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Chapter 18

    ... And the sound of clinking metal on metal reaches my ears. I open my eyes.
    Stone is everywhere at once, whirling through the air, his blades flashing out and deflecting the arrows and bullets all at once. Metal bullets and chrome arrowheads ping off the swords, and I can only sit in awe as Stone dances through the deadly rain. Yes, dances, that's what it is, a beautiful dance of dodging and deflecting the bullets and arrow away from himself and me.
    "Aren't you supposed to be shooting?" He calls back to me, ducking and weaving, turning and slicing the shaft of an arrow. Oh yeah, he's covering me. So I can shoot.
    I stand up behind the rock, stringing the arrow, and drawing back the bowstring. I align the glinting metal tip of the arrow with a particularly ferocious archer, and flick open my fingers. The arrow hums as I release it, and Stone's blade darts in front of my face, a bullet pinging off it. Suddenly the arrows lessen, and the archer topples off his horse.
    "Nice shot." He grunts, crossing the blades in front of him and two arrows bounce off.
    "Not usually," I bend down behind the rock and find a few more arrows. We were at an advantage, as well as a disadvantage. Though we could do nothing to help those in the woods, the soldiers couldn't climb up the mountain to fight us with those horses, and it would take too long, as well as they would be vulnerable while climbing. I count four more metal arrows, and slide three of them into my belt, nocking the arrow.
    It flies, but falls short of it's mark, instead hitting the horse the rifleman is sitting on. The horse whinnies and crumbles, legs folding underneath, and the man topples off, hitting the ground hard, but he picks himself back up again. I hadn't wanted to hit the horse- I like horses, actually.
    "Watch it!" Stone calls to me, and I see the arrow he was too late to block, and dive back for cover. My head hits the ground just as the lethal projectile whistles over me, embedding itself half-way up the glimmering shaft in the dirt.
    I loose another arrow, and the rifleman I had grounded falls backwards. I'm about to knock my second to last arrow, when an archer raises his hands.
    "Stop! We're supposed to scare them away, not spend hours trying to personally murder every last one of them! Good enough. I say we go now." He shouts, whipping his horse and riding off into the woods without another word. The other soldiers shrug at each other and loose a few more projectiles, before they, too, ride off into the woods. A final scream of some unlucky soul reverberates down the mountain, from the woods, and the soldiers are gone.
    I sit in awed silence for a moment, and then turn, wide eyed, to face Stone, who's sliding his blades back into their sheaths.
    "Well." I gasp, letting my arm drop, the bow falling to my side.
    "That was some fine shooting." Stone says, and I hand him the bow and two remaining arrows.
    "It was lucky, that's what it was. Shooting isn't my skill." He runs his finger down the black metal, and the bow contracts back into a metal rod, which he tucks into his bag.
    "I thought you said you didn't have any skills..." Stone says slowly, hoisting the bag onto his back, and turning about to examine the destruction.
    I smile slyly, answering. "I guess I have one, and I owe it all to my mother."
    "What is it?" He presses on.
    "You'll see. Come on, Pebble." I wave him on, crawling up the slope again. I want to distract myself from the horror below- So many bodies lying in the bloody mud, broken on the rocks to my side. Luck saved me and Stone, pure luck. Luck hadn't saved all the people on the trail below us, and a couple above us. All the people who had been waiting to begin the dangerous climb.
    Everyone behind me is dead, and many in front. Any that might have fled into the woods and survived would probably be too terrified to return- I'm pretty shaken, though I think I've hidden it well.
    It brings tears to my eyes to think of the fox family- The parents and the three little children/kits, all of them lying empty eyed and pale faced with arrows sprouting from their backs, far below. Then I hear movement behind me, and spin on my heel.
    "Stone..." I touch his shoulder, eyes narrowed and darting over the landscape. A dry, gasping sound. Something scrabbling through the gravelly dirt. A sob.
    "Oh, God..." I cry out, half running, half sliding about thirty feet down the trail- Precious distance, but at the moment that is a small matter. Stone begins to call after me, and then I hear him skidding over the loose rocks behind me.
    Behind an outcrop of rock that juts out a couple feet into the trail, lies the fox man, drawing in sharp, uneven, shallow breaths, a glass-fletched chrome arrow protruding from his chest. His eyes are closed, but he's alive.
    His arms are wrapped tight around one of the children- Who's sobbing and shaking into his shirt. The scene almost makes me bawl as well.
    "Oh God, oh God, oh God..." I murmur over and over, skidding to a halt beside them, my hands shaking. I see no sign of the man's wife, nor the other two children, but I don't need to to know what happened to them.
    "Wh-What can I do? Is there anything I can do? H-w-" I stutter, shivers wracking my body as I see the blood seeping through the man's shirt.
    The man opens his eyes for a second, scared green ones, and then he shuts them tight again, grimacing in pain.
    "M- my son." He murmurs, lips barely moving, though his arms tighten around the sobbing boy. "S-save him... "
    "Daddy!" The boy cries, holding his muscular arms. I'm numb with pain, and I can't do anything. I don't know how to help him- The man is obviously dying, slowly, but dying all the same. So that's another time when I'm really, really glad Stone is so much better under stress.
    When I glance over at him, he already has his pack on the ground, and is pulling out the roll of bandages. I watch his fingers closely, but they're not shaking. He looks up at me, though, and his expression, his eyes, are deeply pained, on a surprising amount of levels. It was a sad scene, but we barely knew these people- And yet he doesn't look... sad, exactly, more like he had lived this all before, and knew what would happen... Suddenly, I thought I might know why he never spoke of his father...
    "Ash." Stone says, bringing me back to my senses, as effectively as if someone had slapped me. "You need to pull out the arrow." For a second, I think 'what arrow?' And then I remember why the fox man is dying.
    "What?" I blink, staring at the deep bloody arrow, and then fully realize what I have to do. "Oh, oh, oh God, oh, no..." I breath, my heart lurching.
    "Ash."
    "No, no, nonono, oh, God, no," I feel my stomach convulse, and try to keep down my breakfast.
    "Ash!" Stone says again, louder, and I look up at him, my eyes meeting his again. "Pull out the arrow." I bite my bottom lip, but nod. The vision of the little boy, parentless and alone, is what drives me.
    I shift my position to get a clearer opening to the man, and lean forward, reaching for the protruding shaft.
    "Okay, hold with me..." I say shakily to the man, but I think I'm calming myself more than him. My fingers tighten.
    Last second regrets begin to pop into my head. What if I mess up? What if I end up killing the man, immediately? What if I cause him more pain. I pull my shaking hand away, looking pleadingly at Stone, who's still holding the roll of bandages.
    "I really don't think I'm qualified to do this." I shake my head, swallowing another rush of bile.
    "Ash, you can do this." He leans forwards and kisses me, for real, right on the lips, not on the cheek like last time. I'm suddenly really glad I hadn't thrown up- that would have sucked. My lips would have tasted like bile. That would have ruined my first kiss completely. "Pull out the arrow." He says calmly, pulling away. I inhale deeply, and nod, my senses fried.
    I lean forward again, my hands no longer shaking, and grasp the arrow in both hands. I need to do it quickly, or else it will be really painful. The metal shaft is cool under my skin, slippery with fresh blood.
    My fingers tighten again. For a second, I want to close my eyes, but instead I grimace, and tug. I blink, and suddenly a bloodstained chrome arrow rests in my hand.
    "There, that wasn't too hard, was it?" Stone says behind me, but his face isn't as light as his voice. He immediately begins to work on the man.
    "Why did you make me do that?" I say once I get over the shock. I snap the arrow in two (impressive because it's made of metal) and throw it over the side of the cliff.
    "Because, I knew you would be delicate with it." He says shortly, leaving no room for discussion, though I make a mental note to ask again later. I usually forget mental notes...
    Stone's having a hard time getting the bandage around the man's chest, due to the clingy five-year-old fox kid. He glances at me for help, and I bend down next to the kid.
    "Hey," I say awkwardly, and I can't think of anything to ask him. He doesn't stop sobbing, but glances up at me.
    "What's your name?" I ask, thinking there was nothing more stupid to ask at the time. What else was I going to say? 'Oh, jeez, sorry your mother and siblings, and most likely your father were all murdered by Servants of the Order. Life is tough, kid.'
    "Clay." He sniffs through an animalistic flat nose.
    "Well, Clay, can I ask you to move to the side a little bit? We're trying to save your father, and we need to bandage the wound. Please?" I add as the kit eyes me coldly. I'm beginning to think I'll have to use force to move him, when he reluctantly crawls off his father's chest.
    Stone immediately moves in, removing the man's bloodstained tunic, and revealing the open bloody wound. He tears off a section of the bandage, and pours a few drops of our precious drinking water onto it, moistening it. Then he dabs at the blood around the wound, as best he can without further damaging the torn up tissue. The entire time, I feel Clay the fox kid's eyes glaring at the backs of our heads.
    "Will my Dad be okay?" He says in a small voice. I turn and face him, trying to look positive, but I probably look miserable. I don't think his father will be okay, but of course I don't say that. The kid is young enough I can lie to him without suspicion.
    "Sure..." I say without conviction, passing Stone the small vial of rubbing alcohol Pine had packed. He drips that onto a clean square of bandage and gently dabs around the wound, pouring a few drops straight from the bottle. The man's muscles convulse, and his face is pained, but he doesn't cry out. He's lost so much blood, he probably can't.
    "It's a clean cut," Stone begins.
    "Of course it is, you put that liquid headache into it. That'll kill everything it touches." I say, and he glares at me.
    "Like I was saying," He says pointedly to me, before turning back to the dying man. "It may have punctured a lung, but didn't touch his heart or any other arteries. He might actually make it..." The man wheezes, his breathing ragged and quick. A horrid rushing sound, like wind through a tunnel, comes from the puncture in his chest.
    Stone begins to wind the roll of bandages over the wounded man's chest, biceps bulging through his shirt when he pries the man's upper body off the ground to pass the bandage around his back. My lips feel like they're on fire. Why did he kiss me? All I could think was- whoa. Wow.
    Some small part of me knew that he had only kissed me because he was trying to save the man's life, and he needed me to focus... Still, it was a nice way of getting me to focus.
    "M-My son..." The fox man is murmuring, a dry whisper, over and over.
    "Your son is right here." I say, wondering why he was repeating it so many times.
    "Daddy!" Clay calls out right on cue. The man's hands scrape at the dirt, feeling their way to Clay, who grasps them firmly. The man's red ears twitch nonstop, like an irritating fly is buzzing around his head, or he's having an ear spasm. Stone finishes the final wrap of the bandage and ties it, stemming the flow of blood.
    "Clay... Protect him. T-take him to the rebels... Maybe he'll be safe there..." The fox man gasps, tearing one hand away from the boy, and grabbing my arm. The really freaky part was, his eyes were closed, yet he found my arm without hesitation.
    I gaze helplessly down at the man and the boy, who has started again, even though he doesn't really know what's going on, other than his father has a hole in his chest.
    "No. You're going to take him to the rebels." Stone says, and I glance strangely at him, thinking that's a little rude, when he continues. "You're going to take your son to the rebels, because you're coming with us. If we have to carry you, you and your son will reach the top together." He says, and the hardness on his face says that that isn't an expression- He really will carry the dying man up the mountain, and the boy too, to see them reach the peak together. I think that's very noble and sweet, but I'm thinking we could hardly climb the mountain by ourselves. Now add a five year old and a man with a punctured lung, and it might be next spring before we reach the top. But all the same, I wouldn't, couldn't, just leave them here...
    "I'm d-dying... Y-" The man begins, grimacing with pain, but Stone starts in.
    "We'll rest until morning, it's dusk anyways," Even as he speaks, I see the growing darkness in the sky. "Then we all begin the climb- That includes you." Stone adds, looking to the man, who knows who he means, even though he can't see him looking.
    We all sit in silence for a moment, me, Stone, Clay the fox kid, and the man wrapped in a clean(ish) white bandage, like a partial mummy. We all sit and watch as the sun disappears over the green line of the forest, and the shadows chase the pale, washed out sunset like hounds on a hunt, driving them all the way around the world, until we saw them again in the morning. Some days the sunrises and sunsets are vivid and colorful, other days, like this, more gray and faded orange than anything.
    I had often wondered if there were any other surviving countries out there, besides the remnants of America, over grown with the Wold. Of course, I knew there had been other continents, at least before the bomb, Asia, Africa, all those ones. When Glare birds were sent out by the First Rulers after the official opening of the First City, they would always return carrying the same message they were sent out with, or they wouldn't return at all.