Chapter V, Reading 4

After several hours of struggling up the trail, they reached the base of the cliff.  Now she could see the path led to an entrance of a narrow pass.  A massive boulder nearly the size of a house stood in front of the entrance, which obscured the view of the pass from the trail below.

This defile sliced through the ridge and led to the top of the mountain.  The slopes on either side of the trail rose steeply from the path and soon merged into rocky cliffs above.  The steep cliffs rained rocks down the slope nearly blocking the trail in several places.

Flindra slackened her hold on the reins to make it easier for Deru to carefully pick his way along the talus-choked path.  The rocks protruding above the drifted snow were coated with an ice crust for this pass lay within the perpetual shadows cast by the towering cliffs.  The horse struggled with the uneven and slippery footing and stumbled several times.

"This isn't working," Flindra whispered and reined him to a stop.  She glided from the saddle and gathered the reins in her hand.  She slipped around him and began leading him up the treacherous trail to spare herself a potentially bone crushing fall.  She was able to step around or over the worst of the icy spots and Deru was able to keep to his feet without her weight on his back.

While she walked, she concentrated on intensifying Rigga's power shield.  There was something gloomy or somehow sinister about the shadowed pathway and she struggled to keep fear from edging into her thoughts.

"Guide my steps, dear Lord," she whispered and kept the knowledge of His presence close to her heart to leave no room for fear.

She was relieved when they finally reached the crest and emerged from the pass.  The blast of the north wind peppered her face with blowing ice, but she could see the landscape around her location and felt more comfortable.  The topography was vastly different on the north side of the mountain range.  Here there were no steep slopes or rocky cliffs.  Instead, there was a gradual decline in elevation until the slope intercepted the vast plain of the Northern Reaches.  No enemy could remain hidden in this barren landscape.

This was the domain of the wind.  The snow from the storm had blown away - had blown up the slope and had been deposited in tremendous snow cornices on the south side of the ridge.  Lonely trees dotted the landscape on the northern slope.  They did not grow straight but rather bent toward the ground seeking shelter from the wind.  Branches only grew on the south half of the trees to minimize the effect of the prevailing north wind.  Their roots clung fiercely to the ground to keep from being uprooted.

Flindra took out the crystal orb once more and checked the direction she needed to continue.  The crystal glowed when pointed in a northeast direction, roughly perpendicular to the axis of the Greyfell Mountains.  She mounted and continued onward.

The descent from the mountains was easy and Flindra soon found herself looking across the barren landscape of the Northern Reaches.  This was a desolate land and there was very little vegetation.  There were patchy grasses growing low to the ground with an occasional bent and tortured pine punctuating the horizon.

The crystal orb still prompted her to continue in a northeasterly direction through this bleak landscape.  The wind still howled from the north so she had to keep her face turned down and to the side to escape the worst of the icy blast.  Deru also carried his head to the side and she had to use the pressure of her legs to keep him going in the proper direction.