Book II - Exodus (Chapter 8)

The girl awoke first, morning light ripping into her unconsciousness like a wild beast. For a moment she was floating, then the pain flooded back and she groaned. I’m still alive. She opened her eyes, slowly at first to adjust to the light, and then quickly as she realized she was on a horsa. She eyed the other figure warily. The boy. It’s the boy I tried to save. Her heart started up, squeezing faster. He wasn’t moving, just lay sprawled across the horsa’s back, the part she wasn’t on. He’s dead. She thought back. The knight who grabbed her, had her hair and was dragging her along the ground. She could feel all the little gashes in her back even now, filled with dirt and oozing. She’d screamed, a loud thing, and had hurt her vocal chords. Then she’d heard a shout, (his shout) and she’d been let go. Tumbling along the ground, she finally came to the stop where she saw…knights, some on their horsas, flying up into the air. No, that couldn’t have happened. She’d hit her head, knocked it hard. She’d imagined the flying knights. So what if you did? Where does that leave you? Well, she’d been unconscious. The boy must have escaped them and rescued her. That had to be it. There were seven of them. Seven knights. You think a boy like that just…escapes? And has time to save a girl on the ground as well? But it was what had happened, she decided. And now he was…what? Dead? Asleep? She passed a hand in front of his mouth and was rewarded by a warm puff of air.

She sighed in relief, and looked around. The horsa was trotting slowly, its head down. Fog filled in around them, and the horsa’s hooves made sucking sounds as it pulled them out of the mud. She couldn’t see the ground, only the fog and the strange plants that grew out of it, but then the horsa stopped. It lowered its head and made several strange liquid noises. It’s drinking. What is this place? I’ve never heard of a place like this, it shouldn’t exist, not if it’s anywhere near Triga. Then, she found cause to look up, and realized that Triga had left them long ago. Towering above them, though still many miles distant, was the Wall. She’d seen it every day of her life, a constant higher horizon visible easily from Triga, a massive countenance even then. But this. It had easily doubled in height, and from here she could see that in either direction it never seemed to end. How could they have built something like this so long ago? The Darks granda talked of weren’t masters of masonry or construction. No, they were masters of the little things. Tiny metal pieces that could make a dead thing alive.

The basin the horsa trudged through rose up on all sides like a bowl, and toward the Wall formed a mountain, large in its own course and yet a pittance compared to the monster of size that lay behind.

The horsa neighed, and shook itself, and the boy began to slide forward off the horsa’s back. She grabbed at the ripped cloth that rode around his waist, and pulled him back. He was heavier than he looked, and it took most of her weight and strength to keep him from pitching face-first into the fog. The horsa neighed again, louder, and this time shook itself hard. The girl heard for the first time the panic in its voice. Something’s wrong. She struggled to keep herself upright, all while pulling at the boy’s cloth belt. Looking around, she tried to see what was happening. Some snake, slithering through the mud? A larger predator? But the fog had risen, and she couldn’t see a thing. She looked to the plant she’d noticed earlier, its green and gnarled fingers reaching desperately from the fog and it hit her like a shot. The plant had risen as well, and that meant she’d been wrong. The fog hasn’t risen - we’re sinking into the mud!

Before she had time to take action, the horsa bucked, meaning to rear onto its hind legs but unable to, as its front ones were encased beneath the fog, deep in the mud. Its hind end tilted downward; it had managed to sink its hind legs deeper with the effort. The girl’s hold on the horsa was gone, and she was falling. Her hold on the boy’s belt, however, never slackened, and now he was on his way down as well.

She landed with a wet smack, and the boy on top of her. Her chest was depressed and she light a mighty breeze of air escape between her lips. The ground was moist, and for a moment she thought that was all. Then it began to soften, and she began to sink. She tugged at the unconscious body atop her, but the boy was too heavy and she was not in position to exert the proper leverage. Warm, stinking muck climbed up around her body, pulling her into the fog. She heard the horsa whinny, this time its panic echoing her own, and she knew that it would not be freed. And if she didn’t do something quickly, neither would she. So she kept her head up, and her arms, so that even if she sank deeper she’d still be free to breath. You’ll breathe the fog, and it’ll kill you. What could she do? The boy was weighing her down, driving her deeper into the sucking mud. The boy. Wake him up, girl. Wake him up and get him to save you again.

He was lying face up, on top of her, and at an angle so that his head rested near her left shoulder. She raised her right arm high, and, making a fist, powered it into the boy’s stomach.

He awoke suddenly, mouth opening in a shocked display of pain as his eyes shot from side to side, trying to see who was attacking him.

“Wake up, horsa boy, look where we’re at!” She shouted it in his ear and he slid sideways, off of her a bit and that was good, but he was staring at her and she knew he hadn’t heard what she’d said. He mouthed something that looked like the word, “you.”

“Yeah it’s me, now hurry up and figure out what you gotta do to save us because your stupid horsa led us into this thing!”

He seemed to finally get it, to understand that yes, they were in trouble (mighty big, yessir, mighty big trouble) and that they could possibly die if he didn’t do something. He blinked, and his mouth closed with a clap. He looked around, taking in the situation, then rolled to the left, off of the girl’s body. She stopped sinking almost immediately, but she didn’t rise any higher. The boy was on his feet, now, and moving. Keep your feet moving, if you stop you’ll go just like the horsa. She glanced at the beast now, and saw that it was up to its breast in the fog. Its eyes were wide and black, and she saw insanity there. Because it knows its reached it’s final resting place and it’s afraid. She looked to the boy, who was stopped near the strange plant, using it as a support to keep himself above the muck. He was undoing his cloth belt, the thing that held together all the other pieces of cloth covering his lower body. He had it off now, and she understood he was going to try to use it to pull her out.

“Right, girl. Grab hold of this, and I’ll pull.”

She nodded feverishly. Yes, yes, just hurry. I don’t want to breathe the fog, don’t make me breathe the fog.

Then the piece of cloth was in her hands and she was pulling as well, pulling as the boy pulled. She rose out of the muck much quicker than she had been sunk in, and again she was resting on the surface. Wasting no time she rolled as he had, and got to her feet, making for the plant with as quickly as her body let her.

“Your…your coverings,” she said, holding her hand out. The boy took his cloth belt and she tried not to look at his man parts. He did the belt up again, and was once again covered. She looked at him, expecting him to say something but he wouldn’t. He wasn’t even looking at her. It was the horsa. She turned and watched as well, watched as the beast, bucking crazily now, slid beneath the surface of the fog.

She put her hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry for your horsa, I didn’t mean that it was stupid, I just needed for you to wake…”

“It’s my fault. He hasn’t had any water for four days. Just came in here because he could drink. I promised myself I’d take care of him, and I didn’t.”

He still wasn’t looking at her, just stood staring at the spot where the horsa had disappeared. A drop of something fell down his cheek and he quickly rubbed it away.

“Well, I suppose we’d better…well, who are you, anyway?” His eyes were on her now, a feigned interest quickly becoming real curiosity, and she felt her face go hot.

“My name is Essara. I watched you ride into the kingdom and ran to stop you from finding the knights…” The knights. What had happened with them, anyway? But the boy looked down, his eyebrows furrowing together like the two blades of a plow, and she did not ask.

Then his eyes were on her again, and he was smiling, his cheeks dimpling with the force and insincerity of it.

“Essara. My name is Erich. Pleased to meet you. Now how do you suppose we get out of here?”

She glanced around. He was right, they were still in a tight spot. The fog seemed to go for thousands of yards, and the nearest rise in land was to the North, although plants like the one on which they stood were scarce in that direction.

“We’ve got to keep to the plants, like you figured. And get to where the ground rises. Best way I can see, that’s...over there. She pointed Southeast.

Erich nodded. “All right. But we’ve got to stay on our feet, keep moving so we don’t drop into it again. We rest at the plants. Are you ready? That one over there.” He pointed to the nearest plant in the direction they were headed, one that was less than fifty yards away. Fifty yards though, that’s still not a very safe bet. Essara shuddered. She didn’t want to feel the warm fingers of muck around her again, didn’t want to be made to breathe the fog.

“I’m ready,” she breathed, and then they were running, little quick steps so that their feet were on the surface of one section of the muck for as small an amount of time as possible. They reached the first plant fairly quickly, and soon set off for the next one. It seemed they travelled in this way for near on an hour, and then the sun rose higher and burned away the fog so it became easier to see the surface over which they scurried. This way, they were able to spot the incredibly wet spot they’d have attempted to cross had the fog remained. Instead they had to circle around, and even then hadn’t gone far enough and one of Essara’s legs hit a weak spot and plunged in down to the knee. Erich got her up, but not before she let out a series of frightened, angry screams.

After an eternity it seemed, of hurrying over the unstable and overly moist ground, they reached the edge of the bowl, where drier land rose up out of the swamp. They walked for a while, exhausted, and then Erich dropped to his knees. He pushed himself over, and lay on his back, letting the sun bake his nearly naked body as he massaged his head.

“My head aches, Essara. I need to sleep, and you should not awaken me unless we are in dire troubles. Perhaps you should sleep as well, or if not you could look for food. We will need some of that soon, I know.”

“For what, Erich? Where are we going?”

“Now? Now I don’t rightly know, but before I entered your dead kingdom I was on my way to Mer’ka.”

Essara blinked.

“Mer’ka? Over the Wall?”

“The same. We’ll discuss it after I sleep. I am no good like this.” He rubbed his head again, absently, and Essara silently disagreed. No, you have done splendidly. Even if you are crazy. For he had been planning to breach the Wall, and enter into Mer’ka. It was suicide. Suicide for him, though? The knights – I must find out what happened with them. When he wakes, I will ask him. Look, he sleeps.

He lay absolutely still, but his breaths came shallow and even. His eyelids fluttered, and he made no snore. He sleeps like the dead.

Essara got up, and looked up the sloping ground toward the mountain that lay to the East.

Now, where would I go to find food?