O’tambwe walked down the dusty road, his brown eyes alert. The tall old man’s black skin and black robes embroidered with gold enchantments struck an imposing figure. His face was weatherworn, and his head bald. He stooped as he walked with an awkward gait, but not because of age. Cupped in his palm was the hand of his daughter who was barely up to his knee, dressed similarly in clothes of his own design. The sun beat down on the two of them, covering their surroundings with a shimmering blanket of heat.
He smelled smoke.
He gazed out to the village ahead of him. It was, to all appearances, an ordinary farming community. A cloud of dust made its way to the east, moving away from O’tambwe even as a plume of black smoke rose from the distant cottages. On a beautiful day like this, there would be men working, children playing, and women resting in the shade surreptitiously watching the men. He saw none of these things.
The village was on the outskirts of the Empire, nearly falling in the shade of Feld Mountain, the towering landmark dominating the center of the land. It was visible from every corner of the continent, with a shape so unique that children were taught to place themselves on a map simply by reading the mountain. A village on the outskirts like this one had no defense against attack, but on the unified continent there weren’t any particularly large groups of outlaws who would do this.
“Little one,” O’tambwe said, bending to speak to his daughter. “Your father is going to see if anyone needs his help. I want you to hide here and if anyone tries to hurt you, throw this at them.” He gingerly placed the magic bound with soft clay in her tiny hands. He knew no harm could come to her as long as she wore his enchantments, but it made both of them feel better for her to be armed, albeit with a nonlethal spell.
Neya darted off the road and dived into the sea of wheat. She began looking for the best vantage to observe her father, and run to his rescue if he needed her help. She gripped the clay ball in one hand and began crawling forward, shadowing her father.
O’tambwe eyed his daughter flopping through the wheat, making a mess of both her clothes and the field and sighed, turning his attention back to the village that was just now beginning to show visible flames. He began trotting, maintaining the most comfortable pace his age would allow. In a few short minutes he arrived at the well in the center of the village.
His gaze passed over the brutalized corpses of men and women intermingled with a handful of dead giants, their skin unnaturally white. The giants were nine feet tall and riddled with deep wounds, while the humans surrounding them showed signs of being stabbed with spears or hacked with swords.
O’tambwe’s brows furrowed. Not a single human looked like they had been hit with the kind of force one of these giants could muster. He would have expected at least a few of the villagers to be cleaved in two or an entire side of their body to be crushed.
O’tambwe shook his head and looked up at the burning homes. He needed to see if there was anyone he could save now, rather than search for clues that would help no one.
“Hello!” he shouted, his thin voice lost in the now roaring blaze of many former cottages. “Is there anyone alive? I am a wizard from the country of A’ktala, I can help!”
No response. O’tambwe looked about, his eyes watering as the smoke thickened. Giving up the worst burning cottages as lost, he began searching ones that had not yet been consumed by the fire.
He had braced himself, but seeing what he already suspected was unnerving. Men, women, and children had been put to the sword in each house. They were lined up in their main rooms as if there had been a head count before they were removed from the Weave. At last the heat became too great and O’tambwe was forced to abandon his search.
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Back at the well, O’tambwe drew a bucket of water and smelled it before he drank. Wells are prime targets in warfare, and he would not have been surprised to detect the faint odor of sewage. The water seemed clean enough, so he drank. He poured the rest of the bucket over his head, intending to try one more house before he gave up on the town.
Looking up, he noticed one house near the edge of the village was slower to burn than the rest. The others danced in flames so ferociously no amount of water would have saved his skin.
Dripping, O’tambwe limped through the oppressive heat of the village to the last building, his body no longer able to sustain heroics for any length of time. If anyone was even alive in that house, a few moments more would not kill them. He reached into his midnight black robe for a small charm made of gold. It contained the spell he had made for his wife. If there was someone there whose soul hadn’t yet departed, it could help them.
Sadly the scene in the last house was no better than any of the others, with one exception. Beyond the man and woman who lay slain in the center of the room was the body of another grown man, wearing riding gear and holding an extinguished torch.
He lay in a steaming puddle of soup. His face was a mass of blisters contorted in a rictus of pain. The handle of a kitchen knife protruded from between his ribs. The dead rider’s sheath was conspicuously empty, and there was no sword to be found on the rough wood floor of the cottage.
The next instant, O’tambwe felt a heavy blow ring from the nape of his neck.
Neya was sneaking around to the last house her father had entered when she heard the ring of steel on stone, and a child screaming. Neya abandoned her clever hiding spot and sprinted towards her father’s last known location.
She tripped, tumbling end over end, and slid to a stop, her face in the dirt.
When Neya got to her feet, both knees were bleeding from the rough tumble, there was dirt in her mouth, and her eyes stung from the smoke. The only thing she could think to do was plop down and cry for help.
The powerful enchantments woven in O’tambwe’s robe broke the sword, and the boy hiding in the rafters fell to the ground. The thing that disturbed O’tambwe the most was that he had not stayed down, or crawled away, or cried out. Instead the boy rolled to the dead rider and pulled the knife from the corpse’s breast.
In the space of a breath, he leapt at O’tambwe, trying in vain to disembowel the wizard. The knife bounced and dented against O’tambwe’s stomach a half dozen times before he could grasp the child’s wrists.
“Be calm child, I am not one of them,” he said, gently holding the struggling child. “I am here to help you.” At last the boy began to cry out. Beginning as a whimper, his voice rose to a wail. At the height of his screams the boy’s breath gave out and he collapsed, sagging in O’tambwe’s grip.
O’tambwe looked down at the sleeping child. If he had not been a wizard dressed for the dangers of the world, he would have died today. The rider’s sword was shattered, strewn across the floor. The boy had hauled it up into the rafters above his head and fell on O’tambwe sword first, rightly expecting gravity to do the work of muscle. He was dressed as a child of this village, not much more than a burlap sack cinched about his waist with a rough rope.
O’tambwe saw nothing wrong with him, physically. He was unnerved though, at the efficacy of this child’s attempt on his life. Unnatural for one the same size as my Neya. He thought to himself. This little one may grow to be a monster, but perhaps with the right guidance, he could be Neya’s monster.
It was about that time, as the wizard was contemplating the boy’s fate that he heard his daughter crying and shouting for him. O’tambwe let out another sigh and slid his weathered hands underneath and scooped up the boy, carrying him out to see what trouble she’d gotten into herself into.
Neya, true to form, was sitting in the center of a burning village with both knees skinned. She didn’t say anything, just wordlessly shrieked and reached for her father.
O’tambwe laid his burden down next to her and picked up his daughter, one arm supporting her while she smeared snot on his robes worth a king’s ransom. With his other hand he pressed his wife’s healing charm against her forehead. Shortly she wound down to sniffling, and then stopped altogether.
Neya began getting restless, kicking him in her squirming. He set her down. “Better now, little one?” he asked.
Neya nodded, finally taking an interest in the boy her father had placed next to her. “Who is that, papa?” she asked.
“It’s a boy who’s lost his parents today,” Otambwe said, glancing down at the village boy. “I am going to look after him, and in return he can help me look after you.”
Neya looked down at the unconscious child. “But he’s not wearing any pants!” she said, pointing at him.
You only get one chance to make an impression, O’tambwe thought to himself, rolling his eyes. Unnoticed by Neya, his hand casually touched the nape of his neck. The impression the boy had made on O’tambwe left a thin trail of blood oozing down his skin.