With that all his preparations where done. It was time to get to it. He took a step so he was stood in the opening of the hole. Not wanting to look down he turned around so he was facing back into the cave. Getting onto the rock face was a little awkward as he was standing directly next to it instead of being in front of it but other than being a new manoeuver it wasn’t difficult. With that he was off. He started planning out his route, not for the whole distance just until he could place the next safety wedge. He didn’t end up going directly up instead he went up and slightly to his right there was a gap in the rock there that looked ideal and was at the about ten meter mark away from him. The climbing was relatively easy and Gar got there rather quickly, he admonished himself to slow down rushing was just going to cause mistakes and wear him out.
He found a spot near the gap where he could balance comfortably and take off a hand. He then used the free hand to insert the next wedge on his rope into the crack before pulling out his hammer and striking the wedge home. He almost lost his balance with the first blow of the hammer not quite prepared for how much it wanted to push him off the rock. He was better prepared for the next blow and it didn’t cause him any more problems. The next part was the most dangerous. He had Bodger pull on the rope from below undoing the knot that would stop him falling to far if he slipped. Gar then had to pull through another fifteen or so meters of rope through the new wedge before single handedly tying a replica of the knot that had been undone just under the new wedge. Gar breathed a sigh of relief after he had it done. He didn’t know how many more times he was going to have to do that but he would hate every one.
He carried on moving he was able to head straight up following the gap in the rock he had just used for his wedge. He was putting wedges in roughly every ten meters and was able to get two more wedges in before the crack petered out. He was then moving back and forth across the rock as he went up from crack to crack. It was at about the hundred meter mark that he realised what a mammoth task was ahead of him. He should have brought a water bottle with him, the weight and inconvenience of having it strapped to him would have more than been made up for with a refreshing drink.
It was at about the one hundred and seventy meter mark that he realised that he could tie the knot just under a safety wedge before pulling excess rope through then let go and just hang to rest. It was only at the two hundred and thirty meter mark that he was tired enough to try it. While it was what it was designed to do it was scary to trust his life to an untested wedge and a knot. He took his feet off the rock as he held on with his arms ready to pull if he started to fall. He didn’t have to everything held as it was supposed to. It still took a few minutes before Gar was willing to let go of the rock completely and just hang. It wasn’t the most comfortable position just hanging there his harness had been designed for safety not comfort, it was enough however to let his arms and legs rest just a bit. He tried not to hang to long or getting going again would be difficult.
He kept track of his progress by how many of the safety wedges he put in. Gar tried not to look too far up and absolutely refused to look down. It was at the three hundred and eighty meter mark that the mistake happened. Gar was getting really tired it was taking longer to climb than he thought as his pace slowed the more tired he got. The sun was low in the sky casting long shadows and bright beams of light. When he reached for a hand hold slightly too high, as he stretched up his left foot slipped off where it was balancing this caused him to tip bringing his other foot off the wall, his left hand was the only thing still holding him to the wall and it wasn’t strong enough to fight the sudden movement. He came away from the wall and fell.
The fall didn’t last long before he felt a jerk as the rope and harness caught him. The relief was short lived as he swung into the cliff wall driving all the air from his lungs. He bounced off only to come swinging back again for another hit into the wall. Gar just let himself hang there gasping for breath trying to get some air in his lungs. Slowly he got himself under control and still he just let himself hang.
He had been stupid, he had needed a rest for a while. He had known he was close to four hundred meters and had tried to push on until he got there. It was foolish if he was that tired he should just rest pushing on didn’t help him he was in no rush and because of his stupidity he was in pain and had to climb the last twenty meters twice he couldn’t afford to be repeating sections he was tired as it was. Hanging from the harness may give him a little break but it wasn’t a real rest he was still under strain.
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Gar just let himself hang for a few minutes taking the break he should have had before he fell. As he hung there, for the first time he looked all the way up to see the top of the cliffs. He had avoided looking until then so as not to be discouraged by how far he had left to go. Although what he found was good news he had less than a hundred meters to go and while that was still a long way particularly in his tired state it was much less than he feared. It wasn’t all good news though because what he hadn’t been able to see from below was that the cliff came out near the top creating a slight overhang. It wasn’t very far at all just enough to make his climb more difficult and more tiring as he would have to pull more with his arms and be able to rest less weight on his legs.
He spent a few more minutes just hanging there to catch his breath and get past the ache from slamming into the cliff. By the time he was climbing again the sun had dropped low enough he needed his dark vision to be able to see. There was still some light but without his dark vision he would have been climbing more by feel than by sight. He went another forty meters before the overhang started. Climbing became more difficult as his already tired body had to put in more effort, for every movement every meter he went it cost him more for the next. He started putting safety wedges more regularly it wasn’t much further before he was putting them in wherever he could.
When he next looked up he was perhaps only twenty meters from the top. At the start that was a distance he would have clambered over in no time, where he was after what he had done that twenty meters felt almost unsurmountable, almost. Gar wouldn’t look up again he focused on the rock in front of him, left hand, right hand, left foot, right foot. Then again left hand, right hand, left foot, right foot. Again hand, hand, foot, foot that is all he thought about one at a time not speeding up. Not really thinking about speed at all as long as he was moving hand, hand, foot, foot. He reached a crack he hammered in a safety wedge re-knotted and moved on, hand hand foot, foot.
Like that he pushed on, he slipped and fell once. However due to how regularly he was putting safety wedges he didn’t fall far. Gar didn’t let himself hang he was sure that if he stopped he wouldn’t get going again. He reached for the rock and pulled himself up. That last twenty meters a distance he would normally climb in a matter of minutes took Gar over an hour to climb. It was with the last of his energy that Gar pulled himself over the edge grabbing handfuls of grass and plants to pull himself up. He rolled over the lip then rolled a couple more times to get away from the edge.
Too tired to stand he just lay there as his body cried out from all the punishment he had put it through. Despite all that there was a small smile on Gar’s face, he was no longer trapped he was free to go wherever he wanted. Gar just lay there enjoying the feeling of not having to hold up his own weight. His plan had been to bring up his armour and weapon as soon as he was up, that did not happen. Despite the risk and danger of sleeping out in the open in an unknown place that is what Gar did. He was too worn out to tired to do anything else the moment he didn’t have to hold on and keep pushing forwards he was out like a light.
Gar didn’t sleep for long it was a couple of hours at most. It was still the middle of the night when he was woken by sounds he didn’t recognise. Gar was still weak from his exertions. He had recovered enough to get on with what he needed to, he shuffled over to the edge and peered down there was enough starlight that between that and his dark vision he was able to see the line his rope made up the cliff and follow it all the way to the hole where the badgers and his gear where waiting for him. It was about thirty meters to his right before he would be directly over it, he fixed its location in his mind so he could find it again.
Once he was certain that he had it in his memory Gar had Bodger bite off the large knot on the far end of his rope. Gar got a feeling of affirmation once it was done so he started pulling in his rope. He had to pull it smoothly so it didn’t get snagged on any of the safety wedges it was going through, it got easier to pull as it was on less and less wedges until he had its entire length coiled up next to him. Wasting no time he had got lucky so far no more norkers or ogre slugs had found the badgers while he climbed or was there a pile of them unconscious by the slumbering vine sap he did not know and it was only a matter of time before his luck ran out and someone smarter came along.
He attached a sturdy stick to the end of the rope then moved so he was right above the hole where the badgers where waiting. He then dropped the stick over the edge and started lowering it down with a bit of luck this would be the most difficult one to get. Once it was at the appropriate length he started swinging the rope gently trying to get the stick into the hole. It took numerous attempts before he felt something grab the end of the rope. Gar gave a pull and whatever was on the rope came with it. He started hauling the rope back up and when he looked down he could just make out a badger coming up with it.
