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Axelle woke in a cold sweat. He jolted upright and franticly flung his head back and forth trying to see his surroundings. For a few painful seconds the darkness of the night wouldn’t get any clearer. Time ticked by and the beads of sweat rolled down his face onto his bare torso. It was a dream, he told himself, nothing more. His eyes eventually grew accustomed to the faint lighting the moon shed in the small clearing. He gazed around and saw the things as he remembered them when he went to sleep last night. The surrounding forest had trees dotted here and there, thick enough so you couldn’t see very far, but thin enough so you could see just as far as you needed. Smoke wafted from the smoldering pile of the dimly glowing embers that remained from last night’s fire. To his right lay his friend Kaleb blissfully snoring the night away. Across the fire from Axelle was the bronze colored, four-legged beast known as Raff, stretched across a bed of mainly underbrush that had been pushed into a sizable lump.

After he had looked over the clearing a few more times, he laid back and rested on his elbows. The cool night air felt much colder than it actually was because of his sweat dampened skin. He took a deep breath of the crisp, clean, fresh mountain air and set his hands behind his head as he rested his head back on his pack, which was now used as a makeshift pillow. The moonlight caused the trees to look pale and pasty. He reached out to his left and grabbed his dagger and set it right next to his side; it gave him a sense of safety. The brook that ran along the northern side of the clearing provided a soothing sound that helped him relax. Eventually he dozed off into a restless sleep and tried to fight back the nightmare that haunted his dreams and kept him from a peaceful sleep.

Axelle woke the next morning to a blinding light. He could hear some undistinguishable mumbles from what sounded like a little ways into the forest past the brook. He sat up and tossed the blanket off from his legs. The smoke from the crackling fire was whisked here and there by the warm breeze. He crossed his legs and ran his fingers through his dirt brown hair as he sighed that morning sigh that we all make every so often. Scratching the back of his head, he blearily got up and walked over to the brook. Dipping his hands into the water, he scooped up some water and splashed it into his face. The icy cold water made him shiver. He reached up to grab a towel off of the clothes line that Kaleb had strung at the beginning of the hunting trip. Axelle dried his face and hands and peered into the forest. Nothing stole his attention, so he grabbed his shirt that he had washed the night before and slipped it on.
Sitting himself on the ground, he rested his back on a log next to the fire and tried to gather his thoughts. He stretched his arms up and out and rested his elbows on the log. When he did, he knocked something off. This threw his mind off track. Frustrated, he glanced behind the log where the thing had fallen. It was a little bundle of something he couldn’t recognize. He grabbed it and opened it. It was a little bundle of what was left over from the breakfast Kaleb had cooked; eggs, some strips of bacon that had broken when the bundle was wrapped, a lump of cheese and a piece of bread. He settled back into his seat and began to eat. The eggs were cold, the bacon was a little charred, and the bread was a bit stale, but considering his circumstances it was a rather hearty meal.

After he was nourished, he tried to regain the chain of thought he had prior to his breakfast. But he found it was no use. The harder he tried, the further it escaped him. What finally ended this offset solitude was the sound of approaching footsteps.

“So, you are awake,” said the familiar voice from behind. “We thought you might have gotten a touch of fever; you were screaming most of the night.” Axelle twisted around to see Kaleb and Raff walking into camp; Kaleb with an armload of wood and Raff dragging a load wrapped in a special drag bag made for him.

Raff was and is quite a magnificent, remarkable beast. He was quite like a dog, but he had the characteristics of animals like cats and dogs, but on a more beastly and fierce level like the wolf and the lion. His fur was a rusty shade of bronze, and his mane was more like the reddish orange of a bright, autumn sunset. The scar over his right eye made it hard for people to see that eye, but his left eye was clearly visible. His eyes were like that of a shark, but rather than being black, they were a murky white, and if you stared into them long enough you could see smoke whirl around in them. He wore two black and white feathers that were loosely tied into his mane near his ears; the effect they had against his fur color was striking. Apart from his very unique exterior, Raff could speak in the common tongue; he was a sound advisor to both Kaleb and Axelle when a situation needed guidance.

Kaleb was unique in his own way. Babies in the village were usually born with jet-black or dark brown; Kaleb had wild, fiery red and orange hair. And the babies in his village also had either brown or dull green eyes; Kaleb, on the other hand, was graced (though Kaleb himself didn’t believe them to be a grace) with eyes the color and brightness of an ember fresh out of the fire.

Kaleb walked over to the fire and dumped his wood. He began to stack the wood into an orderly pile when Axelle spoke. “… Was I really screaming?” he asked.

Raff had opened the drag bag with his nose and was picking the pieces of wood up one by one, and with his mouth, handing them to Kaleb so they could be stacked. “Yes, Axelle. You were screaming. Something about your Mother and your house being destroyed. I wished to rouse you, but yesterdays’ outing was long and Kaleb thought you needed to rest.”


“It was a nightmare,” Axelle said, dropping his head. “Our whole village was destroyed, everyone was killed, and the people who did it were still out looking for me.”

“But it was a dream, nothing more,” Kaleb said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Young Kaleb speaks wisdom, Axelle,” Raff added. “You needn’t trouble yourself with the content of your dreams. And besides, that which does not kill us makes us stronger. Learn from this, Little One.”

“I only hope you two are right,” Axelle said.

The day passed like a cloud in the sky, slow and steady. Axelle and Kaleb went out hunting after a lunch of potato soup with hunks of rabbit meat to sustain them for a time. The small hunting outing was a mighty success; Kaleb shot himself a fine looking stag. Cleaning it was messy business and it took them the rest of the afternoon.

They got into camp just as the sun was setting behind the horizon. They strung another line between two trees to hang the quarters of meat to dry. “We can get going first thing in the morning,” Kaleb said, adding a large piece of wood to the fire.

“The stag should suffice for the six people it needs to feed until at least the next full moon,” chimed Raff. “So we shouldn’t need to go on another hunting trip until then.”

“Good. I’m eager to get back home,” Axelle said. He reached over and patted Raff on the neck.

The conversation was dry at best as all packed their belongings for the trip to their hometown of Arden. None of them felt like anything but getting home to their own soft beds and taking a warm bath in the small hot spring on the outskirts of the small village.

It was early midmorning before the last piece of the stag had been carefully set in the last bag and all preparations were finished for the homeward journey. Clouds were dotted about in the sky, covering the sun so it was a rather dull sort of walk towards home. The breeze from the day before had turned into a moderate wind that swayed the treetops, but the forest provided a wind block for the trio as they walked down the mountain on the small trails.

Axelle and the other two had gone on this hunting trip nearly a week ago, but they didn’t bother counting the days because there wasn’t really a need for it. The conversation on the way down the mountain was rather different than the one during breakfast. They discussed the recent change in behavior of the self-proclaimed ruler of Mortalius. Before the change, he was a dictator and almost pure evil, he ruled with an iron fist, but he was at least somewhat fair, he sometimes sent food to struggling towns, and he placed guards and sentries in every town to catch criminals and ensure justice. But lately he seemed to get crueler by the day; he raised the taxes for each town to astronomical levels, towns that couldn’t pay soon became ghost towns or piles of ashes, and he sent people to prison and tortured them for no reason.

The sun was just touching down on the western horizon before the discussion came to a close.

“Let’s stop to catch our breath,” Kaleb said as he slipped his pack off and set it on the ground. Sitting down on a large boulder he grabbed his flask and drank the remainder of his water.

“Only another hour before we make it back home,” Axelle added as he laid himself down by the pool at the foot of the waterfall.

They were in something you might call a clearing on the north side of the river right at the foot of the waterfall. Rocks and boulders were scattered here and there along the shoreline, making any clearing of trees along the river more like a spread of stones. The waterfall continually groaned as the water came careening down onto the rocks in the pool at the bottom. It was a small waterfall in comparison to many waterfalls, but it was big enough for two full-grown men to shower in. Mist emitted from the rocks below the never-ending flow of water. The sky was fast becoming a darker shade of orange with each passing minute. As the sun began to fall behind the horizon the air became steadily colder, it chilled their lungs as steam started emitting from their warm breath. Axelle wiped his sweaty brow and brushed his chestnut brown hair out of his eyes. “We better get moving again before we all stiffen up and don’t want to move again,” he suggested, sitting up.

Raff, who had sat up on a boulder to soak up the warm rays of the sunlight, was the first to jump into action. He leapt off the large, dull colored stone, shook himself as dogs do after a bath, and stretched his front paws out in front of him as cats do after a long and pleasant nap. His mouth gaped open widely as he yawned and his long, slender tail swayed slowly every which way.

Axelle and Kaleb went to the waters’ edge and got themselves a drink of the cold, fresh water. Raff went and sat a little downstream and waited for the boys to get ready. “Come, Young Ones,” he said. “The light fades quickly; we must hasten if we wish to reach Arden before night falls.”

Axelle finished drinking and started walking downstream along the riverbank with Kaleb close behind, their shadows stretching far in front of them. They walked eastward, downstream along the bank of the river Skye in hopes of reaching the only bridge for ten miles before the sun fell to far behind the horizon. The bridge came into view within a few minutes’ walking, and just as they started to cross the bridge, the sky went dark.

Axelle looked into the eastern sky and saw clouds, clouds as black as ebony, and with the black clouds rode thunder and lightning, torrential rain and blustering winds, enveloping darkness and misery. Axelle nudged Kaleb and signaled towards the coming storm. “Right, then,” Kaleb said clapping his hands and rubbing them together. “Double time then, boys.” He started to jog down the small wagon trail.

Axelle took off and followed Kaleb, Raff brought up the rear. The wind out of the storm found them; it brought mist from the rain and an icy chill that sent shivers down Axelle’s spine. The black clouds swarmed ever closer; they blotted out the sun and swallowed its light.

The trail hooked around to the eastern side of Arden and the boys would have to run up the small hill before they could even see Arden.

As the hill came into view, Axelle turned to see that the storm was nearly upon them, the rain had already begun to fall. Raff passed him and then Axelle continued his run up the hill.

But something wasn’t quite right, he didn’t know what it was, but he knew something was wrong. Then he saw it. Smoke was billowing from the opposite side of the hill. The smell of fire and smoke was strong even against the wind. Kaleb and Raff had stopped at the peak of the hill; a look of horror had fallen on their faces. Axelle peaked the hill and saw why. Arden was nothing more than a column of smoke and a pillar of fire. Everything was destroyed. His dream, his nightmare had come true. His vision became black and foggy as the full impact of the storm fell upon them, driving rain struck his entire body. Thunder clapped and the lightning flashed all around them. Axelle’s vision blackened, he fell to the ground and knew no more.