Chapter 9: Over our shoulder

We had run the horses until it grew too dark to do so. I had wanted to get as much distance between anyone who would follow. We kept a cold camp and didn’t sleep well. Up before dawn and back in the saddle, we ran the horses for an hour before we slowed. I had not spoken with Jasmine since we had sent the men back to their farm and little more than orders when I did speak.

We spent all day in the saddle and skirted around the towns. Were they coming after us or not? There was no way to know without waiting for them. Did I want to ambush and kill them for what we had started? No matter what, it was us who did this. Now that I had set the tone they would kill all of us when they came. That left us no option.

Another cold camp with little rest, most of it spent listening to the sounds of the wilds of Chaos. We had pushed the horses hard today and could do so for a couple of more days, but if we wanted to keep up this pace we would need new mounts. That meant either a town or finding a farm along the way to purchase the horses from.

I was on watch when Jasmine came to me. “I’m sorry, my Hero,” she said, her voice inflected with that statement.

“It’s not your fault alone. I pushed them hard, too.”

“If I had talked more than fought, we wouldn’t have to do this.”

“This is Chaos and you can’t look back. It might well have turned out the same way.”

“You would have talked to them before you fought them.” Jasmine said.

“Yes, but it still might have been a fight. I did the same thing on the road.”

“We can’t go back and fix any of it. So stop beating yourself up over it.”

“I don’t want you to be angry with me any longer.”

“I was angry with you. But I pushed him harder that was needed after the inn. We are all in this together.”

“What will you do if they come after us?”

“It’s not if, it’s when and I will kill all of them without notice or warning.”

“You can’t talk to them?” she asked.

“Not after what I did. When he dropped the conch he told me all I needed to know.”

“When and where do you want to fight them?”

“I don’t know. I have been thinking of where we want to ambush them.”

“How many do you think will come for us?”

“I don’t know that either. The longer we string them out the fewer it will be. I figure he would have to get his men back to working on the farm. Isn’t that right, James?” I had heard a twig break but didn’t move my head from looking at Jasmine. I knew that it was likely James coming to listen to us.

“He has to leave some men there to keep the slaves under control. The longer we keep them coming after us the more he will worry about that,” James replied as he came closer.

“I want to go hard today and use the horses up as much as possible. Then we can buy new ones and keep going. I don’t know if he is going to want to keep spending for the horses as we keep pushing to keep ahead of him. Hello, Kathy.”

“Hello. I heard Jasmine get up and when James did I just came to follow.”

“Since we are up, we might as well get packed up and get going then.

We kept that up for a week. We would stop long enough to buy horses and supplies before we started back out. Finally, we were just beat and needed to stop and rest. Plus the fact we were getting pretty ripe. The time in the tub, the stew for dinner and a night in bed and the next morning didn’t seem so bad.

If they were still after us, we guessed they were two days behind us. We stayed another day in the inn and rested up. We went out and stocked up on bolts and crossbows and rope we would need for the ambush. I wanted to reach out and touch them rather than risk injury at this point. We would look for an ambush point as we were going along from this day forward. Anyone still following us would be committed to the chase and would not stop now.

That second day and night had us much more refreshed. We loaded everything and headed off down the road. We kept an eye out looking for an ambush spot that would give us the greatest advantage. That spot came as the road started to follow along a river. There was a heavily wooded place where the road was against the river. We just had to stop them from being able to go forward or back and we had a clear shooting gallery with their only escape into the river.

We constructed a drop that Kathy could operate that would raise ropes across the road. It took James, Jasmine, Kathy and me half a day to work out all of the details for it. Now it was a waiting game trying to keep silent while we did so.

The next morning two hours after sunup it was seven men who came riding into sight. The farm owner was with them. They weren’t talking as they rode no doubt wary of the location. Kathy was the most nervous of all of us. Jasmine kept looking at her and holding her hand up. They passed into our kill zone and Jasmine dropped her hand. Kathy knocked the block out at that.

The sound of the ropes against the trees startled them. Three of them dropped as our crossbows did their job. They rode ahead to try and escape but the ropes there stopped the horses. They could use their swords to chop them but doing that had them sitting still for us to shoot again. We dropped another one and now there were three. The only opening was the river, so they took off toward it. They could only escape into the water, and if they stayed on the horses they were sitting ducks. If they dove in the weight of their weapons would help to drown them.

Two more men dropped into the bank and by some chance it was only the farm owner left. We stood up and walked out of the woods then. “You have killed them all, both of my sons are dead!” he screamed and then charged his horse at us. Three bolts pierced his body, and he fell to the ground.

We killed all who were still alive. Stripped them of all they had and loaded it on the horses.

I had tried to leave this fight behind us, but he couldn’t. Had I wounded his honor so badly that he was forced to follow? It would be a question always there in the back of my mind. He knew what I said I would do. Jasmine had killed three of his men all by herself, so he knew the risks. That didn’t make me feel any better in the end.

“I’m sorry we had to do that,” Jasmine said to me once we were back on the road.

“I’m not. He knew what and who we were. I gave him every opportunity to not do that. He was intent on following us as long as it took to kill us.”

“He was savage at times on the farm. He would have been just as savage in killing us,” Kathy reminded us.

“Well you are certainly free of him now,” I said.

“I am and if I have not said it before, let me say it again: Thank all of you for what you have done.”

“You’re welcome,” James replied. There was something there but I knew it was best not to push it. We had a lot of traveling still ahead and anything could come of it.

We rode on for the next two weeks staying at inns most nights along the way. It would have been a costly affair but with what we had recovered and then sold that wasn’t of much concern. We crossed into what must have been some of the lands that Samuel’s Citadel controlled. We were ahead of schedule but with the week we had spent mostly in the saddle the time for us to travel was cut down.

Two days later I spotted the tower of the Citadel. It was sad to think that he might not be alive. I knew it was a long shot for him to be, but I hoped all the same. We entered through the gates and into the city. I knew the little house that he had lived at when he retired so we went there first.

I saw an old man who looked familiar working out in the front of the house he was likely Alice’s son Roy. By his age I knew that both Alice and Samuel had passed. We got off our horses, and he said, “Hello, John. Samuel was certain you would return one day.”

“Hello Roy. I take it he as well as your mother have passed on.”

“Yes, Samuel lived for ten years after you brought him back to us. Mother for another seven after that but she was never the same. It has been thirty-eight years since you were here last. I would like it if you came in. The General Hero Samuel left some papers for you for when you returned.”

“We would be delighted. Where should we put the horses?”

He told me to take them around back, and we did so. He met us there and showed us where we could unsaddle them. That accomplished, we went into his home. I made the introductions and we were just about to go to the back yard to visit the graves when a boy and a girl came bursting into the house.