The trek up the Dragon's Spines is exhausting and perilous. Twice you nearly fall to your death, both times accidents that could have been avoided were you an experienced climber or outfitted with the proper equipment.
On the fifth day you reach a valley that runs between the tallest of the Dragon's Spines. This will, at the very least, present you with a few days of travel less dangerous than climbing sheer rock faces.
The air is thin within the high valley, and what little plant life there is seems to be more acclimated for a desert than an evergreen forest. To the north and south are the tallest of the Dragon's Spines, dusty tan mountains capped with snowy peaks and sprinkled with a few pines.
Within the arid valley the thin air has somehow produced an odd heat that fatigues you late in the afternoon of each day. You can do no more than travel until a few hours before dusk and then collapse on the chalky earth into a fitful slumber.
You travel like this through the valley for what seems like weeks, but you keep careful track on the corner of your map so you don't lose all sense of time. Nine days you have traveled through the valley, and not a single sign of life.
No sooner have you thought this than you hear a strange screeching sound in the distance. You ascend over a swell in the valley floor and see a few hundred paces away that an armored figure is doing battle with two strange bird-like creatures.
You move closer and see that the bird-like creatures have the face and upper body of a beautiful, although very angry, woman and the lower body of a predatory bird. The man battling them is bloodied, his face concealed behind his helmet, and he does not seem to be doing very well. His swings lack strength, and the flying creatures fly up out of his reach and then dive in to open another cut in the weak spots of his armor.
You feel that perhaps you should assist him, but who knows if he is even in the right in this situation. |