Chapter 18 - Sacrifice Play

‘Blessed Goddess, mother of my soul, please watch over your children.’

They had been free of the masters cruelty for less than a single day, but Noliea had already sworn to herself that she would never have the shackles forged on her again. The herd had traveled only a short time, but already they had to slow down to keep pace with the weaker members. The current problem was that the rain masked the smell of the river they were looking for and none of them had been through these forests in many years.

“Does anything look familiar?” Shaniddia asked Rowena.

“Not really,” she replied. Rowena and Henna had been the last two members of the herd to be enslaved, and both of them had been captured while traveling through these woods.

Rowena remembered that the river ran westward, and that she had rounded a large lake just before entering the woods. The river itself was formed by three springs located in the middle of the forest. Since heading north would be heading directly back into the oncoming hoards of masters, they headed west. With luck the river would be wide enough to stop any masters from crossing. None of the herd knew if a master could swim. If they couldn’t then they would have to walk upriver until they came to the spring. By then the herd would have enough distance to lose them.

“Look,” said Ian softly, pointing to a small trail they were crossing. There were tracks in the clay. Tracks none of them had ever seen before. They looked vaguely like someone had made them by pressing the side their fists into the ground.

“We’ll worry about that later,” said Noliea, thinking that whatever made the tracks couldn’t be any worse than the masters following them. “We’ll keep heading west and hope we don’t meet anything.”

“I think we should follow them that way,” said Alec, pointing northward, “Notice how the ground here is sloping downward.”

“You think whatever made those tracks went to the river?” asked Shaniddia.

“Or came from it,” Alec replied, “Notice how they face opposite directions. That would mean-”

“Okay,” shushed Noliea, squelching Alec’s analysis, “Let’s hurry. If you’re wrong then we’ll all be just that much closer to the masters!”

Alec wasn’t wrong. Soon they were all standing on the bank of the river. The water was clear, deep, and moving at a good pace. Paul and Ian floated a large log that had grounded on the shore. Soon, everyone was in the river; clinging to the log and heading downstream. Everyone except Rowena.

“Come on!” Melinda said as loudly as she dared, “Get in.”

Rowena balked at the water as she tried stepping in. The banks of the river were very steep. “I... I can’t.” she said, watching the others float away.

“Oh Goddess, she can’t swim!” said Noliea, suddenly realizing that it had never crossed her mind to ask anyone else if they couldn’t swim. She instantly looked over at Henna, who didn’t seem to be having any trouble at all. She knew all the others could swim.

“We need to get back to shore,” she said, trying to pull the entire herd plus the huge log by herself.

“Where is she?” Melinda asked, “I can’t see her any more.”

“Over here!” came Rowena’s voice as her yell split the quietness of the forest, “Catch me if you can!”

A chill ran down Noliea’s spines as she realized who Rowena was yelling at. ‘Blessed Goddess, please watch over her. I beg of you!’

“Blessed Goddess, please watch over them. I beg of you!” Rowena said loudly as she galloped back up the trail. She had hoped that the masters would hear her prayer as well, and judging from the sounds coming from behind her they had. She stopped just long enough for the first few to get a look at her then continued at a gallop. It didn’t matter if she tired; she knew the moment she had stepped off the riverbank that her life would end today. “Have a meal ready for me Goddess,” she said aloud as the trail curved westward, “I’m afraid I will appear before you a little thin!” Smiling at her own grim humor, she drove herself onward.

Nobody said anything as they continued down river. The water itself was moving swiftly, and occasionally someone’s hooves would touch the riverbed as the river shallowed. They floated until mid-day, when the river itself had become to shallow to swim. Here the banks of the river were wide and made of clay. Alec had warned about leaving the river at this point, as their prints would easily stand out in the mud. They continued walking downstream until the stream suddenly stopped.

“Could we jump?” asked Paul, looking down over the waterfall at the pool below.

“I’m not jumping over that!” protested Melinda, who stood well back from the edge of the falls. In fact, Paul was the only member of the herd that would come anywhere near the lip.

“We’re just going to have to find a way down through the woods,” said Noliea.

“What about this way?” said Linda, pointing over an embankment beside the falls.

Paul looked over where Linda was pointing. It was a rocky embankment; the sand had been swept away ages ago by flowing water. It was obvious that this was a riverbed that was carved when the main river overflowed its blanks. Even now yesterdays torrents had formed a small trickle of water down the middle.

“I don’t know if all of us can get down that,” said Noliea, none to thrilled to even try.

“I can,” said Paul, jumping off the ledge onto the wide slab below. His massive hooves shook the huge rock, and pebbles tumbled into the ravine below.

“By the Goddess, Paul, don’t be reckless!” hissed Shaniddia.

“I’m not being reckless,” he replied as he steadied himself, “I’m just worried about what’s coming after us.”

The thought had everyone soon following Pauls lead.

The herd made it to the bottom of the ravine with only minor cuts and bruises. Skirting around the pool at the base of the falls they reentered the water and began wading downstream. Soon the thick tree line overhanging the river hid the waterfall from view. None of them saw the three small creatures standing at the top of the waterfall.

<Your striders left many marks in the sand,> said one, pointing to the shoreline of the pool below them, <If you wish to keep them from the hunters, you must erase their passing.>

<If you help me, I will share them with you both,> said Diddit.

The other two blinked in agreement. All of them quickly boundered down the embankment where the striders had descended. Using their small hands and feet, they smoothed out the imprints in the dirt where the striders had stepped. When they reached the bottom, they pulled out a small blanket and dipped it in the water. Dragging it through the sand, they erased all of the tracks they could find. Off in the distance they heard the warning cry of their sister. Someone was coming.

<Behind the waterfall,> Diddit said, noticing a gap behind the cascading water.

The three dove into the pool and swam across the rocky bottom; coming up behind the fall itself. The blanket they had used to erase the tracks was a dark brown, and closely matched the rocky wall behind them. Huddling under the blanket they peered through the water and waited.

Rowena was running out of running space.

Sharp-sticks were whizzing by her as she veered off the trail and zigzagged through the trees. She was completely lost, but that wasn’t important. As long as the masters were chasing her she didn’t care. The ground started to get soft, and in no more than a few yards she was knee deep in muck. The mud sucked at her hooves as she trudged through the mire, and her underbelly scraped the surface of the mud at times. Her progress slowed to a crawl.

“Let the masters try to get through this!” she said to herself, remembering the slave master’s difficulty walking through the rain.

Shortly the ground began to firm and she chanced a look behind her. She had practically left a trench through the small marsh she had found. There would be no mistaking which way she had come. Unfortunately she also was now completely alone; not a single master in sight. Even the woods were devoid of their normal sounds. She felt like she was being watched.

By now she was too exhausted to continue. Spying a large thinellis bush she walked under its thick leaves and rested.

“Alec,” Noliea said as the herd slowly continued down the river. The river at this point had widened considerably and they were walking single file through knee-deep water along the southern bank.

“Yes?” Alec replied, evidently snapping out of his own train of thought.

“I’m sorry,” she replied.

Alec’s normally gentle features were masked as he seemed to not even hear her.

“Alec?” she said again when he had been silent for too long.

“I... I...” he stuttered, groping for words, “I just assumed she could swim. I wouldn’t have even suggested-”

“Alec,” Melinda interrupted, “she already made her choice to stay behind long before we came to the river.”

He mulled the logic around in his head. Melinda was right, of course. She heard Noliea ask Paul, and could have spoken up at any time and said she couldn’t swim. Still, the idea that he had forced her to make the decision to act as a decoy gnawed at the pit of his stomachs.

“And that’s not the reason I apologized,” said Noliea. She had walked up beside him while he was lost in thought. Putting her arm around his waist, she pulled him over to her and gently kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry for not believing in you when a calm head and good logic were needed.”

“And,” she added, putting a finger over his lips to stave off his attempt at protesting, “you probably saved us all.”

Knowing that he had no chance of arguing the point with her, he shrugged, “I will always be here for you.”

“I know,” she said. Giving him one last hug, she resumed her position at the head of the line.

The woods finally resumed their normal array of sounds from its various inhabitants. Feeling somewhat rested Rowena quietly worked her way out from under the cover she had found and walked farther from the marsh. She had only taken a few steps when she heard the startled cries of several breks off in the distance. Her instincts hadn’t failed her; she was being watched. This time she would lose them for good. The woods before her were well lit and open. She broke into a dead run.

She ran until her lungs simply would not let her run another step. Had she been in any real condition she could have kept up the pace for half a day. But she had only eaten one good meal in the last seventy seasons, and that was last night! She could hear water running off in the distance; or was it the ringing in her ears? She was walking up the side of a ridge and the sound of the water was getting progressively louder. As she came within sight of the source of the running water a thought struck her: was this the same river the herd had come down? Was she traveling north when she thought she had been going south?

As she approached the rivers edge she could see that the water was less than knee deep. The sound was coming from a waterfall just down the stream.

‘It must be the river,’ she concluded, ‘I’ve never known two rivers to be so close together, and yet flow in opposite directions.’

Rowena decided to cross the river and continue north. This would surely confuse any masters that she happened upon.

She crossed the river about half way and stopped to take a quick drink. The spring water felt cool along her legs, washing off the caked muck she had acquired in the marsh.

Several hisses came from all around her as a master leapt into the river in front of her. It hadn’t taken two steps before Rowena was thundering downstream. But she had realized her mistake the moment she has turned to run with the flow of the river: She was heading towards the waterfall.

A sharp-stick glanced off her flank, and a dozen masters came out of the woods into the river.

“Blessed Goddess!” she yelled, forcing her numb, cramped legs to run one last time, “I beg of you! Receive me with food and a blanket, for I will stand before you thin and wet!”

And with a final smile at her own grim humor, the painted centauress Rowena ran full speed over the falls.

The masters stood at the edge of the waterfall for several minutes before any of them spoke.

“Who was the dung-for-brains that jumped into the river?” roared Kussuk.

Several spears were pointed towards one of the commoners.

“Bring him here.” Kussuk commanded. Several of the guards dragged the now tightly-curled commoner over to the new king.

Already seeing that he wasn’t going to get any satisfaction from the situation, Kussuk simply rolled the commoner off the edge of the waterfall. It hit the water below with a heavy splash.

“The water is deep.” Kussuk declared, “The slave’s carcass should be only a short distance downstream. Find it and bring me its head.”

“Yes, my king,” his guards replied, splitting up and heading towards the banks.

“King Kussuk,” said another commoner, crawling as low as she could without submerging herself in the water, “We ask for your enlightenment. Won’t the deaths of the slaves bring the false god back to our city?”

For a time Kussuk stood at the edge of the waterfall and simply watched the water flow off the edge. “Yes,” he finally said, his voice seething with anger, “yes it will.” Then, turning to the crowd that had gathered, he shouted, “As king, I will pay a months' rations to anyone who brings me the head of a slave. And I will grant a name and rank on anyone who can bring me a slave alive!”

The crowed, invigorated with the prospect of becoming ranked with such an easy task, scattered back into the woods.

Kussuk turned his attention back to the pool of water below and was shocked to find the commoner he had rolled off the edge was crawling onto the shore. A moment later Kussuk’s spear impaled it to the ground.