Rick sighed as he leaned back against the rock wall behind him and glanced over at the passed-out form of the kid across from him. He wasn’t sure what to think of him anymore. He was beginning to believe that Leopold had been right before. The kid wasn’t a threat, at least not one that the three of them couldn’t handle. He hadn’t displayed any sort of skill or talent in response to Rick’s sudden attack yesterday, just blind shock and terror, and he hadn’t noticed Rick slinking into the shadows to eavesdrop on their conversation. Rick thought the kid might have been acting, but he couldn’t fake the injuries he had when they first found him and if he was putting on an act, he kept it up constantly, even when he thought no one was watching.
But Rick still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong with him. The kid acted like a total idiot. Pretending not to know about magic or the corruption or ‘The Day the Sky Was Stolen’, Lana kept saying traumatic events could repress memories and important information but to lose so much? It was hard for Rick to believe, and like Leopold, he still felt the kid was hiding something. And, even if Leopold was willing to get friendly with the kid without knowing what that something was, Rick wasn’t.
Rick was just waiting for the kid and Lana to wake up. He’d be glad to pack up and finally break camp. The horde was growing closer to swarming, and he wanted to move on as fast as possible. Plus, he wanted to put some distance between himself and the kid.
Leopold leaned next to Rick with a loud clank as his armor clamored into place and said,
“I looked around, the swarm was still a good mile or so away. We should have time for now. I'll wake Lana and the Kid in a minute.”
Rick gave a nod at that, and prepared to begin breaking camp and packing when Leopold suddenly said,
“You know we're taking the kid with us, right?”
“What?!” Rick cried, spinning around abruptly, stopping his march to pack the supplies. “Are you insane, you take that kid with us and he’s going to die!”
Leopold let out a snort and with a sly smile said,
“What, now you care what happens to him?”
“He comes with us; it won’t just be him dying but all of us! How do you expect to climb through the mountains lugging a crippled kid behind us! A kid who, from the look of him, couldn’t even kill a butterfly to save his life!”
Rick was emphatic, nearly screaming as he waved his arms around at Leopold. Leopold just let out a sigh before shaking his head and saying,
“What are we supposed to do with him, leave him here to die? Send him stumbling down the mountain towards the horde and run away up the mountain as they rip into him?”
Rick stood silent now hands at his side biting his lip. Leopold continued,
“Think about it Rick, what sort of heroes would abandon someone to die and keep...”
“You and Lana are the ones playing hero, not me,” Rick said, interrupting Leopold and crossing his arms refusing to meet his gaze. “I just don’t think we can’t trust him. Some injured stranger just happens to appear and needs our help. It’s too convenient, it’s probably a trap.”
Leopold let out a loud laugh before saying,
“We can’t trust the injured stranger? That’s rich coming from you. Look, I’m not saying we trust him, I’m just saying we aren’t abandoning him.” Leopold said with a smile before walking over and putting his hand on Rick's shoulder and saying “You know, from what I recall being heroes was your idea. Didn’t you come up with the name ‘The Final Hero’s', rick?”
Rick sighed before nodding and saying “Fine”, still refusing to meet Leopold's gaze.
Leopold let out a laugh, and raising his arms in a victory pose went over to start packing the camp. Rick watched Leopold work for a moment, annoyed at how joyous he suddenly became after winning their argument, before turning to look at the sleeping form of Jake. Rick knew there was nothing he could do about Jake’s presence anymore, but he regretted how awkward the rest of their trip was about to become.
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When Jake woke the next morning, the leather gag had been removed from his mouth. He had no memory of falling asleep or removing the gag, so at a guess, Lana had pulled it from his mouth before he fell asleep. The last thing he could remember was the pain erupting through him as Lana poured constant amounts of magic into rebuilding his leg. Eventually, he became somewhat numb to the pain as it remained at a constant level but occasionally the pain would die down or jump up suddenly which would reintroduce the sensation throughout his body.
But the work spoke for itself and looking down Jake could see the bandage had been removed from his leg. His leg still looked horrid however, it was a pink wrinkled mass of flesh, and he couldn’t move his ankle or his toes at all. However, he felt sensations ripple across it with no pain. Jake also found that he was able to easily pull himself upright without his back erupting into a torrent of pain.
Sitting upright, Jake was met not with the now familiar sight of the trio lazing by campfires but rushed packing as they hurried back and forth around the campsite. Noticing he was awake; Lana came over and began checking on him. Looking over the bandages wrapped around his chest and examining his back she gave a satisfied nod before pointing to his leg and saying,
“This is healing nicely, can’t do anything else with it now though. It should be stable enough to support some weight, but I wouldn’t recommend putting much on. Stay still for a bit and let me splint it.”
With that, Jake laid still as Lana began splinting the leg with two sturdy-looking branches and some gauze. The tighter the splint became around his leg, the more uncomfortable it became. Soon, though he was fully wrapped and Lana slowly helped him upright by balancing on one leg. Jake slowly began to try and set his bandaged foot down, little by little, but it had barely touched the ground before what felt like an electric shot rang through his system and he collapsed back to the floor.
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With a sigh, Lana helped him up and leaned him against the stone wall, adding,
“What did I say about not putting weight on it? Wait here for a bit, I’ll find you a crutch to use.”
With that, Jake was left leaning against the crumbling rock wall alone up until Leopold strolled over carrying what looked at first like a bundled sack of cloth stitched together at random. It was only once Leopold got closer that Jake realized the bundle was his stolen bag, seemingly mauled during his escape from the beast hunting him. It was unrecognizable as the same bag he’d had before the attack, now stitched back together to be simply one large space held shut by a drawstring. Leopold held the back out to Jake with a smile.
“You were clutching this when we found you. We did our best to clean it and repair it, though I’ve never seen a bag quite like that before.” Leopold let out a large laugh, glancing down at Jake while he did so as if waiting to see his reaction.
“Thank you,” Jake said while taking the bag and opening it. Inside pretty much everything he’d had before was lost. His old shorts and t-shirt lay at the bottom, a bloody mess of torn fabric. Nestled on top was his phone, the screen cracked to hell, and the pair of sparking rocks he’d found before. Everything else Jake had acquired was lost. Something new was added though, a patchwork shirt, button-up, was roughly folded and pressed to the side.
“That’s three times now.” Leopold said, and seeing Jake's confused face look at him he burst out laughing again and elaborated “Three times you’ve thanked me for something I haven’t done. Rick did all the sewing. He’s our local seamstress, does all our patch jobs.”
Leopold let out a few snickers to himself while Jake was busy putting the shirt on, glancing toward Rick who still stood apart from him. Jake couldn’t tell if Leopold was joking or not and was trying to gauge a reaction from Rick himself. Rick was paying him no attention, busying himself with his work packing up camp.
“The shirt is one of Rick’s too, if you’re curious. Thank him next time you get a chance.”
“I see,” Jake said, buttoning up the last button of the shirt. It fit snuggly on him but wasn’t overly tight. While he was much more portly than the wiry Rick, he’d lost some weight since this whole ordeal had started and Rick himself was a good deal taller and more muscular than Jake. All that left enough fabric on the shirt to make up the difference between the two.
After putting the shirt on, Jake went to saddle his backpack but found it being taken from his hands by Leopold.
“Hold on kid, you’re going to have a hard enough time keeping up with us as is. I was just showing you we found your bag. Do you know what Lala would do to me if I let you carry this thing?”
“Keep up with you? That means you're taking me with you, right?” Jake asked, a note of excited expectation in his voice.
Leopold laughed, before ruffling Jake’s head and saying “What else would we do with you kid?”
Relief flooded into Jake at the confirmation he’d be allowed to follow along with the trio. He was only alive so far thanks to them, and he doubted he’d make it very far if they parted ways. He’d been hoping they would take him with them, but Jake and the trio were still practically strangers. Though Lana had saved his life, that didn’t mean they were obligated to keep helping them. Especially since, from what Jake could understand from their hurried movements, they seemed to be on a time crunch.
Jake shot Rick a worried glance to see if he’d heard the announcement and would give any reaction. Rick just continued packing, though seemed to be doing so at a much faster pace than before. Around this time, Lana returned with a branch cut down to be roughly the right height to fit snuggly under Jake's armpit. It wasn’t a perfect fit, and it wasn’t comfortable to walk on at all, but with effort movement was doable.
Lana gave him a worried look as he hobbled forward from the wall, but soon moved away to finish packing her bags. It wasn’t long till the campsite was gutted and the trio plus Jake began moving forward up the mountain trail. At first, Jake found he could almost keep up with the three as they moved along what felt like level ground. But soon, the ground became steeper and steeper, and his leg grew more and more painful while it became harder and harder to maneuver with the branch.
Jake lost count of how long he continued like this, struggling to follow the backs of the retreating trio ahead of him as without the sky above or any clocks nearby he found keeping them in his head an impossible task. Soon, however, his desperate climb up the mountain was interrupted. A series of shrieks and cries that sounded vaguely human-like reverberated along the mountain, coming back down the path they were following. The group stopped, looking back and Jake felt the hair on his neck stand up.
“Faster! We need to move up faster now!”
Jake heard someone call back, but the identity was lost in the wind and the distance between himself and the group ahead. In a feverous push to escape whatever had called out behind him and catch up to the trio ahead, Jake began springboarding himself forward, ignoring the lighting shocks of pain coursing through his body. It wasn’t long before the fresh skin across his foot began to tear, and blood began oozing out across the rocks he dragged himself across. He didn’t care, something instinctually told him the pain now was better than slowing down, than letting what was approaching reach him.
Suddenly he fell, the crutch he leaned on giving way against the rocks. Jake fell face forward and barely stopped himself in time before he broke his nose. Disorientated, Jake looked around but saw no sign of the trio ahead. Trying to stand up, Jake found he couldn’t find a good handhold to haul himself up. Just as Jake was about to call out in a panic for help, he felt someone grab under his arm and haul him forward, before they continued dragging him scrapping across the rocks below.
When they finally stopped moving, Jake looked up to see it was Lana who had dragged him, her face red from the effort her legs shaking threatening to give out beneath her. She had dragged him to a cave, off the beaten path he’d been traveling upwards where Rick and Leopold were arguing.
“Stopping here is suicide, and you know it!” Rick was saying, in a hushed but angry voice, “Look, I know you want to save the kid, I do, but it’s impossible. The best we can do is hide him and run if we are careful about this…”
“We are hiding him, but we aren’t running.” Leopold said, cutting Rick off, “It’s too late to run, you heard how close they were. They’ll swarm this path soon from all directions. We’ve already seen them come down from above. The only choice we have now is to hide and wait. If we hide in the cave, we can hopefully avoid most of the swarm and create a choke point to deal with the ones who stumble upon us.”
“It also gives us more time to recover” Lana added on.
“You’re boxing us in, there’d be no escape!” Rick tried to argue, but his spirit was gone. Seeming to sense there was no winning the argument as both Lana and Leopold stood against him, he let out a sigh and began moving into the cave.
“Lana, help Jake into the cave. Don’t light a fire and keep your magic low. Don’t make any unnecessary sounds. I’ll be back soon, I want to see how far away they really are.”
With that, Leopold turned and hurried back down the way Jake had just been dragged off. There wasn’t a hint of his usual jovial self, only fear underlined his speech. Lana helped Jake into the cave and propped him against a decently sized rock before also collapsing next to him. Her arm had a large scratch across it, lightly bleeding, but she didn’t seem concerned about it. Instead, she gave Jake a light scolding, whispering,
“What did I say about no weight, huh?”
She said with a chuckle, pointing to his bleeding foot. She lightly tapped it, and a glowing field of magic surrounded his foot. The bleeding stopped, though no numbing or repair came like before. She seemed exhausted for some reason, completely out of breath and struggling to stay awake. Rick was crouched near the entrance of the cave and completely ignored both Lana and Jake for the time being. He seemed on edge, clutching two knives in his hand as sweat dripped down the side of his face.
Jake didn’t understand what was happening, but in the dark of the cave only illuminated by the slight glow coming off his foot he heard the shrieks from before this time closer and infinitely more numerous and he knew something horrid was approaching.