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Chapter 14

It will be half a day's hike back to the main trail, and that's before we even get started on our journey to the mountains. But at least now I can walk without wincing. I feel nothing of my previous pain, and now Stone's the one struggling to keep up. Like I said before, I'm pretty fast, and I'm able to leap lightly over stuff that he has to wade through, or clamber over.
"Keep up, Pebble!" I call back to him, and he growls like a wolf, swatting at a cloud of gnats that swarm his head. At least, I hope they are. They glitter when the sunlight hits them, though, so I'm beginning to doubt it.
"I wouldn't let those things bite you. They look like they might be poison." I warn, turning and leaping over a fallen log just in time.
"Really? But I wanted them to bite me!" He says sarcastically, waving his hands wildly. I laugh, thinking about what he would look like if I couldn't see the bugs.
"That's it," He snarls, his face becoming a wolf-like mask for a millisecond, and he whips out his twin blades, his eyes lit by an angry flame. I stop laughing, and back away some more, suddenly scared. Had I really pushed his that far?
He whirls around, the blades humming as they pass through the air around him. I expect that to do nothing to the sparkling gnats- They're so tiny, the blades would have to be incredibly sharp, Stone have extraordinary skill. So I stop and impatiently observe his battle. In disbelief.
For floating in the puddle at his feet are a hundred tiny gnat bodies, every one of them split in two. Stone is calmly sliding his swords back into their sheaths, which are strapped crossways across his back, like a big X. I notice the blades are almost paper thin from the side. Suddenly I begin to understand why they are so important to him.
"Where'd you say you got those...?" I raise an eyebrow, as he steps over the puddle and continues on like nothing happened.
"I didn't." He says. That's the one answer I can't stand, because then you feel like you're pushing too much if you go on asking after that.
"Tell me then."
"No. There's a spider on your back!" He adds, and I scream, jumping up and down on the spot, and whacking my back with my hands, looking like a complete idiot. I hate spiders.
I don't stop until Stone is doubled over, laughing his butt off. I stand, wrinkling my nose at him, and march off through the trees. I really want to be back on the trail, and then I realize once we reach the trail, it's still a two week journey. An entire week of this. I shudder.
Last time, we had been forced by the Beast to run half the way to Stone's grandfather's, so it had only taken a couple hours. I didn't have the motivation to do that again, so now I was facing an entire day of plodding along the trail that wasn't really a trail.
"Can we get some horses?" I say pathetically after about an hour of this. I know horses aren't a good idea in the woods, even the ones bred to withstand Beast attacks. They're only used on main trails through the Wold, and usually only by Predators.
"Great idea. I sell my swords and all our food, and we can sell the shirts off our backs, and maybe, then, we can buy a donkey. You figure out a way to get a couple thousand dollars, and I'll show you where to spend it. Until then, we're on foot." Stone says, and I furrow my brow. I have no money, and neither does he. That complicates things.
"Is it really a two week journey?" I ask, trying to occupy myself from the presence of the long walk.
"No, I lied. It's three weeks." He says sarcastically, so I stop asking. Instead, I watch as the forest changes around us. The sun is still rising, dew dripping off the leaves of the canopy far above us. It's not a sunny day, but rather the clouds hang low and dark, foreboding storms to come.
The trees are enormous, towering a hundred feet over our heads. Some are like my mother told me they were before the apocalypse, tall and with large green leaves, the trunks brown, the bark rough. Others are twisted by the after effects of the nuclear explosions. They are trees that have twisting, vibrant orange trunks, and heavy black leaves that drip oily sap into puddles on the ground. I know from experience that stepping into those puddles is suicide- They go down forever, as if the heavy sap has cut holes into the very earth.
There are Moon trees, which glow blue by the light of the full moon, but are milky white any other time. And electric yellow vines that wrap across tree's branches, sprouting bright pink blossoms that open up to swallow whatever lands on them. Some of the vines are eerily thick, wider than my body, and lumpy, like a snake after it's lunch.
We wade through a patch of ferns, and a vividly orange butterfly with a wingspan bigger than my body is long beats my face with it's wings in panic, lifting off into the sky. I watch it rise up to the sky, and can hear it's majestic wings beating the wind. Suddenly, there's a rustling, and an enormous black shape spreads it's shadow over us.
"Down!" Stone hisses behind me, and we flatten ourselves in the ferns. When we feel it's safe enough to stand up, the butterfly is gone. I glance back at Stone.
"Better it than us." He shrugs, whipping out his swords and slicing through the ferns ahead of me, which are taller than him, and there so much taller than me. I hate the ferns, and the wading through mud. Off to my right I see a flicker of movement, hear a slithering sounds.
"Stone, I think there's a snake!" I try to say calmly, but my voice has suddenly become very high pitched.
"It won't bother us," Stone says dismissively. There's a hissing, and more rustling sounds. "Catch" Stone tosses me one of his swords, and it's only my cat-like (Haha, yeah, great pun) reflexes that keep it from decapitating me. He turns, and we continue on further through the giant ferns, which seem to be growing as we go on, as if we're now wading through small trees. The stalks are bigger around than my arm.
More rustling and hissing, and out of the corner of my eye I catch a flashing pattern of yellow and black. I suddenly feel like a little insect being hunted by a mere snake. That's what my world is like. One second you're normal size, and the next, the ferns are taller than you.
Stone stops suddenly, and I bump into him, before stopping as well, and staring upwards.
"Oh my"
"God" He finishes for me. The ferns have parted before us, and the black hood of a giant kind cobra is blocking out the sun, casting us into shadow. It glares down at us with luminescent eyes, it's pupils vertical slits. Then it opens it's black maw, and giant fangs to big to be practical unfold, dripping with lime-green venom.
"Not again..." I moan, as Stone pulls me out of my stupor, off our path and into the ferny forest.