Tales of the Zodiac - The Goat's Tale Read Online Free Page B

front and everyone seems afraid to run any faster than him. I sprint through the crowd. By my estimation, getting ahead and staying ahead is my only hope. The ankle kicks start as I attempt to move through the crowd but, with the nickname ‘Goat’ ringing loud in my ears, I keep my footing and surge to the front. However, I am not sprinting alone. I turn my head around to realise that I am being followed, or more aptly chased, by Tomos.
    Tomos is more a man than any other boy in the class, standing already a clear half metre taller than any except for Cai. With the barrel chest of a brawler, the defined chin of the upper classes and endless supplies of thick black hair, he is a classic highborn boy. As is typical of his kind, he is happily ignorant of the world around him, listens to no one and hates everything outside his four well-furnished walls. Especially me. He screams what sounds like a war cry. At this point, I realise that he is here to remove me from the race.
    He is built for power where I am built for endurance and I know that I cannot outsprint him. This does not stop me from trying. His reasons for disliking me are many but not particularly varied. He dislikes the fact that I am of peasant birth, and that I am a better scholar than him and a better athlete. Particularly difficult for him will have been the fact that I even outfought him in the combat rounds of the Prince Libran Cup. It would appear that here, in a race for goats rather than horses, he has decided to sacrifice himself to prevent me from winning.
    We travel probably one hundred metres before he is upon me. His rock hard muscle slaps me down to the mud. Pain does not appear instantly – the cold, relentless rain and my hot blood see to that – but I am pinned to the floor by the sheer weight of the boy, sustaining blow after blow to my face and gut. I am vaguely aware of the race passing me by once more but this feels more like a dream.
    After what seems an eternity on the floor, I slip from his arm lock and spring to my feet. The only pain I can feel is from the grazes on my naked knees. The rain has soaked us to the skin and his black matted hair covers his eyes. This does not stop him jabbing his fists out, attempting to keep me away from him.
    We circle each other whilst the race runs further into the distance. Knowing this burns away at me. My tactics in our tournament fight had been somewhat of a war of attrition: keeping him at arms length, picking at him with fists and kicks, wearing him down whilst his eyes, full of impotent fury, watched on.
    Today though, the rain obscures those eyes and he is as hard to hit as a shadow in the fog. We circle in the greyness, I, impatient to re-join the race and, he, fixed on not letting me. This fight cannot be a war of attrition: if I am slow and tactical with him then he has won. The race, and the Prince Libran Cup, is running from me even now. The realisation of this sends me firing forth towards him. The filth of the weather, I sense, gives me more of an advantage than I’d have normally. His hefty, sluggish frame and witless eyes must be more lost than mine.
    I avoid his fist and dive foot first into his leg, as though to focus all the power of my body in a kick to his planted knee. The effect is immediate, the scream so pained that it would horrify anyone strange enough to be out walking through this fog. He falls backwards and instinct tells me to jump on him and beat him as he was, only moments before, beating me. But I don’t. In fact, I don’t even stop to think about it, to see his ugly face twisting in pain or even to ensure that he is adequately injured. I just start running again.
     

Four
     
    The royal island of Ynys Gwyn must be at least forty kilometres in circumference. But it is not the distance that is the challenge. The coastal undulations, especially on the northern side where the race starts, would add at least another eight kilometres to an equivalent flat race. The school