Crossover

Chapter 8: The Drop

The carriage was swaying in the road, as we clung to the outside. Still cuffed, I was trying to boost Zedron up to the roof of the carriage. His arm was really hurting him although he wouldn’t admit it, and so I was taking a fair amount of his weight. Thank Cara, he was fairly skinny. He may have lied about what his job was, but he hadn’t been lying about times being hard. He mustn’t have been eating well.

He grunted, and threw one of his legs onto the roof. Now able to pull the rest of him up, he lay flat on his stomach and extended his cuffed hands to me. I grabbed his good arm and he slowly inched backwards, pulling me up.

The carriage went around another curve, and my feet lost purchase on the lip of the carriage and my lower body swung out over the cliff’s edge. I watched in horror as the rear wheel skidded dangerously close to the drop, sending small rocks clattering down the cliff. It was nearly an eighty foot drop now.

One of the men whooped as they took the turn.

“Must have dipped into the moonshine.” Zedron muttered, just barely loud enough for me to hear. No wonder they were being so stupid.

I kicked in the air with my feet, trying desperately to climb up. Zedron was straining to pull me up with his one working arm.  Slowly, my feet drifted back towards the carriage and I was able to shove my toes into a crack and push myself up.

We lay flat beside each other on the roof for a moment, just recovering.

“Neto, that was close.” He panted. “You were right. I didn’t like that.”

“We’re not done.” I said. “We still have to jump off.”

We sat up, and shuffled to the back. The cliffs rose on the other side of the carriage, and if we jumped too far, we’d hit them.

The sun was beginning to rise now, sending our shadows sprawling across the front of the carriage. They must have noticed because one of them looked up and saw us.

“That ijou!” he yelled. Jumping to his feet. He drew his gun.

“Jump!” I told Zedron, drawing my own gun and flicking the safety off.  I aimed and shot, perfectly square between the eyes. Another stood, aimed and I shot again. I let myself slide towards the end of the carriage, and as the third stood to shoot I pushed off. I rolled when I hit the dirt, bullets whizzing by my ankles. One of them grazed the back of my calf as Zedron pulled me to my feet, looping his cuffed hands around and under my arms.  I ignored the stinging pain and aimed for the back to the standing man’s head.

I didn’t know if I killed him or the fall did, for seconds later the carriage veered too sharply and went skidding over the edge. It tumbled over and over in the air, until it disappeared from view.

“You okay?” Zedron asked.

I was about to reply when a loud explosion echoed off the cliffs and a blinding fireball lit up the world. It looked like someone had stuffed the whole moon into the valley.

I twisted my head up and looked at Zedron. He smiled.

“There are two reasons they call it moonshine.” He said, letting out a large sigh of relief.

We stood there like that moment, just watching the smoke rise into the dawn sky.

--------

It didn’t take me long to realize the predicament we were in.

We had walked down the mountain in about an hour or so, but the rest was uphill and going to be during the day. With the hot sun beating down, and no water, it wouldn’t take us long to become dehydrated. We hadn’t been able to get the handcuffs off yet either, and they were chafing our wrists and causing Zedron a lot of pain in his shot arm.

In the shade of some trees, we stopped. I walked towards a tree, and sat down against it’s trunk. We were far enough off the road that no-one could see us, but close enough that we could hear if anyone went by.

“Nezaku, Kefira!” Zedron exclaimed. “You should have told me to slow down.”

“What?” I asked surprised.

He kneeled by my feet and twisted my right leg over so I could see the back of it. From just below my knee, my leg was soaked in blood.

“It didn’t hurt that much.” I said, unable to comprehend how I didn’t feel that.

Zedron pulled his flask from where it was tucked in his waistband. “This may sting a lot,” he warned me. He unscrewed it, and let the liquid slide out over my blood slicked leg.

He wasn’t kidding. I gasped in pain. The alcohol felt like tiny knives slicing at the gash, but the sticky blood did come off. Using his hand, he wiped the liquid off my leg before pouring again.

I stared up at the mountains surrounding us, biting my lip hard to stop from screaming. My whole body tensed with pain. It was worse than the first time.

When he stopped, I looked down at it. The bullet had sliced a fairly clean gash along the back of my calf, but it had gone much deeper than I thought.

“It needs stitching.” Zedron told me. “I don’t have anything to do that with me though.”

I nodded. We had to keep going. He tore another strip from his sleeve, and wound it around my leg. He knotted it carefully, trying not to hurt me.

I took the flask from where he’d placed it on the dry grass beside my other leg. “Your turn.” I said.

The fabric was hard to unwind, for his blood had made it stick to itself. He winced a little and I poured it on him, and once the blood was gone I could see the full extent of the damage. He was lucky. The bullet hadn’t hit bone or anything major, but was still inside. I rinsed both his arm and the cloth again, before re-tying it.

“How do I look?” he asked, giving me a sly smile.

I gave him a glance over. “Like you’ve been through hell and back.” I told him, with as straight a face as I could manage.

“No, you tirako.” He teased, bumping his hand against my shoulder. “My arm.”

“I know what you meant.” I said, cracking a small smile. “It looks pretty good. Could have been way worse.”

He smiled, but it faded quickly. “We should get going,” He said. “Alia’s in oasis city, right?”

I nodded.

“It’s about a four hour walk, uphill,” He said. “With your leg like that, it could take us all day.”

We dragged ourselves to our feet, and trudge back to the road. This was going to be a long day.