The darkness always falls with the rain, day or night. Any perfect day with a light breeze and no clouds, any night sky plastered with faraway suns, could be dismantled by the chaos of the storm. And the darkness, the black, thick air, moist with what we call “tears of the realm” that fall when the sacrifice isn’t sufficient. A storm comes every tenth sunrise, whether or not the bi-nightly sacrifice is accepted. A reminder of who they are – the great ones. The beings from which all life began and…will end…in due time. The rain is falling this night. And tonight marks my twentieth winter, marked by the solstice. My mother said I was special. I hope she’s right.
Right now, Mother rests in her grave behind my domicile. It’s marked by a stone bench that sits where her feet lay where I can sit as I did as a child, while she told me stories and taught me my lessons. I was born on a night like tonight. Acid rain, no moon or stars. Dense air. This is when the creatures come out. The winter solstice is in a special lunar cycle for my people. This is when we hunt for treasure.
My child is in the cottage. He is four summers old, born during the hottest lunar month of the year. His father stays with the boy’s grandmother, and the boy for protection. My husband's mother helps with the farm and little Farthey. My husband is one of the most powerful brutes on our side of the forest. Even the creatures fear him and hiss his name. He has slain so many of them that their kids sing songs about him. “The big bearded bald human with tattoos and an axe.” That’s what one told me they called him.
Yes, the creatures have a mind. Their own language, even. They build their own shelters and have their own families. They teach their kids like we do, but about whatever devilish civilization they have, I’d imagine. I captured one adult male, one of their kind, that has blue scales and yellow teeth. Before he died, he told me he learned about us in his childhood studies. He was my first kill. I was thirteen.
I am a Rogue. My husband, Torith, is a Brute and a commander in the high army. He wields an axe with as much precision as I wield my machete, and, with the strength of five strong men, his blade would cut down a bear. He and the army guard police the village. The creatures, Night-scars, won’t attack our army without some apprehension, if at all.
Rogues are the army’s spies, scavengers, assassins, and thieves. We do the things that the soldiers aren’t allowed to do – they have to maintain a perfect appearance. Rogues, however, we’re expected to and respected for doing the “secret things.” We’re revered. I dispatched a band of five on my mission tonight. The creatures know me, too. I am Dera.
