"Why? Miners?"

He nodded. "They use that pass quite a bit. See, look at all these mining sites on the map. It has a road through it. That'll make the going a little easier, but it's going to make it harder to sneak by the Ungardt."

"They won't notice two cats, my mate," she told him calmly. "We can shapeshift and hide until they pass."

"Good point. I forgot your amulet won't let you lose your clothes."

"It's about to come in handy," she said. "Though I wouldn't mind showing you a little something," she teased, swishing her tail at him sensually.

"As cold as it is, I may only see goosebumps," he drawled in reply, which made her laugh.

The humor was a good sign, he realized as they started south. She'd not been very friendly the last few days, combative and hostile, but maybe seeing the mountains reminded her that they were in fact making progress. It was hard to make jokes or laugh when both of them knew that Jasana was being held prisoner, with that crushing weight over them, but Jesmind was at least trying. Maybe five days of waspish comments and flat looks at him had run its course.

It didn't take them long to go twenty longspans, but the clouds above began to thicken and darken as they moved. He could smell snow in the air, and that concerned him. He'd be hard pressed to keep them moving if a blizzard slammed into the mountains while they were in them, where snow piled up by the span and could bury a house in a matter of days. All the time they'd gained could be lost if they got snowed down, forcing him to resort to using powerful magic, like an Elemental, to get them over. That kind of display left a mark in the Weave, and he didn't doubt that Val would sense it instantly. Despite being in a void, he was still a god, and he wasn't going to take any chances. Spyder said he would get more and more powerful the closer they got to him, and at this distance he didn't want to take any risks at all.

They needed to hurry before. Now they needed to race the weather to avoid getting trapped.

Tarrin picked up the pace, a pace that Jesmind could easily maintain as they ran up into a division between two of the reddish, mighty mountains, quickly coming across a rutted road just before reaching a large stand of fir trees. The trail was steep, and the road was forced to follow slight ridges in the side of the foothill, zig-zagging its way up through the small wood towards the pass. The two Were-cats simply went straight up the hill, moving with speed and grace, ghosting through the trees and easily avoiding a large caravan of wagons trundling its way down the hill, towards a small village visible from breaks in the trees at the foothill's base. They paused as the tail end of it went by, skulking down behind a rather large fir tree, as armed men on horseback escorted the wagons both ahead, behind, and with pairs flanking every wagon.

"Why the armed escort?" Jesmind asked in the silent manner of the Cat.

"Goblinoids," he answered. "There aren't many of them left up here, but they do wander up from Daltochan and the Petal Lakes sometimes, trying to catch the mining camps off guard."

"I don't smell any. Why the concern?"

"Humans think there's an enemy behind every tree," he shrugged. "Then again, that's a healthy attitude," he added absently.

"Don't backslide on me now, my mate. I'm starting to like you again."

"Well, you're always the first enemy I keep my eye on, love," he teased lightly. "You're more dangerous than most of the others."

She elbowed him in the ribs, then she set off as the last pair of mercenaries disappeared around a bend in the road.

They moved up into the pass itself quickly after leaving the caravan behind, rising up a thousand spans into the mountains very quickly, leaving the stand of trees and becoming exposed to a howling wind that funnelled up through the pass, screaming into them from behind. The wind was raw and very cold, and it carried on it the definite smell of snow. The two Were-cats had to shift into cat form and hide from parties of Ungardt several times as they climbed higher up into the pass, which was a narrow gorge cleaved between two towering peaks, but at least the floor of the gorge was relatively flat and easy to travel, and its edges held many large rocks and boulders which gave their small cat forms plenty of places to hide when it was needful.

The pass crested and looked down on a small plateau of sorts surrounded by rising snow-capped peaks, a bowl in the mountains which held a rather large mining town in its center. Black smoke rose up from the short, stout chimeys of several connected buildings in the center of town, with smaller high-roofed buildings surrounding them.

"What are those buildings in the middle?" Jesmind asked, shouting over the whistling wind, which made hearing difficult.

"I'd think they were a foundry, but it's too deep in the mountains," he shouted in reply. "They'd have to cart the coal up here. It's probably just a really big smithy. They probably go through alot of picks and shovels and things like that, and it'd be easier for them to make them here than try to cart them up the road from the village."

"Probably. Which way do we go?"

Tarrin looked around the bowl, and pointed to the northwest. "The map says there's a narrow pass there that leads into a series of interconnecting valleys," he answered. "We'll follow those valleys all the way across."

"I certainly wouldn't want to have to go up and down!" she shouted over a particularly loud howl of wind. "It wouldn't be very fun!"

"It would take forever!" he called in reply. "Well, let's not just stand around up here where anyone can-"

He cut himself short when something peculiar in the howling of the wind caught his attention. It was higher pitched than the wind, and it only lasted a moment. He turned just in time to see a large winged form diving at them from behind, using the tailwind to build up immense speed. It was a huge creature, some twelve spans tall and with feathered wings and a vulture's head, but it also had a vaguely humanoid body, like a twisted Wikuni, a bipedal frame with heavy elements of a vulture, including a vulture's feet and tail. It was carrying a huge polearm, like a glaive but with a wicked triple hook on the backside of the single-edged blade, and that polearm was levelled at them like a lance wielded by a charging Knight.

Immediately, Tarrin knew what it was. He'd fought them before. They were called vrock, and they were Demons.

The first had found them. Tarrin laid back his ears and realized that he had to kill this one before it could report their position back to the others.

Pushing Jesmind aside, Tarrin squared himself and set to deal with the flying charge. The vrock, seeing that it was discovered, shrieked in fury, the sound Tarrin had heard, and levelled that polearm right at Tarrin's heart. Tarrin knew Demons, and he knew that the first thing the Demon was going to try was Teleporting right before it reached him and appearing behind him, where the full force of its flying charge would impale him on its deadly polearm. Teleporting behind someone seemed to be their favorite trick. Reaching out and putting his will against the Weave, Tarrin pulled it away from the vrock, isolating it from the magic of the Weave, and thereby cutting it off from the source of its Demonic powers. Tarrin couldn't directly affect a Demon, but he could strip them of their powers.

The Demon sensed it immediately, and its dark eyes turned flat with hate as it pulled in its wings and descended. Tarrin could see that it would pull out just before reaching the ground and attack head-on. It swooped down and its wings opened, pulling it up level and bringing it right at the pair of Were-cats faster than any horse could possibly run. With a scream of triumph, the vrock adjusted its aim to impale the Were-cat through the middle, and the Were-cat did not try to get out of the way.