Chapter 15
Aday later, with the rents collected from Hillside, they departed for Silver Creek, the second settlement on their journey. They followed another derelict highway back into the woods, and Asha hoped the trip would be a little less taxing than the first one.
The forest was quiet, and they walked in silence for a long time.
Eventually, the flat terrain transformed into a rockier, more treacherous region, and the brush thickened around the old, overgrown highway.
Trees had grown right up to the road, effectively encasing it in wilderness.
Soon, even this highway—this small, battered sign of what the world used to be—would crumble into dust, reclaimed by time and nature.
Asha was a little unnerved by the wildness of their surroundings, but the others seemed untroubled; they’d been this way before.
“How long until we reach Silver Creek?” she asked Cade.
He looked at Raph, who replied, “At least a few hours.”
She suppressed a groan of impatience. Her feet were hurting more than usual.
“You throwing in the towel, darling?” Cade asked with a small smile. “I thought you were made of tougher stuff than that.”
She bristled, pulling herself up to her full height. “I’m just fine, for your information. I was asking for…” Her eyes scanned the group and landed on the youngest recruit’s face, who looked a bit peaky. “…Davy’s sake. He looks like shit.”
Several of the men laughed, including Cade, and Davy flipped her off with a grin on his face. They started taunting him about tapping out before the only girl in the group, and Asha rolled her eyes.
“Children,” she said to Cade, who continued to look amused.
They came to a section of woods where the path forward was surrounded by hills, and that was when Cade gave the order to stop.
“Good spot for an ambush,” he said to the troops, but he was looking at Asha with wariness. “Let’s go slow and tread carefully now, guys.”
There was murmured agreement through the group, and they did their best to step lightly as they crossed the passage.
Asha sucked in a breath, letting Cade get ahead of her as she watched the ground with every step to avoid tripping on rocks and errant tree roots.
With the highway so overgrown, leaves covered much of the disintegrating concrete, making it difficult to see obstacles until she was on top of them.
Was it her, or had the woods gone oddly quiet?
A few moments before, she’d heard birdsong.
Now, there was only the gentle breeze through the trees, and the blowing leaves suddenly seemed ominous rather than peaceful.
As she set her foot down on a small pile of leaves that covered the road beside a large tree, she felt a sharp, painful jolt on her ankle.
Asha screamed as the ground fell away underneath her.
Rough, vine-like ropes closed in around her, forming a net around her as she hung upside down from a high tree branch.
At the same time, she heard Davy’s shout from the other side of the road, and then a cacophony of shrill, animalistic shrieks from the hills.
Her blood ran cold. She recognized the calls. The last time she’d heard them, she’d left her best friend behind. Cannibals.
Three dozen filthy, primitively dressed men descended on them, still shrieking wildly.
Some carried crudely formed handheld weapons like spears, clubs, and bats, while others had bows and arrows, which they immediately began firing at the soldiers.
Vastly outnumbered and caught by surprise, the Blackguard scattered.
“Asha!” Cade’s frantic voice carried over the din, but he was too far ahead to reach her.
Asha struggled furiously against the ropes as all the blood rushed to her head, but it was futile. She couldn’t reach the snare around her ankle, and the netting around her was thick, woven by practiced hands.
Chaos surrounded her. No one was close enough to cut her down, and the cannibals were attempting to box the entire squad into the narrow space between the hills.
Arrows rained down from the hills on either side of the road; there were more of them up there.
She thought she would go deaf from the explosion of sound: the crack of gunshots as the Blackguard returned fire, Cade shouting orders over the havoc, and the continued shrieks of the cannibals as they attacked.
Across the road, an enormous man dressed in furs, sporting a distinct-looking half mask, gave a furious warrior cry and brought his club down hard on Raph, who fell like a sack of potatoes.
He locked eyes with Asha, hanging helplessly, and her heart stopped as a small smile spread across his features.
He started to run in her direction. As he drew closer, she saw that what she’d assumed was a mask was actually the top half of a human skull.
“Cade!” she screamed as loud as she could, but she knew he was too far away to make it to her before Skullface did.
She did the only thing she could think of: she threw her weight as hard as she could in the opposite direction.
Her head spinning, her ankle aching, she swung as hard as she could, effectively catapulting herself directly at Skullface.
As the net swung back the way she’d come, she braced herself.
She collided hard with the big man, knocking him off his feet. Pain exploded in her body.
A half-second later, a gunshot sprayed Skullface’s brains on the road, spattering her with blood.
A scream of shock escaped her lungs, but relief surged through her at the sudden appearance of Cade and Dom.
Cade lowered his rifle and reached for the knife he held between his teeth.
He moved behind her, and Dom covered him as he began to saw at the net.
“It’s alright, darling,” Cade said as the first rope came free. “I have you.”
Rings kind of hollow when there’s a bunch of cannibals about to feast on your flesh.
Cade made quick work of the net. He freed her, but she was still suspended, upside down. The rope around her ankle was too high. Dom fired on several cannibals who rushed them. An arrow whooshed past Cade’s ear as he struggled to reach Asha’s ankle rope, and he cursed loudly.
On the opposite side of the road, Asha spotted Davy surrounded by three cannibals.
The rookie was struggling to reload his rifle as they descended on him.
As if by instinct, Asha reached for her pistol, aimed haphazardly, and fired on them.
Upside down, her aim was atrocious, but it didn’t matter.
The cannibals dispersed in alarm, buying Davy precious seconds. He managed to reload and return fire.
A second later, the rope gave way, and Asha squeaked as she fell from the tree.
Cade caught her, righting her in his arms as quickly as he could.
Thankfully, the Blackguard had largely regained control of the situation, and the road was littered with cannibal corpses.
The few that remained were retreating into the woods, snarling and spitting. They knew when they were beaten.
Cade barked an order for everyone to assemble and carried Asha toward the middle of the road.
They briefly regrouped. Leo moved through the squad, treating minor injuries, and they all took a breather.
When he reached Asha, Cade carefully lowered her to the ground.
She winced as Leo assessed her ankle, which was swollen and purple.
“Minor sprain,” he said matter-of-factly. He wrapped it tightly with bandages to hold it as still as possible, but it hurt like hell to put weight on it.
Still, they had a settlement to get to. They all agreed that remaining in this area after dark was a bad idea, so they set out once more to reach Silver Creek before nightfall.
“You did incredibly well,” Cade said to Asha as they set out again.
“By ending up caught in a net?” she replied skeptically, through teeth gritted with pain. “I don’t think that’s what you taught me in training.”
“Maybe not,” he conceded, “but I did teach you to think on your feet and defend yourself vigorously, and you did. You didn’t freeze.”
“You saved my life,” Davy piped up from just behind them. “Would’ve been a goner if you hadn’t fired on those guys when you did. To do it in that situation makes it more impressive.”
Asha flushed. Pride was an unfamiliar feeling for her, but their praise warmed her heart. She had a purpose now, and it felt strangely good. Better than she’d expected.
“See, even the rookie thinks so,” Cade teased, and the corners of her mouth lifted. “Speaking of…take this, rookie.”
He handed his pack to Davy, who scowled at him. Cade ignored him, however, and Asha squeaked as he scooped her back up into his arms again.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he resumed moving forward, carrying her with one arm at her back and the other under her knees.
He smiled. “You looked like your ankle was hurting you. It can’t be good to keep walking on it.”
Before this trip, she would’ve objected. She would’ve been suspicious of his help, and loath to accept it. But she trusted now that his desire to help her was genuine. He cared about her. There really was nothing more to it than that…and yet it was everything.
Besides, her ankle really was hurting.
“This doesn’t mean I like you any better, you know,” Asha said, but she couldn’t help smiling.
“Of course not,” Cade replied, amused. “Wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s nothing that keeps me honest quite like being bullied by a beautiful woman.”
She couldn’t help snorting. They fell into silence as they kept walking. Eventually, Asha felt her eyes fluttering shut despite her best efforts. The letdown from adrenaline was no joke. She wondered how Cade handled it and decided he must be used to it after years of practice.
“You can lean on me, darling,” he murmured, evidently noting her fatigue. “If you want to.”
The words felt like they contained a double meaning, but for once, instead of questioning them, Asha simply lay her head against his shoulder and shut her eyes.
“Thank you, soldier.”