Although it certainly felt like the worlds end, it was hard to believe that the mountain range was god’s domain. Indeed it was so bare, often the scholar forgot that he were on earth and not in some hell. No plant pierced the grey dirt, no birds flew through the clouded sky and no beast nor human could be spyed traversing the paths or peaks.
The mountains themselves were enormous, their tips reached hungrily for the heavens and their canyons swallowed the scholar and his convoy whole. The harsh storms that rolled through had shaped them into sharp stone teeth, and only a fool would consider climbing them. To feel a breeze blowing was a rarity and days on end the range would be engulfed in silence, disturbed only by their wagons stuttering and their mules snorting. His two guides sat shriveled by the reins. They covered themselves head to toe, and carried curved blades at their hips, that were chipped and stained from battling…god knows what. Sometimes when they ate the scholar caught glimpses of their narrowed yellow eyes. And sometimes in the night he wake stir, awoken by their strange tunes and eerie warbling songs.

When he’d first set out, before they had left the outpost a month away the scholar had felt unsafe around his guides but now the monotony of
the journey had stripped him of those worries. He spent his days either sleeping in the wagons back or walking behind it, looking for anything interesting. But he never strayed too far. And he did not dare touch the manuscript, in fear that a bump on the road would cause ink to spill on its pages.
He had seen none of what had been promised to him by the universities. The fantastical castles of the mountains lords have long since withered away and only lone bricks and hovels remained. He saw no drakes, no trolls, and no witches soaring across the sky on their hogs. For a long time he had been afraid that the Katedra itself would not exist either. The matter had made him lose weeks of sleep. But for days now they’d begun seeing the lights, small’s dots of orange appearing as the mountains thinned. And day by day they grew closer, reaching out the scholar felt he could grab them and absorb the knowledge awaiting him.

This would be their last day together on their road, the guides would ride through the night and then in the morning he would continue to the Katedra on his own. His mind was raced uncontrollably at the thought, soon he would be greeted inside, see everything the archives spoke of. The city-sized libraries, the devoted priests in their cloaks of red and blue, the champions who protected the knowledge and every single other scrap of lore that would fill out his manuscript. The endless unseen’s that awaited him, filled the scholar with a childish giddiness that he struggled to control as they continued through the last of grey landscape.

When night came, they stopped and none of the scholar’s pleadings made the guides keep moving. They tied to wagon up, covered the mules in blankets and dragged everything a little ways up a hill and into a ruin. The scholar trudged behind them, kicking at pebbles.
The small hall was still largely in-shape, with four walls and roof that covered almost half the sky it was luxurious. It probably served as a place for community gatherings as there was a single large bonfire in the middle and signs of desks arranged in circles. After they’d eaten, the guides lay back against their packs, one slowly blew a flute, filling the hall with chilling music and the other scrubbed the rust of his blade. The scholar himself had clambered onto the roof and was gazing out towards the Katedra. There was no moon that night but the lights were so close and so bright that he could already make out the structures. Even as bare outlines the towers and spires were a spectacular sight.

Then something else could be heard slowly echoing over the mountains, out from the Katedra. Moaning’s, deep and pitiful, full of pain and fear, like the last struggling sound of a slaughtered animal. His guides had stopped and looking shaken themselves had drawn their blades close to them.
“What, what is that sound” he asked hoarsely and for once they answered him.

“Sinners”