by Bre Faucheux
There were only five, herself, Jayden, Jamison, Lyndon, and the crewman. She wanted to learn more about the crewman. He was one of their soul remaining companions, and she was tired of referring to him by his occupation.
Jayden finished feeding the last man and stood, plunging the seal back into the jug.
“How long before they fully recover?” she asked.
“I don’t know precisely. That have all consumed more than you or I needed. I have been feeding them for days. This here should have been enough.”
“So we just wait,” she said.
“No, we prepare.”
“By doing what? I thought that was why I brought them here. They don’t know where we have been gathering water,” she said.
“They poisoned the stream; I assure you that they know where it runs and how to hit us regardless of our having moved.”
“Through all these woods? They are too thick for them to make an attack.”
“They left their settlement,” said Jayden, looking at her gravely.
She did not speak.
“They abandoned it. They realized that their hunters stopped returning and they know that I have been taking them. They are preparing for a night attack. They want to take us by surprise.”
“So we truly have nothing else to do but hope these few awaken before they arrive?”
Jayden’s features only intensified as she realized that his plan didn’t go beyond having the others recover before dawn. If they could move, then they stood a chance of running together until they found safety. Carrying Jamison alone was one thing, but escaping with other three men whilst running from countless others was another.
“Did you see them anywhere while you were hunting? Any land where we could find cover? You must have seen more of this land while you were away,” she said urgently.
He shook his head. “The area is too rocky. They hunt in the nearby fields for deer and the like. There are several rivers beyond, but they are all lined with cliffs. There is no way we could get them down safely quick enough. Beyond the hills there is nothing but mountains.”
“Did you go into them? They must provide some cover,” she said desperately.
“No more than we have here. And we could never transport all these men there before they attack. We have no choice but to wait for the others to wake,” he said.
“And if they don’t?” she said. He looked at her again, the severity of the situation written on his face. He would place his own life above theirs if it were to come to that.
She shook her head violently, not wanting to accept what he was offering.
“Then run. We must both run. Go in different directions and just keep running,” he said. “They won’t be able to catch either of us.”
“And go where, Jayden? I don’t know these lands as you do,” her voice nearly screaming at him.
“If it comes to that, you just run. Come back to the area we originally settled in a few days time. Hunt some of them if you can to maintain your strength.”
“I carried them before,” she said. “With as much ease as you told me I could. I can carry my brother to safety along with me.”
“Do as you like, Madison. But do it at your own risk.”
“You would leave these men here? You are just as capable of saving one as I am,” she said, her bitterness heightening with every passing second. She knew he was aware of her anger. Although she was just as aware of his growing indifference.
“Then you best hope they awaken before the natives arrive, which could be any moment now. Because I will not stay here until they do,” he said.
“That’s it then? You feed them to help them recover, and then you abandon them?”
“I did what I could for them. How can you ask for more? You and I nearly lost our lives to these lands, twice. Once to their curses to destroy our camp, and then to their poisons making us all sick. Our only blessing was that it failed them. We became stronger. We became everything they feared we would be to them. We can survive them. And you would have us lose it all again.”
“I risk it knowing that my brother’s life is worth the same as my own,” she said defiantly, not allowing his gaze to leave hers. His face was only inches from her. She didn’t see him as the strong and overpowering man she once had a slight fear of. Her access to his emotions was so apparent that she saw nothing but cowardice. She felt shame for him.
He stepped away from her.
“How dare you. You know nothing of a man’s honor. I have done my duty. I did what I could. Now I must think of myself. You would be a fool not to do the same.”
She knew he had sensed her sudden change of emotion toward him. “I would be a fool not to do all that I could for my brother,” she said.
He stepped closer to her, wanting to her to feel within him the desperation of their situation. “If I had kin here, I may feel the same. I have done all the services that I can. And so have you.”
“We can heal instantly, Jayden. We can fight them.”
“But we cannot protect them,” he said pointing to the men who still lay weakened on the ground. “It matters not how fast we heal. I cannot teach you to wield a sword or shoot one of their bows with such little time.”
“I am not asking you to. And what use do we have of them? Our hands have proven to be our deadliest weapons,” she said.
“You have no grounds to ask anything of me, Madison. I have now killed to keep your brother alive. I built you shelter. I cared for you when you and Jamison took ill. I did more than I would have for anyone else.”
She stared at him blankly. She cared not for what he had done. It would have all been for nothing if he were to abandon her now.
He shook his head, knowing her apathy for his reasons for leaving. He mounted his horse, blood still trickling down its sides from his recent prey.
“I did all I could, Madison. You remember that.”
And he was gone. She didn’t bother looking to see what direction he had taken. The mere fact that he had gone, abandoned her, after all they had endured, left her feeling empty. There was something about having him near that made her feel stronger. Combined she felt they could survive. Alone, she knew her brother and the others would soon be lost.
9
Madison waited as the cool night air began turning slightly brighter. The men shook slightly from the cold, but she felt nothing. Her skin didn’t feel the claws of cold air as it once did. Rather her insides felt hot with anticipation. Jayden knew that they were coming, but not exactly when. Nor did her tell her how they would attack. She wanted to stand beside the men, completely alert, ready for when there was something to see. She felt herself drawn to gaze at Jamison. She knew these may be his last hours if she couldn’t protect him. Sick and pale as he was, she still wanted to remember his face. She needed to remember all of it. She wanted to channel it so she would have no fear. If she had to kill another man, she wanted to do it with the conviction of knowing how these people had wronged her.
A few hours passed. She did nothing but pace back and forth in front of the small roofed fortress Lyndon and Jayden had bound together. She despised it the more she looked at it. Jayden thought it represented everything he had done for them. It was now their last stance before death.
In the distance she heard a crack. It was just as she had heard before when the natives had visited their settlement. They were near. They were upon their horses. Nearly a mile off, she could hear them coming. They were at her previous camp, now abandoned. They grazed it for a moment, realizing that they had fled. She heard them yell into the air. It was some kind of call or chant. It rang through her ears and she swore it would make them bleed. There were dozens of them. It was some kind of battle cry. They went into the woods at full speed. She saw their torches of burning fire in the distance as they made their way through the woods. They didn’t intend to sneak inside as she thought they would. They wanted to be heard. They wanted her to know that this was her final hour, that this land was not
hers, and that this was the only sound she would hear as the others lay dying. Even from far away, she sensed these emotions protruding from them.
She sped to Jamison and took him by the head. She shook him. She lightly beat his chest, and called him name. He was barely breathing.
“Jamie! Jamie!” She cried out. She no longer cared if they heard her. It was only a matter of time as they drew closer. They had more than she could fight off. She couldn’t fight them even if Jayden had stayed. She looked to the bow and arrow on the native man’s back that Jayden had previously drained. She had seen men use them, but she knew not how to hold it properly within her hands. And the daggers of the men’s belts beneath her, they wouldn’t suffice. Her side teeth were sharper than their weapons. She knew that if she tried to feed on any of them that the blood would distract her. She would never be able to halt them.
She resolved to carry him. She took Jamison with her right arm under his legs and the other behind for his back to prop him upwards. But his arm pushed against her with great force and he fell back down, gasping for air. He looked at her, his eyes a clear and translucent violet.
“Can you stand? Jamie, please stand. We must go.”
He didn’t respond; he only looked at her. Even though all was dark, he squinted as though the light before him was blinding. She tried to lift him again and he pushed her away. She fell backward. He was on his stomach and unable to lift himself up.
“Let me take you,” she said desperately, reaching for his body again. His strength was gaining, she could tell. His push against her felt more like a blow. Her lungs briefly ached before quickly healing from the impact of his fist.
He fought her. With every movement she made to gather him, he fought her. He took her arm and pinned it to the ground. She marveled at how his strength had grown, hoping it meant he would recover in the following seconds. Yet she could hear the men gaining closer as they approached their small enclosure. He looked at her as her other arm moved frantically to gain control over him.
“Jamie, we have to go. Let me take you, please!” said cried.
“No,” he said. She didn’t want to listen to him. She acted as though she heard nothing and ripped her arm away from his grasp, forcing him to topple back towards the ground. She turned him over and pulled him into her grasp again. He reached for the fabric on her chest and pulled her down toward him. Inches away from his face, he glared at her. She saw the sternness in his eyes.
“Run. You go now.”
He had sensed what was happening. She knew it. He felt her emotions. That meant he was recovering. She could wait another moment as he completed the recovery. She had to wait. He would gain strength soon.
“No, run Madison,” he said, still resisting her. “You must survive. Go now.”
“I won’t, Jamie. I can’t go without you. I won’t,” she screamed directly into his face. She knew her emotions were overpowering him, but he didn’t falter. He never looked away from her. He could hear the horses as strongly as she could, and yet he remained there, gripping her arm, holding it in his with all his strength. He needed her to hear him.
“You run, Madison.” He took her cheek in his other hand, and gripped her face. The urgency she felt from his touch bled into the air around them. “You can’t choose what stays, Madison. You can’t always choose.”
She looked into his eyes as his head rolled back to the ground. He was still weak and his grasp of her hand began to loosen. The native’s cries echoed in the surrounding woods. The men on horses were approaching.
“Go,” he whispered.
She hesitated until his eyes shut. And then she ran. Whether from panic, or recognition of his final request from her, she ran. She wanted to stay. Her body knew from the emotions of the men coming for her that it was in danger, and it carried her with more power than she knew her body capable. The feeling gripped her again. She knew she was gaining speed and agility with each step. It filled her lungs and her veins with power. She no longer felt fear, only desperation.
She heard the natives reach the camp a short distance behind. And they were desperate to feel the success of their first kill. Their emotions were so combined and their numbers so large, she could sense their excitement from far away. Their presence filled the air of the forest and she ran with greater strides. She came to the outward tree line of the forest and looked about rapidly. There was no one there. She had never seen this land before and knew of nowhere to hide, or where to run.
No, no. Don’t hide. Keep running. You must keep running. Jamie told me to run.
She leapt toward the field that lay before her and gained speed as she went. The remains of her knee length dress, already in tatters, began to shred further. The tall grasses and debris of the forest destroyed any resemblance it had of a carefully sewn garment. But she need not hold it up any longer. The torn away fabric gave her more access to slice through the ground beneath her. She was three times the distance away before she stopped. There were more patches of forest in front of her. Halting suddenly, she glanced behind. There was only desolation around her. And for the briefest of moments, she sensed concern, almost apprehension.
A hand grabbed her from behind and covered her mouth, gripped her with punishing strength. She expected to fall from the impact but the man locked her arms and pinned her to his chest. Her back made contact with his body with bruising force. She felt a gasp come from her chest and she prepared to let it out with all the stamina her lungs could summon.
“Don’t scream,” he said. “They have more men gathered in the forest waiting for us.” Jayden turned her around to face him. “They have more in numbers than I thought. That settlement I found, it was only one group of them. There are hundreds, Madison.”
“Where are they? Where do we run to?” she said urgently.
“They are scattered everywhere waiting for us. I will head for the mountains. I went into them briefly. I think I can navigate them.”
“Where do I go?”
He took her by the arm and dragged her along behind him as they ran. He nearly carried her by the shoulder as he guided her away from the fields and to the mountains that were only a few miles away. They grew with majesty as they drew closer. She had only heard stories of creatures that lived in mountains told by locals in her village. Never had she witnessed the power they possessed. They towered above her as they grew larger. Jayden stopped her as they reached the rocks below from which the range began to ascend touching the sky.
“There is a water fall lined with cliffs following that ravine there.” He pointed to a wide space where rocks attempted to climb up the mountain’s great height. A path was carved through the space. She couldn’t see where it ended, only more rocks in the distance. Madison gazed to the top of the crag’s apex and Jayden sensed her trepidation.
“They think we have all recovered. They suspect us all to run. They had no idea it is just you and I. We need to keep it that way. You run to those falls and you keep running.”
“But how will I find my way back?” she said quickly.
“Just follow the river back from the falls. It should go for miles. Don’t stray far from there. If you are able, meet me at the falls in two days.”
“Why so long?”
“Because this is not over, Madison,” he said, his voice shaking the air around her. It was vibrating throughout the area and she feared anyone nearby may hear. He lowered his tone quickly, noting her reaction to him. He looked about briskly and turned back to her.
“They will continue searching for us. We must not go back there. Not ever, do you understand?”
She nodded and breathed in heavily to avoid the overwhelming grief she expected to follow, not wanting him to feel her weakness.
“Two, three, four days, it doesn’t matter,” he said hastily. “Just come as the sun sets and only move at night. Don’t go about during the day unless absolutely necessary. And if you come across one of them, kill them. Drag their body away and feed, but only enough to ke
ep you strong. Don’t stay in one place too long. Go, now.”
He pushed her away suddenly. She used the force of his shove and propelled herself forward to the ravine. When she turned her head back to see him, he was gone from plain sight. Nothing remained but the rocky crags on either side of her.
The landscape of rugged rocks and the taste of her own perspiration on her lips was enough to set her senses ablaze. As quickly as her body could recover, she gave it no opportunity. She ran passed every piece of nature, trees, branches, rugged dirt and the thick fog so quickly that she could barely take in where she was. Her arms were moving so fast beside her that it helped to take her focus away from the agony in her legs. She ran for several miles. She didn’t know exactly where the precipice or waterfall were, only that she needed to follow the length of the ravine. She dared glance behind herself when she heard nothing following her save the sound of her heavy breathing. It was almost so quiet that it became suspicious, but she knew that if she had lost those she suspected were still chasing her, she could reconsider her options if only for a moment.
How did things go wrong so quickly? Nothing about this illness is natural. Jayden was right.
She needed to keep running if for nothing but her own reassurance that she was safe. Her senses were the only thing keeping her going. Her basic instincts were sharper than she remembered them ever having been. She knew her limbs were growing tired. She had only recovered from the illness the previous day. She needed more blood. She craved it. The thirst was there and it grew stronger with each droplet of sweat that dripped from her skin. Weakness was starting to overtake her. The sudden instinct to stop to feed on anyone chasing her almost overpowered her resolve to keep going. But she couldn’t stop. She didn’t come so far to risk everything by quitting now.