The Exiles (29 page)

The rest of the exiles were engaged in stand-off combat with all kinds of beasts; insect, bird, furry, scaly, cold blooded and warm blooded of every size. Filfia strode towards Philton; his own projected aggression was keeping the animals away from himself.

‘So this is what you have stooped to?' Filfia accused the exile. The two were effectively alone in the centre of the hectic battle.

‘An exile is what I am,' replied Philton, the aggressive tone in his voice heightening, ‘thanks to you.'

The two circled each other slowly, sizing up each other.

‘I may as well be the greatest exile there ever was,' Philton spat. He detested the limits that had been imposed upon him.

‘It was that attitude that got you into trouble in the first place,' replied Filfia coldly.

‘In trouble with a sexist system, lead by narrow minded bigots, and power hording females.'

‘There is nothing I could do about that,' Filfia countered, not unkindly.

‘But you did nothing to help!' Philton shouted, lunging at the female Sage. Filfia caught the powerful blow with her staff, but was unable to push away as she struggled to hold back the angry male. Philton used his height advantage to press his attack, feeling the weakening of his hated opponent as the poison continued to take effect. He grinned viciously as she was forced to take a step back.

‘I had other responsibilities,' growled Filfia as she twisted to sidestep the standoff.

Swinging her staff expertly, she forced Philton onto the back foot and into a series of blocks.

‘Always the calculating one, nothing could ever melt your heart!' shouted Philton as he again counterattacked.

After a series of blocks and blows their weapons locked together once more. The red male leaning forward to close the distance between their two faces.

‘So this is how you take your revenge? Killing me?' she shouted. Summoning enough strength, Filfia pushed her staff forward and launched the male wolf back a few meters.

Landing on his feet, Philton slid backwards a few paces before coming to a stop. With this interruption in their own fight, both were able to take stock of the situation. Around them lay many dead, injured or unconscious animals, as well as two injured exiles. The last of the animals had fled, leaving the remaining exiles to surround the Sage. Filfia's left leg gave way underneath her, the last effort having left her shaken. Philton stood up calmly, grinning evilly in his apparent victory.

‘Revenge?' he scoffed. ‘This is nothing so personal. I'm here on contract for the Mintury Society. There's a price on your head my dear, and its worth a lot more then even the price on mine.'

Sage Filfia was panting now, leaning for support on her staff, looking up at the handsome red wolf with disgust in her eyes.

‘I've become as cold as you,' Philton stated with an impartial face.

Filfia could still sense the hatred that bubbled behind his apparent cool façade.

‘It's only business!'

Filfia's eyes flinched for a split second, she could sense something approaching. This wasn't over yet. Philton had obviously not sensed the new arrival. Flooding her mind with thoughts, she projected a feeling quite uncommon for her, fear. All of the exiles were overcome by her apparently frightened state. Her fear was mixed with their own aggression, causing them to laugh viciously, pausing for a second to savor the terror of this pathetic creature they had themselves feared only moments before. Even Philton stopped for a second, unsuspecting that this was only a way to blind his own attention.

Sara could also feel the terror, as well as the surrounding rage. Spurring Mish forward through the forest she sped up even more. Trex felt the increased tension as well and urged Flint on. The young lion was already arming his prepared short bow as Sara drew her sword. The two burst through the low shrub on the edge of the forest into the grassland at top speed.

Filfia's change was instantaneous. Summoning the last of her strength, she sprinted away from Philton towards two of the younger exiles that had encircled her.

Instantly readying themselves, one gave out a shout as he was struck in the shoulder by one of Trex's arrows. This caused his companion to turn in shock, giving Filfia a critical second of advantage.

Launching herself high into the air, Filfia somersaulted over the surprised exile, swiping low with her staff so as to force him to block. Landing on all fours she jumped towards the newly appeared riders. Sara leant over to grab the Sage's arm, and in one swinging motion threw the Sage up behind herself onto the riding cloth. The Sage grabbed the young female wolf around the waste.

The only exile still in reach recovered from his initial shock and lunged towards Sara. Misha automatically weaved to avoid the blade that was heading straight for her. Sara leant against the angle of her horse to block the blade as it sliced at the side of her animal. Another exile moved to intercept but had to dive to avoid a further arrow fired from Trex. Before anyone else could react the two horses were already clear and sprinting away from the shocked group of male wolves. A furious shout of rage escaped Tomn's lips as he watched the fleeing riders.

‘Get the horses!' shouted Philton. ‘Leave the injured! She must die now!'

The fury in Philton's voice was distilled conviction itself; none of the exiles, even the enraged Tomn, hesitated to run at top speed back to their animals. Each male's head was filled with a piercing single-mindedness: Sage Filfia must die!

Sara concentrated on gaining ground from the exiles, not particularly interested on where she was headed.

‘Follow the crescent peak back to my house, there is a pass behind it,' instructed the Sage in a weak voice, her tired arm pointing towards a mountain top.

Sara nodded. Feeling the strength fading from the Sage's body, Sara maneuvered herself so as to pin Filfia better to her back. The young wolf hoped that it would be enough to ensure that her passenger wouldn't fall off of the speeding Misha.

Sage Filfia herself had no energy left. She had little choice but to let her body be thrown around like a lifeless sack on the back of the speeding horse.

With the last of her stable thoughts, she wondered who this young wolf was that had saved her, and more interestingly, what a young lion was doing helping her? These were strange saviors indeed. And as the blackness started to creep into the mind of the older female, her last thoughts wondered if she was indeed saved, if she remembered anything about Philton, it was that he was as stubborn as a bear.

Misha and Flint sped through the grasslands and forests of the high mountains, spurred on by their nervous owners. Both of the galloping horses were breathing erratically. This was not surprising, considering that they had been at a decent run now for more then an hour. Misha, in particularly, was feeling the strain. Having already taken a nasty tumble today the poor animal now found herself having to carry an extra wolf on her back.

Even with the overflowing positive encouragement from Sara, the horse was deteriorating rapidly to the point of physical exhaustion. Sara could feel the life energy of her gallant steed starting to drain away. It was sapping Sara's determination. The pain of her beautiful horse was even greater due to Misha's sacrificial efforts on behalf of her owner.

Anger and determination started to turn into anguish and bewilderment as the emotional feedback between owner and animal spiralled downwards. Finally Misha's physical exhaustion broke through the dam of emotional support from Sara and Misha slowed to a trot.

Though Flint now trusted his owner Trex, it was far easier for the emotional animal to take encouragement from the Anthro wolf. Without Sara's support, Flint too began to lose motivation in the face of exhaustion.

Trex felt the sudden
low
as well, but steeled himself against it. Using his lion training, he blocked the negative emotions from affecting his mind, his expression became impassionate.

Sara, caught in the grip of hopelessness, looked back desperately towards Trex.

‘Misha can't go on,' she said in anguish, ‘I don't know what to do.'

Trex looked around quickly. They were close to the base of a cliff; the rocky outcrop looked just climbable, but impassable for horses. Trex couldn't help but fall back on a lion's basic instinct when being chased, climb.

‘We have to climb.' Trex said sternly. ‘We can try and hold them off from up there.'

He jumped off his tired horse. The young lion was also exhausted. His injured leg felt like it was on fire, the wound had reopened and the bandage was stained with blood. Despite his injuries he was nevertheless focused, spurred on by Sara's previous determination. He was not going to give up. Trex moved up behind Sara to gently take the unconscious Filfia off Misha's back. The young lion strained with the adult wolf's weight, she was considerably heavier then she looked.

Sara also dismounted, immediately moving to cuddle the face of the exhausted Misha.

‘I'm sorry Misha,' whispered Sara, tears in her eyes.

Trex's horse Flint immediately moved over to console the distraught pair. Trex turned to look at the group, Sara's mind was still flooded with emotions, but they were now the wrong type.

‘Sara, we have to move on,' he said seriously.

‘What's the point?' said Sara dismissively. ‘There's no way we can outrun them.'

Trex had to think about this for a second, unsure of what to say, they were running out of time. Thinking back to his classes on handling emotions, he said, ‘Misha believed in you, and now you have to believe in yourself.'

Sara simply looked at the lion.

‘Or are you going to make Misha's efforts worthless?' Trex challenged. ‘Look, we'll send up a distress arrow and then climb the outcrop over there.' He pointed to the nearby steep stone slope. ‘I'll tie Filfia to your back and you can climb. I'll hang back and slow down the exiles.'

Sara looked over at the cliff, the distraction was working. Trex could feel her mind calming down slightly to consider his idea.

‘I'm not prepared to give up, someone could come, you never know,' Trex continued, shrugging his shoulders as if the whole thing was just some sort of game. ‘Or are you too scared to try? It's your life.'

The small-talk seemed to work. Although Trex could not project emotions, his words unlocked new thoughts in Sara's mind, thoughts that carried their own emotions, and ones that could bring her back from her short term intense despair.

Emerging from a cloud of confusing mental static, Sara breathed deeply. A few tears ran down her face, effectively bleeding out the excessive emotions. Her expression changed and Trex could feel the determination streaming back into her.

Smiling in satisfaction, Trex moved forward. Taking the second section of staff from his back he transformed his short bow into a longbow. Grabbing a signal arrow from his sheath he concentrated for a second to transform the properties of the material in the chemical tip.

‘Right, let's do this,' said Sara, her voice gruff with determination.

‘All right little miss power house, you draw the string and I manipulate the bow, we release on my say, ok,' instructed Trex, now completely in charge.

Sara nodded. Taking the bow and arrow from Trex, she aimed it straight up above her head. Trex moved up next to her and put his hands on either side of her left hand as it gripping the bow. He was just brushing the arrow with his fingers. Concentrating, he could feel Sara pulling back the string powerfully. Trex manipulated the strength and flexibility of his bow, allowing the tension to build. The energy quickly grew to a critical point. Sara grimaced with effort as the bow began to shake slightly. Never before had the wood, metal and bone of the staff/bow have to store so much power. Trex's last thought was focused on quickly stiffening the arrow to take the acceleration without snapping.

‘Now!' shouted Trex.

Sara released the string and the arrow screamed into the air. A piercing howl filled the mountain valley as the arrow clawed its way furiously ever higher, it went so high that it was difficult to see against the bright morning sky. The arrow had definitely cleared a lot of the surrounding smaller mountain peaks. With a mechanical snap that sounded like a mini thunderclap, the sky filled with bright red reflective glitter. The sharp sound echoed loudly through the mountains as the pieces of glitter slowly floated away in the wind. It was clear that it would be visible for many kilometres.

‘Wow…' breathed Trex, never before had he seen a shot go so far into the air. Sara too smiled, but then grimaced.

‘Couldn't we have used one of these things to warn the Sage?' Sara asked, a little accusingly. She was still shaking from the effort of bending the bow and pulling back the string.

‘I only have signal arrows that say that, I'm, in danger. That would have only helped the exiles with their trap.'

Sara didn't react.

Trex ignored her and looked nervously back in the direction that they had come from, expecting the exiles to burst through the forest any second.

‘We should move on.'

Sara accepted Trex's answer to her question without comment, following the lion over to the unconscious Sage.

‘We have a few minutes,' reassured Sara. She pulled the unconscious body of the larger female wolf off of the ground with a grunt. ‘They wouldn't have left their horses too close by. Filfia would have sensed them and become suspicious.'

Trex helped to carry the Sage over to a larger log.

‘Wait a second,' said Trex. Running off to the anxiously waiting Flint, Trex retrieved a few lengths of rope. He quickly wrapped them around the two wolves, securely tying Filfia's arms together around Sara's shoulder like a sling.

‘Is that ok?'

‘Yep, good enough,' replied Sara. Getting up, she felt the weight of the Sage on her back, it was difficult to move, but not impossible. Sara's legs trembled below her.

Trex looked on with doubt. He could never dream of moving around with such a load on his back, let alone try to climb with it.

Sara breathed in deeply. She ran encouraging thoughts through her mind to build up her emotional strength. A look of determination returned to Sara's face and her legs stiffened. With a disgruntled groan she lurched forward. Sara's eyes didn't look up anymore; she was completely focused on what was immediately ahead of her feet. All she could do now was climb, it would take all her strength and resolve and the moment she stopped she would collapse.

Trex watched the wolf stride purposefully towards the rocky outcrop at the cliffs base. Rushing back to Flint and Misha, the young lion grabbed what provisions he could from the saddle bags; water, food, rope… He didn't know how long they would have to hold out.

‘Sorry boy, you'll just have to wait again. Stay with Sara's horse, and don't go too far,' said Trex. He gave Flint as reassuring a pat as he could.

Sara had already started to climb the rocks themselves as Trex came running up behind her. Transforming his long bow back into a staff, he disconnected half of it, returning a piece to the sheath on his back. Manipulating the other half, he transformed it back into a short bow. Starting to climb, Trex scanned ahead for a good position to hold back and slow down the exiles.

The two youths had only been climbing a few minutes when Trex's acute hearing picked up the approach of the exiles.

Philton lead the mounted exiles as the approached the natural clearing. They arrived just in time to see Flint and Misha trot away.

The two horses had been alerted to their approach and were intimidated by the anger that drove the group.

The exiles slowed as the two riderless horses disappeared into the forest.

‘There they are!'

Philton's head turned. His calculating eyes scanned the rocky cliffs. Sara had already managed to climb quite a way up.

‘Tomn, take Thindon and Rauks and head after them,' said Philton calmly.

‘With pleasure,' sneered Tomn, dismounting his horse. ‘Shields!' he shouted, instructing the other two exiles. The group of three quickly ran after the two youngsters.

‘Antrie.'

An older exile turned to face his leader.

‘Build me a trebuchet.'

The other remaining exiles dismounted, retrieving their axes before moving off under the instructions of the exile Antrie.

Philton walked towards the outcrop. Finding a comfortable place to sit, the red wolf crossed his legs and relaxed his posture into a classic meditative position. It didn't take long before all the exiles felt a surge of energy and purpose.

Up on the cliff, Trex and Sara could feel a sense of dread coming over them. Each of the youngsters fought in their own way to ignore the new external feelings. The sudden appearance of a strange cold wind made it even more difficult to remain positive, something evil was in the air.

Sara's body had become a machine; it was running on turbocharge and was stuck in high gear. Gasping for air, she simply powered onwards, any occasional slip on the smooth rocks was just a mild setback in her unstoppable relentless drive to climb. In her mind there were no thoughts anymore, just the desire, the need to climb higher and higher.

Trex was about twenty five meters below her, and looked back with concern. A sudden wind had sprung up and the few clouds in the sky were all seemingly starting to converge above them.

Tomn and his two fellow wolves were also climbing quickly, their powerful muscles and wolf passion propelling them up the rocks.

Taking out an arrow, Trex moved into a firing position. Leaning over from the rocks he aimed and fired in a split second.

‘Lookout!' screamed Tomn, pushing Thindon to one side.

The arrow missed the surprised wolf by a hair's width, ricocheting off a rock further below. Thindon lost his grip and slid down the rocks a bit.

‘Shields up!' commanded Tomn angrily.

With the skilful use of a few arrows and some larger rocks, Trex was able to slow down the Exiles. The continued attacks from above had made the three males almost slower in climbing then Sara.

The two groups were about fifty meters up the side of the cliff. It was becoming much steeper and there were fewer ways to climb. The small number of hand holds made almost vertical climbing difficult and dangerous. Sara had put in one last massive effort to vertically climb a section. After jumping backwards off a rock face across a large gap she stumbled and fell onto the small ledge.

Realising she couldn't go on, the wolf's body suddenly gave out. Collapsing back onto the ledge, Sara had just enough energy to role herself and Filfia over on their sides before slipping into unconsciousness.

Trex climbed quickly to avoid becoming a target for those below. Jumping backwards across the gap he spun in mid air to land onto Sara's ledge, he saw the two female wolves sprawled across the ground. The young lion was simply astonished that Sara had been able to climb so far. He had needed to use both hands to climb the rock face he had just gotten up with.

At least there was no way for pursuers to use their shields to protect themselves and still climb from where Trex was. Considering this to be as good a place as any for a last stand, Trex positioned himself next to the two fallen wolves and waited.

Approaching the steep climb, the three exiles stopped. Looking up, Tomn saw the massing clouds above becoming ever darker, there was already a rumbling in the air. Back down below, he could see the remaining exiles building an improvised trebuchet catapult, using large sections of freshly cut tree trunks. Philton also still sat in front of them, meditating.

‘Looks like Philton doesn't think we can get them,' said Tomn, sneering.

‘I'm not so sure that we can,' replied Rauks.

Tomn gave Rauks a venomous look.

‘He's waiting up there,' replied Rauks, as if challenged. ‘I can feel it. There's no way we can climb and still protect ourselves.'

Tomn looked up again, unwilling to give up.

‘We don't have to climb,' he said with an evil grin.

Trex was scared, shaking and cold. His wounds hurt and he was deathly tired. He could sense the exiles were up to something, but could only wait. The small mental stability he still possessed was focused on his weapon.

Then it happened; seemingly springing up from below a wolf flew towards the face of the opposite rock wall, crouching low behind a large shield. Trex immediately pulled back on the bow, but didn't fire. Once the flying wolf's large feet had contacted the vertical stone surface he immediately pushed off the stone face and leapt towards Trex's ledge.