although the mesa she stood upon was disagreeable and ugly in its coarseness, if she had any doubts about this being a good home for her, they were all gone like mist in the sun.