As they travelled, both of them became much more intense. All banter and playful chatter ceased as they got closer and closer to their goal, and they got even more grim every time a vrock appeared in the sky. They were getting deeper and deeper into the heart of their enemy's power, and both of them were completely focused on the tasks at hand and very serious. They both knew that this was not the time for fun and games. Their hunter's instincts had taken over, and they knew that in this situation, they were not the hunters, but the prey. So they had to be eternally vigilent against attack, else they would be captured and the life of their daughter would be forfeit.
After ten days of travel, with only seven days left until Gods' Day, they came over a high pass and could finally see a break in the jagged peaks, and were looking down over a great distance to the flat tundra. They still had about a day of travel through a series of narrow valleys like the ones through which they had been travelling, steep, often treacherous gorges between high peaks whose floors were nearly as steep as the walls that surrounded them. They had descended several thousand spans, steadily coming down, and now they could see the rest of the way down to the tundra below.
"Is that it?" Jesmind asked as they stopped to look down between the two peaks, look down to a featureless white plain.
"That's it," he told her in a weary voice.
"There don't seem to be any foothills."
"We're too far away to tell. We'll be another one or two days in the mountains. Maybe even three."
"Why three?"
"We might slow down," he said, pausing to kneel and pull out the book of charts. He checked the date, then looked up in the afternoon sky to the eastern horizon, where the faint outling of Vala, the Red Moon, was rising behind the whitish Skybands. It was in an early rising cycle, just a tad past half full, a cycle of rising during the day that would get pronouncedly earlier and earlier for the next six afternoons. All four moons were going to do that, so they could be out in the middle of the day to form the eclipsing conjunction. "And we need to find a cave where we can rest until we come down onto the tundra."
"I don't see anything out there."
"The pyamid is about two hundred longspans northeast," he told her. "We'll find patrols out, but the main army is there."
"Two hundred longspans on flat ground? Tarrin, it won't take us two days to do that."
"I figured on that back when we'd have to go through the snow," he told her. "Since this is alot faster and easier, we may have to meander around up here in the mountains for longer than I anticipated."
"How long will it take us to cross the tundra?"
"Four days," he said. "That's what I'm planning on, anyway."
"Why so long?"
"Because there are going to be patrols out," he told her. "We'll have to avoid them, and that's going to slow us down."
She snorted. "It would be easier to go through them."
"And leave a trail a child could follow," he said shortly, looking up at her.
"Fighting them would make me feel better."
"Yes, well, think about this. If we fight, we can't use the belts."
"Why not?" she demanded.
"What is blood, Jesmind?" he asked bluntly.
"Ohhhh," she said. "Well, we'll have to use weapons. Our claws may not be able to get past the skin, but I don't think it'll stop weapons."
"I hope not," he said.
"Then we'd better make sure," she said, extending the talons on the Cat's Claws. "Make your belt stop for a minute."
He understood what she wanted to do. Nodding, he put his book away and then deactivated the belt. He immediately sank four spans into the snow, his feet hitting enough solid matter to stop him when the snow was up to his waist. It was a little surprising to him, and he nearly lost his balance trying to shift his weight in the snow. Jesmind began to laugh uncontrollably, literally dropping onto her backside, unable to stop.
Tarrin glared at her a moment, then blew out his breath. "While you're laughing, I'm standing here for any flying Demon to see," he told her bluntly. "Now let's test this and move on."
"Sorry," she said, turning suddenly serious. "But it is funny, my mate."
"Fine. We can both laugh when we're somewhere safe." He held out his bet arm, offering his elbow. "Be careful. Those are magical weapons, love. Anything you do to me, I can't heal."
"Then how are we going to test it?" she asked. "I'm sure they'd cut your skin no matter what."
"No they wouldn't," he answered. "There's water in you skin, Jesmind. If you can draw blood, you can sink them all the way into my arm."
She nodded in understanding, retracting all the blades but the one over her index finger.
"You've got the hang of that, I see."
"It's really not that hard. Now hold still," she ordered, reaching the point of the blade towards his bare upper arm, above the fur line. Tarrin felt the icy cold touch of it, and it left blood behind when she drew it away from the gentle touch. Even such a light touch cut him with absolute ease, a testament to the lethal edge on those metal claws. "They work," she said, retracting the blade, then hooking him under his arm and hauling him out of the snow. She heaved him up quite easily, since his weight didn't even come close to challenging her inhuman strength, and Tarrin reactivated the belt before his feet touched the snow. They struck the snow like it was a solid surface, and he settled them down easily as a tiny thread of blood trickled down into his fur. He Conjured a small leather bandage and wrapped it around the cut, not wanting even a single drop of blood to fall into the snow and reveal that he had been there.
"Let's get moving," he announced. "Let's get as close to the tundra as we can, then find a cave to hole up and rest a while."
"I could use some," she grunted. "But it won't be as nice as the hot spring was."
"Welcome to reality," he told her as he reactivated the Illusion, and turned to start back down the valley.
They managed to get quite a distance before they found a cave to rest in for the night, and while Jesmind collapsed in it, Tarrin went up onto a small rock and stared up at the sky. All four moons had set long ago, leaving nothing but the brilliant stars and the Skybands. They had six days now, now that midnight had passed. In six days, he would have his daughter back. His family and Val's forces would be at war, a war in which even the gods were going to participate. They would be there to defend the army against Val's power, as much as they could without forcing a direct confrontation. Tarrin still felt a little angry about their cowardice, but on the other hand, he understood how chaotic things could get if one of the Elder Gods lost an icon. The natural force that god controlled would go wild, and would remain so until the god managed to create a new icon. The only god who could conceivably lose an icon and not have it cause major damage to the world was his own Goddess', Niami. She controlled only magic, but the destruction of her icon would kill any Sorcerer with even a modicum of power or training. That would literally strip the entire world of its magic, killing every creature that depended on magic, like dragons, Faeries, and Were-cats. Niami's banishment would make the whole world mundane, and he doubted that any magic would survive until she recreated her icon. She would return to a world that had been totally stripped of it magic, and that would make her a goddess with nothing to control. Or a goddess supplying a power to the world that nobody there would remember how to use, and as such it would be wasted.
He hated the idea of his sisters and friends fighting in that war. It would be so big, so charged with magic, that their lives were in very real jeopardy. But no matter what happened with Tarrin, that army had to be destroyed. They couldn't let it out of the tundra, where it could wreak havoc in Ungardt, Draconia, and Daltochan, then spread out to threaten all of the West. It was too big for any one kingdom to face alone. At least the gods would be there. If Val could attack the army of his allies, then the Elder Gods could turn around and attack Val's army. That was the deadlock, he saw. If the gods had to defend their own armies, their power cancelled one another out, and it would be up to the armies themselves to decide things. Neither god could strike at the other's army without letting down the defense of his own. They either let the armies decide it or both armies were annihilated, leaving a very tense standoff where Val may very well decide to throw caution to the wind and attack the Elder Gods directly.