The River

Chapter 8

As Logan stood still in the dark feeling the breath of the creature on his hand, he felt that the creature leaned backward and then the footsteps started again, the creature walked past him and left. Logan waited for a while till the footsteps completely faded away, he sat on the ground until his heart got back to normal.

His feet were no longer shaking, so he stood up and started walking in the dark again. After some time he felt that he could see the walls of the cave, it seemed like there was a light after all, and the white tremoring shapes were no longer in front of him. He was getting excited, light meant that he was getting near to the exit. And just like that, the light became brighter and finally, he could see the end of the cave. It was too bright for his eyes so just waited for a moment to let his eyes get used to the light.

Logan came out of the cave, he almost knew where he was, it was a valley near their neighboring village, where Hector was living. He didn’t know how he reached this place, but it didn’t matter anymore, he was alive and outside in the world again, this made him happy.

He almost ran toward Hector’s house. When he got there Hector was not there. It was not the evening yet and he must have been in the fields. Logan wanted to go to the fields but he was too tired to do that, so he just laid down at Hector’s house waiting for him to come back.

Logan felt unusual tiredness, now that he was out in a safe place he could see his body shutting down from hunger and too much stress, and before he knew it, he was in a deep sleep.

Logan opened his eyes lying in a bed inside Hector’s home, he sat up and saw Hector and Laura on the other side of the room. They smiled at him, Laura ran toward Logan and hugged him. Logan was a little confused. Before asking anything Hector said “I found you at my door two days ago,” Logan looked at him with a stunned face, “I was asleep for two days?” asked Logan, “I don’t know if it was sleep or something else,” answered Laura, “At some point, I thought you are not even taking a single breath,” Logan was still shocked, “I went to Amphitrite,” said Logan and continued “She took me to the water,” and Logan told them what has happened to him in the cave and how he got out of it.

“I was worried sick about you,” said Laura with affection, “I left the village and found Hector to get help,” “I did search for you everywhere,” said Hector, “But you couldn’t be found anywhere, we even thought you might have gone on your journey again, but I found you by my door and went fast to get Laura here.” Logan couldn't say anything back and just nodded in thanks toward Hector and hugged Laura “I missed you,” said Logan, “When I was there, I realized how much I really love you,” Hector left the room for them to be alone.

It took a few hours for Logan to completely recover from the shock and understand where or when he is. That day, they stayed at Hector’s place. Hector had a big house with a very high ceiling. His interior was a little different from a human or a goblin home. Centaurs are taller, so everything was out of reach for Laura and hard to reach for Logan. There was no bed as they used to have, but there were some soft bundles on the floor in one of the rooms that they would use as the bed.

At night Logan could not sleep well and suddenly realized that the last time he was asleep, or better to say passed out, he did not dream like always, in fact, he did not remember to have any dreams at all.

Logan fell asleep thinking about his dreams and that night he saw a new dream. This time he was in a flat field, there was nothing there, not even a thorn. Everywhere was full of sand, it was like a desert that he has always heard about. A place where life ends, there is not even a single underground water source in a big desert.

Logan has never been into a desert, but now he was there in his dream. He was walking alone toward a direction, but he didn’t know why there was no river or anything to guide him. On the horizon a big city like the one in his other dream came to view. A city with tall buildings. This city was bigger and had much taller buildings than the last one in his dream. He started running toward the city that suddenly sands started running down a big hole in front of him and took him down the hole.

Logan woke up in cold sweat. It was still dark and Laura was beside him in the bed. He hugged her and went to sleep again.

The next day Hector brought a long dagger for Logan that according to him it belonged to his forefathers. It was an ornamented silver dagger with a bronze cover that had carvings of a war on it. According to what Hector knew, it was a carving of the first war between humans and centaurs that took place hundreds of years ago. There were lots of myths about this war between centaurs. The dagger was a little rusty but the blade was still sharp as new. 

They had to leave Hector and get back to their village because Laura had to provide water for the village. With Logan's help, the daily task finished faster than usual.

After that they started talking about all that happened, it was obvious that Logan had to resume his journey again, and Laura was not against it. But she convinced him to go on the journey together. It was easier than she thought to convince Logan, he already had this idea in his mind and was waiting for her to volunteer again and as soon as she talked about it, he accepted it.

There were two reasons for them to go on the journey together, Logan could not go alone, he faced his first obstacle and already had to come back.

But the reason that was actually in Logan’s mind was that he didn’t think they would come back to the village anymore. He could sense that the journey will be a long one, maybe as long as their lifetime, he realized that the first time he started the journey and a part of him knew that he surrendered to the first obstacle that easy to come back and start the journey again with Laura, he did not want to leave her and the idea of not seeing her again was sorrowful enough to make him stop the journey.

That evening after deciding to go on the journey together, they went to the village’s central hall’s storage to find useful things for their journey.

But first Logan went to the books again in the hope of finding something new. He spent the whole day there but couldn’t find anything. He wished to be able to read all the books, there must have been some useful data in there for him. But he was not educated enough to be able to do that.

In the storage they found some useful stuff. Laura found a bow with seven arrows, it was her childhood dream to learn how to use a bow, now it was a necessity for her to do that. They also found a long rope that felt useful.

Logan and Laura packed some necessary stuff and enough food and drinks for ten days in their backpacks and started walking toward the river. In less than an hour, they reached the valley by the stream of water running in the middle of it, they started their journey by walking in the opposite direction of the river. Laura looked at the empty valley and followed Logan.

They walked alongside the river for a few hours then they reached a point where the valley was narrowed. Logan remembered passing this place several days ago, then he stopped for a moment. “What happened,” asked Laura, “Besides this point, there is just the river inside the valley, we should walk through it,” answered Logan. Laura sighed almost heavily and said “I just see a dry valley. I can walk through it.” Logan looked at her and started walking to the river. It was not a deep river, it has never been deep. Water was not getting higher than his knee. But walking in the water was harder so he was walking slower. Laura was walking normally in the water and Logan could feel that she was laughing in her mind to the way he is walking now.

“So,” asked Logan “When you are looking at me, am I completely dry in your eyes?” Laura looked at him and his funny way of walking and said “Yes,” “You don’t see that my pants are wet beneath the knee?” asked Logan, “No, they are completely dry.” answered Laura,  “That’s weird” Laura stared at him and said with an annoyed voice “Yeah, I’m the weird one here.” Logan didn’t continue the discussion.

Logan saw a big flat stone in the middle of the river in front of them, pointed at it and said, “Maybe it’s better to eat lunch there” Laura nodded in agreement, they went there, ate lunch and rested for a while. It was noon and the sun was shining on them. “Thank you for accompanying me,” said Logan, Laura just smiled at him and nodded. Logan continued “As long as I remember you have always been by my side, even when we were children and were almost the same height,” they both smiled.

After a little rest, Laura stood up to practice the art of bowing with her new weapon. In less than two day’s she was already as good as a trained soldier. Despite her thin arms and body, she could use the bow very easily.

But more than how she was using the bow, Logan was amazed by how easily she could walk from here to there inside the water without any trouble. He could see the water splashing beneath her feet, but it didn’t make her walk any slower.

It was time for them to continue their journey. As they were walking Laura asked, “How much do you think we should go to get to the narrow passage in the hills?” Logan looked at the horizon for a moment and answered “I think we will get there tomorrow,” after a while in silence Laura asked again, “What do you expect to find?” “A way to get into the passage,” answered Logan, “No,” said Laura with a smile, “I mean after that, in the end, how will you know that we’ve reached the source?” Logan continued walking for some time and just looked at the water beneath his feet, finally, he said “I think I will know the source when we reach it,” “I hope it’s not that far,” answered Laura with a little bit of laughter.

As they were walking, Laura found something and stopped walking, “What happened?” asked Logan, “This plant,” said Laura as walking toward a cactus not far away from their path and continued, “I’ve never seen something like it, I wonder how it tastes,” “What?” said Logan with wonder, “I’ve seen likes of it all around our village,” “No,” said Laura trying to touch the plant, “Come take a look at it, it’s different,” then she took a small knife out of her pocket and cut a part of the plant and put it in her backpack.

They walked all day, there was nothing special on their way, it was all deserted drylands, and the river was streaming through a little valley that as they were walking, its depth reduced to the point where it was less than a meter beneath the surface.

By nightfall they had to stop, there was no moon shining that night and they could not see anything. So they just found a big rock and laid down beside it. That night Logan did not see any dreams any more, it was the sign again, he resumed the journey and the dream was gone again, by now he was sure that his dreams were some kind of trigger for him to go on this journey, but still, he was not sure about what was going to happen next.

By the first rays of the sun, they started their second day into the unknown journey. They did not talk much on their way. Around sunset they reached the hills again, the river was streaming from within them.

They decided to spend the night at the entrance and go inside this labyrinth tomorrow morning.

Next day morning they resumed their journey inside the hills, the river had a lot of turns inside the labyrinth and Laura had no idea where they were going, the river was only guiding Logan through this maze.

Laura saw some new plants inside the hills and they had to stop several times for her to pick up a part of those plants for her later experiments.

It didn’t take much time to get to the passage, it was as before, a thin passage inside a hill and as Logan would see it, the river was flowing out of it.

“Well,” said Logan, looking at Laura “What should we do now?” “Do you have any plans?” asked Laura “Surely you did not resume the journey without a plan for this,” Logan looked at her as if he had a proposal but was ashamed of saying it, finally he said, “I thought maybe you could fit inside it and see how long the passage goes,” Laura looked at the passage, Logan continued, “But don’t go too far, just see if it is wider inside and the entrance can be carved,” “Ok,” said Laura “But just in case think about another plan so that if it was too deep and we couldn’t carve it wide enough for you, there would be something else to do about it.” “In that case,” said Logan, “I thought that we should put sings in our way and try to find a new passage through the hills and find the river again on the other side,” “that does not seem easy,” said Laura as she was taking her backpack off and walking toward the narrow passage.

Laura could fit in the passage without her backpack, so she went inside with a light in her hand to see if she could find any useful information.

It didn’t take seconds that she came back out, “It’s not that deep,” said Laura, “Less than your height inside this passage, there’s a tunnel big enough that you can freely walk in,” “So,” said Logan “Do you think we can carve it out?” Laura grabbed a part of the hill in her hand, and it came off to her hand easily, “Yeah,” said Laura, “It will be easy.”

They did not lose time and started digging the entrance wall. Logan with his new dagger and Laura with her small knife. They did their best to open the entrance big enough for Logan to pass through it.

Although it was not much deep, their simple tools were not giving them any support for this task. “Why didn’t we take a spade with ourselves?” asked Laura, “I thought about it,” answered Logan, “And honestly I even took one, but then I thought having extra food the same weight as the spade would be a better idea, I was not sure about the depth of the passage,” “Yeah,” agreed Laura “I hope we don’t need a spade later too, it’s not that easy to carve a hill,” “But,” added Logan “Even with a spade we would not be able to do it faster than this.” they resumed the carving without any further discussion over the spade. On the first day, they had good progress, but could not finish it before the dark.

After sunset, they ate a meal. Laura used some of the new plants she had found and mixed it with some of the dried plants and insects she carried to make a meal. It was not the best food she has ever made, but it was edible, so they ate it in silence.

After the meal, they cuddled to sleep and suddenly something made Laura shake in her place, “What happened?” asked Logan in shock, “Did you hear that?” answered Laura with fear in her voice, “No,” said Logan, “What was it?” “I don’t know,” said Laura as her ears were moving fast in every direction, “But I think there is something moving near us,” “Is it coming toward us?” asked Logan as he sat up and took his dagger in his hand, “Shhhh,” said Laura, “Let me listen,” they stood still for some moments.

Laura could hear much better than Logan, her ears could detect quiet noises from far away while Logan had normal human ears.

“It’s an animal,” whispered Laura, “With four legs, and it’s getting closer,” after a moment she added, “And I think there’s two of them,” “Maybe we should lite a fire,” said Logan, “In case that wolves are coming, a fire would be handy” and Laura nodded in agreement.

They would not light a fire in usual times, nights in their area were cold, but not unbearable, and the light of the fire would attract all kinds of creatures, so they preferred to not light any fire at night. But they had with them some dry thistles in case they needed to make a fire in times like this.

Logan opened his bag and threw some wood out, now that they were sure some animals were coming toward them it was better to have a fire so they could see better, the moonlight was not enough for a fight against an unknown animal. He lit the fire up using firestones and at the same time, Laura fired an arrow with a scream.

A wolf jumped toward her, Logan did not have the chance to help her, the second wolf jumped toward him. Logan threw the fire at him, the wolf jumped back a little with a howl.

Laura was defending herself with her small knife, the arrow she shot did not harm the wolf. Logan roared like a wild animal and attacked the wolf, his dagger cut a small wound on the left hand of the wolf. The second wolf attacked Logan again from behind and bit his right shoulder, Laura jumped high and stabbed her knife to the wolf's snout. Wolf howled in pain and went back, the other wolf bit Laura on the left hand, she screamed, Logan attacked with his dagger again and managed to scare the wolf back.

Logan went toward the fire, grabbed it by his hands and threw it toward the wolves, they stayed back a little, he shouted to Laura “Run,” and he saw Laura run away with her bow, one of the wolves started following her soon after. Logan ran toward the wolf but the other wolf attacked him. Logan fell down and the wolf stood on his body, he howled in victory, there was another howling, Logan thought if it was the other wolf chasing Laura, they were already too far.

Logan caught his dagger again and cut the wolf’s neck. It did not cut deep but made the wolf jump in pain. Now Logan had a little time to escape, he started running as fast as he could. The wolf followed him after a moment, but it was hard to chase a prey in this dark maze. Logan tried not to make too much noise. He found some natural steps on one of the hills and climbed on them. It was harder than he thought but he managed to climb a little.

The wolf was closing, Logan could hear it. He focused and tried to see the wolf under the dim moonlight between passageways. He could see a movement down a vista, and made sure this is the wolf, and thought to himself, ‘one wound at a time’.

The wolf saw him and was approaching slowly. Logan had a pain in his right shoulder, he touched it and felt the blood on his torn clothes. Finally, when the wolf was close enough he roared and jumped on it and tried to stab his dagger all the way into the wolf’s body.

The wolf jumped toward Logan and they met in the air, his dagger reached the wolf's body before it could harm Logan with its sharp teeth.

They fell on the ground, the wolf was howling in pain, but managed to stand up faster than Logan and attacked him again. Logan didn't let go of his dagger, attacked back. They wrestled for a moment. The wolf threw Logan away. He still had his dagger in his hand and the best thing he could do was to run away again. It did not take much time for the wolf to catch him again.

Logan smelled like blood and it was not easy for him to lose the wolf now. So he decided to stand his ground. The wolf stood a little farther waiting for one last attack. The wolf jumped on Logan and he jumped on the ground toward the wolf, facing up and holding his dagger toward the wolf. He could cut the wolf's throat, but it was not enough, the wolf attacked again. He pushed the dagger in its mouth, the wolf bit his hand but Logan didn’t let go and pushed the dagger harder into the mouth and throat of the wolf.