A/N: Inspired by "Call Back Yesterday" by Pat Ames
They were stuck in the mud again.
"Why do I even bother going back inside," Burke growled as he jumped out the back of the wagon, "when the damn thing snags every five minutes!"
Virdon followed him slowly, not bothering to reply. The rain had never stopped for more than an hour since they had left Etissa, and the roads were soaked now, sucking at the wheels of their wagon and stopping it in its tracks. Whenever the wheels sank up to their axis in the mud, he and Burke had to climb down from the wagon and push it out of the pothole again, while Galen urged on their tired horses; and as Burke had observed, this happened with increasing frequency.
They should probably have heeded the advice of Etissa's chief of police to hibernate south of the passes - if not in Etissa itself, then in one of the neighbouring towns. The relentless winter rains created huge landslides in these mountains; the road they were traveling on could be gone after the next bend, flushed into the canyon yawning to their right. And then they'd be stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no way to turn their wagon around and retreat back into the last village they had passed - the road was too narrow for that maneuver.
But nobody had wanted to stay south of the passes; nobody had wanted to risk Urko catching up with them yet again. They had escaped the relentless gorilla too often to challenge fate that way.
And he - he had wanted to put as much distance between himself and Etissa as possible. Virdon knew that he should've been the voice of reason, of caution... but he had kept silent, and his friends had pushed on, deeper into the mountains.
They had crossed the passes about a week ago - they were on the northern side of the mountain range now, finally out of Urko's reach. And they should've celebrated that achievement, that almost unimaginable feat of defying the Chief General of the southern simian dominion, but everyone was tense and silent - whether out of exhaustion, or because the road was still so treacherous, Virdon couldn't say. If this was their redemption, it had come too late.
Virdon pushed his shoulder against the rear wheel and tried to find traction for his feet. He had sunk into the squishy brown loam up to his ankles; in fact, he and Burke were covered from head to toe with it.
"This is like wading through shit," Burke wheezed, and threw himself against his wheel. "I'm telling myself that it's not really shit, but it... don't... help..."
Virdon's feet were slipping in the cold, wet depths of the pothole. Beside him, Burke was cursing, but the strain made his words unintelligible.
It was like wading through shit, being covered with shit, being soiled on the outside, just as he was on the inside-
Not now. Virdon consciously focused on the wheel pressing into his shoulder.
It was a thought that never really left him, though. It slowed his limbs and silenced his tongue; averted his eyes from Zana's searching gaze, and had him studying the desolate landscape around them instead.
Virdon knew that he should talk to her about Etissa - should heed his own advice to Burke, back in Sapan. But every time he so much as thought of it, shame flushed his throat and clenched his fists, made him want to punch the wooden frame of their wagon until his knuckles bled. And what could she really do?
Nothing helped. Bullet to the head, that'd help. He hadn't understood it back then.
He couldn't talk to anyone anymore. If there was still a prayer left in him, it was don't look at me.
The wagon slowly moved forward. Virdon strained against it, welcoming the sharp pain in his hip, the dull ache where his shoulder pushed at the wheel. Burke had fallen silent, except for a grunt when the mud finally released its grip, and the wagon climbed out of the puddle.
Burke reached for the tailboard, then the bow, to haul himself up and climb back inside. Virdon didn't follow him; it wouldn't be long before they'd have to push the wagon out of the next mudhole. They couldn't avoid them on this narrow road, and-
The right wheel sagged into the mud until the lower edge of the tailboard touched the road. Before Virdon's unbelieving eyes, the left wheel followed, sinking into the mud up to its axis, as the wagon slowly tilted towards the chasm to their right. Someone in the wagon yelped, a high-pitched sound of shock and fright.
And then the wagon lurched, leaning even more into the abyss.
The road... the road is sliding off, Virdon realized. He felt strangely detached. We're on top of a landslide.
At the front end of the wagon, Galen was yelling something; the wagon jerked as Tala and Apache jumped into their harness, trying to wrest the cart from the edge that was tipping it over. Virdon watched, unmoved by the sudden certainty that they wouldn't make it this time; the cart was doomed. As were the horses. They'd plunge into the river below, crushed by the wood and metal of the wagon, if not by the fall itself.
"Haul your ass over here, Al, goddammit!"
Burke's face suddenly appeared in the back, red and sweaty. He dragged Virdon up and into the still tilting cart. "What the hell were you doing back there, sleepwalking? The whole road is coming down, wanna get stuck on the wrong side of the gap? Move!" He shoved him towards the front, where Galen was still urging on the horses, then crawled through the slipping, sliding crates and baskets and jumped off. Zana was nowhere to be seen - she was probably the first Burke had sent off the wagon.
Galen threw a hasty glance over his shoulder when Virdon reached him. "Can you take over for just a moment?" he asked desperately. "We need the money, at least, or we can just jump into that abyss ourselves." He pushed the lines into Virdon's hands without waiting for an answer, and leaped into the back of the wagon.
The wagon sagged and lurched to the right, and Tala whinnied, a panicked, pitiful sound that made Virdon's stomach turn. He didn't have to smack the lines on the horses' backs; feeling the weight behind them dragging them inexorably backwards, they were thrashing in their harnesses, fighting for their lives.
Virdon drew his knife and turned in his seat. "Galen! Leave it be, come here! We're slipping!"
Galen looked up, his face a shadow in the murky light under the cart's canopy. "I'm, I'm coming..."
He scrambled - more nimbly than any human - up to the passenger's seat and threw his doctor's bag and the leather pouch with their money to Zana, who was gripping a struggling Burke's arm, keeping him from climbing back into the wagon and strangling Galen.
Virdon gave him an encouraging shove. "Jump, I'm going to cut the horses loose-"
But Galen disappeared into the back again. "I forgot the Book!"
"Galen get down here or so help me-" Burke's face was purple; he looked ready to kill. Virdon absently wondered how Zana dared to keep her iron grip around his arm.
Galen thundered up the wagon again, a backpack in each hand, and sailed off the wagon with a huge jump. At the same moment, the wagon jerked backwards, as both rear wheels slipped over the edge... or maybe it was the road that was crumbling away under them. It was impossible to say.
Virdon swayed, then threw himself forward, and landed on the wagon tongue, between the horses. He began to saw at the traces that were shackling the horses to the dead weight behind them. It was a delicate operation: if he cut loose one of the horses before the other, the second horse - unable to hold against the weight on its own - would be dragged to its death in a matter of seconds. He could only thin out the connection, so that it would... hopefully... snap when the wagon's front wheels lost their last grip on the road.
If he didn't get it right, he might plunge to his death together with the second horse and the wagon. The thought burned bright and clear in his mind, but it failed to frighten him.
The wagon slid back another few feet, and Tala kicked and stepped over the singletree, trapping her leg. Virdon cursed, beads of sweat rolling down his face. He balanced precariously on the beam now, one hand on Apache's croup, the other sawing through another leather strap, not cutting it completely.
He had all of them cut down to a fraction of an inch. He should jump off now, too, before the wagon-
The straps snapped, all at once, just as he had hoped, only-
Only too soon, too soon...
Virdon threw himself forward, trying to grab Tala's harness, but the horse buckled and slipped away, racing towards safety. The wagon fell away under his feet, giving him no resistance to push against, push away from, and he was falling, staring helplessly at the muddy edge rising above him.
The wagon's tongue whipped into his bad hip, a last, vicious goodbye before it tumbled into the depth beneath him. A hand shot down and grabbed his wrist, grabbed it and held it, a tearing pain almost equalling the screaming, sawing pain in his hip. Virdon tilted his head back with a titanic effort and stared up into a tense face.
Galen.
"Are you out of your fucking mind?" Peet was struggling in Zana's grip, but he didn't make any attempt to turn around and attack her.
And why would he? Peet was trying to rip his throat, Galen realized - for wasting time inside the wagon, time that forced Alan to stay on the coachman's seat-
"We need this," he yelled back, shaking the backpacks he held in each hand. "We won't survive without money, without my equipment-"
"Damn you!" Peet wasn't listening to him, wasn't listening to Zana who still hung on to him, trying to calm him down. "Al, what the hell are you doing? Get down here, leave the horses-"
Galen turned around to follow Peet's gaze; their wagon tilted at a dangerous angle, dragging the flailing horses towards the edge. Alan was between them now, no longer on the driver's seat, sawing through their harness with his knife.
"The idiot will get himself killed," Peet yelled, and Galen agreed with him. This was madness! Sure, he had come to like the horses - giving them names had been a factor, he supposed - and he'd mourn their loss, but what Alan was doing went against any sane consideration.
Galen dropped the backpacks at Zana's feet and sprinted back to drag Alan from his precarious position. He hadn't made more than two steps towards the horses when they suddenly leaped forward and raced towards him.
The wagon jerked back and vanished over the edge.
Alan was jumping forward, hands stretched towards that muddy, crumbling edge of the road, and Galen found himself on his belly, lunging for those hands. He caught a wrist, and the sudden weight of the human snapped painfully through his body and dragged him through the mud, over the edge-
Something heavy landed on his legs, stopping his slide. Peet.
The humans were both silent now; Galen could feel Peet scrabbling behind him, searching for leverage to anchor them. They were still sliding towards the edge, incrementally, inexorably. Below him, Alan was staring up to him, blue eyes huge in his pale face. Galen forced himself to focus on that face, and not on the emptiness behind the human, or the whitewater below.
So, so far below him.
Alan's hand was still coated in mud, cold and slippery, and to his horror, Galen felt it slipping in his grip, fraction by fraction. "Alan, hold tight," he said urgently. "Peet will help me to hoist you up, but you have to hold on!"
He turned his head; he still couldn't see Peet, only feel him sitting on his legs, but he hoped the human would hear him. "Peet, I need your help, he's slipping..."
Peet shifted his weight; he didn't dare to climb off him, for which Galen was grateful - without Peet's additional weight, both he and Alan would fall over the edge - but stretched out on top of him, until Galen could feel the human's breath moving the fur behind his left ear. "'m here. Gimme your other hand, Al!"
Alan had still not said a word - maybe he was in shock? Galen found himself caught in the human's stare, blue eyes suddenly impossibly bright. Alan was speaking to him, silently, but Galen couldn't make out his meaning.
"C'mon, Al, gimme your hand!"
Galen realized it a moment too late - too late to tighten his own grip, too late to shout a warning for Peet, a plea for Alan-
Alan's fingers went slack.
Galen watched, without a breath to cry out, as the human fell away, blue eyes still boring into him.
