Chapter Five: Exile

Draike numbly finished strapping the final satchel to the packhorse, his fingers slipping clumsily over the animal-hide bonds. Beside him Tane was checking the ties of his own packhorse, his face drawn and pale. He always masked his emotions so well, unlike Draike. What was left of the citizens of Toff were gathered beside the smoldered debris that was once the fort, their faces hard and pitiless. Draike sighed and walked to where the royal family was standing off to the side of the crowd.
“The servants have all been sold and shipped off to the South, Your Majesty,” a steward was telling Kenton.
“You sold the servants?” Draike stammered, his heart wrenching at the thought of Kyra going so far, perhaps being owned by a cruel master that would whip her for every little mistake. The steward glared at him before stalking off, and Draike held his tongue. Kenton opened his mouth to bid farewell to his son, but was interrupted as Rhoda pounced on him, shoving the Prince into a charred tree.
“You little bastard!” she shrieked, her nails digging into his cheeks, “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? All of my best gowns, my treasures, all gone because of you!” He suppressed a cry of pain as the coarse bark of the tree bit into his still tender back, but he could not remain silent when his mother thrust her pointed heel into his shin, or when she began bashing his head back against the tree repeatedly. His vision swam as Rhoda was dragged away by the steward and her only remaining serving woman. “I hate you, Draike!” she cried as they pulled her away, “If it hadn’t been for you, she would be here! You murderer! You killed her!” Her shouts died away as she was pulled out of view behind the wreckage of the fort, but her accusations seemed to hang on the still air.
Draike was mortified that everyone he knew had openly witnessed his mother’s cruel abuse, and even more furious that none of them would care. Only his father placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and gave him a weak smile of encouragement. The King led his son to the horses and waiting guards, passing the other royals as they marched. Queens Nadya and Talla both turned their pretty heads away as he trudged by, but Dwayne met his eyes with a glare of sheer loathing.
As they passed the crowd, Draike was reminded with a stab of misery that Stefan was not there, that he would never be there again. He straightened his spine and focused on the waiting horsemen ahead of him as he marched down the seemingly endless path through the people who hated him. At last he was mounting his favorite stallion, its plaited mane blowing in the light breeze. “I wish with all my heart that I did not have to do this, but banishment is the price for such selfish carelessness. Farewell, my son,” Kenton whispered sadly, gently kissing his son’s gloved hand.
“Farewell father,” he replied morosely, the King’s words stinging his heart. The guards immediately closed in around them, quick glances of bitter hatred escaping from their eyes. The head guard, the one with the scraggly beard that abhorred Draike so, shouted a command and the caravan began to gallop away from Fort Toff, gaining distance until at last their home had disappeared over the rolling plains.

“Don’t worry, Draike,” Tane said quietly as they spread out their sleeping mats on the grassy slope, “You’ll like Blasterk; it’s where I spent my first years of childhood, and my father will surely welcome you.” The other prince said nothing as he reclined on the thin blankets, gazing up at the stars dancing in the heavens.
“Don’ even bother tryin’ to escape,” the captain of the guards warned as he pulled out his mace, “the wolves will get ya’ before ya’ make it past the hills.” Draike sighed heavily and closed his eyes, images of Toff flashing behind his eyelids. Only three days gone and I’m already homesick, he thought resentfully and tried to sleep, but the warning of wolves kept him tossing about most of the night. The three days of traveling had mostly been over the hilly plains, but they had also briefly passed through the smaller villages and forts that bordered Toff. Each time they left one, Draike felt more keenly the sense of abandoning civilization and hope.
One town they passed through shocked Draike to the core. They had stopped to buy a few supplies in a withered marketplace. As Draike and Tane waited for one of the soldiers to finish bartering with a merchant, they dared to wander around. As they crept passed an upturned cart by an abandoned stall, Tane let out a sharp gasp. Draike turned and froze as he saw what had startled Tane.
A blackened hand was peeking out from beneath the cart, its fingers clenched as if trying to hold something in its leather skin. Bright pustules were leaking with a foul smell and vile substance onto the dirt road while ants poured into the open wounds.
“What happened?” Draike heard himself whisper numbly.
“The pestilence, I suppose,” Tane replied, referring to any of the numerous diseases that crept across Lunécal. He had never seen the effects of any, only heard the rumors. It had all seemed such a myth before, and now he was staring it in the face. “Let’s move on before we catch it too,” Tane warned, pulling Draike toward the end of the marketplace.
They passed a number of dying people. Some from poverty, others from disease, and more yet from starvation. “What’s become of this kingdom?” Draike whispered once, to which Tane had no reply.
Later, as they were leaving with the soldiers, they passed the fields of the village and were unable to believe their eyes. Rows and rows of dead and emaciated crops. Acres of fields bearing scorch marks as their only witnesses. Draike had never realized how sheltered he had been living at Toff, and how much their country was suffering.
But who was to do anything about it? This kingdom was Kenton’s domain. The whole country was divided up into kingdoms, though Toff was one of the more prominent ones because the great Mara Temple, the home of those who devoted their lives to Jik. This was the reason that so many kingdoms wished for their princes to be fostered in Toff.
They passed through other villages, witnessing more scenes of scarcity and death, but the true horrors were yet to come.
The fourth night was the worst. The torrential downpour made it impossible to see and soaked them to the bone. The horses reeked and trotted slowly through the stormy night. Tane was beside Draike, his eyes dark and angry as he shivered. “Can’t we make camp soon?” the Prince of the Blasterk begged the guards.
One of them shook his head and shouted through the rain, “No, we’re too close to the Forbidden Wood.” Draike was almost glad of his refusal as he gazed nervously into the shadowed depths of the trees beside them. He wished that they could have taken another route to Blasterk, but the guards had insisted that skimming the forest was the fastest way to reach Silviast, the only known path through the Forbidden Wood. They were caught in between the brim of the trees and the grassy tors that towered above them like slumbering giants. The Wood loomed up around them, seemingly edging closer as if to swallow them.
Draike tried to blink the freezing water from his weary eyes, but more replaced it. He could feel his drenched clothes heavy and cold against his skin, providing neither warmth nor shelter from the downpour. The rain drowned out all other sounds, filling his ears like crashing waves cresting against a mountain. Perhaps this is why they did not hear the snapping twigs or see the shadows darting through the trees beside them.
“Tane,” Draike shouted as quietly as he could manage and still be heard, “Is…is it true about the elves?”
“How the Hell should I know?” he snapped, his normally patient composure melting away with the rain. Draike silently admonished himself for forgetting his friend’s sensitivity when discussion turned to rumors about his homeland. He began to yell out an apology, but swallowed his words as his horse began to whinny nervously and buck, nearly kicking one of the guards.
Draike clung to the reins and tried to whisper soothing words into its flattened ears, but his horse would not have it. Suddenly all of the other horses began to trot fretfully, the bucking and kicking unseating a few guards. Through the rain, a low growl reached their ears. “Wolves!” one of the guards cried, spurring his horse into a gallop.
The others mimicked him and began to dash away from the brim of the Wood, forgetting their duty to escort the princes as the dark shapes appeared behind them, deep howls echoing through the storm. Draike stayed close to Tane, the boys urging their horses faster with the heels of their boots. They both cried out as the snarl sounded behind them, followed by the loud thump of a falling horse and the sickening tearing of flesh. The guard did not even have time to scream.
Draike risked a glance backwards, almost able to see the creatures through the rain. It was then that he noticed that they were bigger than normal wolves, and moved differently, more of a lurching gallop than a dash. Their dark fur was soaked flat from the rain, their teeth bared as their muzzles twisted with growls, exposing pink gum edged with black. Muscled hind legs propelled them farther while their front paws dangled out in front of them. Werewolves, he realized with horror, remembering the tales his father used to tell him when he was only a child begging for a bedtime story. He turned again and followed Tane through the storm, his horse’s hooves kicking up a torrent of thick mud.
There was no sign of respite ahead; only a long path between the Forbidden Wood and the steep hills. Draike noticed that all of the guards were gone now, leaving only Tane and him. The pounding of paws behind them bade the princes to go faster, though their horses kept skidding through the muck. Draike felt weak and nauseas as he clung to the slippery reins of his stallion, fear tingling up his numb body as the howls grew closer.
Tane’s horse stumbled and nearly crashed into a tree on the edge of the forest. He pulled back on the reins and leaned to the side, and his horse narrowly missed the tree. But as it broke away from the forest edge, its back leg stuck fast in some deep mud. It bucked, twisted, and then fell. Draike stopped his horse and cried out to Tane as he rolled out of the way. The horse’s hind leg was twisted at an odd angle and try as it might to stand, the beast only succeeded in falling once more.
Draike’s heart pounded as he halted his horse beside Tane, the thundering howls of werewolves growing closer with every breath. “Get on!” he cried, reaching his hand out to Tane, his light brown hair plastered across his eyes as he leaned down, nearly slipping off of the saddle.
Tane looked up at him thoughtfully for a long moment before shaking his head. “Two men on one horse will only succeed in creating another meal for those monsters. You have to go without me.”
“No! I already lost Stefan and Kyra, I’m not losing you!” Draike began to slide off the side of his horse, but was forced to sit up again and cling to its mane as Tane slapped its flank, causing the anxious beast to break into a painful gallop. “Tane!” Draike called miserably, his words lost in the storm He tried to stop his horse, but the terrified creature refused his orders.
At last he managed to calm it and force it to turn around, though the pack was far back on the trail. His heart was beating painfully against his chest as his tears merged with the rain. From the corner of his eye, he saw something dashing down the steep slope of the hills, running towards the path. He squinted through the rain and saw that it was a dark figure on a pure white stallion, a naked broadsword in hand. As it neared the bottom of the hill, it turned and began to gallop towards him.
He tensed himself for an attack, wishing that he had some means of defense. The rider tore through the downpour, his black cloak billowing out behind him. He halted his horse beside the shivering prince, his sword dripping and his horse restless. His black hood hid his features, but from within it a man’s voice shouted, “The others are taking care of the werewolves! We have to get you out of here!”
“Others?” Draike whispered as the man seized the slick reins of Draike’s horse and quickly led him farther down the mucky path. Draike followed the man’s blurred shape until at last the towering hills flattened out into a controllable slope. They urged their horses to climb the hillock, the beasts slipping and tumbling, and somehow managed to scale the tor. Draike gasped as he looked over what was once the plains; now the bases of spiraling, grey mountains were looming against the skies. He had no time to gawk as the cloaked rider urged him on, leading him closer to the crags.
As they galloped across the stretch of land between the Forbidden Wood and the mountains, the rain beating mercilessly against their numb, stinging faces, six more riders joined the group, forming a protective circle around Draike. One rider shouted out through the dying rain, “They were already gone, Bryne!” It was the coarse voice of a woman sounding from within the flapping hood, and it sent violent shudders across Draike’s frame. The man who had led him away shouted out a reply but the wind stole his words. The woman responded with something that sounded like: “There was no sign of the Wolf Prince; the others must have hidden him away.” A great sense of dread and defeat flooded through Draike’s body as he realized that he had just lost his best and final friend. Nervous, he looked around for means of escape, but the dreaded forest seemed his only option and his venturing there meant certain death.