Jonah’s Run
As Jonah fell from the balcony he could hear his mother screaming. Air pushed up all around him. His breath was heavy as his heart caught in his chest. He was in a state of panic and could barely comprehend what had just happened.
Crack! His back thrashed against a tree limb, knocking it free. Snap! Crack! His neck hit a smaller limb, and then his legs thrashed into another. Crack! Crack! He knocked two more limbs free, and felt the air go out of him as a large limb punched against his stomach and he suddenly found himself going quickly to the ground.
Thump! Sudden pain shot through his skull. All went dark.
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A bright light shone into Jonah’s eyes as he slowly opened them. His head pulsed with searing pain. He could have been unconscious for moments or hours, he had no way of telling. Why? he thought. Why did we have to come here? My family…
The city’s bells tolled and he looked to the sun above. It seared his eyes. Noon, he thought as he pushed himself up from the dry earthen street. I’ve got to get out of here before Thomas’s knights find me.
Jonah ran quickly through the streets, hugging the shadows of buildings and stealing a few apples and dried meat from peddler’s carts so that he’d have something to nourish himself in the days to come. He headed for the river, the only place he could think of to go, the place where his home had once been.
The boy waited by the docks in a patch of tall reeds. Where to go? Tears streamed from his eyes. He still could barely believe that his family was dead. He could vividly picture his father’s body lying on the ground as blood gushed from his neck. He lay low on the bank, trying to decide his next move.
Day passed to night and Jonah ran along the riverbank in the moonlight. His feet kicked up the moist ground as he ran. He could hear crickets and frogs singing throughout the night. It wasn’t until he was deep into Havilah’s wild-lands that he allowed himself to rest in the center of a large bush, his head lying on a moist pile of leaves.
Days passed and gave way to months as Jonah lived off of whatever he could capture and kill, often dining on crickets and worms. On good days he would catch fish or kill a deer and cook and eat as much of it as he could before it spoiled.
After three months, he was famished.
Then, one crisp morning, he awoke to men’s voices nearby where he lay, in a field of tall grasses.
“We should go back,” one man said. “Thomas will be merciless if we leave.”
“We can’t now, even if we want to,” a second, deeper voice, replied. “Surely he would have our heads. Besides, Havilah is no longer our home. The mercenaries he hired from beyond the Euphrates River to replace us are nothing like our people. Thomas is not a king that I will serve any longer.”
Jonah lifted his head just slightly in the swaying grasses. He could make out the armor of two of Thomas’s knights before him. Sunlight gleamed off of their armor’s plates.
“Then where will we go?” the first knight asked.
“A company of defectors is heading for Cush. I plan to be on their ship. Maybe we can protect Cush’s people from the raids Thomas is sending into their lands to take jewels and gold for his coffers.”
“I will come with you, if you will have me,” the first knight did not hesitate.
They walked away from Jonah now, and he could barely see the tops of their heads in the morning sun.
To Cush? Isn’t that where they said Lilya went? Someone should warn her of what’s going on here. A cool breeze whipped through his tattered clothes. Should I make myself known?
Jonah thought about this for a long while, following the two men silently in the grasslands as he made his decision. When he finally made his choice he decided he would go with them. But he would sneak onto their vessel in case there were spies aboard who were working for Thomas and would report back to him.
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Days later, Jonah waited patiently on a riverbank by docks on the outskirts of Havilah for the boat of defecting knights to sail by. He had picked a narrow part of the river where the ship would be forced to come close to him. He huddled low in the grass with a hollow reed clutched tight in his hand.
At midday the boat came, and all its men wore brown robes that covered them so that no one could tell who they were. Even the men working the sails and the man in the crow’s nest were disguised.
It’s now or never, Jonah thought as he leaned into the river and kicked like a frog beneath its waters. He held the reed to his lips, with its top above the river, and breathed in air as he moved slowly toward the ship, hoping not to be seen.
He could see the bottom of the vessel before him, slowly lumbering past, and thought how strange it was to not hear these men singing songs as their boat pulled away. This day is truly filled with sadness for them. They leave their homes and their people, all they have ever known. This is just such a day for me. Everything I’ve ever loved is gone.
“Don’t let us die in vain!” his mother’s words echoed in his mind as fish swam about him and the back of the boat came into view. I won’t, mother, he thought, taking a full breath of air through the reed.
With a swift motion, he swept his arm through the waters and grabbed a board of the ship that was not quite flush with the rest of the hull. He held tight to it, letting his reed be swept off into the river and lifting his head above the water and into the air once more. He breathed another slow, but deep breath.
Hand over hand he climbed the back of the vessel until he neared a dark window in the lower deck of the ship. He listened for people inside. When he heard nothing, he tightened his muscles and swung inside of the boat’s hull.
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