Tales Of The Continent - Part 6

Chapter 1

I feel a sharp, searing pain in the back of my shoulder. It knocks me forward to the ground and I let out a shout of pain.

"Father, are you okay?"

A boy covered in dirt and scars comes over to me, skidding on the broken ground, my curate.

"I'm fine Hedge."

He helps me up, trying to haphazardly wipe the dirt from my robe.

"Leave it boy, we need to keep moving before they catch us up."

We begin to slowly limp along, away from the fighting, the calls of our chasers following us. We make our way around the various ruins-these were war torn villages that now just lay as rubble.

"We need to get back to the boat," I shouted at Hedge,

"Yes father, the others are waiting for us,"

"Where?"

He pointed forward,

"Just behind that ridge, they're waiting with horses and supplies."

I nodded and kept a firm pace, the sounds of battle and thunderous footsteps were behind us. They'd sent a whole army to chase us. The closer we got to the ridge, the more danger we seemed to be in-we passed rotten corpses and stacks of bones, some houses still smoking from the fire. From my memory the cries of the women that were captured here began to echo through my mind.

When we arrived at the base of the ridge, our pace slowed down massively, the pain in my shoulder now flowing down through my arm and across my chest. It needed to be taken out, but there was no time. As we reached the top of the ridge, I looked back, there must have been more than fifty people chasing us. I could see the spears and the arrows flying up over the ruins in our direction. Once we got over the ridge it was just a straight sea of desert, and in the far distance we could see the vague outlines of the port city of Vasos. Just half a mile in front of us was an outline of several horses and what looked like a small campfire.

"The others are just over there," pointed Hedge.

I nodded and set off at a pace, the quicker we got there, the quicker we could leave on horseback. The sand was different this side of the ridge, it was softer and hard to walk on. I kept tripping up and several times I almost met the ground. If it wasn't for Hedge I'd most definitely be dead by now. I could tell the poor boy was tiring but it was only a little longer now.

We eventually reached the campsite, they had dug a small hole into the ground. In the middle was a fire pit with tents set up around it. The fire pit was smoking. There was no one around. I looked behind me and the horde chasing us were now visible on top of the ridge.

"Where is everyone?" asked Hedge,

I stood there in disbelief, the hope I held on the ridge had now disintegrated. I hobbled to the tents-under closer inspection I saw they had all been slashed at the rear. I looked inside every single one, and in every single one lay an ally or friend who was rotting, flies sitting on their half chewed faces, their bodies covered in multiple stab wounds and arrows protruding from their chests.

"Shit."

I turned, the horde of people were now only minutes away.

Coming out of the last tent, Hedge asked "where is everybody?"

"I don't know," I lied, limping up to him.

I saw a worried look sprawl across his face.

"But don't worry," I said, picking him up and placing him along the horse, "because we're leaving now".