Adventure of Tuiwen 2

Mist pools in the ravine like a bruise. Above, boots and iron scrape the ridge, too close for comfort.

He lifts a trembling hand and drags a veil of bark-scent and old leaf over their trail, but the spell frays at the edges.

Tuiwen drops first, finding a foothold on slick moss and broken stone. The ravine yawns deeper ahead, but the descent opens a path the hunters cannot cross easily.

From the ridge, a hard voice calls orders, and a pale light flickers through the fog. If the Council's agents descend, they will see Radagast's warding fail, and know someone has betrayed their trust.

Tuiwen plants her feet in the slick fold of stone and gathers what little strength remains.

Her hand touches the ravine wall, and green life surges through the cracks. Moss thickens, roots heave, and pale shoots burst outward across the slope.

The living tangle swells fast, knitting over the path behind them until the climb becomes a wall of twisting wood and wet earth.

The spell bites back at Tuiwen, leaving her fingers numb and her shoulder flaring hot under the strain.

Above, torchlight wavers at the ridge, then catches on the fresh wall of roots as the hunters search for a way through.

Tuiwen drops from the root-wall into the mist below, boots skidding on slick stone. The ravine takes her weight and spits her onward in a crouch of spray and gravel.

Radagast follows the line with a strained step, staff braced, while the Hooded Sentry lingers above to watch the ridge. The hunters’ torchlight wobbles against the living barrier and then falters.

The path ahead opens into a narrower ledge, hemmed by wet rock and hanging roots. Behind her, the wall of growth holds, but voices from above begin to test its seams.

Tuiwen pushes through the fog and gains clear distance from the ridge, the hunters left higher and farther back. Her shoulder burns, but the ravine bends away with her and swallows the sound of pursuit.

Tuiwen sprints for the lower bend, but the ledge gives under her wounded shoulder and her stride breaks short. Wet stone skews beneath her boots, and she slams one hand to the rock to keep from going over.

She regains herself on the edge of the drop, only to find the ravine pinching inward ahead. A curtain of hanging roots lashes across the path, slick with mist and too dense to force cleanly through.

Above them, the living barrier trembles as voices and scraping branches test it from the ridge. For a breath, the roots part enough to show a darker slit in the rock wall below.

Tuiwen catches the opening in the stone, but the far side drops away into fog, narrow and unknown. The hunters are still out of sight, yet the path is changing under her feet.

Tuiwen shifts her weight off the slick ledge and follows Radagast’s point into the stone cleft. The hanging roots snap back behind her, sealing the open edge from view.

She slips into the narrow split, shoulder brushing cold rock. Mist pours around her calves as the ravine opens into a darker throat below.

A muffled crack rolls down from the ridge, then another. Behind the roots, the barrier shudders and sheds a spill of needles and loose bark into the ravine.

Tuiwen reaches the far side of the cleft as the opening narrows at her back. The hunters’ voices are cut off by stone and mist, and the ravine now bends away into darkness ahead.

Tuiwen keeps moving, and the ravine answers with slick stone and choking mist. She sets one careful step after another, her blade low, her wounded shoulder tight against the cold.

She slips past the split rock and into the darker throat beyond it. Behind her, the root wall gives a harsh groan, then slumps, shedding needles into the gap.

Above, the last lantern-glimmer on the ridge is cut off by stone and fog. The voices of the hunters fall away, distant and uncertain, while the ravine bends sharply out of their sight.

At the turn below, the air grows colder. The path opens just enough for one elf to pass at a time, and the mist ahead lies thick and unmoving.

Tuiwen follows the narrow bend as it twists into the ravine's throat. The stone drops away on her left, and the mist closes in on her right like a wall.

Her boots find a strip of rough shale, then another, and the path carries her lower without forcing a halt. The hunters are no longer in sight, only a muffled clatter somewhere far above.

Tuiwen keeps to the inner wall and passes a jut of black stone slick with old seepage. The ravine widens ahead into a lower channel, and the way behind grows dimmer with every breath.

Then the bend opens, and the hunters vanish from the world behind her. The ravine turns its back on the ridge, and the path ahead belongs to Tuiwen now.