Chapter 5The Race for the River

  The morning wore on without incident. Alissa decided to sit up front with her parents and seemed to be doing her best to ignore Jonah as much as she could. Basheer sat in the back with Jonah making comments here and there about objects that they passed as they made their way westward. Soon, after a long and mostly quite morning, noon approached and Rasheed looked for a good pce to stop for lunch. The followers never got any closer than they had been previously; they even seemed to stop when the cart stopped for lunch.

  The group ate lunch in near silence with the only one providing any conversation being Basheer who, inquisitive as ever, asked everyone a multitude of seemingly random questions which were promptly answered. After a while Basheer got the hint that no one really wanted to talk and set about entertaining himself by drawing pictures in the dirt with a stick. Rasheed and Lilly watched both Jonah and Alissa intently as if expecting them to do something, though for the life of him, Jonah could not figure out what. Alissa had refused to sit close to Jonah when they had sat down to eat and seemed to be avoiding him as much as she could.

  As they were cleaning up and packing everything away Jonah noticed a change in the shapes that followed from behind. Concerned, he pointed it out to Rasheed.

  “Aye d,” Rasheed agreed, confirming Jonah's fear that the shapes had started to move again, only this time at an arming speed toward the group. “They know the river is getting close and if they are going to strike, now is the time. If we can make it across the river we should be safe.”

  Where the shapes had been there was now a huge dust cloud that had risen as if something were moving across the dry desote nd as fast as possible, causing a great dust storm in its wake.

  The group finished packing quickly and hopped aboard that cart, Basheer once again with his parents in the front and Alissa in the back with Jonah. Alissa smiled nervously at Jonah as the cart took off with a jolt as Rasheed drove the clockwork horses to their top speed.

  Jonah pulled out his gun, made sure it was loaded, then tried to smile reassuringly as Alissa who was rummaging around in the back of the cart. Soon she pulled out an oversized bolt action rifle with a rge scope on it. She smiled at him again, only this time it was a smile of pure joy. She climbed further into the cart then braced the barrel of the rifle on the back of the cart while motioning Jonah to join her.

  When Jonah settled down beside where she had taken a prone position in order to get the most stability for the rifle, Alissa leaned over and kissed him deeply. Feeling her tongue swirl in gently in his mouth he gave in and kissed in return. Quickly she broke the kiss and looked into Jonah’s eyes.

  “Just in case,” she started. “You know, if things go bad...” Her voice trailed off and she dropped her right eye to the scope before squeezing off the first round.

  The explosion from the shot caused Jonah’s ears to ring smartly as the rifle recoiled violently against Alissa's shoulder. She took the recoil with ease as if this were a common practice for her. She quickly ejected the shell and within seconds had a new round chambered, ready to fire again.

  Jonah turned his attention to the followers that appeared as a shapeless mass at the center of the cloud of dust that followed them. Just as he turned his attention back to the mass, he saw a twisted, formless shape flip into the air from it. Another shot rang out into the air and seconds ter another shape flipped into the air.

  Looking back to Alissa he could clearly see that she was enjoying herself as she fired round after round into the mass, though it did not seem to slow despite her efforts and, if anything it was steadily drawing closer. Once again, Jonah checked his gun before looking back to the front of the cart.

  Rasheed worked the controls of the clockwork horses like a madman, throwing the levers wildly as he tried to push them faster than was possible. Lilly had a small pistol brandished in her right hand while her left arm was wrapped protectively around Basheer. She was looking to the rear of the cart and updating Rasheed on the progress that was made by the followers. She saw Jonah watching and smiled reassuringly, despite the worry that was etched into her brow.

  Off to the distance Jonah could see the churning waters of the river Thane, but as fast as the clockwork horses could carry the cart, he knew that they would not reach the river in time. He turned back to rear of the cart and now realized he could clearly see the creatures that followed. It was the same type of creatures that had attacked the farmnds and killed his parents, the ones that took Father Mallory's leg, when he was a child. Jonah had never seen the creatures with his own eyes before, but he had heard enough stories over the course of his life that he knew them by sight.

  There seemed to be hundreds of them following behind, striding impossibly fast on impossibly long legs in an effort to catch the cart. Their writhing skin and morphing bodies caused him to shudder in revulsion. The creatures came at them, moving quicker than Jonah could have ever imagined they could move, and soon they were nearly upon the wagon.

  Jonah stood up, took aim with his revolver, and pulled the trigger for the first time. The recoil was much stronger than he anticipated and it knocked him onto his ass as the creature he shot seemed to disappear in a spray of blood, bone and gore. Alissa paused in her shooting long enough to look at Jonah's gun in amazement before continuing to pick at the mass of creatures as fast as she could.

  Struggling back to his feet, Jonah heard a small crack from behind him and knew Lilly had joined in the fray, firing her small pistol at the creatures nearest to her. As soon as he was standing again, he braced himself as best as he could and squeezed off another round. This time he rocked back with the recoil as the creature he had been aiming at exploded. Quickly he brought the barrel back down to fire again taking another out in a spray of viscera. Jonah soon got into a rhythm, allowing him to fire shot after shot with surprising speed that was broken only when he needed to reload as the revolver auto ejected the spent rounds while they still smoked. Jonah struggled to reload the gun the first time, his hands shaking from adrenalin and the sheer power of the weapon in his hand, but soon he mastered the process, finding that it came to him with ease.

  One of the creatures was now close enough to reach into the cart, going for Alissa with an elongated arm that, instead of a hand, had a rge spike made of bone, which it thrust forward, seeking her flesh. Jonah kicked Alissa out of the way with his left foot, causing the spike to catch him in the calf, shredding through both muscle and bone. With a cry of pain Jonah fired on the creature at point bnk range as it started to attach itself to his leg. Its upper torso vanished as the round hit its flesh causing the now detached spike to wither and fall to the ground. Jonah’s mangled limb could no longer support his weight and gave out, dropping Jonah to the tarp that covered the majority of the produce stored in the wagon.

  Alissa, thinking quickly, pulled a knife out of her boot and cut a strip of cloth from her skirt. She made a quick tourniquet on his leg and turned her attention back to the horde behind them. She was about to fire again when she noticed that there was no more need to waste ammunition on the creatures. They had made it safely to the ferry, and were already pulling away from the shore. She felt the cart rocking from the rushing waters as they swirled around the ferry and decided to take a few parting shots before stowing her rifle. With the water quickly increasing the distance between the creatures and the group, she turned her attention back to Jonah who had passed out from the shock of his wound.

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  Once the ferry had safely reached the other side of the river, Rasheed tied it loosely to a post that supported the pulley system that operated the ferry, effectively making it so that anyone approaching from the opposing back would have to call it a couple times for the loose ropes to fall free. Sighing as he finished up, he said a prayer for the people who approach from the far bank next, in hopes that they would not be in as dire need of the ferry as his group had been. He knew if that were the case for the next set of people, they would likely die and that knowledge sat on him heavily. He turned back to the cart to access the situation.

  Lilly and Alissa had moved Jonah's unconscious form to the ground using a small bnket, in order to give Lilly more room to determine the damage to Jonah's leg, which was twisted in an unnatural way about 5 inches below the knee. Cutting away the cloth of his pant leg while taking care not to cut the tourniquet, Lilly exposed the grizzly wound for examination. Gently she washed the wound with some water from a canteen in order to better see it. Lilly noticed that the exposed bone she could see, while broken in two different pces, was retively in intact with only minor splintering on the edges where the spikes had broken it upon impact. Nodding in satisfaction that the leg would survive, she quietly gave Alissa some instructions.

  Seeing that the women had the situation under control Rasheed went to Basheer who was looking on with interest, seemingly not phased by the events that had just occurred, and put him to work setting up camp. When Basheer asked why, Rasheed simple told him that they were safe from the creatures that had attacked them and everyone could use a good rest before continuing on for Ib. This seemed to satisfy Basheer's normally curious mind for the moment and he joined his father in setting the camp up for the remainder of the day.

  Alissa had been sent by her mother to retrieve a st little bit of medicines that they had kept separate from the stock that they had sold in New Cardeth in case of an emergency. She also grabbed a bag of fsh powder that her mother had requested as well as two sturdy wooden stakes that were used in securing the poles for the leather tarp they normally covered the camp with. When she returned to her mother, Lilly instructed her to hold Jonah's torso down in case he was to awaken while she was tending to his wound. Alissa partially id down on his torso, while facing him, not wanting to see what she knew her mother must do.

  Lilly straightened Jonah's leg as best as she could, then poured the fsh powder into the wound, filling it completely before taking a small piece of flint and a small knife out of one of the many hidden pockets of her loose skirt. She slid the knife bde down the edge of the flint causing a shower of sparks that fell onto the wound, igniting the fsh powder. It burned an intense blue fme for a brief second before extinguishing itself. The smell of burning flesh permeated the air around the camp and Lilly thought she heard her daughter choke back a sob. Lilly checked the wound to make sure that the powder had cauterized it thoroughly and nodding in satisfaction, pulled a small vial of luminescent green slime from the small case that held the medicine from Ib. Taking care not to crack the crust sealing the wound smeared the slime all around the inside and outside of the wound, making sure it was thoroughly coated before wrapping a clean bandage around it securely. She removed the tourniquet and watched the bandage for a minute for seepage and when she saw none, moved to the next step, setting the bone.

  Lilly did her best to set the bone back as straight as she could then got Alissa to help her by holding the leg as steady as possible while she pced a splint on it. Lilly used the two stakes and the cloth from the tourniquet for the splint, making sure that it was held tightly against the leg, securing the break as best as possible with their limited resource. Lilly knew it was only a temporary solution and once they got to Ib she would need to seek out a doctor to properly set the leg. She kept this knowledge from her daughter, not wanting to upset her anymore then she already was.

  After they got Jonah settled, Alissa told her mother about how he had saved her life by pushing her out of the path of the spike. Lilly knew that her daughter was bming herself for his injury, so she listened to her daughter as Alissa recounted the battle. Lilly reassured her that it was not her fault that Jonah had gotten badly hurt in the encounter. She reached out and took her daughter in her arms, hugging her tightly as Alissa cried for the man that she had, just earlier that morning, confessed her love for to her mother. Lilly saw that Rasheed and Basheer had finished setting up the camp, but were keeping their distance from the women where they sat next to Jonah. She was grateful for the space as she tried to comfort her daughter by speaking soothing words to calm her.

  Once Lilly had calmed her daughter enough to where she was comfortable leaving Alissa alone by Jonah's side, she went to go see what her husband and son were busy doing. The father and son were busy cleaning and oiling the guns that had been used in the battle, including Jonah’s pistol. Nodding to herself, satisfied that they could not get themselves into too much trouble with their current activity, Lilly started a fire. Once the fire was good and strong, she brought some water to boil in a small metallic tea pot. She added a finely chopped mixture from the medicine case and once it had been at a rolling boil for several minutes, pulled it off to cool.

  Walking over to Alissa, Lilly wiped her daughter’s tears away and told her that they should move Jonah closer to the fire so that they would not have to do it ter. After moving him, Lilly had her daughter pce her bedroll next to him, knowing Alissa would not want to leave his side unless it were completely necessary.

  Lilly offered her daughter a cup of the tea that had finished brewing minutes earlier. When she finished drinking the tea, Lilly led her over to the bedroll next to Jonah, where Alissa id down, falling into a deep sleep. She settled in, watching her daughter sleep next to the man she had fallen in love with. She waited for Jonah to awaken, knowing the pain he was going to be in would be intense, so that she could administer the medicinal tea to him as well. As Lilly watched her daughter sleep, she was gd that Alissa had not argued about taking the drug that would dull her senses and put her to sleep. She did not want her daughter to be awake when Jonah woke up, lest his screams upset her once more.

  Rasheed and Basheer finished cleaning and oiling the guns. Rasheed gave everything a once over to make sure that the fence and tarp were secure before leaving the boy to his own devices. The older man joined his wife, relieving her from her watch to tend to other things that needed to be done. As Lilly left her husband, she looked to the sky realizing that the day was drawing to an end.

  She looked around for her son and found him under the cart pying with some carved wooden figures that his father had made for him when he was younger. She called his name softly as she gathered food from the cart for supper then put him to work helping her prepare the evening's meal.

  Princessarylin