Winter Festival in Theapan (Part 12)

Click-Clack! Click-Clack!

The horses they each had galloped through the streets. People could be seen rushing out of the way. Some of them would even dive aside as they had little time to avoid the incoming horses. Bredret was in the lead and cared little about avoiding the people around him as he felt they could dodge on their own. The thought of avoiding public traffic in the streets did not even cross his mind as he kept the horse moving. From behind he could hear the sounds of the others chasing after him and knew that King Micah would be the quickest one to chase after him since the horse he was on belonged to his carriage.

"Give the horse back, Bredret!" King Micah called out to the stubborn dragon from behind as he struggled to keep up. He had plenty of experience riding a horse so controlling the one he was on was a simple task for him.

Dragons did not spend much time using horses to get around as their pride made them feel uncomfortable with the mere thought of it. Bredret's pride however had been broken down by his beloved as she had been a princess and he'd often be dragged into things like horse riding in order to spend time with her.

Bredret made the horse speed up more to put some distance between him and King Micah as he called back to him, "You look like you're struggling to keep up, King Micah. Want to reconsider our talk earlier? Maybe I'll consider stopping."

"I already told you I can not do that!" King Micah refuted.

The dragon went quiet for a moment and reached out. Grabbing a random fruit from a merchant's cart as his horse passed by it. Without a word he took a bite out of the fruit and swallowed. He could hear the sounds of the merchant shouting at them from behind as if they were reckless thieves.

Vorbuk could not hear what they were talking about up ahead. From the back of the group he could only see the two of them shouting at each other from a distance. The looks of the startled people on the street as they tried to keep up with the other three made him feel exhausted. This was something that people would end up whispering about later. He only hoped they would not realize who they were on the horses.

"We need to speed up or we are going to fall behind." Vorbuk spoke to Prince Leo who was controlling the horse they were both on together. He was not sure how long this chase was going on for but the more time it continued the more people would talk about what happened tonight, "It looks like he is heading towards the gate to leave the capital,"

"Should we take a shortcut?" Prince Leo replied to him as he kept a careful watch on where they were going. Over the months Vorbuk and Prince Leo had familiarized themselves with the routes along the capital of Theapan. It was something that Vorbuk would need to learn carefully in order to safely run Theapan. The palace was located among the capital so if anything happened among the capital it would become a disaster for the palace itself. This meant that Vorbuk had to spend hours looking over maps and even taking trips into the capital with Prince Leo in order to get a clear view of everything when he wasn't working on other matters of the Kingdom.

"Yes," Vorbuk agreed with Prince Leo, "we should try to cut him off on the way out."

The shortcut that they knew they could take was somewhere that most visitors to Theapan came to see. It was a place that was crowded but the horse was able to make the distance they needed to get caught up with Bredret shortened. Turning the horse off the main streets and heading more towards the right they headed towards Theapan's Arena.

It was a place where Theapan Kingdom held many events over the centuries. Werewolves would use the arena to show off their brute strength against wild beasts. The arena was also used for holding tournaments in order to help find more new talent for the Royal Palace and Knights. Not many werewolves put effort into learning things like magic and how to develop their mana so most tournaments rarely witnessed magic talents.

Most werewolves used other methods to fight which resulted in Theapan's tournaments often having injuries and even deaths. As such a risky battle only those willing to put their lives on the line for a chance to show off their skills would ever participate in the Arena. People would crowd the arena to watch whatever events took place there because regardless of being brave enough to fight in it they could not curb curiosity over watching what went down in it.

The place was empty inside the arena as the horse shot out of the crowd and right into the arena itself. Ancient stone columns lined the large arena as the horse galloped across the wide open center. It was a beautiful place even if it was used for such brutal things. As the horse ran from one side of the arena to the other and left the scene behind its beauty still lingered in Vorbuk's memory. From a glance it was a place you could picture the gods having some sort of history with.

"We're almost out!" Prince Leo's voice called out from behind Vorbuk's head pulling him back to reality. In front of him he could see the streets coming into view as the horse jumped up a couple steps back onto the streets of Theapan's capital.

They were not far from the exit of the capital. His ear could hear the sounds of people panicking and jumping out of the way of the other three horses coming in their direction. Getting ahead of Bredret and the others from cutting through the Arena had worked.

"Bredret! Stop!" Vorbuk called out to the dragon as he saw their horses heading in his direction. They were closing the distance fast and his heart was racing from the adrenaline in all this excitement.

Bredret laughed loudly at the sight of Prince Leo and Vorbuk in front of him. He was not sure what they had done to get themselves ahead of him but he was not interested in stopping yet. Everything was giving him too much fun and he enjoyed the panic he heard in King Micah from behind.

"Watch yourselves he's not stopping!" King Micah shouted at Vorbuk and Prince Leo from behind Bredret as he noticed the dragon speed up again.

"What on earth is he doing?" Vorbuk felt a sudden chill as he saw the dragon charge straight at them.

Prince Leo felt startled as he pulled back on the horse. Forcing their mount to back itself out of the way quickly and Bredret's horse barreled right passed them.

"Go! Now!" Vorbuk shouted as he felt the prince kick the horse instantly to begin chase again. The five of them began their dash out of the capital and into the surrounding forestry.