“Then get on the zenzen, Pendragon,” she commanded firmly. “Now!”
I wasn’t about to argue. I got to my feet and ran to the strange horse. I wasn’t graceful about it, but I was able to climb aboard and get my feet into the stirrups.
“What has happened to you, Kasha?” Durgen screamed. “Don’t you see what you’ve done? And for what? A…a…garl”
Kasha walked deliberately to Durgen and looked down on him, saying, “What you and the handlers do to these poor animals is criminal. It’s bloodthirsty, and it’s wrong.” She coldly yanked one of the disk weapons out of his arm. Durgen screamed in agony. “I may need this,” she said. She stuck the weapon into her pouch, then backed away and leaped onto her zenzen. She gave the animal a kick and shouted, “Don’t stop. It’s our only chance of getting out.”
Her animal reared up and bolted forward. Yorn kicked his zenzen and with a loud “Yaa!” he charged after Kasha. Though I had ridden on the back of Boon’s zenzen when I first got to Eelong, I hadn’t had to control a horse since my fantasy adventure on Veelox, but I knew how to ride. I could only hope that riding a horse with a few extra joints was the same as riding a regular old Second Earth-style horse.
“Yaaa!” I shouted and gave my zenzen a kick. I sprang forward and galloped after the others, leaving Durgen in a cloud of bloody dust. As it turned out, riding the zenzen was easy. In fact the extra joint somehow made it pretty smooth, don’t ask me why. I galloped behind the other two, headed for the gates of Leeandra. We sped past surprised klees who were coming out to start their day. They didn’t expect to see three speeding zenzens flying by…with a gar picking up the rear. In no time I saw the tall gates to the city. They were open to let out a wagon of foragers. Our luck was holding.
That’s when I heard the alarm.
It was a horn that pierced through me like fingernails on a blackboard. A quick look ahead made me realize what Kasha meant when she told us not to stop. Several klees were scampering toward the gate to close it. I didn’t know if Durgen had sounded the alarm, or if it was because a gar was riding a zenzen, or both. Either way, the klees now hurried to close the gates.
“Don’t stop,” Kasha called back.
We were either going to make it, or crash.
JOURNAL #18
(CONTINUED)
EELONG
Theklee sentries scrambled to swing the giant gates closed. I didn’t think we were going to make it. We were too far away. But surprise was on our side. The klee sentries took a look over their shoulders to see us charging right for them, and stopped pushing. I didn’t know if it was because they were surprised to see us galloping pedalto the metal and about to splatagainst the closed gate, or because they were shocked to see that one of the suicidal riders was a gar. Didn’t matter. All that counted was that a few of them were startled enough to stop pushing the gate. Those few seconds were exactly what we needed. By the time they got their wits back and continued pushing, we blasted through the gate at full throttle, barely squeaking out of Leeandra.
Once outside the city, we didn’t slow down. I think Kasha wanted to get as much distance between us and Leeandra as possible in case we were chased. We charged along the wide jungle path as if it were an open field. I had to duck down low like a jockey, for fear of getting lashed by a stray branch. Kasha made a quick turn and galloped onto a connecting trail. It was a good thing I had my eye on her or I would have shot right past the turn. As it was, I barely made it. We galloped on, not slowing down a fraction, flashing past branches that bit at my arms.
Thankfully, we broke out of the trail into a wide, grassy meadow. Going from a closed, dark trail to such a wide-open space took my breath away. The sunbelt was just coming up over the horizon, burning off the morning dew that glistened on miles of dark green grass. Kasha didn’t stop pushing. There was no trail, so we fanned out, galloped up a rise and down the other side. Spread out before us was an immense, green pasture. We didn’t stop to admire the view. Kasha pushed her zenzen even faster. Its hooves dug up the soft grass, sending clumps of dirt and sod into the air that peppered Yorn and me.
Finally Yorn galloped up beside her and yelled, “We’re safe, Kasha! Slow down!”
Kasha looked back, and I immediately realized that her mad gamble wasn’t just about escaping from Leeandra. I saw it in her eyes. Kasha was freaking out. She pulled on her reins and slowed her zenzen. Yorn and I did the same until we came to a stop near the far end of the pasture. Kasha immediately jumped off, dropped to all fours, and paced.
I looked to Yorn for a reaction. He was breathing too hard to speak. This was a lot for such an old guy. It was a lot for a young guy too. I was pretty winded. My heart was thumping like crazy. Even the zenzens were spent. Sweat poured off them as they gasped for air. We needed to take a break. But Kasha wasn’t even close to calming down. She paced for a few seconds, then stood on her hind legs and shouted angrily at me, “Is this what it means to be a Traveler? Is everything going the way it’s supposed to? My father’s dead, I’m a fugitive, and now we’re at the mercy of the tangs.”
Nothing I could have said would make it better. So I chose not to answer.
“Say something, Yorn!” she demanded. “Is this the big battle against evil you’ve been telling me about? Are you happy now?”
Yorn stammered, “Kasha, I–I-“
“Don’t bother,” she snarled. “I don’t want to hear it.” She dropped back down on all fours and continued pacing.
“I’m dead,” she said to the wind. “If I go home, Durgen will have me arrested and executed. Everything I’ve ever known, my whole life, is gone.”
We were at a dangerous crossroads. I didn’t know how to talk her down. Yorn and I kept looking at each other nervously, hoping the other would come up with something to say, but neither of us rose to the occasion. Kasha paced a bit more, then without warning she sprang for her zenzen, landing in the saddle.
“It’s a long way,” she announced, sounding slightly more in control. “We don’t want to lose daylight.”
That was it. The crisis was over, at least for the time being. Kasha coaxed her zenzen into a trot and continued on across the valley.
“I’m too old for this,” Yorn admitted.
“Me too, and I’m still a kid,” I replied.
“Her whole life has just been twisted,” Yorn said. “We can’t blame her for being angry.”
“I don’t,” I said. “But if we fail, her life will get a whole lot more twisted than it is now.”
I kicked my zenzen into a trot. Yorn followed right behind. We traveled that way for most of the day, with Kasha in front, me in the middle, and Yorn picking up the rear. Kasha kept checking the map and often made course corrections. I was on a constant lookout for tangs. I feared that at any moment we could ride into an ambush. A few times I thought I caught a glimpse of a green tail slithering into the bushes, but when I looked, it was gone. Either they saw our weapons and were afraid to attack, or I was loony and hallucinating. Either way was okay with me, so long as nothing came after us.
When I wasn’t totally consumed with scanning for predators, I tried to take in my surroundings. Eelong really was beautiful. We traveled through dense, tropical jungle; crossed lazy streams; climbed steep trails that brought us up and over ridges that gave us incredible views of the jungle below; and even swam across a glassy, warm lake on the backs of our zenzens. Most of the territory seemed to be uninhabited, but every so often we’d pass a village built into the trees, like Leeandra. These small towns were nowhere near as big as Leeandra, though. They were farming villages that existed solely to tend acres of crops that grew beneath their homes. After a few hours of traveling, these villages became fewer and fewer. By the time the sunbelt was directly overhead, all signs of civilization had disappeared. We were headed into scary, desolate territory.
There was wildlife, too. I’m happy to report that we saw many different creatures on Eelong, and for a
