Chapter 3
Hael ran and did not look back. He ran until he couldn't run anymore and collapsed on the ground, panting. Pine needles and branches poked in to him at all sides. Slowly, he pulled himself back to his feet. He looked around, surveying his surroundings.
Hael was in a deep forest. Towering above him were trees, blocking out what little light the moon had provided. He had no sense of direction, and in retrospect probably should have paid more attention to where he was going.
Hael took off his pack, fishing around for the map he had stolen from the orphanage schoolhouse the night before. He found the orphanage, but could not find the forest he was in. There were several forests located at varying distances from the orphanage, all in different directions. A more skilled navigator may have been able to find where he was by triangulating himself or something like that. Hael never did pay attention in school.
With a sigh, Hael put the map back away, and slipped his pack back over his back. He decided to pick a random direction and stick with it until he got somewhere he could recognize. Luck was on his side, and within about an hour or so of hacking through branches and hopping over logs Hael finally saw the trees end. They were replaced by a wide field that seemed to span on forever. He knew this place. It was what the kids called the Neverending field, but according to the map it was called The Field of Yet. Sure enough, the village of Yet on the opposite side of the field he appeared to be, represented by a small black cluster of crudely drawn houses.
The field consisted of rows and rows of eioa, a root that everyone called waterroot due to it's bland taste and lack of nutritional value. Hael ambled over to one of the plants and knelt down. He had limited space in his pack and so had packed nothing to sustain himself but a water skin, bedroll, a small bag of flints and knives, and a small bag with about a days worth of dried meat. With a grunt, he ripped up a waterroot plant and shoved it into his pack. He had hoped the food as a last resort and to simply steal food until he got wherever it was he was going to, but he figured some extra sustenance, albeit small, wouldn't hurt.
Hael had been so focused on escaping that he did think about where he was going to escape to. He supposed he could start by going to Yet, the small village his parents had lived and died in. He never met his parents and so did not consider them family. They were simply people who had lived and died, like everyone else. Still, Yet was a town, and he thought that a town would be a good place to go rather than wait here in a field filled with tasteless roots.
As he set off and night slowly crept into the sky, he couldn't help but think, something that had been discouraged at the orphanage-we-will-keep-you-in-until-we-take-you-away-to-become-a-soldier-and-kill-other-people-because-our-king-said-so-orphanage. He thought about the king, and his tendency to declare war on our neighboring countries for no particular reason other than he wanted a few acres of land. When the darkness grew so deep he couldn't see a few feet in front of him, he sat down and made camp, clearing away a few body lengths around him in the waterroot to form a rather large clearing. As his head hit the bedroll, he immediately fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
