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

place, the identity of the top two are not exactly a surprise to me. I don’t need to see them to know. I wouldn’t even need to know every other boy that I’d passed to work it out; it was always inevitable. The race is being led by the prince and his cousin, Cai, also known as ‘The Golden Arrow”. The fact that he is already known across the entire kingdom by this epithet tells its own story; he is perhaps the greatest natural athlete in the class and already renowned as a precocious swordsman and archer. In both the fencing tournament and the archery, he came up against Prince Libran in the semi-finals and conceded both in two shameless acts of sycophancy. For this I was thankful, as he could have diced me, or anyone else in the competition, into pieces if he had wished. It must have only been after these oversights that the school masters began to stack the draw against me.
    As it is though, instead of challenging me for the cup himself, as he surely could, he finds himself a mere stalking horse for his podgy little cousin. Even now, at an unidentified distance behind them, I have no doubt that the two will be running in twain, with Cai managing both the pace and the morale of the prince, all the while getting ready to gallantly step aside at the last moment. In reality then, it is him I must catch.
     

Five
     
    A further twelve kilometres pass and I still have no sight of them. I try to console myself that the fog will have, at the very least, quartered my vision. But the fog is rising and the clouds have begun to tentatively part, releasing mild shafts of bright winter light onto the track ahead. This sight, which some would consider beautiful, reminds me of only one fact – that I cannot see the prince. A niggling feeling grows deep in the pit of my stomach. It is a niggle that hurts more than the cold on my ears or the blisters on my feet. It is the realisation that the prince has cheated.
    Gradually, the pieces form to make perfect sense. The weather, the long, winding route that cannot possibly be monitored (or, even if it were monitored, would be monitored by people who could be bribed) seem to make this an ideal time to cheat. The prince could be being chauffeured around the island on horse and cart. He might have cut half the island out of his running route. The more that the thought crosses my mind, the more I am plagued by it. The idea has turned from a niggle into a certainty. Indeed, I struggle to think of a single reason why he wouldn’t do it. All I have is the hope that the prince is as decent a boy as I believe him to be.
    It is only now, ascending a small hillock, with this poisoned thought inside my head, that I realise how tired I am. The clouds may be splitting but the greyness around still seems to pervade. An overwhelming pessimism, even more acute than usual, washes over me. What is the point? I have been cheated at every turn, my legs are heavy as iron, my feet bloodied stumps, and this hill grows steeper with every step I take. Why should I torture myself if it is only to lose?
    In this instant, it becomes quite clear the way that the world is. Life is nothing but a meaningless procession towards death. Everybody tramples down on those below them. The king gets what the king wants. He could erase my father and me from history as easily as I can erase a midge. Fighting him, them, the institution, is like a rabbit trying to fight its way out of a trap. There is no point.
    Then, just like that, I catch sight of my own weakness and spit it out on the ground. I will not submit like the rest of them. It is one thing to fail but quite another to fail through lack of effort. Until these heavy legs can lift these bloodied feet no more, I shall continue to put one in front of the other. The hill, which just moments before had seemed to be a wall, becomes just another obstacle to crush.
    I reach the crest of the hill, teeth gritted, furious with the world. But the rain has broken and life seems a