“Run! Run for the cover of the rocks!” A misty, wraithlike Sorrel whispers to the ice elves, exhorting them to save themselves. The silvery-haired beings carry Jarin’s unconscious form into the rubble-strewn area of the plateau seeking the shelter of some huge boulders and chunks of ruined castle wall. It is not easy for them to manoeuvre with their shackled feet but they do so with surprising grace and mutual coordination all the same. Once out of sight of the gnomes they start employing their rock-breaking tools to try to sever the chains that connect their ankles, whilst one of them tends to Jarin, binding his wounds with strips of their own ragged clothing.

The northernmost gang of gnomes finish off the dragon-man between them and start to move into the rubble-strewn area in pursuit. But Valaina has emerged from the top of the watchtower and can see the situation developing; it does not look good for the elves and Jarin. Breaking steel chain links in a hurry with a pickaxe isn’t as simple as task as some yarns would have one believe, and the only means of escape from the plateau is the pathway that leads to the rope bridge that Jarin crossed. And there are yetis and huge dogs waiting on the other side of that bridge….

Valaina focuses her attention on the group of fugitives and utters a few words of power for a short-ranged translocation. In an instant, she has materialised beside them. She radiates a beguiling presence as she gives her kinsmen a condescending and yet seductive smile. She speaks to them in elvish, in soft, reassuring tones. The elves initial reaction to her is fearful; two of the older ones have a look of recognition in their eyes and they give a shout of warning. The four of them brandish rocks and pickaxes and seem ready to fight, but as her honeyed tones waft over them the hostility melts from their expressions and they drop their weapons, responding in awed voices. All save one who utters words of contempt and keeps a firm grip on his pickaxe. She stares at him sharply and directs bitter words at him, and the other elves join her in rebuking him. Realising there is little he can do alone he acquiesces.

A giant gnome is approaching the area snarling something ugly under his breath. Valaina makes some mystical passes and covers them in illusion. They thus succeed in avoiding the gnome, sneaking away stealthily as he pokes behind and under rocks with his halberd.

Albrigon is pounding up the stairs with a certain ice-elf shamaness slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain, freed from her shackles now but unable to do much more than stagger about dizzily in her still-weakened state. Ugrat follows behind with his lolloping, slightly apish gait. Gnomes have entered the base of the tower and are chasing them upwards now. They reach the top of the tower. “Where’s Valaina?” He scans the plateau for friendly faces. “Where’s everyone else for that matter?”

“Lookz like zhe ran out n’uz” snorts Ugrat. “I knews ve couldn’t truzt her!”

“Uller’s Balls! Here comes trouble! Look!” Albrigon points towards the main keep. The skeletal dragon has alighted on the roof and seven gaunt-looking gnomes are clambering onto its bony spine. “Are those the creepy gnomes you saw in there with your demon-sight, Ugrat?”

The tall barbarian’s furry companion peers intently towards this new threat. “I zink so, yess. Ve need get out ov heer. Zhey velly bad I zink.” He takes a peek over the eastward battlement of the watchtower, looking down at the three hundred foot drop to the bottom of the glaciated ravine. “I haf idea. You hold onto me, ve jump together. I safe uz from broken bonez. You trust me, I do ziz no problem…..er…..I zink…”

“Jump? You took a blow to the head or something, ratty man?”

“I haf magic ring, it save Ugrat life before, I zink it can do it ‘gain. Letz go, you wiz me or you want try luck wiz Keraptis gnomes und bony dragon? I go now.”

“All right, ratty, I’ll make a bet the norns aren’t about to cut my thread off yet! I’m with you!”

Clutching the shamaness tightly with one burly arm he grabs the rat man’s hand and they leap as far out into space as they can…..the ground is racing up towards them, the rocky cliff face whizzing past as icy air screams past them…..then suddenly their fall is slowed with an almost perceptible jolt, the air feels much thicker around and underneath them and they find themselves floating like feathers through the last thirty feet of their descent, touching lightly down on the icy surface. As soon as they touch the ground their weight returns to them and they scramble to their feet and start to run down the ravine….they lose their footing in a trice and end up sliding helter-skelter down the glacial spur in a tangle of limbs until their momentum carries them into a heaped up drift of loosely packed ice and snow in the crook of a bend in the ravine. Three heads emerge from the snow….it seems they are all intact. Albrigon bursts out laughing, hugging the slim shoulders of the ice-elf shamaness with one strapping arm. “Woo-hoo! Now that was what you call a rescue, eh?” The silver haired woman forces a weak smile. Albrigon, having spent a number of his younger years in the company of wood elves, understands some of her sorrowful response; “Thank you for saving me, human. But what of my people? What of the children, who are turned to stone? I am nothing without my tribe.”

“Aw, don’t you worry your pretty head about that. We’ll sort it all out, won’t we Ugrat?”

“Yez, yez….maybe…..now we hide under zis yeti-skin cloak I got, we camouflage for while. K’raptiz still gon’ look fr’uz.”

“Hey, I wonder if the others made it out of that place alive? Hope Chillwind’s not been turned into yeti-food.”

By now, Mia is surreptitiously making her own way back down the ravine with the aid of her ring of chameleon power, the snakey Chillwind squirming about in her shoulder bag. Her mental powers enabled her to safely descend from the plateau in a manner not dissimilar to Ugrat and Albrigon, though with a little more grace.

Sorrel has no trouble making good his escape now he is wind walking, but he remains to observe the fate of Jarin, Valaina and the ice-elves. As the skeletal dragon takes to the wing seeking those who have absconded with the shamaness it is left to the gnome ground troops to re-capture the ice elves. Valaina manages to distract them by conjuring some goblinoid creatures that jeer and cat-call, baiting the gnomes and grabbing their attention while the ice-elves sneak away, still covered by illusion for part of their escape at least. Their chains have by now been broken and they are, quite naturally, extraordinarily capable rock-climbers even in these icy conditions, all having lived in the mountains for two hundred years or more.

Jarin is another matter. He is carried to the edge of the plateau but his unconscious form cannot be taken down the cliff-side by the ice-elves. Valaina has exhausted much of her reserves of magical energy and does not have the power to manage another translocation without a goodly period of rest.

Valaina finds a coil of silk rope in his backpack. Balancing on a narrow ledge a little way down the cliff-side she casts the rope upwards, uttering a chant and putting forth her power. She is then able to sequester his body in the invisible, intangible space at the top of the rope’s height. The bewitching elf then descends the cliff with her (by and large) enthralled kinsmen and leaves Jarin to his fate, watched over by a vaporous Sorrel.

Jarin comes around an hour later, his wounds still painful and his body aching, but in the process of healing itself. Another one I owe you, father. He finds himself in the strange grey nothingness of the space Valaina has created, the only visible things being the small exit window opening out onto what appears to be a cliff edge, and his coil of rope. Having been apprised of his situation by the whispering Sorrel, he eventually manages to muster the concentration to magically transform himself into mist and head back down the mountain on the wind alongside the priest of Aegir, overtaking the others on foot who are most surprised when they find him and Sorrel waiting for them with the kettle on the fire by the time they stride back into camp!

Previous Installments:

Quest For The Hanging Glacier - Part 1
Quest For The Hanging Glacier - Character Sketch: Snake
Quest For The Hanging Glacier - Part 2
Quest For The Hanging Glacier - Character Sketch: Albrigon
Quest For The Hanging Glacier - Part 3
Quest For The Hanging Glacier - Part 4
Quest For The Hanging Glacier - Character Sketch: Ugra’at
Quest For The Hanging Glacier - Part 5
Quest For The Hanging Glacier - Part 6