It was among the branches. It was upon him. It roared, and the blast, though less powerful than Vild’s, threw him headfirst against a tree. Dazed and unable to move he lay beneath the clouds of steam and venom, awaiting death.
It did not come. When he was able, he raised his head and looked back. The dragon was struggling, suspended between heaven and earth like a character in the old songs. It was trapped in the dense web of branches—branches that did not burst into flame around it.
Maijarra! They were all around him. Fire had withered their leaves and flowers, but maijarra wood did not burn, even in the deep furnaces of the dwarves.
Morlock got to his feet. He watched the dragon writhe among the branches. Then he turned away. The maijarra forest stretched for miles into the mountains. If he lost himself in it the guile would be unlikely to find him. It seemed altogether likely that he would live long enough to starve or die of cold in the mountains.
He laughed out loud and ran uphill, deeper into the woods and darkness.
It snowed heavily that night, dimming but not altogether silencing the sounds of the pursuing dragons. The snow was, perhaps, lucky for Morlock. If it weren’t snowing, he might have been tempted to sleep no matter how cold it seemed. But the discomfort of the wet flakes in the cold air forced him to recognize that sleep would be pleasantly fatal.
Although the trees protected him from the wind, the seemingly endless night was cold indeed. It was an achingly long time since he had eaten, also, and for long moments he found he must stand shivering convulsively, in a senseless outburst of misdirected energy. But when he was able he kept moving over the slush-covered root-crossed ground.
When the light began to return to the sky, the snow ceased. Shortly after that he reached the crest of the long steep slope he had been climbing, which on the far side descended more gradually. The slope now angled down to his right, still more gradually. To his left, through a screen of white-etched black branches, he saw the peaks Gramer, Groja, Wyrtgeorn, Jess, and Fell: the mountains of Haukr. They stood almost mystically clear in the deep blue predawn air, snow lying far down along their shoulders. Ahead of him, he guessed, was the Ruined Mountain—the place where maijarra had collapsed part of the mountain ridge. The forest did not extend any farther than that into the mountains. Nevertheless Morlock felt he would find any cover he needed among the rocks and twisting passages of the Ruined Mountain, until he reached the Thains’ Northtower. He did not suppose this would still be standing, but he hoped to find some provisions (and perhaps some clothing) amid the rubble.
As he walked downslope the trees began to grow farther apart. Although this, like the growing light, increased his danger, he could not fail to welcome the open spaces. It was invigorating to see the peaks of the crooked close horizon blaze with white light. The light filled his eyes and his heart; he felt he could go on forever.
As the day grew warmer and the cold loosened its painful numbing grip upon his limbs, Morlock found himself increasingly bored and irritable. It was a little surprising to find himself cursing tree roots that he stumbled over and dimly hating the trees they belonged to when a half a day before (that is, one long dark night before) the forest had certainly saved his life.
Toward afternoon the forest began to grow more dense again, and the slope turned slightly uphill. Perversely Morlock’s mood changed, and he began to feel exhilarated. Everything he saw was outlined in light, even the shadows. Little of last night’s snow was left. The next snow would surely last, he predicted to himself happily. They were on winter’s threshold, and winter never kept the north waiting long. A fragile but intense feeling of strength filled him, and he leapt up the root-woven slope with new eagerness.
In the late afternoon the slope fell away jaggedly and the forest ended abruptly at the verge. Morlock stepped out cautiously into the unbroken sunlight, making his way down the ominously unstable slope of broken stones. The hulk of the Ruined Mountain rose before him as he descended. It would not be wise, he felt, to attempt to scale it after last night’s snow and today’s thaw had loosened the rocks.
Fortunately he could turn