Neptune had not walked more than a few hundred paces toward the main palace grounds when the silence of the woods was broken by the barking of hounds and the orange flicker of many torches.
"Over here! Look at the tracks!" a voice shouted.
A group of six soldiers burst through the brush, their armor clinking. When the light of their torches fell upon Neptune, they froze in shock. The leader of the party, a grizzled man with a thick beard, rubbed his eyes as if he were seeing a ghost.
"Prince Neptune?" the leader exclaimed, his voice cracking with excitement. "By the gods, it is you!"
He quickly signaled to one of his men. "You! Run ahead to the palace. Inform the King and the Captain that the Prince has been found alive. Go, now!"
The soldier took off at a sprint while the leader appr
