Anowon bowed his head a bit. As you say.
How do you think they released them? Nissa said. If she knew how the planeswalkers had released the brood, perhaps she could release the titans if she could convince Sorin to allow it. And if he does not consent? Nissa thought.
They found a way to open the lock of Ugin, Anowon said. A lock that has defied the Eldrazi for thousands of years. I have no idea how it was done. Perhaps it was their very presence that triggered the lock.
Just then there was a scuff, and Sorin appeared out of the darkness. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and moved his great sword s scabbard so it was in the proper position. He smiled.
I have found what we need, and it is close, he said.
What? Nissa asked.
Supplies, Sorin said as he turned and began walking. Come.
They walked through the darkness back in the direction of Affa. Nissa could hear Sorin s scabbard thumping softly against his thigh as he walked. They neared a fire, next to which a figure was lying, apparently asleep.
Why does this settlement appear so calm and unprotected? Nissa thought. The brood are running feral over the land, and I have not seen an armed guard yet in this settlement.
As they neared the fire, Sorin put one finger up to his lips and pointed at a large tent. The two dulam beasts tethered next to it snorted as Sorin approached, but Nissa stroked their necks and they calmed.
Nissa was unsure how it was going to work. They would wake the man if they went through his tent. He would hear them, surely. Sorin carefully threw back the flap of the tent and entered.
The vampire started handing items out to Nissa and the others. Rope appeared, as did wedges and mallets for climbing, small bags of zim grain and dried meat. Sorin kept handing out goods, but when Nissa saw the jar filled with a glowing substance appear in his hand, she snatched it and tucked it into an inner pocket of her cloak. It was Berm-bee honey a kind of honey made by a berm bee which only collected nectar from the mana imbued flowers blooming in the surging growths after the Roil. A drop filled one with euphoria and prophesies. Three drops caused brief flight. More than three drops caused death.
Soon each of them had more than they could carry. Sorin stepped out of the tent, and without even looking at the sleeping figure, began strapping all they had on one of the dulam beasts. He used a length of rope to strap on two large panniers and filled these large baskets with goods. The rest, long tent posts and odds and ends, he strapped lengthways along the beast s back.
Sorin took the beast s halter rope and led it away into the darkness. Nissa looked back at the sleeping figure before following. If stealing from that poor man would allow her to save Zendikar, then that was how it had to be. The man would probably be glad if she told him the full story. As she reasoned with herself, Nissa fumbled for an earthenware canteen of water Sorin had placed in the left pannier, and helped herself to a long draught of warm, sulfurous water.
They walked into the darkness for a time before Nissa felt comfortable speaking.
We must have the stealth of a baloth. Nissa said.
Nobody said anything.
Did you drug the man? Nissa asked. He could have woken at any moment.
End this charade of innocence, Sorin said.
He will not ever wake. I slaked my thirst on him. I even supped on his heart.
She walked in silence holding the dead man s water jug. They had not slept in days, and suddenly Nissa felt very tired. Yes, it was time to end the charade.
They stopped to sleep at the base of the mountains. The Teeth of Akoum jutted straight off the plateau. It would be a hard climb, she knew. To compound the difficulties they would encounter, they had lost Mudheel when Smara left. Goblins could be unbearable, but they always knew a good path and how to proceed along it. And Mudheel had been easier to live around than any goblin Nissa had ever met.
Each of them stooped and kicked hip grooves in the dirt before falling on the ground and asleep.
Do you know the way? Nissa asked Anowon. She was beginning to wonder if Anowon had fallen asleep when the vampire spoke.
More, or less, he said.
That is reassuring, Sorin said.
I know the general path, Anowon said. My camp had been here in the Teeth, but it was raised in the wake of the brood. I can get us to the Eye.
Perhaps, Nissa said. She fixed her eyes on the tall mountains above her.
Later, in the dark, things seemed unusually quiet. Nothing moved. A lizard croaked somewhere far off, and then another closer by, and suddenly Nissa was wide awake. She rolled onto her stomach and took hold of her staff, waiting for the next lizard call to signal an attack.
But none came. She heard no more lizard calls. The stars blinked above in the empty sky, and in a moment her eyes felt heavy again.
She woke in the dawn darkness as Sorin jostled her shoulder with his boot.
Up now, the vampire said.
Nissa rubbed her eyes and looked around. What had happened to the ambush? She wondered. When the light was good enough she got on her hands and knees to look for signs among the scrubby grasses. But she found only that of a nurm rat.
There was not time to look further. Anowon began to walk.
The climb up the mountains started out hard and never stopped. After just three hours, Nissa was breathing as hard as she ever had. The well worn trail was riven with runoff channels and switched back and forth on an ascent so steep that she felt like roping in. But that would have slowed her down. Nissa knew she could not afford to be slow when the man was found dead beside his fire, there was a high likelihood that someone from Affa would send out a search party.
There was also the issue of last night. Nissa was sure someone had been in the darkness watching them. The lizard calls had been too uniform and their distance too staggered. But Anowon had been on watch, and he had not mentioned anything about the strange calls. Perhaps Affa had sent their party out sooner than she thought, and they were watching for a chance to attack?
Below them Affa was an unmemorable scrabble of huts and tents, and above them the peaks appeared to go on forever. The mountain was constructed of the same red, gritty sandstone as the other mountains in the area, with one large difference: the Teeth of Akoum were as smooth as incisors. Where the earlier mountains had been bulbous and rounded, the Teeth were buffed smooth by the winds which blew continuously and hard. It blew so hard that whoever had created the trail had been forced to cut it into the very rock to allow feet purchase. Without the trail s lip the group would have been blown off the side of the mountain and away within two hours of starting their ascent.
The wind howled so that Nissa finally had to tie a piece of her cloak around her head and ears to protect them and keep her brain from feeling like it would explode.
And exploding was a distinct possibility. The Roil occurred frequently. Nissa could feel them erupting, echoing off the mountains. As they staggered along the trail, the Roil rent the rock above them, and lava gurgled forth from the cracks. The very mountain seemed to rock on some axis before straightening and settling. Another Roil was so severe that Nissa had to fall to the ground and brace her arms and legs against the rock.
Sorin, on the other hand, had begun to float away, pulled by the Roil. But Nissa managed to whip out her stem sword and catch his ankle before the crackling mana drew him far out into the chasm.
After the last Roil they all agreed to use the rope they had stolen in Affa. Nissa was the only one with a harness. She rigged a harness for Sorin out of the rope, which Anowon sneered at as he tied his own.
Vampire style, he said. The harness Anowon tied on himself looked strange to Nissa, constructed as it was with long pieces of rope that wrapped around the hip and shoulders, a style she had never seen. Elf harnesses, and human ones for that matter, looped around the legs, hips, and abdomen. The strangest harness she d ever seen was surely the merfolk s little more than two pieces of rope strung through the crotch and around the shoulders in a figure eight. Anowon s harness took more rope, but appeared, she had to admit, very stable.
The trail became steep enough that they had to use their hands to half-climb, half-walk along the rough scree.
Their end rope was belayed crossways around Anowon s shoulder, so the vampire could with his weight act as the anchor. Nissa had counseled Anowon against the idea. What if he fell, or was carried away by the Roil? But Anowon was leading the ascent, and that meant he chose the rope system. Their climb would be in the vampire style. Nissa sighed and started climbing again.
Nissa wondered how Smara and Mudheel would have made their way up the trail Would the goblin have led? Was theirs even the trail the two would have taken? There were other trails; Nissa had seen them branching off. They were mostly small trails, more than likely used by animals, but Mudheel had been the only one among them that actually knew the way to the Eye of Ugin. Anowon had, by his own admission, only the roughest idea of where the Eye lay. In fact, as Nissa watched the vampire take each of his toe-holds, she wondered more and more if he had any ideas at all where the Eye was.
Nissa wondered where the kor and her goblin minder were. Surely they did not give up their quest to get to the Eye just because Smara argued with Sorin? What if they reached the Eye first and managed to free the Eldrazi?
Nissa had never seen Sorin with so little to say and with such a serious look on his face. Every time the switchback turned back on itself, Sorin stopped and closed his eyes and did not move. Whatever magic the vampire was utilizing was not giving him the answers he desired, for he was frowning when he opened his eyes again and scrambled over the rock.
The way became steeper. and at the same time the switchbacks stopped and the trail steepened. It clung to the side of a cliff that fell away below and spanned above past all their abilities to see. The trail was just wide enough for the dulam to move through. Nissa led the beast as it inched along.
Twice Nissa heard a loud crack and looked up to see a boulder bouncing off the cliff with great bounds as it plummeted toward them. One crashed past, knocking a divot out of part of the trail, which Nissa guessed happened fairly often judging from the chewed-upon state of the trail.