Chapter Six
‘Not again,’ I think as my foot slips off the wet rock below me, causing me to fall a few feet before the rope holding me tenses.
A sharp, familiar pain then rakes across my chest where the harness holds to me uncomfortably tight. I pull myself back onto the rocks and look down at the canyon below me, a narrow one filled with a seemingly bottomless pool of water. More cascades into it from a waterfall above me to my right, along with several others a bit further along the canyon wall.
“You okay?” Yori calls out from higher up, his deep, scruffy voice the right sort to remain clear despite the noise.
I look at him and nod. I don’t like feeling burdensome, something I’ve avoided with Wade for the most part, but this morning I know I’ve been quite the hindrance. Yori said this climb up the cliffs would only take an hour, but it’s likely been more than double that and we’re still only halfway done.
It doesn’t help that the rocks are so slimy, like most everything else in the marshes. Getting a good grip is almost impossible, especially without gloves, though Yori does just fine without them. He moves seamlessly, like this is all he’s ever known. It makes me feel safe with him close by, which is something I wouldn’t have expected when I met him.
Like Wade had suggested, he seemed a bit strange at first. His voice was quite scraggly, like an instrument out of tune after years of neglect. It made the plan he proposed for trapping the draeg in this canyon sound even crazier. But his voice has gradually become deeper, sterner sounding, and with that change, his reassurances have been much more effective in emboldening me for what I’ll be taking part in today.
“We’re getting faster,” he reassures. “I reckon we’ll reach the summit in less than an hour. Need another break?”
“Yeah,” I gasp through exhausted breaths.
He puts another anchor in the rock and descends to where I have rested myself facing up against the canyon wall. Rather than doing the same, he finds a slight slope of rock that juts out a few inches and leans against it facing outward. I don’t know how he balances himself so well. He seems so at ease, like he was born on the side of a mountain. Maybe he was.
“Quite the fall,” Yori remarks lightly.
I turn my head to look down at the space between us and the canyon bottom, more feet than I want to count. The whole scene hardly fits the otherwise bland marshlands we’ve been traversing. Here, the tall canyon walls protect a grotto buried well below the surface of the swampy waters that surround it.
“You don’t seem much like a princess,” he then says.
‘Why must people keep pointing that out?’ I think a little frustrated.
“Is there some way I’m supposed to be?”
“I wouldn’t be too sure. There aren’t any princesses where I’m from, but we would read about them as kids. Fairy tales, I think the stories were called. Legends about princesses being trapped in towers and needing saving while flying beasts swirled about to stop any would-be rescuers.”
“Then I am a princess,” I wink, though the thought immediately terrifies me.
“At least the draeg doesn’t have wings,” Yori teases back.
I suppose things could be worse, but then again, who knows how frantic the beast will become once trapped. Yori has never succeeded in cornering it, and considering the draeg’s size, I fear no high wall of rock or mountain will be enough to stop it from escaping. This could be the last climb I ever make.
Wade has his doubts as well. He voiced them to Yori again last night.
“If it’s so simple, why haven’t you been able to pull it off?” Wade was complaining.