Chapter One: Cart of Hay

“You’re dead, Dramon!”

“I’ll forget the whole thing and if you guys do,” Dramon called back as he raced towards the town square.

“You’re going to wish you hadn’t been born!” shouted one of the boys back at Dramon. The chase continued through the streets of the small mountain-side town, called Ref-Pron, which got busier as Dramon got closer to the town square because it was market day and everyone it seemed were all out. Darting under carts and wagons, around people and merchant booths, and over just about everything else in the square went Dramon trying to lose the gang that pursued after him.

Dramon thinking he had lost them as he reaching the edge of the crowd, decided to take a few seconds to rest, and a nearby barrel made for a good seat. Dramon smiled at the idea of food entering his stomach as he picked up an apple that fell out of someone’s basket, as he rubbed the dirt off of it. As Dramon bit into the apple one of the gang members rushed out of the crowd. Acting fast Dramon threw the apple at the boy, which sent the boy to the ground as it hit his head. He then bolted down the street leaving a large gap between himself and the gang.

Dramon ran into a dead end at the end of the street between two buildings on either side and the stone wall that around the Ref-Pron in front. Dramon wasted no time in getting himself out of that rat trap. While the gang got nearer, he jumped onto a stack of crates then onto the roof of building on the west side, knocking the crates over in the process.

Dramon sprang from roof top to roof top until, after a dozen of them, he turned a sharp right and landed behind the chimney stack of a house. Crouching low to the roof, while peeking over, he smiled as the gang bolted past the house he was on top of. Quietly Dramon crept to the edge of the roof, double checked to see if the gang was still running down the street before leaping down to the ground. With a thud Dramon crashed on the street almost planting his face into the dirt in front of a young lady carrying as she came out of her home. She dropped a jar as she let out a scream as Dramon landed two feet in front of her.

“Dramon what do you think you’re doing?” She frowning at him before her face brightened up with a smile. “You know if you had changed your mind about staying with me and my parents, you could just say so instead of throwing yourself at my feet.”

Dramon got up and started brushing himself off while looking at the lovely, young lady twirling her long, curly, chocolate brown hair as she stared at him. “As good of an excuse as that would be, Zohreh, it is not why I’m here. I’m just being chased by a mob that wants to kill me.” At that moment there was a shout from down the street. Dramon and Zohreh both looked over to see the gang coming full speed down the street. “I’m so tired of these guys,” Dramon said as he took to running again.

“Maybe you should start avoiding them,” Zohreh called after him.

“Then who would you worry about all day?” Dramon called back as he rounded the corner on the right.

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Zohreh smiled as she went to pick up her jar. It had been over a year since she saw Dramon and his brother slip through the gates in the evening light. Before they had arrived life in Ref-Pron had been boring, and she didn’t feel her name was right for her; her name meaning ‘joyous one’ and she rarely felt that way.  But since they had arrived things had gotten more exciting around the town.

Dramon had told her all about his and his brother’s adventures around the valley, Zohreh thought the two of them were more of a traveling act than poor travelers. She had only seen Dramon’s brother once when they had first arrived, but she didn’t mind Dramon was hard enough to handle. Zohreh almost got knocked over as the gang rushed past her. She wished Dramon didn’t make so many enemies; already this year she had hidden him in twice. But it was no use wishing, Dramon is not one to stay in one place long enough to listen to reason or concerns or talk of. . .

“Love,” Zohreh signed to herself. She had wanted to tell him how she felt about him for so long, but had always been afraid of what he might do if she told him. “Oh, Dramon,” she sighed to herself as she went on her way.

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Meanwhile, Dramon continued to down the street always waiting for the last moment before turning sharply left, or right. He finally dashed into a narrow ally; this time there was another boy with a pack on his back, two walking-sticks beside him, and putting an item into an another pack. The boy was a little older than Dramon was and not that different in appearance; both had shoulder length hair and the same body build, but the boy had brown eyes and black hair while Dramon had blue eyes, brown hair, and was an inch shorter.

“Kale...help me!” blabbed Dramon as he entered the ally.

“What, again?!” said Kale as he got up and threw the pack, he had been packing, and one of the walking-sticks at Dramon. He caught them both and in a second Dramon had the pack on his back and grasping the walking-stick ready to bash the first enemy that stepped into striking distance.

“Oh, Kale there’s about twelve this time,” said Dramon as the gang flooded into the ally.

“Your trapped Dramon, now I shall have my satisfaction,” said the leader of the gang as his boys crammed into the four foot wide ally.

“Didn’t you say that the last two times, Exaimier,” taunted Kale, “or were you just warming us up.”

Exaimier’s blood boil as he charged forward at Dramon and Kale. Dramon crouched low before throwing his whole body weight into a shoulder bash, sending Exaimier flying into the legs of the first two boys behind him; causing a pile up that blocked the rest. One of the boys managed to jump over the pile and came straight at Dramon. Kale stepped in, and grabbing the boy by the collar of his shirt before tossing him onto the pile of boys that was starting to get back up.

Kale hoisted Dramon onto the wall before jumping up himself. Kale ran off to the right along the wall, while Dramon saluted Exaimier and his gang with a smile before running after Kale.

Racing across the wall towards the gate Kale went with Dramon right behind him. As they neared the gate they saw a cart, loaded with hay, coming along the road that followed alongside the wall from the gate until it turned a right corner into the forest. In a single glance from Dramon, Kale knew that he was going to do something incredibly rash, impulsive, and completely Dramon-like in every way. Almost in the same second Dramon ran to the edge of the wall, jumped over the battlements, and landed right in the cart of hay as Kale also jumped off behind him.

Once Kale had landed in the cart, the two buried themselves in the hay so they couldn’t be seen from the wall. Hearing shouts and vows of vengeance, Dramon peered through the hay and looked towards the wall. He saw that Exaimier and several of the gang members just nicely getting onto the wall. As Exaimier started to look around for him the cart enter the nearby forest.

After hiding in the hay for near a half-hour Dramon finally broke the silence that had taken over since they had left the shouts of the gang at Ref-Pron behind, “So Kale, what’s the plan?”

“Why do you always do this?” responded Kale as his hands tightened into fists.

“Always do what?” asked Dramon with a puzzled look on his face.

“Why do you always find some way to get a large mob angry,” replied a frustrated Kale.

“Oh, that,” answered Dramon with a small smile on his face, “I think I’m getting better at it, after all it took a year before we were chased from Ref-Pron.”

“And what did you do to make them so angry at you this time?”

“I beat up him and a few of his friends when he tried to get me to pay him money for traveling on ‘their road’.” Explained Dramon as he move some hay out of his face.

“No one should make that many enemies in one day,” said Kale through his clenched teeth, “it’s not good for anyone’s health.”

“Take it easy brother,” Dramon said as he put his hand on Kale’s back, “it’s not going to change the fact that I now have twelve reasons not to go back to Ref-Pron.”

“And what about your one reason to go back?” asked Kale suddenly.

“So do you have a plan, or not?” Dramon said after a moment’s pause.

“We’re going to ride this cart until I say we get off.”

“That’s your plan . . . your whole plan . . . with all its details in it?”

“Yes, that’s pretty much it.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

Kale remained silent, so Dramon let his mind drift to think about what could have been as they bounced along in the back of the cart. The rocking of the cart and the rhythmic falling of horse’s hooves on the road combined in silence started to draw yawns from with the two boys. Dramon started hearing a voice singing a wonderful yet terrible song in a language he had never heard before. The song seemed to be enticing him to fall asleep. Dramon fought to stay awake only to at the last fall into a dreamless sleep, but that ended.

Dramon found himself in a forest that looked normal at first, but then the trees began to die right in front of his eyes until there was nothing left except a flat plain smouldering with ashes and as fast as the trees died they grew back and it started again. Then he heard a ghostly voice say each time the trees withered, “Only death, only failure.” Dramon started to run as fast as he could, but he could not lose the voice, “Only death, only failure.”

Dramon continued to run until he reached a stone wall with a wide opened door in it. He stepped through the door onto a battlefield with casualties covering it, except for two men, one very king looking and the other a menacing tall figure cloaked in black. The black figure stood over the other one with a large sword. As the sword came down, the man turned his head away as if unable to move the rest of his body; Dramon saw the man’s face.

“Kale!” Dramon shouted at the top of his lungs, but Kale only seem to stare at him as the sword came down.

With lightning speed, Kale just seemed to fall through the ground as the sword reached his head. Dramon stood there just paralyzed not believing what he just saw happen. He tried to run away, but his feet seemed anchored to the ground and would not move from that spot for anything. The black figure turned towards Dramon. The black figure began to walk towards Dramon, as fire illuminated a skull that took the place of a face. The black figure came closer, closer, then closer. His cruel, deep laugh filled the air as sword went up then down with a crack of thunder. Dramon felt the cold, iron blade begin to cut into his cheek as if time suddenly stood still and the black figure froze with it. Then time went all too fast, as the ground opened up swallowing him up. The black figure unfroze finishing his deadly swing, but Dramon had already fallen below the path of the sword.

As the earth closed in around, the black figure’s deep voice echoed out, “You cannot hide from the Dragon, fear will consume you, I will consume you.” The earth covered Dramon completely as the figure erupted with a cruel laugh.