They head farther into the mountains with Butterbell’s saddle bags resecured. The dapper inkcap is kept with the alchemical supplies, away from elves. Tric is surprised when he realizes Heppa still has Gaenyn’s sword and suggests that they might be able to get some money for it. While he does not want a dangerous artifact in the wrong hands, it could be worth something to a blacksmith as scrap metal. Provided magical artifacts can just be melted down, of course.
Though they are still in summer, it grows colder over the next few days with the increase in elevation. Mate entertains them with dramatic music whenever they get a view of a new sweeping vista. It is not always bagpipe music; the magpie did pick up some other tunes during his time at the Parting Glass. The landscape is impressive, and Ash shares that some of the peaks up here remain snow-covered all year round.
In an effort to learn more about his brother, Tric apologizes for his earlier flippant behavior with Butterbell. Sending her running into the campsite had seemed safe to him at the time, but he acknowledges that this is not their usual environment. “Are there any unusual dangers we should be on the lookout for that we would not be familiar with further south in different hills?” he asks. He is mildly interested in the facts of the answer, as they could be good fodder for stories of outlandish creatures, but what he is really curious about is Ash himself. Why does he prefer to live away from everyone else, even his own parents?
From Ash’s response, it is clear that he seeks to excel at his chosen field, to thoroughly know and understand “his mountains.” Indeed, that desire is written across his features, in tattoos that help him blend into the wooded surroundings even at these elevations. For all that Ash is an elf of Wesmere, he spends more time guarding its northern frontier than back in the forest itself. Monitoring these threats requires him to be as keen with a blade as he is with his bow, and his weapons are specifically tuned for his solitary ambush style. Stealth, speed, and woodcraft are the keys to survival here.
As for specific threats, Ash describes the yeti, a creature so tied to the snow that it would be unlikely to live down near Estbryn Forest and the Estmark Hills. Even here in the Heart Mountains, the yeti is seldom seen. Stil, Ash warns them that it should be avoided. “They are enormous creatures, as wide as an elf is tall and as tall as two elves combined.”
“And the strength of ten elves?” Tric asks in jest.
“Possibly,” Ash answers in all seriousness. “They are all muscle, and their white fur enables them to blend in with the snow very well.”
“Is it like a warhorse?” Heppa asks, trying to think of the largest animal she has ever seen. Ash says to think of something twice that height, and Heppa marvels at the energy input a creature that size would require. “What do they eat?”
“Whatever they want to, which is why they are very dangerous. Their arms are very long—”
“Wait, they have arms?!” Heppa asks. Ash clarifies that yeti are, in general, shaped like elves, with two arms and two legs. “Oh, I was picturing a giant horse,” Heppa explains.
“No, no, that’s far to the east,” Tric cuts in.
“You have large horses in the Estbryn Forest?” Ash asks.
“No, far beyond the Estbryn Forest. Beyond the Bitter Swamp. Far, far, beyond that there are intelligent horsefolk. You don’t hear much of them, but every now and then, a story makes its way through.” Tric trots out a tale of Master Edward getting into magical trouble of one form or another. Ash listens quietly, not asking questions since it does not seem to be a story about threats.
When Tric is finished, Ash returns to the topic of local dangers, explaining that the yeti are carnivorous. “They will eat whatever animals or unfortunate elves they can.”
Sketching out a drawing of one, Heppa asks, “And how would you fight them? Do you fight them? Have you fought one?”
Each question comes quickly after the one before, not giving Ash a chance to answer. There is a long silence after the last, as Heppa waits for a response and Ash is unsure if she is finished. Finally he says, “No. I have seen one once, but generally they are to be avoided when possible. I would prefer, if I had to fight one, to fight from a distance. But if I were at a distance, I would hopefully not have a need to fight it. They have a very tough hide underneath their fur, from the looks of it. And they blend in with the snow very well. So that is the danger, that you might come upon one if you didn’t see their tracks.” Tric nods in appreciation of the threat. “Other than that… Surely you have spiders in your caves.”
“Bats. We have lots of bats,” Tric says. “We haven’t run into any giant spiders, right, Heppa?”
“Just normal spiders,” she agrees. “But I guess they could be dangerous. I don’t know if we have any particularly poisonous ones near us.”
“Spiders this big?” Ash asks, holding a hand out to the side.
“No. Really?!” Heppa exclaims. “Spiders that big?”
“Yes, spiders the size of Butterbell,” Ash confirms.
Heppa flips to a new page and starts pumping him for information on what they are like, jotting down details on the legs and pincers. “Describe it! What do they eat? Just animals? Or do you have butterflies that are that big, too? Do they spin webs? How do you fight them?”
Ash’s knowledge of the creatures is more tactical than ecological. He seizes on questions from the set that he can answer. “They shoot webs that can entangle you. That’s a danger when fighting them.”
“Poison?”
“Yes.”
“Why would a spider that big need to be poisonous?” Heppa wonders.
“Why not?” Tric counters.
“So that you stop fighting it,” Ash answers practically, “and it can eat you.”
“Could be a paralytic,” Heppa hypothesizes.
“It’s certainly painful,” Ash says, revealing that he has fought them before.
“Were you stung? Or bit? Was it a paralytic? Did it paralyze you?”
“No, it’s not a numbing agent. It’s more like a painful burn. Hopefully you will not experience it yourself as we travel by the trails I guide you along,” Ash answers, with a light admonishment for Heppa’s ravine adventure.
She pays that no mind. “Well, how did you combat the poison? Did you just sweat it out? Tough it out?”
His brother seems paralyzed by the rapid-fire questioning again, so Tric offers another plausible answer. “Were you with a druid?”
Ash physically stops, halting their forward progress, and looks off to the north. “There are various river systems running through the Heart Mountains,” he says, seemingly out of nowhere.
“Like the ravine,” Tric observes encouragingly.
“Yes,” Ash agrees. “When the large white cave spider got the better of me, I did not have a way to deal with the poison. I did have to tough my way through it for a while after I got away, and I ended up at one of those small rivers. I was pretty badly off from the poison because it just keeps gnawing at you. I didn’t have any druids or shamans with me, no; I was on a solitary mission. But I did meet someone who was able to magically cure the poison I was suffering from. She’s not able to travel through mountains, though, so I have to be better at what I do to protect myself when she is not around.” Ash’s fingers play over the fletching of an arrow as he haltingly provides this explanation.
“But she’s in one of the river valleys? Are we going to be passing by?” Tric asks, pleased that Ash has opened up some. “I’m sure we have time to swing by and say hello.”
“Um…” Ash blows out a pensive breath. “It’s possible she will still be around. It’s not too cold yet. When the rivers start icing over she heads back downriver.”
“It’s only late summer,” Tric says. “We can definitely go see.”
“Do you think she might have—or do you have—some of the poison?” Heppa asks, interested in the same meeting as Tric, though for different reasons.
“Do you need some of the poison? Do you need us to procure some from one of these spiders?” Ash asks back.
“I might be able to make you an antivenom.” Heppa cannot think of any way to help with the yeti situation, but the spiders seem like a more tractable problem.
“That would be a useful thing to have on hand, but a dangerous thing to do,” Ash tells her.
“Ah! But now you do have magical healing,” Tric points out triumphantly. His two companions look at him questioningly.
“Oh, right! Me!” Heppa says suddenly.
“And a few more arrows,” Tric adds.
“I just need a sample. Or maybe if I just knew the properties, that might be enough…” Heppa trails off, lost in thought. She could gift her cousin with an antivenom for his dangerous line of work and give him a recipe for other appropriately trained brewers to reproduce. She is not sure whether that would require him to seek out a human city with someone like Damal or if perhaps his mother Ruthiel might be able to do it. Or whoever his shaman-friend is, maybe she could.
“That spider you fought, surely you chopped off one of its legs, and it’s still out there, right?” Tric asks. Good story structure requires a rematch.
“I chopped off more than one of them,” Ash answers matter-of-factly.
“Oh, that’s perfect. Let’s hunt this great white spider. You can’t let it get the better of you. Sure, it sent you packing for a while, but now you’re back and you brought some family. It’s payback time.”
“Do you think the spider was taunting him?” Heppa asks from over by Butterbell, where she is using the pony as a desk to jot down her antivenom ideas while they are still fresh.
“They do not speak,” Ash clarifies.
“It was,” Tric says with certainty. “Didn’t it hiss at you?”
Ash wordlessly shakes his head, not in disagreement, but in dismissal of the topic. He pulls his hood up and swings up into a pine tree to get a better look at the region, now that he needs to alter their course to the spider’s cave.
Tric lets his brother go with a smile. He noticed that Ash’s answers were somewhat halting earlier, and for once, Tric doubts it was just social discomfort. He can tell when someone is being evasive. “I bet you a peanut that she’s a white mage,” Tric murmurs to Mate. The magpie accepts the deal.