Tauren Tale, Chapter 3
#3 of Tauren Tale
Sanja had watched the falls from the valley floor and idly wondered how long it would take to jump from the top to the bottom. She was not a suicidal person - far from it - but it was the sort of thing that you couldn't help but wonder when looking up at the falls' majesty.
Sometimes a gust of wind would blow a white jet of water away from the rest of the falls and she would count slowly as it fell. "No... owa... halii... jola..." Sometimes she would get all the way to saji before it crashed down on the rocks below.
Sanja didn't get to count to saji on this fall, had she even thought to try it. Instead the two fell into a deep dark pool almost as soon as they had left the cliff top. They bounced off of the pool's rocky bottom (not hard) and immediately popped back up to the surface.
Without a hesitation - this time - the pair splashed over to the edge of the pool and up on some slippery rocks. It had been dim out on the plateau, but it was pitch black here.
"You're hurting my arm!" Jorga yelled. The falls were so loud that she could just hear his voice over them.
"I'm sorry," she yelled back. She eased up on the death-grip she held on his arm, but she didn't let him go.
"Where are we?"
"I don't know. Some sort of cave, I guess."
"What do we do?" her brother yelled. He sounded very scared. She couldn't blame him. She was scared too.
Sanja thought for a long while. "We wait. The sun will be up soon. When it shines some light down in here, we'll be able to come up with a plan."
"I'm cold!" the boy whined.
She put her arm around her brother and rested her cheek on the top of his furry head.
She was cold too, but happy to be alive.
After what seemed like an eternity, the sun did rise and it cast a bit of light around their environment. They didn't appear to be in a cave at all, but instead a notch in the top of the cliff face. Water cascaded off of the plateau above and fell perhaps only fifteen or twenty feet before splashing into the pool before them.
This pool then overflowed into the falls that tumbled down the rest of the cliff's face.
Sanja supposed it was possible that the water fell into a second pool before beginning its final descent down the cliff - you certainly couldn't see such tiny details from the valley floor - but there was no way she was going to try and get a closer look.
The "notch" was about fifteen yards wide and extended perhaps twenty-five yards deep back from the cliff face. The walls were stone, but worn smooth by centuries of flowing water. Everything was smooth, wet, and coated with slick layer mud.
Sanja craned her neck and looked around as much as possible without standing up. She couldn't see anything that looked like a good way out. There was a crack here or there that might provide a good handhold, but there was too much bare rock above or below each to afford climbing out.
The waterfall blocked most of her view. She tried to get to her hooves, but her brother clung to her arm. "Don't go!"
"I'm not going anywhere," she promised him.
The sun rose a bit more and cast its warm rays on them. Ever so slowly, the light worked its way around, eventually illuminating the entire notch.
There on the opposite side of the pool, a miserable-looking mass of black leather and metal studs sat perched on a rock. Theodore looked like drowned rat, and the sopping-wet Gnome beside him looked little better.
The man glared at the children, but despite the hatred in his eyes, he seemed content to sit on his side of the pool.
The two groups stared at each other for perhaps half an hour.
"This is getting us nowhere," Sanja finally said. She brushed aside her brother's hands and stood up. She surveyed the rock wall above her and then carefully eased her way out into the pool to get a better look at the walls on the other side of the falls.
She took her time and moved slowly. Theodore glared at her the entire time. When her exploration brought her nearer to him, she put her open hands up to indicate a lack of malicious intent.
She did not speak to either of them.
Sanja eventually returned to her brother and pointed above his head. "There's a hole or a cave or something up there. I think that's our best chance of escape."
Sanja tried to climb towards the cave entrance, but it was no use. If she stood on the highest edge and stretched out as far as she could, she could just touch the outer lip. Unfortunately, the rock was smooth enough that there was nothing to grab on to.
They were trapped.
Sanja turned around to see Theodore standing by her side. His face was thin and was accented by sharp angles at his cheeks, chin, and nose. His hair was light brown and flecked with grey. It was cut very short, and accented his bony temples. He didn't say a word, but he was surveying the wall also.
Instead of climbing up towards the hole, the rogue approached a nearly vertical crack. He put both of his hands in the crack and grabbed onto one of the edges. Then he put his feet in the crack and wedged them against the opposite edge.
With no apparent effort, the man shimmied up the crack as if he were a squirrel on a tree. Soon, Theodore was over Sanja's head and had reached a horizontal crack that led towards the cave. He put both hands in the horizontal crack and let his feet dangle. He walked, hand over hand along the length of the crack.
Sanja realized she was staring in awe.
"He's... not going to leave us here," Jorga said. "Is he?"
Theodore looked down at the Tauren, his expression unreadable. He looked to Sanja and back to the boy before returning to his task. He did not reply.
As the cave drew closer, Theodore crossed his left hand over his right and dug in to the very end of the crack with his strange little fingers. How such spindly little things could hold a grown man aloft was a mystery to the Taurens.
The rogue dropped his right hand and positioned his feet on tiny bulges on the otherwise smooth rock face. Then with a sudden burst of energy, he swung his arm wide and made a reach for the side of the hole.
Theodore did succeed in reaching the opening, but the entrance was smooth and he was no more successful than Sanja had been at holding on.
The rogue groaned and slid slowly down the rock face. He rested his cheek again the wall for a moment. "Damn." Turning to look at Sanja, he said, "It looks like I'm going to need a hand to get us out of here."
He looked silly with one muddy cheek and mud in his shortly-cropped goatee. But Sanja was not amused. She was pissed. "Get us out of here? You're the one who got us into this mess!" She shouted in his face. She poked his chest with her primary finger to emphasize the point. "You told Kazbo to kill me!"
"Well I apologize, Bessy! I've been fighting the Horde for ages," he explained. "I certainly didn't anticipate being rescued by one."
"And how do you plan to get us out?
"Easy. Give me a boost to the cave, I'll climb up to the surface and make a rope out of the balloon scraps." He grinned and fixed her with his steel grey eyes. "Unless you think you're a better candidate to climb to the surface?"
Sanja frowned. It was obvious that he was far better at climbing than she was. And it was just as obvious that she needed help from someone. "How do I know that you'll come back for us?"
"Have to," Theodore explained. "I have to get that pink-haired engineer to Nijel's Point to prevent a disaster. It's taken me two months to get him this far. I'd have to be crazy to leave without him!"
Sanja took a deep breath and then nodded her head. She cupped her hands together and bent over slightly. With a little toss, she easily boosted the leather-armored figure up to the cave.
The rogue scrambled effortlessly into the darkness, like a cockroach.
"Can you see a way up?" she yelled over the rushing water.
She waited to see him peek back out of the hole.
And waited.
And waited.
Jorga and Kazbo stepped over beside her. "He's a horrible man," Sanja said to the Gnome. "How could you stand to travel with him all this time?"
Kazbo looked puzzled. "Of what do you speak, I must implore? He only hired me, just the day before!"
The Tauren girl wanted to beat her head against the stone wall. This couldn't be happening.
"How good are you at climbing trees?"
The boy shrugged. Tauren are not, as a rule, tree-climbers, but boys will be boys, regardless of race.
She knelt before him and put her hands on his shoulders. "You're going to have to climb up me," she explained. "I'll lean against the wall and you just pretend I'm a tree."
"And then what?"
"Then... work your way to the surface. Get back up on the plateau."
"No! I'm not going to leave you here!" he screamed. "I won't go without you!"
"Kazbo will go with you. There's plenty of stuff from the balloon to make a rope. You tie it off to something sturdy, like a boulder, and you lower it down."
"No!"
"If for some reason you can't, like there's no safe place to tie it off, then you climb back down the mountain."
The poor kid was holding his sister and crying his eyes out.
"Get Mom and Dad. Have them bring a rope. Listen to me, you little twerp! I'll be cold and miserable, but I'll be fine. Can you do that?"
The boy wiped his eyes and nodded.
"I'm counting on you."
Getting the boys up into the cave was a lot easier than she had anticipated. Jorga was heavier than Kazbo, but he was taller too. Sanja practically threw the Gnome up the wall.
"We'll be right back. I promise!"
"Just go!" she yelled at them.
When the Tauren boy's head finally ducked back into the cave, she sat down on the rock and wrapped her hands around her arms to conserve warmth. She felt naked without her knife, but the boys would need it a lot more up there than she would down here.
They were back only moments later.
"So does the tunnel lead up?"
"Yeah, it does," Jorga called, "but we're not tall enough to climb out. You have to come help us!"
Sanja growled and drove her palms into her eyes. "I can't reach."
"Give me your hands. I'll help!"
She stretched out as far as she could and the boy grabbed her wrists.
"Stop! Stop!" he yelled after a moment of trying to help her climb up. "I'm too far forward. Even with Kazbo holding my legs, you're going to pull me down!"
Sanja sat back down and rested her chin on her palm.
She thought for a long while and then, resolute, she stood back up. "Okay, um... don't look, okay?"
"What?"
But Sanja was already stripping off her trousers - and removing wet leather is no easy task. She twisted the pants into a rope-like shape and slapped it up into the entrance of the cave. "Scoot back as far as you can go and hold on tight!"
The leather "rope" was short, but better than nothing. With just a few attempts, Sanja was able to get far enough in that she could get a solid handhold.
With a grunt of exertion, she found herself in a dark chamber that was very, very wet. A torrent of water was pouring in from somewhere overhead and the constant splashing echoed off of every slippery, muddy wall.
"Where did Theodore go?" she shouted.
Kazbo's hands lit with blue light and illuminated the cramped space. Sanja covered herself with her wet pants and Kazbo's face blushed red. He turned around and the girl sat down to get dressed.
There were only three exits that Sanja could see. There was the hole they came in, a passage that lead up - through which a small river of water poured in - and a dark passage down which drained the water out.
Sanja didn't give the passage down much thought. It was the passage up, back up to the plateau that she was focused on. The walls were smooth and slippery, and water was nearly overwhelming. She could see why Jorga had not managed to climb it, even with Kazbo's help.
She slid her knife back into its leather sheath. She braced her back against one wall and dug her small hooves into the slippery wall opposite. With her palms against the wall behind her, she inched herself slowly up.
The going was hard, but she made steady progress - for the first couple feet. But soon the water was hitting her square in the face. It wasn't just the force of the water against her, pushing her down. It was the cold. It was the sputtering for air.
Sanja fell back down to the bottom and the boys helped catch her and keep her from falling into the tunnel that lead farther down.
"Are you okay?" her brother shouted.
Sanja nodded. "There's a lot of water. It's going to be hard to make it past. Perhaps the two of you could help push me up?"
Kazbo grinned and winked. "If I can block the water that does funnel, then you'll extract us from this tunnel!"
Sanja looked to her brother's muddy face and then back to the Gnome, but Kazbo was already making complex gestures with his tiny hands.
"Wild river, flowing stream, or babbling brook; water in each and every form you took." He hopped in place as she shouted. "I command you to stop your assault! Stay, terminate, freeze, and halt!"
For a moment, nothing happened. And then there was silence. The unending assault on their ears shut off so suddenly that all three felt dizzy from the change.
"Wow! How did he do that?" Jorga gasped.
Sanja looked around. The water had indeed stopped, but it did not go away. It was frozen in place. Every inch, every surface, every glob of mud glistened with a layer of magical ice.
"Why did you have to say 'freeze'?" Sanja whispered.
Kazbo seemed perplexed. "Interesting."
Sanja shifted her weight slightly and suddenly her hooves flew out from under her. She flailed wildly; trying desperately to grab on to any surface that was not slippery.
Then the three were sliding; sliding down the ice-coated tunnel at incredible speeds.