Chapter 1 — Stupid Courage
Arsanguir was a peasant, living in a village too small to matter on the outskirts of Larion. A pitchfork over one shoulder, a bundle of food under his arm, he trudged along the dirt track that cut between patches of scrub and half-tilled fields. The sun was already high enough to sting his eyes.
He had woken an hour earlier—dragged from sleep by his "invention." Ingenious, he liked to call it. In truth it was nothing but the morning sun spearing through his window, unblocked by any curtain.
He just didn't own curtains. The sun did the work, merciless as a bell.
The morning blurred into its dull rhythm. Rise. Dress in the same patched tunic. Chew on leftover bread, hard at the edges. Sling water over his shoulder. Walk. Always walking, always to the fields.
By the time he arrived, the light had spilled across the furrows. The earth was dry, the weeds stubborn. He set the pitchfork into the soil and began the slow rhythm of labour—turn, lift, toss, repeat. Sweat gathered early on his brow, stung his eyes, and dampened the neck of his shirt. Flies found him before long. He swatted, cursed, kept working.
When the sun reached its height, he dropped to sit in the meagre shade of a half-dead tree. Bread, water, a strip of dried meat. He chewed without hurry, gaze wandering across the endless sameness of field and path.
And, as always, his thoughts drifted where they shouldn't.
He hated this life. Its dullness, its sameness. The way every day stacked on the last like stones in a wall. He wanted more. To leave. To fight. To push against the weight of the world until it broke. To face beasts whispered about in stories, to carve his name into places where no map reached. To be free enough to choose—good or evil—without consequence. That, to him, was freedom.
Elsewhere, trouble stirred. A band of thieves, gaunt from running and hungrier from fleeing knights, staggered through the woods. For two weeks they had lived like animals, dodging patrols, living off scraps, waiting for their chance. Now, as the trees thinned, they spotted it: a small village, smoke curling from chimneys, ripe for the taking.
Arsanguir finished his meal, stretched, and rose to his feet. He slung his pack and took up the pitchfork again—only to freeze. Voices. Too many, too rough, drifting across the field from the tree line. He crouched in the grass, heart hammering.
At first he told himself it was curiosity, then suspicion, that made him creep closer. But the truth struck him like a spear: his village lay behind him.
The fear hit hard. He had never truly cared for the place. Not since his parents died seven years back. The elders had spat curses at him, the adults turned their faces away. He had learned to live with their scorn and their silence. He had learned to live alone.
But there was her. Itzima. And that was enough.
The thought of her torn apart by these men ripped the fear clean out of him. Adrenaline surged like fire in his veins. His hands no longer trembled.
He stood, stepped out from the tall grass, and planted himself between the bandits and his village. Pitchfork in hand, voice louder than he knew he had.
"Halt! Who goes there?"
The bandits stopped, surprised by the sight of a farmhand daring to block their way. A burly man with a tangled beard barked a laugh, teeth flashing.
"Well, well. A peasant with a pitchfork."
Arsanguir's grip turned his knuckles white. His chest rose and fell. He pulled one deep breath—then hurled the pitchfork.
Why?
Stupid courage.