LEGEND OF NEVETSECNUAC - THE CAPITAL CHANNING - SECTION 7

LEGEND OF NEVETSECNUAC - THE CAPITAL CHANNING - SECTION 7

Fradel (Nevetsecnuac) at present graciously handed the key to Zaur when the minister politely inquired about it, seeing no reason at all, to why he should not enlist Zaur Stugr's help in resolving this mystery. 

01- THE MYSTERIOUS KEY

“Oh blessed, gracious Heaven!  After all this time you've reached me from beyond.” Zaur Stugr wanted to cry out loud, holding back his tears.

"It's probably nothing of consequence." Zaur had finally ejected as a matter-of-factly, pressing (puckering, compressing) his lips and feigning mild interest, as he held on to the key.

"It is a pretty thing, though.  Isn't it?” Zaur looked directly at Fradel, and at the same time tried making light of the object.  "I dare say it’s of unusual construction.”

“Unfortunately," Zaur then shook his head, "I can't decipher these strange pictographs, these antiquated, curvilinear indentations at the base of the stem."  He reached over and pointed them out to Fradel (Nevetsecnuac).

Zaur’s not altogether convincing professed ignorance, after his brief scrutiny of the key, had again peaked Nevetsecnuac's interest.

 "Up to now, I confess, I've prided myself on being quite an expert at finding the meanings of these sort symbols, pictographs.  I have a sizable collection of similar curiosities at my disposal.  Naturally, they are kept out of harm's way for private viewing only.  Not everyone shares my interest, you see.” Zaur was now being unusually talkative, which further apexed Nevetsecnuac’s curiosity.

"My wife has harangued me often enough to dispose of such antiquities, insisting that I stay within the bounds of modern taste.  If you're interested, however, I would be delighted (most happy) to show them to you when we are better disposed." Zaur Stugr rattled on, playing the eccentric fool.  Inwardly he was considering his options, devising ways of procuring the key without raising the scholar's curiosity.

 

02-THE KEY AND THE BOX

The fact that the pictographs were identical to the ones on the box Zaur had in his secret possession (he’d kept in the secret compartment) had confirmed what he had all along suspected.

Just then, mixed feelings of apprehension, relief and dread washed over Zaur Stugr and gripped his heart.  Oddly enough, he was now afraid of finding out the truth.  He had long since given up, never expecting to see this key again, much less holding it in his palm. “I have spent most of my life searching for this key, expecting it to resolve my lifelong, anguished dilemma.” He solemnly ruminated (mused).

As it happens, the key resting on his palm had conjured up memories both pleasant and dreadful.  All the hopeful waiting, the heartbreak, the loneliness!  Suddenly Zaur was most anxious to get away from the inquisitive scrutiny of Fradel Rurik Korvald and to get at the box. 

“No!” he checked his impatience.  There was still much that had to be learned and a few things he needed to make certain of first.  His eyes, leaving the key, looked up sharply.

"Have you shown this item to anyone else…Zunrogo, perhaps?" Zaur made a deliberate effort at feigning a moderate interest.

03-ZAUR STUGR JP 8

Going along with his host's charade, Fradel (Nevetsecnuac) simply complacently smiled and shook his head.   "No, with everything that has been happening lately, I'd actually forgotten its existence."

 Curiously enough, Nevetsecnuac's answer seemed to reassure Zaur Stugr and, a sure elated smile widened (in a curvature) his host's lips.

 “You know full well, all about it, don't you?” Nevetsecnuac silently questioned his host; but Zaur’s youthful age precluded him from (being directly involved) having any direct involvement. Regardless, the key certainly had some personal significance to Zaur.  Suddenly the picture was much clearer to Nevetsecnuac.  Zaur Stugr had positively identified the key and knew exactly who it had belonged to.  He could therefore, if properly coaxed, unravel the identity of at least one of those tortured skeletons.  

Zaur Stugr’s seemingly placid face was fanned by the light breeze which carried on it the intoxicating fragrance of the night air and he had remained distractedly quiet for some time, his mind immersed in a serious recollection.

“What are you afraid of exposing after such an obvious timespan?  Why would you disclaim any knowledge of its importance to you?  Nevetsecnuac, however, made no outward inquiry and, instead, waited patiently for Zaur's next response.

Marshaling his thoughts, Zaur Stugr suddenly turned to face Fradel and, with deliberate calm in his voice asked, "It is indeed a rare antique.  How did you manage to obtain it?"

Fradel (Nevetsecnuac), in those lapsed few moments had already anticipated Zaur’s next question; he could not disclose the truth however, without revealing how he had ended up in the burial pit and, furthermore, escaped the inescapable traps. And so, he quietly reviewed his options of likely responses.

“I could claim I found it on the side of the road.  No that's too trite and would not be believed. What I need is a lame, boring explanation suited to a scholar, yet with enough of an angle to divert questions elsewhere.  Better to go with a partial fabrication with just enough fact to it to appear plausible.” 

Responding as a matter-of-factly now, Nevetsecnuac summed up in no uncertain terms his experience that had led to finding the key.

04-NEVETS ON HORSEBACK IN THE RAIN (2)

“It had all transpired at the time, while I was traveling on horseback alone on route to the Capital and, wanting to be innocuous, was garbed (dressed) in ordinary travelling clothes. This was a time well before my teaming up with Zunrogo Tugo and the guards.  That afternoon, caught in a sudden torrential downpour, I had sought a refuge at the roadside Inn/ tea house.                                 

“I had been enjoying my steamed tea and hot cakes when an old man, his tattered clothes soaked to the skin, also sought refuge in the same tea house.  Despite the cash that the old man had held out in his hand, he was rudely greeted by the proprietor, denied seating at any table, even though there were few empty ones about, and told to leave the premises at once.”

"Can't you see we're full up?  Go down the road!" The proprietor had rasped as he apprehensively looked around him, afraid that his other customers might be offended by the likes of this tattered old man.

"This is a respectable place.  No solicitation is allowed."  Turning a deaf ear to the old man's pleas, he signaled to his two hefty attendants (waiters) to at once dispose of this unwanted nuisance (pest, bug).

In the ensuing seconds hence, the old man was hastily hustled outside.” Fradel winced (cringed, recoiled) at this point with obvious abhorrence (loathing) of the proprietor.

Zaur nodded and grimaced wryly as he envisioned the typical scenario being played out repeatedly throughout the land.  “So, what's so odd about that? Cruelly he was driven out into the cold, pelting rain, so what about it?" Fradel Rurik Korvald’s obvious indignation just then baffled Zaur, and he riveted his keen, questioning gaze on the other's face.

“Ah!  Scholar Fradel Rurik Korvald had lived in privileged seclusion all these years; therefore, he had not been exposed to the sweeping changes, the new brutish realities of the populace's everyday existence. Naturally, this would shock him.” The answer came to him quickly, Zaur nodded.

 "And no doubt, being the gentleman you are, you stood up to defend that poor wretch." Zaur’s downward gaze concealed the smirk on his lips and the scorn in his eyes.

As Zaur Stugr had expected, by his own account the scholar Fradel Rurik Korvald, unable to swallow this injustice, had indeed rushed to the old man's rescue.  Fradel had indignantly risen to his feet and called out to the old man, walked over and next greeted the elder with respectful familiarity. 

Ignoring the snarls and frowns of the manager and his staff, he had then guided the old man, named Yakkasar back to his table.

(Of course, Yakkasar was a made-up name which Nevetsecnuac on the spur had invented.)

 "I could not stand by and let this happen.  The injustice of it all fired my soul with seething rage." Fradel (Nevetsecnuac) abashedly explained.

At the outset Zaur expressed a sympathetic view and urged Fradel Rurik Korvald to please continue.  Seeming to lend an attentive ear, Zaur inwardly however, jeered with derision and tagged a few more items on to the list he had been mentally compiling of the presumed characteristics of his guest Fradel Rurik Korvald: “Fradel is righteously soft and sentimental; sentimental enough to patronize (support) the grave robbing scum of the earth.”

“And of course, you treated him to not just a tea but a complete, hot, full-course meal.”  Zaur (with his prejudiced viewpoint) wearyingly continued to listen to Fradel, inwardly filling in some details, to the old man Yakkasar's hard luck story.

Apparently, the old thief had been in hard straits and had starved for the two days prior to this chance encounter with the perfect stooge, Fradel Rurik Korvald.  Though he had flashed some money around, it had barely been enough for a cup of tea, as the rest had to have been reserved for his night's lodgings.  To one as destitute as him, Fradel Rurik Korvald must have appeared as a godsend. 

Sitting himself across from the scholar, he had polished off several dishes in record time then, with a bloated stomach, sat back to express his undying gratitude and praise his newfound friend to the sky.  Next, he had decisively recounted how his wife had been lost to him in the great flood of yesteryear and how, having escaped the disaster, he had settled in the foothills of town Huer where he had been constrained to carve out a meager livelihood and single-handedly raised his only surviving son, Toza, to adulthood. The other two children had succumbed to fatal diseases, no surprise there: shortly after his wife's tragic demise.  For the hardships he had endured he had been amply rewarded; while his son, the mighty hunter had lived, Yakkasar had not known any hardship, hunger, or misery.

“No one would dare tackle the local ruffian.” Zaur scoffed, growing more impatient with Fradel now. Disguising (veiling, masking) his irritation, however, he simply looked away, and with an unreadable expression, watched the shadows for a time dancing in the light breeze in the well-manicured (rimmed, shaped) garden.

05-GARDEN IN TWILIGHT

“Why was Fradel being so insistent in dragging this out?” Zaur shifted into his seat, having had already conceived of the only possible outcome to this story.

 “This purported hunter Yakkasar’s son Toza had no doubt recovered the key along with, only the gods know what else, and had probably been murdered in some other town trying to fence it.  A fitting end for his kind! The old geezer Yakkasar had survived long enough though, to span this lengthy yarn to Fradel.” Zaur lowered his gaze and affixed it back on the key. “But what would be the point of exposing this Yakkasar’s fraud and embarrassing the gullible Fradel Rurik Korvald?  What did it matter what fabrication the old rogue had been feeding the unsuspecting stranger like Fradel, as-long-as he, at least, had been truthful about the location where he had recovered the key.”

Experience had taught Zaur not to overlook the incidentals, the seemingly unrelated details that supported the main report.  Lacking in imagination, men of Yakkasar's sort often built a bridge of lies on pillars of truth to make their story more credible.  In this case even an approximation would be of some use.  With due patience therefore, Zaur had lent an uninterrupted, though a semi-disinterested ear to, Fradel Rurik Korvald’s present redundancies to gauge the true facts he really was after.

“Good!” Nevetsecnuac was inwardly pleased with the apparent result.  As he had surmised, a more elaborate story would have made Zaur dubious.  The naiveté of the narrative had expectedly played Zaur right in Nevetsecnuac's hands.

Nevetsecnuac at present drawing this out, painstakingly related in detail all Yakkasar’s tedious accounts about Toza’s great potential and his prospects.  Yakkasar then unexpectedly leaning closer to Fradel at one point, had supposedly whispered the pertinent details; how on one such routine hunting trip Toza had traversed some unfamiliar ground near a certain pass to get to an area where game could reportedly be had in abundance. The specifics of the topography which, Yakkasar had professed at that moment, had been rather hazy and bit hard for him to recollect.

This setback had inwardly infuriated Zaur; nevertheless, yet again admirably suppressed his ire and impatience.

Nevetsecnuac had of course deliberately, contrived (manufactured) the old man's forgetfulness at this point, as a means of excluding the credible detail Zaur expected or hoped to hear; subtly testing therefore, Zaur 's true intent and measure of his commitment.

 Nevetsecnuac knew that without specific information about the Cyprecox Pass, Zaur’s search for the pit would be rendered fruitless.  As it were, there were several such strategic passes in and around the Capital province, most concealing similar traps, pits, and mass graves that had been constructed at the time to effectively repel the scores of foreign aggressions that had been unleashed on Wenjenkun.  This fact Nevetsecnuac had learned from Zunrogo, during one of their intense political discussions about ingenious historical military campaigns. Drawing from this, Nevetsecnuac had made Toza’s find, one such historical undertaking (enterprise) pit. Having served Zaur with a perfect lure (bait), Nevetsecnuac would now wait, in the interim drawing out the tale, to see how long it would take Zaur to make his anticipated inquiry.

The dullness of the narrative up to this point had nearly put Zaur to sleep.  He had just about run out of patience and was about to hasten Fradel Rurik Korvald to get on with it and urge him to recollect, to reveal the information Zaur sought most to gain, which was the actual, if not an approximation (estimate) of location, of the grave. Fradel Rurik Korvald’s next revelation however, shocked and halted his aim.

"Midway to Toza's destination, the earth under his feet had suddenly given way and cast him into a deep pit.  The hunter, after barely surviving the great fall, had discovered to his great horror that the place was writhing with worms and snakes, and even some skeletal remains."

“A pit… What, skeletal remains?”

06-SKELETAL REMAINS IN PIT

Seemingly turning a blind eye to Zaur’s agitation, Fradel (Nevetsecnuac) used the same impassive tone to then recount how Toza, by great good fortune, had escaped serious injury and had suffered only minor lacerations and bruises.

“Trapped as he’d been Toza had faced certain death within that terrible pit but, opportunely some other hunters were following the same trail as Toza’s and, hearing his desperate cries for help, rushed to his aid. Expending ingenuity and, with concerted effort, they eventually succeeded in hauling Toza up to safety; but not before he had chanced upon the key hidden in the jaw of one of the skeletons, those selfsame bones that lay huddled in a far corner opposite to all the rest.  Presumably the impact of Toza's fall had caused the brittle jawbone to snap and release the key; the key which now became plainly visible in the dark cavity of the mouth, in due course giving him quite a fright."

07-KEY HIDDEN IN MOUTH

 From the corner of his eye Nevetsecnuac had noted how Zaur had, for a fleeting second, flinched at the mere mention of the solitary skeleton that held the key.

 All color had completely drained from the good minister's face as he (Zaur Stugr) clutched tightly at the key in his palm.

This confirmed Nevetsecnuac's hypothesis.  “No doubt about it, that singular skeleton had been someone of great significance to Zaur. Likely,” throwing Zaur a cursory glance Nevetsecnuac ventured a guess, “someone close to his person, an uncle, even a father, perhaps.  But I don't suppose you'll ever confide in the scholar Fradel Rurik Korvald, will you Minister Zaur Stugr?”

Smiling tightly, Fradel (Nevetsecnuac) reached for his cup to relieve his parched throat. As he raised the drink to his lips his thoughts drifted off to those wretched skeletal remains and the curious circumstances under which he had gained possession of the key.

He recalled most vividly how, there in the pit, were scattered about the tell-tale signs of a lengthy interrogation, torture, and murder of the solitary man.  The stains on the broken shards of porcelain indicated that the captives had been fed a rich diet for a time.  The lack of any trace of cloth and personal items other than the key disclosed the fact that they had been imprisoned in their nakedness, no doubt to further conceal their identities, even from posterity.  This fact reinforced their social prominence.  Finally, there had been the revelation of the ultimate treachery, the corroded bronze jug which, upon Nevetsecnuac's closer scrutiny, had revealed that it had once contained wine tainted with that particularly abhorrent poison that paralyzed its unfortunate victim and brought about a lingering and most agonizing death.

08

 Lord Asger Thuxur Marrog Zhon had indeed taught Nevetsecnuac well, his well-rounded education had covered every conceivable kind of potion and poison known to man.  The symptoms of this specific toxin, Nevetsecnuac knew, would only manifest themselves two days after ingesting it, by which time it would be too late for any antidote, any salvation from its curse.

 Evidently the large group of prisoners had been fed false hopes all along, right up to the time of their inevitable tragic demise.  There was no question that the clustered group had been spared from the tortures inflicted on the solitary one and that he had borne the brunt of their vicious barbarism.  The one with the key had died of his injuries and there had been no discoloration in his bones like that which, in the others, plainly told of death by ingested poison.

The aromatic, semi-sweet wine poured over Nevetsecnuac's tongue, nestled for a time in the hollow of his cheek before it glided smoothly down his throat.  As he savored the floral aftertaste, particularly pleasing to the senses, he considered how a multitude of ills could be concealed in a wine such as this.  Feeling rather flushed, he absentmindedly touched his cheek and forehead with the back of his hand and then looked away once more.

09

 What had necessitated these slow, painful deaths and the added mutilation of the one who held the key?  Both his legs had been sharply severed at the ankles, as if with an ax, and his kneecaps had been brutally scythed.  His ribcage had been shattered in several sections, and the bones of his hands had been maliciously crushed.  Curiously enough, though, the clasped jawbone had been left intact, as if his captors had allowed him the power of speech, which he had adamantly refused, to the bitter end.  

Nevetsecnuac solemnly (somberly) mused, “Wasn't it strange, then, that it was only when I had considered the vague notion, if only the dead could speak, that the clenched jaw had quite amazingly (unfastened and) released this very key into my palm?  And again, this very evening fate intervening (interfering), this very key should drop onto the terrazzo (tiles)?”

 

(END OF SECTION 7)

THE ASSASSINS - SECTION 3

 LEGEND OF NEVETSECNUAC

THE ASSASSINS - SECTION 3

 

Brandt   had never seen Duan use archery, yet in subsequent days, he’d witnessed the other using spare material to painstakingly fashion himself a mighty fine bow and a quiver of arrows. 

Brandt ’s curiosity and poised questions were finally answered when at dusk one day, Duan, still seated at his mount took aim at the sky and let loose the single arrow.  Brandt   could not even see the target or what it slew (shot, slain, felled). 

“So, he also excels in archery...Hmmm” Brandt   made a mental note of this and spurred his horse to catch up with Duan’s. 

Arriving at the spot tad later, Brandt   saw Duan pick up the felled falcon and retract a piece of note attached to his leg. No amount of pestering loosened Duan’s tongue however, nor did he let Brandt   see the note. He only smirked satisfactorily and informed Brandt   a short time later of the slight change in their direction.

Passing through a grueling and treacherous stretch, now at more level ground, Brandt   likewise whipped his horse into a full gallop.  The result of three full days and nights of riding at lightning   speed eventually brought them to a crossroads.

 Duan stretched his neck this way and that, holding his gaze in each direction at length and then charged resolutely westward. As Brandt   followed in silence, he queried how Duan had arrived at (attained) that conclusion with such obvious certainty.  He racked his brains to comprehend the existing clues or logic that had so mysteriously averted him.  Having reached the end of his patience with Duan's arrogance however, he cared not to place himself in the position of subservience and voiced no such inquiry.  But, once more an insidious smile related Duan’s surmised notion of what was weighing on Brandt’s mind.

 Subsequent days their path cut across still more difficult terrain; before long the deep canyon, the surrounding topography had taken on a rather sinister turn. At one point, as they passed through a particularly deep gorge, Duan’s unexpectedly alert demeanor alarmed Brandt. 

Duan now strung tighter than a bow, with his very being exuding such an air of foreboding, his intense gaze perpetually swept the looming cliffs.  Brandt’s inward queries were promptly answered however, when on several instances on Duan’s signal and nimble action, man and mount barely escaped that certain catastrophe of being buried alive, when massive amounts of dislodged rocks suddenly cascaded down on them. 

Long after, when they seemingly reached a safer passage, Duan had kept up with his vigil and pressed them hard to advance with that speed to cover still great distance.

“This isn’t your typical joyride.” He’d scoffed at Brandt’s silent protests and despite Brandt’s obvious exhaustion, refused least notion of pitching camp.  On this continuous trek they, while still in the saddle ingested some of their rather unpalatable, scant dried rations and rarely out of consideration for their mounts, had a brief repose in a crevice of sorts in this desolate (bleak) region where nothing stirred, with Duan upholding his vigilance against that phantom enemy’s assault.

Brandt   was becoming more incensed (exasperated) with each leg of the journey suspecting Duan with his spiteful nature to be conceiving (inventing) this unwarranted trouble, to further torment him, when suddenly they were under attack. 

Once the unnatural dust storm settled, all at once they’d found themselves surrounded by thirty well-armed, formidable riders completely covered in black garb, with only slits that made their eyes visible.  Brandt   had scant time to unsheathe his sword when the awesome, agile force spontaneously and in all directions, in a brilliant, lightening   maneuver, launched their murderous offensives (assault). 

Brandt   had always been quite adept at fighting but in this instance, he’d soon found himself outmatched in both skill and ability. Or had he?  For reasons known only to him, Brandt   held back and allowed Duan to demonstrate the true extent of his prowess. 

Rising to this challenge Duan with his invincible skill, quickly turned the tide in his favor. In a blinking of an eye, all assailants were vanquished, and men and mounts lay dead maimed and torn in bloody heaps.

The fortnight’s subsequent nocturnal assaults were even more lethal. Just as swiftly however, Duan bested them all; then in small hours, gathering the wounded and piling those atop the heap of torn, bloody corpses, he set them all alight. Making himself comfortable on a large flat bolder, he then watched this funeral pyre with intense perverse delight, occasionally letting out a boisterous laugh as if entertaining a private joke.

The rising smell made Brandt   retch and vomit till he was expanded from the exertion; maddeningly, this too compounded Duan’s wicked fun.

After the fourth and fifth major, deadly skirmishes, Brandt   had gained the sudden intense fear of Duan, as if just grasping the true measure of this Demon warrior’s proficiency.  Especially since all their previous adventures and exchanges had paled in comparison to these feats.  Despite his sham indifference however, the swift, shocking intensity and the near misses of the final mortal combat unequivocally rattled Brandt   to the core. Consequently, Duan was more intolerable, as he relentlessly mocked Brandt   with his contemptuous words, looks and gestures, till eventually he got tired of it. 

A few weeks later, another falcon was felled by Duan, then another sometime after that. In each instance a note was retrieved from the leg of the predatory bird, and again, Duan refused to disclose the contents to Brandt.  Infuriatingly still, any hope of a peek (stealing a look) was promptly eliminated when Duan routinely fed the contents to the hungry flames of the night’s makeshift campfire.

Then one evening   as they were about to fall asleep, “You can rest easy now; I doubt there’ll be any more messages.”  With his back to Brandt, he’d grumbled his sardonic, curt response to other’s evermore persistent inward queries.

In the subsequent month, the ongoing arduous trek had eventually led the two to another set of foothills beyond which lay a range of white capped mountains.  Descending then ascending the endless precipitous peaks and depths, they skirted ravines, gullies or cliffs, then negotiated inclines to eventually arrive at the remotest, darkest and most sinister of forests where ancient trees entirely blocked out the sky turning   night into day.

 In this twilight atmosphere they followed paths that no man before them had dared to tread.  All the while the immeasurable peril dogged their every step. Dangers abound from above and below, ahead and beyond, their mettle was tested, at times without cessation for weeks on end.  With their innate competence and stubborn resolve, they overcame each one of these hair-raising episodes and dealt effectively with the other peril from voracious, predatory beasts.

Occasionally their advance would be hindered by violent storms that erupted quite suddenly yet lasted for days.  During such times they attained shelter in nearby caves, crevices or caverns after contesting for space with the prior occupants (original inhabitants).

As they climbed (ascended) to still higher altitudes, with each leg of the journey the atmospheric temperatures became more hazardous.  With the overhead sky perpetually riddled with dark, ominous clouds that hung ponderously overhead, they trod uneasily over the precarious ground that oftentimes would be littered with intermittent pits blanketed with patches of ice or snow of varying degrees smoothing over the imperfections.

 All was not doom and gloom however, and on scant clear days, with the surrounding area and tall trees cloaked in exhilarating, blinding white, it admittedly transformed the glistening   environs into a mythological, fabled place of great beauty. The brilliance of light was so intense in fact that they advanced through this fabulous ice hinterland with only partially covered eyes, seeing only through slits.

The makeshift attire from pelts obtained from the hunted predatory beasts kept the core of their body warm. Meanwhile, (in addition to melted ice,) they drunk the blood of the game for satiating (quenching) thirst, and for sustenance, never lacking for food, Brandt   in time even grew accustomed to chomping on raw meat, or for variety, nibbled on some of the amassed, dried roots. When hiking over a particularly perilous icy terrain, man and beast (steeds) wore underfoot an ingenious contraption that Duan had appropriately devised to prevent slipping and sliding or worse, falling through the cracks/ pits in the snow and being buried alive.  Moreover, to ensure further stability, they made good use of ropes and iron pegs when their ascending path led them to tapered goat-trails hugging the sheer inclines. 

To Duan’s surprise, Brandt   had born all these hardships stoically, except for altitude sickness that is, that oftentimes plagued Brandt   when crossing a precarious, natural viaduct (overpass) over gargantuan (vast) debts or other such risky terrain with equally dizzying gradient (incline) to one side. 

On such instances Brandt   would have gladly traded places with their blindfolded mounts, to be spared the apprehension and the dire imaginings; especially since his discomfort without fail was augmented by Duan’s derisive, contemptuous remarks or his silent cold regard. 

Day after day, as though pulled by a magnet, they pushed (trudged) on relentlessly and unfailingly at top speed, superseding (overriding) countless dangers and hardships, Brandt   doing his best to keep up with Duan. 

Though they’d done what was humanly impossible and covered such a great distance in that short time, far from being pleased, at one point Duan had appeared in fact, quite irritable and somewhat dismayed.  Then one day, leaving Brandt   at a makeshift camp in an abandoned cave, Duan without so much as a word had set off alone on foot in search of a phantom path. He must have ventured far, for he’d remained hidden from sight (view) awfully long period.

 Brandt   left to fend for himself, first had prudently solidified his defenses, kept the fires going and guarded the steeds and their reserves best as he could, from the marauding, (prowling) ravenous beasts. By the fourth or fifth day, however, Brandt   had begun to get seriously peeved, for having been treated same as a groom when, late one afternoon, Duan quite unexpectedly had reappeared.  Without so much as a grunt, he plumped himself by the fire, partook of some of the skewered meat, then reclining   passed out in sound sleep. When at just before dawn he promptly awoke, he spared no effort to explain; only his words tersely directed Brandt   to follow him.

Even before the first rays of light reached the earth, Duan and Brandt   taking the lead, steered their reluctant mounts further into the densest part of the pine forest.  Previous night’s storm (blizzard) had dumped abundant snow in the vicinity forcing them to now advance with immense difficulty through the copiously covered ground and shrubbery.

They rode whenever possible, but oftentimes dismounting, they dug their way through waist deep rough patches. Their several days’ laborious advance eventually came to an abrupt halt one afternoon just before dusk, when they suddenly faced, what seemed to Brandt, a rising cliff. He watched with skepticism as Duan, veering around a huge boulder quickly alighted. A pointed look quickly brought Brandt   to his side. Stalwart duo exerting some effort in next to no time cleared a fallen tree and similar debris, pushed aside tall, seemingly impenetrable ice capped dense shrubbery to uncover an inconceivable niche that turned out to be an entrance to a pitch-dark subterranean tunnel that passed through to the other side of the mountain.

Brandt’s elation was short lived however, for the upcoming perilous journey was far more harrowing than the culminating previous encounters.  Right at the beginning   Duan had counseled him on the necessity of maintaining absolute silence.

The horses’ eyes covered, and mouths muzzled, with Duan in the lead they’d steadfastly advanced in darkness, connected by a rope, Duan periodically (now and again) slashing the air with his blade to dispatch the persistent dangers. 

They must have trudged incessantly for days in that grueling, subterranean labyrinth, for every tendon, every fabric of Brandt’s body throbbed with an unbearable ache.  After what it seemed to Brandt an eternity, they’d eventually emerged from this nightmarish tunnel.  Brandt   was so overjoyed at having survived this terrible ordeal that, braving Duan’s derision, he’d simply throw himself onto the ground and hugged it.

The rest of the journey, though still grueling, by comparison had passed far easier.

 

                                                                      ~

 (END OF SECTION 3)