Solomon Stone- Survival

by Diana K Potter

  Solomon Stone: Survival

  The Journey Home Series Book 2

  Diana K. Potter

  Copyright © 2019 by Diana K. Potter

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Thank You!

  About the Book

  1. Stone

  2. Alexis

  3. Stone

  4. Alexis

  5. Stone

  6. Alexis

  7. Stone

  8. Alexis

  9. Stone

  10. Alexis

  11. Stone

  Epilogue

  Untitled

  Never Miss a Thing

  About the Author

  Also by Diana K. Potter

  Thank You!

  I would like to personally thank you for purchasing my book. It means the world to me. It’s an honor to have the opportunity to share with you my stories.

  If you missed the first release in this series, you can find here for FREE.

  It’s called Solomon Stone: Captive

  Please click on image to download book.

  About the Book

  Survival!

  The Journey Home Book 2

  The saga continues as Alexis and Stone find themselves stranded on the edge of the Persian desert. They have escaped their captors and the threat of slavery, but more dangers await them. The land they find themselves in is harsh and survival is not easy. They have few supplies and little idea of where they are headed other than home. They must survive the wiles of the desert and their pursuing captors if they ever wish to see their respective homelands again.

  Home, of course, means different things to each of them. For Stone, home is thousands of years and countless miles away. For Alexis, home is Sparta, leagues across the sea, where her mother and sister pray for her return. On their way, they will face down thirst, sickness, and more evil men than they care to count.

  Throughout their travels, the two grow inexorably closer; their bond is something more than what they forged during their captivity. Alexis would say that they are meant to be together, their souls bound as one. But will this connection be enough to keep them alive and together, or will their differences tear them apart?

  Stone

  Once they started walking, it didn’t take them long to find the wreckage of the ship. Aside from the rocky cliffs along the shoreline, it was the only landmark to be found amongst miles upon miles of shell-strewn sand. Jagged wooden pieces jutted upward like broken teeth.

  “Well,” Stone said, inclining his head toward the ruins of the craft. “There she blows.” Alexis raised a brow at the turn of phrase but did not comment on his strange speech as she had done so often aboard the slave ship.

  Their escape had been a few scant hours ago, sometime before the sun had risen. Visions of carnage were still working their way through his brain every time he allowed his thoughts to slow. He had killed a man, maybe two. He could still see the spray of blood as his stolen weapon struck a throat. There was even a bit beneath his nails that the spray of the sea hadn’t managed to wash away.

  They were nearing the wreck when they passed the first of the bodies, a fellow captive. Stone could not bring himself to approach and turn the man over to see if he knew his name or his face. Alexis made no move to do so either. The closer they approached, the more they encountered. They seemed to come to a silent agreement, he and Alexis, looting the bodies of the slavers but not those of the slaves. As Stone bent over his first, fingers checking the man’s pocket for coin and his belt for a canteen, he thought how strange it felt to be so close to a body without grieving, without feeling some sense of personal loss. He still remembered the awful, hollow feeling of standing over his father’s body, looking down into open but empty eyes.

  Stone shook himself, breathed in slowly through his nose, and went back to searching. There was nothing on the slaver that seemed useful, and after a moment of composing himself, Stone moved on to the wreckage of the ship itself. It was not the entirety of the vessel, merely some broken bits that had made their way to the shore. He imagined the bulk of the bestial craft was far below the waves, accessible only to the bravest of swimmers. Maybe someday a group of divers from his own time would happen across the wreck and stare in fascinated horror at the shackles bolted to the wood.

  Stone spotted a loose water-skin in the dirt and snatched it up. He didn’t realize how thirsty he was, mouth bone-dry and growing drier, until he held the leather bladder in his hand and heard the sound of sloshing water. It was more than halfway full. He resisted the impulse to take a drink immediately, and tied it to his belt, alongside the rather ornate dagger he had stolen from the quartermaster. His feet took him next to an overturned crate, mostly empty, but with a few weapons spilling out into the sand. Swords. The dagger at his waist had served him well enough so far, but he had no doubt that something with better reach might prove useful. Stone’s hand was halfway to the one that happened to be at the top of the small pile when a flash of something familiar caught his eye.

  It had been dark when he’d last seen it, illuminated only by the torchlight of the approaching slavers. But he recalled the red stone set in the otherwise plain hilt. He hadn’t realized that the slavers had brought the entire cache of swords along, though it made sense in retrospect, as did Alexis’s assertion that they had referred to him as a thief. When they stumbled across him in the cave, they must have assumed he was there to rob them of their stash.

  Stone picked it up, gripped it skeptically, and closed his eyes for a moment, both afraid and hopeful that, with a thought, it might send him hurtling forward through time, back to where he belonged. There was no rolling thunder in his ears. There was no sensation of falling. He opened his eyes, sunlight searing them where it reflected off the sea ahead.

  The wreckage of the ship still surrounded him, and the sand under his feet was unchanged. He was taken aback by the relief that settled snugly in his chest. He wanted to return home, yes. But he would never have forgiven himself for leaving Alexis alone in such a situation.

  He watched the methodical way she stripped the body before her of its coin purse and water-skin. She held it up, shook it to exhibit that it was not empty, and shot him a slight smile when she realized his face was turned her way. In some ways, he barely knew her. At a guess, he had spent a little over a week aboard the ship, though his grasp of time below deck had felt slippery and unreliable. He knew little about her, other than the information she had dropped here and there in the stories she told. She knew the gods of her homeland. She knew the stars in the skies and how to use them to her advantage. She knew something about fighting and had a dead father.

  He knew all about dead fathers.

  He knew her in other ways, deeper ways. They had bled on each other and slept side-by-side. They were tied together, in a way, and he could not imagine leaving her before seeing her to safety.

  Stone looked down at the sword in his hand before he slipped that one through his belt as well. The decision wasn’t a dilemma he had to face currently. Perhaps the sword only worked one way.

  In all their searching, they found three canteens of water, unspoiled by the salt of the sea. Though not one of them was full, it was certainly better than nothing at all. Food was more plentiful. They grabbed several potatoes and carrots that had floated in on the tide and two bruised apples. Alexis piled them all atop each other in a sack she’d found beneath a board in the sand.

&
nbsp; “Stone,” Alexis called.

  It was still strange to him, the sound of his name on her lips. She was stooping over something in the sand, examining it carefully. He jogged to join her, exhausted muscles aching, and squinted at the markings in the dirt. In the hard-packed sand, they were unmistakable as anything but footprints.

  “Someone made it,” Stone said, eyes traveling away from the sea, following the prints until they disappeared in the looser sand.

  Alexis nodded stoically. “At least one,” she said. “I found two more sets.”

  Stone frowned. As much as he hoped other captives had made it to the shore alive and unharmed, the footprints were an unnerving sight. They could just as easily belong to slavers. He’d boasted just hours ago about killing them with Alexis by his side, but he wasn’t naïve enough to think he would be any good in a real fight, particularly one fought with swords as opposed to fists and feet. He’d been in exactly one playground scuffle as a child and one very short bar-fight as a college student. He shouldn’t have been boasting of anything.

  “Well,” Stone said. “Shit.”

  “Yes,” Alexis sighed in agreement.

  “You think they’re still around?”

  She shook her head, her long, loose hair shifting around her shoulders. The sea had been hard on it, leaving the locks stiff with salt and sand. “I’d say they’ve moved on. Slavers would have attacked us by now. And the others would have recognized us, asked to join together. Regardless, we should move on quickly,” she added. Alexis inclined her head toward the ruins of the ship. “The wreckage is bound to draw looters, people hoping to find food or coin in this mess. They may help us, but they’re just as likely to kill and rob us.”

  Stone let his eyes drift across the sand and the rocky outlines of mountains in the distance. He saw no encroaching threats, but that did not mean they were not there, waiting for their guard to drop, their eyes to close.

  “I’d rather not find out which sort they are,” he said.

  “On that we are agreed. You have taken a sword?” she asked. In answer, Stone turned to exhibit the blade at his hip. “Good. We may have need of it. If you wish for armor as well, there are several dead men upon the shore who match your size. But myself—I want nothing that these bastards have touched against my skin.”

  It was an emotional argument, not a practical one, but Stone found that he agreed. “I can make do without,” he said. If they were lucky enough to find a town before they died of thirst, maybe some of the coin they recovered could be spent on having two sets made.

  There was exhaustion present in every line of her body, but her answering nod was firm. “Very well,” she said. “Let us move on. There is nothing left for us here.”

  ❖❖❖

  Stone had been tired before, but it was nothing compared to the utter weariness that plagued him as he trudged through the sands with Alexis by his side. The sun began at their backs; it was almost pleasant at first, drying their soaked clothing and hair, injecting warmth into their bones that spread outward. By midday, any enjoyment it brought had turned to irritation. Stone could feel it burning his hairline, cooking the skin of his arms where they stuck out from beneath his T-shirt. Worse than this was the constant, nagging thirst. He’d had nothing to drink since the bit of water they were given with dinner the previous evening on the slave ship, before Alexis had been dragged off by the quartermaster to pay an ill-fated visit to the Captain’s quarters. He could vividly recall the sight of the man lying on a blood-soaked floor.

  Stone resolved not to take a single drink until he saw Alexis give in; he found his eyes drifting toward her with more and more frequency as the day passed, but he never caught her in the act. He watched her often, as she was nearly the only thing to look at in the desolate landscape. She walked with purpose, occasionally pausing to survey the lands ahead with a hand crooked over her eyes to shade them. Any time she caught him looking, she straightened her spine, as though to hide any weakness from his gaze.

  When at last the sun began to disappear over the tops of the mountains on the horizon, Stone allowed his feet to stop. His calves burned and his head had begun to throb quite some time ago.

  “I don’t know about you,” he said, his voice a friendly, albeit tired suggestion. “But I can’t take another step. Do you see any potential campsites?”

  There was a sigh of relief in her voice when she turned around to face him, as though, by being the first to admit his fatigue, he had lifted a weight from her shoulders.

  “It all looks the same,” she said. “But there’s a boulder there we could rest against. “

  It was as good a suggestion as any. The remaining distance was covered quickly, and in short order Stone sat in the sand beside her, enjoying the scant shade cast by the large rock. They lifted their water-skins, nearly as one, and drank from them deeply, trying their best not to give into greed. There was still one more, nearly full, buried in the sack with a bit of food. They had taken turns carrying it, and though it had started out feeling light in his hand, by the end of the day, Stone felt as though he were lugging around a bowling ball.

  “It’s a good spot,” he said. “The desert will get cold when night falls. If we’re lucky, this will keep the worst of the wind off us.” He gave the rock at his back a firm pat.

  With a look akin to grief, Alexis stoppered her canteen and set it some distance away from her in the sand. Stone took a final sip before forcing himself to do the same.

  “You’ve traveled in such places before?” she asked.

  “Similar,” he said. “In…the place that I came from, there are deserts like this. The cold comes every night. It’s uncomfortable, but never deadly. The heat during the day will be the real danger.”

  It felt strange, to dance around the truth of his travel, to hide it from her so purposefully when they were sharing everything else. There was no malice in his lies. Try as he might, Stone could not think of a way to phrase his tale that would be well received. It seemed too much like the sort of story an insane man might sprout. He was already having trouble explaining it to himself.

  Hell, maybe he was insane. Among every other possibility, it seemed the most plausible.

  “We’ll be cold then,” Alexis said. “I will not risk a fire tonight.”

  Stone’s eyes scanned the desert once more. The gold of the sand was rapidly fading to a blue-grey as the light dimmed around them. It was disconcerting, the idea of someone watching them with sinister intentions from the top of a distant dune. “You think someone’s close?”

  She lifted a shoulder. Stone smiled at the sight of a familiar gesture in such a strange place. “Is something amusing you?” she asked.

  Stone shook his head. “Just homesick,” he said truthfully.

  The hard lines of her stoic face softened a bit at that. “I am as well,” she sighed. He waited for her to elaborate, to spin a story as she had so often on the ship, but no words came.

  It took some time before the stars Alexis had been waiting for were visible far above their heads. It took even longer before it was truly dark enough to see them well. Stone had spent more than a week aboard the slave ship. Technically speaking, he had been free the previous night, but was far too distracted by the groaning of the dying ship and the dying men to pay attention to what lay over his head. When he tilted his back and stared at the sky, he was astounded at its beauty. In America, he’d always lived in cities or fairly large towns, far too polluted with light to show him such splendor. He’d spent time in isolation beneath the desert sky in Egypt and had considered himself lucky in regard to the view he’d won then. But it was nothing quite like this.

  There were stars beyond counting, silver lights that ranged in size from distant pinpricks to brightly glowing orbs. There was no other light to take away from their beauty, to make it dim in comparison.

  It was Alexis’s voice that finally succeeded in drawing his gaze back to the earth. He could not have looked away on his own. She was
frowning deeply, brows furrowed as she tried to make sense of what she saw.

  “I know the lands of my people well,” she said. “But this is beyond what I have studied closely. We are in Persia for certain, on the opposite side of the peninsula. If we traveled north and east, we would find ourselves in a land of jungles and mountains.” She pointed to the stars above them, though their significance was lost to Stone. “This means home is north and west—a very long way north and west. There will be much more of this desert, if what I have heard is true.” She caught his eye and gave him a wry smile. “If this desert does not kill us, we will likely need to board another ship.”

  Stone laughed in spite of his weariness. It was a short bark of sound, but no less real than one that was long and full. “If the desert doesn’t kill us,” he said, “then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Her forehead wrinkled further. “You have a very strange way of speaking.” A small smile accompanied the words. “I find it amusing.”

  Her words warmed him through. Despite the ache in his head, the terrible dryness of his mouth, and the potential deadliness of their surroundings, Stone’s own smile did not drop away until sleep pulled its veil across his burning eyes.

  Alexis

  It took Alexis a long while to fall asleep despite her incredible tiredness. When she did, she dreamed of rolling thunder and the rattling of chains, wandering hands that gripped too tightly, and a mouth on her neck that did not belong. She slept until the sun rose, but it was a poor sleep, interspersed with nightmares. She woke with her hand clenched tightly, as though around the handle of a blade.