He got off his bike and squatted to take out his binoculars. He saw three riders, raiders on black shaggy horses. They were riding side by side and coming up the railroad tracks towards him. Through the binoculars, he didn’t notice any sign that they had seen him. But if Ethan wanted to continue on this way, then he would have to go past them.
Ethan looked around to check his surroundings. To his left was an open, unplowed field and a river beyond that. To his right was a wooded area of mesquite trees and juniper bushes that was separated from the railroad tracks by a barbed-wire fence.
He examined his supplies and knew he couldn’t take on three mounted raiders alone. With a rifle, he could shoot at them before they could get close to him, but that wasn’t possible now. So, he decided to set a trap.
He set the bright red mountain bike up on its kickstand in the middle of the railroad tracks and snuck into the bushes on the other side of the fence. Then he took out the disassembled bow, put it together, and strung it.
Though he had six arrows, he only had three broadhead tips to go on them. He hoped that it would be enough. He nocked one arrow and held the other two in his left hand and knelt in a spot that would give him a clear sight to the bike. Then he waited.
He waited for what seemed to be an eternity until he heard the familiar sounds of horse hooves stomping through the grass and gravel of the railroad tracks. He took a few deep breaths to calm his racing heart and raised his bow to the ready.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
They emerged around a thick mesquite trunk that blocked his view. He saw the three raiders, dressed in black leather armor and masks with long, curved swords dangling from their saddles.
They rode up to the red mountain bike perched like a curiosity in the middle of the tracks. It had the intended effect. It made them stop and look at it instead of looking for him.
Ethan drew the arrow back, aimed at the raider that gave him the clearest shot, and let it fly. The arrow slammed into the raider’s ribs. The force of the arrow knocked him off balance, and he slid off his horse, which trotted away from the sudden movement. The raider clawed at the arrow shaft sticking out of his side.
The other two raiders immediately realized they were being ambushed. But they looked in the wrong direction, and Ethan fired another arrow. The arrow missed the raider and stuck into the neck of his horse, lodging in thick muscle and hide.
The horse shook its head to try and dislodge the arrow. It reared up and threw the raider off. The horse kicked once and then ran, dragging the raider behind it across the open field.
The last raider, seeing the direction the arrow came from, looked straight at Ethan, and drew his sword. He kicked his horse into a charge.
Ethan quickly drew and fired his last arrow, but it went wide and flew past the raider’s shoulder. The raider’s horse wouldn’t go past the barbed wire or brush, so the raider paced the horse back and forth as he tried to figure out an easier path.
Ethan knew that the raider’s sword would give the raider the advantage out in the open. But in the brush, Ethan might have a chance. He had to challenge the raider to follow him.
“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!”
Ethan dropped his bow and turned to run deeper into the brush, feeling the gray, thorny branches scratch against his clothes. He turned and drew his hunting knife when he saw the raider get off his horse and cross the barbed wire fence.
The raider didn’t seem as big as some of the others he had faced, but he was just as ugly. The raider didn’t wear a mask so Ethan could see his mangled nose and scarred face. He wore black leather pants and chest armor, but his muscled arms were bare and bled in places where the sharp mesquite thorns poked him.
The raider squared up against Ethan, his long, curved sword in one hand. Ethan stayed low, knife in hand, to avoid the brush. For a moment, they stood facing each other, eyes locked, waiting for someone to make the first move.
Ethan moved deeper into the brush until thick, green needles of a juniper bush hugged his body. The raider had to bend over to get under the hanging branch of a mesquite tree to get to him. Ethan feigned a dodge to his left, and the raider took the bait.
He swung the long blade at Ethan, but it got caught up in some thorny vines hanging down from the branch. Ethan jumped forward and slammed his knife into the raider’s stomach.
The strong blade and sharp edge cut through the raider’s leather armor and deep into his belly. Ethan grabbed the raider’s sword arm and slammed the blade into his gut again and again as the raider cried out in pain. The raider fell to his knees and dropped his sword. Ethan flipped his grip and stabbed down into the raider’s throat to finally silence him.
Once the raider stopped moving, Ethan picked up the raider’s sword and ran back to the site of the ambush. The raider with the arrow in his chest lie unconscious on the tracks, and blood bubbled out his mouth. He saw the other raider’s horse in the middle of the field, munching on some grass. The raider was lying still, and his foot still dangled from the stirrup. Ethan decided that he couldn’t risk leaving any of them alive and walked out to check on him.
As he approached, the raider moved slowly as if he were just waking up. He must have heard Ethan walking because, when he turned to look in Ethan’s direction, he panicked and desperately tried to untangle his foot from the stirrup.
It amazed Ethan to see one of these barbarians, which terrified him a few days ago, were now terrified of him.
Ethan ran towards him and straddled his stomach, pressing the sharp blade of the sword against the raider’s neck. He sawed the blade back and forth just enough to make a small cut into the soft skin at his throat. He leaned down and looked into the raider’s eyes.
“Can you understand me?”
The raider’s eyes were even wider than before, but he nodded.
“Good. What are you doing in San Marcos?”
The raider looked confused and shook his head. He didn’t understand.
“The stadium. The people there. What have you done with them?”
The raider looked over Ethan’s face as if he would find a clue to the answer there. Then a light of understanding came to the raider’s eyes.
“Slaves. They are our slaves,” he explained as a manner of fact.
“Slaves for what? What are you doing with them?”
“Some are food. The others prepare the fort for our army. They pull the World Breaker.” The raider’s eyes lit up like a madman when he said the name.
“What is the World Breaker?”
The raider forgot his fear and smiled wide, exposing his broken teeth. “The machine of your doom. You cannot stop it. The masters will have your world again!”
The raider suddenly swung and punched at Ethan. The blow hit the side of Ethan’s head. It was enough for the raider to knock Ethan off him.
Ethan rolled away and saw that the raider’s foot was slipping free from the stirrup. He didn’t wait.
Ethan lunged forward, swung the sword down, and felt it chop effortlessly into the raider’s skull.
Ethan paused to admire the sword in his hand after dispatching the last of the raiders. Much like the knife he took a couple of days ago, this sword felt perfect. This wasn’t some decoration one bought at a Renaissance fair to hang a wall. This sword was crafted for the practical work of killing people.
He looked over the scene and realized that he might not be so lucky next time and have a perfect spot for an ambush. His bright red mountain bike might be great for covering long distances over rough terrain, but it stuck out like a sore thumb.
The horse with the arrow in its neck stood a few feet away and continued to munch on some of the green grass, fresh from the recent rainstorm. He tried to take the arrow out of its neck, but it walked away, leaving the dead raider behind, preventing Ethan from getting too close.
Ethan wanted to help it, but the horse wouldn’t let him. So, he left it to return to one of the other horses, which seemed to be content to stand around
in the shade and eat grass.
Tentatively, he reached out to pet one of their necks. The horse looked over at him, but did not seem threatened by Ethan’s closeness and resumed munching on grass. The horse’s hair was rough and woolly.
Ethan wondered what kind of horse it was. He didn’t know much about horses. He had only ridden a few of them, and those were tame horses at Boy Scout camps. These horses were smaller than the ones he rode at camp. But if one of them would cooperate, then he had an idea of how he could get closer to the stadium before drawing attention.
Ethan stripped each of the raiders. From one, he took their pants, from another, he took their leather armor, and he took the mask off the only raider that wore one. One raider had a long, curved knife, and they all had curved swords. He dressed and armed himself like one of them before dragging their corpses into the brush to hide them with the gear he took from Cabela’s.
He noticed that each of the horses had a small sack hanging from their saddles. Looking inside, Ethan found dried meat and a leather waterskin filled with rank smelling water.
He remembered the raider saying something about slaves as food and decided he wasn’t willing to risk eating or drinking anything the raiders carried. He ate his remaining power bars and packed his water bottle into the sack. He didn’t want to lose his gear, so he left the mountain bike leaning against the barbed wire fence so he would know where he left it.
He looked over the horses and didn’t know what to do with them. Each of them seemed to be content with eating grass in the open field. He returned to the one that he petted earlier and tried to climb up into the saddle. It took him a couple of tries before he was able to get into the saddle.
The horse seemed to be patient with him. Once he sat high in the saddle, he kicked the horse into motion and turned the reins back south along the railroad tracks, hoping that he didn’t run into another patrol of raiders before he got to the stadium.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The sun was high in the sky now, and the black leather clothes were becoming uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure why the raiders would wear anything like this in Texas. Luckily, Ethan thought, it's not August.
He smiled at the idea of raiders dropping dead from heatstroke during the height of a Texas summer.
The mask made Ethan feel claustrophobic. It fit tight over the top of his head and the upper part of his face, leaving his jaw exposed so he could talk or eat. But the leather was rough, and his face sweated and itched.
He thought about taking it off, but he didn’t want to risk being seen without it. As it was, he didn’t have the scars or bad teeth of a raider which was already going to make it difficult to blend in.
Riding the horse was fun. Once he got used to it, and the horse got used to him, Ethan discovered that he preferred riding a horse over a mountain bike. The horse was just walking along the railroad tracks, so he wasn’t moving as fast as he was on the bike, but the ride wasn’t as rough.
He kicked the horse into a trot. Once he got used to riding a little faster, he drew the curved sword from the saddle and swung it a few times. He realized why the blade was curved. It was for cavalry fighting.
He swung in at a few passing branches, and it cut right through. More importantly, the horse didn’t seem to notice at all. Ethan wondered if it was trained for fighting as well as travel.
He put the sword away when he came around the bend of the wooded area. The trees cleared out on his right and the railroad straightened out ahead. He saw houses and businesses ahead. He pulled back on the reins slightly to slow down the horse. He was coming into San Marcos.
Riding through the town was similar to his trip through Buda and Kyle. The houses and apartment buildings that were close to the railroad tracks were shielded by trees, brush, and tall, wooden privacy fences. He couldn’t see into the backyards, but he didn’t hear anything from them. But he did hear sounds up ahead, voices, shouting, and something akin to metal grinding on metal.
He came over a slight rise and then he saw it. A crowd of people was on the railroad tracks. They were dressed in regular clothing and hunched over from the exertion of pulling on ropes and chains. Behind them were raiders on foot and horseback. Some were cursing at the people and whipping them to get them to move faster. When someone fell, a raider would rush at them, kicking them until they got up and worked again. If anyone tried to help them up, then they were beaten as well.
Behind the slave drive, was a strange sight, and Ethan wished he had his binoculars to see it better before he got too close. It was a large bronze device, spherical and about the size of an RV, mounted on a flatbed railway car. The shiny metal gleamed in the bright Texas sun.
On top of it was the largest amethyst crystal Ethan had ever seen. It looked like he could have stood inside of it and had room for someone else to join him.
As Ethan rode closer, he saw that large crystalline cylinders circled the base of the machine. He assumed it was some kind of machine though it didn’t have any moving parts. The only thing that moved was a deep red liquid inside the cylinders which bubbled and sloshed inside. Bronze tubes ran up from the top of each cylinder and into the massive device.
Getting close to the machine was becoming uncomfortable. The raiders eyed him suspiciously as he rode by. But it was the machine itself that was making Ethan feel queasy. No one else seemed to have any reaction to it, but Ethan felt waves of energy coming from the device. His head rocked back and forth, and he found it difficult to focus his eyes.
He wondered if he was hallucinating. The area around him bounced between two images. First, he saw the world as he knew it: railroad tracks, apartment buildings, an elementary school. Then, the world flashed away, and he saw a wide-open grassy plain, distant hills, and a hazy sun in a sky that was too blue.
He saw the people and raiders around him and heard their shouts and sobs. Then they would snap away, and it was only the wind and distant roars of a massive predator.
In the raiders’ shouts, he understood the words World Breaker. That name came through both images.
He turned the horse away from the railroad track and the machine, whatever it was, and down a small road. He rode the horse towards a house that looked empty and got off to go inside.
If anyone had been home on the first day, then they had long gone. The food had spoiled, but there were no signs of a struggle. It appeared that the people who lived here weren’t at home when the change happened.
Ethan sat on a couch in the living room and saw the horse eating fresh grass in the front yard. He stripped off the mask so he could cool his head before drinking some of his water.
He realized he was breathing hard. He didn’t know why, perhaps nerves. Something about that machine disturbed him at a physiological level. He was feeling better now that he was away from it and resting.
He thought about the people being forced to pull the machine on the railroad. He didn’t recognize any of them. Madison and the others might still be at the stadium.
He remembered how the raiders watched him as he rode by. He thought that it probably wasn’t just that he was acting strange around the machine. He still didn’t quite look like them. He certainly didn’t act like them.
He wondered if he could get into the stadium without anyone becoming too suspicious. Though he didn’t like leaving people to suffer, he decided that he would have to wait until dark. It would be easier for him to hide from the others. Besides, he had a pretty good idea of where he could find Madison and Andrew thanks to what he saw in his dream.
Suddenly, Ethan felt very sick. The few sounds in the room became very faint and distant until the only thing he heard was ringing in his ears. His vision became blurry, and the room spun as if he were tumbling over and over. Then he felt every muscle in his body tense up as tight as he had ever felt before. He couldn’t move or hear as the room fell away from him faster and faster.
Then he blacked out completely.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
; It was dark where he was. He looked up but could not see the stars. Then he realized it was a ceiling that he looked at. He was lying on his back. Every muscle was tired and sore.
He slowly turned his head and saw that he was in a house. His house? Someone’s house. He turned his head and saw furniture in the living room. A coffee table had turned over, its legs stuck up in the air like a dead insect. Was it always like that? Did he do that?
He stood up, which was a mistake. He immediately became dizzy and fell over onto the couch. He felt the warmth of his piss running down his leg. He rolled his eyes around until the room stopped spinning. He focused on an object, a picture on the wall until it resolved and came into focus. It was a picture of a family. His family? Did he have a sister or a brother?
He sat up on the couch, but more slowly and carefully this time. His head pounded, and his vision was still a bit blurry. He looked out the window and saw grass on the front lawn in the dim light of the moon. Something was missing.
No, he was in someone’s home, not his. He was resting. But then he passed out. He was exhausted. What happened? He rolled his eyes around the room and saw vomit on the floor where he had been lying.
Then he remembered urinating on himself. He pushed himself up onto his feet and tentatively walked into the kitchen. The smell of rotting food coming from the refrigerator made him queasy, but he had already thrown up everything he had in his stomach.
He grabbed the roll of paper towels and sat at the kitchen table while he cleaned himself off. Looking out the window of the kitchen, he could see out the backyard and into the yard beyond that. Neither was particularly interesting. Apparently, the homeowners didn’t go outside much. The sun had set, that’s why it was so dark. How long had he been unconscious? What happened to him?
Once he was clean, he realized how thirsty he was. He thought of his water bottle. That’s when it hit him, what was missing.
Saga of the Scout Page 20