We woke up the next morning and headed out after breakfast. We crossed a scree field in the first hours of the morning. Then we followed a maze of ledges down in the valley below. Around noon we had lunch on a wider ledge.

The cliff reached down for a few hundred meters after the terrain changed to a steep partially overgrown slope. The slope was covered with bushes first with coniferous forest taking over at some point. The valley we had to follow stretched far to the east. The cragged valley floor was covered mostly in trees as far as I could see. The trees covered the lower part of the slopes as well. The terrain was slightly rising towards the east and I could see a creek winding its way through the valley. It vanished in a deep gorge toward southwest.

The weather had been quite warm the last days, at least for the altitude. It was summer and there were only a few white clouds in the skies, lazily floating to the north.

“This is the valley you should follow next. It’s not comfortable to travel, for one because of monsters and wild animals. Another point is that there are few usable paths as the terrain is rather cragged most of the time. Don’t rest near the creek. It can grow quite a bit while heavy downpours come down upstream.” Enleadir leaned himself against the cliff.

“We are not going to travel fast.” I nodded at Enleadir.

“The only fast traveling option is south of the claws, which is probably not safe for you.” Enleadir pointed at the southern mountain range.

“As long as we keep moving we should be okay. Our enemies have the same issues with the terrain. There may be ambushes near the roads if they want to make the effort. They would have to spread thin, even with large numbers. It won’t hurt to approach the roads with care though.” I looked east.

We could see quite a far, but at some point everything was covered by a light haze. Down in the valley visibility would be much more restricted. I started to assess the part of the valley I could see for the rest of the break.

In the late afternoon we reached the base of the cliff. We set our camp in a small group of trees just ahead of the tree line.

I got accustomed walking all day with a backpack again. It was good to keep working out all the time we were with the elves.

“I got used to sleep in a comfortable bed in the last months.” Milly leaned herself back and propped herself up on her arms.

“We have to avoid civilization for the time coming.” Tilly pouted while staring into the fire.

“We may find some place safe once in a while. We probably have to find a place to hole up for the winter anyway. The weather in the claws during winter is not really good for traveling. Snow, Ice and low temperatures will make spending time outside quite a challenge.” I yawned and looked up at the sparkling stars.

“Winter is still a few months away. Our enemies will have to cope with the weather as well though.” Milly followed my gaze up in the skies.

The stars were still beautiful. No light pollution.

We settled down for the night. This was the last night Enleadir would take care of the watch.

My mana was still drained once in a while. Since it hadn’t been topped off for a while I had no idea how much I exactly had. Since the regeneration seemed to be about ten percent of the maximum it should be in the nineties. It has been in the nineties for quite some time now.

At least we stated to get accustomed to the thin air up in the mountains. The claws had peaks which stayed white through the summer months. According to what I had read the eastern peaks were higher than the one here in the west.

I hoped we could avoid the wild beasts ahead for a while. While having better equipment should help to avoid some wounds our armor was all but invincible. Wounds healed easy enough but it needed mana, which was near empty because of the the magic of the maid outfit rebinding. At least the mana came back much more quickly than in the beginning.

The next morning we parted way with Enleadir. We got up just after dawn and after breakfast we got ready to get on our way.

“Farewell!” Enleadir smiled and winked at me.

“Farewell.” We waved and started to put on our backpack.

Enleadir left to the north along the tree line.

“Let’s go.” I started to climb down between the trees towards the bottom of the valley. In the afternoon we reached more even terrain. It was still rugged with many outcroppings between the fir trees. Later we reached the creek which was flowing through an about four meters wide and two meters deep gorge, of course the dimensions varied as we followed the creek.

“We have to cross the gorge now. The slope is too steep to continue easily.” I stopped a point where the gorge was a bit shallower.

“Seems to be the better way.” Loraline nodded as she examined the valley’s southern slope.

“Let’s get over the creek and start looking for a place for the night.” Milly started to climb down the gorge.

“Without climbing we would be stuck here after a mile.” Tilly followed Milly down into the gorge.

“Without roads traveling slows to a crawl. We can see the point where we spent the last night.” I looked back at the mountain range behind us.

We had made only a few kilometers, since we had to climb many times or had to skirt larger outcroppings.

“It will not to the last time we have cross the creek.” Caroline climbed up the opposite slope.

After a few minutes we had crossed the gorge. We followed the valley eastward for another hour until we found a nice place next to a large outcropping. A small meadow was shielded by a few fir trees towards the valley.

“We don’t start a fire in the evening as long as it is warm enough. We can do it on lunch breaks when we find decent places to do that.” I started to put up a small tent with Loraline’s help.

The tents we had were nothing fancy. Just two sticks and a tarpaulin and a few ropes. We had three of them and soon the we had our sleeping bags ready.

“We’ve got luck the weather is warm and dry. When the stones get wet we are going to be much slower and we will have wet ground for sleeping in the evenings.” I sat down in front of my tent.

“Perhaps we find some caves or some rocks shielding us from the rain.” Loraline sat down to my right.

“Yeah, that would be great!” Tilly sat down vis-à-vis.

“Let’s enjoy the good weather as long as it lasts. Autumn will be much wetter that summer.” Caroline sat down beside Tilly.

“Do we do one person watches?” Milly knelt down next to Caroline.

“I want to have two person watches. This area is supposed to be dangerous.” I started to get something for dinner from my backpack.

“How do we set them up? We’re only five.” Loraline looked at me.

“Less than three shifts would be too long. I’ll take one shift alone. Since Milly, Tilly and I have good night vision there should be one in every shift.” I rubbed my chin.

“We can take turn who takes the alone shift.” Tilly looked at me and Milly.

“Sounds fair.” Milly nodded.

“The single shift shouldn’t be the first. We don’t want our only guard to fall asleep at some point. The single shift should be the last.” Caroline yawned and smiled at me.

“Let’s do that. Milly and Caroline do the first watch, Tilly and Loraline the second for today. Maybe you will swap once in a while. I take the last shift.” I nodded at the others.

We got ready for the night after a while. I took a last look at the magic connections to our slave marks. There was no angle visible between the three.

The day had been exhausting. We had to get used again to walk and climb all day. In a few days it would get better, as long as we didn’t press too much with our speed.

As I woke up for my watch it had started to rain. I wrapped myself up in my cloak while Tilly and Loraline vanished in their tent to get another few hours of sleep. Maybe we should put up only two tents. Less work and less wet tarpaulins to carry.

The rain was light but cold as we were still on a decent altitude and the Claws were at the northern rim of the continent. Tomorrow we would be slower than today. At least we could probably avoid long climbs like the one this morning.

Free again, but how long would it last?

The rest of the night was peaceful as the rest of the girls slept for another few hours.

The next two days we spent climbing the wet slopes. The creek had a bit more water than usual, but nothing usual. The mountain range we crossed from the valley of the elves slowly shrunk behind us.

In the late afternoon the sun came through again. The grass was still wet and we found no dry place to sleep in the evening. We set up our camp between a few trees.