Once she was safely inside the canoe, he handed her the pack, settled in behind her, and pushed them away from the bank. She was a bit nervous at first, but he managed to calm her nerves and once they got moving, she actually found the experience to be rather enjoyable. The natural current of the river- as it turned out, did most of the work, leaving the two of them to figure out how to steer. Watch paddling on either side of the canoe. They weren’t long in the water before Ari spotted some movement along the banks, giving them time to take the canoe ashore on the other side. They pulled it up to the opposite bank, covered it with brush, and proceeded to investigate the movement on the other side of the river. He scoured the trees on the other side through the field glasses before he turned to look for Ari.
“Three fully equipped horses but no riders. They’re just sort of wandering around eating grass. Could be bait too,” He told her.
Thirty yards down river, he saw a leg sticking up out of the water. He cautioned Ari about staying quiet and out of sight until they knew exactly what they were dealing with. He moved down along the bank until he was directly in view of the body. There were three of them, all dead as dead. Someone shot them and stole their clothes and boots, and no doubt their guns and ammunition. This meant, whomever done it, were now armed and could still be watching for other riders or people to show themselves. Resources of any kind could get you killed and were of great value even in this remote area of the countryside. He made his way back to Ari.
She was hiding in the brush, trying to keep an eye on the canoe and the opposite side of the riverbank at the same time. He came up behind her and gently tapped her on the shoulder; both of their voices fell into a whisper. He pointed to the trees across the water.
"Looks like they were part of a scout team, someone ambushed them. They could still be around, we need to be careful." he said.
He used the field glasses again and slowly scanned through the trees, stopping when he saw someone lying low in the brush.
“They’re up there alright, about thirty yards down river. Probably waiting for us to come floating by, we’re not getting past them in the water, not now anyway.” he said.
They pulled the canoe up on the bank and discovered it to be lighter than expected, and together they managed to move it on land up to where they could get it far enough to launch it safely undetected by the men across the river. Ari however was beginning to get tired, so they put it down behind the brush cover while Mars watched the opposite side of the river for movement.
Now he could clearly see all three men moving in the opposite direction from their position.
“I don’t believe they know we’re here.” He told her.
She was leaning up against his back when a dreadful thought crossed her mind, she tapped him on the shoulder lightly.
“Hey Mars. What if this was their boat that we took.” He slowly lowered the glasses and looked back at her.
“Then I suppose we’d best get it back in the water and get moving before they realize it’s missing.”
They waited another ten minutes before launching the canoe back in the river and into the current and continued on their way. They went another five hundred yards when the sound of gunfire began to faintly echo around them. The current seemed to get stronger, and it pushed the canoe to the left, and they quietly slipped into a small cove unnoticed. The woods drew strangely quiet as they climbed out of the canoe and worked their way up into the first path leading deeper into the trees. He looked back at Ari, who was right on his heels.
“Do you have any idea where we are?” He whispered back at her. She gave him a confused look.
“No. I’ve never been this far west before.” She whispered back at him.
They moved up the side of the hill, trying to be ever so quiet until they knew exactly whom it was that they were dealing with. Once over the rise, they found themselves standing amongst several dead bodies. Mars slowly moved through the grim scene, with Ari still fast at his heels.
“Who do you think did this?”
She’d barely gotten the question past her lips when they heard the unmistakable sound of boots running through the woods. They soon found themselves surrounded before they could so much as move, and not long after, at the wrong end of several crossbows pointed directly at them. The largest of the five-armed men slowly walked toward them, he motioned behind him for two of the others to collect the guns from the bodies.
"Get the weapons to the boats, we'll take these two to Eddlewood."
Mars looked him up and down cautiously. He was huge, perhaps well over 6 feet tall, with broad shoulders and long blond hair that fell well down his back. He had menacing blue eyes that gave him a stern look.
“Klecko just doesn’t give up, does he? So what? He just keeps sending more men into our territory, expecting us to just lie down and surrender?”
Mars returned his stern look.
“I don’t know anyone named Klecko, and I certainly don’t work for them. We are just up here trying to figure out a way to help free her friends from the labor camps.” He said, nodding toward Ari.
He gave Ari a surprised look. “You were inside the camps?” He asked. She nodded.
She went into detail about how she was beaten every time she refused to do the assigned tasks, many times the guards at the ranch would tie her up with ropes around her wrists and beat her relentlessly. Until such treatment had reached well beyond the point of being unbearable. That was when her and one of her fellow prisoners had begun to formulate a desperate plan of escape. One day while pulling weeds near the fences while the guards were distracted, they crawled under the wire, ran for the wooded hillsides, and never looked back. Five man hunter teams had followed them through the woods for nearly three days before they’d decided to split up to make themselves harder to track. That was when she’d run into Mars.
The Leader of the scout team told them his name was Oscar, and he was from a settlement down river called Eddlewood. He explained that Klecko had been sending men deep into their territory, trying to get his hands on a person called the Builder to make the machines for him. Mars walked along the trail with him.
“What machines Oscar?” He asked.
“Like the ones that power our boats.” He replied, nodding toward the river.
They took Mars and Ari with them farther down the trail before they began to turn down back toward the Wongenema River. With his curiosity growing, Mars eagerly followed behind him. He just had to see this machine. They led them down a steep cliff face overlooking the Wongenema River, along a narrow, winding trail that seemed almost hidden from the naked eye. There were wooden structures built directly into the cliff, each had two guards armed with what looked like more crossbows. Below there was a secluded cove with three wooden docks extending at least thirty feet out into the river. Moored beside them were two large river cruisers. For the first time things were becoming clear to him, Klecko was running out of resources, and he was out to get whatever these people had at any cost. Oscar led them down to a large boat, nodding to the two armed guards as they walked past. As they stepped down into the upper deck, the first thing that struck him was two neatly piled stacks of wood on either side. He gave Oscar a curious look
He took them down below deck to the engine room, where there was more wood stacked along the sides of a long room. They watched as two men fed wood into a firebox. To Ari, it seemed rather noisy, and the fumes were most foul down there made her want to hold her breath.
“This is a steamboat?” Mars asked, turning to Oscar.
He nodded.
“Yeah, I’m not exactly sure how it works, but we use that firebox to heat the boiler which is full of water, which creates a pressurized steam system that makes the engine run. That’s kinda it I think.” Oscar said. “This is what Klecko is after, he’s running out of resources, so he wants the steam engines to use as generators for electricity.” Mars said.
Oscar led them back above deck into the wheelhouse. Mars and Ari followed along behind them now listening carefully to every word he spoke with a renewed sense of interest.
“That’s not all he’s after, he wants these boats intact. Our leader Michael believes that he’ll try to use them to travel up and down the banks of the Wongenema, he wants to raid the smaller settlements that are currently out of his reach. He isn’t just running out of fuel oil-he’s running out of the gunpowder that he uses to reload his ammunition with. Very soon they’ll be down to crossbows, swords and knives too. Somewhere along the along this river there is a depot full of gunpowder, Klecko has been trying to find it for the past two years now, Michael seems to think that it's about 30 miles or so from here, but so far-we haven’t been able to locate it ourselves either. We have 4 fully functioning steamboats on the river right now, and another one that is under repair. If he takes Eddlewood, that’s only the beginning. We lose our crops, our livestock, the steam engines and our ability to protect free trade along the river. If he gets control of the river, he’ll find that powder depot, and then no one within 150 miles is safe.”
The cruiser slowly glided out into the middle of the Wongenema and turned towards Eddlewood. Michael was going to want to hear the latest news.
~Scratch. A.B.T. Copyright © 2011~
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