Under Fire #2
Aries skidded to a halt. Collin slammed into his back, his nose colliding painfully with Aries’s skull.
“Who’s that?” Aries’s voice came in a rasp.
“Lekyi, is that you?” Collin shouted, squinting into the haze.
“Come this way!” Lekyi’s panicked voice cut through the smoke, his footsteps pounding from the left.
Aries yanked Collin—but the wrong way.
“No! Not there—go—”
Too late!
A deafening blast erupted. The ground shifted beneath Collin’s feet. Dust, stones, and forest debris swallowed him whole. The acrid smell of singed leather flooded his senses. His boots felt hot against the burning ground.
Slam—something solid against his shoulder. Rock? A body? A tree? He crashed to his knees with a sharp cry. Coughing violently, he couldn’t breathe, his lungs filling with dust and ash.
What was this? If he had a thousand guesses, he still wouldn’t have reached the answer.
A shape staggered in the haze. It was Aries, arms over his head as debris rained down.
Another figure burst through the smoke. Lekyi this time, his body colliding into Aries, slamming them both to the ground in a violent thud that rattled Collin to his core.
No time to think. Another explosion ripped through the air. The force lifted Collin and flung him against a tree. His back slammed against the rough bark, then he crumpled to the ground, every nerve quivering.
He lay there, motionless, sucking in sharp, ragged breaths. His pulse thundered painfully in his ears. The forest fell into a deathly silence. No birds. No rustling leaves. Just the lingering scent of fire, singed wood, scorched cloth, and hair.
Was it safe to move? Could he move?
He cautiously wiggled his toes. His boots were intact. His knee throbbed, his back ached, but his limbs all seemed to be there. His head was spinning, but he was alive.
A few yards away, Aries was slumped at the base of a tree, clutching his ribs. Blood trickled from his cheek. Behind him, Collin could just make out another body—Lekyi—lying on his side, frighteningly still.
Would speaking trigger another explosion? He didn’t know. But when Aries let out a low groan, Collin could no longer remain silent. “Is everyone alright? Say something.”
After a long beat, Aries groaned, “I think—I think I’m alive. You?”
Collin slowly pulled his legs under him and sat up, wincing. “I think I’m all here. Maybe.” His limbs throbbed, but no fresh explosions came. “Lekyi, you alright?”
Silence.
Collin stared at his motionless friend, dread gnawing through his stomach like a starving dog.
“Oh god!” Aries’s panicked voice made Collin’s heart drop. “He’s hurt! Collin, get over here! He’s hurt bad!”
Every instinct screamed at him to stay put, but slowly, carefully, Collin studied the clearing. Yellow handkerchiefs fluttered from tree branches all around them. The back of his neck prickled.
It was the smell—the sharp, burning scent—it came back to him in a rush. Black powder. Of course—Lekyi’s project.
“Can you tell how bad it is?” Collin called.
Aries crawled to Lekyi’s side, hesitating before leaning close. “He’s alive—but... he’s bleeding. A lot. His leg...”
Collin’s heart seized beating. “Is he conscious?”
“Not sure. Lekyi? Can you hear me?”
A faint mutter came from the ground.
“He’s alive!” Aries shouted. “He says... we’re idiots. He says we ignored his warnings. He thinks we triggered all the explosives.”
Relief crashed into Collin’s chest so forcefully the breath was nearly knocked out of him. The knot of terror broke loose. The world made sense again.
Lekyi had been testing black powder. They had stumbled into his testing ground.
“Collin! Get over here! He’s losing too much blood!”
Collin scrambled to his feet and hurried over. His stomach flipped violently.
Blood soaked Lekyi’s entire thigh, his trousers shredded. A thick branch—about a foot long—was impaled through his upper leg.
Collin froze, horror locking him in place. His own leg began to throb in sympathy as he stared at the gruesome wound. His vision blurred and his stomach turned over.
Don’t throw up! Don’t throw up!
“We’ll get you home. You’ll be alright. We’re close to Chroma. It’ll be fine!” he insisted, his voice shaking.
“Do you think we should pull out the stick?” Aries’s voice trembled.
The idea was too awful to process. “No! I mean—maybe?” Collin raked his hands through his hair, turning in frantic circles as if someone with more knowledge might suddenly appear.
But panic wouldn’t save them now. He forced himself to breathe, to think.
“We need to stop the bleeding first.” His mind raced. What could they use as a tourniquet? They’d given most of their supplies to Logan.
His hand brushed his pocket—a wad of cloth. His old supply sack. Tearing it open with his teeth, he ripped the seams and created a long strip of fabric.
“That stick has to come out,” Collin said, dreading every word.
Aries stared at him in horror, mouth agape.
Collin didn’t want to be the one to do it. But neither did Aries.
Finally, Aries cursed under his breath. “Fine. I’ll do it. But I’m never forgiving either of you for this.”
Relief hit Collin like a wave—then shame rose up right behind it. He should’ve volunteered. The idea still made his stomach turn. There’d be time to reckon with that later. For now, he just swallowed hard and knelt beside Lekyi, hands steadying for the tourniquet the moment the stick came free.
“This might be a good time to pass out,” he said, voice shaking. “It’s going to hurt.”
Aries took several shallow breaths, muttering under his breath as he gathered his nerve. When he finally reached for the stick, his hand trembled—but in a flash, he yanked it free.
Lekyi’s scream tore through the forest, raw and blood-chilling. He writhed, but Aries pinned his shoulders as Collin worked quickly, wrapping the tourniquet tightly around the pulsing wound.
Collin collapsed backward, the scream still ringing in his ears, certain that he would never forget that sound.
His whole body trembled.
A breath. Then another, but his words still shook. “I think—we can move him now.”
After a hurried discussion, Collin and Aries figured out the best way to lift Lekyi to his feet. They pulled his arms over their shoulders and, on the count of three, staggered upright. Aries, taller than Lekyi, had to hunch awkwardly to keep him balanced.
Their first steps were clumsy. Their second and third were no better. They wobbled forward like a three-headed, six-legged creature that could barely stand. Their pace was so slow, a snail could have overtaken them.
Lekyi’s head lolled, his breathing ragged.
His leg was drenched in blood. His face twisted in pain, and tears streaked the dirt on his cheeks.
His jaw clenched so tightly, it looked like it physically hurt him not to scream.
Collin couldn’t tell if the tourniquet was helping. There was already too much blood.
“This isn’t working!” Aries’s voice cracked with panic. “He’s not going to make it at this pace.”
God! Aries was right. They were still at least six miles from Chroma. There was no chance of stumbling upon another traveler out here, and leaving Lekyi to run for help would take too long. Collin’s gaze darted wildly over the trail.
“There!” He pointed to a long, fallen branch. “Maybe we can build a stretcher.”
Aries’s face lit up—then quickly fell. “We don’t have anything to build it with. I have Hadria’s seaweed, but I doubt it’ll hold together.”
Lekyi’s voice was barely a whisper. “I have supplies. Bag... and bedroll. Off the trail, by a chestnut... back there.”
They carefully lowered Lekyi to the ground. Aries stayed with him while Collin ran back, shouting directions back and forth with Aries to find the bag.
When Collin finally located it, he tore through the contents. Pencils, a notebook in Lekyi’s neat handwriting, a few more yellow handkerchiefs, but no first aid supplies. There was a coil of thick leather thongs, a knife, a hand ax, and a small shovel. It would have to be enough.
Collin and Aries quickly chopped down two saplings of equal length.
They stripped the scraggly branches and laid smaller sticks across them, tying everything together with the leather cords.
When they ran out of leather, they pulled tough vines from nearby trees.
They spread the bedroll across the top and lashed it tightly.
They tested the stretcher first. It creaked and groaned like an old house about to fall, but as the vines tightened and the branches settled under the weight, it held.
They lifted Lekyi carefully. Between the two of them—Aries in front and Collin behind, it wasn’t too hard to carry him, but the rough bark of the poles bit into Collin’s hands almost immediately. He was exhausted, but he shoved his aching body to the back of his mind. They had to keep moving.
To keep Lekyi’s mind off the pain—and their own minds off the urgency—Collin and Aries talked. They recounted their meeting with Logan. Aries grumbled about an argument he’d had with Hadria involving one of her friends.
“Was it about Stella? The Daughter of Venus with the red hair?” Collin asked, rolling his eyes hard enough to make the gesture audible.
Aries glanced back at him, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You know her?”
“Her younger sisters are my students,” Collin said flatly.
“You don’t like her?”
“She’s fine,” he replied with a shrug, “but she keeps inventing reasons to linger around me. Last week she asked to borrow ink, from a chalkboard. The other day, she tried to sell me perfume made out of crushed violets and something that made my eyes water.
Aries gave a short laugh, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “She’s creative, I’ll give her that.”
Lekyi groaned from the stretcher. “We need to stop. Parts of me are falling through the bottom.”