Chr. 1 Amethyst

My mouth gapped. “What? Are you kidding me?”
Travis laughed, a low, hardy chuckle. “Lets go. They’ll find us.”
I turned my head to look at him for a moment, and then I looked at the heavily armed soldiers running in order out of the manor. “’Kay, let’s go.
He grabbed my wrist lightly and tugged me to the tree line. We stopped about fifteen yards in. The trees started to branch off a rough ten feet above our heads in a flowery pattern.
“Damnit,” Travis muttered, “Amethyst, can you climb up that?”
I looked at the nearest tree without much hope. I walked over to it, slid off my pack, and looked for footholds.
“Here,” Travis handed me a long, thick blue rope that trailed from his pack. I nodded and tied it around my waist, tugging it the rest of the way out of his bag.
The old tree was huge. It was a lot easier to climb then I had first thought. There were knots in the wood everywhere, and the bark had peeled into rolls in several spots and dried there. When I reached the first branch, I grasped it in my calloused hands and swung my slim figure onto the branch.
“Good. Throw the rope down.” Travis called up to me, cupping his hands around his mouth.
I grunted and untied it from my waist, retying it securely on the branch in front of me. “Yah,” I shouted down as I dropped it on his head.
He snorted. He turned around, picked up my bag and slung it over his shoulder, then picked up his bag (which was a lot bigger) and slung it over the other shoulder. I tugged the frayed rope absentmindedly while I watched him.
Travis started awkwardly climbing with the rope. He had a bulky figure, and he always said his feet were too big. It was really funny to watch his attempt to scramble up the tree.
Panting, he finally collapsed on the branch next to me. I started pulling up the rope as shouts of the soldiers started floating up to us.
“Lets go higher,” I suggested sarcastically as he wiggled to get more comfortable. “They can hear us from here, and if they can hear us, they can see us, and if they can see us, they can shoot us.”
“Okay, okay, whatever,” he sounded slightly exasperated.
I made a face at him and reached for another branch. It was about four feet from the branch we were sitting on, so it was extremely easy for me to climb.
“Here, at least take this,” Travis muttered, handing me my pack. I bent down and picked it up, swinging the thickly braided fabric straps over my shoulders.
Travis fastened the other strap of his bag over his other shoulder, then reached up and hoisted himself over the branch. By the time he was up, I was already two branches above him. He looked up at me and glared.
“This isn’t fair, you know,” he muttered, just loud enough for me to hear. “You’re a monkey. I’m just… Not.”
I stopped and looked down at him as he crawled up another branch. “I know. It’s another of my spectacular skills that make you love me,” I joked to him, “You’ll learn.”
“Uh huh,” he replied, climbing onto the branch I was perched on.
I looked down at the ground. It seemed like a really far drop. I tilted my head back and studied the rest of the tree. “Lets keep going,” Travis murmured to me, climbing up another branch.
I quickly followed him. The branches were closer together, but they were also getting thinner than the base ones. They were still thick enough to hold Travis’s weight, but they swayed slightly.
I scrambled quickly up a few branches, quickly caught up to Travis. He had stopped to wait for me and to check the position on the soldiers.
He leaned over and whispered to me. “Their about thirty yard from us, we should keep climbing, but be quiet.”
I nodded and started climbing. After a few minutes we could hear the soldiers under us, but couldn’t see them. We sat huddled together under the canopy of leaves left above us.
“Get the binoculars,” I whispered to him, poking him in the side.
“I am,” He said, turning to untie his bag and rummage through it. He finally turned around holding a pair of binoculars we stole from one of the street fairs in Mexico. It was big and bulky, the color of burnt mud, and smelled like rotten meat. It weight about three pounds, too. Travis slung the rope attached to it around his neck.
He looked through it a while, trying to get a good look. A worried expression crossed his face. “Their Verga.”
“Shit. Really?”
He nodded and handed me the binoculars. I took them quickly and looked through them. Sure enough, the soldiers all had the telltale sign of Verga. The scaly, peeling skin, black, sunk-in eyes, greenish ting to their faces, and the long talons on their hands.
I handed the binoculars back to Travis and pulled my feet close to me. The last time we ran in with Verga, Travis almost had his hand bitten off, and all of our supplies were destroyed. I almost growled.
Travis put a hand on his forehead. “Well, shit. What are we gonna do?” he forgot to lower his voice. I winced and covered my head with my hands absentmindedly. “Woops, sorry,” he muttered more quietly. I hoped they hadn’t heard him, and they were making a lot of noise below us.
“We just have to stay here, and be quiet. They’re pretty pissed with us for trying to steal one of their boats. They’ll be looking on the ground, OK? We’ll be fine as long as we’re quiet. Do you have rations?”
Travis nodded, dug around in his bag a little more, and handed me a black sack. I opened it and almost smiled. There were cheeses, a loaf of fresh bread, three apples, a package of crackers, and something large wrapped in a cloth. I unpinned the cloth and opened it. Now I did smile. There was a huge salmon, smoked and sauced.
I wrapped it up carefully and turned to look at Travis. He was smiling and looking at me expectantly. I set the sack in my lap and said, with all seriousness, “I am so happy I could kiss you right now. How did you get this?”
He grinned at me. “That cleaning girl. She though I was cute. I fed her a story and she went to fetch this. But,” he paused, “I don’t have any water. I didn’t get a chance to fill the bottles.”
“Oh,” My smile faded. “Well, I have one more bottle, but it won’t last us long,” I told him, turning to rummage through my bag to find the bottle. It was a water skin we were also able to sneak into our bags from the street fair in Mexico. It was an ugly little thing with a plastic cap to keep the contents in, but at least it was worth sixteen ounces or life saving liquid. I handed it to him, the rough texture rubbing uncomfortably against my fingers.
He held it in his hand, then grabbed the bag of rations and returned them to his bag. He neurotically grabbed his knife sharpener, pulled his knife out of its clasp on his belt, and started sharpening it. I looked away and started taking in our surroundings, leaning against the body of the tree.
It really was beautiful in Colombia. There were all sorts of animals walking around, some were always close, so I could probably shoot one with my bow if we needed food; different herbs were growing everywhere, streams ran in different places. The breeze carried the scent of ocean to us. I tilted my head up as a gust whished by.
I leaned my head on Travis’s shoulder and closed my eyes, wishing silently that the Verga wouldn’t see us. After a moment Travis started stroking my hair, a rather absentminded gesture.
Then there was a high pitched, piercing scream, and a flaming arrow struck the tree right by my head. My eyes widened and I heard myself scream as if from a distance. Travis leaped up, ripped his bow of its tie on his pack, grabbed an arrow, and shot it down. Another of the high-pitched screams sounded, accompanied by a gurgling sound. My stomach flipped as I grabbed my pack, slung it over my shoulders, grabbed my bow, and started climbing.
Travis shot another three arrows down, and four more came up. He snarled and started following me, his pack clutched in his fingers.
I looked back and saw in horror that the place we had been sitting moments before had gone up in flames. Travis’s face appeared in my line of vision, saying something I couldn’t quite hear. He pushed me upwards and I started climbing.
I stopped and almost fell backward as another arrow landed right in front of me. My eyes burned as the smoke stung them. I cursed as its flame started spreading.
“This way,” Travis took my hand and pulled me to the other side of the tree. He jumped across the space to a neighboring tree, very ungracefully, and spun on the branch to hold out his arms. “Jump!” he called to me.
I looked nervously over my shoulder. The Verga were starting to climb the tree, I could hear their sickening crackle even over the hiss of the now burning tree. Another arrow shot right at me and I scrambled to the edge of the branch and jumped.