Free The Soul Sphere: Book 01 - The Shattered Sphere by David Adams

as they were out of sight of the city, and indicated that they could stay on the road at least for a day.
    The Stone Mountains loomed up to the north, cold, gray and forbidding in the pale morning light. They formed a natural barrier along much of the northern border of Delving and Corindor, with the Westerland lying on the other side. Even though the range ran nearly six hundred miles, there were no easy passes, and the range was rarely crossed—travelers made the long journey around the eastern or western ends of the range if they wanted to reach destinations beyond. The biting wind that swept down from the snow-capped peaks only reinforced the hostile nature of the mountains.
    As they sheltered in a small grove of trees that evening, Corson chewed without enthusiasm on a piece of dried meat that he had warmed over the small fire they had allowed themselves. “Why is it our nature,” he said with a sigh, “to have so little appreciation for what we have?”
    “What mean?” asked Lucien.
    “I’m sitting here thinking how much I would love to have a simple bowl of stew, or a mug of ale. But I thought little of these when I had them…and little of what we have now.” He looked at the withered meat and smiled ruefully. “Will I dream of having such fare as this in days to come?”
    “Only days ago,” said Tala, “we had no food at all. That may indeed happen again.”
    “Exactly. So is that just human nature, or am I an ungrateful sot?”
    They all laughed, and Demetrius added that though he had had the same sort of thoughts, Corson was, in fact “ ‘an ungrateful sot’ if not worse.”
    “I wouldn’t call it ‘human’ nature,” said Tala. “I am no less guilty.”
    “I same,” added Lucien.
    “How about you, Rowan?” asked Demetrius. “I’ve seen you thank the Savior before meals that were less than this one. A habit?”
    Rowan wore a wan smile. “More often than it should be, I suppose. But I do try to be thankful for what I am given. We may have to search hard at times like these, but there are always things to be thankful for. If not our lives, then a small meal, a cloak to fight off the cold…” He paused looking at each of them in turn. “Or friends for the journey.”
    “Friends are always worth giving thanks for,” Tala agreed.
    “Even the ugly ones,” added Corson while giving Lucien a hearty pat on the back.
    “I thankful we have someone here to be food if we need it,” Lucien replied, giving Corson a toothy smile.
    Corson swallowed with feigned nervousness. “I thought stories of goblins eating people were just that—stories.”
    Lucien ran his tongue over his teeth, then rolled over to go to sleep.
    “Very funny,” Corson said to the goblin’s back.
    Around mid-afternoon the next day, Tala called the group to a stop just after Corson had commented that they seemed to be making good progress. “I knew I should have kept my mouth shut,” he grumbled to himself.
    “We should start heading north now,” she informed them.
    Rowan led the way off the road and toward the looming mountains. “Keep an eye out for any openings or paths up,” he called back over his shoulder. “It would be good if we could keep the horse.”
    No one disagreed, but from the look of the mountains, no one held out much hope for that either.
    They reached the foothills just before dark and set up camp. The night passed quietly. With the coming of dawn they studied the terrain ahead and Tala consulted the Sphere piece.
    “We need to go a bit more west before going up. If we’re lucky we’ll find a trail.”
    They had no luck finding any signs of previous human passage up the gray stone hills, but decided a spot where the grass extended up a gentler rise—they had become used to rubble and larger rocks—was as good an entry point as they could hope to find. Even then, it was not long before the slope became a burden that slowed them.
    Rowan and Demetrius had the lead and would stop from time to