- 5 -
I kept moving all night, it was cold, even with the old wool blanket I'd wrapped around myself, so the last thing I wanted to do was stop as the exercise at least was keeping me warm. Also, the more space I put between me and the village, the less likely anyone was to find me. Assuming of course that they suspected I was even alive.
About an hour after sunrise I finally had to stop and see if Coyote had put any food in the pack he'd given me. So moving a bit off the trail, I found a sheltered spot and sat down and opened it.
Inside I found about ten pounds of jerky, and my water bottle! I started in on the jerky with a will; I was starving and hadn't had any meat since I'd gotten here.
Digging further into the pack I found my underwear, flight suit, knives, socks, boots, the survival kit, a rather nice Navajo blanket that looked unused, my wallet, and a bar of the crude soap that the tribe made.
I ate about a quarter of the jerky, drank most of the water, and then put all of it back away, except for the small button compass. It was still fairly cold out, but I didn't want to put my clothes on when I was this filthy.
Using one of the knives I cut a slit in the older blanket, and put it on like a poncho, then I put the pack back on, and started off towards the east again. The trail was more or less heading that way, though it wandered a bit, so I stuck to it. When I came to a fork the right hand side went east, so I took that one. I'd already passed several other trails heading to the north or the south as I'd moved along, but each had a pole set in the ground by them, with what looked like an Indian sign painted on it. I don't know if they led to Indian villages, or something else, but in any case, they weren't 'east' so I wasn't going to go examine them.
The sun was about a third of the way down in the sky when the trail I was on finally came to a ford of a rather large stream. So I went down it a ways until I found a spot that was fairly secluded and had a pool big enough that I could clean myself up.
Washing took a lot longer than I thought it would have. I had no idea that I'd gotten that dirty, until I actually had some soap and the time to use it. I didn't have a mirror, or a razor, or even a set of scissors, so I couldn't really do anything about my hair or my beard, but it was still nice to get them nice and clean for a change.
I even did my best to wash the blanket I'd taken from my bed. I didn't waste any of the soap on it, but just soaking it in the water got a lot of dirt out of it. I kept wringing it out until the water wasn't filthy, then I wrung it out one last time, and got dressed.
It felt, strange, to be wearing clothing again after so many months of running around almost bare-ass naked. I also discovered that I was a lot thinner in the waist than I had been before; there was almost no fat on my body anymore and I had to tighten up the flight suit quite a bit. Sitting on my butt all day during flight training hadn't been exactly kind to my waistline, but the last five months had seriously fixed that problem. At least they'd been feeding me enough protein with all those beans that I hadn't lost any muscle. Actually with all the work they'd had us doing I had gained a fair bit.
I put the loincloth under a couple of rocks in the stream. I didn't want it floating off to be found by someone else, and I sure as hell didn't want to wear it anymore. The sandals I washed off and kept, they were the third set I'd gotten since coming here, this set a gift from one of my students and actually fairly well made.
I ate some more of the jerky, went upstream a little to fill my water bottle, then looked around for some small game trails. Water meant game, and I wanted to put a few snares out before the sun went down. I thankfully had the three feet of paracord that had been attached to the orange switchblade, so if you dropped it, you wouldn't lose it, and I could use that to anchor at least one snare.
After I got that taken care of, I spent the rest of the daylight gathering dry wood for a fire, and looking for a good place to sleep for the night. According to the tribe members and the other slaves back at the village, wolves, bears, mountain lions, and even the occasional jaguar lurked in the woods around here, though they would tend to leave people alone.
So when nightfall came, I hung my pack way up in a tree, to keep anything away from the food that was left in it, and found what I hoped was a good spot and settled down for the night.
The next morning I went out and checked my one snare, it had caught a rabbit! But something had come along and eaten most of the rabbit, so I removed the carcass, washed off the snare and tossed it in my pack as I ate more of the jerky. Then I refilled the water bottle and going back to the ford, I crossed to the other side of the stream and started off east again.
After a couple of hours, the path joined a wider path, which appeared to be made up of lots of stones of all different sizes. It wasn't until I stopped and took the time to look at a couple of the stones, that I found it wasn't some sort of path that someone had put stones down on, but was instead broken concrete. That time and weather, as well as traffic, had made to look like a cobbled path, instead of a highway.
That realization was confirmed when the path I was on joined a wider one, which I continued to head eastward on, as Coyote had instructed.
I thought about that as I walked, keeping an eye out to either side of the road, as well as checking behind me fairly often. From what Ken had told me, back when I'd first gotten here, Havsue, a city of some technology apparently, was to the east. But to the north there was a much bigger and more technological city called 'Paradise'.
I had no idea really why I was here, beyond being some sort of backup to that ass, 'Leader Riggs', should he 'fail' his mission. Whatever the hell that was supposed to be. Supposedly he had been given powers by the gods; I'd heard the rumors just like all the other slaves. While I had no way of knowing the truth, with the way things had been going so far, I was fairly certain he had them. Me? I had nothing, hell at this point I was just another escaped slave running from captivity, and while I did like the few tribe members I had gotten to know, I didn't owe them a damn thing.
Far from it actually.
Around lunchtime, I came to a crossroads; I could either go north, or southeast. There was even an old sign metal there, set up by some county or state government long gone I suspect. The original message on it were long gone, eroded away by time I guess, but someone trying to be helpful had taken the time to paint two things on it.
On the top it said 'Paradise', with an arrow pointing to the northern road.
On the bottom it said 'Havsue', with an arrow pointing to the other one.
I sat down and got out the remainder of the jerky and thought about it as I ate. Finishing I took a good drink of water, stood back up, and put my pack back on.
"Screw this," I said, and turning towards Paradise, I started walking north.
I had walked several hours and was starting to think about food. I'd run out of the jerky and the sun was well past noon now, so I'd need to not only find a place to spend the night, but somewhere to set up a couple of snares so I'd have food come the morning. I was thinking maybe I might want to look for a nice straight piece of wood to make a spear of some sort when I heard a rustling in the trees off to the left side of the road.
I stopped and started moving slowly to the right side, closer to the trees there, when suddenly a very large boar stepped out of the brush, digging at the dirt and searching for food. A moment later, three more, smaller ones joined him and also starting to root around.
I continued to back away from them, I'd never encountered wild boars before, but I'd heard a lot about them, and absolutely none of it was good.
And that was when I stepped on a twig that made a loud 'snap' and four porcine heads came up, and eight beady little eyes all looked in my direction.
With a snort and a loud squeal, they charged off towards me and I found myself running as fast as I could back to the south.
Glancing over my shoulder I could see that yes, they were gaining on me, though not as quickly as I feared. Still, they didn't see at all inclined to give up the chase. From the noises they were making, it seemed that they were becoming fairly intent on it.
Plus, a couple more had joined it, so now I think there were six of them after me.
Looking to my left as I ran along the tree line, I spotted one with a low hanging branch that looked strong enough to hold me, and a trunk thick enough not to be easily knocked down. Running for it, I jumped up, grabbed the branch, and quickly pulled myself up out of reach of the boars. I then climbed up a bit higher, because apparently the smaller ones could jump rather well, and the last thing I needed was to get stabbed or bit.
Looking around at the other branches of the tree, I went and found a spot that was a bit more comfortable, and settled down to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
As the sun went down, they were still there, rooting around the tree, and in the surrounding area, but apparently they had no intentions of wandering off, anytime soon. In fact, the biggest one would keep coming back every so often to look up at me in the branches, squeal a few times in outrage, dig at the trunk with his tusks a few times, and then start rooting in the dirt again, while the others then did the same.
I had been spending the last several hours hacking a straight looking branch off with my small knife, and having succeeded in that, I was now cutting the smaller branches off of it, and wondering if I could make it sharp enough to penetrate a boar's hide.
"I told you to go east," I heard, and looking up above me in the branches, I saw Coyote. "North is not east, and while southeast isn't east either, it is definitely much closer to east than north." He gave another one of those small bark-like laughs, "Should I have perhaps drawn you a map?"
"Maybe I don't want to be a part of your little plans," I said, starting to work on cutting the end of the branch into something sharper.
"Uh-huh. And just what do you think you're going to do with that stick?"
"I figure if I kill that big one, the others will all run off."
Coyote shook his head, "Paul, if you try to kill that boar, you will die. Understand? Die. No more sunshine, no more laughter, dead."
I looked at him, "And you're offering me something better than that?"
Coyote nodded, "Offering you something better than getting killed by a bunch of irate boars in the middle of nowhere is actually rather easy."
I shook my head, "No, I mean death. I die here, or I die a week from now while I'm off trying to help Riggs fulfill some 'prophecy' where he becomes famous. What's the difference?"
"The difference, is that you just might survive it, Paul. But down there?" he nodded towards the pack of pigs, "down there, you have no chance at all. I should know, I'm the one who brought them here."
"You what?!" I said looking up at him angrily.
"Well, I had to do something to rein you in, you weren't following my orders."
"I'm supposed to take orders from a talking coyote now?" I said exasperated. "First it was Major asshole, and now it's you!"
Coyote gave one of those laughs again, "You know, for someone who joined the military, you sure don't seem to like to listen to other people."
"I have no problem listening to other people, as long as they don't treat me like crap," I said defensively.
"And I've treated you like crap?" He said, looking hurt, "Paul, you wound me."
"You brought me here, didn't you?"
Coyote sighed rather melodramatically. "I told you, I didn't have a lot of choices, besides, it's not like your life was going anywhere."
"And just how much of that was your fault?" I asked, staring at him accusingly.
"Ah, you think I had something to do with all of the bad luck you'd been having!"
"Well, didn't you? You told me that you've known this was coming for some time, and mentioned you'd 'been there' watching me."
Coyote shook his head, "None of that was me, Paul. You just seemed to naturally attract bad luck and ill omens as a child and a teenager. Actually, I'm rather impressed that you never let it stop you. Now, if you want down out of this tree, alive, you'll do as I say."
"Why?" I asked staring at him.
"Because you'll be alive, isn't that reason enough?" he asked, looking a little surprised.
"Not anymore it isn't," I said, still pretty angry. "After five months of living as a slave, just being alive doesn't cut it anymore, I want to be free, and I want to be able to enjoy my life at least some of the time."
"I'm not sure that I can promise you any of that, Paul," Coyote said, his voice getting serious all of the sudden. "I need you, and I need you to follow my orders. I'm neither a harsh or cruel master, I will do what I can to make your life better, and easier, but until this is done, I can make no guarantees."
"Then why should I do it? Why should I help you at all?"
"Why did you join the military?"
"Because I wanted to fly jets, be a part of something bigger, and serve my country."
"Okay, and taking away the jets, how is what I want from you any different?"
I stopped and glared at him a moment. The bastard had a point. If he was telling the truth that is, and honestly I didn't think that I was worth the trouble of him lying to me.
"If I do this, am I going to die?" I asked, looking at him.
"Possibly, the chance exists; a lot of it will be up to you."
"And if I do this, and I live through it, what do I get?" I asked warily.
"Well, I can't send you home; I hope you understand that none of us can do that for you."
I nodded; privately I wondered if even Riggs would be going home.
"But there are things I can do for you, and I will do whatever I can to give you a reward that you will enjoy."
I sighed and nodded. I really wasn't all that interested in being killed by a bunch of pigs anyway.
"Fine, I'll go back and head the way you want me to go."
"Wonderful! Now, hunker down a little while I deal with these boars."
The wind shifted a moment then and I heard a wolf howling nearby. All of the boars froze, and then as one they all turned to the north and ran off as fast as their feet would carry them.
Moments later a couple of wolves ran by under the trees, in hot pursuit.
"When morning comes, it will be safe for you to continue on," Coyote said and disappeared.
I woke up with the sun in my eyes, I was sore, cramped, and still fairly tired. Sleeping in a tree was not very relaxing.
I carefully climbed down, and stretched a bit to work the kinks out. Then, doing the best to ignore the hunger in my belly, I started back the way I came. It was almost noon when I got to the sign where I'd decided to defy Coyote. I stopped and pissed on it before continuing on. It pretty much summed up how I felt.
About an hour later I came to a much larger road that went east/west. This road was a lot more intact, with only the occasional crack in it, and obviously it saw enough traffic that nothing really grew on it, though quite a bit grew up next to it. I looked to the west, the road went on quite a distance, and then turning to the east I started to follow it.
I traveled a lot more cautiously after that, the last thing I wanted to run into was a tribal group, or really any group, traveling the roadway. Twice I heard and then saw riders approaching at a faster pace than I was going, so I went off and hid in the woods and waited for them to pass. In each case it turned out to be a small group of several people, mostly men, riding together.
I took a good look at their outfits as they went by, because there was quite a bit of variety among them. Some wore brightly colored outfits; others were wearing more subdued outfits. They were all armed, with swords, or bows, and even pistols or rifles, but I wasn't close enough to identify types on their weapons.
As I watched the second group go by, one of the women in the group actually turned and looked in my direction, almost locking eyes with me. I ducked my head and looked down quickly, I didn't know if she would have actually seen me, but I didn't want to take the chance. Especially as everyone in the group was well armed and all I had was a pocketknife.
But the simple fact that people were heading down this road meant that it went someplace, and hopefully that was somewhere that I could do something to improve my circumstances. Exactly what that would be however, I didn't know yet. I had nothing of any value to trade and I suspect the credit card in my wallet, or the twenty-three dollars in cash would not be worth anything here.
As the day wore on, I could see the signs of a town of some sort off in the distance through the trees. There were buildings, not very high ones, but the outlines were too regular to be rocks, and you could see between them. I wondered if it was 'Havsue' that Ken had told me about, or some other place?
I picked up my pace a little, the thought of a little civilization was definitely one that appealed greatly to me.
About a half hour later, it wasn't so appealing. Not the idea of civilization, but the town. I could see that the buildings were all in ruins, a lot of them appeared to be burnt out shells, and all of them were in some state of decay, quite a lot were just crumbled. I couldn't tell if the place had been bombed or had just rotted away.
The road itself ran only through the edge of whatever town this had once been, and through the gaps in the trees, which were thinner because of the ruins, I could see a large river. I kept an eye on the ruins as I approached, this was definitely the kind of a place where thieves would gather to waylay or rob someone.
As I came around a bend, I could see the group that had passed me maybe an hour or two ago had stopped and was doing something. So I ducked off the road and into the trees and watched from a safe distance.
Whatever it was, they must have just finished it, because they all mounted up and rode off, so I got back onto the road and approached the spot cautiously, though I could soon see why they'd stopped as I got closer. There were bodies, eight of them, drawn up in a line on the side of the road. From the marks on them, there had been a rather brutal fight here, and while several of them had been shot, two of them looked like they'd been set on fire, and the remaining three had been hacked up with a sword or an axe.
All in all, it wasn't pleasant. The bodies had obviously been looted as they were all mostly undressed, so I doubted there was anything of value on them. Plus flies were starting to gather, so I gave them a wide berth and continued on. None of them from what little I could see appeared to have been dressed as I recalled the people in the group on horseback had been, and they hadn't ridden off with any extra empty horses that I could see.
So either the group on horseback had caught up with these people and killed them, or this group had been waiting in ambush and lost. In either case I had no desire to investigate. If the dead group had set an ambush, there may still be some of them left alive and the last thing I wanted was to face them unarmed when they came back to check on their now dead compatriots.
I decided to pick up my pace and jogged all the way through the town. It was a little bittersweet when I saw a large set of rusty and broken yellow arches over a building not far from the road, which was now running along the top of an embankment. It also reminded me that I had no food left, and I'd have to stop and see what I could forage for, once I got away from the town.
At least I'd gotten used to going hungry over the last few months.
I slowed down when I finally got to the far side of the town, and took the time to look around as I caught my breath. I could see that the road ahead actually ran straight as an arrow and that the group I had seen was several miles ahead at the edge of my vision. The forest thinned out to the south before me, the landscape appearing to be more like a grassland with scattered copses of trees.
As I continued on I heard a sudden loud rush of air and turning quickly around I saw a strange aircraft hovering behind me, the only sound coming from it was that of a large fan. From the front it looked like a wide hovercraft, only it was ten feet off the ground and didn't have any kind of skirt. But it did have two short stubby wings on both sides and what looked like machineguns mounted on them, and they were all pointed at me.
"Don't move!" A loud voice announced over a speaker. "You're under arrest!"
I sighed and held my arms out to the sides and just stood there. As I watched the craft lowered a ramp to the rear and two people came down it and skirting wide of their aircraft they both approached me, pointing rifles of some sort at me. There were wearing dark blue jumpsuits with body armor, and had helmets on that covered their entire head and face. I couldn't tell if they were male or female, or even if they were human.
"Lay down! On the ground!" The voice called.
I dropped to my knees, and then slowly laid down turning my head to the side and keeping my arms out.
"Highway robbery is a capital offense in these parts, Hondo. You're gonna regret ever coming here!" One of them said and put his gun to my head in a rather ominous voice. "Now, hold still while my partner restrains you, or I'll save the judge the time of finding you guilty."
I did my best to lie there nice and still, as my hands were pulled behind my back, and then secured together with what felt a lot like a zip tie. Two more were place around my ankles, but they weren't tied directly to each other.
"Okay, now get up, slowly," the one with the gun to my head said as he backed away.
"Umm," I started, and I felt a hand grab my collar and pull me up and back until I was on my knees again, then help me up onto my feet. Looking down I could see my legs were shackled, with a two-foot plastic cord between the zip ties around each ankle.
"Let's go," said a voice in my ear, and with a tight grip on my upper arm the other one helped me shuffle over to the ramp, which they then helped me up.
Once at the top I was pushed down into a seat, and a restraining belt was fastened around me to keep me there.
"Who am I supposed to have robbed?" I said once the ramp had come up and the other two sat down across from me.
The one who had the gun pointed to my head pulled off their helmet, and suddenly I noticed that they were not a guy, but most definitely a woman, a rather attractive one at that with red hair and striking green eyes.
"A group of mercenaries, that came through here just a short time ago. They told us about your group attacking them, and how they killed most of you and drove off the rest," she said in a voice that was definitely not the one I'd heard while she was wearing the helmet. I guess they altered your voice to make it sound more threatening.
I shook my head, "I wasn't any part of that."
"We saw you come up to the bodies and then follow Sarah's group."
"I'm heading east, they passed me hours ago. When I caught back up to them and saw them looting the bodies, I decided to hide and wait until they were gone before I got back on the road." I looked at the other one as they pulled off their helmet, they were a man, and they didn't say anything, as they looked me over skeptically.
"Besides, I'm unarmed."
"You're unarmed because you're a wizard," she said.
I looked at her shocked, "A what?"
"You know, he might be one of those wizards who doesn't need to move his hands," her partner said, finally speaking up. "Maybe we should gag him."
She nodded, "I think you're right," and pulling out a fat roll of what looked like duct tape, she did just that while I just looked at her in shocked surprise. Wizards? They had magic here? What the hell....