Sky Jumpers Book 2 (11 page)

“Because some of the leaders are unfair little—” Luke stopped himself, and looked to the horizon.

Dark gray clouds were dashing across the sky toward us.

“Storm coming!” Luke called out as he raced to the front of the group and pulled his horse to a stop. Everyone else steered their horses in close to him. “Storms out here approach quickly since there aren’t any mountains
to stop them, and spring storms are especially bad. Those clouds are bound to bring lightning—we can’t be the highest thing on the Forbidden Flats, or we’ll get struck. Follow me!”

As if the storm was trying to prove that Luke was correct, a lightning bolt zapped the ground in the distance, the rumbling crack of thunder catching up to us a few seconds later. We heeled our horses into a gallop and followed Luke. The drop-off between where we rode and the river was so steep, we had to ride nearly half a mile before we found a spot where we could take the horses down to the shore.

When we got to the river, we rode along the narrow shore until we reached a spot where the wall of dirt leading up to where we usually rode was higher than our heads, and we scooted in as close to it as we could.

We all pulled jackets out of our saddlebags and buttoned them to the top as the lightning storm got closer and closer. I shielded my eyes against the few raindrops that found their way to the ground, and watched. In White Rock, there wasn’t so much sky to see, so we usually only saw one bolt of lightning at a time. Out here, though, lightning struck all around us, the sharp bolts spreading into a wide swath of light when they hit the air of the Bomb’s Breath, then forming back into their normal sharpness as
they exited the Breath and struck the ground. More than once, so many lightning bolts went through the Bomb’s Breath at the same time that the lightning lit it up almost completely across the entire sky. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

Most of the horses seemed to handle the storm just fine. I think Ruben even enjoyed it. I rubbed his neck anyway, to make sure he stayed calm. The thought of Luke getting his family kicked out of the ruins came again, so fast and hard that it hurt. I forced it from my mind and stared up at the sky.

A giant lightning bolt cracked across the clouds, as though it was splitting them open, followed less than a second later by the loudest clap of thunder I had ever heard. The hairs on my arms stood up straight, and the air felt charged, like it could explode at any second.

Then the
tap-tap-tap
of the rain against the packed hard ground came faster and faster, until it pounded down with a roar that made it almost impossible to hear anything else. We huddled our horses closer together, but still my clothes were soaked through and I was shivering violently within seconds.

“Luke!” Mr. Williams yelled, his voice barely louder than the sound of the pelting rain. “How long will this last?”

Luke shielded his eyes with his hands and looked up. “I don’t know!” he yelled back. “This one looks bad.”

I looked up, too. The dark gray clouds churned in the sky, moving and mixing and roiling. I couldn’t see an end to them in any direction.

I ducked my head and leaned into Ruben’s neck, trying to protect my body from the downpour. Then something hit me in the shoulder. Hard. I whipped my head up to see what it was as something hit me in the leg.

“Hailstorm!” Aaren’s dad called out.

The pounding of the rain changed to a pinging from the hail. Another one hit me in the leg hard enough I knew it’d leave a bruise.

“We’re going to have to take our chances with the lightning!” Luke yelled over the sounds of the storm. “We need to get to shelter—hail this large is too dangerous!”

As the hail beat down on us, we rode the horses back to the incline. The ground had been packed so hard, the rain couldn’t soak in. It gathered into rivers everywhere. Water cascaded down the place we needed to climb back up, making the horses’ hooves slip with every step. The adults got off their horses and tried to help us, their own feet sliding in the muddy river coming down the path.

Aaren’s dad, Mr. Williams, Luke, Cass, and Cole pushed against Aaren’s horse, Buck, trying to help his legs stay steady enough to make it up through the mud and rushing water. Mr. Williams stopped pushing for a moment, and ducked under the strap of the bag holding the Ameiphus and handed it to me.

Over the noise of the hail, he called, “Hope, keep this out of the rain.”

I took off my jacket, put the strap across my body and over one shoulder, and put my jacket back on, buttoning it to the top. Mr. Williams threw his weight into Buck’s haunches, and the horse eventually made it up the incline. Brock, Aaren, and I scrambled up the muddy slope and tried to calm Buck. The others helped Ruben and then Arabelle up the pathway. I took hold of their reins and brushed streams of rainwater off Arabelle’s coat.

“Maybe you should get on Buck, Aaren,” Brock said. “He looks like he’s about to bolt.”

Aaren’s horse was sidestepping and pawing his hooves into the river of rainwater running along the ground. Aaren climbed up into his saddle and tried to keep him steady. The hail was pelting into us so hard, I could barely keep Arabelle from bolting, too. Before long, they got Luke’s horse up the incline; then they pushed and grunted to get Cole’s horse up.

I heard shouts and turned. Cole’s horse slid on the slope as the water flooded down it, and fell to the side, pinning Cass against the edge of the ravine. I watched helplessly as the others tugged and pulled and we all screamed, but Cass didn’t. I wasn’t sure she could even take a breath with that much weight squeezed against her.

“Push together!” Mr. Williams yelled. “One, two, three!”

As the horse’s legs fumbled, they all heaved against his haunches. Then his legs caught, and his weight shifted away from Cass. Everyone pushed with their faces scrunched and their eyes determined, and Cole’s horse finally made it up the incline and away from Cass.

Cass collapsed into her dad’s arms, her breathing shallow, her face pained. He bent over her, trying to protect her from the hail that beat down on everything. “Cass, look at me. Can you tell if anything is broken?”

“My shoulder.”

Mr. Williams carefully shifted her to see her shoulder, and his eyes widened, then flew to the side of the ravine where she had been pinned. Several rocks jutted out, one of them sharp, right where her shoulder had been.

“There’s a doctor at the ruins,” Luke said.

Cole scooped Cass into his arms. “I’m taking her there now. Help me!”

Mr. Williams braced Cole, keeping him from slipping, as he carried Cass up the slope. Mr. Williams scrambled up behind him, and held Cass until he could hand her up to Cole on his horse. “We’ll get the last of the horses up and be right behind you.” Then he whispered to Cass, “It’ll be okay.”

Aaren yanked a shirt out of his saddlebag and handed it to his brother. “Press this against the wound so it’ll stop bleeding.”

Cole took the shirt, and galloped off in the direction we had been headed, his horse’s hooves splashing in the water as he rode. Mr. Williams slid back down the slope and he, along with Luke and Aaren’s dad, worked to push the remaining horses up. I watched as Cole and Cass disappeared into the storm and the trees.

The hail intensified, stinging my body as it hit. Arabelle’s eyes were wild, and her reins were so wet I could barely hold on to them. I climbed into her saddle so I could calm her better.

“I can’t keep him still!” Aaren yelled. His horse circled wildly, his head flicking to the side as Aaren pulled on his reins.

My shoulders, my legs, and my arms were numb from the hail, and it was only getting worse. Brock climbed in Ruben’s saddle, still holding the reins to Luke’s horse as Luke, Aaren’s dad, and Mr. Williams helped two more horses up.

Lightning crashed through the Bomb’s Breath, lighting up the sky and hitting a tree not far from where we waited. The thundering
crack
came almost instantly and was so loud, we all jumped. Aaren’s horse took off running. As soon as he did, Arabelle took off, too.

I peered over my shoulder as Mr. Williams yelled “Go!” to Luke and slid down the slope to help Aaren’s dad push the last horse up. They were almost done.

Brock and Luke galloped right alongside me, their horses’ heads lowered, their hooves pounding through the water, hail bouncing off their backs. Lightning flashed twice in quick succession, lighting up a portion of the Bomb’s Breath a blinding whitish-blue.

I watched the ground, keeping the trees that lined the narrow road in my peripheral vision. The splash each hoof made as it hit the water-covered earth made me think about how Cole’s horse fell on the muddy incline.
Please don’t slip, please don’t slip
, I mumbled over and over to Arabelle as we galloped forward.

I had no idea how long we rode, soaking wet, pummeled by hail, under a sky that alternated between violent dark gray clouds and blinding bluish-white lightning, but eventually we caught up to Cole.

Luke yelled something, but his voice was carried away by the wind.

Crack!

Lightning struck one of the trees directly in front of us. The light was so bright and the sound so loud, I couldn’t hear anything for a few moments after. My body tingled and it felt as though the air itself was made of lightning,
and I was so disoriented by the flash I couldn’t tell where I was going.

When the first large shapes with sharp corners that I thought might be buildings came into view, I called out to Luke, “Are they going to let us in?”

He looked at Cass. “They have to.”

I counted the rows of windows on the closest building—eight. It was eight layers high before the bombs. It looked as if the entire thing had been made of clay, though, and someone bent it right over. The first and eighth layers both touched the ground, the middle layers making a towering arch. I figured it was the way in. I steered Arabelle to ride underneath the arch and into the city, but Luke reached out and caught hold of my arm.

“It’s just as likely to fall on you as not. Or get struck by lightning.”

I shivered and rode as far from it as possible.

He directed us into the city, while the hail pounded with a fury on the buildings, echoing all around us. A few buildings lay completely on their sides, and some were in various states of standing up, leaning against another building, or somewhat bent and arched similar to the first. The sides of a few remained attached, so they still resembled buildings. Others had their sides blown off by the bombs and looked more like building skeletons.

The farther we went, the closer the buildings got to each other, and the paler Cass’s face grew. We steered our horses single file through the narrow alleys, grateful that the tall walls blocked some of the hail. After several turns, we came to a more open space where a building lay flat on its side, its top pressed against another building that was shorter and actually standing straight up. Luke slid off his horse, walked up to a metal panel on the side of the building, and banged hard on it five times.

I didn’t know enough about metals to know what kind it was, but it must’ve been different from the others, because the door didn’t dent in and the building didn’t fall. Maybe that was why this building was standing—it was different.

We helped Cass down, and Cole sat against the building, holding her. Aaren knelt next to them, pressing the soaking-wet shirt against her wound, while Brock and I stood over her as much as we could to keep the hail from hitting her.

“It’s going to be okay,” Cole said as he brushed some of the hail out of her drenched hair. “We’ll get you to the doctor.”

“Where are Mr. Williams and Aaren’s dad?” I kept watching the alley we’d ridden through, but they weren’t there. “Did you see them behind us?”

Cole looked up at Aaren in alarm. “I didn’t. Did you?”

“I’m not sure.” Aaren bit his lip. “I thought they were behind us, but I don’t know if I looked.”

Luke beat on the panel again. And then we waited, watching the building for the people, and watching the alley for Mr. Williams and Aaren’s dad.

“Maybe the people aren’t here,” Brock said.

I looked around. Similar buildings surrounded us on three sides. Maybe this wasn’t the right one.

“They’re here.” He banged again. “This is Luke Strickland! I have an injured person with me! We need help!”

Still no one came.