Page 55 of Deadwood
“Are you sure?” he asked, clearly concerned.
I gave a determined nod. “I am. I can do it.”
CHAPTER 18
The descent down the mountain was anything but graceful. With Lander’s arm to help support me, we did our best not to tumble in the snow down the precipitous terrain. We chose the way down that seemed the quickest, yet unfortunately, was the steepest. Each groan from the guards echoed in my ears, the smell of blood sticking to the insides of my nostrils as if it’d never leave.
If we fell, there would be no stopping as we careened down the side of the mountain. The guards assisted one another, grabbing onto arms if one nearly slipped or supporting the men with the worst injuries. Out of the twenty-three that accompanied us at the time of the ambush, only four remained, not including Paxon, Lander, and myself. That left us with a total of seven people. All of our belongings had been burned, the horses shot with arrows, leaving us only with our bodies and the clothes on our backs.
Once we finally reached the bottom, I could see the desert terrain close ahead through the haze of fog and sprinkle of snow. As I’d come to find on our journey, the landscape changed abruptly from one biome into the next. The immediate warmth of the desert would be a relief after the frozen tundra we were currently stuck in.
My ankle was throbbing, though the snow helped numb some of the pain. My feet were beyond frozen, having lost feeling in them ages ago. The only thing that propelled me forward was the promise of warmth and the hope of getting off my injury.
“Almost there, Auria,” Lander muttered close to my ear. He was shivering all the same, his jacket ripped on one side and his shirt wet from the flakes of snow. I didn’t have the energy to check behind us to see if all four of the guards remained following. Paxon was ahead of us, and by the look of his gait, he seemed barely affected by the elements. If he was hurt at all during the ambush, he didn’t show it.
What had to be nearly an hour later, we finally reached the desert. As soon as we passed from the snow to the sand, my body began to thaw. The telltale smell of the warm sun baking over the ground did little to overpower the sickening scent of blood. The sand was somehow thicker than the snow, and trailing my useless foot through the terrain was no longer working. With each step, the sand put resistance on my ankle, pulling at the limb. With the injury thawing from the snow, I no longer had the frigid temperatures on my side. The throb became insistent, a pulse of pain ricocheting up my leg with each beat of my heart.
“Wait,” I whispered. I could barely catch my breath or muster the strength to speak any louder.
“We have to keep going,” Lander said, barely sparing me a glance.
At his words, my body gave up. The light pressure I’d been putting on my ankle was too much, and my knee buckled. Lander’s grip slipped from my shoulders, and I landed in the sand with a thud, my hands out in front of me to prevent my face from planting itself in the warm ground. My fingers dug into the coarse sand, the particles covering my nails.
Lander quickly crouched next to me as I worked to take in air. The adrenaline was still coursing through my body with the danger that had presented itself to us, and now we were exposed without the snow cover. There couldn’t only be one group of bandits out here, and it was clearly no secret we were traveling. If their hatred for my father ran that deep, surely I was a bigger target than he’d initially thought I’d be.
Lander set a hand on my shoulder as Paxon turned and barked, “We won’t make it there like this.”
“I just need a minute,” I choked out. A million needles prickled up my leg, and I wasn’t even sure if the pain was centered in my ankle anymore.
Footsteps shuffled through the sand, and then two hands grabbed my arms, hefting me up. I winced, muffling my groan as I used my hurt foot to balance myself.
“We need to cross this desert before nightfall or we’re all dead,” Paxon said, his voice stern, leaving no room for argument.
“We can sleep in the desert, rest until morning, then get to whatever town you’re taking us to tomorrow,” I replied as Lander wrapped an arm around my waist. I leaned into him slightly, using him for support to take some of the weight off my ankle.
Paxon’s mouth was set in a thin line, judgment shining in his gaze. I knew the look well. “We won’t survive the night in the desert.”
“Why not?”
“There are creatures that hunt out here. Beings that should only appear in nightmares. They’ll smell all the blood from miles away and have a lovely midnight snack. Is that what you want?”
Monsters in the desert? Were they dragons or other creatures I had no knowledge of? My mind hazily went back to the night Lander said we were prey out here.
“No,” I admitted. But I wasn’t sure how he expected us to keep going at this pace. With the sun high in the sky, dusk had to be only hours away.
“Then let’s get moving,” he ordered, turning around to continue on his way.
It was so easy for him to keep pressing on with barely a scratch on his body. Even though Lander’s injuries weren’t visible to me, I could tell he was hurt. I glanced over my shoulder at the small group. The guards were much worse than the two of us, some still bleeding as they limped. One’s arm dangled freely at his side, another holding a soaked piece of clothing to his ribs where a wound openly flowed. I had no idea how long it would take us to cross the desert, but we’d certainly lose a few more of them. The ones with bleeding wounds were pale, their armor doing nothing to hide the aftermath of the ambush. With all our belongings destroyed, the vials had been ruined, too, leaving us with not a drop of healing magic.
Lander and I began walking again, following behind Paxon. The guards were farther back, and I honestly believed that if we lost some or all, Paxon wouldn’t hesitate to leave them. Over the course of our travels, I’d come to find that Paxon was not at all soft or able to lighten up like his brother. He was stern, always keeping us on course, where Lander wouldn’t mind taking a few hours to sit in a gambling hall and enjoy a drink or two.
Hours later, the sun began to kiss the horizon. Though we were still in the desert, we could see the approaching town in the distance. If we kept our pace, we’d just barely make it before darkness crawled over the land.
All around us, cacti sprouted from the sand, tumbleweeds rolling by them with each surge of wind. Lander had told me to keep an eye out for rattling, as the sound would alert us to any snakes. We didn’t have such animals in Amosite, so while I didn’t know exactly what sound I was listening for, I kept silent just in case.
The cacti towered over the desert, three to four times the size of an average person. A particularly large one stood proud in the distance. Beside it, a smaller one sat, but with narrowed eyes, I quickly realized it wasn’t a plant. It was a person.
“Lander. Look.” I pointed in the direction, and he followed my finger. “Someone’s out there.”
