On top of our horses once again, I watched Arina look around the surrounding scrubland. Her curly, red hair bounced down her back and flew over her shoulders. She turned in her saddle to look at me, and reached her hand up to push a stray lock back up under her helmet. I couldn’t help but smile when she sighed, the stubborn curl immediately falling free again.
“Whose idea was it to come out this far again?” she asked. We were in a line winding our way along the small trail. Shane was leading the way with Arina behind him, followed by Nate and myself at the back.
Thunder growled above our heads, and Arina shrunk her body close towards her horse. The animal skittered nervously.
“Don’t worry,” Shane said, over his shoulder. “We’ll beat the storm back.”
“Yeah, and if not, I’m sure Shane will protect you,” Nate called out.
I chuckled, and we were rewarded with glares from both Shane and Arina.
Despite the looming storm, I let Mellow, my horse, drop back to allow them to have space as we started to climb up a rocky, steep part of the hill. Nate moved his horse closer to mine as well and we rode in comfortable silence.
“It was lovely to get out of the house and the swim in the creek was fun,” Arina carried on, loud enough for everyone to hear. “It’s just, it still didn’t mean that we had to travel so far from your grandparents’ house.”
I held onto the sigh that wanted to escape my lips. We still had at least half an hour before we reached my grandparents’ home. It was going to be a long journey if Arina was going to complain the whole way.
A vicious growl from the approaching storm interrupted my thoughts. It rolled through the clouds at our backs, warning that it was getting closer. It was late in the afternoon, and the clouds now covered the sun causing the light in the scrubland to darken. They had quickly gathered momentum, building in intensity until they were a mixture of dark, threatening, green and blue colours above our heads.
“We’ll make it back in….”
Another ominous rumble, a little closer this time, interrupted me. Mellow jittered nervously underneath, and I turned him round, his powerful hooves prancing excitedly as I tried to get a better look at the sky. He tossed his head, shaking his mane into even more tangles that I would later have to comb free. I reached down to rub his neck trying to calm him.
“Whoa,” I said, soft and gentle.
A sudden gust of wind surged up the hill. It roared, gaining energy and power as it came closer. I braced myself before it arrived, the strength of it causing the eucalyptus trees to bend and sway dangerously above our heads. Dead leaves on the ground danced wildly and dry bark fell from the trunks of the trees. Despite the dangerous branches swaying wildly above, I breathed in deeply, and my nostrils captured the fragrance of the rain that was imminent.
“Come on,” Shane called front the front. “We’d better speed up.”
I nodded, but chances were, we weren’t going to make it, even with Shane navigating a new path compared to our original trail. He was guiding a way that would take us directly up and over the hills instead of going around it. In theory, it would take about ten minutes off our journey.
A small clearing appeared. It dropped off to one side, and the horses stopped almost on cue to allow us to gaze at the land below. We weren’t too high, but high enough so we could admire the plain and the mountains to the west.
“Quite impressive,” Nate said.
“It is a great view,” I agreed. Mellow, however, lowered his head to pull at a patch of grass by his hooves. The noise of the long slippery blades on his teeth sounded like smooth plastic rubbing together. I swung my backpack around and retrieved my water bottle to have a quick sip of water.
Shane turned in his saddle to face Arina, and said, “I camped up here one-time last year. The view was amazing when the sun set. Maybe,” he paused just momentarily, “we could camp up here tomorrow if the weather is better?”
Nate and I shared another knowing glance. I quickly returned my water bottle to my backpack and swung it around onto my back.
“Sure,” Arina answered, a slight hint of surprise in her voice. “I’d like that.” Her eyes flicked self-consciously towards Nate and I.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
I looked away and tapped my fingers on my saddle, trying to think of a topic that I could change the conversation to, a conversation where Nate and I would feel comfortable.
A sharp, jagged fork of lightning shot down out of the dark sky, striking another hill opposite to where we were. My body jolted and I saw Nate jump beside me too. Before I could respond, a thick, loud clash of thunder resounded across the open land hurting my ears. The horses startled and took several nervous steps in the small clearing. As they did so, Arina tightened her grip on her reins and pulled them shorter. Her horse started to rear up in excitement and release short powerful snorts from its nostrils.
“Stop! Relax!” I cried. “He thinks you’re getting ready to run with him. Loosen your reins!”
Arina nodded nervously, and my gaze locked with Shane’s. I might not be that concerned about riding home in the rain, but I didn’t want to be on the edge of the hill with four spooked horses while thunder and lightning played havoc above our heads.
Without any further comment, Shane turned his horse to lead the way, nudging his horse into a trot.
“Come on,” Nate stated, and he clicked with his tongue and his horse trotted past me.
The ground at the top of the hill was quite flat, enough so that Shane was able to pick up the pace and nudge his horse into a canter. Arina bounced uncomfortably behind him, with Nate following. I quickly spurred Mellow on to match their speed, and hoped we wouldn’t be exposed to potentially lethal lightning strikes for too long.
To my relief, the hill was not very wide and we soon headed down the other side, weaving around rocks and shrubs to get to the bottom. My previous disquiet washed away, and despite having only traveled a short distance, being on this side of the hill made home seem all that closer.
A loud, electric crash suddenly filled the space around me knocking the air out of my lungs.
I didn’t have time to figure out whether it was lightning or something else for Mellow reared up, and at the same time, managed to side-step further into the long grass and over towards several large rocks.
Rocks!
This was not the place to come off a panicked horse. I squeezed my legs around his middle and hoped that I had the strength to keep myself in the saddle. Fortunately, I hung on while he pawed the air, but then his front legs began to return to the ground, and they were coming down right over the boulders and stones.
I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, bracing for what was going to be a hard fall.
Mellow’s hooves crashed onto the jagged stone and he lost his balance. His right hoof slid over one side of a large rock. We both went down quickly. Mellow scrambled frantically to regain his footing, but his hoof hit another stone, and he went down onto both of his forelegs instead. All the strength in my lower body could not help me hold on this time, and I was thrown over his head.
----------------------------------------
The sound of the approaching rain stirred me awake. It sounded like a large audience had started to applaud and then, it started to come closer and closer, the clapping becoming louder and louder. Before I could open my eyes, the rain was upon me and within seconds, my clothes were drenched and sticking to my skin.
Ow!
I tried to determine how long I had blacked out for. I was still on the side of the hill. The advancing rain and the approaching thunder made me feel safe to assume I had only blacked out for a few seconds, a minute at most.
A large drop of water splattered onto my cheek. Indignant, I refused to open my eyes. It wasn’t just my face that was stinging. My whole body was aching, too. What didn’t help was that my water bottle and other items in my backpack were digging into my back.
‘Damn it!’
I twisted to try to move my bag and pain stabbed through my upper body. The shock of it took my breath away. I reached up to grab ahold of my left shoulder and took several wracked deep breaths waiting for the pain to subside.
This was not how I had intended my afternoon to pan out. My mouth hurt, and the metallic taste of blood was mixed in with my saliva. Grimacing against more pain, I rolled to my left, spat the blood onto the ground and shifted my weight to push myself up with the righthand side of my body.
Closing my eyes, I breathed through more searing jabs. They jolted down my arm and across my chest. I cursed my bad luck, opened my eyes and looked down to my wrist. Despite everything I let out a laugh, sending rain that had gathered on my lips spraying from my mouth. Upon my arm, the scorpion vambrace was still attached, glittering and sparkling without a scratch or dint while the rest of my body was covered in mud and rain.
“Shane! Nate!” I called out. I lifted my head, and to my disgust, I was alone. Shane, Nate and Arina were nowhere to be seen. “Shane!” I shouted one more time at the top of my lungs. “I need help!”
My shouts for help were useless. No one answered. My brother and best friends had continued down the side of the hill without me.
Gingerly, I pressed my shoulder and wondered whether I had broken my collarbone or my arm. It had been a good couple of years since I’d had such a bad fall. I spat another small amount of blood onto the dirt beside me and ran my tongue over my bottom lip. There was a small cut along the inside of my lip probably from where I had landed face first into the ground. I sighed. I had been riding horses for years and was a confident rider, but I still felt foolish when I had a fall.
There was no more time to consider my injuries, for it was then that the sky released all of its load and the rain began to pour. Within seconds I was soaked. I scanned my immediate surroundings. To my disgust, Mellow had also deserted me.
I placed my hand on the stone beside me and pushed myself up, trying to put the least amount of pressure on my left arm. Out of nowhere, a sense of foreboding washed over me. I was suddenly sick to my stomach and my head began to spin with dizziness. The sky darkened far beyond what was natural for being in the midst of a storm, as if night had magically fallen. Or, it was as if the sun had been plucked from behind the clouds and relocated elsewhere because in the blink of an eye, the scrubland was cast into a maze of dark shadows similar to night-time.
Only one thing gave light. I looked down to the vambrace on my arm. There, shining like a beacon in the middle of a dark night, a red glow hummed around me.