Heart of Flame

XXV. Bone and Sorrow

Some things were objectively terrible ideas. Sorne was beginning to get the feeling that this was one of them, though she wasn't giving it too much thought as she crept along a ledge. Heights didn't trouble Sorne much, but there was an entire mountain's height below her. Dragons didn't die close to the ground, but the wind was too unpredictable for Áshildr or Nirsal to fly them up. Nirsal was waiting at the bottom of the cliff in case Sorne decided to plummet, in the hopes that she could somehow save the human if Áshildr didn't manage to. 

Granted, that had been before the mists rolled in from the sea. When Sorne looked down, the valley below was veiled in white. She tried not to look down, however. It made her dizzy, and dizzy did not mix well with thousands of feet of elevation.

"This may have been unwise," Áshildr admitted as she sidled along the narrow ledge after Sorne.

"It's fine," Sorne said dismissively. "It's not like we're risking mortal peril needlessly to satisfy one of my wild hares."

Áshildr grinned. "Murdak and Thadash will murder us if we live."

"Hey, only if they find out what exactly we did," Sorne said. "I planned on leaving out the details."

"You mean you would not say, 'Greetings, Murdak! We did our best to get ourselves utterly obliterated by plunging interminable distances to splatter across jagged—"

The human winced. "Ás, I adore your eloquence, but let's leave off the talk of obliteration, jagged things, and splattering for right now, okay?"

"Duly noted, Fire-Heart," the giant said with amusement. "That is the first time I have ever heard you shorten my name."

"I thought you might appreciate it. Also, it got your mind off me dying." Sorne grinned when she heard her accomplice laugh, though she didn't dare look as she inched along the precipice. "Oops?"

"Well, perhaps only Thadash will kill you when we return. Murdak will appreciate the gesture."

A thought occurred to Sorne. "I think I found an itty, bitty wrinkle in our plan, my giant friend," Sorne said. She paused as she studied the path ahead. "Two, actually."

"Oh?" Áshildr said calmly. "What might those be?"

"Well, first of all, we're going to have to climb up again if we want to get to the skeleton over there, because this ledge is getting smaller and smaller."

Áshildr paused as she looked up. "I think we can do that. There are possible handholds above you."

Sorne nodded a little bit as she looked up. She could see them too. "Which brings us to problem two, sort of." She cleared her throat. "How on earth are we going to get back down with a bone or two? I mean, small we can do, but not a giant rib or anything."

There was a long pause before Áshildr mused aloud, "I had not considered that, Fire-Heart. I doubt a blade will be sufficient for dragonbone. Perhaps just a few teeth? A vertebra?"

"Possibly. I suppose we'll figure something out when we get there. Well, upward and onward," Sorne said lightly as she grabbed the first handholds. With Khashin, she was easily strong enough to haul herself and occasionally Áshildr up the cliff. The giant had volunteered to shapeshift into a spider and climb up, an idea that Sorne had enthusiastically quashed the moment it was mentioned. Sorne would have been the first to say that she didn't fear a normal spider, but she had a feeling that Áshildr was thinking, naturally, of something large.

They were free-climbing the cliff towards the dragon graveyard, which was nerve-wracking for Sorne. Áshildr was grinning every time the human looked down at her, but giants were happy any time risk was involved. Sorne was glad she had the chants to keep her strong, not that she was lacking muscle. She would never have bulk, it seemed, but she was lean and sinuous.