An Orphan's Destiny

Every night it was guerrilla warfare. They were at a disadvantage. The only lights to relieve the village during these times of great darkness were the gifted; people who frequently engaged in battle to protect the village and its people. The soldiers struggling to fight alongside them in the darkness.

These sudden raids occurred weekly and always at night; the gifted had no hope in preventing or stopping the raids. The thick bush surrounding the village, while providing cover from the heat of day for the village, and cover for game animals which were hunted to feed the villagers, allowed village enemies to sneak up unseen.

Many a life had been lost from these sudden attacks. That’s how they lived; it was always like this. A weekly raid, then a week spent burying the dead, rebuilding broken game fences and reinforcing the houses. Alexi dreamt of a time when progress could be made and when the raids would finally stop once and for all. The only problem was that no one paid attention to Crachwish. Acting as the last outpost between The Queen's Land and the North, a nation with no form of government, Crachwish had little value to the Queen other than taxes paid routinely for the ‘protection’ it was given.

Huddled together in the middle of the meeting hall, the children were scared. It wasn’t uncommon for children to be stolen and forced to be slaves.
As a wise elder once said: “those bloody primitives will steal anything not bolted down, including me.”

In groups of ten, each child was chosen for a discipline when they reached their thirteenth winter. Alexi was coming up to twelve and a half winters, although much of his group were tragically lost from a mixture of disease, kidnapping and accidental deaths. The discipline he wanted most was to be gifted. Everyone wanted to be gifted, but it couldn’t be learned; you had to be born with it.

Unbeknownst to everyone at the village, deciding the futures of the children was going to be very different this year. The Fraquish Castle was short of trainee guards for the first time ever. These positions of stature were strictly given only to the sons of nobles.

It wasn’t the future that plagued the minds of the children the night before their futures were to be set in stone. No, it was the shrill screams from the old healer being dragged off by two primitives. Her screams would continue to be heard for hours from the bush as she was raped, beaten and eventually killed. The ordeal lasted the whole night. The gifted eventually managed to prompt the primitives to retreat.

As the sun came up in the morning, the extent of the damage was finally seen. Many people had lost their lives: the village healer, a miller, a butcher, two hunters and three fellers. Many more were injured in the ordeal. It was discovered with bitterness that only two primitives had lost their lives in comparison. They’d taken much of the village's supply stock for winter; it could have been said it was their most successful raid ever.

Alexi was one of four children his age. He spent the whole morning helping the other children to leave their damaged homes. While helping with moving belongings, he sighed while in thought. It was all very well being picked for your discipline at the age of thirteen, but after each raid, every man, woman and child was required to help others where needed. That was indeed the case now that the sun was up - busy work to rebuild the village had begun.

The first task for Alexi was to help with clearing up or sectioning off debris from a house that had been destroyed to be reused for building another house in the near future. Alexi picked up a large section of wall framing and placed it carefully where he was instructed to. He spent the whole morning working with builders to remove and arrange the debris depending on whether it was to be reused or disposed of. At mid sun he was granted a water break. He was instructed to help establish the fences that had broken during the raid afterwards.

Halfway through the day, the repairs still hadn’t progressed much. It was decided that the game fences and disposal of the broken branches would be postponed until after the next raid so that the more essential and infrastructural jobs would be completed first.
Another noticeable fact was the absence of the village healer - many villagers were left injured in a way that would have normally been healed easily, but without the healer their injuries would only worsen. It was probable that most would die.

The adults were becoming increasingly anxious about whether their distress letter sent to the Queen had been seen.

Two more days passed. Ninety per cent of the injured had died. Alexi was now the only survivor of his age in the village without a discipline; the other two had already been given disciplines as there were not enough workers elsewhere.

It was a sunny day. A lone scout came quietly trotting into the village upon his valiant steed. He informed the elder that some of the Queen’s troops were on their way to help defend the village during its reestablishment. Everyone was called into the meeting hall, situated directly in the centre of the village. Its location made it the best defensive position to make a final stand against a raid. That was the main reason as to why village children always gathered at the meeting hall during a raid.

Everyone was settled in the meeting hall just as the main party came trotting into town. Strangely, there were special guard members present, though the reason for their presence was not understood by the villagers. Everyone sat down for the discussion to shortly follow. A decision was made that while the troops were staying in Crachwish, they would try the most suitable people to be warriors. They would stay until the village was rebuilt and functioning again.

Despite all the talk of the reconstruction of the village, what worried Alexi most was the uncertainty of his discipline. What would he be chosen to do?

What nobody had realised was that there were two distinct groups within the big group that had come to their village. One group being the soldiers brought to defend and help rebuild the village as expected, and the other group was part of a secret organisation that had come to recruit a new member; an orphan. Recruiting an orphan with no family into such an unfavourable position in their team meant less hassle - not many people in the village were likely to remember or care about an orphan.

Alexi was that orphan whose world would soon be changed forever. His dream to be a mage would be long forgotten once he learned his fate, his job, his mission; his new life.