Astir had spent eight more days in the cave before he was able to move down the mountain on Gwalarn back. His wound was looking better if you didn’t take into consideration the deep violet stripe it was forming on his left side and its awkward way of moving his body. The plan was to slowly go down to Joubarbe. A middle-size city that was supposedly a bit further to the south of his position. He had thoughts of climbing back to the convoy at the beginning. But they did fall pretty hard and from the slot inclination it was already a miracle that they were both safe. 

He wasn’t so sure about the direction they should take since he was lost but from his deduction of Steredenn position and the different stars he was able to see at night, they were around thirty kilometers away from Joubarbe which make it the closest to them. Thankfully, he had talked with Taraxac, the convoy Spelucico, about the topography of the red mountains. Taraxac was very knowledgeable and Astir had enjoyed spending time with him. To be honest, he was missing him.  Now that he had lost Septem and Kornog, he was feeling empty. If Gwalarn wasn’t there, he would probably have left any motivation behind and let himself die where he had fallen. Gwalarn was much more important to him than his own life. He didn’t realize that fact before but now that he was riding the criollo’s back - the best he could do with broken libs, more like sloppy maintaining himself on Gwalarn - he had time to think about how precious this little one was to him. At the same time, he couldn’t remember clearly the lumoks attacks. The ways he loses everything in an instant, again. Which was making it very difficult to recall. He only had flashes that were coming as nightmares, kind of the same as Septem and he had after leaving Pratt. 

Since they were in-between mountains the vegetation was much more dense and except for the one from small animals, there was no path. Gwarlarn was creating his own, along the way, but he had to go back many times to find a better path. Plus with the dailies eclipse it was way harder to go as fast as he wanted. The trees were more diverse than up the mountains. Some were way bigger but there were countless different species all mixed up together. Blocking the way and the view of big predators. For some parts Gwarlarn had to jump between branches, same as a cat to make his way. Astir was quite surprised to find out that his criollo was between a canidae and a feline. 

Since they were pretty rare mammals and the fact that he never saw Kornog or Gwalarn do that before he had no clue if it was a criorde regular trait or if it was only at the criollo stage or if simply Gwarlarn and Kornog were exceptions. 

Gwarlarn was running as fast as he could without making Astir fall. The criollo knew that something was wrong with his dad and that he may lose him if he wasn’t careful enough. Apparently the leontopo wanted to go to some bipeds agglomeration down the mountain. The thing was that he didn’t have a clear idea of where to go and the way the teenager was giving directions was very sloppy. Gwarlarn also knew that they were in the middle of nowhere and there wasn’t any trace of bipeds. Plus it was very hard to find a path and keep Astir with him as of now. It would be better to wait somewhere for him to heal. And it was dangerous too. They weren’t neither the biggest nor the smartest predator here and they had no pack to protect them. Going forward was not a good idea. 

After three days of running in what they were thinking to be the South, Astir finally acknowledged that he was definitely lost, and in no condition to continue even with the criollo accompanying him. It was time to settle somewhere in the mountain, build a base and survive until he was better. 

After the second eclipse, as they were wandering to find a cavern to stay for a few days, Gwalarn showed some reaction to sounds coming from the west. Astir was walking next to him. So he gently touches his shoulder with his nose to make him notice too. 

When Astir looked up and saw Gwalarn's eyes, he got the impression that the criollo was trying to say something. He kept fixing the red pupil of his beast when he heard an usual sound. Then he understood what Gwarlarn was trying to say. First be careful but second it doesn’t seem ominous. Far from the lack of sound the lumoks were creating, this sound was kind of like one a humanoid can make. 

They were carefully approaching to where it originated. Slowly walking between branches and bushes as soundlessly as possible. That’s when they saw it.