Episode 9 : The Valley of White Death - Part 3

"Sarai!"

 Guin's screams were sucked into the darkness in vain.

"--Sarai!"

"Liard--"

 Guin pulled at rope with madness. rope struggled against his hand as if it were a fishing line hooked with something tremendously heavy. Guin pulled again and again. It suddenly became light and was drawn back to his hand as he followed. Guin took one look at it and threw it behind him. The rope had probably been rubbed against a rock and had been severed.

"Liard!"

 Guin turned and looked at the small, drawn faces of Rak and the others. He shook his head in silence.

"What's the matter, Guin--you didn't make it!"

 Istvan rushed to him. In a language unknown to Shem,

"You failed."

 Guin put it succinctly.

"What happened to the little one?"

The Red Mercenary peers into the darkness, as if he's afraid. But of course, he can't see anything.

"It won't be long, thank God. Ido's crushing power is considerable."

 Guin murmured, then suddenly held out his hands to control Rak and Istvan.

"No, it's not safe. Don't go any farther-- the Idiots know we're here."

"Whoa--"

 In a panic, Istvan turned back to the corner. The white monsters in the valley were, as it were, in the midst of a swift storm.

 The others must have sensed that some of them, at the edge of the group, which was not entirely separate from the individual, had been treated to a rare treat. They suddenly seemed to be in a state of restlessness, and their swells suddenly increased, and they began to stretch out and crawl toward us, as if they were asking for more food somewhere. It was a horrible sight to behold.

"Back up. Back up.

 Strongly, Guin said, pushing Shem and the others to the back, as if they were sheepdogs driving an unruly sheep into a fence.

"Liard."

 Then Shiva appeared, overrunning the Shemites. He had already prepared everything from the torches to the rope.

"I'll go next time."

"Thanks to Sarai's sacrifice, it appears we know exactly how far these idols have gone."

 Guin said, without daring to offer any words of encouragement or praise.

"It should be about a tad - fifty gols after we turn that corner. Allocate your strength accordingly."

"I'll make it work."

 Sheba cheerfully assured him. Even the imminent death of his ally did not seem to dampen the spirit of this brave young man. He even added to the spirits of the others.

"Because I am more powerful than Sarai, Liard."

"Did you learn to handle stilts?"

"It's as easy as teasing a sandhill."

 Guin stopped Shiva, who was about to go, to see how the stilts were coming along, and gave the rope a light tug. Then he tied to the end of the rope the rope that had been cut earlier and brought back to him, and made it longer.

"Now, Alfetu bless you."

 Sheba said, and walked carelessly into the valley of the Id.

 The rak'ahs stood close behind Guin and gazed at him closely. Somehow they understood how important this second attempt was, and Shiva was a popular man, and the 'Ids were all awake and buzzing, with Sarai as their prey. At the time of Sarai, the idols that climbed up the sticks were at most a meter or so high, and they knew that they were not edible, so they went down, but Shiva, quite often, would rush to pull out the sticks for the idols that were about to crawl up to their feet. He had to desperately regain his lost balance. Several times, screams came from the mouths of the watching Rak.

 But Shiva balanced himself very well and made steady progress, little by little. As if to ask for heaven's blessing, Guin turned away from it and looked up at the night sky, a dark gray, starless sky fringed with angel hair that drifted faintly white.

"Yo, Guin."

 Then Istvan came up to him and said in a secret voice.

"What are you going to do if he doesn't make it?"

"That's when it happened."

"It's you. I'm sure you have a plan for your next move."

"Maybe a little."

 Guin admitted.

"But Sheba never fails."

"How do you know? You've become as psychic as Linda."

 He did not answer, but followed the torch that Shiva held up with his eyes,

"If we can just get through here..."

 Guin said.

"So that we - and Shem - will have a six-minute advantage. It's night. We can and will make Nosferatu all night long with Rak, but daylight will have severely weakened the Mongols. They will have no choice but to gather their forces, encamp for the night, prepare for danger, and wait for the morning.

 In the meantime, of course, the direction from which we fled is obscured. The winds of Asgarn would have erased our tracks. And they do not know the exact location or direction of the village of Rak.

 And in case there should be a party that persists in pursuing us, once we have crossed the valley of the Ids, these Ids will be the best of guards to protect us from them."

"Anyway, if we can get out of here...

 Istvan nailed it.

"I'd like to do it sooner rather than later. I'm getting hungry all over again."

 Guin did not bother to answer, but turned his head and looked out over the Sea of Id.

 The figure of Sheba had already disappeared from their sight. The rope in Guin's hand had become much longer because he had added to the previous one, and although it was not stretched as far as it had been before, it had already been hollowed out to a great extent.

"If Shiva fails, we have no choice but to return to the mountain orchard."

 Guin said, making sure that Rak and the others could not hear him. Raku did not understand the words they were using, but he feared that they would sense them by their tone.

"Because the Mongols--"

"If Shiva fails, there will be no more Rak'ra with the strength to make it through this valley. Then we'll have no choice. It's a bit of a hassle, yes, but we'll have to take advantage of the shadows, and if Mongol's army is waiting for us, we can surprise them, cut through them, and go around the mountain to Raku's village."

"Hey, do you know how many tens of thousands of you there are?"

 Istvan was about to say something in disgust. At that moment, however, Guin suddenly jumped up and ducked.

"What's wrong?"

 Not paying attention to Istvan's question, Guin advanced to the very edge.

"Shiva--!"

 A faint, but sure and energetic cry was heard. There was a faint, but certainly energetic cry.

"Liard!"

"Shiva! You made it. You're safe!"

"I'm safe! Liard! They're coming through."

"Shiva, you did it.

 Guin looked around at the crowd of raks and let out a howling laugh.

 But there was no time to be complacent about this initial success. Soon Guin had to take orders for the next stage.

 He had already instructed Shiva what to do. Once he had made it through the valley of the Ido in good time, he would take no time to rest, but would untie the rope at his waist and tie it to a rock as high as possible in the area and secure it firmly.

 We had an idea of what to expect. Guin returned to the high point at the mouth of the valley and tied the rope firmly to the rock, being very careful not to pull too hard with his mighty strength and cut the straight lifeline that had come to him.

 The rope floated in the air, and then, pulled from both sides, it became a thin bridge stretching diagonally across the valley, where the Id was roaring below. Guin shouted to the other side of the valley, "Are you ready?" and, waiting for Shiva's answer, he pulled the rope several times to make sure of its safety.

"Very well."

 They nodded their heads and looked behind them. Shem and the others are looking at his hand with serious eyes, wondering what their hero Riad has come up with.

"Look, by the desperate work of Sheba, this rope has been distributed from this side of the valley to the other side."

 And Guin said in a stern tone.

"Do you dare to cross over to the other side, holding on to this rope?"

"Yes, Liard!"

 They all shout in unison.

"Wait."

 Guin, put your hands up,

"Somehow they managed to get us across the rope, but it's a much longer distance than crossing a river or climbing up a rock, and we have to cross it holding on to it with only our hands and feet. If you fall, you will meet the same fate as Sarai."

 Raku and the others didn't say anything.

 They just held up their hands in a gesture that said they were not afraid of death. Guin looked over at him and nodded.

"The lightest of you, the strongest of you, go first."

 When I tell you to go back, you go back.

 The raks looked at each other as if examining each other, and then one of the smaller ones climbed easily up the rock and attached himself to the rope.

 Like a sloth, it hangs sluggishly by its arms and legs from the rope, and immediately begins to waddle along the rope, twisting itself like a caterpillar, at a considerable speed.

"Woo, woo, woo."

 Istvan looked at it in dismay.

"What a crazy idea you've come up with! How many people could make it out there alive with that trick?"

"You're forgetting, they're Shem."

 Guin said, his eyes carefully scanning the knots of the rope to see if there was any part of it that could not bear the weight of Shem.

"Isn't it you, the Red Mercenary, who calls them monkeys? Their arms are as strong as our legs and they have only half our weight to support them. This is not so far-fetched a feat for them."

"I'd like to know what it's like for us... in the name of that stinking monkey god they worship."

 Istvan said, but he did not sound so sure. He added.

"Well, if it doesn't work, it won't work and you'll come up with something else anyway - but you're certainly indefatigable, Guin, with a hundred eyes of Yarn. You think you can walk across the wilds of Nosferus and outrun the Id on stilts. And you let people do it for you... at all."

 Instead of answering, Guin suddenly stretched out his hand to restrain Rak, who was about to climb onto the rope.

"Let the heavier one take his turn. The next heaviest thing after Sheba goes next."

 By that time, five or six small Semites had already successfully reached the other side. Indeed, as Guin had said, the tightrope-walking was much more suitable for the Semites, who were small in stature and had the strength of apes, than for those who could handle stilts, and they followed the rope without any sign of fear. But in the meantime, one of them slipped and was swallowed by the id, and turned into a lump of flesh in the white jelly before the eyes of his companions.

"If we don't get the heavy guys through first, we don't know how long this improvised rope will last, and when it starts to break, the lighter the better for our safety."

 Guin explained to Istvan in simple terms.

"Why don't we use more of the leftover vines and bow vines to make a rope, double it, and reinforce it?"

 Istvan's suggestion.

"I thought about that too, but--"