Kingdom Come

Chapter 11

Kerri woke Simon up at the crack of dawn. How many hours had he slept? Six? Seven if he was lucky. His back was sore from the ground, and he was cold. How was Kerri not freezing? Was his jacket more insulated than Simon realized? But then how was he not baking in the heat of the day or in the summer? He hardly ever took that jacket off.

            "Don't you need to sleep before we go?"

            "I slept all day yesterday. I'll be fine." Kerri looked more or less fine like he said, so Simon didn't press it too much and just went to grab a bag. Kerri grabbed his own bag and his walking stick. It didn't take long for them to find a place in the wall that had been torn down to nothing. A couple of cannonballs sat embedded in part of the wall. Simon tried chalking it up to misfires or accidental drops with bombs from aerial coverage. Hours passed without event and not a word was spoken. It was the longest several hours of Simon's life.

            A loud boom came near them right as Simon was thinking that maybe they would get through Mairo without encountering any violence. It was too much to ask for, though, and Kerri jolted towards Simon, as though he would be protecting the prince.

            "We need to find a faster way, or otherwise turn around. We aren't even a third of the way through Mairo and we're about to see some ugly stuff," Kerri said.

            "You're the one who said to let the horse go!"

            "And the horse would have been worse. I doubt we would have gotten this far." He paused. "Simon, are you sure you have to go back now? It's too dangerous."

            "I can't wait anymore, Ker. If I go back now, it'll be too late and there will be a new king. One that isn't me. You can go back, but I can't."

            Kerri sighed and looked around. There was a train station a few yards to the left, but the abandoned town made it seem pretty likely that no trains would be running. Simon also looked at the train station, then a cloud of dust kicked up followed by a loud boom about ten yards to their right. Simon grabbed Kerri's wrist and dragged him towards the train station.

            "Do you even know how to drive a train?"

            "Assuming we can hotwire it? No."

            "Then what are we doing?"

            "Do we have another choice?" Kerri gritted his teeth. He hated how often Simon was right. "Besides, it shouldn't be too different from hotwiring a car!"

            "And you've done that?"

            "Loads of times!"

            "Really?"

            "No!"

            Simon stopped short at the bottom of the stairs, and Kerri ran into him. A group of people in green uniforms were waiting in the train station, though they didn't seem to have noticed the two men yet. Simon and Kerri started backing up slowly and as quietly as they could, thankfully leaving without being noticed at all. They ran forward, praying that nobody would shoot at them or see them.

            "They weren't our guys, were they?" Kerri asked when they finally slowed down.

            "Nope. Our soldiers wear black and blue."

            "All of them or just the royal guard?"

            "I think all of them."

            "Gee, how helpful."