*** Chapter 16 Day 18 Santos ***

“Are you really sure we should be running with torches?” The young warrior, named Roald, asked me.

“Tonight is our only chance to use them safely,” I replied, “now hold it still.”

Roald was holding a bowl of water that currently held a leaf and a statically magnetized needle at its center. It slowly floated and turned pointing to the magnetic south/north axis. It had been tricky determining what direction was north and what was south. With the rising and setting of the sun we had east and west, or at least that was my hope, different worlds potentially different magnetic fields. Getting north and south took more effort. After talking with the older members it was figured which was north and south. They had a compass themselves, a more accurate one, but it had been destroyed.

They said that they had taken a southern expedition, so the ocean they had crossed was to the north, after moving so much they had lost track of it, but someone had remembered that Freet had once pointed in the direction of the ocean where he mentioned he fished. This gave us north, so that meant we had to go south and from what I could remember before I had gone in a more westerly direction when I had to escape the birds.

Our current heading was southeast in the hopes of hitting the river, once at the river it would be easy to determine which direction we would have to take.

“Alright,” I said, determining the direction we had to head in. “Let’s move.”

Behind me a line of people were moving at a quick pace, the children held torches as the adults bore weapons and shields in case we were attacked. My hope was that the creatures would be too engrossed in their buffet to come after us, afterall there were more bodies in the settlement than there were escaping it.

“Santos,” Solfrid appeared to have run to come up to the front to talk to me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“We heard some sounds,” she replied. “Olvir said that it might be the creatures.”

“Of course it's the creatures,” I grimaced, it was past midnight, we had gained considerable distance, but that did not mean that the creatures would lose interest in them. “We keep marching.”

“What if they attack?” She asked.

“We keep marching,” I replied. “They are afraid of the light, that will slow them down and stop them from catching up to us easily, but we can’t slow down. Tell everyone to keep the same pace.”

She looked solemn, but slowed her pace nonetheless to pass on my words.

“They can’t last at this pace,” Roald stated.

“What would you have us do?” I asked him. “Do you see anywhere we can defend from?”

“No,” he shook his head.

There was barely anything that they could see ahead of them.

The group could only keep the pace for so long, eventually everyone was tired out, but the pursuers never appeared. Maybe they too had grown tired, who knows.

Watches were set up after the group had found a good enough place to rest, the adults slept in a triangle of three groups four, the remaining two were an old man too frail to be any good in a fight and the old woman with the three daughters. She too was nowhere near fighting form and she was also a comfort to the many children who were orphans. She was in fact the only parent present, all others had lost their entire families, except for the pair of adults who were a couple and were always fighting together.

Solfrid was resting beside me, there were three others taking the night watch, not including myself, but I could not sleep. I wondered why she chose to sleep beside me, it probably had more to do with the fact that my group of four included the paired couple. Maybe she didn’t want any of the other men getting grabby in their desperation for a final touch of a woman considering she was the only unpaired young female of the entire group. All the other men were either too old or too young.

Morning came around. No one was stirred, all were to rest.

With how the situation was right now, we could only move during the night, if we were too active during the day then we would be far too tired to survive the night. Only minor activities were done during the day, such as tending and cleaning wounds as well as preparing meals. A few prepared for what the night would bring the best they could.

Many rested until dusk began, but as soon as the sun began its setting cycle, everyone was already on their feet and moving taking advantage of what sunlight was left to rush southeast.

The group maintained a brisk pace up until the sounds of the creatures could be heard out in the distance, their screeches chilled the blood. It felt as if they would pop up at any time.

As the moon was high above, a quarter moon going through its new moon cycle, Roald asked, “Should we check the compass?”

The sound of the creatures had died down for a while now.

“Yes,” I said,” but, let’s hurry.”

He quickly removed the pack on his back and brought out the parcel containing the essential pieces. He placed the bowl on the ground and staked the torch in his hand near it. From a leather skin he poured water into the bowl and searched around for a leaf. I helped him magnetize the needle, before placing it on the leaf after he was done with the setup.

They were moving a little too north, but that was fine, just a small shift was needed.

As they were putting away the compass some of the kids began to scream.

I looked up and scanned for the source of the panic, I could see Solfrid running over to me, she had blood on her sword.

“Three of them attacked us,” she reported, her bloodlust was not yet cooled. “Some of the kids got hurt, but nothing bad.”

“We have to start moving now,” I said, “tell everyone we are picking up the pace.”

The further we travelled east the more encounters we began to have, the next night we lost the oldest man in the group, he had been taken down by three of the creatures. There was no rescuing him as nearly two dozen of the creatures rushed us, it had been early in the night, so everyone was still near full strength. We had one the fight, but lost the old man.

It was then that I decided to change the direction of our approach, we would head straight south and see where that would lead us.

Two days going south we discovered a cave that wasn’t deep, but could easily be defended, I was outvoted by the group and it was decided that they would rest there for a couple of nights before going out again. What resulted was a siege on the third day that cost us more than half of the group. The area had been abundant with things to forage from the forest allowing the group to feast for the first time in a long time, which made them complacent and unwilling to move on.

Only the paired couple, Solfrid, Roald, and half the children survived the night.

More of the children were lost the next night as we were forced to run or be overwhelmed during the night. Each loss affected Solfrid worse and worse. The paired couple was also lost that night, we were ambushed and completely surrounded, they offered their lives in exchange for creating an opening. It was the only reason any of the children remained. The adults could have escaped, at the cost of the children, it was something the couple could not do.

We continued to run, the next night was far easier to navigate.