Stephan reached for the root and gave it a cautious tug, barely putting any weight on it. The pinky-thick chunk of reddish wood flexed but held. He carefully increased the strength with which he pulled. Dry fibers creaked under his fingers, rough against his skin. An ominous sound, but he kept going.
When he was at about a tenth of his weight, a bit of rock came loose, dirt and grit tumbling past and down into the void, but the root still held. He added a couple extra pounds to his pull, and with a sharp crack, the plant snapped.
“Useless,” he muttered under his breath, as he chucked the root behind his back. He glanced left and right, the cliff stretching endlessly in both directions, then he picked the seemingly easier route.
Stephan climbed for what felt like hours, living in the ever-repeating mantra of grip, test, pull, grip, test, pull. His world shrank and distilled, excluding everything outside his hand’s reach. Then, once more his fingers failed to find the expected rock-face. He pulled himself onto a ledge, this one wide enough for him to lie on. The cliff loomed above him, kissing the sky, but definitely less steep than the two walls he had scaled.
He risked a glance down. The world tilted, and his heart started banging in his chest. He was at least a hundred and twenty feet up, meaning he had covered half the climb. Meaning the fall was very much fatal.
He rolled onto his back, staring up at the pale sky, forcing his breathing to slow.
“How long have I been up here?” he shouted.
“Not long,” Muriel yelled. “Fifty breaths or so. How are you doing? We can’t see you.”
“I’m fine.” Fifty breaths? It feels like I’ve been here all morning.
Stephan righted himself, then without looking back or ahead, he resumed his climb, which had become a crawl up a really steep, crumbling hill.
His fingers sank into the dry earth more often than they found rock, clumps of tough grass and blackberry thorns biting into his palms. They snagged skin and dug into the soft flesh between his fingers. Still, it wasn’t that bad. While certainly unpleasant, he understood how Grace had survived her quick descent.
He healed his scratched hands, and again, before giving up and just enduring the pain. Once upon a time, mere weeks ago, at least to everyone else, Stephan had earned himself a nasty cut picking blackberries outside town. And Lady Clara certainly wasn’t healing such nonsense for free.
Stephan smirked. He still remembered how the curved thorns had slashed his skin and pierced his flesh with ease. And now, he was squeezing the dangling canes and using them like a rope, hardly any of them drawing blood.
The blackberries proved a blessing, handfuls of their loose branches as sturdy as ropes, while their tough roots clung to the ground so hard they easily supported his weight.
They were stronger than they looked, and considering how much trouble they had given him when he helped with the weeding back home, it made sense.
After the first two sections of the cliff, the topmost one proved the easiest. Thus Stephan paid even more attention. He had learned that in life you fail the moment when you’re the most confident in your success. Almost as if the gods were punishing confidence.
Suddenly, a clump of thorny canes shifted in his hand as he exerted half his weight on them. The root gave just as Stephan let go. It tumbled down, and beneath it, Stephan saw a black-scaled tail disappearing into the neighboring brambles.
Are black serpents venomous? Stephan eyed the patch in which he knew the snake was hiding, then decided to take the long way around. No point poking the viper.
Soon, the top of the cliff was within reach, and just as Stephan started feeling elated about his achievement, he remembered he had to go back down, then climb up once more with Grace on his back.
I’m not sure the blackberries will hold. She’s a skinny girl, but she still has to have at least a hundred pounds.
He made the final stretch and reached the top infested with brambles. He looked at all the canes and had an idea.
“Muriel, can I make rope from all these blackberries?” He yelled down.
“No,” she shouted without even pausing to consider his plan. “It’s too brittle, and you’d take half a day to weave it!”
“All right!” He looked back towards the forest.
Pushing our way through this is going to be loads of fun. Stephan took a deep breath. He dispelled thoughts of Lacy’s colorful language and glanced down the cliff.
It was steep, but not unclimbable. He bit his lip, thinking whether he could run down or not. In the end he exhaled and turned around, descending slowly. It should’ve been easier in his mind, but it wasn’t. While he had the feeling he was scaling the bluff blindly, his eyes were scanning for handholds at least a little, and the muscle strain was for some reason greater going down than when he was climbing up.
He’d been at it for a while, his internal complaints never stopping, when two thick needles stabbed into his leg. Stephan risked a glance down and saw a black snake, three feet long, dangling from his calf. He panicked and started kicking; the earth crumbled beneath his fingers, and in the next moment, Stephan was in the air.
His back smashed a bush to pieces, then he spun, cartwheeling and grabbing at anything he could. His shoulder cracked as it slammed into the ledge, bone breaking. The impact slowed him, and his hand found a crevice, sliding into it, and yanking his body to a halt.
His head was ringing when he realized someone was screaming.
“You all right, Steve? Answer me! Say something.”
“Alive,” he croaked, then cleared his throat. “I’m alive!”
The panicked screams stopped, but Stephan’s world of pain just started. The origin of Grace’s cuts and bruises suddenly became much more familiar to him.
He healed his broken shoulder and sprained wrist, then took care of his smaller injuries. His clothes were torn, and the snake clinging to his calf was crushed. He ripped it off and threw it over the ledge, only for Grace to scream a few seconds later as the dead serpent hit the ground.
Right, I’m immune to poison. Stephan chuckled nervously, glad he was still alive, and feeling foolish about the moment’s panic. He should’ve just ignored the snake and kept climbing down.
“At least I covered half the cliff in a blink,” he muttered, then looked down. It was a long fall, but the footing was better, and he had seen no snakes on the lower reaches of the cliff.
Still, Stephan took a minute to breathe and exist and focus on the next portion of the neck-breaking descent.
Then he took off his boots, tied the laces together, and slung them over his shoulder. He slid his legs over the ledge, bare feet searching for support. He found none, but drove his toes against the soft rock, digging a foothold for himself.
The going was slow and brutal. Stephan forced his way down blindly, realizing his feet couldn’t search nearly as wide an area for cracks, nor nearly as carefully as his hands could. Still, the descent was mechanical and much easier than the one that had sent Stephan tumbling.
And then, the ledge was there again, narrower than the last, but no less solid. Stephan glanced down. The rock-face was sheer, almost perfectly vertical, but there was only thirty feet down.
I can survive this even if I fall. Relax and take your time.
“You’re doing great, Steve!” Muriel cheered him on from somewhere nearby, but he couldn’t see her.
“Just stand clear, in case I fall.”
“Don’t worry, we’ve already moved away, but try not to fall,” she said. “It shouldn’t kill you, but you never know.”
Yeah, you never know. Maybe I should take more time climbing up and down to learn how to do it well in case I need it again?
It was an idea worth considering—later. When he, Muriel, and Grace were safely at the top of the cliff, or even better under a solid roof, eating or sleeping.
Once more, Stephan almost slid over the ledge when another thought struck him. What if I climb down, head first? I will be able to find handholds more easily.
He leaned over to try it, when all the reasons not to hit him at once. He would fall straight down on his head, breaking his neck, and just the lean-over made him feel dizzy, so he quickly drew his head back and started climbing down slowly.
He was halfway there when he could no longer find a place to put his foot.
“Stand clear, I’m jumping off.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Grace shouted, but Muriel didn’t protest, and Stephan allowed himself to fall, clawing at the bluff with everything he had.
In less time than a man would need to draw a breath, his feet slammed against the ground, and that was it. He had some scrapes, and a sharp rock tore his foot open, but he healed both with a simple surge of spirit.
Then he turned toward the women. “I believe I can climb this with Grace on my back.”
“Your clothes look like you’ve been rolling in brambles,” Muriel stated the obvious. “And I think you could have just jumped off that last ledge, seeing how you weren’t even shaken by dropping from halfway up.”
Stephan eyed her. He could tell she had more to say. “And?”
“And you scared the girl half to death when you threw one of the most venomous snakes I know of at her feet. Good job killing it before it bit you.”
Yeah… Before it bit me…
AN: You have no idea how tempted I was to have him die falling off a cliff. Unfortunately, the combination of agility, toughness, and luck makes it impossible. This time. I tried, though. And yes, I do pay attention to his stats, they aren’t just numbers.