"Beyond the Bulwark"
Coming Soon!
Suddenly Ember stopped as they paraded down the slope; Lucas
nearly crashing into her.
“Wait
a minute,” she said, “You’re telling me you don’t know what that is?” She pointed to the behemoth tower.
Lucas
just stared at her.
Ember’s
eyes were wide with confusion. She
looked back at the pillar, then to Lucas.
“Okay, we are definitely going to have a big talk once we get to Marra.”
Lucas
was examining all of the amazing desolation around him. He had wished someone had at least
shown him a picture or something. Finally, he could start making out the
black lines he had seen earlier, starting to come into closer view. Cracked highways spanned hundreds of
miles across the great bowl. Most
were split, destroyed or in upheaval, and it was like some giant had come and
stepped on everything below him.
Buildings were coming into view, deserted complexes, and warehouses and
structures spackled the land.
Damaged homes and completely leveled lots were everywhere. As far as his eyes would permit, the
destruction continued forever.
Something else, however, caught his glance.
“Are
they from Marra too?” asked Lucas as a
group of four men, barely visible, were making their way to their position, trudging over the the next knoll to their right.
Ember
said a word Lucas didn’t understand before commanding him, “Hide! Quick! Follow me!”
Lucas’
adrenaline shot upwards and he glanced one more time at the group before tripping
over a clump of shattered material.
“Ummf!”
“Hurry!
Hurry!” she whispered, finding a large boulder the size of a school bus,
nestled on the mountainside. Lucas
regained his footing and scrambled to the other side of the granite rock.
“What’s
going on?!” he blurted out.
“Shh!”
she demanded, poking her head out around the rock and grabbing the silvery
metal weapon from her leg pouch.
It was laden with ripped cloth and wire that gripped the barrel
together. Lucas immediately knew
that this wasn’t going to be like the good old days.
“Good. They didn’t see us. I think they’re gonna pass.”
Suddenly,
voices emerged from behind their concealment.
“Two
of ‘em – two of ‘em. Can you believe that?” said one gruff
voice.
Lucas
emitted an inaudible gasp.
The
other guffawed and snorted a little.
The sound of someone spitting came next.
“Well s'a good thing, we’s runnin’ out.
What brand? Ibekka? Stonesteel?” another voice asked in slurred english. Their footsteps grew closer.
“Stonesteel. Yup. Good quality, too.
Won’t have to splice ‘em.”
The
two hidden youth relaxed a little.
“So
you’re sayin’ splicing ain’t good?
I’m carrying a hybrid!”
There were some curse words exchanged.
“Shut
your mouths, I heard something,” said one of the raiders, hearing Lucas’ foot
slide on a sheet of metal. He embarrassingly clenched his eyes shut. Ember
readied her pistol. Her eyes were
set, clouded with determination.
Her braided tails hung almost statically in the shrouded light. She looked stable and calm – nothing
Lucas had felt since he stepped foot outside Sunsull.
“We
already checked this place like half an hour ago,” whined a younger voice.
“Do
you wanna become a hybrid yourself, Mak?” snapped another.
Ember
turned to Lucas and quickly delegated a diversion tactic. She signaled to him to throw a piece of
debris over the rock and hoped to her deity that it would work. After a few failed
attempts at deciphering her arm movements, Lucas finally figured it out and
found a solid piece of what once was a metal sphere. He instantly lobbed it over the stone structure and heard a
loud metal clank.
The
raider’s footsteps stopped feet away from where the two were hiding. Ember couldn’t hold her breath any
longer.
It
was silent for at least a minute.
A quiet crunch echoed from where the raiders stood, making Ember and
Lucas let out a humongous sigh of relief – hearing the steps crash away from
their point of exit.
“Okay,”
whispered Ember, “I think we’re -.”
Before
Lucas could shout out of fear, Ember had already tripped the sole raider who
had tried to flank anyways. He
fell to a heap of jumbled metal and trash, grunting in fury and scrambling to
fix his weapon onto either of the two people standing above him. Without warning, Ember violently
pistol-whipped her opponent, knocking him unconscious.
“Ah!”
sparked Lucas, cupping his mouth, seeing some blood on the metal below.
“There’s
no time, Lucas, we’ve gotta run!” said Ember, dashing off to Marra. Lucas quickly followed, jumping
obstacles before him. They broke
free of the shadow of the boulder and scampered down the side of the hill with
amazing agility.
“What
the – hey!” shouted a huge ogre-like raider and immediately a barrage of bullets were hailing on the escapees.
“Duck
your head! Jump down!” shouted
Ember.
The sound of the rifles were earsplitting to Lucas, but did as he was told and awkwardly tried to conceal himself. Luckily for the two, similar rock
structures dotted the slope, making it easy for them to take cover as they
nearly tumbled down the incline.
“Hurry!
Before they get too close to the city!” yelled one raider from a good distance
away.
Lucas
looked back up the hill for a split second and lost his balance, sending him
into a slide. He hit his butt on
the hard ground and slid over debris like a sled over snow. Heaps of garbage and shrapnel rolled
underneath him. He clipped a large
metal tube and flipped over onto his side, scratching for anything to hold him
still.
The
bullets were declining in diligence and Lucas had come to a halt at the base of
the hill, stuck between a rock and thick, scraggly brush.
“Lucas!”
shouted Ember, making her way to his position. “Come on, let’s go!” Her sympathy would have to wait.
Lucas’
head was spinning, but surprisingly only had a few scrapes on his back and elbows. He got to his feet and immediately they
made their way to the giant towering walls of Marra.
The
three raiders behind them stopped as the two traipsed towards Marra. They were too far away now. One of them slipped his rifle onto his
back and wiped his brow.
“Could’ve
had some dough on ‘em,” said the shorter, stockier fellow, hair greased back
and a month's worth of growth on his chin.
“Don’t
worry,” licked their leader, spitting another drop of chew, “from what Cartham
says – Marra’s about to get exactly what they need. C’mon, let’s go get Braze.”
