Chapter 21 - Six Tusked Boars
As the moonlight lit up the other side of the riverbed more, Mill clearly saw a human sized boar stood up and looked directly at him. Its eyes turned red and then it squealed an ear wrenching screech and went charging towards Mill.
Mill felt the danger coming from the boar, who had six huge tusk jutting from its mouth and was packed with muscles and flesh.
It came charging towards the riverbed and fell to the six feet riverbed between them. He did not wait for it to climb as he was already running.
“Run!” Mill shouted and without caring if the others followed him, he ran to the trail leading towards the sea.
The others though followed him without questions, with Achren screaming loudly and outrunning even Mil. Deveno was holding a flashlight behind Mill and lighting up their path while the others ran behind him.
Another multiple squealing came from the top of the hill, followed by something huge rolling down it and crashing to the ground.
Mill looked back one time as he turned a corner and saw another two boars stood up from the ground and were running straight to the dry riverbed. He saw Mishka fend off the first boar that had already climbed to the trail as she moved towards the opposite direction.
He turned to his front and ran with all his might, his steps fuelled by the sound of two boars’ running steps chasing at them from below the riverbed, probably twenty meters behind.
“What should we do?” Deveno shouted as he run.
“What did you say?” Clarese shouted back as they sprinted in the rocky ground that was slowly rising uphill, probably leading to a higher ground.
“Look for the river!” Mill shouted at them.
His heart thundered as he distinctly felt two boars' attention focused on him. He did not know how he could sense it, he just knew.
He looked at the others still running beside him and started looking for something in the distance.
His heart wrenched when he saw a sturdy looking makeshift wooden bridge ahead of them. It had no railings, but it bridged the gap between the two trails towards a trail leading uphill towards the hill across them.
He wanted to curse his luck.
He took a breath and made a decision.
“No matter what you do! Don’t follow me.” He said grimly to the others.
Clarese turned to him. “What?”
He was now ten meters away from the bridge.
“These boars were following me. Continue running in this direction and I’ll lead them to the other side.”
“What are you—”
Mill reached the bridge and crossed it with his arms spread around him.
“ —Mill!”
“Run clarese!” He shouted as he reached the other side and headed to another trail leading uphill. “Let’s meet at the sea if I’m not dead yet.”
Without looking back, he ran on that trail. He did not look back as he feared his heart would waver seeing them.
He badly wanted to be with the others as there was an advantage with people helping with each other, especially the others who were kind enough to help each other. There was Clarese who was a nurse and Deveno who was a police officer. But he couldn’t stomach letting them be in danger for the harm he caused.
Hearing the two boars’ steps following from behind him instead of the others, gave him a clear clarification. They were indeed following him.
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He heard the others screaming as they ran in the other trail but Mill was not able to register it as he was now climbing the hill, gaining more distance from them.
He heard some crashing noises below and he dared to look back and saw the boars attempting to climb the trail but was unable to. This did not relieve him.
He knew it was only a matter of time before they climbed it, just like with the first boar. Worse, he could feel the first boar now running towards him, and it was followed by another group of danger that he guessed were boars too.
To make matters worse, he could also feel he was running directly towards a huddle of danger.
Despite this, he continued running towards it. He climbed the hill desperately and grabbed anything he could hold just to climb faster. He felt the two boars who were initially held into place now were chasing him back. He doubled his effort and climbed faster.
The moon was shining directly on his way so it made it easy for him to scale it. He stumbled a few times from the few pebbles and loose soil on the ground but he stood up again, without caring if his body was battered and aching.
He reached the summit of the hill the same time he felt three distinct dangers coming from the same top of the hill. They were somewhere far ahead to the west and probably the top of the hill where the first boar fell. They must have been those who came late and did not have time to roll down the hill as their target already presented himself in the same plane as them.
Those dangers then moved towards him.
He crossed the hill’s top immediately and headed towards the other side that led downhill. He did not follow the trail anymore and bulldozed towards the knee length grass; and the dried twigs and branches of bushes scattered around.
The ground started turning downhill, and he did not care about running upright anymore and slid or rolled in it as long as it made him faster.
As he was hurtling without care downhill, he felt his danger senses weakened again in degree and the other ten major huddles that were still heading to him vanished from his senses.
This gladdened him so much that he lost concentration for a moment and missed a step.
He rolled from the trail without control for a few seconds and slammed into a small tree jutting from the side of the hill.
He felt his head spin from the impact but the danger he felt from the boars cleared his head up as they were now directly above him.
He immediately stood up as he heard some squealing from above the hill, followed by something huge rolling.
He saw a clear trail to his side, but he did not follow it and instead slid and rolled down the hill in a straight line.
His hands snagged something sharp while his feet hit something hard, giving him bursts of pain, but he did not care and continued sliding.
He felt a danger rolling fast towards his direction and he dived to the side. Something big rolled and passed him to where he was just sliding and it continued rolling to the bottom.
He did not stop as he felt the other boars were also coming towards him and it would only be a matter of time before they also lost their balances and rolled to him.
He could evade them but this gave him a new problem. The boar would then wait for him in the bottom. But despite knowing this, he continued sliding while banking on something.
Right at the same time a boar rolled down the hill, but too far from his direction, he heard a sound of water rushing somewhere in the distance below him.
It was the river.
Mill remembered there were two rivers that Mishka told him, and judging from how these boars reached him faster than the other ten huddles of danger, they must have ridden a river to get to him faster. It would also explain how their numbers decreased and dispersed, some of them should have been taken by the river or died from it.
He had to get there and ride it to the sea.
It was the best option. He knew from Mishka’s words that it was dangerous. It was the nearest river but she did not point it, it could only mean it was not safe. But he was ready for it. He knew how to swim and had been in a river before. If somehow he did not survive it, it was better to die there than die brutally by those creatures.
He slid more without a care, and increased his speed.
The sound of the river was loud now, roaring.
This discovery made his heart skip a beat. It was not a calm river. From its sound it should be huge with a raging current. But he had no choice but to continue sliding. He was here now, there was no going back.
He slowed his sliding when he was finally near the river. He grabbed a thin tree beside him to stop his momentum and stopped for a moment. Ahead of him was a sheer rock cliff, with only a few meters of space on top of it.
He went to the edge and saw almost 15 meters of drop leading to a roaring river below.
A trail led to the side, probably to the bottom but he was suddenly spooked by a squealing sound to his right.
The boar had just jumped towards him when he jumped without thought towards the river.
He screamed as he fell. Air rushed to his body, then he felt his body submerged to the cold waters of the river.
There was a moment where he continued plummeting underwater but he forced it to stop by moving his body wildly, decelerating the pull.
He made circular motions with both his arms and feet then waddled to the surface. But the current was so strong that he felt his body move with the river's current making it hard for him to come up above to breathe some air.
He changed tactics, and flowed with the river and gradually swam in a diagonal direction towards the surface. It worked and in no time his head came out to the surface.
He took a breath and coughed.
Before he could relax, he felt danger coming from somewhere in the river behind him. He heard a splash and he knew it was the boar following him.