Chương 57: Ancient Structure

Jonny couldn't feel his legs anymore. They had been hurting for a little while, but now the pain was gone. He knew that was probably not a good thing, but they were still moving, and that was all he really cared about. He had managed to see the cloud hawk actually arrive at its nest, or at least what he thought was its nest. It was high at the top of a mountain peak, of course, but it was the closest mountain peak to him. A doable hike in the four hour time limit. That was what he thought at the time, anyway.

Then, he reached the mountain. He had thought it was lucky that they didn't encounter any other magic beasts on the way there. He thought it might have been that the storm had them all hunkered down, but once he got back above the treeline on this new mountain, he learned the truth. There was just nothing there. Nothing but rock, snow, more rocks, and more snow. He would have been surprised if even the gravity goats bothered with this area.

The rough terrain kept other beasts out, which was good, because his mana was so depleted he doubted he could have fought very well, but it was also bad, because it kept him out too. There was no obvious route to the top. He found himself doubling back every few minutes after taking what he thought was a good path, only for it to taper off into an almost sheer cliff upward. If he was alone, he could have gotten up no problem.

There were not truly vertical cliffs, and he was more than strong enough to haul himself up the steep slopes if he wanted to. It was a completely different story with Igrette in tow. He was actually glad he didn't have the wolf pelt anymore, because it would have limited him so much more if he insisted on continuing to use it. But, despite everything, he kept climbing. He climbed until all he could see of the forest was a vague darkness beneath the snow-covered leaves, and then kept going.

The mountain got steeper, the snow got deeper, and Igrette felt heavier and heavier in his arms, but he barely slowed. And now, finally, he was getting close. He could feel the mana getting denser with every step. The mana well was directly above him. It wasn't much further.

"Igrette, wake up," he said.

"We're almost there!" She did not respond. She had not responded to anything he said since she passed out. The only reason he even knew she was alive was that he could faintly feel her mana moving within her. He hadn't noticed it initially, but as he hiked, and needed something to distract him from his exhaustion, he had focused on his mana sense. Her mana was faintly concentrated around her wound. There was barely any of it left, but it was trying to heal her. She was still there.

"Just a few more minutes," he said.

"It's not much further!" He tried to stay upbeat, but his voice was hoarse. He was starving, and thirsty, and his head was swimming, but he knew he couldn't stop. His goal was too close, and every second was precious. He paused a moment to look at the path above him, or lack thereof. The snow was so deep in most places that it came up to his shoulders, but over it, he saw that the slope continued upward, getting steeper and steeper until it became a stony cliff face.

To either side, the snow sloped up more gently, but it wrapped around in a way that he couldn't see if which path, if any, would take up to the top. Since he had no way of telling, he chose at random, marching to the left, trying to keep Igrette's head from dragging through the snow with one hand. The path seemed promising at first, but quickly narrowed until the snow was only a few feet wide, and he stopped.

There was a cliff going up to his right, and a cliff going down to his left, and he didn't know how much more solid ground he actually had ahead of him. He gritted his teeth and turned around, this time trying the right path. It seemed more promising at first, but it wasn't long before he encountered the same issue, and had to stop again. For the first time in a while, he stopped moving entirely. He wasn't sure what to do.

This was as close as he had ever gotten, and the last place he remembered seeing a potential alternate route was almost ten minutes back. Everything else up until then had been obvious dead ends, or more cliffs.

"Fuck!" he shouted. The only response was the sound of the wind. He cursed a few more times, then turned to head back. Standing around wasn't going to help. He needed to get to the top, and complaining was a waste of time. He took a step forward, heading back down the way he came, but his foot slipped. He was so tired he didn't even notice properly until he was already halfway off the ledge, and by then, it was too late to save himself.

It was not a sheer, ninety degree cliff, but there was no way to stop himself before he hit the ground fifty feet below. All he could do was put a hand on the back of Igrette's head to brace her neck, and use what little mana he had been able to inhale over the past few minutes to brace his body. The landing hurt. Even as empowered as his body was, the impact bruised his heels, and sent a jolt through his entire body. He didn't pay his own pain any attention, though, instead focusing all his attention of Igrette.

If she noticed the fall, she gave no sign, and if it hurt her, he couldn't tell. Her mana was still working, and that was all that mattered. He let himself have ten seconds of rest. Ten seconds to gather himself and force back the pain in his feet. Then, he stood back up, and took in his surroundings. He was not in a place he had been before. Aside from the spot he had landed, the snow was completely undisturbed.

But, there was a path going upward to his left, so after making sure there was nothing else he was missing, he started trudging right back up. He made it two steps on throbbing feet before he tripped over a rock and nearly dropped Igrette. He cursed, then righted himself and took one more step before tripping on another rock. This repeated three times more before he stopped. Random rocks under the snow weren't unusual. Five evenly spaced rocks in a row right at tripping height was strange.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. With his foot, he felt around the rock he had just tripped over. It was long, and smooth and flat, and it seemed to go straight up before turning perfectly level. Almost like a stair… His eyes widened, and he turned around and felt ahead with his foot until he found another identical "rock." It's stairs!

There was only one reason that there would be stairs this high up in the mountains, and if Igrette was correct about every mana well in the region having those stone circles…

"Igrette!" he shouted.

"We made it!" Now that he was aware of the stairs, it was easy to figure out how frequent they were. He stopped tripping, and even though he was pushing through feet of snow, his pace accelerated. Beneath all that snow, his footing was stable.

The stairs were not perfectly even, since thousands of years of weather added to the already irregular shape of the mountain made for some strange sections, but even the most damaged parts were still traversible, and before long, the mana was as dense as the mana well by the orphanage, and growing denser with each step. After just a few more minutes, he had finally reached it.

Right near the top of the peak, there was an arch leading directly into the mountain, and the snow in front of it had been largely cleared away. It was too dark to see much inside, even though the sun was finally starting to peek through the clouds, but there was no doubt in Jonny's mind that he had found the hawk's nest. The mana just outside the arch was already at the level of the first mana well they took, and he knew that inside, it would be even better, but now that he had made it, he was suddenly nervous.

Cloud hawks didn't attack humans usually, but it would be different if he tried to approach their nest? Did he need to get in, or could they just stay out there? He glanced down at Igrette, who was paler than ever. Despite the mana density, her healing didn't seem to be getting any faster. He had no idea if the six hours had already passed or not. Staying out here was a risk, but going in was a risk too. He looked back up at the arch, then back at Igrette, then back at the arch, and took a deep breath.

If he tried to stay out here and she died, he would never forgive himself. If the hawk attacked when he went in, he would at least have a chance to fight for her life. He walked up the final few steps, stopping just in front of the arch. He planned to set Igrette down while he went in alone, but at that moment, a feathered head suddenly poked out of the darkness inside. The cloud hawk regarded him with a glimmer in its eyes that almost looked like intelligence, and Jonny stared back at it.

"Please," he said.

"I won't hurt you. Please just let us in." If the hawk understood what he was saying, he couldn't tell. He doubted he would ever know. But it didn't attack, so he took a cautious step forward. It backed up a step as he did, and it backed away even further when he stepped all the way into the archway. It looked wary of him, but it also didn't look hostile just yet.

Jonny took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, and half a minute later found that the archway did not lead directly to the stone circle he knew must have been in there. Through the arch, the hallway made a sharp left, and curved gently to the right until it ended again, with another opening to the right. Strangely enough, it wasn't as dark as he thought it would be. There was no direct light on the far end of the hall, but he could still see the stone wall just fine.

He continued forward, moving slowly so as not to alarm the hawk, which was backing up with every step he took. The temperature grew warmer with each step, and the wind disappeared entirely. When he reached the end of the hall and turned right, he let out a gasp. He recognized it as one of the stone circles like the rest, but it was unlike any he had ever seen. Every pillar was intact, the ground was only lightly cracked, and the carvings glowed.

They covered every surface, sometimes looking like letters, and other times just looking like interesting patterns. There were eight pillars in total, and from each one, carved stone writing extended like wheel spokes toward the center, both on the ground and on the ceiling. The writing continued along the walls, but between the spokes on the ground and the ceiling, the carvings looked more like images.

Jonny could have spent hours looking at them all, but he only got a quick look around, before his attention was taken by what lay at the center of the room. The cloud hawk had backed up all the way to the circular stone table, and was now spreading its wings wide, as if to block him from coming any closer. The cloud hawk was already taller than Jonny was, so when it spread its wings, it seemed to blot out nearly half of the glowing writing.

Behind it, on the raised stone table, was a nest made of sticks and bones, and sitting in the nest was a second cloud hawk that was currently glaring at him with undisguised hostility. The first cloud hawk looked more like it was posturing, but the one in the nest looked like it actually wanted to kill them.

Jonny was tempted to back away before the hawk decided that killing him was more important than incubating the eggs in the nest, but he couldn't the mana was nearly twice as dense in here than it was outside, and Igrette needed every bit of it she could get. Even being at the edge of the room in here was infinitely better than being right at the archway outside. He took a step to the side, making sure to stay along the edge of the wall.

The first cloud hawk shifted with him, making sure that it blocked his path to the center no matter what, but Jonny didn't pay it any attention. He slowly crouched down, laying Igrette gently on the ground, keeping his gaze locked onto the nesting hawk the whole time.

"We just want shelter," he said calmly.

"I won't attack your babies. If you just let us stay in peace, nobody needs to get hurt." The hawks didn't respond, but they didn't attack either. Jonny slowly shifted Igrette over toward the edge of the room so she was right against the wall, then stood in between her and the hawks.

"I want to protect Igrette, you want to protect your mate," he said to the hawk with its wings spread.

"There's no need to fight. There's plenty of mana to share." Jonny and the hawks stayed like that for nearly half an hour, in an awkward standoff that only ended when Jonny's exhaustion began to catch up with him, and he started swaying on his feet. He tried to keep his stance, but he knew it was a losing game, so he instead lowered himself down into a crouch. When he got down, the hawk on the ground finally folded its wings too, and when Jonny sat all the way on the ground, it sat down too.

It was clearly ready to move at a moment's notice, but it had decided that Jonny was not an immediate threat anymore. Jonny breathed a sigh of relief, turning his attention to Igrette. The hawks were still a threat, but he had more important things to worry about.

"Igrette," he said, shaking her shoulder.

"Wake up. You need to heal yourself."