Eighteen Moons since the Day of Akkavan

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Under the twilight of the iridescent moon, a young woman stood over the edge of a dune. She shifted her arms outward in steady oscillations, directing them over the valley below. Her bronze necklace clinked against her slim body, the one humble accessory she claimed amongst her otherwise unremarkable desert attire. Although alone, she was unafraid. The spells she cast were powerful, and she had the benefit of working under cover of darkness. Under such circumstances, her trick would fool anyone. After all, she was the one who single-handedly resurrected the legend of the Eivettän Death Worm.

“That’s it, raider fucks.” Tomi whispered to herself as she caught her breath. “Stay away.”

Tomi Yald had spent many years perfecting her craft. Not too long after she learned to ride a camel, she discovered she could move the air the same way one could push water when standing in a stream. At first, she used this ability to torment her brothers, throwing sand in their eyes whenever they irritated her. Inevitably, they tattled on her. Her parents were slow to understand, for they had never heard of one who shared her gift. As Tomi grew, she realized she could sustain her energetic bursts. When Tomi’s family made their way to the outskirts of the Rust Waves, Tomi used her gifts to scare away others. Her parents were none the wiser, ignorant of how they carved themselves a safe home. After a few years and several dozen frightened traders, word spread. Murmurings of strange beast that gobbled up lost traders.

It was a cute fable. Little did the desertfolk know it was just Tomi, still throwing dirt in the eyes of those that annoyed her.

At least, until the demons arrived. Now Tomi had people who relied on her. People who would worry if she stayed out much longer. They had more than enough to worry about at the moment.

Tomi smiled as she watched the two men scurry after their camels. Her first gust landed with perfect accuracy, launching who knows how much sand in the air and knocking both to the ground. She repressed a laugh, noticing how silly the men looked as they flew like tumbleweeds. She needed to do little else. A swipe here, an advance there. That would have to do, because she was already tired.

As she watched the men run away, Tomi fell to her knees. She often forgot her limits, as Mama Yald liked to remind her. She was far stronger than every Magi she had ever met, most of whom made a living pestering crowds by levitating pebbles for flakes of gold. Still, she had to be careful. Her spells made for convincing Death Worms, but if it came down to it, she could do little more than blow a gust of wind. Once her brothers knew to shut their eyes, they always learned to dodge. She wouldn’t be able to defend herself against two grown men if they knew what really tormented them.

That was why Tomi always carried her brother’s throwing knives. She had never used them before, but could if it came down to it. Even her brother was in awe of her impeccable aim.

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After regaining her breath, Tomi ran her fingers through her black hair before letting it fall back down to her shoulders. She stood again, rejuvenated. It seldom took more than one spell to ward off raiders, but she readied herself, just in case.

The camels trotted away a safe distance, but stopped before leaving the valley and allowed their riders to catch up with them. They glanced around, as if inconvenienced. Tomi was getting annoyed; it was as if the camels knew something their riders didn’t.

“Move it, you dumb cows!” Tomi hissed. She needed to give them one last motivation to leave. She flexed her slim muscles, feeling the fibers in her arms extend past their confines. The air in her breath became thick, and she visualized a strip of sand in front of the camels. In her mind’s eye, she saw air and the sand becoming one, dipping underground before erupting. She then positioned her left arm back and released it. An invisible energy erupted from her fingertips, pounding through the air into an invisible blade that sliced through the sand.

“Perfect!” Tomi thought. The brief lucidity she experienced when releasing a spell was euphoric. It would be a brief respite before the aching in her muscles returned with full force.

The cascade of sand eruptions began about thirty meters out from the camels, creating columns of smoke and sand. It burst three times before ending suddenly about ten meters out, fading into columns of dust.

But ten meters wasn’t close enough. The two men braced for the impact that never came. It rattled the men, but they were no longer running.

“Motherfuck!” Tomi screamed under her breath.

The fatigue was catching up to her now. Tomi’s muscles screamed at her, as if she had run a dozen leagues in a second. She would need at least a few minutes to recover.

And men stopped running. They looked back over the valley, though with hesitation.

As Tomi massaged her arms, she realized with horror that the men were now coming her way. Though treading carefully, they were approaching her dune. It was hard to tell, but she thought one was looking right at her. Why?

Tomi slowly realized what the men were observing; her bronze necklace clanging down her chest. The moonlight had been reflecting off of it. She might as well have been waving them over.

She could make out their features now. Neither looked like a raider, but that meant nothing; she had come across plenty of vile traders in the Eivettä. One of them was riding faster up the slope. He was a heavier-set man, though quite able on camelback. He rode with a ferocity that stunned her.

“Shit!” Tomi thought. “I need to recover, fast!”

The energy was building up again, but she was already past the point of exhaustion. The spell required powerful enough to knock this man off his camel could kill her. Even then, she’d have to contend with the other man.

Instead, she had another idea. She didn’t have to rely entirely on magic to defend herself. She just needed a distraction.

Good thing she still had her throwing knives.

Tomi waited for the heavyset man to get closer. She wasn’t sure, but something was reflecting moonlight back at her. A sword, perhaps? She didn’t want to find out. Sand particles twirled around her legs and she felt energy launch up in her belly and out towards her arms. Normally, she would hold the power within, letting it surge inside before being released. But she didn’t have the time.

Instead, Tomi released her energy into the ridge of the dune. A cloud of sand erupted just as the camel rode over the top of it. The rider was clearly disoriented, yelping as a vortex of sand flew into his face.

Tomi reached down to her waist, grabbing three blades and thrusting them into the cloud of smoke. One missed entirely, and the other bounced harmlessly off the side of the camel. The third, however, was a direct strike, hitting the stout rider in the chest. Tomi heard him grunt, grasping the reins of the camel for a moment before falling to the ground.

Tomi was ecstatic, but as she tried to run, she realized that her fatigue had become too great. Even the smaller burst was more than she could handle. As she turned, the faint glimmer of the moon faded as the world turned to black.