The Ghaldo Mountain 3

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"Hey Rylan, you ok?" Russle asked, "You look like a wreck." They both looked at Rylan, it was practically unheard of for the calm man to show any emotion. He was about to comment when the familiar gruff voice of Veriel cut through the chatter.
"All right, pack up and get in line!" chief Veriel called out.
They moved out soon after. The captain had been honest, the terrain got a lot rougher soon after. The trail they were following was easy enough to follow, but it by no means meant it was easy to traverse. The strange thing though was that as they walked on it felt like it was getting warmer and damper. The vegetation seemed to reflect it as well as thick green moss seemed to grow everywhere and on every surface. The rumors about Joel seemed to hold true. He had not joined them when they marched out and Belran had stayed behind to see to him. As Belran was known to be a cruel bastard that puzzled several of the men, but they knew to hold their mouth shut when the chief was within ears reach. They ended up walking through the day and long into the night. At noon they had entered a green valley. It was like they were down in the lowlands again apart from the thinner air. Life was abundant here, with a myriad of colorful birds; they had even seen a flock of some large animals with curved horns and fiery red tails crashing through the woods and over their trail. At the end of the trail the temple would be, and the last chapter of their long and hard training to become feytier and join a select elite of the Kinesteli empire. The pace was grueling but sometime before midnight they saw it. It was breath-taking, high on a giant vertical rock it was. Several waterfalls cascaded out of it as well. It was clearly no ordinary place.
"Wow," Russle exclaimed, "that climb is going to kill me...." To that he had to agree, but he couldn’t wait. Here his is dreams of becoming a feytier would come true!
The climb had been far worse than he could ever have imagined before they began moving up the hellish trail up the sheer cliff side. At first they had all been distracted by the stunning structure with its giant white temple, but as they got closer to the base the size and height of if started to become apparent.
"How the heck did people build that, and why here?" he exclaimed and groaned.
"Who ever said that people built it? Looks more like something a bloody dragon would have built" Russle replied.
"Hey shut up will you, we don’t need any bad luck now!" one of the other guys shot in as he passed by up the trail. Some people regarded anything concerning dragons as sacred and riddled with good and bad luck.
"Country bumpkin" Russle grumbled when he got out of ears reach of the guy.
"Look who is talking, aren’t we both from a wee little village?"
"Don’t make me a bumpkin for being born in a wee place, it’s the people who lives there who makes one a stupid inbred bumpkin, superstitious fools." He just shook his head and steeled himself for the trail. It was still relatively flat, but now the cliff side was coming close. How the heck were they supposed to get up there? Looking up he could hardly spot the temple roofs any longer over the sheer sides of the monolithic rock. A short hike later and they gathered up at the foot of what looked like a narrow trail heading up the cliff face, a true goat trail if ever there was one. He groaned inwardly while several others complained outward at the sight.
"Listen up all, we rest up a little here and then we start the climb. It's a hard, narrow and a long but quick way down for most of the trek from here. Take care and don’t slip, roll or get blown off the cliff side. You are all on your own from here until we reach the bottom levels of the temple, from there its actual stairs.
The climb was pure evil. He had no better word for it, just pure evil. His thighs was half numb and half burning, his left hand was bleeding from a cut when he almost fell and had to grab a gnarly bush with brutish thorns. He had tied some cloth around it, but it did little for the pain. He couldn’t even appreciate the view, sure it was breathtaking, but it also afforded a look down towards an abrupt stop after a long fall. His stomach lurched at the sight of the black abyss below. Overhead the stars twinkled and the second moon Sirvil cast a silvery sheen over the distant snow capped peaks.
Up ahead the narrow trail dived in behind a waterfall, it was impressive watching the masses of misty water rushing down from far above, but it also made the trail really slippery. Here someone had actually driven some poles down into the rock and tied a rope to it, otherwise he didn’t see how they would ever have gotten past the smooth stone made slippery by the constant water rushing past and slimy moss. He got to wonder where all the water came from, it made no sense once he started to think about it, where did it come from? A gut-wrenching high pitched scream culled all further though process, looking back he spotted a figure waving frantically, becoming smaller and fainter as it fell. He didn’t even hear the impact over the whistling of the wind and water. Looking ahead he spotted Russle, dark faced and grim. He caught his eye and gave a shudder, then they moved on up the trail, there was nothing they could do but not fall themselves. The pain in his hand a stark reminder of his own close call. Hours later they reached a recess in the mountain that revealed an opening into the stone. Inside there was a cavern with a small pond and the start of the stairs. Holes in the cliff side acted as windows. The group gathered here, and several rested by the pond, drinking water or just sitting or lying haphazardly in utter exhaustion. He managed to refill his flask and take a few careful sips trough dry cracked lips before he collapsed along a wall besides Russle. They were soon joined by Rylan. Besides them anther guy, Eliso started snoring where he sat up against the wall.
They both looked to the stairs, before exchanging an evil grin. “Stairs….” he tested a leg, but gave up on standing up and as he closed his eyes the exhaustion overtook him.