Toro Tokuda

# This takes place on the black sands, schak'jii, part of the much bigger world of my main manuscripts.

Thunder.

Earthquake, maybe that was more accurate.

A dozen horses were bearing down across the black sands in a wave, their riders almost flat against them. They were speeding towards their destination: a small flock of raptors a scout had spotted up north by the Bell Tower.

The flock was in their sights before a horse cut across their path and forced the group of hunters to veer off and come to a quick halt, but the interloper didn’t flinch, and neither did his horse. The dozen riders instead encircled him.

“What is the meaning of this?” Boomed their leader behind cloth and goggles, a hand on his spear docked in the saddle beside him and his horse moving closer to the offender.

“This group is protected,” came the answer. “They are no where near any clans, and they won’t be. Leave them.”

“They are within a half-day’s ride of our clan,” the leader returned, moving with the circle of his hunters to get a full view of this man and his horse. They looked dirty and well-worn, but they had on green, something that was distinctive even under mud that was clearly trying to hide that they hailed from the Kingdom. “It is our duty to ensure their safety.”

“And it is mine to ensure theirs.”

He had a rifle over his lap, and with those words he turned on the reactor with an audible buzz and glow of purple that was echoed by the dozen that surrounded him.

“Give it up— you are outnumbered twelve to one.”

The stranger didn’t waver, but some of the hunters seemed to be having second-thoughts, glancing at the lead hunter for guidance and reassurance. This was truly without precedent. Who would risk their life for some raptors, the monsters of the wasteland?

He sat up in his saddle a little more, not budging from his stance. “You would give your life for them? They would eat you the first chance they got, the first time they were hungry—“

“No more than you would eat your horse,” he cut in, and there was hissing from the riders around him. “All you have to do is turn around. Tell your clan that they are safe. I will move them further away.”

“Why? Why do anything for those monsters?”

The stranger turned his head to look over at the group, and for the first time the lead hunter really looked at it as well. There was no Mother in the group, no leader. They were all younglings, all smaller than their horses, and huddling a little together as they kept their eyes on the stranger.

“I found them at a little oasis a few months ago, mourning their mother. I couldn’t bring myself to kill them, so instead I’m teaching them good ways to hunt, to avoid people and clans. They are actually quite sweet.”

“Sweet,” another hunter repeated drily, aiming his rifle at the group. “As if—“

He was dead before he could finish the thought, and within a few moments the stranger was left with a few fresh wounds for his trouble, but alive. He dropped down into the sands, bleeding and clenching his teeth, to make sure they were all dead before the raptor younglings came to join him.

“I told you they weren’t going to hurt you,” he said with a groan, patting each of the five in turn with a loving noise for them that they gladly returned. They walked around and looked at the retreating horses while he stripped the bodies of anything useful or sellable, and then lined them up for the sands to take.

The raptors sang him a chorus of hunger, and he agreed with them, back up onto his horse and leading the way to a further oasis, and letting them hunt some wasteland rodentia along the way. 

They arrived just before nightfall, and focused on building them all a fire as the children went to hunt for their supper. They brought back a rabbit for him, and he thanked them. He fed all that he didn’t eat to his horse, and before the night was truly that dark and frozen green, they were all curled up together by the fire, sharing their warmth and dreams.