Chapter 1: Ashes Cover Everything

'Stupid Nocturnes.' Aromir thought. They felt comfortable in burning down a whole village until they realized that thatched roofing produces ashes. Winds from the sea take those ashes and lay them on the Forrest to the west, were a band of newly homeless villagers waits. Ashes cover everything; make everything the same color, until it rains ... and the rainy season had just passed. It was the perfect camouflage for an ambush, which was exactly what this lopsided fight needed. It was a sour reprieve, as the village men would look down at their hands and see the only thing left of their home covering them. Their wives dowry, their children's toys, the wood door they spent an entire season carving, the tools they had gathered for countless generations; it all covered them. Aromir didn't see that when he looked at his hands, he saw his parents.

They didn't have much. Aromir's father was a blade instructor at the academy until he broke both of his arms in a riding accident. He moved to D'mont when he healed. There he married the mayor's daughter Analee, and started testing various weapons for the smith's that forged there. It was a meager existence but they were happy. Aromir grew up as a well mannered boy, his father taught him history and how to read and write, hopping he would be a scholar at the academy. When he was denied admission, his father didn't raise a fuss. He merely signed Aromir on as an apprentice to the village's top smith. He was supposed to start two days ago, but that was when they came.

The Nocturnes. The Hand of the Council. Only the finest warriors to come from the academy were considered for the privilege to bare the black uniform with gold buttons and white cords, trademark of the Nocturnes. They came demanding the immediate surrender and arrest of the entire village. A village of smiths goes quietly? The fighting started that night, slow and bloody. The weapon workers knew how to fight with a blade and the rest of the men used the tools of their trade to cut, bash, tear and slaughter their way through the nocturnes. Aromir had wielded one of his father's practice blades, a long handled short sword. He had sparred with his father before, but he had never experienced anything like the confusion of battle. When the blood of the first man he killed slapped him in the face, warm and viscous, Aromir knew that not only was he defending his home, but his life. The fighting lasted until dawn. At first light, the body count was half the village, including Aromir's father, he dreaded telling his mother that they would be alone, that she would never see her husband again. "This was to be expected" the other men assured themselves, quietly grieving the loss of their friends and comrades.