Chapter Twenty-Three

                                    

                                          

         There was a brief moment between jumping and falling where they were simply suspended in the air, weightless and left feeling as though time itself stood still. Claire stared in awe at the world below, the dark green of the boreal forest stretched onward for miles before giving way to the flat, white of the icy tundra. Barely visible on the horizon, obscured by thick flurries of snow were the sharp, jagged peaks of the Ninguid mountains, dark and foreboding.
         Claire couldn't help the feeling of unease that crept into her heart at the sight. What secrets lay buried there and for what reason? 
         Without warning, a sharp gust of icy wind caught the glider under its wing and sent it spinning out of control, spiraling groundward at an alarming rate. 
         Claire let out a scream that was swallowed up by the wind before she closed her eyes and willed herself to be anywhere else but plummeting through the air to her inevitable death. She could feel Draz straining to regain control of the contraption and realized that there was no way he'd be able to do it alone.
         Gritting her teeth, she forced her frozen limbs to move, pulling up on the handle of the glider as she leaned in the same direction as Draz. It took all she had in her not to cry out as she was painfully reminded of half a dozen bruised ribs. Gasping, she fought through the pain and after a few seconds the glider stabilized.
         When Claire finally gathered the courage to open her eyes, the ground, which had seemed miles away prior, was so close now she was certain they'd been minutes from meeting an unpleasant end.
         "Get ready for a rough landing!" Draz called out, his voice rising over the sound of air rushing by. "I'm going to aim for that clearing but... I've never been very good at flying these things."
         With the trees speeding towards them at an alarming rate, Claire prepared for impact. At first it looked like they would make the clearing, but the closer they got the more obvious it became that this was not the case.
         "Hold on tight!"
         Claire wasn't sure if the snapping sound was the glider breaking up as it struck the trees, or branches giving way under the force of the impact. Claire closed her eyes and ducked her head as branches scraped at her hands and arms. Fortunately, they'd hit the tree line just low enough that the glider took the brunt of the impact and upon breaking up left them suspended several yards above the snowy ground.
         "Are you okay?" Draz asked breathlessly.
         "Y-yeah," she replied despite the throbbing burn in her side. "Yeah, I think so. How are we going to get down?"
         It wasn't the first time Claire had found herself in this sort of predicament. Unlike last time, however, she didn't have the magic cards to aid them. She assumed the cards would eventually find their way back to her, but she couldn't be positive about that either. They were new, after all, and not as well trained as the cards her father owned.
         "We're going to have to climb down," Draz replied before he began untying the knotted rope from around his waist. 
         "Climb? Are you sure?"
         "Unless you'd rather jump," Draz said, leaning forward slightly as though he was gauging the distance. "I wouldn't recommend it though. Climbing down is definitely the better option."
         Claire scowled.
         "Come on now, it's not that bad," he said. "I'll go first. We'll take it one branch at a time."