Brunning Divide

Episode 4: Meet the Thurns - Part 1

Ma Thurn looked out over the dry hills and wiped the dusty sweat off from her forehead. "We gotta keep a move on, Pa." She sat back down in the small wagon and adjusted the solar panels so they hid her and the two children from the sun, but not from the heat—there was no escaping the damnable heat. "Looks to be a valley on ahead. Make a line fer it before we all bake to our untimely demises."

"You heard Ma," Pa Thurn said. Then he chirped at the two dust-coated mules, their ears pricked up, but they refused to budge. "Ma, a little help?"

Ma Thurn closed her hand around a thumb-sized crystal hanging from a twine chord around her neck. She closed her eyes and muttered under her breath. The mules quivered, an unseen force made the tired animals' bodies to do what their minds didn't want. They lifted their stiff hooves and with a small lurch set the Thurn family into a crawling pace.

One of the boys in the back, ten year-old Deek, grunted. "Slow down, Pa, I can almost feel a breeze." Boyd, the eldest at thirteen, chortled at his brother's sarcasm, and even more when Ma cuffed Deek across the back of the head. "A smart for yer smarts. Show some respect for yer Daddy," she hissed. She turned her gaze to Boyd. "And Boyd, ya keep yer frog-humpin laughs in yer ugly frog face." Boyd swallowed his next guffaw and bowed his head. Ma turned back to the road and Deek made a ribbit at Boyd. Boyd punched him in the leg, making him cry out and punch Boyd back.

"Quit yer whinin!" Ma shifted a solar panel so the sun beat down on the two boys. Instantly they stilled.

"Ya want some shade then?" Ma glared back at the boys. They had their eyes covered, the sun too bright for them to look at Ma.

"Yes, Ma," said both boys. Ma sighed and moved the panel back. She adjusted her own panel so the light came through but the heat was minimized. A few seconds later the two boys started at it again.

"Damnit, Pa, get this wagon a goin," Ma had her fingers in her hair shaking her head. "I don't know what's worse, the hellfire of heat or them demon spawn you call sons. I gotta get me some rest. Them mules gotta move." Ma glared at Pa, holding her crystal up at him.

Pa flinched a bit and yelled at the mules again. And again. "Damn ya, ya worthless animals! Move yer carcasses." He yelled again and the mules nickered their discomfort, their bodies twitching with each of Pa's yells. Still, the wagon kept the same speed. Pa reached back for a dried-out leather whip. "Gonna have to do this ol'fashioned like."

Before he could lay leather to the mules, Ma chimed in. "Hold off, Pa." She had her hand around the crystal again. "They're too stupid to disobey my methods."

Pa just glared ahead. His wife's cursed crystals gave him the jeebies. Especially how it worked on the mules. "Why not use it more then? Save us all some trouble."

"Don't want to waste'em. Only got one more left."

"Go find some more then. Seen plenty of crystals, seems they grow more out here than plants."

Ma slapped Deek's head again, eliciting more guffaws from Boyd. "Don't work like that, Pa. Told ya before, these crystals are special. Plucked'em straight from the hearts of dying Skylords."

"Whatever ya say."

"Sides," said Ma, "beating them mules will only damage'em, half-dead things they are." She lunged into the wagon bed, smacking Deek across the back of his head so hard that he collided into Boyd. "Beating only works on creatures like these." Both boys moaned. "Ain't laughin' now, are ya? Told ya to shut yer ugly traps."

"Valley ahead's bigger than it looks," Pa said. "Hills hid the 'spanse of it."

"Good." Ma had herself sat again, smoothing down her sun-bleached and thread-worn dress. "Maybe be somethin' to eat in there. Rations are low, real low and without much water it's hard to chew that dried up ol'meat. Horrible stuff when it turns. Fraid we'd have to eat the mules."