Into Eden: Pangaea - Book 1 (6 page)

While the rest of the men were saddling their horses, Josiah came out of the house wearing his sword and carrying his longbow. He headed straight for the stables, but Hezron called after him, “You won’t be needing a horse, Josiah! You’re riding with me.”

Josiah turned, and Hezron gave him a hand getting up into the chariot. Hezron leaned close to him and said, “You’ve gotten me into this mess. You’re gonna stick by my side until it’s through.” Wisely, Josiah had no reply. Hezron then headed his chariot out the main gate and sped down the road toward Albion, twenty scared farmers on horseback following him as he went.

The jackal-heads left Nashon’s estate in a hurry. Zerah led the way in Anubis’ chariot, with the hooded man beside him. Behind him another of the jackal-heads drove a buckboard with their wounded commander in the back. Bringing up the rear the remaining eight of the band rode, wishing that the buckboard and the chariot would move faster.

“When do I get my money?” the hooded man asked Zerah.

“Shut up, human! Like the general said, you’ll get what you bargained for soon enough!”

The hooded man didn’t like Zerah’s tone. He sounded like an an-nef that could have easily bitten his head off—literally—if he dared speak to him again. No, this was not turning out like he supposed. As they were leaving the estate one of the legionnaires had asked Zerah if they should put the watchman’s body in the buckboard so that they wouldn’t have to stop for food. The centurion had told him, “No” because he didn’t want the extra weight to slow them down. Food?! This was truly a scary bunch that he had thrown his lot in with. Then a thought occurred to him: perhaps Zerah didn’t need the extra body because he had one riding beside him. The hooded man’s greed was once again giving way to fear. The gold that he had been promised to lead them to the house and identify the victim suddenly didn’t seem like such a lot of money. He had to do something—and quickly. If he didn’t, when the sun came up it would likely be hooded human for breakfast.

As they turned the bend down the road from the estate the man leaped from the speeding chariot. He rolled to the side of the road and the picked himself up and ran off into the darkness of the woods. His heart was racing. The an-nef could see better than him in the darkness, they could smell his scent, and outrun him easily. But they would have to catch him if they were to kill him. He threw himself headlong into the underbrush, scratching his exposed wrists and neck with briars and stumbling over the roots of trees in the darkness. He got up and ran some more, this time banging his head on a low branch and knocking himself backward. For a moment the world started to rotate around him as he teetered on the edge of consciousness, but forced himself back by sheer willpower. He could hear the sounds of the jackal-heads shouting out on the road but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. He ran on, panting, and nearly out of breath, but determined that they would not catch him. The voices were getting fainter now, and exhausted he broke his run and began a quick jog through the woods. He fell again, but this time instead of getting back up and running some more, he sat for awhile and just listened. He found himself in a small clearing, the full moon—now low in the sky—lighting a patch of tall grass some ten paces across. The sounds of the horsemen were gone now. No clopping of hooves or shouts of the riders, just silence, interspersed with the sound of an occasional cricket and an owl in a tree not far away. With that he breathed a little easier.

The hooded man sat on the wet ground for a long time staring up at the moon. He pulled off his gloves, exposing dark hands, and pulled off his hood, revealing dark skin, and short, curly hair unlike any seen in this region of the Foothills since before the days before the An-nef War. He exhaled deeply and thanked the gods that he had escaped, but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness he could see a large form in the grass a few feet in front of him. Immediately his heart began to race again, for the thing’s eyes glowed yellow like those of the jackal-heads, but as it stood, it stood on all fours, its tail swishing behind it. It was moving towards him slowly now, crouching low to the ground and almost sauntering as it closed in on its prey. The man was so overcome with fear that he could not even stand, but turned and started to crawl away on his hands and knees. He hadn’t crawled but a few panicked feet when he noticed directly in front of him another pair of glowing yellow eyes. Then, without warning, the lion pounced.

Back on the road the raiding band stopped as the human ran off into the woods. One of jackal-heads jumped down from his horse and ran into the forest after him.

“Come back!” Zerah ordered. “We don’t have time for that!”

The jackal-head returned and mounted his horse as ordered, but complained to the centurion, “Now what will we eat?”

Hezron and his followers rode to the gates of Albion to find his watchman once again asleep by the gate, but this time he jumped up when Hezron shouted, “Open the gate!”

The watchman opened the gate and Hezron again spoke to the man, “Leave it open, and get up here with Josiah and me. We ride to battle.”

Within minutes the posse was in the fort courtyard, and Hezron had re-awakened Ruben and the remainder of the twenty men still under his command. As his men wrestled with their breastplates and helmets, Hezron had the farmers that had ridden in with him follow him and Ruben to the armory. What Hezron found changed his already ill mood to downright contemptible. There were swords and arrows aplenty, but the swords were covered with rust and leather for the straps on the breastplates, scabbards and helmet chinstraps was rotted. Scattered about the armory were a number of empty wine bottles and two empty beer kegs. It seemed that Ruben had spent the time he should have been taking care of the weapons in other, more liquid pursuits. Hezron cursed, and picked up one of the bows. When he attempted to string it the leather bowstring snapped. At that he lost his temper and brought the bow down hard on his armor-bearer.

“These weapons and armor are useless! Why wasn’t something done?! Why wasn’t I informed of their deterioration? You are incompetent! If I didn’t need every man tonight I’d have you given thirty lashes!” With that Hezron started to leave, then turned and issued orders, “Rusty or not, have every man given a sword and shield. Ruben, you’re riding point tonight and all day until we catch up with the an-nef! Is that understood?”

“Yes general.”

Within a quarter of an hour they had re-assembled in the courtyard. As ordered, Ruben rode out ahead. Hezron and Josiah followed in Hezron’s chariot. Next came Hezron’s legionnaires in full battle gear followed by Nashon’s sons with no helmets or armor, rusty swords tucked into their belts, and shields tied to their backs using belts, rope, or anything else that they could find. It would be a miracle, thought Hezron, if any of them survived a real battle. May the gods will that they not catch up with the an-nef.

The stars were starting to fade as the band of forty horsemen wound their way though the streets of early morning Albion. They could hear the bells chime five times as they rode past the bell-tower. In the houses along the way some of the rooms were now lit with candles as early-risers were preparing breakfast and getting ready for their morning chores. As they approached the town gate they found it as they had left it, open for their return. No matter, thought Hezron, the thing about the lions was probably just a rumor. Not to worry. He urged his horses to a trot, and as they cleared the last of the houses outside of the old town wall he brought them to a gallop. He had a lot of ground to cover, and his enemy now had a good head-start.

South of the town they passed the road that ran toward Nashon’s estate and turned south over the bridge. The Southern Highway, as it was called, was little more than a dirt trail that ran for a thousand miles between Mountain Shadows in the Fog Mountains to the south, and Albion to the north. As the sun was coming up they passed one small farm after another, the fields of which were separated by stone walls. Most of these farms were owned by one of Nashon’s descendants or another. After the An-nef War, Emperor Herculous I had given Nashon ten-thousand acres in the Foothills as a reward for his service in defeating the an-nef. Back then it had been mostly wooded, but now it was some of the most productive farmland in all of Atlantis.

As they rode on Hezron could see the sun coming up. It shown like a red ball in the morning glow, just now starting to peer over a rock formation know as Horse-head Rock to those that traveled this leg of the Highway. Up ahead, Ruben had just ridden between the rock and another outcropping when Hezron saw him lean in his saddle, then fall to the road.

It’s curious how when the unexpected happens, our minds tend to overlook the obvious and force the sequence of events to fit predictable behavior. So it was that when Hezron saw Ruben fall he wondered, has he been drinking again? A moment later he heard the “clunk” of an arrow striking his chariot and he suddenly realized that his men were under attack. Immediately he reined his horses in and yelled, “Fall back! Shields!”

The warning came a second too late. As he drove his chariot off the road in a large arch to reverse direction, he saw several of his men with arrows from the mechanical bows sticking in their armor. These strange weapons were not only accurate, but powerful as well. Hezron yelled at Josiah, “Get down! Cover yourself with the shield!” and tried to push him down behind the chariot’s protective wall, but it was too late. Josiah fell from the chariot with an arrow through his head.

With difficulty Hezron was able to turn his horses and head the chariot back up the road behind his retreating horsemen. No sooner was he back on the road then his force was hit with another volley of arrows, this one targeting the animals. Both of Hezron’s lead horses were hit, and they neighed loudly in pain. One of them started to jostle another in an effort to free itself from the harness, and in the process he fell against his yolk-partner, knocking him down and snapping the tongue that held them to the chariot. The two rear horses now charged ahead without reigns, running off the road and causing the chariot to strike a rock, flipping it on its side.

Hezron was thrown off into the tall grass in the field. He lifted himself up on his elbows and looked around. What he saw was a textbook example of a battle expertly executed—by his enemies. Now on the road two horses lay dead in addition to the two men who had gone down in the first volley. Another horse was bucking wildly in an attempt to throw its rider. Up ahead a couple of the animals had succeeded in throwing their riders and now ran across an open field riderless. The dead horses on the road served as a perfect roadblock to slow up the remainder that was trying to wheel their mounts and retreat. Above them, protected by the granite outcroppings the an-nef rained down arrows with impunity on Hezron’s confused, frightened and unprotected men, and another volley was surely just seconds away.

Hezron yelled again, “Shields!” With that he started to crawl on his belly back to the chariot and the shield that lay by its side. Sure enough, the third volley struck before he could reach the chariot, and now Hezron could hear the screams of men added to those of the horses. He also felt what might have been a bumblebee sting in his calf, and looked down to see an arrow sticking out of both sides of his right leg. He grabbed his shield, pulling it over on top of him. Looking around he spied a farmer’s rock wall about twenty paces down the road. If they could make it to the wall, he thought, they would have some protection—but trying to make the wall during one of the an-nef’s arrow assaults would be suicide. He looked around himself again. His men were mostly covered in the grass, with shields atop them. The farmers, however—those that hadn’t fled on horseback—were running back down the road, holding their shields
in front
of them. Fools! He thought. If any of them return to their homes today they can thank the gods!