Uncharted

[Caira Ayryn]

Part Six, Second installment: The Unwonted Truth 

They stared at it. The deep cascading crevice that expanded below their feet at least a few hundred yards and plunged into a deep darkness.

"Do we go around it?"

It was about twenty feet wide, too long to jump. They followed the trace along the earth and looked at the trail it left on either side. Both looked infinite. Other than a lone flimsy bridge that was connecting the two sides. "No. You should go before me, if the bridge falls I can jump across."

"Ladies first," he said with a joke after taking a heavy step on the wooden planks and using the sand dusted rope as support. It looked ready to rip from the poorly attached point in the walls of sand. 

Shaking with every step and with the slip of sand that flooded from the unbalanced side of the wooden planks. They croaked under the male's weight before he made it to the edge and leapt to the safety of the cliff. Maybe he was afraid of falling too?

She found her toes up next and against the board, her body was rigid, hesitant, and quivering with trepidation. Caira tried to trust her reflexes. A tumble of horse clatter followed her hasty footsteps as she began to traverse the old bridge. It creaked and moaned under her weight but the real threat pursued behind her as a male with a pistol, riding a speeding steed shouted, "You ain't getting away that easy!" 

With the reaching of her hand, Caira jumped from the bridge as the man on the horse looked down the side of his revolver and with great aim pierced the rope and the tether.

Shuffled and lost with her own footing, Caira sailed from the bowing bridge. However the momentum of her jump had kept her close.. Her hand reached, almost to the edge of the cliff before her body began to plunge. With great shock touching her eyes, gravity made her sink in the air. Her feet balanced on nothing and her toes slipped in the wind. A soundless scream echoed from her lips. 

A dirty hand came into view and grasped her extended wrist, only then did she recall Merik, whom now held her dangling. Her life was in his hands as the toes of her boots clawed and scraped into the crumbling cliffside.

They exchanged a glance below his tousled hair as he put some of his strength into heaving her above ground. They were close to accomplishing this feat before another obstacle interrupted their alliance with the loud eruption of an intense blast.

"Aww. Well ain't that sweet." The man observed and put a well aimed shot into Merik's left shoulder, causing him to topple over. Not just with the centralized pain of the bullet but with Caira's weight as an anchor. They both began to plunge into the depths of rock below them, as Merik gripped his bleeding shoulder and Caira's fingers and palms scraped the rock and sand wall hopelessly as she plummeted downward. The air spun in her sable hair as the wind streamed into her eyes, causing tears to pool in her eyes.

Above them, where they could not see, another man rode up behind the shooter mounted upon a horse, they had similar attire and both had expensive gleaming spurs. It was evident they were two bandits against the world, or perhaps two men part of a larger gang. 

"You think we should ride down there? Ya know, finish the job?" Said the second man, distinguished by the horrific gleam in his eye that was masked by the dirt in his squint and a dusted white hat.

"Naw," said the black hatted shooter sensing his brother's fear as he peered into the crevasse, "If they somehow did survive the fall, they won't live much longer down there. Even if they are Primes."

"You sure it was righ' you shooting the poor kid? He was holdin' on the that lass." The other posed a question.

"Tch, haven't you heard?" The threat of an usurp of power traveled much faster than gossip,"The word is that a Prime named Ayryn is invading the Dunes. And this 'ere is her recon scout. We can't let these new Primes think they can have power over us just because they are immortal, they'll steal our territory, our turf, everything. Forever. Then, they'll claim it as there's under Omni's command!" His grizzled voice continued, "They migh' as well 'ave announced their arrival to the whole legion, a welcome party is already in order."

"Still, you gone and sent em' on a worse fate now... And the kid's wounded.. The scent of blood wi-" White hat looked down still, before it was too much for the aged man to take and cut off his sentence. 

"You always were the weakest link of our brotherhood!" the voice seethed with molten malice, "But, let this serve as an example so we aren't trespassed again in the future. Go and tell the others I have extinguished the great threat of the great Ayryn, and nothin' is coming back up from Hell, down there."