Children of The Underground

Chapter 7: The Legend of Koshei

As Misha tugged Drazhek down the ravine, the walls of the ravine they were traversing grew taller and taller, until it was tall enough to cast shadows over them. Drazhek kept looking at the Cherenkovo device he made. Thankfully, the orichalc dagger's blade didn't bob from its position. They wouldn't run into an anomaly any time soon.

"Can't see a damned thing," Misha gasped, winded from both her hearty laughter and her brisk walking pace. "But hey, it looks like there's a light at the end of this tunnel."

"It's not a tunnel, it's a ravine." Drazhek replied. He too was breathless from laughter and brisk walking.

"Well, there's a light at the end, isn't there?" Misha replied.

They reached the end of the tunnel...and Misha stopped dead in her tracks, pushing back against Drazhek. Drazhek fell, bumping his butt against the hard, rocky floor of the ravine.

"Hey, what gives?" He cried out.

"There's a drop here," said Misha. She kicked a small stone off of he ledge. From behind her, Drazhek counted. Raz, dva, tri, chetyre, pent.

By the time Drazhek finished counting to five, he heard the sharp crack or stone against stone. He got to his feet and whistled.

"Sounds like a big drop. Do you think we can descend it?" He walked over to Misha. She was taller than him, so that the tip of his nose reached the nape of her neck.

"Yes, we can." Without a word, Misha took off her rucksack, opened her pack, and removed two lengths of rope, two steel pitons (which were probably alloyed with orichalc for strength), and a mallet.

"Drazhek, come here." She said. She had tied the end of one rope to the piton, and finished hammering said piton into the cliff's edge. Then, after waving Drazhek over she took a length of rope and tied a harness around him, wrapping it diagonally around Drazhek's shoulder and hip like a sash, then making a horizontal loop around one of Drazhek's thighs. After seeing that Drazhek was secured, she wrapped herself up with her own

"Okay, you're good to go. Now follow my lead." Misha, with her back facing the cliff's edge hopped off. Drazhek tensed up with surprise. But after hearing the initial thud and Misha's assurance that she was alright, he turned his back towards the cliff, briefly pausing to put his Cherenkovo device into his rucksack, and jumped off the edge.

For a brief, exhilarating second, Drazhek was in free fall. But then he felt his feet slam against the drop-off's vertical edge. He jumped again, and then once more. He had descended a dozen meters or so below below the edge of the cliff

"You're doing great!" Misha called out from below him "Just don't look down."

That was a mistake. Drazhek, withtout even thinking about it, looked down to tell Misha he was okay. He saw her, almost at the bottom of the drop, which was still far, far below him. The hand holding his rope loosened his grip , and now he was falling in earnest.

Drazhek was screaming in both pain and fear, the loops around his upper thigh and the diagonal loop on his torso, now coiling quickly around him, giving him friction burns. It felt as though a snake made of living fire was coiling its way around him. He tried to seize onto the rope again, but just as his hands touched the rope, it burned white-hot. Finally, after gritting his teeth, he grabbed it fiercely and stopped his descent. He hopped to the bottom of the cliff with brief, agonizing hops, before collapsing onto the gravel-encrusted ground.

"Drazhek!" Misha cried out, galloping towards him, a spray of gravel in her wake. Drazhek, in turn, had wriggled free from those hateful, biting ropes, and was too tired to react from the rope burns on his body.