Elias turned his horse to the right side of the road. Stretching out his wrinkled neck, he strained to gain any view beyond the tall grass towards the rolling hills beyond. No sign of life revealed itself to him. Which did little to put him at ease.
"What in the name of the gods was that?" he looked back at his prisoner and saw that their expression was near to panic. Giles darted his eyes around the distance, and shrank into his saddle. "Did you hear that?" Earnestness filled Elias's voice.
"Of course I heard it." He hissed the words out, nostrils rapidly huffing air. He looked ahead and then behind on the road. "We have to go back now." He started to pull Mabel around, but Elias quickly trotted over and snatched her reins.
"Damn fool, get back here. You think I'm letting you off so easily?"
Elias looked deep into his eyes, seeing no sign of defiance or anger, only desperation. A look Elias had seen on many a child when they were afraid of a large horse their parents wanted them to pet.
"Please." The only word the prisoner managed to speak.
Then a thought came to Elias, just for a moment. What if this boy had told the truth?
It quickly got pushed out of his mind and he redirected the mule in the direction they had been heading.
"Stop being such a coward. That cry must have been miles away from us. It's these hills. They carry sound much further than is needed. Always have." They trotted along, now at a faster pace. Giles even took note of Mabel tensing up beneath his aching leg. "It would take it hours to get to us, whatever it is. Most likely a large cat in heat. They prowl the territory this time of year. Nothing we need to worry about."
Elias's words projected disinterest, but Giles still noted a change in the inflection. He was worried.
"I remember thinking similar things not too long ago."
They moved along for another hour. Giles kept his eyes to the distant hills, ever searching. As the time passed, he noted that his knee, while still in a great deal of pain, didn't hurt nearly as much as it had when he awoke in the cell. Perhaps it wasn't broken after all.
As the fields crept on, they spotted a stone house up ahead to the right. The roof stood over the grass blocking their view, its thatched top a welcoming sight. No smoke came from its chimney. Eventually on the left, a stable also came into view. Giles took note that it was not the same one he had seen before, but assumed that most of the farms in this region probably had similar structures to their buildings. Why remake what works?
Clothes still wet and wind still cutting through the fields, they upped their pace once more and hurried beyond the tall grass.
When they came out, a small stretch of tilled rows stretched for several hundred feet before meeting the house. Upon their mounds, some sort of leafy crop grew bushy and low to the ground. Its color a winter green. Droplets from the shower coated the wide leaves and gave the whole scene a crisp appearance.
The two halted. Giles, now next to Elias, looked up at the old man confused. He peered about, panning from the barn all the way across the crops to the house. His brow low and his breathing shallow, Giles saw in his face something that he had not before. Like a resurgence had arisen within him and a new, sharper, man sat beside him.
Giles moved to speak but Elias, sensing this, raised a hand up for silence. He shook his head, always keeping his eyes on the farm.
Giles looked overhead to the gray heavy sky, then back out to the hills and to the road behind. With shelter so close, the world felt like anything outside of the farm merely waited for its chance to pounce.
Snot dribbled down his nose. He had contracted a cold. Damn.
"Brister?" Elias's booming voice nearly launched Giles right out of his saddle. He clutched his chest and looked about, fearing what might have heard. Nothing moved. Not a sound came from either building.
Then, he heard the old man's breath catch. Giles looked at him, and saw that Elias leaned forward peering into the crops, some distance away. His own head snapped to follow, filled with dread about what might be crouching to hide just beyond the leaves. But, from his view, he saw nothing.
"What?" he hissed, as low as his excitement would allow. "What do you see?"
Elias raised his hand again for silence, then slowly, pointed it ahead to where he looked.
"There's a body among the leaves." He dismounted, took the reins in one hand, and began walking down the rows.
Giles spurred Mabel to move again, but she only made it as far as the first crunchy leaf before her hunger took hold.
"Damn you, you fat mule."
He slid off of her, leg hitting the ground, sending a bolt of pain through his knee.
After nearly collapsing on the animal, he tried again, and found it was easier. Bending his leg back and forth, he concluded that his knee had indeed not been broken. It hurt like a damn bitch. However, not broken.
That meant he could run. Not far, but if needed he could run. All he had to do now was find something to run to when the opportunity showed itself.
Limping down the rows, he followed just behind Elias. As they got closer to the area the guard had been pointing to, Giles made out the pale skin and bone peaking from behind the leaves.
The rain had washed away blood, but much that had been crusted for too long remained. Flies and maggots went about their work, and a reeking stench punched his senses. They looked at a man, or rather, what once used to be a man.
Giles felt a dreadful familiarity at the sight.
Elias knelt down low, and looked about at the corpse. Giles assumed he did so to pay respect or confirm identity, but when he spoke, he felt a rage grow within his chest.
"Looks like something big must have come through here. Possibly a bear."
"What?" Giles nearly fell over from the pain in his leg as he hopped closer. Elias stood back up, ignoring the young man. He looked towards the house. Giles limped after him, doubling his speed. "Damn you, you old bastard. You know what it was. You just don't want to admit it, because you're scared."
"Brister had a wife and child. We should look for them."
"Stupid old fool." Giles' voice shook with pain and rage as he hobbled after the man. "You know we should head back. What more evidence do you need? Would you prefer it come out of the shadows and rip your head off too? Would you believe me then?"
Elias stopped and turned to him, looking down his nose.
"There's a little girl and a woman out there. You want to go back?" He crossed his hands over the buckle of his belt, and let a mock confusion show on his face. "Why is that?"
Whatever expression Elias might have shown of fear before, it had totally vanished upon his realization that two more people might need his help.
"They're dead too, Elias. Let's go before we join them."
"I think I know why." The guard looked him up and down before nodding. Giles looked down at himself through the wet black bangs hanging over his face, then back to Elias. "You're a coward." Giles rolled his eyes and took another limp forward.
"Yes, congratulations. You've figured it out. Now let's go."
"You're clever, don't get me wrong. But that makes no difference in the end. You know why?" Giles took a deep breath and shook his head. "You know, I have known many many men like you Giles. All clever, all fast talkers and fast runners. All had two things in common."
The prisoner raised his hands in question.
"And they are?"
"One, they never ran to anything. Always away."
"And the second?" Elias took slow deliberate steps and closed the distance between them. He spoke in a hushed tone.
"They all ran out of the road eventually. And when that moment came, when they had to face their trial, they all failed." He looked him up and down once more, and disgust curled about his upper lip. "No exception."
Elias turned and Giles was left standing alone in the mud.
He attempted to follow, then stumbled to the ground, falling face first sprawled among the crops. Elias turned back for a moment before walking on.
"Hmm, perhaps the road has ended early for you." Rain began again, this time with a fury.
Giles looked up and watched him walk to the house. Heat rose in his face.
Upon placing a hand to the ground to lift himself up, he felt his fingers grip strongly along something wooden. Pulling the object from the crops, a small sickle, covered in the dead man's blood presented itself to him.
He looked from its wet rusty blade to the man ahead of him, and a plan seeded itself within his mind.
Giles lifted himself up, careful to keep the weapon hidden behind himself as he pretended to brush mud from his tunic.
Elias looked about the edges of the house, attempting to peer into the closed windows as he slowly made his way towards the front door. Giles followed, clenching the oaken handle with a vise like grip.
"Perhaps you're right." He swallowed hard.
Elias gave only a grunt in response as he tried to open the door. It didn't move.
"Perhaps I do run. But, it's not like I have much of a choice in the matter."
Elias began throwing his shoulder against the door, each time a loud crunch of its wood indicating that it would soon give way.
Giles, now only two feet behind the old man, raised the blade to strike.
Lightning flashed overhead, and thunder followed so close that the entire farm shook from its rumbling impact.
A vision flashed in the prisoner's mind. A memory of a young man. Not much older than Giles himself. He was pale. An arrow had lodged itself deep within his throat. He looked at Giles, confused and scared, reaching out, desperate for help.
No words could now escape his mouth, and only bloody gurgles spurted forth. Giles, shaking and finding tears spilling out of his eyes, notched another arrow to his bow. He took aim at the young man's face and released the shaft. It smacked into the dying boy's eye, snapping his head back against the tree he leaned upon.
Then, his last breath left his body, and he slid to the ground dead.
"You moved mountains, with only a couple of arrows. How impressive."
Giles looked about for the voice, but found nothing. No one else stood about, and he was back at the farm with Elias, sickle raised to strike. He looked up at the curved blade. The hand that held it shook like a leaf.
Elias slammed himself against the door one last time, and it crashed open, swinging hard off of its hinges and into the room beyond.
Giles, now fully aware of himself, cast the weapon into the mud before Elias turned back to him, clearly satisfied with his work. He remained wholly unaware of his near contact with death.
"You're wrong, Giles."
"Hmm? What?" The young man still remained shaken. Praying that the downpour would shield the reddening in his eyes.
"You started out making the choices. We all did. And it was those choices that led you to start running." Elias looked inside the door before turning back to the prisoner once more. "I'll go in to look. You stay here." He spoke the words as though to a disobedient child. Giles, fiddling with his belt, struggled to look Elias in the eye, but still attempted to appear angry with his tone.
"Just go, old man."
"Stay here. Don't you even think about running." Giles limped over to the stone wall and leaned against it.
"With this leg. Besides, where in the hells would I run to? Like you said," Then he looked off into the rolling hills beyond. "No more road left for me, anyway."
"True." With that Elias dipped into the dark doorway and vanished.
Giles looked up the road in the direction they were heading. A large hill covered most of the view, but he thought he saw a tree poking out from behind it. It looked to be a Southern Magnolia. The wind blew its shiny leaves back and forth. He had forgotten all about the events of the past few days and now thought back to the past month. His stomach hurt.
"No more road."
Then a stench hit his nose, and his head turned across the way to the barn. Its entrance open, revealing only darkness beyond. A knot formed in his stomach, as the smell wafted from within.