The Age of Solace: The Silver Wolf

Chapter 32: A Wolf Walks Alone

Exhaustion. That was the only sensation that Faradeigh Shackle could feel after days of travel. He was weak, suffering from dehydration and hunger, having not come across water for two days and nights. Needless to say that he lacked the strength to hunt and forage. Faradeigh could see the walls of the nearby city just thirty yards from him... But it may as well have been miles. Even though it was still springtime, he could feel the sun's rays sapping the strength from his body as he collapsed forward.

He rolled onto his back to stare at the sky, breathing shallowly, as he wondered if it was his time to die. Memories of his life had begun sneaking their way into his brain. He remembered Osmith and all that he had learned from the books that the old man kept. His favorite stories to read had been those that involved the mythical dragons, stories he had one day hoped to read again. Then there was the period of time he spent scavenging on the streets that soon followed. Even in his severely weakened state, he could feel his fist clench as the pompous King of the Cardinal kingdom entered his mind, as well as what came after. The Arena... Meyna...

If he were not so weak, he would begin to cry at the recent death of his mentor. More than that, she was like family to him, or at least the closest thing to it he ever had. Her knife was still looped to his belt, but he made no move to even reach for it. His eyes closed and his breathing became more and more shallow, a natural response to conserve energy. He was dying. Everything began to go dark...

"Splash!"

Faradeigh's eyes shot wide open as he felt the cool wetness of water being splashed across his supine form. He looked up to see a boy about his age standing above him with a bucket of water at his side, now partially empty. The boy had red-brown hair and dark green eyes, and was dressed in what looked like leather armor. There was a quiver with an unstrung bow within it across his back.

"You okay there?" He asked, though his face bore a smirk.

Faradeigh tried to answer, but his throat was too dry. He made a reach towards the other boy, doing his best to make his needs known.

"Easy there!" He commanded with a laugh, "With your level of dehydration, you're going to be bed-ridden for a while!"

He untied a water skin from his belt and tossed it to Faradeigh. Once he picked it up from the ground beside him, he unfastened the top and made a move to gulp it all down.

"Drink slowly." The boy commanded, interrupting Faradeigh. "Otherwise you'll throw up and become even more dehydrated. Try not to finish it all right now either."

Despite the urging desire to guzzle all of the fluid down in one go, he decided to listen to the boy's advice and drank in small, controlled sips. After an hour of drinking the water, and lighthearted teasing from the boy, Faradeigh finally had the strength to begin standing. He was wobbly, weak, and light-headed. The very action of standing made him feel nauseous, a clear result from the severe dehydration he was suffering.

"W-Whe-"Faradeigh tried speaking, though his throat was still much too dry and brought him pain.

"This city is called Brim." The boy said happily. "It's nice enough, I guess, but it does have a bit of a pest infestation. Come on, I got a place where you can recover. You look like you've been to the Crevasse and back!"

Faradeigh wanted so badly to tell him how he wished that were the case as opposed to what had actually transpired. The boy bent low to allow Faradeigh to wrap an arm around his shoulder. The two began making a slow trudge towards the city, leaving the bucket behind. Faradeigh looked back to it, but the boy told him he would return for it, with some food and more water. Black spots entered Faradeigh's vision the whole way, and it was increasingly hard to focus on anything. As such, Faradeigh had missed much of what the city had to offer in terms of its sights. However, he could have sworn he saw flashes of green and floating people.