Naihabi Ridge

Chapter Thirty-Three - Over the Horizon

Avi

It hurt. I clenched my teeth, tears stinging my eyes. My ears rang like sirens and even though I was curled up behind the side of the cart, I could still feel the waves of heat and sand from the explosion. I had stumbled over myself when the wind from the explosion had made impact and must have blacked out for a moment when I hit my head.

I bolted upright at the thought of the explosion, then I froze when my eyes met the battlefield. In the place of the whole summoning building was a plume of fire and smoke. My heart lodged itself in my throat and I could barely breath.

Everything—everyone—was gone.
    
For a moment, I just sat there, dumbstruck and too horrified to move, but then I gained my senses when someone called out from somewhere. I fumbled up to my knees and panicked, my breathing becoming uneven and my footing unstable. The world was shaking, it seemed, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
    
No, Avi, think!
    
I peered over the edge of the cart in search of survivors and immediately, my eyes were drawn to the six unconscious bodies sprawled in and among the debris in the sand, one of whose dusty black hair and chocolate skin told me was Torin. It seemed as if that guy would never die, like simply refusing was ever enough—and it worked for him. I clambered out of the cart, tumbling into the sand and to the nearest person. I rolled them over, checking quickly for injuries, then, finding none, I moved to the next victim. As I examined another, my mind raced with my heart in a painful discordance and I had to pause to look again at the remaining black plume over the battlefield.

Master Romia...

I tore my eyes away as I spotted Oriole under one of the carts, her eyes locked on the desolation. I rushed over to her to help her out, but her gaze didn't waver. Then, hesitantly, I followed her sight to the fire. What did she see in it? Devastation was all I saw. I averted my gaze.

"Warden..."

My head shot to Oriole once again as she crawled out from her hiding place and began running forward, straight toward the calamity left from the explosion. I scrambled to my feet, an odd tightness in my chest, and I began scanning the abyss among the wreckage and smoke to the lasting fires and rushing breeze...

Then I saw them—two figures, stumbling over debris and being pulled to either side by the wind, emerging from the smoke and fire. My eyes followed Oriole as she sprinted up to the figures, then she stopped for a moment and I furrowed my brows. What was she doing?...
    
"Avi?" I tore my eyes away from the group and to Torin, who had propped himself up on his elbow and was giving me a delirious look. He laughed. "You know, that big splotch over there"—he motioned to the blazing fire left from the explosion—"is a really pretty color."
    
I stared at him. He smiled back. Then, ignoring Torin, I looked back to the survivors as Oriole approached them and I startled when suddenly, the two fell to the ground and Oriole leaped forward to support them, but it looked like they were unconscious. What had happened to them?
    
Giving Torin one last glance, I began running toward the group. Oriole looked up at me as she struggled to help the two unconscious figures. As I came closer, though, I recognized the long, black hair and olive skin through the dust and ash and burnt clothing on the taller figure and I stuttered to a stop.

I let out a long breath and swallowed the lump in my throat. It was Master Romia... I bit my lip to keep from crying out and hugging her, so I just stood and rocked on my heels, trying desperately to keep the wetness from leaving my eyes.
    
"Are you gonna help me or not?" Oriole glared at me breathlessly.
    
Yes, I did suppose I had to move, didn't I? I took another deep breath, stashing my joy for later, and knelt down and wrapped Master Romia one-handedly around my shoulder with my sling resting my collarbone rather comfortably; Oriole carried the shorter figure—Master Romia's savior. With no words, we started toward the carts again, which left me, Master Romia, and my mind to cover the short distance.

She was alive! Now I felt a different tightness in my chest—as if all the joy that had been taken away from me over the last few months had come flooding back in all at once. I felt like I could run laps around the Ridge.
    
But along with Master Romia surviving, a lot of other people hadn't—a whole lot more than I could bear to count. My stomach heaved and I grimaced, then, with my curiosity as my death, I dared to glance at Oriole. Her face was once again unreadable, but her movement had a purpose. Each step she took had a slight, almost unnoticeable lilt. A happy lilt, I thought. But once again, I glanced back at the fire. Even among all the death, how could we be so immeasurably happy? A pang of guilt hit me and I bit my lip.
    
"Are we ready yet?" My gaze turned upward at the sound of someone's urgent yell. "Let's move before the military follows up on their promises, shall we?"
    
Pasha was one of the survivors as well, though he looked as regal as when I first met him, when he wasn't covered in sand and dust and cuts and bruises. Of course, his attitude hadn't changed at all, either.
    
I came upon the cart, Oriole a few steps behind me, and delicately unslung the unconscious Master Romia off my shoulder and onto the nearest cart. Behind me, I heard someone cry out and I swiveled around just in time to see them—the military, armed with just as many muskets and swords as before they massacred us.
    
"Let's go, let's go!" Pasha finished loading everyone into the three carts—there were about fifteen of us—and he yanked the stopper out from under the wheels of the first, leaping off it and onto the ground to finish up. That one cart, loaded with five refugees—Quinn among them—began kicking up dust as they moved forward, gaining speed across the sand. Good. They were safe.
    
Two carts remained. Oriole was beside the wheels, ripping the stoppers out, and I swiveled around, finding the remaining refugees prepping the other. Oriole glanced at me and I motioned for her to guide with Pasha as I glanced at the battlefield again.
    
The soldiers were gaining ground.
    
I chewed on my lip and told everyone to get down. This would most definitely be a close cut, especially with guns and bombs on the enemy's side.
    
Then, with a jolt, the cart beneath me started forward. My eyes lingered on Oriole's cart as Pasha leaped on it, the last in procession and filled with untrained refugees. I wasn't sure Oriole could pilot it alone.
    
Then I glanced again at the approaching army. They had dwindled, it seemed. Had they given up on us? But then my eyes narrowed. They had something... a big black something...
    
Suddenly, Oriole let out an indiscernible shout and I dropped to the floor of the cart just as something whirred past us, on and on, farther and farther, for the longest two seconds of my life.
    
Then another, ear splitting boom shook the ground beneath me and veered the cart to the left, shearing through the air like thunder and suddenly, there was dust, sand, and ash everywhere. Smoke, heat, fire... I covered my mouth and nose from the smell of gunpowder and shouted orders to keep going. We had to get out of here. We hadn't been hit. We kept going, pushing through the cloud, coughing, groaning, but alive.
    
The gust of wind from the explosion hit us like a tornado. We swerved, struggling to keep direction, but managed to keep forward nonetheless. We were lucky that it'd been a small bomb. If it hadn't been...
    
We burst through the brunt of the smoke and I gasped clean air, a sigh of relief pouring over me. Quickly, I scanned the cart to see if everyone was okay. Torin and another refugee I didn't recognize were powering our motion—it was run by what I thought was a brilliant idea of a manual wooden crank to power the wheels in place of a horse—and Master Romia along with the other unidentified survivor still laid unconscious on the floor. We had to exert special efforts not to stumble on them. Then I swiveled around to see behind us. The plume from the explosions had dissipated and my stomach twisted, my knees becoming weak. The military hadn't been aiming for us. They had been aiming for the front escapees.

And they hadn't missed. Which meant Quinn was dead, along with everyone else on that cart.
    
I shook my head incredulously. We had been far from friends, but it was no less shocking. So many other people I knew were gone now...
    
"Avi!"
    
I turned around to see Oriole waving from her cart, past the wreckage and catching up to us. Beyond them, the military had retreated. The summoning building had burned down to ashes and black frames. I exhaled cautiously. My eyes lingered on the Ridge. Naihabi Ridge. One big torture chamber. Still, it felt odd leaving it behind. The last four months of my life had been lived here.
    
I scoffed. Lived was a stretch. More like survived. I shook my head and took my eyes off the remaining splotches of fire and to the second cart as they slowly caught up to us. Pasha was instructing the untrained refugees—strictly, from the looks of it—and Oriole was staring at me. Why was she staring at me?
    
Their cart was even with ours now. Side by side. Oriole's gaze was intense. "We have forty miles to Ethenbrook. Three and a half days of hard labor to get us there..."
    
I remembered how dead serious she could be and mentally sighed.
    
"...Do you think we can do it?" She put her hand on the edge of the cart.
    
For a moment, I just sat there and contemplated our odds. They certainly weren't good. "I don't know," I said. "But one thing I can conclude is that if we die here, I would die a lot happier than on one of the Ridge's stupid operation tables."
    
She looked down solemnly. I knew she agreed, but she still seemed to be toggling something. Finally, she asked, "Did we ever figure out who the other surviver was?"
    
My eyes widened. I had completely forgotten! I looked down at the two figures laying on the splintery boards of the cart, still covered in scarves and ash, and knelt down beside the second one—a girl—and though my mind was barely still functional, I couldn't help but run a million different possibilities through my head. What if I knew her? What if we were enemies? Heck, what if she was a stray soldier?
    
With a shaking hand, I tugged at the scarves covering her face and without any resistance, they fell to the floor. I moved in closer to the girl, examining her face. Familiar, definitely, but... who was she?

Soft features, round jaw, smooth, ashy brown skin, and a subtle attractiveness I knew I had seen somewhere before. I dared to touch her nearly black hair, then my finger caught on a tangle. Struck instantly with panic, I tried to free my hand and yanked instinctively away from her and, with a quiet gasp from me, a long braid came out from her headscarf. That was it! But it couldn't be...

Thirré?...

I kind of just gawked a her for a really long time until I heard Oriole shout exasperatedly at me to answer.

"It's, uh... she's the maidservant." I scratched the back of my neck and chuckled incredulously. Master Romia's savior was the maidservant?... It didn't sound right. Why was she even near the summoning building in the first place?
    
Either way, I thought. Nothing mattered except for the fact that she'd been relieved of her duties and had somehow found herself saving the strongest person I knew from a military bombing. No big deal. I put my face in my hand and laughed. No questions asked.
    
Well, that wasn't exactly correct. During my time at Naihabi Ridge, it had been drilled into me not to ask questions, not to speak up, not to keep secrets. At Naihabi Ridge, I had been taken away from my family, my home, my life, and thrown into a new one. The way they wanted me to.
    
But since when had I ever done what they wanted me to?

————— • —————

Ah!! Here we are at the end! Don't forget to read the Epilogue!

*whispers shyly* we finally made it!....