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I walk into the bedroom and again notice the family picture on the nightstand. I walk over to it and run my fingers over their faces, wondering if the clan had gotten ahold of whoever lived here last.
I put the picture down, grateful that Hurian thinks we should leave. I don’t want someone to wonder the same thing about me, where I went, what happened to me, why I left. Hopefully, we can find somewhere else to stay, or maybe even our way home, before nightfall.
“Ready?” Hurian asks from the living room.
“Yeah,” I respond as I look at the photo, missing my home. “Let’s go.”
Hurian opens the door, and I walk out in front of him. As I look at the forest in front of me, I think of returning to the compound. I glance at the sky and wonder if maybe one day, the Burning Sun clan will help those people and show them the light.
13
HURIAN
“Sorry.” Dana winces, struggling to wriggle her foot free of the thick river mud. “Shit.”
I watch her carefully and notice that it isn’t the mud holding her back after all. A cold sweat dapples her forehead. At first, I think it must have something to do with the homicidal humans downstream, but then I see her limp forward, wincing again.
She’s in pain.
Her wound.
I nod toward her abdomen. She’s not clutching it, but the careful, stiff way she moves gives her away. “Let me see.”
Stubborn as ever, she shakes her head. “I don’t really want to stick around here.”
She has a point, the chants from the fanatical humans have only just now started to fade. And who knows what other horrors lurk in these fine woods. I can think of more than a few that might: hungry wolf packs, roaming orcs, more isolated, cannibalistic humans.
“I can–” I stretch out my arms in silent offering. Carrying her would be no burden, she looks to almost weigh less than the wild boar I caught earlier.
But it would be a burden toher, I suspect. She shakes her head.
“Your leg.”
I’m furious that I can’t argue her point. My limp is worse than when we set out on this adventure. Knives of pain stab my thigh with every step I take. I haven’t hidden my pain any better than she’s hidden hers, it seems.
Still, I would carry her if she asked.
It’s not much, but I find a branch large enough for Dana to use as a sort of walking stick and snap it off a nearby tree.
“Here.”
She takes it with a small smile of thanks. Something about the way she smiles never fails to hit me like a rock to the face, and I only realize I’ve been staring when her smile fades into a quizzical expression.
“Do you need more time to rest?” she asks.
I don’t, but I think she might, so I jump at the excuse. We sit together for a bit near the stream, tossing stones into the water. She’s not as talkative as usual, and I’m not one to carry a conversation. Eventually she pushes to her feet, and I join her.
There’s something about her eyes I don’t like. They’re overly bright. But before I can check them out any more, she’s already marching forward.
The wood is slightly too green, so it bends when she puts weight on it, but it seems to help her some. Her pace picks up, and I out to slow down again, but night is creeping up on us. I don’t want to spend a night in an open clearing, not when I’m hearing too many branches snapping behind us.
Wolves?
A mountain lion?
Or worse?
I’m not keen to find out. When we reach a cave alongside the river banks, I eye the yellow sky. There could be bears inside or snakes. There are definitely spiders, and unfortunately for Dana, cockroaches.
