When he woke up, his eyes were wet. The nightmare had come again. The image of his family was still fresh in his mind. He tried to shake off the grief that was clinging to him, but it was futile. His stomach was growling so he finally opened his eyes and saw the place he had slept in. Last night it was too dark and he was too tired to pay attention to his surroundings, but now he could see that it was a small cave that had sheltered him from the rain. A worm was slowly climbing his leg, which he swatted away.
He was cold, very cold, and starving, but he managed to drink some water from a little pond in the ground, gathered there by the rain that had stopped not too long ago. Now he should have enough energy to make it to the town he was heading to, the town of Daybreak, which wasn’t more than three miles away. These past four days he had gotten used to hiding from the animals of the forest so that wouldn’t much of a problem. Probably.
Every moment was precious, so he stepped out of the cave and started following the path to the town. As he was walking, he looked up and saw that a rainbow had formed. For a moment, he forgot about everything that had happened. He was back in his house with his parents and they were watching the rainbow together, talking about what they would do if they found the gold that is hidden at the end of it. He smiled for the first time since he had entered the forest. He tripped on a root that was slightly above the ground and that image disappeared, dragging him back to reality. Those days would never come back. Nothing could bring his parents back from the dead.
Suddenly, the noise of heavy steps and loud voices echoed through the forest. He quickly ran out of the path and hid into a bush, waiting to see who would show up. Shortly afterwards, a group of four soldiers appeared. Their insignia meant that they were part of the Red House, the House least known for its kindness and most for its strength and its cruelty. Who knows what they would do to him if they caught him, a boy looking like he was lost and wandering alone in the woods. Especially if they saw his eyes, the best he could hope for was a quick death and the worst, enlistment.
Anyone but them, he thought.
The one in charge, a tall man with broad shoulders and a look that seemed like he wanted to chop down any tree that dared be in his way, was looking straight ahead, not bothering with stopping his soldiers from arguing about which one of them was the strongest. When they came closer, the boy saw that the commander was not only bald, but he had absolutely no facial hair whatsoever, probably the result of some punishment he had received from his House. The other three were all men of average height and they looked like they weren’t the smartest of the village. It was easy to tell they had just been recruited by the man with no eyebrows who was loudly cursing his fate for being stuck with them out in the middle of nowhere. He would much rather be with his superiors in the town of Bellamy than having to run around some small villages in the mountains, trying to recruit one or two idiots who would probably die in the first fight they got into, or even before that.
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The boy waited for about twenty minutes after the soldiers had disappeared from his sight to come out of his hiding place. He couldn’t help but pity those soldiers who were excited about going to the Red House, not knowing that only seven out of ten new recruits survived the training, and only three of them survived their first battle with bandits or pirates, leaving only one person out of ten alive at the end of their first year. The ones who did survive though, were extremely capable soldiers willing to sacrifice even their lives for the Red House. After all, everyone knew about the battle of the Bellamy mountains, when just fifteen of the Red House elites took out a large band of bandits, or the protection of Abib, when ten Red House members managed to hold off the crews of two pirate ships that had come to attack the harbor until the reinforcements of the Blue House arrived, half an hour later. The Red House was basing its strength on the quality of its members, not their quantity. Too bad that quality didn't apply to their morality as well.
When the boy reached the top of the small hill he had been climbing for the past half hour, he saw that the town was now less than a mile away. From the height he was at, he could see most of the town, including the house of the mayor that stood above everything else with the observatory on his roof. He had only been to this town once before, when his father had been sent here by the traders of his village to negotiate with the mayor about reducing the taxes. The negotiations failed, but he saw a lot of new things as his father had brought him along. However, he didn’t remember that the town of Daybreak was so big.
Being used to the fifty seven small houses of his village, he was astonished by the view of thousands of them in one place. For a while, all he did was observe the town and the people that ran in its streets. They looked like ants from up there, each walking in a seemingly random direction, and yet all having a destination in mind and work to do. A group was beginning to form near the central square. It appears the soldiers he had encountered before had already arrived and the bald man was trying to recruit more manpower for the House. He probably wouldn’t be able to find more than a couple though. The town of Daybreak was traditionally sending its youth to the Green House, the one responsible for protecting the mountains and forests of the country.
Mustering his courage, the boy headed for the town's entrance, brainstorming ways to get past the guards.