A World Apart The Jake Thomas Trilogy - By Steven A. Tolle Page 0,26

and continued on through the forest, angling away from the stream.

His shoes now drenched in water, he found the going slower. He tried to sprint at intervals, but his body was giving out. His legs were cramping more strongly and the lack of food was draining his energy. Soon, he could only walk and even that was growing more difficult.

As the forest became lighter as dawn approached, Jake heard the sounds of the men looking for him in the distance. The sounds were still far away, but Jake could think of nothing else he could do but to keep moving. He tried to pick up his pace, but he had nothing else to give. His fear began to rise, mind imagining the horrible things that were likely to happen to him when he was caught, as the sounds drew closer.

As he pushed headlong into bushes that rose in his path, the branches ripping his clothes and scratching his skin, he realized that the stream did not provide the diversion he hoped. He could just make out the voices that shouted that they had found his trail and the sounds of feet splashing through the water. He continued to move forward, desperate to get away, knowing that he couldn't.

The voices grew steadily louder as the distance closed between Jake and his pursuers. With the men closing in, Jake's terror caused his body to respond with a final surge of adrenaline, allowing him to make one more sprint. He raced ahead, only focused on trying to gain some distance, his wet shoes making squishing sounds as he ran. As a wall of bushes appeared ahead of him in the faint light, he simply lowered his head and ran through them. As he crashed through the branches, eyes closed and breath raggedly pushing in and out of his lungs, he came to a sudden stop as he hit something large that was both hard and soft, as well as warm.

He was staggered by the collision and collapsed to the ground, his momentum causing him to roll a couple of times. He tried to stand back up, but his legs cramped and he went back down. He pushed himself over onto his side and looked around, trying to determine what he had hit.

He saw that he was in a clearing, ringed on three sides by bushes. There was a small fire pit in the middle and he saw a saddle and sleeping blanket lying on the ground next to it. He saw that through the legs of a large black horse, standing a couple of feet away, its head, shoulders and front flanks covered in grey steel armor. Jake must have hit it in the side and bounced off. The horse reared back, its teeth bared, front metal-shod hooves wheeling. Jake could only stare and wait for the hooves to fall when a deep voice called out. "Stand, Shadow!"

The horse came back down, snorting and swinging its head. A tall man, at least six three or six four, wearing a metal breastplate, greaves and vambraces over brown leather pants and a tan shirt, stepped from behind the horse. In the early morning light, Jake could see that the man was muscular with short dark hair, with some gray sprinkled in, and bright blue eyes. The man would have been considered handsome, except that his lean and hard face was lined with multiple scars, with an especially wicked looking one that ran from above his right eye, down diagonally across his nose and ending near his jaw line on his left cheek. He wore a brown leather belt with a long dagger and an empty sheath for the long doubled-edged sword in his right hand. Besides the weapon, Jake sensed a dangerousness, an air of violence, radiating from the man and knew this had to be the Master that Matus had mentioned. He cried out in frustration and fear, trying to crawl away.

"Easy, boy." The man said, his deep voice rumbling. "I'm not going to kill you. What has you so terrified that you were running blind?" Jake did not respond as he continued to crawl, his only thought to get away from this man.

The man simply reached down and grabbed Jake's leg with his left hand and pulled him back towards his fire, Jake clawing at the ground to stop him. He stopped, dropped Jake's legs and grabbed his arm. His grip was firm, but not cruel, as he flipped Jake onto his back.