The Exiles (23 page)

Trex froze in his current hiding position. They were scanning the trees for him.

Once again Philton silently directed his men with hand signals.

Trex peaked from his hiding position to see three of the riders coming back towards him. They were going to stop him doubling back. The game was up.

The leading wolf male scanned uncertainly from one side to the other. He was leading the three mounted wolves heading back to the creek. It was unnerving to know that there was a pale orange furred lion somewhere in the immediate green and brown environment, and they couldn't see him at all. The wolf knew that lions were sneaky creatures, and could spring from anywhere.

That was all he was able to contemplate, however, as the end of a rapidly un-flexing staff came hurtling towards him in a wide ark. The blow knocked the exile unconscious and sent him flying off his horse.

Trex jumped down from his hiding place to snatch the completed staff in both hands. At one end of the staff his short sword was attached, to the other, a small axe head with spear point, making it about two and a half meters in total length.

Rushing towards the second rider, Trex forced the horse to rear up in reaction to his threatening short sword blade. Swinging the staff behind his back and around in a wide arc Trex was able to bring the back end of the axe against the side of the second rider, knocking him off. The horse dashed away as the third rider urged his animal forward, sword in hand.

Trex raised his staff, the small metal band moved along its length to solidify were the blade struck. Flexing the wood, Trex was able to absorb the strong blow as the rider shot past.

Trex moved over to the second fallen rider, and without taking his eyes off the third rider, jabbed the dazed wolf in the leg with his tipped spear point. The wolf gave out a shout, but quickly fell unconscious due to the poison on the spears' tip.

‘He's mine!' screamed a voice from behind Trex.

Turning around, Trex could see the brown wolf and his comrade had dismounted, both were coming towards him on foot.

Moving onto some nearby boulders so as to be safe from the riders, Trex took a defensive stance. He could feel the aggression flowing from the two wolves, particularly the brown one, whose anger was almost approaching madness. This didn't affect the lion however; Trex had already decided that he wasn't going to make it anyway, so there was nothing left to lose, or indeed to be scared about.

The brown wolf raced up the moss covered boulders, throwing himself at the lion. Trex deflected the first blow with the short-sword end of his staff, and then pushed forward with the centre of his staff to absorb the second blow. Rolling back as the wolf ran into him, Trex kicked out, sending the brown wolf flying over the top of him. Springing back up to his feet, Trex was in time to deflect the attack of the second wolf. Moving skilfully, Trex held his own.

Utilizing the high ground, Trex forced the wolf back, managing to cork the second wolf's leg and bring him to his knees. Before he could finish him off the brown wolf returned.

Closing on him slowly, the infuriated wolf swung wildly with his short swords. Trex was forced back, the impact of the blows being as strong as what Sara had sent at him.

From a short distance away Philton watched the proceedings. Now dismounted himself, he was approaching the lion slowly, his own weapon drawn. To the other side, another rider had also dismounted. It was the scruffy old veteran.

The wolf with the corked leg was struggling to get back up, his leg unable to hold his weight for the time being.

Trex and the mad brown wolf desperately fought against each other. Philton could feel that the anger was quickly turning into frustration for the brown wolf.

This was where his blind rage let the teenage wolf down. Though his anger made him as powerful as any female, he couldn't control it. He couldn't manipulate it or focus it on a task. Naked aggression was useless on its own, anger made the body ready to react, be it to fight or otherwise, what you did with it, however, was what decided the ultimate outcome, and for that, you needed your head. This was particularly the case against an enemy which could withstand the original onslaught. The young wolf still had much to learn about fighting opponents who were not intimidated by him, particularly lions.

Frustrated, the brown wolf delivered a low, potentially killing, blow.

Only partially able to deflect, Trex was able to manipulate his cloak just in time, the gash only slightly cutting the fabric that covered his upper leg, but there was enough force to draw blood. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Trex instantly changed his style of fighting. Killing the opponent was now an option it seemed.

This was something everyone could feel in the immediate area, it was as if the air had suddenly gotten heavier, as if the two Anthro's were radiating a heat that burnt like the sun.

Philton frowned, unhappy with the development.

Calm like a lion, or enraged like a wolf, the decision to immediately act to kill another Anthro was something that caused a change in all Anthros, it was impossible to hide and easy to feel.

This was also the reason why murder and assassinations were so uncommon on the Anthro world. The intent of the attacker was clear as soon as the impassioned decision had been made to actually undertake it, sometimes before the killer's weapon was even drawn or they were in a position to actually kill their target.

Fighting on desperately, Trex used an opportunity soon after to stab into the brown wolfs arm, causing the wolf to shout out in pain. Twisting, spinning in a tight circle to bring the flat end of the axe around into the back of the wolf's head, Trex watched the brown wolf drop, unconscious, blood pouring out of the wound in his arm.

Looking around, Trex eyed off his last two opponents as he stood in a defensive pose, panting heavily from the effort of fighting. The heat that the lion youth had been radiating seemed to disappear a bit.

‘Give it up,' said Philton patiently.

Trex simply continued to stare back in determination.

Taking their time, the two older wolves closed in from opposite sides. Trex continually had to twist his head to keep his eyes on both of them.

With a nod of his head Philton sent his comrade in. Trex backed up and barely had time to deflect the attack as Philton came in a split second later. He was only able to deflect two more attacks before he was finally out positioned.

Philton hit the staff out off one of Trex's hands, sweeping his extended leg low to knock Trex's feet out from under him. Trex fell flat on his back. Quickly the scruffy wolf stepped forward onto Trex's other arm, pinning him to the ground. Trex looked up as the older adult wolf raised his muscular arm back.

‘The game's over,' were the last words Trex heard before a crashing blow sent him into unconsciousness.

Trex groaned softly as he started to regain consciousness. He could make out a flickering bright light in front of him through his still closed eyelids. Opening his eyes a fraction, he realized that it was a camp fire of some kind. It took his eyes a moment to adjust, but he quickly recognized that it was late evening. All around him the darkness surrounded the campsite, framing everything near the bright yellow flames. Stiff and sore, Trex tried to move his limbs in an attempt to relieve his aching hands. Unfortunately for him, he soon found out that the bounds holding his wrists were too tight. The young lion then realized that his legs were also bound.

Memories came flooding back about the previous fight. Tensing up automatically, Trex immediately tried to calm himself down again, breathing deeply. If he was lucky, no one should have noticed that he had regained consciousness. Trex immediately concentrated on his ears, as the large furry lobes reacted automatically to track sound, it would be a dead give away.

‘The message has been placed,' said a voice Trex did not recognize.

The newcomer had obviously just returned.

‘Good,' said the red wolf Philton.

Trex could make out the newcomer taking a seat by the fire.

‘Where is everyone?'

‘Setting up traps around the camp, I want everyone to get a good night's sleep tonight,' answered Philton. ‘Tomorrow is not going to be easy.'

‘No lookout then?'

‘No,' replied Philton.

Trex opened his eyes just enough to see that it was the same old wolf that had hit him into unconsciousness that was now talking to Philton. Even without opening his eyes, Trex could have recognized him by the smell that suddenly found its way to the lion's triangular nose; so repulsive was the odour that the young lion had to stop himself from gagging.

Trex would have known that he was in a wolf camp even if he was blindfolded. He knew wolves sometimes didn't wash as often as lions, but not even he had expected them to live with the smell that now surrounded him. Trex took the risk and restricted the flow of air through his nose. He was suddenly very glad that lions had developed this ability in their sandy desert environment.

‘How's Shurrn?' asked the smelly older exiles.

‘Still out cold. That lion got him good. That damn poison won't wear off for another day.'

‘What are we going to do with him?'

Trex could feel that the attention had shifted towards him, the lion youth concentrating hard to look asleep.

‘I have a few ideas,' replied Philton. His tone did not carry any particular malice. ‘He could be useful if dear Filfia is reluctant to come out of her home.'

‘How so?'

‘There is a down side to being able to get information from the animals of the forest,' said Philton casually. ‘They're stupid, and easy to trick if you know how.'

‘He he he,' laughed the old wolf, the evil sounding chuckle coming close to a rasp, he understood the leader's train of thought. ‘An injured lion is an injured lion.'

‘Considering what information Sage Filfia has at hand, I would say our dear friend over there could come in very handy tomorrow.'

For some reason Trex suddenly noticed that the wolf males were not wearing any shirts, something he had overlooked until now. He couldn't remember any other time when he had seen a wolf without one. He knew it was a custom for wolf males to wear shirts to cover their chests, something to do with modesty apparently. Trex had never understood it himself, mature female lions also wore cropped shirts or tops, but that was a matter of practicality. It was done to protect their chest bindings when they were working. Nudity in general was not a big issue for lions, for wolves, however, it was apparently.

Thinking back, Trex realized that there were no females at all in the group that had attacked him.

Perhaps they were exiles, Trex thought to himself. Trex had heard of these before, and it made sense, removing their shirts would be a good sign of opposing the female dominated society that had rejected them.

The young male lion was interrupted in his thoughts when he suddenly heard someone coming from behind the tree he was leaning on. Trex could also feel the hostility flowing from the approaching individual. The hatred and anger projecting from the figure left Trex in little doubt about who it was. This was confirmed seconds later when the young lion received a kick to his side, sending him to the ground.

‘When are we going to kill this little bastard?' spat the newly arrived brown wolf.

Trex groaned audibly, there was no point pretending to be asleep now. Scowling, the young lion glared at the brown wolf.

The brown wolf's arm was heavily bandaged where Trex had stabbed him. Remembering his own wound, Trex looked down, his shorts had been torn and his upper thigh bandaged. As he felt no pain he assumed healing ointment had been applied. At least that was a good sign.

Trex had obviously not hit anything vital in the brown wolf's arm, as it was not in a sling. Trex's side throbbed from the kick, and he hoped the brutal young wolf's arm hurt like heck.

‘You may not get the chance to kill him Tomn,' said Philton.

Both Trex and the brown wolf Tomn turned to look at the exile leader in shock.

‘After we kill Filfia we will not be very popular in our own kingdom,' said Philton. He poked the fire absent mindedly with a large stick. ‘It wouldn't be a good idea to do something that would give the lions a reason to hunt us as well.'

‘I'm not scared of lions,' spat Tomn with bravado, his tail flicking back and forth in defiance.

‘Look at your arm Tomn,' warned the older scruffy wolf, ‘and he's only a youth. Your strength alone is not enough against a lion, they're used to it.'

‘Horrist is right,' said Philton, referring to the old wolf sitting next to him.

Tomn stared at the two senior wolves, his ears flat in irritation. Turning to Trex he growled him a warning.

‘You had better be useful lion. There is still a chance I'll get my way.'

Trex glared back at the teenage Anthro, he was too irritated to be scared, but that would change soon enough.

It was a few hours later and Trex was close to falling asleep. As suspected, he had not been offered food or water by his captors and the young lion's mouth was dry. Shifting his weight to try and get comfortable, he looked around the encampment. All the wolves lay asleep, surrounding the dying fire in the centre of the camp. Now that Trex had had time to look around properly he realized that he had been taken to the same ruins that he had wanted to come to in the first place. How ironic that the wolves would chose to camp here.

They were in the central courtyard of a very old palace complex. The surrounding thick stone buildings with their caved in roofs and overgrown toppled walls looking rather peaceful in the occasional moonlight that filtered through a cloudy night sky. The ruins themselves seemed to back onto a cliff face that reached up high above them. The central complex was flanked on both sides by majestic waterfalls and fast running streams. There was only really one way into the area that the exiles where, and that itself was up a steep slope.

Trex calculated that the wolves must have ridden hard for the rest of the day to get here. Trying to free himself from his bonds one more time, the tired lion eventually decided to save his strength, if he was lucky he would get a chance to make a break for it tomorrow.

Trex was in a lot of discomfort, they had also taken his weapons and cloak. He could see them unceremoniously heaped on the other side of the camp.

In the last few hours the young lion had experienced many emotions, fear, pity and anger being only a few of them, none really helped his circumstances however. He had also been worried about the outcome of Flint, he couldn't see the young horse and hoped that meant that the young animal had gotten away and not killed.

As sore as Trex was, exhaustion was starting to kick in. His eyelids where growing heavy, at least if he were asleep there would be no pain.

This was not going to be the case, however, as his ears suddenly picked up the slightest of sounds. Someone was sneaking around. Trex tensed automatically, but kept quiet.

Now what was coming?
the young lion thought to himself.

Sara could see the camp closely now. Scanning the dark ground ahead of her she tried to remember all the places she had seen the traps and alarms placed.

The young female wolf had ridden fast all day to keep up with the exiles. She couldn't have passed them at any stage anyway, so staying on their heels the whole time had been a great advantage. It was too dangerous to travel now, the path being too difficult to follow at night.

Instead, Sara had recognized where the exiles would set camp for the evening. Having quickly tied up Misha the young female wolf had sprinted up the side of the hill after the exiles. She had successfully infiltrated the ruins and found a hiding place before the male wolves had doubled back to set up traps and alarms. Sara had seen the older wolf leave and come back a few hours later, what he had been up to, she could only guess at.

Sara had gotten in, the problem was, now she probably couldn't get out.

Having waited for dark, Sara had snuck across to a position where she could get a good look at the camp and hopefully see what they were up to. Looking over a high wall she had recognized the leader of the exiles and the mad looking brown wolf, their features illuminated by the firelight. What she had not expected was to recognize the lion they had captured from earlier in the day.

It was Trex? Again! Sara couldn't believe it, it was as if her childhood friend was haunting her actions the last few days. What in the world was he doing here?

Leave him there, or get him out
? she had asked herself. She knew instantly in her heart that it was a rhetorical question. It would have been difficult in any case for her to leave any lion in the hands of the exiles. Considering it was Trex, there was no longer a choice; she simply couldn't risk them killing him before she got another chance to get him out.

Sara frowned in the dark. Why did it feel like she had no more control of her actions? Ever since she had gotten into this mess her decisions had been driven by something not particularly logical as far as she was concerned. Sara damned her conscience, when she got back she would have to seriously review her morals.

Once again, Sara found herself sneaking around. She had been doing this a lot lately. You would assume she would be getting better at it.

Trex turned to look at the newcomer who had now come into view from the surrounding dark. The young lion's eyes instantly grew wide in recognition.

Sara placed a finger to her lips, telling him to keep quiet. The wolf youth froze in mid step, if Trex had heard her, perhaps someone else had. Sara had assumed they were all asleep by now, there had been no movement for some time, but suddenly she was not so sure. The female remembered that lions were much lighter sleepers then wolves and had more acute hearing; moving forward again, she withdrew her dagger.

Kneeling beside the lion she worked carefully to remove his bonds. Standing back up she indicated for Trex to follow her. She was surprised when he suddenly shook his head.

Trex had quickly recovered from his shock of seeing Sara again. His tired mind had started to focus instantly on calculating the new options available to him, and these options where quite limited without a few key items that were still missing, his cloak and his staff.

The importance of a lion's equipment had been drilled into Trex's mind throughout his schooling, to the point where the lion now felt quite naked without his special staff and cloak. Though lions could manipulate many types of wood and metal, nothing was as effective as the federation issued items.

Waving his hands, Trex indicated for Sara to remain where she was and that he was going to collect his belongings. Sara didn't understand at first, her dumbfounded expression communicating this quite well without words.