The Lead False

Chapter 1

"Yash!"

Yash knew this friend was asking him to slow down. The hell he would!

"Yash!"

"I'm winning the race once again!" The boy did not turn back at all. He reached the summit with a laboured breath. Then he looked back for Dev.

To his horror, his friend was limping with a bloodied knee.

"Dev!" The boy ran back down. "What happened?"

"I tripped!"

"Could you not have been careful!"

Dev struggled to look into Yash's eyes.

The boys were in the dense forest of the Paru mountains. Here wildlife was the king. The smell of blood was a sign of omen for the villages dotted in the mountains.

"It's okay, It's not dark at least! Let us run back quickly."

Yash started to run. Dev tried his best to catch up, but the pain in his knee made him limp. Yash realised this and grumbled.

"Come on!" He went back and pulled Dev's hand, getting him to speed up.

A loud roar came from behind. The boys were stunned. They turned stone cold. No one turned around to check it.

"Yash, you go." Dev whispered.

The beast would inevitably find Dev. Yash at least had a chance.

"No."

Yash bent and grabbed a dead crusty branch. It was not much of a weapon.

"We can still see better than them. Run!" He pulled Dev with a strained muscle. Dev lost his footing every now and then until he fell flat.

The connected hands made Yash fall as well.

This time both boys saw a bear slowly inching closer. They did not stand a chance from the beginning.

Its snout was closing on Dev's lower half.

Swoosh! An arrow.

It flew in from above and hit the animal exactly in the middle of its eye.

The boys ran away as the bear thrashed in agony. It wasn't until they were out of the forest did they stop.

"Why would they help us?" Dev asked. The pain in his knee was numb now.

"How can it be them? It has to be our own people! Pray they did not recognise us and go to complain to our mothers!"

"But that arrow had a blue marking!"

Yash raised his brows. "Really?"

"Yeah!"

"There's no way," Yash mumbled. "Are you sure?"

Dev tilted his head. There was always a possibility that he did not look at it properly. He knew he made way too many mistakes all the time.

"Probably not."

"You must have been too scared to recognise the colour. If anything, it should be a red arrow. Our arrow!" After all, the other side of the mountains was the Bhadra, the enemy nation. There's no way they would help them, children of Dharma.

They spoke of other random things 10 year olds would do as they walked back to their homes.