He ducked around the corner of a tent and drew up short, hefting his sword in front of him at the ready. He sucked in massive gulps of the night air and hoped that they had been close enough behind to see where he went, and almost as soon as the thought crossed his mind, the first man rounded the corner. Madison swung his sword around in a horizontal arc. The man was moving far too fast and was far too intent on catching up to stop, and Madison’s sword easily opened up his belly before he could so much as react. Madison stepped forward and to the side, allowing his sword to naturally drag along the man’s body, and he then lurched forward into a sprint in the opposite direction. He almost collided with another man as the slaver veered around the corner blindly, but Madison was just a step ahead.
He reached up with his sword as he ran past and severed a thick wire that had been strung up between the tents. It was some type of clothesline, which was surprising since he didn’t think they ever actually washed their clothes, and he hoped that it created some type of mayhem behind him. He ducked around another corner, turning back west, and ran over someone who had just stood up after stepping out from a low-slung lean-to. The man toppled backward as Madison ran through him, crashing over into the sloppy collection of tarps and rags he had just crawled out of.
“Hey!” he shouted angrily after Madison. “Get back here! I’ll kill you for this, asshole!”
Madison didn’t even stop to respond.He just picked up the pace and kept running. His general plan at this point was just to create as much chaos as he could while keeping everyone trailing behind him. He didn’t even care if he hurt or killed anyone at this point—he just needed them to keep chasing him so that they wouldn’t follow the others.
He spotted a large bonfire off to the side, and there were still a handful of people sitting around it, completely oblivious to everything that was going on. Most were hunched over and staring into the flames, a few more were passed out, but one or two were on their feet and looking in the direction of the golems.
“Hey!” Madison screamed as he tore into it. “Hey!” The two men turned to look at him just as Madison skid to a halt in front of them. He reached down, grabbed a log from the fire with his free hand, and then turned and hit the closest man across the head with it. The fellow was rocked sideways by the blow, and the others just watched in mute shock, unable to understand what had just happened. He took off running again without waiting for their enfeebled brains to catch up with what had just happened, chucking the flaming log into one of the open tents as he ran past. He turned and glanced behind him then, and he saw a large mob fly into the campsite he had just left. The two men pointed at him dumbly, and the mob surged forward once again. Chuckling to himself, he turned and ran. He hefted his sword in both hands and swung out like it was a baseball bat, cutting one of the closest tent poles in half as he sprinted past.
He wove his way between tents, doing as much as he could to keep the focus on him and draw attention to himself. He turned over barrels, he lit tents on fire, and he shoved people out of the way as often as possible. He avoided the roads whenever he could since there were so many people there moving in one direction or another, but that eventually became impossible. Every little stunt he pulled cost him time, and each time he stopped, the group following him came that much closer to catching up. He had long since lost any concept of where his own small group might be, and he could only hope that they were doing as they had been told and heading west.
At last, when he ran out of places to run to, he turned into one of the main roads and sprinted west. Most of the people fleeing the area had already dispersed, so the traffic was light and only moving in a single direction now, which was a small blessing in and of itself. Madison’s boots pounded away at the dirt road, and he caught sight of one of the towering stone golems up ahead. The giant beast had flattened most of the tents and ramshackle buildings into a large clearing, making the monster clearly visible even from a distance, and he headed directly toward it. The creature had been surrounded on all sides by a group of people with lit torches and drawn weapons, and it looked like they were currently at a standoff. Every time a small group would summon up the courage to push forward and attack it, it would lurch forward with its unnaturally long and gangly stone arms, attacking anyone who dared get within its reach. Madison watched as it lashed out and smashed a massive boulder-fist into the middle of one such group, crushing several men at its center and sending the others scrambling. A second group tried to attack from behind at the same time, but the creature adeptly spun around and smashed its other boulder-sized fist into them from the side. Men were thrown off in every direction, and Madison had no doubt that there was a good chance their bodies had been crushed the moment the creature hit them.
Without even so much as slowing down, Madison launched himself at the back lines. The men were all focused on the threat in front of them, and no one bothered checking behind them for a danger that shouldn’t even exist. He plowed into the first man with his shoulder, sending him forward into the next, who in turn careened into the middle of the circle. The golem spun around almost instantaneously, smashing his fist down on the fallen man. There was a sickening crunch as the man’s body was flattened, and splattered blood and guts went flying up, covering the men in the front row.
Madison was already in action, however. He thrust forward at the closest man, but the slaver jumped back out of the way before Madison’s blade reached him. The displaced man successfully took out several other men with him as he did so, creating a temporary opening, but someone shoved Madison from behind, and he went flying forward and into the circle where he hit the ground hard and rolled over onto his side. He caught sight of the stone golem just as he started to his feet and instinctively threw himself forward again. He felt the rush of air as the fist flew past him, and he felt the reverberations in the ground as its massive knuckles collided with the earth.
He came up as quickly as he could, automatically dancing back away from the creature’s deadly paw. He had no idea if this thing was more dangerous the closer he got, but he sure wasn’t going to stand on the outside of the circle where the people could attack him as well. He sprinted between the stone giant’s legs, hoping to make an exit through the other side of the circle, but the people there were already ready and waiting. They might not have known who he was, but they had watched him kill one of their own. That was apparently enough to sentence him to death even if everything else wasn’t.
Madison skidded to a halt when he realized that he wasn’t going to bowl through the lines there as easily as he had on the other side, and he sensed something looming up behind him. Remembering what had happened before, he turned and dove back toward the creature’s legs. The giant arm swished by overhead just as he hit the dirt. Thankfully, he had the wherewithal to roll over in the next moment as well since the giant stepped forward and stomped down hard, creating an indentation in the ground where Madison had been lying only seconds before.
He needed to figure out something and quick. He pushed himself to his feet once again and ducked back between the golem’s legs, doing his best to keep moving back and forth from side to side until he came up with a plan. He had a brief moment as the creature turned around to attack, and so long as he watched where it stepped, he should be able to avoid being trampled. Then an idea struck him. He had absolutely no idea whether or not he could actually hurt the creature with his weapon since he had only run from it so far, but he was counting on the fact that it was stone through and through.
As much as he hated what it was going to do to the blade of his sword, he swung out as hard as he could at the side of the golem’s leg. The edge of his blade bit down hard and rang out with a loud clang. The results were twofold: a chorus of insults toward his mother and his own stupidity from the crowd, and the irate golem turning to smash him. Madison ducked through the creature’s legs as it turned then hauled off and repeated the heavy slash as hard as he could. The creature spun around again, but rather than d
odging back between its legs, Madison turned with it so that he was constantly behind the beast. It stopped when it didn’t find him, twisting about in place as it searched for him. Madison hauled back and hit it on the leg again in almost the exact same place he had before and then jumped to the side out of the way. The creature spun around for a third time and finally started moving. It was so focused on crushing Madison that it seemed to have already forgotten about the huge group all around it. Madison made it around behind the stone golem one last time and struck it again for the fourth and final time. The giant turned about completely, took several drunken steps as if it were dizzy, leaned forward, and slammed down with both fists where Madison had previously been.
That did the trick. Men on that half of the circle were crushed underneath its massive boulder-sized fists when they failed to move quickly enough, and others dove out of the way as they tried to escape certain death. The creature began to right itself almost immediately, and Madison sprinted toward the opening in the lines it had just created for him with everything he had left in him. He launched himself into the hole, vaulting over the gory pile of bodies there, and didn’t stop to look back. He had done just about everything he could at this point to keep the attention on him, and all he could do was hope that the others had made it out as well. He had no doubt that at least a handful of the slavers would keep following him, but he was also confident that he could lose them now as well if not deal with them outright. He had a large enough lead that it would be almost impossible for them to catch up with him, and he very much doubted that there would be another ambush set up this far out with two golems wreaking havoc.
Madison dashed into the tree line at last, huffing and out of breath from his long run. He had done more cardio in the last few days than he had in the last few years back home, and he was starting to feel its effects. His legs felt like they were about to turn to jelly, and he had a stitch in his side that was warning him to slow down. Rather than listen to his body, however, Madison continued to push forward at a shambling jog. He dematerialized his armor and stashed it away once he was a few hundred feet in and safely out of sight of anyone pursuing him. He hated to give up the protection it offered him, but he knew that anyone combing the woods would be looking for someone in a massive suit of plate. Even if they managed to capture him, he’d likely be able to buy himself a few more minutes unless they noticed his arm.
He reached down and tentatively touched his side, and his hand came back wet and sticky. He wasn’t sure if it was blood or sweat in the darkness, and it slightly scared him. After everything he had made it through tonight, it would be just his luck to bleed out in the dark where there was no one around to find him.
Madison pushed on for another half hour at a moderate pace before his body finally won out. The adrenaline had started to wear off now that he was completely alone, and the effects of his night-time stampede started to take full effect. His chest and arms were sore where he had absorbed so many blows, and that was discounting the burning sensation from the laceration in his side that flared up every time he took something more than a shallow breath. Even though his armor had kept him mostly intact, he was still painfully aware of every place on his body where he had been struck. His shoulders were so sore that it was painful to even lift his arms above his head, and he could already tell that he was going to have trouble standing back up once he sat down. His face was beaten and bruised, and he was certain that his nose was completely broken. It had stopped gushing blood after he had that single swig of healing drought, but it had been busted back open again in a subsequent fight. The small mouthful he had managed to get down wasn’t nearly enough to begin repairing everything that had been damaged in all the fighting.
He splashed down into a small stream, likely the same one he had hidden in the day before, fell to his knees, and carefully dipped his face into the water. The cool temperature was a bit of a shock at first, but it felt like heaven against his hot, bruised, and beaten skin. He splashed the water onto the back of his neck and then ran his fingers through his long hair. He hadn’t had a haircut since coming to this world, and it was starting to grow out much longer than what he was used to. It was long enough to stick to the back of his neck now, allowing rivulets to run underneath his collar and down his sweat-soaked back. Images of that strange flashback shot through his head, and he realized that he had long hair then as well.
He sat back on his heels for a minute, produced a water skin, and drank from it greedily. He wanted to suck down the entire thing, but he forced himself to go slow for fear of getting sick. Finally, after allowing himself a few moments to to slow his heart rate down, he pushed himself back to his feet a turned north, determined not to stop until he found the others.
Epilogue
Madison pushed north for the better part of the day before he found anywhere he was confident enough to stop. He had absolutely no way to keep track of how far he had traveled, but he knew that he was constantly getting weaker with every passing step. One of the wounds on his side had reopened itself during his forced march, and while he had managed to stem the bleeding somewhat, there was no way to completely stop it without healing or medicine. He had shredded his shirt into long, thin strips which he pressed against the wound before binding them with gauze, but it was only a temporary stop-gap. It didn’t completely stem the flow of blood, and every jarring misstep convinced him that it was going to reopen again. He also knew that his filthy, sweat-soaked shirt was the furthest thing from sanitary and was as likely to cause an infection as it was to help. He had no idea if this world had developed germ theory yet, but he knew how disgusting it was to use ragged cloth as a bandage.
Sometime in the afternoon, he realized he couldn’t continue any longer. He contemplated taking another helping of the Rush, but something told him that it was in his best interest not to. He could already tell that he was going to pay a heavy price for forcing his body through everything it had experienced so far, and he was only adding insult to impending injury at this point. In the end, he used a trick similar to the one he had before when he came across another small stream winding its way through the forest and hoped that Warren would be smart enough to remember it and consider the fact that he might repeat the same thing.
Whereas he had hidden in a cut-away section of streambank before, Madison found a narrow, gulley-like depression that was likely leftover from where the stream had jumped its banks after a storm and suddenly changed direction. The earth had been eroded away almost to water level, and he was exposed from above, but there was more than enough room for him to easily slide inside and remain out of sight of anyone unless they were right on top of him.
He wedged himself inside and ate some dried fruit first and then slowly chewed on some oats to pass the time. He washed it all down with water, and his stomach rumbled when he was finished, demanding more. Still unsure how long this little adventure was set to take, he set about filling his stomach with water instead. He also refilled two of the empty containers he had with him from the stream, marked them with a cut of his knife, and made a mental note to boil them the first chance he got. He doubted that the water in this world was contaminated like back home, but he still had no idea what toxins might be in it, and he didn’t want to take any chances if he didn’t have to.
The afternoon passed without him moving further than a few feet away to relieve himself, and by the time night set in, he could barely keep his eyes open. He eventually settled into a fitful sort of sleep, but he was plagued with nightmares the entire time. His dreams were filled by the witch, by the mysterious Princess Vanessa, and by the faces of his friends. He was lost in a city, running through its streets alone, and corpses were piled up everywhere. He watched his friends die in front of him in a thousand different ways, and he was helpless to stop them each time.
He awoke in a cold sweat sometime in the middle of the night. His side was on fire. It felt like he had run a marathon, and he was sucking in giant breaths like he was
exhausted. He gently peeled back the makeshift gauze and bandage he had made and cringed when he saw the condition of the wound there. It looked as bad as it felt: raw, red, swollen and oozing blood. Gritting his teeth together, he pushed himself out of the deep hole and slashed out into the stream. The water felt like a godsend against the wound, but he knew he couldn’t stay there. He dragged himself up onto a sandbar and crawled around, collecting what little wood he could find. Most of it was still damp from the heavy rain, but after applying a handful of leaves and a good amount of effort, he was able to get a modest fire going using the flint Burke had provided. He knew he was basically writing himself a death sentence if anyone was around to see it, but he was dead if he didn’t do it anyway. He took out his boot knife, washed it off in the stream, and then set it on a stone next so that the blade was pointed out into the flames. He waited until the metal started turning colors and then bit down on a long stick, clenching it between his teeth. Using the bloody, tattered remains of his shirt, he picked up his knife, braced himself, and pressed the searing-hot blade against the wound. Pain shot through his body in a way he had never experienced before, his vision turned black, and he fell forward into the sand, the knife rolling away from numb fingers.
Somewhere, in the distance, he heard someone scream his name.
-----
Something was pressed to his lips and the harsh sting of cinnamon invaded his mouth. The liquid burned as it hit his parched throat, and he coughed violently, spitting out the Rush and sending a new wave of pain through his side. Marvelously, movement was far less painful than it had been before. He sucked in a deep breath of air, opened his eyes, and found that he was staring up into Erin’s deep, brown irises. A smile cracked across his face when he recognized her, and relief flooded through his body. He couldn’t stop himself from chuckling, and he didn’t try. He let the laughter grow, reveling in the fact that she had found him and that his side wasn’t burning with infection.
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