The Mountain's Eye

It was a long journey to the western reaches of Eldria, as we moved away from the city, the land changed from the verdant plains that I had grown accustomed to, to a rough and hilly landscape, studded with rocks and inarable fields. We travelled on our horses and with a few pointers from Aladra, I begin to improve my riding skills.

The days passed by with our horses trotting along the dirt roads under the ever-watchful glare of the sun, and resting at night as we sat down to a technically edible meal that was quickly washed down with cups of mead. Nine days had passed, and, in that time, we had not encountered anything that gave us serious trouble, the worst that we faced was a nomad who had attempted to scam Korin out of his axe, offering an amulet of eternal protection in trade for it. According to the nomad it would return any fatal blows that the wearer received to the one who dealt them, unfortunately he couldn’t prove its authenticity without killing one of us. Korin had almost been convinced but luckily, he had had a problem with its design, claiming it to lack the superior craftsmanship of true dwarven gems.

Before we had departed from Alynthir we had brought our new contract to Rayall, asking him to join us but he had chosen to remain behind. He had claimed that his leg still pained him, and such a long journey would not do him any favours, though in truth I thought that he wished to spend more time with Crynthiel, the man was smitten.

As our journey progressed, we passed a range of people on the road, from traders, to caravans, to pilgrims, though few seemed to be travelling westward. From what we had heard from other travellers, the western reaches were gravely troubled, and most people wished to leave the land. There were few opportunities for trading with merchants being as likely to be robbed by the rebels as they were to be murdered by the Shale Island raiders.

On the ninth day of our journey we reached the mountains that acted as a natural border between the west coast and the rest of the kingdom. We had the option of travelling south and attempting to go around the mountains, though according to Aladra that would have added weeks onto the journey. That left us with two other options, we could either attempt to travel through the tunnels that led under the mountains and hope that we could find a way to the other side else we would become trapped and lost in the darkness; or we could travel over the mountains, though that would require us to lose our mounts as the terrain was too rough for them to navigate.

In the end we chose to go over the mountains, though it might take longer, it seemed to be the option that assured us with the best chance of actually making it to the other side. Fortunately we were able to find a merchant caravan that was headed to Alynthir and we arranged for them to take our horses with them. I was unsure of how much we could trust them, but Aladra hushed my worries, assuring me that caravans and adventurers had a good relationship as they used the roads the most and adventurers kept them safe from monsters. Reluctantly I said farewell to my chestnut steed that I had become fond of as we travelled, though I had not came around to naming her yet.

The route over the mountains was not as harsh as I had feared, there was no need for us to free climb up the rock faces or travel over narrow ledges that led to a steep drop. Instead, the most difficulty that we had was having to scramble over a few inconvenient rocks, whilst the path wasn’t fit for a horse to travel, just about anyone could mange it with ease. Everything was going well, until we found the skeleton.

It looked to be quite old, the flesh had been stripped from it completely and dust had coated the jerkin that it wore, it was almost comical to see clothing on a skeleton. We had been on our guard since we had seen it, and as we continued over the mountain, we came upon more and more skeletons in various states of decay. It was clear that there was something terrible in the mountain, and it had been there for a long time.

As we stopped by one of the bone piles, Korin knelt down to remove a couple of rings from the bones that marked its fingers. Sara had admonished him for it, though he had asked what use that the ring would have to a dead man. As we moved on from that particular corpse, we squeezed through a crevice and came out onto an open space, walled by the rock faces. Each time one of us squeezed through the gap, we stood in frozen silence at what we saw on the other side.

It appeared to be the sleeping body of an enormous man, easily twenty feet tall though it was on its side. Scattered around the open expanse that we stood in were countless skeletons, of humans, animals, and monsters alike. The only sound that could be heard was the almost whistling of the giant’s breath as it slept. I stared at the greyish flesh of the creature as I felt my heart hammering against the walls of my chest, if it tried to, the thing could crush each of us in a single blow.

I glanced towards Aladra, “What should we do?” I asked in a hushed breath, my eyes darting around for escape. Besides the crevice that we had came through, there appeared to be one clear path that continued through the mountain, and another crevice on the walls that surrounded us.

Aladra crouched down and looked at each of us with a hand over her mouth, indicating for us to remain quiet. She then proceeded to remove her shoes and motioned for us to remain where we were as she slowly crept around the arena that we found ourselves in, sticking to the walls. She stopped when she was halfway to the giant and looked at it for a moment before returning to us and reclaiming her footwear.

“Cyclops” she whispered, shaking her head. “Get too close and it will smell us, make too much noise and it will hear” she sighed and looked towards the path that continued through the mountains. It lay next to the head of the monster, too close for any measure of comfort. “I think we’re gonna have to kill it”

“How?” hissed Cleo, “ Like you said, it’ll wake up if we get close”

Aladra looked around the area before us, glancing from the walls to the corpses, to the Cyclops, “Yep” she whispered and rose from crouching to her full height, “we’ll have to be quick then. You two should probably go back through the crevice, if it hits one of us, there’ll be nothing you can do and you’ll probably be more of a target than help in a fight” she said to Sara and Cleo, “no offense” she added after she saw the glare that Sara gave her. She turned to Korin and me, “Aucus, I want you to go for the eye, take that out and we’ll win half the fight, Korin, you can bite the ankles” she said with a grin.

I nodded my head in agreement and Korin released a snort of air, Sara and Cleo both backed through the way we had come, though they stayed within the gap and watched us. Aladra raise a finger to her lips again and began to slowly creep forwards after drawing her knives.

I unsheathed my sword and Korin removed his axe from his belt as we began to step forwards behind Aladra. “Really wish I had that amulet right now” he said in a quiet voice. As we neared the body of the beast, it grumbled and rolled over, sniffing at the air. The eye snapped open, and I saw a bloodshot red orb staring at me, my heart skipped a beat.

“NOW!” Aladra yelled as she began to run towards the monster, “Run for it”

We both followed suit as we charged the cyclops, Korin letting out a loud yell which sounded pathetic against the earth-shaking roar that came from the Cyclops’ mouth. It began to sit up as we neared, “Quick, the eye” I heard Aladra’s voice come from her direction.

I didn’t know if I would be able to reach the eye in time as the Cyclops began to rise to its feet so I did the only thing that I could think of, I threw my sword. It spun through the air as I watched it with bated breath, halting in my stride as I no longer had reason to get close. The sun glinted from the steel as it spun in a wild arc and finally came to a halt, lodged into the red orb. The monster reached a hand to its face and roared again, this time in agony as spittle flew in my direction.

Korin charged the ankles and began to hack into the flesh repeatedly, attempting to wound the monster into returning to the ground. I readied my mana and prepared a lightning bolt; I had no idea how effective it would be against something of that size, but I had to do something. Aladra leapt from the ground to an unnatural height and slammed both her daggers into the chest of the Cyclops, screaming and yelling as she stabbed them in and out again, as though climbing up a glacier with a pair of ice axes.

The Cyclops flailed around, unsure where to pay its attention. One hand remained clutched to its eye as the other waved around its body, trying to fling Aladra off of it. Before it could touch her, she jumped away from it, leaving her knives lodged in. it also began to stamp around to combat Korin, sending waves of tremors running through the ground.

I released my lightning bolt and hit it in the chest, aimed for the bloody stain that Aladra had left behind. As the purple flash faded, it stumbled backwards and hit against the wall, loosening a few rocks, and sending them tumbling to the ground. Korin slammed his axe into the ankle one more time, reminding me of a forester felling a tree. The Cyclops roared again and seemed to become weak on that foot, though it remained upright.

Aladra turned to look at me and flashed a grin in my direction, the expression seemed to carry a wave of terror worse than the Cyclops as I worried about what she planned to do. Before I could ask, she pounced forwards, moving like an animal and climbed up the body of the Cyclops once more, coming to her feet on the top of the rock wall. The Cyclops turned its head to look at her, though I wasn’t sure how much it could truly see with a sword blocking its vision.

As the head of the monster faced Aladra, she grinned and punched it. I didn’t expect a blow from a woman of her size to do much against a more than twenty-foot-tall monster. Instead, a loud crack could be heard through the air, it stumbled backwards, falling over as its weight rested on the leg that Korin had been focusing on. She was bloody strong.

A groan came from the monster as I ran towards it to loosen my sword from the hold that its eye had on it. Korin cleaved his axe through the body as it lay on the ground and Aladra descended from the rock face, coming up to me. “Finish it off” she said, breathing heavily without showing any other signs of obvious exertion.

I looked down at it, I almost felt sorry for the monster as it lay helpless and in pain before me, the red of its eye pooling into the white as blood spread. Then I glanced towards the countless corpses that scattered the surrounding landscape and my pity fled. I raised my sword and plunged it downwards through the eye and piercing the brain until it reached the hilt. The Cyclops died instantly.

With the monster defeated, Sara and Cleo came out of the crevice and re-joined us once more. The girls heaped questions upon Aladra, begging to know how she had knocked it down with a single punch. She was vague with her answers as she tended to be, but from what I could figure out what she had done had involved the use of one her abilities.

Under the suggestion of Aladra, we used the rings that Orion had given to us to store the corpse of the Cyclops until we could find someone willing to purchase it for its parts. We also went around the corpses and found some valuables that Sara had came round to understanding that the dead had no need of anymore, it helped when she found an arm ring that she liked the look of. Whilst we looted the dead, Aladra began to prepare our lunch, with the sun cresting in the sky and what appeared to be a relatively safe place to rest. It seemed that the presence of the Cyclops had scared off other monsters from approaching too often.

Lunch was not pleasant. It was for from it, Aladra had decided to share with us a recipe that she had learned in her early days of adventuring when her party hadn’t purchased enough supplies for their journey. She went through the bodies of the recently killed monsters and served us a meal of Arachnyl legs roasted in troll fat with a serving of moss from the rock walls that she assured us was very nutritious.

The meat, if it could be called such a thing, did look pleasant. It had been cooked over a fire and featured the golden colour of something well cooked. When I bit into it however, the meat was stringy and tough to eat, the troll fat added some flavour to it, though when I remembered where the flavour came from, I felt a wave of nausea. Between us we only managed a few bites of the Arachnyl legs before resigning ourselves to eating just the moss, Aladra however finished off her meal and some of what we had left behind. From then on, it was decided that she would no longer be given then responsibility of cooking and we moved on to continue our journey.

We continued on through the pass that had lain close to the head of the Cyclops and found the travelling to be relatively smooth with the ground flattening out. The sounds of our footsteps echoed around us, surrounded on both sides by two tall sloping rock faces, the echoes became particularly annoying when Korin started to throw rocks to hear the sound of them. At last we reached the end of the path and came to where the two rock faces ended and sloped down in a V-shape that we could step pass.

As we climbed over the gap, I looked outwards and saw one of the best views of my life. Before me was a clear blue sky that merged with the horizon of the ocean in the distance, soft ripples of waves flowing across it as some smaller ships rocked whilst they fished the seas. Before me was a mixture of greens and greys as the mountains became livelier, stopping at a golden expanse of sand that separated the terrain from the seas. It was a beautiful sight, not just in that I could see the journey coming to an end, but it kept my feet locked in place as I took in everything that was before me.

Eventually, I was **** back to the others, and we carried on the rest of the way, now going down the mountain as the salty air buffeted our faces.