After a few hard days of riding, we make it to the base of the first row of mountains of the Draconem Range.
"There are five circles of mountains that surround Draconem." I explain. "There are bridges linking each one together, lucky for us the rows are close together, so it should only take half a day to cross each bridge."
"Even the one for Draconem itself?" Eron asks.
"There is no bridge. We have to climb down the last row and climb up Draconem. Draconem is the only mountain with no bridge linking it in this range."
I turn to Gandalf. "Thank you, for guiding us across."
He smiles. "For one of the heirs of Isildur, anything."
I look at him blankly. "What?"
His expression fades away. "You don't know yet..." His gaze becomes distant.
"What do I not know yet?" I ask. "Gandalf?"
He snaps out of the phase and looks at me, smiling under his beard. "Nothing," He says. "I'm sure we'll see each other again, Elektra." He looks at the rest of the group. "As for the rest of you...good luck. I have...other business to be attending, I cannot stay."
"Wait, Gand-" I start, but Shadowfax has galloped away, the other horses turn and follow.
I turn to the group. "Let's start climbing, shall we?"
We start up the shallow slope, and we've made it almost half way up the mountain by nightfall.
"Don't light a fire," I say. "Light none while up in these mountains, not until we get to Draconem will it be safer."
"Aren't we safer the further away we are from the dragon?" Aenor says.
"These mountains become more dangerous the further you immerse yourself in them, and it is because a dragon is in Draconem those dangers stay away from the mountain, but not too far." I explain. "So don't light a fire."
We've made it to the top the next day, and we walk along the top of the first row of the Draconem Range.
"How far away is the bridge?" Narweth shouts over the crisp wind.
"Less than a league!" I shout back.
There are four natural, stone bridges that link the five rings surrounding Draconem, and within a few weeks, we've crossed all four of them, the last two have been covered with snow and been narrower than the others-which have been at least less than a kilometer wide. These two are less than ten metres wide, as strong winds whip us left and right, ice and snow ripping past us.
As we climb down the mountain, a blizzard jumps upon us, and we huddle in our cloaks for countless hours until it dies away.
By the time we make it down the mountain, most of the group is miserable, cold, and numb, everyone is silent and they walk at a slower pace than usual.
We walk along a river that I remember shined silver in the moonlight, we cross it, and start up the slope of Draconem.
The shriek of an Aquilam seems to wake everyone up, they look around the dim light, alert.
"Come on," I say. "Over here is a cave." We walk quickly, climbing a little higher until we come to a shallow cave where I know nothing lives in it. "We can't light a fire in here, they'll see it." I say.
"How do we know if there's anything inside?"
"Caves at the base of this mountain are usually shallow, nothing lives in them, but the higher we go, the deeper they become, and anything can live there."
