I
Athmane,
Erevas Outcrop,
JD 59 of the Year 321, Dawn
As he
did every morning, Athmane watched as the red sun rose slowly up from the western
horizon. The giant ball of flame wasn’t
bright enough yet to hurt his eyes and Athmane could clearly see the three huge
black spots that marred its surface. He
didn’t know what it meant and he didn’t care, all he wanted was for the warmth
to come back to his blood.
The desert, especially in winter, was cold
at night and the strong wind blowing in from The Void far away to the south
made it even colder. Athmane had taken
shelter overnight in a hollowed out limestone overhang, one of many in his
hunting area. Millions of years of
erosion and weathering had left it broken, loose and precarious to climb on but
Athmane had no other option. Without shelter from the biting wind he would
inevitably fall ill. Between the ages of
eight and eighteen he had been taught the skills needed to be a hunter and to
survive for long periods in the wilderness. Athmane could set traps but was
particularly lethal with his weapons – a bow and arrow, spear and knife. He had never liked killing with his knife,
close combat was not his style and using it meant that he had missed with his
spear and arrows. However, Athmane was
the top marksman from his class and he was confident of his ability to hit
anything within 50 metres. At the age of
twenty, despite his youth, Athmane had a mature head and he was one of the very
best hunters Nimar had.
As the light returned to the desert,
it revealed to Athmane’s eyes a thin veil of mist that had blanketed the sand
and, after taking a moment to take in the new day, he gathered his spear and
bow and carefully climbed down to the flat, gravelly sand plain below. It was time to hunt and then return to Nimar. A city of wind-whipped and sun-baked stone,
Nimar was the last remaining dwelling of humankind in the land. He knew exactly where his city was and Athmane
could judge the distance he was from Nimar to the nearest kilometre. Athmane had found it difficult in the
beginning to correctly estimate the distances when dealing with the flat,
deceptive landscape. Now he was
experienced enough to know he could make it home on the water he had remaining
and bring back the food before it went off.
Being a hunter was more than about killing. To be a hunter was to be selfless, it was
useless killing precious life stock if they couldn’t bring the food back in
time for the benefit of all in the city.
The landscape offered little in visual
enlightenment but Athmane didn’t mind, in fact he found it peaceful. Out in the wild he was his own boss, in
charge of his own destiny and at one with nature. He preferred the silence of the land to the
noise of the city. Athmane had chosen to
be a hunter gatherer – some of the children weren’t so fortunate in knowing
what they wanted to do – and he had never contemplated any other path. As early as he could remember, the lands
outside the cramped and bustling city had fascinated him. Athmane was sociable when he needed to be, indeed
he had very good friends from within the four quadrants, but alone with the
land was where he was most content. The
passing wind and streaking whispers of sands across the landscape was all the
conversation he required. In truth, he
didn’t look forward to his retirement and having to teach, yet he was a long
way away from that and took comfort in it.
Retirees became known as Masters, expected to train new recruits,
procreate and be called upon when needed.
Masters never really ‘retired’ in the proper sense of the word; Nimar
was a machine that could not afford for even a few of its cogs to stop working. Being a Master, however, did afford an escape
from the menial jobs for a more comfortable life with a higher command and more
respect.
Athmane raised his bow; his sharp brown-coloured
eyes had found their prey: an adult antelope, upwind of Athmane and its senses
sluggish to adjust to the morning light and mist. Every part of the animal’s body would be
used, once boiled down and placed in a stew it didn’t matter to the people of
Nimar whether they were eating a prime piece of thigh meat or a bit of nose or
tongue, it all tasted the same. Food was food and the meat provided necessary
sustenance. Athmane could hunt and cook
his own food in the wild – a perk of the job – but he had to bring back enough
meat, berries, herbs, dates and other forage each week to meet his quota.
Despite the skilled efforts of its
hunters, there was never a day of excess food or celebration in Nimar. The land
of Empyria was not one that gave, it only took.
Twang!
The slender wooden arrow sailed through the air and pierced the antelope
straight through its brain. Athmane
rarely missed, even when the wind blew strongly. Dawn was always one of the best times to hunt
and, while hardly teeming with life, this area was always a reliable source of
antelope, rabbit, fox, lizard and vulture.
The hunters always sourced responsibly, if they had hunted too much meat
one week, they would concentrate on gathering other types of food the
next.
Athmane raced over to the carcass,
removed the arrow and stopped the flow of blood. The last thing he wanted was for a sand golem
to pick up the scent, descend from its lair in the nearby outcrops and be on
his tail all the way home. Golems were
big, slow, stupid creatures that rarely troubled the hunters but that didn’t
mean it was any fun to have one pursue you, especially after it had picked up
the smell of food in its nose. Most of
the time the golems slept in their lairs buried under rock and sand, but when
they did hunt they mainly went after the wolves in the Black Mountains, or sometimes
the people of Nimar, with lethal consequences.
It was defending against the golems, sand eagles and other beasts where
the soldiers came in handy. Using his
knife, a serrated piece of flint attached to a piece of wood, Athmane marked
his signature hunter symbol onto the carcass.
These symbols were handed out by the Master hunters at graduation and
with them they could easily tally up the meat brought in per hunter each
week. It was the meat brought back that
earned a hunter his respect.
Tall, broad shouldered and very
strong, Athmane easily flung the antelope onto his bronzed back and carried it
by its back legs over his shoulder. It
was a three hour walk back to Nimar.
Dressed in ragged clothes passed down through the generations, made when
life was more prosperous in the northern lands, Athmane wore nothing more than
a tunic covering his chest to his knees, exposing his lower legs and arms to
the elements.
By late morning the land had heated up
enough to make Athmane sweat, the cold of a few hours ago now a distant memory
and something that he longed for again.
In the winter, Athmane could get by hunting further away from Nimar and
its precious water supply, but in the summer months he would never be more than
half a day’s walk from it. The
importance of water was the first lesson to be drilled into the new recruits
and the Masters would never let their pupils forget it. Dehydration was the biggest killer.
Head down and watching his footing,
Athmane carefully navigated across the gravel plain and the little shrubs that waited
to trip him up. It was a journey he had
walked a thousand times before. The
rocks of the gravel plain were black. Exposure to millions of years of
radiation from the sun had transformed their natural, paler colours. The only sound was that of Athmane’s breathing
and his feet trudging along the ground.
Basic sandals made from the carcasses of animals stopped the hunters
burning their feet in the blisteringly hot sands.
Always alert to his surroundings,
Athmane’s periphery vision picked up a shape 4 kilometres away to his west. It was a large party of men, soldiers Athmane
presumed, heading away from Nimar and to lands in the northeast. Athmane guessed something big was going down,
soldiers rarely left the city and especially so many – over a hundred, he
guessed – but this wasn’t his concern, he was just a hunter. Athmane had his duty and the soldiers had
theirs.
Reaching Nimar, Athmane headed for the
drop point. The city gate was slow and
cumbersome to open regularly, so the hunters placed their haul on a flat,
wooden crate which was raised up over the 3 metre high walls by the on duty
soldiers. The soldier on the wall
lowered the wooden crate and Athmane placed the meat on it. It was
a sizeable catch and Athmane was slightly jealous that he wouldn’t get to taste
it, for he wasn’t scheduled to return to Nimar to receive new orders for three
more weeks. Athmane turned away from the
wall and began to walk back into the wild.
“Hang on, Athmane. You have been summoned to see your Master,”
said the soldier.
Athmane closed his eyes and let out a
sigh. A few seconds later a wooden ladder
was lowered and Athmane climbed up. On
the wall, he already felt uncomfortable by the sheer volume of people and the
noise of the town. Nimar presently housed
one thousand six hundred people – it was near saturation point. The Sanctum dominated Nimar, a tower of
sandstone blocks built upwards and outwards in a spiral shape reaching a height
of 15 metres above the top of the outcrop.
The rocks of the Sanctum were a fine mix of orange, yellow, red and
black sand grains which blended together in a wispy texture as if the very heat
of the desert had melted them. At the
top of the spire, the four elders presided and viewed the entire city.
The elders were also known as the
Grandmasters, the most experienced and knowledgeable of their chosen
field. The Grandmasters were elected by
the Masters of each of the four crafts – soldier, hunter, medic and craftsman –
and they held ultimate authority over each of their respective quadrant. At the bottom of the Sanctum lay the most
precious resource of the city – the water pool.
The very lifeblood of the city, only the elders and a select few had
permission to enter the Sanctum and access the life-giving pool. The Sanctum also housed the dry food stores,
should the city ever be under siege or times turn hard and, the library,
containing maps as well as various scrolls detailing the land, its resources
and its creatures.
There was no space for the dead inside
Nimar, the deceased were burnt and their ashes scattered – even those of a
Grandmaster. At night, numerous torches
lit the city fuelled by the oil from the northern tar sands – a concoction of
crude black oil which seeped to the surface and mixed with quicksand. Outside the Sanctum burned the eternal flame,
used to quickly light the torches at night time, to cook the food and to light
fire arrows in case of attack. The Southeast
quadrant of the city contained the training buildings and sleeping quarters of
the hunters. Staring at the city, Athmane
was counting down the seconds until he was back on the other side of the
wall.
