As soon as her words were heard by everyone, arrows and spears flew out of the woods toward me and my friends.
Thankfully, before any of these sharp and deadly weapons could even hit us, Bellamy broke through the trees with a rifle in his hands and started firing up into the trees on the other side of the river where the grounders were hiding. Not even a few seconds after Bellamy started firing the rest of his team joined him, proving us with some good cover fire for us to get off of that bridge.
Seeing that their ambush failed, Anya pulled out a knife from her glove and was about to stab me, but luckily for me, I caught her arm, before she could stab me to death. As I was in a hurry, I did what everyone would have done in my situation and that was to simply punch Anya's stomach sending her to the ground before throwing the knife into her shoulder, taking her out while we continue escaping from this open area.
Clarke, who was the closest to me, tried to move back towards Finn just in time to barely avoid a spear that hit where she had been standing a second ago. Finn quickly ran to her side and helped her get back on her feet before the two of them made their way towards Octavia and Lincoln while the Grounders continued to shoot arrows at them. Thankfully the counter fire from our side took down quite a few grounders, decreasing the amount of firepower the grounders could throw at us.
Unfortunately, one stray shot hit Lincoln in the arm while another hit his shoulder as he used his body to protect Octavia. Before Octavia could do anything stupid, I put her on my shoulder and nodded at him, knowing very well that we won't be killed by Anya as I dragged Finn and Clarke after me.
The team that was covering our retreat quickly made their way towards us as soon as we got out of the open area before we all made a run towards our camp.
It would take us more than an hour before we can reach our camp, of course, that was the best case where the grounders, who are familiar with this forest won't chase after us, further dismissing our numbers or slowing us down.
Just as we run past a tree, a grounder jumped from above us right on top of Clarke. Finn, who was the closest to her, grabbed the rifle that Bellamy gave him and unloaded a whole magazine into the grounder's head. The grounder's jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman's, his nose was undamaged, there was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear, his clean black hair was swept upward into a cowlick at the rear of the skull, his forehead was lightly freckled, his fingernails were clean, the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips, his right cheek was smooth and hairless, there was a butterfly on his chin, his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny flowing out of this body right on Clarke.
The horrifying sight of a man being mutilated like that forced some of the people to throw up, but Bellamy and I were the only ones that forced that urge back before we quickly grabbed Clarke and brought her back on her feet, while Finn was still looking at the now dead grounder with wide opened eyes.
"Oh, man, you trashed the grounder," Connor said. "You scrambled his sorry self, look at that, you did it, you laid him out like shredded fuckin' wheat."
"Please stop, speaking!"
"I'm just saying the truth. His head burst open like a watermelon."
"Just shut up, Connor!"
"Okay, then, I take it back, Leon. I'm sorry Spacewalker."
Connor started to move towards the rest of us while leaving the unstable spacewalker to catch up to us.
Seeing Finn still looking at the dead body, I knew that I had to do something or else we wouldn't get over his first kill anytime soon.
"Finn! C'mon, we have to move."
"Leon… I-I killed the grounder…"
"All right, let me ask a question, do you want to trade places with him or let Clarke be in his place? Turn it all upside down—you want that? I mean, be honest. Do you want your girlfriend to be killed by them?"
"I-I…"
"Finn, we are at war. The guy wasn't an innocent kid or even a farmer—he had a weapon, right? It's a tough thing, for sure, but you got to cut out that staring. Clarke is still in danger and we need to get home for god's sake, so for her sake please snap out!"
It took him a whole minute before Finn nodded his head at me. We quickly reached the rest of the team before we continue running toward our camp.
The closer we were to our camp, the more obvious was the feeling of being g watched by grounders I carried the rifle with my finger on the trigger guard ready to spray anything that jumped up. I kept picturing all of my friends already dead, with their bodies hung on the walls and an army of grounders already waiting for us inside the walls, but luckily for me, that was just a bad thought, after all the grounders won't even reach the walls before they are filled with lead.
Grass thinned out down near the creek made us sigh in relief as we were close to our home, yet all around the dense and dangerous forest nothing was heard as if the whole forest was asleep. The creek was low as it waited for the next rain to gorge it with water gushing through the valley like opening a giant faucet. The enemy signs were everywhere—sword trails hacked through thickets, the grass is beaten down, broken branches or even dead animals. . . . The grounders were out here no doubt about it. And lots of them.
Even when you expected to be hit, it almost always came as a total surprise. One moment I could hear the chuckle of the nearby creek, the distant strident call of a bird, the rustle of rodents in the grass, my own breath. . . . The next moment everything exploded in my face. As soon as the first arrow missed us, I heard my friends yelling and screaming in surprise, fear, and rage, responding to training by returning fire, our rifles sounding a thinner, more rapid counterpoint to the silent arrows and spears that were thrown at us.
"Ambush! Take cover!"
As soon as I yelled my order, I wheeled toward the action, swung my rifle forward, and lay on the trigger, firing from the hip like some kind of movie actor. Bellamy with his assault rifle and Finn with his own one joined my mad charge into the very teeth of our unseen assailants. We functioned automatically, depending on training drills and raw adrenaline. The rest of the trained delinquents screamed and shouted like demons, every weapon on auto-fire. We crashed directly into the ambush, sending grounders fleeing for their lives. I continued pumping rounds into the forest, cutting down foliage until the gun clicked on an empty chamber before I yelled to stop firing.
"Cease fire, team! Cease fire! They left, we won!"
The fight ended as quickly as it began in my first combat firefight where I lead my people. I found myself breathing heavily from excitement, as the pungent scent of gunpowder and blood hung in the air as our attackers got away, hauling their asses uphill and disappearing toward their homes with no attempt to further attack our little group. Sadly, we didn't get out of this engagement unscratched as Connor got himself killed by a spear straight through his chest. He was the first of many that would day in the upcoming days and in a way, I was feeling angry at how stupid I was and how easily I trusted the grounders, alas it wasn't Lincoln's fault, but still, that showed us how little the words are worth for the grounders.
When we finally reached the gates of our walls, we all stopped running and start breathing hard. Everyone looked upset, scared, and even angry, but no one was as angry as Clarke. She could not stop staring at me like some betrayed puppy.
"The grounders said no weapons! Why did you bring Bellamy and a team with guns there?"
"In order to save our lives, princess. Otherwise, those grounders on that bridge would have killed us! And, as much as I would like to continue this meaningless fight, we must prepare. War is on the way."