Author's Note: Yay! A steady update! I'm back into it. Nearly to the end! :D Then...THE SEQUAL. Maybe. We'll see. Anyway, I'm gonna try and get this done soon. Yay!
Chapter 9: Meat? Meat!? MEAT!
After the interesting little tiff at the river, the four of us, Draco, Bowen, Kara and I, all made camp, and kept pretty much to ourselves. Mostly me and Bowen were the most separated from Kara and Draco, who had a small bit of conversation during supper. In the end, we all went to bed, me and Bowen on opposite sides of the camp, Kara between us, and Draco out a ways so he had a good bit of room to move as he slept. I was up until the moon was high in the sky. I'm assuming it was around 11 or 12 when I finally actually dozed off, and I fell asleep to the soft snore of Draco. Bowen was awake a lot longer then I was, but he tried to fake it so he wouldn't show is emotion from the sword fight with Einon.
After thinking about that, my mind started wandering. None of it was good. First was the thought of why Ben would side with the enemy. He had complained many times about Einon's stupidity back home when we were wandering in the neighborhood, at least he complained about what I told him. I don't think he would forget that…would he? I was forgetting what was to come in this whole odyssey, so why shouldn't Ben be forgetting about home? Next came the thoughts of what would happen if we were both stuck here. Would we become bitter enemies, like Bowen and Einon? I should hope not. Well, I finally did get to sleep, though it seemed as if only a millisecond later, Bowen was shaking me awake for us to get going. He had already woken up Kara and Draco.
Bowen and I untied out horses. Kara rode with Bowen, while I stayed behind. I was feeling better after sleeping, as quick as it was. Remarkable how you can subconsciously solve your problems, isn't it? As we came farther down the river, we came to a dock, where we stopped for breakfast. Draco was off getting his own food, and Bowen Kara and I had already eaten when we ventured out onto the dock. Bowen and Kara were walking side-by-side, and I was walking a bit behind them, stroking my horse. (Which I named Kid, in honor of the other horse I had when I was young, before we had to give him away)
"Here, let me see." Kara said, looking to Bowen, who seemed pained from his wound. She examined it. "It's knitted well."
"You have a healers touch, Kara." Bowen stared passionately at her, and I expected him to lean in for a kiss, but he quickly turned and kept walking. "In a few days it'll be just another scar."
"And what's one more scar? To a Knight, I mean?" Kara said, walking to catch up with him. I walked a bit farther back, to give them some privacy, but not far enough that I couldn't eavesdrop. "I once knew a Knight. He stood all alone against an evil king and even saved a rebel leader from blinding…he must have had many scars."
"That Knight died of his wounds long ago." Bowen said agitatedly, turning toward Kara.
"That's too bad. His kind is badly missed in this world." Kara stayed looking ahead.
"That's the way the retched world is, girl." Bowen said.
Kara turned to him. "It doesn't have to be." She said. I looked over to her, and leaned on my horse, who supported me. I rested my head on his back, watching.
"Men like you, could lead others." Kara continued, "You could give people courage and hope!"
"Hope?" Bowen asked, skeptically. "Even if you could raise your army, do you think they'd stand a chance against seasoned troops? Last time they tried, it was a massacre. I remember. I was there."
"So was I." Kara retorted defiantly. "That rebel was my father…Let others stand by you. You'll see this time, the end will be different."
She looked up at him. Bowen stared at her again…passionately. "What are you looking at?" she aksed.
Bowen cracked a smile. "Myself…once upon a time. I'll see you in the village, Draco." He said, as Draco came flying out of the woods. I looked up, and decided to jump on my horse.
"That's easy for you to say. This time I'll collect the money and you can die!" Draco said, flying onward.
I laughed, at Draco as Bowen and I got onto our horses. Bowen asked Kara if she wanted on, but she refused, wanting to walk. That was fine by me, since I wanted to talk to Bowen privately. We rode on for a few hours, along a small dirt-path. As we rode, I hung back, thinking about what I was gonna say to Bowen. He was…Bowen. Wait, why am I thinking about this? I hate expressing my feelings. Well, whatever. After a minute, Bowen seemed extremely distant as we rode, so I caught up with him, and went in for the kill! . . .So to speak.
"Hey," I said, "You okay?"
He ignored me.
"Bowen?" I asked.
"What?" he snapped. Whoa. Touchy.
"I asked If you were okay. You seem distant."
"I'm fine."
"You sure? You don't look it."
"I said I'm fine!"
"Well, it's good you can keep a cool head after being attacked by your friend!" I retorted, starting to get annoyed.
"Why do you even care?" Bowen snapped. "Who are you, anyway, Corey? You haven't told us anything about you. You just appeared at the river where I was, and joined the group!"
"I…I'm not sure I can answer that." I replied. Was I willing to tell him I was from the future and I was just following a figure and fell and ended up here? Yeah. Completely believable.
"And why not?" Bowen asked.
"Because you wouldn't even believe me."
"Try me."
"No! Why do you even care?" I asked, throwing his own attack back at him.
"Probably for the same reason you do."
I stared at him. He stared at me. I sighed. "Damn." I said, "What do you want me to say? That I'm from the future and magically ended up here, and that everything that was happening was all part of a motion picture, and I used to know everything that was going to happen?"
He looked at me like I was crazy. Even though it was true, it was still hard to say. He eventually got agitated and rode faster, ignoring me. After about thirty minutes of riding after our argument, we made it to the village.
"We can lose no more pigs to this dragon." The assumed 'leader' of the village said, handing us a pig head full of gold (eew?) when we had confronted him about his dragon problem.
"WAIT!" we all heard. Me and Bowen turned (our horses were tied up) to see Kara running down the bridge that we had come across. "These two are frauds!"
The leader quickly tensed and grabbed his crazy-large super-ax of death.
"It's her!" Bowen cried. "This girl is a…wandering idiot!"
"She babbles nonsense!" I said, tried to look annoyed as if she'd been following us all day. Which, technically, she had.
"I'm telling you...these two…Are no dragon slayers!" She said, slightly out of breath.
"You're mistaken, my child!" Another voice cried. We looked over to see, none other, than Brother Gilbert striding down another bridge with a staff in hand. "He's the greatest dragon slayer there is! Possibly the best there ever will be!"
"Brother Gilbert!" Bowen cried, his arms out in a welcoming gesture. I was simply stunned. I didn't expect him, of all people, to find us. I would've more expected Hillary Clinton to pop up! Okay, maybe not Hillary, but not Brother Gilbert either.
"Bowen! You're alive! Praised be the saints! The saints be blessed!" he praised as he walked through the crowd of pigs. "You're alive! And…whole!"
"Heh…Brother Gilbert." Bowen replied. Okay, maybe he could get us out of this. Yay, Brother Gilbert!
Brother Gilbert looked proudly to the villagers. "You could not put your trust in a better man! I have seen him slay almost two dragons!"
"Almost?" Kara asked, as if to say 'He's a liar!'
"Well…I didn't actually see the deathblow of the second, but, as Bowen is here, he must have won!"
"No…don't you see? They're in league with the dragon!"
Bowen and I both gave a look to the village as if to say, 'Told ya so.' Then, we all had a nice chorus of laughing, Bowen, I, and the villagers, and eventually Brother Gilbert who was doing his usual 'I'm confused, so I'll try and talk but fail' routine.
After a while, the four of us, Bowen, Kara, Brother Gilbert and I, were on a dock, setting up a large crossbow. "Hold that there." Bowen instructed. "And here he comes." He said, as Draco came flying forward. Bowen cut the rope, and Draco caught the over-sized arrow, and fell to the river…which was only about three feet deep. Draco fell over on his back, moaning.
"Sink! SINK!" Bowen whispered loudly.
"I Can't. It doesn't get any deeper!" Draco hissed.
"Well done, Bowen! You've done it again!" Brother Gilbert congratulated. Kara smiled as if she won some great competition. "The brute! That's even bigger then the last one!"
"Actually, he's about the same size." I said ironically. I turned around to see the villagers all looking at Draco. "Meat?" one of them said. Wait…meat?! "Meat…MEAT!" They all began to chant like some kind of…satanic worshippers. They ran after Draco, who flipped over with an 'Oh dear' and ended up flying away from the crowd of hungry villagers who were in the mood for dragon burgers.
"Uh-oh." Bowen said. Brother Gilbert looked around. "What's going on?" he asked.
"Meat…Meat…" They began chanting again..at us. Wow. Creepy.
"Run. That's what's going on." Kara said, running away.
"Run." Bowen said, running to his horse. Lucky for me, my Horse was no where to be found. He was probably devoured by these jerks.
"Run?" Brother Gilbert asked.
"Run!" I replied, running toward Bowen. "Bowen!" I cried. "Make room!" I hopped on the back of the horse, which started to gallop away, though we didn't get too far. As we were running, Bowen cried, "Kara!"
She reached out, and I helped her up behind me. Brother Gilbert was near the bridge, making peace. "Peace, brothers! Peace!" he cried. He turned around and began running to us, yelling "Heathens!"
"Brother Gilbert!" I cried, and helped him up to, and he was facing Kara who was back to back with me.
"Oh, good Lord! Forgive me, much obliged." I heard Brother Gilbert say to Kara. Now, we were all surrounded by cannibal peasants, four people to a horse. Not the best position in the world.
"No dragon?" Bowen said, tossing the pig head on the ground. "No charge!"
They kept chanting at us. We were still meat and they walked over the pig head. Suddenly, Draco flew down to save the day! He picked up the horse, and I nearly fell off, but was able to steady myself. We were in the air within seconds. I was cold, clinging onto Bowen, Kara onto me, and Brother Gilbert onto her, and we were about 100 feet within the air, and rising. Now, the ground was extremely small.
"We're going to die!" Brother Gilbert cried, I could barely hear over the rush of wind. "God help us! We're all going to die!!"
"Calm yourself, Brother Gilbert, we're not going to die! We're just…" Bowen shouted, "Flying."
"If you're going to get yourselves killed, you might as well do it in the fight against Einon!" Kara shouted. Draco kept flying until we were nearly over open ocean, or open lake. Whatever.
"I think Kara has a point!" I cried, looking at Bowen, still clinging to both him and the horse, who was whinnying in fear and protest.
"Oh!" Brother Gilbert cried, "But I'd rather discuss it on the ground!!"
