“Is that the Evil?” Hannah screamed above the roaring wind. Irmgard seemed not to hear her. She fought her way forward and fought and fought until they rounded a bend, at which point the wind immediately died away.
Hannah sat up on Irmgard’s back and brushed her disheveled hair out of her face. She had no desire to know what her hairdo looked like now.
“Why did the wind stop?” she asked.
“It was probably one of those mountain winds. How strong it hits you depends on where you’re standing.”
“Hmm...” Hannah was having trouble imagining that. She looked around again but saw nothing other than barren crags and loose rocks. They still found themselves so far down the slope that the mountains were towering on either side and blocking their view. Nothing stirred, and apart from their own breathing, there wasn’t a sound to be heard.
“Should we keep going?” Hannah asked.
Irmgard whinnied softly and kept moving forward. The wind did not return, and a little while later, they came to a fork in the road.
“Which way do we go, Hannah?”
“Can you stick your nostrils in the air like Siegfried and smell where the fireflower grows?”
Irmgard snorted. “I’ll give it a try.” She lifted her muzzle and sniffed the air. “I smell... uh ... what is that? I smell something. And it’s not you. I know this smell... or maybe not.” Her nostrils flared several times. “It smells putrid and foul, sulfurous and...” She inhaled deeply, “and... ugh... it does not smell good!”
“Can you smell the fireflower?”
Irmgard shook her mane.
Hannah peered down the two paths. The path to the left ran along the side of the mountain, with hardly any incline. It looked like it might take them deeper into the mountains. The path to the right, by contrast, rose sharply upwards and led to the top of the foremost mountain.
“When I came with my kids, we took the right-hand path. Like I said, we didn’t get too far before Leon got so frightened that we had to turn back. I never saw a red fireflower by the wayside, but I wasn’t exactly looking for one either. Who knows whether that flower even grows in our time. That may be the only reason I never saw it anywhere. Still, I say we take the left-hand path.”
Irmgard snorted. “I’d also rather take the left-hand path. If the wind blows in our faces again, it will be easier to keep going on a level path.”
And off the unicorn trotted. Clack, clack, clack—her hoofbeats pierced the silence, which had meanwhile grown more oppressive.
After a while, they came to a rocky plateau that stretched immediately in front of Rupertsberg, the tallest of the mountains. The path was wide enough that Irmgard could trot a few paces to either side. Now and then, the ground would reveal a crack, as if an earthquake had wreaked havoc there and split the powerful rock.
They had left the smallest of the mountains behind, and it cast its long, tapered shadow across the plateau. The remaining smaller mountain peaks rose up on every side and formed a circle around Rupertsberg.
Three paths branched off from the plateau. The middle one went straight up Rupertsberg at a sharp incline, while the left- and the right-hand paths continued along the outer edge of the mountainside.
Hannah looked around. Everything was gray and drab. She could have easily spotted the flower, but nowhere could she detect a splash of red. Here and there, a single blade of grass was swaying gently to and fro—that was the only plant life in this barren mountainscape.
Hannah pointed at Rupertsberg. “What do you think? Will we have to go up to the highest peak to find the fireflower? Or does it grow in the shadows of the mountains in one of these cracks?”
“I’m wondering if the Evil hasn’t already shielded it from our vision.”
“But there’s no one attacking us.”
“There doesn’t have to be if we can’t find it anyway.”
Hannah knit her brow and took another careful look around the barren, rocky landscape. She jumped off Irmgard’s back and walked a couple of paces along the plateau. She kicked aside a few small stray stones, which rolled into the cracks in the rock. “I would take the direct route up Rupertsberg. What do you think, Irmgard?”
Right at that moment, Hannah heard squeaky, high-pitched voices that immediately sent a shiver down her spine.
“... are they here? ... are they doing here? ... evil!”
Their footprints didn’t show on the hard surface of the rock, but it was still instantly clear to Hannah who had followed them. “Forest gnomes! Why are they here? There’s no forest here!”
“Why is she screaming like that? Must catch her! Attacked us! Evil woman!”
“Quick, Hannah, get on my back!”
