Unkarra Gate (1st draft)

Chapter 9.2

The suns shone overhead in the sky, the breeze was gentle and refreshing, and the world was alive and welcoming, full of birds in the sky and other animal calls in the wild. All of this would have been the setting for a peaceful enjoyable journey, if only the travellers could overlook that they were running for their lives, and running from anything and everything they had ever known or loved. They all traveled with these thoughts weighing them down, all but one, whose weight had been much heavier for much longer.

Bogrel led them, guiding them down the old dirt road that connected the lands of House Stamrin to those of House Dasben. Behind him lumbered the aurochs, which hauled the relatively small wain, inside which lay Ezara, who still battled her way to brief spurts of consciousness. The smaller children either piled around her and the rest of the supplies, including the caged chickens, or ran about the procession in play and exploration.

Dara stayed close to her friend, always ready to get her water or whatever morsel of food she could take otherwise.

The journeying was much easier with the aurochs, especially for Bogrel, now relieved of the labour of pulling the wain himself. Loaded as it was now, he would have been very exerted. As it was, he walked and walked until the children could no longer keep up. It was yet day, but he conceded the effort and drew them well off the road, to a concealed spot in a copse of trees, that followed what must have been a driveway decades prior.

Indeed it led them to the ruins of a structure; with stones and rotted wood laying about. During the height of the Kingdom of Geberra, men had settled much more of the land than was occupied today; the long winter of their fathers' had eroded both the kindom and such outlying settlements. As had been for hundreds of years, only the great Houses of Geberra survived such times.

They made camp about the ruins, most of them finding sleep in short order after eating. Dara watched over them, and watched as Bogrel retreated to be by himself with a bottle of liquor. She, too, succumbed to sleep after a short while, even before the bright sun had set.

In the morning, it was Bogrel waking them at the first lit of the dim sun. He looked terrible and miserable, but was expedient in his organization and had them walking again before any of them were willing. However, no one was willing to voice their disagreement.

By midday they came to a sharp bend in the road, which cut back towards the mountain they had been circling at their right since leaving the town. Bogrel halted and stared down the way for a time. Dara approached.

"Where does it go?" She asked.

"House Dasben lands. It's the only road, which is the problem."

"What is the problem? That's where you are taking us, isn't it?" Dara said.

"It's the 'only' part of it that's the problem. We're being followed, and it wouldn't be hard for someone to catch us on the road," he replied.

"You're sure we're still being followed?" She asked.

Bogrel simply nodded. He ceased looking down the road and searched the landscape to the east, more or less an extension of the road they had been travelling.

"What's that way?" Dara kept up with the questioning.

"Not much. Nothing that I know of, until you hit the chasm. Then there's even less."

Damar had been lurking, and spoke up excitedly. "Are we going to see the chasm?"

Bogrel scarcely acknowledged the question with a grunt.

"Is that the wild lands?" asked Ezrik, joining the group.

"That's just an old woman's tall tale," Bogrel said, spurring into action. He grabbed the lead of the aurochs and led the march off the road into the wilderness.