I didn’t stop running for a long time. Not when my legs burned from the strain. Not when the ground gave way under me and I almost fell down a couple of times. Not even when the tears dried up and I saw that I was running toward something my mother had always warned us to stay away from.
Only when I physically couldn’t run any further did I eventually stop. The sea of yellowish-green grass and bushes I was used to had been replaced by something I only knew from my old memories: the literal sea. I had never actually been taught how to swim, so going any further would most likely be a death sentence, and that got me to stop.
Just this morning, my will to live had been the only thing on my mind, but thinking about it again, I realized I hadn’t just wanted to survive back then. It wasn’t just that animalistic instinct to see another day. No, I wanted to live with my family, see the laughing faces of my sisters, my mother, and all the other members of my new family and, for a moment, I thought about turning back, apologizing for running away... mother would probably scold me, but eventually, be glad I’m safe and Fela would joke about it, before drunkenly making me promise to never run away again.
The thought of that made me smile a bit, but the moment was suddenly interrupted when I felt a sting of pain in my left hand. It was still wrapped tightly, although the wrappings had become wet with seawater. Right. That was why I had run, after all. I had never heard of the kind of magic I had used back then, but it was obviously dangerous. If I returned to the tribe, I might be an even bigger threat than if Tasos were to cast his spells in the camp.
Tentatively, I pulled the cloth away from my hand but made sure it didn’t float away. The pale patch of skin was barely visible, and if I didn't know what to look for, I probably, wouldn't have noticed it. Poking it with my fingers didn’t do much, but when I touched it with the birthmark on my right hand, I felt similar, if lesser, pain to the last time they touched. Once I separated my hands again, it didn't linger, however. This time I wrapped my hand looser, but still firm enough, that the cloth wouldn’t move.
The water was pretty cold and I was eventually forced back onto land or risk losing too much body heat. The beach did hold a sort of natural beauty as I looked around, though. Except for a lone piece of algae-covered driftwood and my instrument, I saw a seemingly endless expanse of white sand. Directly above me, the midday sun shone and, out at sea, I spotted something that made me do a double take for a moment. It was little more than a dot on the horizon, but there was a ship gliding through the waves. It looked like a sailing ship with at least two masts, but I couldn’t be sure at this distance.
It was an utterly alien thing to my new common sense. The Eurota didn’t build any boats... Heck, we didn't even build houses, for that matter, so I had never seen such a big vessel. My mother had also once warned me that they were bad omens, though I wasn't too sure about that. It was traveling parallel to the coastline and currently approaching from the south.
After a while, I could see an absurdly long flag hanging on the second mast as it fluttered in the wind. Besides a purple color I couldn’t make out any details on it, but it was fun to watch it flap about as I dried in the sun. While looking out to see I thought about my plans going forward.
If my affinity for magic truly was related to what had happened in the night, then I might have to give up on learning magic for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t that uncommon for people to not have strong magic as only a few casters per tribe were of any use during battles - either because the others lacked firepower, couldn’t cast fast enough, or for many other reasons - so not using magic wouldn't be too uncommon. It did mean most of my time would be spent out gathering or taking care of the pack animals, though. Perhaps I could also learn some crafting jobs in the camps.
Honestly, I was pretty torn up about the whole thing. Yesterday, I would have done just about anything to be able to cast magic, and today I was contemplating never touching an instrument again. Maybe I was overthinking this whole thing, anyway. Tasos had made it clear, that it would take time to understand my magic and even more to control it. Perhaps it wasn’t that uncommon for beginners to have an incident like I did... Although I feel like someone should have warned me more if my experience was the norm. There were just too many unknowns and the best hope at answers was someone who knew more about magic than myself.
As I was contemplating my plans, I saw that the ship had just reached its closest point to me and the distance between us was gradually increasing again. It was still too far to make out any details, but I thought I saw a few figures on the deck running around. They looked human enough, even if the one climbing their way up to the crow’s nest apparently had a long tail snaking its way down. Similar to ships, my contact with other species was basically non-existent, so besides the Elves in the south and an abandoned dwarven mine somewhere in the far east, I wasn't sure what kind of races were out there.
Giving the boat one last glance, I picked up my instrument, brushed off the sand clinging to it, and headed back inland. I was actually getting a bit hungry, so I started looking for a few snacks along the way, and abusing my power proved as fruitful as ever. My mark wasn’t seemingly done with that though, as I felt it guide me away from the food. The signal it was giving me, however, felt a bit weird. It was similar to a warning about a monster attack, but it felt... unclear. As if I was looking through an unfocused lens or a cloudy window.
Eventually, it led me in the direction I had originally come from and it was basically impossible to miss what it wanted me to see. Upon realizing what I was looking at, my blood ran cold and fresh panic rose in my chest. There was no monster or obvious threat on the plain. Only hoove marks.
About twenty to thirty in a brisk pace, yet not running or in a dash; they hadn’t been running away from something. The marks were less than a day old and I had probably just missed the group on my sprint away from the camp. If I interpreted the tracks right, they were almost completely made by hunters and neither young nor old ones among them. There were also no signs of any pack animals, so no spring migration. The most worrying detail, however, was their direction: westwards.
For the moment, that got my mind to drop the issue of my magic and focus on this new danger. Best-case scenario, these hunters were tracking an animal herd out west and just got uncomfortably close to where my tribe had hunkered down during winter. Normally there were no big animal migrations happening this early into spring, though, and my gut feeling was that they were entering our territory for less amicable reasons.
If my navigational skill held true, my tribe was about half a day to the northwest and from an attacker’s point of view, a southern approach wouldn’t be a terrible plan of action. The proximity to the border meant that our hunting parties would be looking for prey further north. With the number of invaders, they could probably engage the whole tribe and have reasonable chances no matter what, but if they managed to reach the camp while the main fighting force was caught off guard, the situation would be disastrous.
I didn’t lose any more time and sprinted back the way I came earlier, but this time I was filled with determination instead of panic. While backtracking, I realized how lucky I had actually been before as the ground was uneven and my mark often warned me about hidden animal burrows or loose stones. There was a real possibility for me to snap an ankle and have a nasty fall.
Once the sun had reached about halfway to the horizon, I saw the first signs of my destination. The small smoke plumes rising from up behind the hills had my blood freeze in its veins, and for a moment, I felt the adrenaline rush into my system, before I realized they didn’t seem to indicate an attack. If anything, they looked like the result of the oven fires.
When I crested the last hills, I saw that the camp was in a state of chaos, though there were no signs of an attack. I could see people rushing through the tents everywhere and no one seemed to pay much attention to my return until one of the older members said the chief was looking for me. Making my way through the camp, I realized what was going on. They were packing up the tents and getting ready to move.
In front of my family’s tent, I saw my mother giving orders to some hunters before she looked over in my direction.
“Charas, where exactly-“
“Mother, we have a pro-“
We both started at the same time, but I think my mom realized that I had something urgent to say and motioned for me to say my piece first, although I saw that she was still angry at me - probably due to me running away. I would most likely get a punishment for that later, but that required there still be a later to worry about.
“I think another tribe is planning to attack us. I found some tracks to the southeast heading west. About twenty-five hunters, a day old at most.”
My mom just nodded once. “I know. Tayak’s squad found them earlier.” At my worried expression, she gave a small smile in response, before continuing, “Don’t worry, no one died, but they were caught pushed back and retreated to camp. For now, you should help with the packing. We'll talk about you running away later... I knew Efi would attack soon, but if she wants to let us go without bloodshed, then that’s fine by me.” I think she said that last sentence more to herself and didn’t elaborate. Her body language made it clear that the conversation was over for now.
Before I joined the others in their efforts, though, I slipped into the big tent and stored my instrument near the sleeping place. Then I looked through the few personal items I owned. I quickly found the gloves I was looking for, but the mittens were mainly meant for preserving body warmth during the winter months, so they offered little freedom of movement.
I contemplated cutting off the finger section and only covering my left palm with them, but after a few moments, I realized there was another solution to my predicament. My younger sister had gotten a pair of combat gloves this season, and her old training equipment was just collecting dust in the tent. She probably wouldn’t mind if I borrowed her old stuff for a while.
The gloves were exactly what I was looking for. The palm was covered by leather, while the fingers had enough flexibility to comfortably use a bow... not that I was planning to do that. Giving it a few taps with the mark on my right hand, I felt confident that it was safe to use my left hand with them on.
Exiting the tent again, I made my way over to the big communal tent. It would be the second-to-last structure to be loaded up and for now, was used as a sort of headquarters to organize the workers. I still lacked the physical strength needed to roll the tents up for transport, so I was mainly collecting smaller items and stuffing them into baskets. A few people looked confused about me wearing a hunting glove on only one hand, but no one asked about it.
This obviously wasn’t the first time I helped with packing up for migration, but normally the process was done at a more leisurely pace and soon we were ready to move out. The hunters had apparently been busy keeping the other tribe at bay, but there hadn’t been much in terms of arrow exchange and once we were moving, a few of our hunters had to help with the heavier loads. Normally the pack animals would carry the tents, but last winter a lot of them died, so more people had to help out.
I, for my part, was mainly carrying my own and a few of my sister’s belongings. My mother and Aya were at the front of the caravan, while Fela was in the rearguard with the other hunters. My position was right in the middle with most of the other non-combatants.
