Saruuk

By Saruuk and Marcus D

The air hung still in the barracks, tensed and uneasy as the newest batch of soldiers to be ambled around nervously around the dirt floor. Each had a weapon in hand. A longsword, a staff, a bow, a spear, a shield, or maybe some combination of these, and even some weapons of awkwardly twisted metal and harshly shaped wood that was yet to have any name.

They were all staring at each other nervously as they paced aimlessly, the scales of their lizard skin glinting in the morning sun as it struggled to warm the frigid, groggy landscape.

The silence gave way to an uneasy hum of whispers as the cadets each tried to ask each other what to do, just as the commander himself burst in through the front doors.

“Atten-TION! Assemble yourselves on that line right there, shoulder to shoulder! And right now!”

Swords clattered to the ground, bows twanged without arrows and clawed feet all began to scramble chaotically across the barracks floor in a desperate attempt to get organized as fast as possible.

“I said now! That means RIGHT FUCKING NOW!” the commander roared, his teeth bared as his scaly hands wrung furiously at his staff. “What the hell are you morons doing?”

His yellow eyes narrowed as he scanned the scene, watching all the other soldiers running around madly to put up their weapons and line up. The scene had him quite frustrated, the lack of discipline in his troops striking him as if in the face, nothing less than a direct insult on his credentials as their new trainer. He snarled, hearing their hurried passing of words. They were supposed to be silent when he entered the room, and they were acting like he could not hear. He made a harsh mental note to make his training harder from then on out.

He would not have any more of this.

“Your robe! Hide that hole, or he'll think you're not taking care of your uniform!”

“Staffs on the shelf! That's where the spears go!”

“Archers line up over there! This is where the healers line up!”

“There's no more room on the rack? Where the hell do I put this!?”

“Just line up! Fast!”

The commander snarled as the troops finally dissolved into a haphazard assembly, all doing their best to appear like they had been waiting expectantly and on the alert for his call as he had instructed them to be.

He wasn't fooled in the least.

“You there!” he snapped, snatching a dazed cleric in training by the shoulder and shaking him roughly. “What the hell is that hole in your robe?”

The cleric made a quiet whimpering noise and stared helplessly at the commander.

“You are useless! How will the Starhunters prevail if you're the best we can do!”

The commander spat into the cleric's face and tosses him aside furiously.

“You there!” he roared. “You do know that you put your staff on the shelf for swords, don't you? You moron!”

One of the lizards began a stuttering reply, those next to him nudging him encouragingly.

The commander snarled, striding to the rack and plucking off the staff, striding back slowly, and striking the stuttering lizard over the head violently.

“And judging by the fact that the staff rack is missing one,” the commander added as his latest victim collapsed weakly onto the dirt floor. “One of you morons still has your sword!”

A glint of metal caught his eye and he spotted one of the soldiers adjusting something behind his back.

“Saruuk!” He bellowed. “Why, I should have thought I'd be able to expect more from one of the most successful warriors in the lands, and a warrior cleric!”

The sword clattered loudly to the floor, a clash that rang stridently in the tense silence as Saruuk felt every eye in the barracks fixed on his reddening face.

“Sir, the rack was full, there was nowhere-”

“You should have taken the staff off and given it to the damn fool who put it there in the first place!” the commander spat harshly.

Saruuk's eyes fell to his feet, then to the other cadet, still lying weakly on the floor.

“You should have been the one to do the honors,” the commander growled, watching Saruuk staring down at the crumpled soldier next to him.

Saruuk cringed and snapped his head forward, doing his best to look straight ahead. Trying to focus on the empty wall in front of him and not the commander or the disciplined soldier, or any other soldier. To just keep his eyes on the far wall.

“Why didn't you?” the commander asked harshly.

Saruuk shivered and maintained his fixed stare, his eyes now searching past the wall as if to see through.

“I asked you why you didn't do your duty.”

“I couldn't, sir,” Saruuk replied calmly.

“I want a real reason.”

Saruuk's gaze broke off from the wall and focused back on the heap, which was now making a slow, pained effort onto it's feet.

“Sir, I could never do that to another.”

“Never?” The commander asked.

Saruuk shook his head and puffed out his chest in resolve, even as the commander gripped the staff he had just struck the other cadet with. “Never, sir.”

“Then how the hell will you make a good warrior if you will never have the resolve to kill in battle?”

Saruuk turned to the side, feeling a bead of sweat start to slide coldly down his temple. He wanted to tell the commander that he didn't want to be a warrior, that he never had any intention to kill.

He stood there frozen for a few seconds, staring at the back of the barracks, at the staff rack with one slot unfilled, as his mind turned furiously, quickly spinning to the conclusion that he had to let the commander know this. He would be out of the barracks and could spend his life doing something peaceful, something good.

“You know,” the commander drawled menacingly. “There's usually nothing anyone can do for someone with your mentality, but I think I've got a solution.”

He turned his head to face the commander, his lips beginning to form the first word when it hit him.

A dull, burning pain surged across the whole side of his head as the blow sent him reeling backwards and unleashing a swarm of hundreds of burning dots clouding his vision.

“Training begins now!” the commander roared, looking up and down the lined up cadets, all shivering in fear before him. “You old lives are over!”

And so the training began, a harrowing, mind numbing routine of arduous exercises, nerve piercing drills, and endless training.

Day after day after day.

“Skirmish drill! Get your sparring sticks, get with a partner, and have at it!”

That was how it would usually begin, the commander roaring those words.

After so many days, Saruuk had just stopped hearing the sentence and instead heard it as one twisted roar, sentencing him to another day of pain, exhaustion, and belittlement in the name of training.

He snatched his sparring stick off the shelf and looked around for someone to pair off with for the exercise. His eyes quickly met with those of his bunkmate, Rhaska, and they nodded and headed towards the center of the barracks.

“I said go already!” the commander roared as he watched the troops assemble themselves into groups and watched over them like a hawk, ready to spot the tiniest flaw and correct it with harsh words and an even harsher strike to the leg, or if it was a more drastic mistake, point it out to the entire platoon, insulting and humiliating the bewildered offender as much as possible.

“Why is everyone just standing there!” he bellowed. “Get to fighting! Now! And I want you all to remember your goddamn footwork! What the hell kind of fighter's stance do you call that Rhaska?”

Saruuk grimaced in sympathetic pain as Rhaska was stricken behind the knee, causing him to grunt loudly and hop back into his stance.

“Shit, remind me when I do that,” Rhaska whispered quickly to Saruuk.

“Don't worry about it, I never remember to either,”

“No, I mean,” Rhaska grunted as he swung his sparring stick wildly in a side slash, then a downward hack, both of which Saruuk parried perfectly. “We have to learn this stuff for when we're actually fighting, if you had bull-rushed me I would have been toast if I didn't bend my knees some.”

“Oh right, we have to be perfect fighters for when the Moonstorm tribe comes to kick our ass,” Saruuk drawled sarcastically as he easily deflected a downward slice then low diagonal strike from Rhaska. “We're already the best fighters in the land as is, why do we have to take shit from this sententious-”

Rhaska flew in with a straight thrust, catching Saruuk off-guard and poking him hard in the gut.

“Son of a...!”

“Watch it soldier!” the commander bellowed, his voice booming from right behind Saruuk, making him stand up as straight as he could with the pain in his abdomen that was making his eyes water. “You always miss the block on the fucking jabs. If you learn from what you just got there, your partner just saved your miserable life. And if I'm not mistaken, he also saved you from calling me something you would really regret me having heard.”

Saruuk groaned loudly and glared irritably to the commander, then to Rhaska, who was still in the position he had landed in after the strike.

“I'm not sorry for doing that,” Rhaska said slowly.

Saruuk scowled. “You're getting your stance wrong again.”

Rhaska hopped in place, adjusting his legs quickly. “Thank you for helping me, sir. You may have just saved my life.”

Saruuk began to find himself spending the whole day longing for the night, for rest and peace, whenever the training didn't require his full mental attention. Even at times when it did, and he would instantly fall prey to some common mistake and receive a vicious blow to the side of the head.

Each time that happened, he remembered in livid detail the time when the cleric had misplaced his weapon. Remembered the heap that he had been commanded to reduce those around him to.

Each time he did, he felt himself collapse into that heap on the inside.

“Saruuk!” Rhaska whispered harshly.

He felt himself go stock still as his bunkmate's voice dragged him back into reality.

“Stop... stop shaking... I can't sleep when you do that...”

Saruuk slowly drew a deep breath and let it out, feeling his vocals trembling and he realized he was shivering as he lay on his bunk.

“I can't sleep anyway,” Saruuk muttered, gritting his teeth as he tried to hold himself still by clenching every muscle tightly, finding them to give their own harsh, stiff reminder of his intense training the day before.

“You need to try, we have to wake up soon for training. You'll need your strength.”

Saruuk groaned and the mental image of the grown man reduced to a whimpering heap crept back and clawed at the inside of his head.

“I can't go on like this,” he said darkly.

“You have to,” Rhaska replied, his voice indicating an effort to be encouraging, but was somehow draining Saruuk of even more of his dwindling morale. “Every warrior has to go through this.”

“But why should I, then?” he snarled.

“Because you're a...”

“No I'm not! And I'll never be!”

There was silence for a few seconds, and Saruuk could hear creaking and rustling of other bunks telling that he had just woken several of his tired, fellow cadets.

He knew with a pang of guilt that he was depriving them of their sleep, which if they needed half as badly as he did, was more precious than gold, but his pent up frustration was welling up, burning away anything remotely resembling caring.

“But we have to. We have to stand up against the other tribes. The wars...”

“God damn the wars! Can you tell me why the hell we're fighting them?”

The bunk shook slightly underneath Saruuk as Rhaska shifted uneasily. “I don't know, we've been fighting for so long, I don't know if anyone remembers why we started.”

Saruuk sighed exasperatedly and pushed himself off his bunk, his feet trembling underneath him as his claws hit the floor.

“Want to know something?” he said as he went to the foot of the bunk and scooping up a ragged bag with all his belongings. “I'll train, fight, and die. But only for a purpose. If there's a real reason. But I'm not going to so much as spend another god damn minute training if there's nothing.”

“Saruuk!” the Rhaska gasped. “You can't be serious, you're not going to desert, are you?”

Rhaska sat up, his eyes scanning the room quickly.

“Saruuk?”

The barracks was dark, but by now Saruuk knew it from memory.

He snaked in, carefully keeping himself light on his feet, touching off and down upon the hard packed earth just enough to maintain complete and utter silence.

He weaved around, completely blind as he had rushed in so fast his eyes were still not yet adjusted to the dark, but instinctively remembered where every last blood spatter on the ground was, and as a final show of respect to those he was leaving behind, waved his hand in salute to each and carefully avoided them with his feet.

With exception to the one that had resulted from a clumsy warrior nicking the commander with his sword, which he dug his claw into angrily. And saluted twice the dried red crust right next to it.

In the dark, he deftly plucked his sword off the rack, and after tapping it to make sure the sheath was on, stuffed it under his belt.

Before he left, he made sure he took one of the staffs and placed it in the slot for his sword.

“Welcome to Daggerford,” the Innkeeper cooed as the light of dawn shown in through the open door and illuminated her first visitor of the day.

She beamed to him warmly, and after a few seconds her smile fell slightly as the guest stood stock still, his eyes unfocused in a gaze to nowhere.

“What be your name, dear traveler?” she ventured.

Saruuk stayed frozen there, now trembling in the harsh dawn light. “Daggerford....”

“Sir?” the Innkeeper called concernedly. “Sir?”

He didn't move and she hopped away from her counter and jogged over to him.

“Here, I think you could use a nice room. It will do you some good, and I'll give you it for the day, free of charge,” she said as he gently tugged at his arm and started leading him off.

The evening sun flared in Saruuk's eyes and he stirred stiffly on his bed.

After a few seconds he groaned and forced himself up, blinking wearily.

“Where am...”

The room came into focus and he saw he was alone in a very well kept room.

With a start, he realized that the only place that had rooms or even houses this nice had to be Daggerford. But there was no way he could have gotten there in one night, especially not after being worn out and exhausted from the harsh training that he had been fleeing.

He tried to stretch, but his muscles burned and remained almost completely rigid, with hot wires of pain running through his limbs at every movement, in addition to the now starchy clothes he was in chafing at his scales and his sword weighing heavily on his leg.

He was still in his clothes from the previous night, still with his sword tucked under his belt, and had slept the night without even getting under the soft sheets.

“Okay, so maybe I did....”

He staggered to his feet, his eyes watering with the effort and stumbled awkwardly to the door.

Still half asleep, he made his way out of his room and out of the inn, straining his eyes against the light of day.

“Ah, nice to see you're up at and it, you looked dead on your feet last night,” the Innkeeper chirped, almost making him jump, but he had no energy left to do so.

“I....” he began, watching dazedly as she slowly stood up off the bench placed right next to the door.

She smiled and reached out her hand.

“Oh, I...” he choked, digging furiously into his pockets and realizing with horror that he hadn't even the smallest bit of currency on him. “I don't....”

“No, hon, it's on me,” she said quickly, and grabbed his wrist to pull his hand out of his pocket and shook it gently. “You alright? Think maybe you could use another night, don't worry about payin' or nothin'.”

Saruuk nodded, gently pulling his hand back and stumbling off into the street.

“Sir?”

After the barracks, the harsh training and the commander, the streets of Daggerford seemed almost inviting and comforting to Saruuk, but only in the sense that he was away from the God forsaken training regime.

He couldn't walk for more than a minute without having to jump out of someone's way, or inadvertently witnessing some petty theft or a small fight breaking out.

Trying to remain positive, he kept reminding himself about how his muscles had stopped being so stiff and it was no longer his entire body aching with every movement, but only a certain joint here and there that groaned if he stepped funny.

After a while, he was doing such a good job focusing on how much better he was feeling that he wasn't at all watching where he was going, and was rudely reminded of this when he walked right into someone.

“Watch where you're going!” the person snapped as his hulking form spun around and towered over Saruuk.

Saruuk hopped back, instinctively grabbing for his sword.

“Hey, don't even think about it!” the man growled and pulled out a long, shining broadsword. “You do know not to start things with mercenaries, don't you?”

Saruuk opened his hands slowly and lifted them away from his sides. “Mercenaries? No, I wasn't gonna-”

“Yeah, we're mercenaries. And we're having a hard time recruiting right now. We need one more person.

“I-”

“Good! You're hired!”

Saruuk gawked and stumbled backwards a few paces. “Wha?”

“You heard me,” the man said, and his arm shot out and pulled Saruuk back in, the claws gently digging threateningly into the sore scales on Saruuk's arm. “We've been paid to get a twenty man company to assist in a small battle, and for some reason, nobody seems to be coming to us, so you'll do. They never specified the condition of them anyway.”

Saruuk groaned, flexing his stiff arm to try to break the mercenaries grip.

“Come on, don't be a fool. This is a great opportunity,” he growled, pulling Saruuk closer. “Adventure, being a hero, and making a good bit of gold along the way. A purpose in life. Isn't that what you want?”

The clawed hand let go and Saruuk found himself frozen, as if it was pulling him in even stronger now. “I....”

“Good. We're leaving tomorrow,” he said, quite matter-of-factly.

“Tomorrow?!”

“Yes. Time is money,” he stated, and turned around and started walking slowly towards one of the buildings. “And I'm quite adverse to wasting either.”

“But what about me?” Saruuk asked quickly, the groaning of his muscles starting to come to him once more. “I'm not ready, I need to rest.”

“Time is money,” the recruiter called back as he disappeared into one of the more shadowy, hidden doorways in the row of houses in front of him. “And I'm afraid we can't spare either for the whole band for the sake of one person alone.”

“Wake up!”

“Hrhn?” Saruuk mumbled, blinking groggily.

“Man,” one of the mercenaries riding with him in the cart whispered, clearly impressed. “I've never seen anyone who could fall asleep on the way down this road. This guy must be tough as nails. We picked a real winner.”

Saruuk grunted and stretched his arms in front of him, and then pushed himself into a sitting position. “I'm so tough,” he said as he rubbed one of his eyes, then blinked, taking in the tinted sunset light. “I ran the whole way to from the Starhunter village to Daggerford in one night, after a day of intense training.”

The cart went quiet and Saruuk quietly counted all the other mercenaries in the cart with him. It was a surprisingly full cart, probably used by a merchant but commandeered in the leader's haste to get somewhere, and all the others were sitting cramped on the edge short railing that went around the front and sides, or sitting backed up against it, leaving him just enough room to lie down uncomfortably.

“Either tough as nails or an idiot,” one of them piped after a few seconds. “I hope you've had at least a few days to rest after that, or you're finished.”

“Of course,” Saruuk declared, puffing out his chest to show indignity, but inwardly feeling a bit pale. “How long have I been sleeping?”

“Actually,” called back the lizard riding the large beast that was pulling the card along. “So long, that we're there.”

Saruuk nodded and started looking around. The landscape looked almost familiar.

“We're where?”

“Where we're getting your first contract. The Starhunter tribe, they've hired us to help them fight against the Ironaxe tribe.”

“We're being hired by who?” Saruuk blurted, being jolted awake. “You don't...”

Everyone turned to stare at Saruuk.

“You friends with the Ruinscape tribe?” one of the mercenaries asked slowly.

“Good, because even if you were...”

Saruuk gawked and leapt to his feet, surveying with growing horror that the cart was in fact perked just in front of the barracks he had been sleeping at only the night before.

“My God....”

“Yeah, I know,” one of the fellow mercenaries whispered. “I heard that the Ruinscape tribe hired the outcasts and the Starhunters cheapted out and got us instead.”

“Don't be ridiculous, the Outcasts are legends, fairy tales. Not real, of course.”

“Yeah, who in real life can afford solid gold armor? Hell I can't afford any armor.”

The heavy front doors of the barracks thundered open and all the familiar troops he had trained aside spilled out, in a way that just barely resembled an orderly fashion, followed closely by the slow, heavy footsteps of the commander.

The rest of the mercenaries bailed out of the wagon as Saruuk laid as flat and still as he could, watching the scene and hoping that nobody would notice him.

“Just barely on time, as usual,” the commander drawled to the recruiter as the two approached each other.

“We had some trouble getting people who would willingly hop for this assignment, but as you can see, we have collected twenty honed warriors, as promised.”

The two paused for a second and in the stiffening atmosphere Saruuk could almost hear the commander's stiff neck creaking as he peered around, and his mind echoed with the counting that was invariably taking place in that lizard's noggin.

“I only count nineteen.”

“Counting me, sir?” the recruiter replied stiffly. “I'm the leader, but I still fight like the rest of us.”

“Yes, of course I counted you,” the commander snapped. “There's still only nineteen. I'm paying you because I need twenty for the battle we are going to this night.”

“No, we got twenty... where's the newbie? Newbie?”

Saruuk groaned.

“Ah, Newbie, still in the cart? Come on out, show yourself.”

His muscles quivered and involuntarily began to push himself up, into sight, as if wires were pulling him onto his feet. Every last pair of eyes narrowed on him. The nineteen other mercenaries, the burning glare of the commander, and the gnawing stares of the many that he had trained beside.

He could here whispering begin amongst the troops who had assembled in front of the barracks, and distinctively heard his name more than once, and never did he sense a tone resembling anything less than pained condemnation.

“Saruuk!” his bunkmate finally cried out, stumbling awkwardly a step in front of the rest of the line. “Is that you?”

Saruuk bit his teeth together, his eyes welling up and his vision blurry as he hoisted himself out of the cart and stood next to the rest of the mercenaries.

Everyone stood stock still, except the commander, who strode furiously to the troops and pushed Saruuk's bunkmate forcefully back in line with the rest of the troops, then stomped towards the mercenary leader.

“What the hell do you think you're playing at? Trying to get me to pay for the use of my own goddamn troop!”

“He never mentioned that he still belonged to a tribe,” the leader snapped.

“Did you even ask?” the commander bellowed. “Or did you just pick the first piece of shit off the street that ran into you?”

“I'll have you know,” the leader snarled, putting on a mask of indignation. “That we only accept the finest fighters among our ranks!”

“By hiring one of my own warriors to meet your exacting standards, I don't know whether to be flattered or offended. Are you trying to kiss my ass or should I just kick yours now?”

Saruuk grimaced slightly and turned away, trying to hide his face, but it did no good, and he could still feel every eye upon him.

“Here,” the commander snarled. “Gimme a big stick and I'll set that piece of shit right for the both of us. And you're only getting paid for nineteen.”

“No,” the mercenary leader replied forcefully. “If we're to move out at dawn, as you've specified, then my troops need their rest. Including him.”

The commander glared and turned on the mercenary leader, his eyes livid with fury.

“Alright soldiers!” he finally roared, turning away from the commander. “Curfew is in effect in five minutes tonight, you're all resting up for the fight! Move! Now soldiers!”

Saruuk shifted uneasily in front of the campfire the mercenaries had set up next to the barracks.

The commander had refused to give them any bunks.

“Hey, newbie,” one of the mercenaries said slowly. “You're never gonna fall asleep sitting up like that.”

Saruuk shook his head and sighed deeply.

“I'm not gonna sleep anyway, it seems.”

“Wha'?”

Saruuk's shoulders sagged even more than before and he kicked spitefully at the dirt in front of the fire.

“I'm just really mad with myself right now.”

“Not because you made it so we didn't get bunks did you?”

Saruuk grimaced and shook his head.

“Don't beat yourself up over it or anything, but it was your fault,” the mercenary said, and then rolled over and went back to sleep.

Saruuk shivered and pulled his knees in closer to himself as he stared at the fire as it crackled and gnawed at the withered logs that had been carelessly tossed into the ring of hastily dug up earth.

He inched a little closer to the fire, until it's head scalded at his toes, but still it didn't seem to be warming him at all.

He scowled to himself and kicked furiously at the dirt close to the fire, the hot dirt burning at his claws, but he hardly felt it, and shivered again as he pulled his leg back towards himself.

“Saruuk,”

His head swung around and his eyes met with the familiar black dots that where Rhaska's.

“Rhaska! Look, you have to-”

Saruuk froze, his mouth drying and clamping shut as Rhaska's face came into the firelight, illuminating his furious expression.

“Is this that purpose you told me about?” Rhaska spat.

“What do you mean?” Saruuk asked tensely, his voice trembling.

“You're not a proud warrior for the Starhunter tribe, fighting for your people anymore,” Rhaska snapped. “You're a hired hand for that loser that dared argue with our commander, and you fight for gold instead of honor.”

“It's nothing like that!” Saruuk pleaded, his eyes welling with hot, burning tears. “I never signed up with these guys, I just sort of-”

“I don't know you anymore!” Rhaska hissed, and turned around and stomped back towards the barracks.

Saruuk watched his friend disappear into the darkness, and collapsed onto his side, shivering.

“Up and at 'em, ladies!”

Saruuk groaned and blinked awake slowly. He shivered in the cold morning air and glanced around as he pushed himself to his feet.

“Come on, we were supposed to be at the battle already!” the mercenary leader called out as the troops poured out of the barracks, all lining up perfectly side by side twenty paces in front of the door as the mercenaries all groaned blearily as they woke themselves.

“Alright, on your feet, everyone got their swords?”

Saruuk grimaced and nodded. He hadn't even unbelted his sword, and was starting to feel a cramp in his leg where it had been.

“Alright then, if they don't know we're coming, it should be only a twenty minute walk-”

A horn blared stridently and everyone's necks swiveled to see a swarming gray mass approaching.

“Or if they're coming to us...” the leader said aloud as he quickly starting changing the details of his plan.

“Archers!” the commander called. “At the ready!”

Bows strained and creaked as every lizard from the barracks with a bow drew an arrow, knocked it, and pointed the honed tips to the sky in the direction of the swarming mass.

“They can hit them from here?” the leader whispered, the incoming forces now three hundred yards away.

“They better!” the commander hissed back. “Archers, fire when ready!”

The bows twanged as the arrows leaped into the sky in unison, sailing towards the mass, they reloaded and fired again, and again.

The leader turned his head to the commander and whispered “Are they hitting any- FUCK!” he yelped as an arrow whizzed straight between his chin and his shoulder.

The commander nodded as the incoming troops closed to two hundred yards away. Already his keen eyes could spot a few motionless dots in the distance.

“They better hit more,” he snarled.

Saruuk felt his whole body trembling, the clear, unique, almost harmonious hum of every bow twanging in the most disciplined unison now only a meaningless buzz to him as he stood frozen, leaning against the sword, watching helplessly as the troops charged forward.

One hundred meters.

The commander's eyes narrowed. There weren't enough motionless dots behind the troops, and they were already close enough for him to now make out their coat of arms. “Archers! You had best start doing better, or instead of just the enemy you'll also be against me! And you would much rather be against the enemy, they give you mercy once you're on the ground!”

Saruuk shivered as the rain of arrows intensified, becoming furious and desperate. Some of the arrows sailed straight into the charging force, but most sailing above, falling short, or drifting to the side.

The blob neared, now becoming a swarm of clearly identifiable soldiers, all charging forward more fervently than before as they came to fifty meters away.

“Archers draw your swords!” the commander bellowed. “Everyone charge!”

The ground shook beneath Saruuk as everyone around him began to charge forward. He stumbled slightly as he tried to launch himself, then broke into a tired trot, then finally a sprint, slinging his sword out of its sheath as the swarm of his fellow soldiers rushed in and meshed with the mass of warriors from the other tribe.

The uniforms of the opposing tribe closed around Saruuk as he charged in as he dove in, as if falling into an ocean of hostility.

His mind reached back into the recesses of his training, trying desperately to remember all that he had learned.

Then a sword came swinging in front of him and he forgot everything. His sword came up in reflex, and the two gleaming blades met with a clang, recoiling back and in unison both swung again.

This time they collided in almost perfect parallel formation, glancing off each other and knocking Saruuk off balance. He tried to pull his sword in front of him and get his guard back up, but the opponent caught him off guard with a jab, and a cold few inches of steel punctured into his gut.

The opponent, as surprised by the success of his attack as Saruuk was, retreated his sword before he had a chance to push it in further, and Saruuk collapsed onto the ground, feeling the grass being painted by a sickening warmth spreading from the wound.

Within seconds, his vision became blurry, and then everything became dark.

Saruuk groaned as the pain slowly dragged him out of the darkness it had plunged him into. He didn't know how long ago that was, or when it was when he came to.

He pulled apart his eyelids and his eyes met with another pair gazing forlornly into his.

He could tell that it was a soldier from the enemy, there were some disctinctive marks on the snout. Definitely one of the Ruinscape tribe.

“Did they get you too?” he croaked sympathetically, feeling a bit of blood stinging the roof of his mouth as he spoke.

The eyes maintained their morose stare straight into his.

“It's okay, they have mercy on you once you're down,” Saruuk whispered.

The eyes didn't even blink, and the figure stayed frozen in place.

“It's alright now, we have good healers, and...”

Saruuk's eyes drifted down the figures chin, and where the neck should have been, there was only torn mass of muscle and arteries clinging on, still dripping sickeningly.

His own eyes widened in horror and his chest began to sting at him with a thousand needles as he started to gasp from air.

And then everything went pale, and then dark once more.

“He okay?”

Saruuk felt his consciousness fade slowly back into his body, but his body was refusing to respond, and his muscles were frozen solid and his eyes clamped shut.

“Don't think so,” the commander's voice said, clearly standing right above him, but somehow sounding far off. “Thats a pretty bad wound to the gut right there.”

“It doesn't look very deep though,” Rhaska said quickly, and Saruuk could hear his friend kneeling over him. “We should take him to the healers, I think he might be okay,”

Saruuk's heart leapt inside him, and he struggled to move, but his muscles were far to stiff to even budge, and all he could do was hope that he would be able to make some sign to his friend that he was alive, and even tried to breathe harder so the rising and falling of his chest would become apparent.

“Time is money, and we wont waste either for us or for the healers. He's dead, let it go.”

The fluttering in Saruuk's chest faded and the wound started to burn as if he were being stabbed all over again, and then he fell back into darkness.

Crickets were chirping madly when Saruuk came to again.

He groaned and started flexing his fingers and toes slowly, trying to get the stiffness out of them, when something hard landed on the tip of his nose.

He jolted awake and his arm flew up, swatting at the thing as he bolted into a sitting position, his eyes opening enough to see a cricket in the grass righting itself and then buzzing away into the grass.

He shook his head, holding his breath to try and stop himself from panting heavily from the shock, and a few seconds later his heart rate returned to normal.

He turned his head back, and towards the barracks he could see a bonfire set up, and all the troops sitting around it, and he could hear a familiar tune drifting distantly from it. His tribe had apparently won without too many casualties.

He eased himself onto his feet and took a step towards his home, then froze.

He didn't even know if they would even take him back.

He stood there, weighing his odds for a few seconds, and then the back of his mind echoed Rhaska's statement of “I don't even know you anymore.”

He turned around and started running towards the forest.

After an hour of running nonstop, he collapsed against one of the thicker trees, his face turning skyward as he grimaced in pain. He was burning up, and his wound was gnawing at him horribly.

He panted heavily, and slowly slid off the tree and collapsed into a heap.

Desperately, looking for any sign of hope, his eyes turned skyward, but were met not with the stars that would have taken his mind away from the pain, but a twisted, gnarled canopy that was closing in on him.

He closed his eyes and groaned heavily at the pain, as if something was digging it's claws in his tender flesh, digging him out from inside the hole in his torso.

His eyes opened, and with a shock of horror, the canopy was still closing in on him, baring down, and then he closed his eyes again.

The wound burned madly at him, every nerve anywhere near the pierced flesh crying out, and his eyes shot open.

The canopy was still closing in, reaching down at him with twisted, gnarled claws of branches.

He staggered to his feet and stumbled around, reaching for his sword, but his clawed hand found only air where it should have been around his belt, and he swung his other arm around blindly until the ground went out from his stumbling feet.

Everything froze as he hung in midair, drifting slowly downward as if time had stopped. He turned around, and saw that the ground had given way where he had staggered to into a shallow pool of clear water, glowing a soft, comforting blue.

He closed his eyes and felt it splash around him, a cool blast that enveloped his body.

The icy water began to swirl silently around him, and then everything became a bright light.

“Hello there, weary traveler.”

Saruuk blinked awake, surprised to finding himself standing in what appeared to be a temple, a high dome above him with swirling blue streams of light weaving through a background of pearl white marble.

“You have had a rough journey here, I see.”

He spun around and his eyes fell upon another lizard, looking very similar to himself, except the markings were slightly different, his chest was broader and his arms and legs thicker, a few faint scars tracing around his face, and he was clad in an elegant suit of shimmering gold armor, with a faint tracing of the same patterns that danced around the high ceiling above him.

“I...” Saruuk sputtered, completely overwhelmed. “Where...”

“You're safe now,” the man said reassuringly. “You may call me Tarquinn”

“Tarquinn, I...” Saruuk gasped, and suddenly realized that his injury had disappeared completely. “The guildmaster of the Outcasts?”

“The one and the same,” Tarquinn replied.

“I thought you were only legend,”

“No, I assure you, this is all very real. And you have proven yourself of having the potential to join our ranks with sufficient training.”

“I....”

Tarquinn shook his head and held out his hand, and Saruuk reached out and grasped it tightly.

Four years later, Saruuk stood, overlooking the city, clad in his own shimmering suit of golden armor.

The training had been much harsher than that in his old barracks, and each night had seen him to bed even more exhausted than the last.

But somehow it had been so much easier. Each day of training was something that he looked forward to, instead of the looming pain in the future that his old life had been nothing but.

There was something else there.

A purpose.

He was now one of the outcasts, the heroes of the realms, the fearless warriors who came to the aid of the innocents in need, and brought down the cruel tyrants that wormed their way to power.

He smiled. He had found what he was looking for, and it was his purpose to share his gift with those in need.