Alrighty, here's the new chapter. Oddchick, I've decided to keep the name as it is. A nickname might develop over time, but that's still to be determined by my staff. Namely me.
Anyway, here it is:
Chapter 10 - The River
I woke up again with a sound night's sleep. No dreams, no visions, no nuthin'. When I got up, I was surprised to find out that the other fellas were already up! They were chowin' on some berries, and George was finishin' up his Elum's saddle. I walked over to them.
"Hey guys, what's up?"
"Nothing much, Job. Just finishin' my saddle n' stuff."
"What? I thought you finished that last night."
"Oh yeah, I did. But, um, Elum here was hungry, and he, um..."
"He ate your saddle?"
George looked at his feet. "Yeah, kinda." Apparently their relationship was sort of a one-sided thing. Oh, well, as long he could run. I started "talking" to Shilah about how he was gonna do today. He was tired, but he let me know he could make it. That dude's a good guy.
Anyway, when George finished his saddle and got in on the Elum (which took some persuading, and quite a few bruises), we headed off. The first few hors were pretty nice. We saw more of the forest, and I was getting greener by the minute. The land was changing as well. Everything started to get warmer and wetter. I guess the Vykkers were headed for some kinda tropical island or something.
Just before lunch, something amazing happened. We were heading through the forest (which now was closer to a jungle) when we reached water. A LOT of water. It was some kind of river or something. The view was awesome. We were at the top of a hill, looking down on a river valley. It was full of trees with big, long leaves, and at one end, what looked like miles away, was a huge old building. It looked kinda like a dam. Whatever it was, it was HUGE.
It was also an oasis for me and George. First the forest and now this? Rivers are great spiritual fonts that can help us Muds get in touch with nature. So we slid down the hill and started listening to the river. She said that she was the powerful and long-flowing Mongo. I asked her if she saw anything unnatural around her in the past few days. She said yes. Two days ago, she said that a huge round metal bird flew over her, and was still over her now. I looked up, and all I could see was clouds. I questioned her again. "Where is it now?" She told me that it had followed her downstream.
I was shocked for some reason. I had expected it to head in one direction. Why would it change? Did something unexpected happed, or was that part of the plan? I was so confused. I looked at George, and he had heard what I did. Instead of confusion, he looked anxious, like he wanted to be at the ship NOW, beating up those Vykkers. Maybe he really held a grudge against those punks, I don't know. But what I did know was that we were heading downstream.
I started to stand up to leave, and as soon as I got up, I was down again. Wait. What? I looked down, and all across my body were ropes with arrows attached to 'em. I looked around wildly, the others were tied up too! What was going on?!?! Who did this?!?!
As if answering my unspoken question, a figure stepped out of the trees and looked right at me. It was short and thin, and it held a bow. "We don't like tresspassers here. You're not going anywhere."
Damn. Why does this stuff always happen to me?
End of Chapter 10.
There ya go.