Answers to the comments:

Thank you for the reviews! And thank you both for the compliments on grammar and/or spelling; as English is not my native language, it is good to hear that the story is readable!

ITN 7th: Yes, I plan to complete the story. I have completed my other story here(Hadrilkar – The Collar of Servitude), so the chances are high that I also won't give up on this one.

yay: Characters from other races will probably only appear in this story as side characters or enemies, since I tend to focus on Dark Elves.

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Lord of the Mountain Roads

Chapter IV: Snow and Rock

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Setharai woke up. The mercifully dim light didn't hurt her eyes, and she moved carefully, turning from her back to her side, curling up in the warmth of furs that she was covered with. Wondering if she had reached the encampment after all without remembering it, she looked at the sewn together hides of the tent she was lying in.

Then she realized that among the hides were those of Druchii. It shocked her; she clearly saw the pale delicate color of the material, Druhir signs tattooed on it, and suppressed a scream. This was not one of the tents of the Dark Elven lord she had tried to deliver the message to.

Autarii. The thought flashed through her mind. Autarii! The Shades! The savage elves of these mountain tribes often hunted city-dwelling Druchii who dared to intrude in their territory. Was she captured by them?

Disoriented again, she moved her arms and legs, finding them not restrained by any means. If the Autarii had caught her, why would they leave her free? She sat up and looked down onto her body, throwing off the furs. Cold air engulfed her, and she shivered. She was still wearing her thin robe and her breeches, but her leather jerkin, her armor and her weapons were gone. Setharai scanned the tent for her belongings, but they were not in sight.

As silently as possible, she stood up and paced her way to the entrance of the tent. Drawing back the curtain of Druchii and human skin, she peered outside. The white light of winter, reflected from radiant snow, almost blinded her.

She was on a natural balcony formed in a mountain side by a whim of nature. A steep, almost perfectly smooth slope rose above it into the height, and the view from the ledge was magnificent in daylight – dark woods descending into a valley, the black, gray and white peaks of the Blackspines surrounding the place, and a sky bleak as milk, the sun hidden behind clouds, shining its pale light onto the scenery. Just a few steps from the tent, a fire burned, dark fumes of poorly dried wood rising from it.

Next to the fire, an elf sat, dressed in dark leather, a short chain-mail coat and a thick woolen cloak, his face obscured by a shawl that covered his mouth and nose, his shaggy black hair, shaved away at the sides of his head, drawn into a ponytail. The elf seemed to be deep in thought or sleeping – he didn't react to her movement.

Maybe if she could surprise him, she had a chance, even though he was armed – she saw the repeater crossbow on his lap, and a sword at his belt. She wouldn't let herself be treated as mere prey. If the Autarii brought her here to slaughter her and eat her as meat, or use her skin for tents and clothing – she wouldn't give up that easily.

A small voice in the back of her head whispered that it was not all that logical for them to have left her unbound if her suspicion was right.

She ignored it, running two steps towards the stranger and launching herself at him, her hands grabbing the crossbow.

…

Ruathac had heard the Rider stir in her sleep, move inside the tent, and when her pale face, the expression of mistrust and anger distorting her features, appeared between the hides, he had seen it without turning his head. He had already known what she would do when she woke up, and had positioned himself so that he could see the entrance to the tent from the corner of his eye. She would surely try to attack him, like probably every Druchii would. Shades were not famous for their hospitality, at least not till they shared salt and meat with a stranger, which bound both sides with a traditional oath. As the Dark Rider wouldn't remember doing so, fighting seemed the logical way to go. That was the main reason why he had taken her weapons outside and not left them in the tent.

When she toppled him over, trying to grasp the crossbow, he let himself fall, providing no resistance. His hand found the dagger at his side, drawing it quickly but not pointing it at her. He needed it just in case his plan wouldn't work.

She jumped back to the entrance of the tent, the crossbow pointed in his direction. He stayed on the ground, breathing calmly, and turned his head to face her.

Ruathac saw her face light up in triumph. It was lovely, heart-shaped, with dark-blue eyes and a small red mouth, and surrounded by tangled silky strand of her hair. He saw her ribcage rising when she breathed in, accentuating the small breasts that marked her otherwise almost androgynous, slender form as female; the thin black robe hid little of her form. He felt almost attracted to her for a moment, and hoped that he wouldn't have to kill her. "I won't do you harm." His voice was slightly muffled by the shawl, but she seemed to understand what he had said.

The woman arched her brows, her dark blue eyes flashing angrily. "Where are my weapons?" She spoke the softer dialect of the port cities, Clar Karond and Karond Kar, the harsh sounds of the Druhir language drawn out and blurred into something that almost sounded like the Eltharin of the hated Asur.

"Later. Calm down." He sat up, moving his hand to his face, pulling the shawl down.

Of course, she was startled by the movement, and shot.

Or at least, she tried to shoot. There were no bolts in the mechanism of the repeater crossbow – Ruathac had taken them all out, since he expected that the other Druchii would go for the crossbow.

The woman cried out in anger and jumped at him again, trying to hit him on the head with the crossbow to stun him. She aimed well, too; he was barely able to duck.

She tried again, throwing him down this time, her weight light but the impact still great through the momentum. He raised his arm in defense, and the wood of the weapon crashed against his vambrace, painful but not injuring. With a quick move, he turned over, burying the other Druchii under him, his arm with the dagger coming up.

She went still when she felt the blade at her throat, looking at him with wide indigo eyes.

"Stop fighting me." He was losing his patience. "I am not your enemy."

She looked at him, seemingly confused, but he felt the slightest tug on his weapon belt, and knew instantly that she was trying to draw his sword out of the scabbard. His free hand locked on her wrist, hindering her from doing that.

She gritted her teeth, and her gaze turned into pure hate. "Damned Autarii! Go on, try and kill me!"

A Druchii would prefer death to failure, they said. But how many times was death a failure in itself? He had decided to live on to avenge his tribe after his failure to defend them. If there was something he had learned from this bitter experience, it was that every Druchii life was precious, worth saving. His family, the people of his clan, was gone irreversibly; and he had seen the human barbarians taking over the territory that once belonged to them. Clumsy, worthless, short-lived beings, bringing with them the Chaos spawn, the ugly, foul creatures that they worshipped. Every Druchii still alive would be another inch of Naggaroth not yet lost to Chaos.

"No." He smiled, bitterly. "If you want death, you can jump." He moved his chin towards the border of the natural balcony. "But you could live."

"Live to be cut in pieces while still alive, to be walking food supply? Then let me jump, if you've got any honor left in you! Let go of me, filthy Shade!"

Ruathac moved aside, releasing her. "Well then." He moved his dagger to his left hand and drew his sword with the right, standing up in a fluent movement. "Go ahead."

She was on her feet the next instant, but hesitated. Her eyes darted from one side of the ledge to the other, and then she turned her head quickly, obviously searching for her weapons.

The Shade waited patiently, his hands with sword and dagger not even raised.

Finally, she turned to him, her dark blue eyes curious, her breathing calming. "Where did you hide my sword?"

He grinned. "Not so eager to jump, eh?"

She bit her lip and then suddenly shook her head, realizing that he was not going to attack her – he could have had plenty of time for that just a second ago. "Why did you bring me here?"

"You'd have died otherwise." He shrugged and sheathed his sword, still keeping the dagger in his left hand.

"That is not an answer to my question." She wound her arms around her slender shape, feeling the icy air again now that the heat of the fight left her. "Why did you bring me up to this ledge, put me into your tent, and take away my weapons?" Her eyes narrowed. "And why didn't you restrain me? You were clearly expecting that I would attack you." She glanced at the crossbow, devoid of bolts, lying on the snow.

For a moment, only the fire was crackling, the flame diminishing, the wood burning down. Ruathac threw it a troubled look. "I will help you to get back to your city." He shifted his weight from one leg onto another. It was a really cold day; their rather amusing small fight had had warmed him up, but now he felt his skin numbing again, even under clothes, from the bite of the frost. And the female elf must be freezing in the thin robe she wore. They should definitely get closer to the fire; and it should continue burning. "Mind if I tend to the fire now?"

Shivering, she nodded, and walked back to the tent.

When the fire burned even and bright again, Ruathac went to retrieve her armor and cloak from the hiding place between the rocks, and then followed her. He found her wrapped in the furs, her teeth clattering.

"Here is your armor." He threw it to her. "You should join me at the fire."

She picked up the leather jerkin and then looked up. A smile lighted her face. "My name is Setharai."

Ruathac stared at her for a moment, surprised by the sudden change in her behavior. Then he nodded. "You can call me Ruathac."

She began to put on her armor, first the jerkin, then the breastplate of cooked leather. Lacing up the vambrace on her left arm, she stopped for a moment, frozen in her movement, tilting her head a bit, her expression showing indecisiveness. At last she threw him a quick glance, and said, hardly audibly: "Thank you, Ruathac."

He was amazed at how wonderful it felt to hear a Druchii voice saying his name again.

...

They climbed up the mountain for two days. Setharai was reluctant to take the same pass that she went through on the way from Clar Karond, since they would have to go past the campsite of the Chaos army again to do so. By now the enemy would be alarmed and watch out for them, and it would be too dangerous.

But the way they chose had its own disadvantages. The often steep terrain slowed them down, and more than once they had to go back and search for a better way when the path that Ruathac remembered had been covered by an avalanche or bigger rocks broken from the peaks above by time.

Setharai followed the Autarii wordlessly. At first she had wondered why he wanted to help her at all. She was curious where the rest of his tribe was; she had rarely heard of an Autarii wandering alone. When she had decided to speak to him about it for the first time, when they took a rest from climbing, a mountain goat appeared on the slope under them, and Ruathac followed it to shoot it down. After they had skinned and disemboweled the goat, packed some of the meat to take it with them and eaten themselves full, Setharai was too sated and sleepy to talk. The next time she tried to ask him about his people, a small human warband crossed their way, probably on the way to the valley where the Chaos army was stationed, and they had to fight.

By now, she was too tired from the endless climbing to even bother talking.

Finally, they reached a plateau, and Setharai was glad to finally walk on more or less even ground, even though the air here was thin and so cold that it felt as if it cut her lungs when she breathed in.

One side of the plateau was sheltered from the wind by a mountain side, an almost vertical wall of black and reddish stone. Iridescent veins of metal shimmered in it, and a black hole about two elf heights in diameter was visible in the wall, an entrance to a cave. Looking closer, Setharai saw heaps of rocks on both sides of the entrance.

She walked towards the cave. Inside there was a tunnel leading into the darkness, and rails on the ground following its course. "It is a mine!"

The Shade stepped closer to look inside, and nodded. "Yes. Abandoned, though."

"What kind of mine was it?" She entered the cave and ran a gloved hand over a rough wall. There was no metal shimmering here, and the walls were carved away at some places and left in protruding angles in others.

"Let's go. We won't stay here." Ruathac turned back to leave the cave again.

She followed him outside and looked up at the wall of rock. The metal reflected sunlight where it was visible, sparkling and tempting; but its gleam was darker than that of silver, almost resembling steel. She knew that steel was not found in nature like that; instead, iron had to be melt down and forged to develop its shine. "Is it silver steel? I thought it is made from steel and silver, in a complex process that involves magic… But it does look like silver steel a lot!"

He shook his head. "This is not silver steel." He strode over the plateau, heading for a small breach in the mountain adjacent to the vertical wall.

"Wait!" Setharai frowned. She was much less used to walking the mountain paths than him. If they went on like that, all his attempts to help her would be in vain. She would simply become fatigued and inattentive enough to fall off a rock into the abyss below during one of the more dangerous climbing routes. "Let us rest here. I cannot go on anymore. If the mine is abandoned, we can use the cave as shelter."

His gray eyes were colder than the snow surrounding them when he turned around. "If you insist. But be prepared to fight if necessary."

She sighed and patted the hilt of her sword. "I am always prepared to fight." Dropping her bag, she leaned on the wall of dark stone and shimmering metal. "In fact, I'd much rather fight than walk endlessly over snow and rock."