It was the silence that made Heror shiver as he headed up the mountain trail. Not the cold.
The night air was thick with frost and with each exhale came a cloud of condensation. The river was far enough behind Heror now that he did not hear the water lashing and whipping about against the rocky banks. It was dark around him, the small area near him lit by a lone torch grasped by his cold fingers. It was lonely in the mountains. It was nothing Heror hadn't felt before.
The visibility of the human eye had decreased rapidly as Heror climbed up the mountain trail; the combination of wind and snow creating a white curtain around him. He was dressed for the occasion, wearing a hide suit, warm boots, gloves, and a deerskin hood with insulating fur on the inside. The hood dropped almost over his eyes, leaving only his face vulnerable to the cold desperately attempting to break him.
His sword, sharp as talons, glistened with melted snow in his leather sheath, hoisted to his hip by a belt around his waist. His bow was tied down on his back, along with his arrows. He was not as apt with the bow as he was with the sword, and so he kept the sword at his side to be ready.
He'd been sent out by a wealthy man of great authority in the plains city of Vantam, west of the central mountains. There'd been reports of disappearances in the mountains, and the client Heror worked for simply couldn't deal with losing so many trusting merchants and travelers along his roads. And so Heror was there to investigate. He hadn't met the man in person, but a letter was sent, with a map and the gold in advance. It had been an offer Heror couldn't resist.
As the cold bit ferociously at his face, he feared that this weather was the culprit and he had met it too late. The torch was showing signs of dying and he could barely see with it. The snow only grew deeper around his feet as he shuffled through the thick accumulation. His breath sprawled out in front of him in a cloud, like he was blowing on a pipe, and then mixed with the blizzard curtain and spread into the surrounding forest.
The path seemed to be a forever winding road, lined with trees and piled with snow. It was almost as if the road was playing trickery, making Heror wonder what was behind the snowy curtain in the air. He followed the path that deceived him so, and kept his eyes forward, hoping that some sign of civilization would become present.
As he climbed higher, the path grew more steep and eventually stopped at a ten foot tall rock face that seemed to go on for a mile in each direction, rising and lowering with the mountain as it went on. He took a moment to let his teeth chatter freely before pulling out the map his client had given him. The client had drawn a path for Heror, and it went higher into the mountains than this. He rolled it again and stuffed it into his pack before observing the rock. This was the tree line. After this, he'd be improvising. There was no path to follow anymore.
He took a deep breath and jumped, grasping the rock edge and hoisting himself onto the small ridge. It was almost as if he was in a different world. The trees were gone and the snow was only falling harder. He was beginning to wonder if there was a limit to the blizzard's ferocity.
His boots treaded through the blanket of snow, with feet tired and heavy. He was starting to feel the side effects of the winter storm. His fingers, even in the confinement of the wool gloves, still managed to find exposure to the deadly blizzard, and frostbite was beginning to find a comfortable home.
He took a deep breath, rubbing his arms a bit to try and scare the cold away. He didn't let things get to him. He didn't like the feeling of it. It made him feel vulnerable. This, along with loneliness, was a feeling he always had, but did not pay attention to. He refused to believe he was weak, but deep down he knew he was not as strong as he would like to be.
Mercenary work helped cure these feelings. He had grown skillful over the years. He had traveled to trainers in many different fields and became adept in all combat, excluding magic, which had not come naturally for him, therefore making it almost impossible for him to learn it. But nonetheless, at a young age, Heror was already becoming a impressive fighter.
The rocks beneath Heror's feet lost their texture to the endless snow above them. He sunk to his ankles with each step and found that his progress was slowly beginning to falter. The blizzard was determined to end Heror with this final stand of merciless gales and deathly cold. His trainers had made him a knowledgeable fighter, but it was impossible to train a man to live longer.
Heror cursed at himself under his breath for not eating later. He had been saving the last of his bread for the tree line, but his stomach resisted at the base of the mountain, and he had foolishly consumed the last of his food. Now his bag was without supplements necessary to keep him alive, and at a time when he needed it most. Despite the precipitation in the air, Heror was parched and needed water, but he had used what was left of that as well. He feared for his life if he did not turn back to round up more supplies, but he didn't want to erase all the progress he had already made. And so he continued on without a considerable thought.
An hour passed slowly. And another. And another. Heror had made little progress. He took slow, small steps weighed down by the snow canopy shielding the rocky material beneath him. His hunger had quickly escalated to starvation, and his thirst to dehydration. His fingers had gone numb hours earlier, and there was no feeling but the tingling of the cold. He coughed twice and pulled the hood down with some effort, using his wrists as his fingers were to numb to feel. He was light-headed and wobbly, feeling his head ache as a cold settled in. And when he thought all hope was lost... He saw a figure. In the distance.
He didn't hesitate to begin jogging. He was focused on the essentials of surviving at the moment. His stomach hissed at him, begging him for food while his fingers ached for the warm heat from the hearth of a fire.
The wind shifted, blowing at him from the back, forcing him forward with such force that he almost fell over as he proceeded towards the shadowy figure. He wanted to call out, but his lips were frozen shut; they only shook slightly due to the chattering of his teeth. He got about fifty feet away, then listened. Nothing. The figure had its back to Heror, and was only visible as a dark, colorless shade in the sheet of raging snow swirling in the air.
He continued, trudging through the accumulation of hard-packed snow, stumbling a bit due to the force of the wind. He kept his eyes fixed on the figure. He was in a silent panic.
As he ventured closer, the figure seemed larger than he had anticipated. It had a large upper body and shorter legs submerged deep in the snow. He stumbled closer, kicking up snow as he went, and suddenly, the figure dropped onto its hands and feet and turned its head, revealing a long muzzle-like nose. Heror stopped, breathing heavily as his panic suddenly focused on a new enemy. The figure then turned to face Heror, and the beady eyes of a hungry polar bear stared back at him.
Heror's pulse elevated. Clouds of condensation emerged from his thinly opened lips in rapid succession as he stared back at the bear, not making a move. The bear stared back, and for a moment, Heror thought the bear would dismiss him and go back to his business.
The standoff was pulverizing Heror's stamina. The cold was rotting him to the core, and if he didn't find salvation soon, this could be his last contract. And the bear refused to let him move, it's eyes fixed on him. Heror waited for any sort of communication.
The bear's nose twitched, as if it was sniffing out a problem. It then snarled lightly, growling under its breath before revealing its fearsome fangs in a low, menacing roar.
Heror tried to back away, but his feet weren't going to release themselves from the deep snow unless he sacrificed his balance. The bear began to move toward Heror, picking up speed as it went, breathing heavily and growling all at once. Heror stared at the bear, but his hand drifted down to the hilt of his sword as he desperately attempted to pull his weapon from its sheath. His fingers, however, were so numb from the cold he couldn't grip the sword, and his sense of touch was utterly useless. He glanced down at his sword in horror, then back up just in time to see the bear slam into him.
Tackle wasn't a correct term to describe the bear's attack. The massive animal's size engulfed Heror in a sea of white fur and he was quickly thrusted into the snow blanket below. His adept survival instincts kicked in and he lashed his head to the side, dodging what would've been a fatal bite by the bear. He then reached down and instead used his sense of sight to wrap his fingers around the sword handle and pull it out of the sheath. He swung as fast as he could, but his weapon flew over the bear's head and wobbled to his other side. This only made the bear more angry, and it roared again to show it's dominance over Heror, spewing saliva onto Heror's face.
Heror squirmed, but even his strength was not nearly enough to release himself from the bears grasp. He gritted his teeth and swung again with his sword. This time, his sword slashed across the beast's back. The animal howled in agony as blood splattered on the white snow. It stood and backed away, and Heror quickly rolled onto his stomach and stood, running in the other direction. The bear followed closely, intent on catching the meal it longed for. Heror looked back for a split second to gage his minimal progress outrunning the bear when suddenly the ground fell out from beneath him. He lost his balance and he careened down a snowy slope. He lost sight of the bear as he barrel rolled down the steep hill. His line of sight was a blur, but he could barely make out the edges of a cliff not too far down from where he was tumbling uncontrollably. He desperately tried to grip anything as he was rolling, but there was nothing to stop his momentum.
Heror had done many things, but falling was not one of them. It was not what he had expected. The force of the wind was like a raging typhoon, but all the sound seemed to have been sucked away from the world. Silence surrounded him once again as it had at the base of the mountain. The snow, the blizzard's deadly weapon, whipped around in tight, violent swirls.
As quickly as he had tumbled too far and careened over a snowy cliff, Heror made landfall, grunting as he continued to roll down another slope. Soon the slope leveled, and he quickly slowed to a stop in the heavily packed snow.
At first, he was surprised to still be breathing. Heror hadn't avoided injury from the fall, but his survival instincts were still flaring. He gasped out a painful breath of cold air and rolled onto his back, spitting snow out of his face. The weather was still showing no mercy.
It took more willpower than Heror expected to bring himself to his feet. He stumbled and waved his arms lightly to keep his balance, then continued forward, feet trudging through the snow.
The mountains were endless. With every step, energy drained exponentially from Heror's body. He could see a cave in the distance, not too far away. If he could reach it before the cold took him...
After a long, deadly venture, Heror made his way to the cave, tired and frost bitten. Away from the cold, he sat on a rock and tried to reacquire any heat he had lost in the blizzard. He was frozen. He had done jobs in the cold before, but none had taken as many unexpected turns as this one had. And now, worn down by the cold, his better judgement had left him, and all he knew was survival. He stood quickly and continued into the cave, unaware of the risks and the consequences.
As time passed, the cave slowly grew wider and taller. Stalactites on the rock ceiling threatened Heror with their sharp points, and the darkness ahead was as thick as the rock walls producing it. The only light was from small cracks in the stone far above him giving way to new morning daylight. When night came again, the shadows would surely ground any efforts of escape.
The easy process of walking was now becoming a step by step experiment every time he put one foot in front of the other. He stumbled forward, slowly losing a mental grasp on the situation. If he was to get out of the snowy alpines alive, it would have to be soon.
Another bend. His hands now felt along the wall to navigate the cave, as the ceiling had now closed up, blocking any light from the outside world. He ventured through coils of tunnels like this until he heard a soft crumbling of small rocks beneath his feet. He stopped a moment, taking in the eerie silence in the pitch black tunnels, before bending down to pick up a pair of randomly chosen rocks. He rolled them in his hand with both knees on the ground.
Some rocks, which Heror had learned from short experience, could spark a fire. He hoped these could. He opened his satchel and blindly sifted through it until he felt the wooden slenderness of a torch. He pulled out the torch and placed it on the ground. He then gripped both rocks, pulled back, and swung his arms forward, scraping the rocks against each other.
No effect. He tried again. And again. Continuing the motion for some time until it was clear that these two rocks would not ignite a flame. He was desperate for light now, fishing in the pool of rocks for another pair. He found one, and repeated the procedure. And he continued to do this over and over, without success.
Anger began to swell inside Heror, on top of hopelessness, desperation, and fear. He smashed two final rocks together, and when same result occurred once more, he kicked in frustration. But in the darkness, he had not seen his satchel where his foot was, and he listened as the satchel fell down a slope of earth.
When he no longer heard such noise, he cursed and threw the unlit torch in dismay. Hopefully, the satchel hadn't fallen too far. He slowly stepped in the direction in which his pack had fallen, and started to find a foothold, when instead, his foot slipped, and he found himself taking the same path as his satchel, blindly cascading down a smooth rock face. He grunted as he continued down the stony decline, rolling over and over, growing nauseous as his vision spun.
He finally came to a halt on his stomach at the bottom of the earthen descent. He winced in pain as he rolled slowly onto his back, feeling a bruise on his knee delicately. For a moment, he closed his eyes, trying to sleep. He wanted to sleep. This job had quickly become a fight for survival. Part of Heror wanted to give up.
That's when he opened his eyes and saw something at the bottom of his sight as he stared at the opaque ceiling. Light?
He sat up and focused his vision. Indeed, there was an orange light in the distance, only a small hike away from Heror. He slowly helped himself to his feet and immediately started walking in that direction. In a matter of minutes, he reached the light. A torch in a sconce sat there propelled upward on the rock wall, illuminating the area around it. This was not Heror's torch. This torch was lit. As Heror took the torch from the sconce and placed it in his left hand, he considered a definite possibility. Someone else was in the cave with him.
Heror had only gotten lost in a cave once before. A year prior to his current situation, he had been asked to clear a cave of what the client had thought were goblins. When Heror arrived there at night, there had been an eerie, ominous fog that he still had shivers from today. The cave was not inhabited with goblins, but instead necromancers. That was the day Heror hated these mages of the undead.
But now, as far as Heror could tell, he was the only one in the cave system. But what could explain the torch?
Stairs. Another sign of civilization. Heror bent down to take a closer look at the remnants of what must've been a staircase along the underground ridge. These stairs were built out of the rock, making them hard to notice, but they were distinct enough to tell that people had crafted them. And so Heror saw no other options to follow them.
There were more torches on the wall at regular intervals, lighting the path for the exhausted mercenary. He noticed that some areas of stairs were covered in rock, suggesting that there was a collapse of some kind. Also, occasionally he would find ancient writing carved in the wall near the torchlight. He had lost almost all hope that anyone was still here to help him, but perhaps the culprit behind the disappearances was seeking refuge in the ancient caves.
After another half mile, the stairs ended and the cave seemed to constrict, the walls closing in on Heror as he continued. The ceiling lowered, and soon Heror could hardly stand up straight, and he had to sidestep to slip around the torches on the wall. This had to be man made. He could tell that ore veins had been mined out along the sides of the wall. Occasionally a cluster of human bones would crunch under Heror's feet. He wasn't alarmed. The bones were at least thousands of years old. The only sign of a recent visitor was the lit torches on the wall, which puzzled Heror the most.
Finally, at the end of the tunnel, he saw a light. Not a torchlight. This was the light of a dying day.
Heror would have gone faster if he could, but there was barely enough energy left in him to keep going at all. He sauntered towards the light as fast as he could, and in a matter of minutes, the cave widened and opened, and Heror found himself in a different world once again.
It was marvelous. A description with words was not worthy enough to depict the wonder Heror was observing. A city. A beautiful city inside of a rock. The buildings were gilded. There were complex fountains dotting the golden jungle. A large tower, an elevator of some kind, with four smaller surrounding elevators, rose in the center of the city, traveling all the way to the top of the gigantic rock bowl, where daylight shone in like the sun was inches away.
Quickly upon entering the city, Heror found an apple tree to his right, and had his largest feast in days. The air was warm inside the rock. Humid. In minutes, his cold fingers regained consciousness after a frozen, painful sleep, and his toes thawed out of the frost that dared encroach onto Heror. He rested. He drank water. In moments, his health was almost fully restored.
After eating, perhaps, too many apples, Heror stopped abruptly. His attention turned to the tower in the center of the city. There had to be something there. Treasure? Heror felt as if he had read or heard about this place somewhere, but his mind was still suffering casualties from lack of sleep and overuse of energy. He began a trek to the city center, forgetting all the other things in the world as foolish curiosity and greed flooded his mind from the rain clouds of human nature.
Despite the luster and glamor of the ancient city, it felt eerie to Heror. Not a sound could be heard, other than Heror's feet propelling him forward. The ghost city stood over Heror like a silent, hooded figure. He couldn't make out the face, or the personality.
It took some climbing over battered walls, and leaping over deep, but narrow chasms, and soon, Heror was at the base of the tower in the city center. A gilded pathway extended from the base of the tower towards a hot spring. Heror circled around the tower and stepped onto the pathway, continuing down it until his ankles were submerged in a soothing warmth.
It was small, but Heror had a feeling that this spring was special. Forty statues of knights, like ones he had seen throughout the ruins, knelt in rows of ten, head on the hilt of their impaled swords. They were worshipping something.
Heror looked up from the statues... And he saw something else.
In the center of the spring was a pedestal. It was smooth stone, with ancient carvings and scriptures on the exterior. And wedged in the top of the pedestal was a staff.
The staff was as beautiful as the rest of the city. It was a rich silver, with golden streaks and a gilded head of an eagle on the end. It almost felt supernatural to Heror. It seemed to radiate energy off of its surface. Heror wasn't an expert in magic, but he knew what a staff was.
And more importantly, he knew they were valuable.
With the blindness of human nature working against him, Heror's eyes reflected off the golden body of the arcane instrument as he wrapped his fingers around it. He felt a gleefully nauseating sensation of amazement and exhilaration. The possible consequences were irrelevant to Heror. Greed had taken him.
And he took the staff.
Immediately, Heror knew he had made a mistake. A loud thunder rolled across the sky far above, as if the sky itself was cracking into pieces and falling to earth. And then the spring grew hot. So hot that Heror scrambled out and onto the rock edge, still clutching the staff in his fingers.

His wits could not have been shaken more when suddenly a deafening explosion behind him forced his instincts to lead him to the ground. When he turned back, his wide eyes crossed the ferocious eyes of a knight emerging from the ruins of one of the many statues in the city. And, as he reluctantly anticipated, a chain reaction caused by the first knight breaking free began the mass release... Of all the knights in the city.
The first knight brandished his sword, and Heror's confusion morphed into panic. He quickly swooped to his feet and was off in a sprint almost immediately. More knights broke free from their stone caskets, however, and soon fifty were chasing Heror at full speed.
The thunder seemed to have embedded itself within the dome rock walls of the brilliant city. The earth below him shook, and the gilded metal buildings rattled with the eerie tremors of the rock.
Statues were still exploding. Heror could see it with his fearful eyes. More and more mysterious knights poured into the abandoned city streets from the interiors of the temples and terraces. There had to be hundreds. And with every knight reanimated, Heror's chances of escaping the horde of warriors only slimmed.
He now found himself standing to think for a split second. He had run away from the elevator in the city center, but he now feared it was his only way out. He started running again before he looked to see where his destination was. The crowd of knights was in hot pursuit.
Heror nearly missed the turn. He skidded across the stone road, falling to his side but quickly rising back to his feet and sprinting down the alley, barely escaping the fearsome swing of a knight's sword. More knights jumped down from upper levels of the city onto the road barely in front of Heror, attempting to cut him off, but his lightning fast running speed was able to pass them before they could regain their balance. He was still about a hundred yards away.
He shot back a glance at his opponents. There could have been thousands of them. More were pouring out of run down towers draped with overgrown vines and verdure. He was almost to the elevator. Sixty yards...fifty...
He could hear the mob behind him. There were too many pairs of feet to count rumbling on the worn stone road. If he was cut off before he reached the elevator, he was as good as dead.
Twenty yards. It was some sort of elevator, no doubt, but the gate was closed. Heror could only hope it wasn’t locked shut. He shot towards the elevator, stopped at the gate, and wrenched it open. It took all of his strength and too much time to pry the rusted metal gate open. He pushed it just so he could slide in, and turned just in time to see the stampede of knights thundering towards him. He reached to close the gates again, but they wouldn’t budge.
When he thought it couldn't get worse, it did. He knew he wouldn't have enough time to force the gate shut. In seconds, the horde of guardians would be upon him. Instead, he looked for a mechanism to start the elevating sequence. Due to the quick work of his mind under the circumstances, the answer came almost instantly. In the center of the elevator was a small circular indent in the floor. Heror quickly jammed the staff into the opening. A perfect fit. He heard a loud click, and with a jolt, the worn down elevator started upward.
It all happened in a matter of seconds. The elevator jumped upward. Most of the warriors stopped, knowing they wouldn't be able to catch Heror, but the lead knight, along with two others, leapt for the machine. The other two missed, and flew out of Heror's sight, but the third managed to find a grip and flung himself through the opening in the gate. He body slammed Heror with unthinkable force, sending Heror into the back wall of the elevator.
Now Heror would get to learn the fighting skill of the mysterious warriors. He sidestepped to the left, unsheathing his sword as he did so. For a moment, the encircled the staff as the elevator struggled upward, waiting to see who would make the first move.
Heror was the first to grow impatient. He faked one way around the staff and went the other, lashing out at the knight. Immediately, he knew that his techniques were no match for the knight, who countered and nearly lodged Heror's sword out of his hand.
Attacking wasn't an option for Heror. The knight had almost as much strength as the bear he'd quarried with earlier, except this opponent was formulating a strategy to kill Heror as they fought.
The elevator continued upward at a slower pace than Heror would've liked. This battle had quickly turned into a survival challenge for Heror. If he attacked, he'd risk his own defense. It was now a war of attrition. If he survived until the elevator reached the top, he could run with the little energy he had left.
The knight had almost unleashed its full fury by now. It constantly hammered at its enemy, but Heror's sword came between himself and the knight's deadly blade every swing.
Finally, the knight wound back, swinging with such force that even though Heror blocked it, he was sent flying into the corner of the elevator, crumbling to the ground. He sat, outstretched, waiting for the finishing blow, but instead, the knight turned and grabbed hold of the staff.
The knights were defending the staff. That was their main concern. And Heror now recognized this as the knight wrenched the staff from the indent in the floor. Like taking a key out of a keyhole.
Immediately, the elevator veered to a stop. And then, like Heror was falling out of the sky, the elevator started to plummet down through the shaft.
The momentum of the falling elevator sent the knight sprawling into the ceiling. Heror would've gone up with him if he hadn't grabbed onto the now empty indent in the floor. If the elevator fell far enough, the rest of the knights would enter and Heror would surely be done for.
He had to get the staff back. The elevator was halfway to the ground. The turbulence was deafening when combined with the screaming of the rusted metal against the shaft.
Heror could see the mob of knights waiting for his arrival. If he didn't move now, he'd be dead. Quickly thinking, he let go of the indent in the ground, flying towards the ceiling of the elevator with incredible force. He held his sword outstretched, yelling almost as loudly as all the noise around him. He struck the ceiling like lightning, impaling the knight with his sword as he did so. The knight let out a ghostly, metallic wail, and quickly went limp.
The staff fell out of the knights cold hands, and Heror was quick to grab it. Now he propelled himself against the ceiling with all of he leg strength and thrusted the staff into the keyhole.
Perfection. The elevator gained control once again, and faded to a stop fifteen feet above the horde of knights desperately trying to reach him.
Heror was thrown back onto the floor of the elevator along with the rest of its contents. He rested for a moment, still wide-eyed in disbelief that he had survived. Then he stood, grabbed the dead knight, and hoisted it into the crowd of knights below.
"I don't want him," he said blankly.
And then the knights watched in dismay as the elevator carried Heror back up to the opening in the dome. The light of day shined brightly, greeting Heror with happiness as he exited the ruins.
It would, however, be a long journey home.