The Loyal

Dain

It was five days before the branding when Dain's mother died. Word had flown around the prison camp that the respected Eliss Mace had died mysteriously in the night. But Dain knew this was wrong, he had been there, he had held her body as she faded away. It was the place that killed her. Like most of the adults who remembered the time before, she just couldn't cope with the conditions they lived in now.

But Dain couldn't remember a time with out the prison. Apparently Dain was born several weeks before Skyhaven fell to it's mysterious attackers. Now Dain was all alone. Worst still the other boys had found another name to tease him with; "Orphan."

"It's not true!" Dain had cried on so many occasions. "My father's alive," But no one knew where Endu Mace was. Dain had never met him. This made the pain even worse.

On the day after his mother died the guards came to take away her body. They simply dragged her away, and locked the door on the way out. One added probably the kindest words ever said to Dain; "get yourself another job, it'll keep your mind off things,"

As so Dain did, every evening he swept all the cells in his area. At first all he could think of was his mother, but by the day before the branding, the memory of her become comforting.

Dain rolled onto his side and pulled himself out of his threadbare blankets. He brushed down his clothes and turned to the doorway. Three guards stood there, holding out his breakfast. "Com'on boy. We've gotta get this finished."

Dain slipped his hand through the metal bars and gratefully accepted his meal. It was a simple chicken soup and a hunk of bread. Only lately, Dain had realised his mother had given him her own soup, he found himself hungry during the long days. At seventh hour another guard unlocked his cell and gave him a broom.

Only nine rooms had been cleaned by twelfth hour and Dain found himself slowing down, losing energy much faster than normal. He had just sat down on a block to catch his breath when the HavBoys found him. The ringing a close circle around Dain, sneering and growling. "What's orphan doing today?"

Dain tightly clasped his broom as he stood up, almost a head shorter than the smallest one. "Leave me alone," he said quietly.

"Ohhh, princess is afraid," princess was another popular insult they used on Dain, referring to his large blue eyes, olive skin and round face.

Dain tried in vain to push through a gap, they effortlessly shoved him back into the ring. He glanced around the room, searching hard for an escape rout. To his back was a bare wall but further around the corner Dain knew was another cell. And all cells had a window. All he had to do was escape the HavBoys, which was proving difficult.

"The guards need me to fetch water from the river," he hissed.

"They'll just have to wait," the leader, a older boy Carver, shoved Dain back into the wall. "You've been avoiding us. We feel unloved. Just like you,"

Before Dain could speak another boy picked up the insults, "so, we've been longing to ask, how'd you do it?"

"Do . . . do what?" the small boy accidently showed his confusion.

"Kill Eliss Mace, of course!"

This accusation struck Dain like spears. To Dain, this felt like the biggest insult to her mother's memory.

"Well anyway," Carver said, enjoying Dain's anger which fused around them, "now that you're alone we though you'd want a new family."

"Yes, we've got room in our cells,"

Dain prepared to strike with his broom but stopped right at the last minute, hearing hurried footsteps on the stone floor. An old, cleanly keep man shoved the HavBoys away.