The Colour of Sunrise (Part One of Three)

An orange sunrise, shot through with white cirrus clouds.

Hime descended from the mountains at dawn, the sun at his back. His sturdy leathers creaked, heavy on his broad shoulders. Absently, his hand caressed the worn pommel of his war'ring. The bladed chevron of lightweight steel was a familiar companion.

He went into the village, amongst the women smoking the thin, eel-like fish of the lake, the matrons at their looms, and the veterans at their pipes. The children raced underfoot, small and undernourished. The older ones would be out in the salty fields with their fathers, growing what they could.

He passed two men with sharp stones set into the skin of their wrinkled faces, standing outside the largest hut in the hamlet. They nodded to him, acknowledgement in the silent bond of warriors.

Entering the hut, the smell of tea-of-myrtle and pipe weed enclosed behind him.

"It is the hunter."
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. A figure of high cheekbones and deep authority sat within. The ancient man's bare chest was riddled with scars and patches of badly healed skin. His face was a broken mountainside, filled with stones set into the cheeks and forehead.

“A figure of high cheekbones and deep authority sat in the hut. The ancient man’s bare chest was riddled with scars and patches of badly healed skin, his face was like a broken mountainside, filled with stones set into the cheeks and forehead.”

Hime bowed deep. "Elder, I am Hime, of the Valley Tjion."
"Welcome, holy man," the elder said, "Your presence honours us."
Hime had much to say, but it was the way of the plains people to eat before their business. So he sat and broke bread with the elder and a half-dozen stone-marked warriors of the people.

They dined slowly on flatbread made from the scant barley of the fields, the smoked eel-fish of the lake, and the dried figs of better seasons gone by. This was a grand feast to these people. Thus, Hime showed them the honour of taking his fill of what they had to give.

When they were done, they sat in the wispy smoke-weed of brotherhood. Hime broached the polite silence first, as was customary.

"How fare the crops this season?"

"They are poor," said one warrior with stones of blue and grey, passing the pipe on. "The rains do not come, and the salt comes closer to the soil than ever before."

"It has been this way for a number of seasons; each worse than the last," said another, a young girl. "Since the coming of the Grey One". The youngster had blue eyes, uncommon for the people of the plains. She spoke eagerly and he watched Hime with closely in a way that made the monk uncomfortable.

"He who boldly stalks our lands, that servant of pestilence!" A third warrior grimaced, his face showing a freshly embedded red rock, still crusted with blood.

"Oh, gone are the days when the white wizards walked the land." The elder said, his bass-toned wisdom imbued with the gravity of years gone by. "Noble in their power, fathers of humanity. They, like the order from which our honoured Tjion guest comes from, reined in the Grey ones. The White Spellmasters fought them on the plains and in the valleys; on mountain tops of our world and drove them by the dozens through gates to places unseen." He recounted common folklore in the manner of plainsmen storytellers. The elder paused, wracked by a deep cough. The others waited reverently.

The next part did not need recounting, for it was within living memory. The Grey Ones had returned. They were but shadows of their former selves, powers diminished as if the passing of time had embellished the legends or blunted their evils.

“The White Spellmasters fought them on the plains and in the valleys; on mountain tops of our world and drove them by the dozens through gates to places unseen.”

But, even so, each one was an implacable foe, the better of entire tribes of mortal warriors. And none of the White Ones had come back.

Instead there were only the hunter-monks. The Tjions, mere humans. Like Hime.

"I have come to slay this Grey that plagues you." Hime said. The warriors all nodded once, at the same time. He had their approval.