Everman and Sparkymature

The sun dawned on the day of the tribe's impending annihilation. They set about their business, oblivious to their coming end.

Tribesmen selected fuel for the fledgling cooking fires. Vegetables and salted meats were gathered from subterranean storage. Water was gathered in pots from the nearby stream to be boiled. Their charges would be hungry from the night's fast, and would require the proper nourishment essential for their growth.

The scents of fired meat and wood smoke drifted throughout the small camp, waking their charges as surely as the sounding of an alarm. They awoke from their deep slumber, crying and mewing for sustenance and attention. Those that could walk, the tribeswomen ushered outside the flaps of the hide-strewn tents. Those that could not, the women carried.

They were a simple people, charged with the simple but demanding task of seeing to those kin who were unable to see to themselves. Whether too weak, or too ill, or just unable to survive in the wilds with their fellow kin for whatever reason, they were brought here for special care. And here they stayed, until which time they were deemed fit for the wilds once more, if at all.

Meal was prepared, and their charges took to their rations hungrily. The tribesmen, clothing themselves in heavy furs and leathers, took up bows and spears and readied themselves for the morning hunt. The women, dressed in simpler fare of plain dresses of cloth, began to groom and wash the younger kin. Those that were older understood to lick their fur clean on their own. A few of the kin were reaching their maturity; soon they would have to endure the rite of passage before setting out on their own to find a mate. Once they passed the rite, they could not return back to this camp.

One of the women, an older lady who had tended this camp all her life, took one of the smallest into her lap. She had dark brown hair, slightly grayed, and was wearing a patched and dirtied brown dress. She loved their charges, and she looked down lovingly at the small thing in her lap. She combed its red and white fur neatly as it curled up into a small ball and purred deeply, wrapping its long, curled tail around itself. It was content and happy with its simple life. She stroked behind its ears, causing its eyes to slip shut and its purring to intensify.

It yawned suddenly, stretching its four tiny legs, latching its feeble claws onto the fabric of her dress. It rotated in her lap, facing the opposite direction, and curled once more into a tight ball of warmth and rhythmic motoring.

Of all the kin they had been charged with overseeing, this one remained the smallest. It was the runt of the litter, dwarfed by its brothers and sisters who were now bulking up in size. Soon they would leave the encampment, strong enough to face the wilds; but not this one. It had grown hardly at all, and would no doubt require special care all its life. The woman doubted that the creature would ever leave their village, and she felt pity for the small thing. It would never know what it felt like to roam the wilderness and be free, or to find a mate and nurture a family of its own. Still, she was as happy as she was sad that this one would be staying with them. She loved them all as any mother would, but could not help but favor this one, so small, frail, and innocent in her arms.

It was then, as the tribesmen readied themselves for the hunt and the kin had finished their din, that the attack came from the surrounding wilderness.

A dozen men ran out from behind the trees, clambering loudly under bulky suits of armor. Their weapons were massive; their armor exuberant. The tribesmen took up arms, combating the force with skinning knives and wooden arrows. Their blows were turned aside by their heavy mail without so much as scathing the soldiers hidden within.

One soldier stepped forward, the champion of the group. He was completely encased in black mail armor of elaborate design. His breastplate bore large jewels of many kinds, the spaulders atop his shoulders bore fashioned eagles, captured in flight by a skilled metallurgist. His helmet completely encased his head, leaving nothing but shadow looking out from the small slits carved for eyes and mouth. It, like his shoulders, bore carved wings that swooped back from his head, honed with great skill and detail.

He surveyed the encampment wordlessly as his fellow soldiers spread around him. They set to work firing the fur skin tents, scattering the piles of fuel, and slaying the tribes people. The men stood their ground as well as they could, shoving sharped sticks and stones against men wielding enormous battle axes and longswords. Terrified, the tribeswomen rounded up their charges and hid them inside the tents. The soldiers sought them out, slaying them as they found them, women and kin alike, and fired each of the fur skin huts. The elderly woman with the runt kin ducked down in the midst of her tent as it erupted into smoke and flames around her. She cried out in panic, crying silent tears as she crouched low, covering her charge with her body. One of the soldiers heard her, entered, and smote her upon the back, taking her breath. She collapsed, and the tent was razed to the ground around her.

Mere minutes later, when the patrol left the area they way they had come, they left nothing behind but ashes and the bodies of men, women, and kin strewn about the ground.

After their passing, a mighty roar of unsuppressed rage echoed throughout the valley, shaking the very ground and scattering birds from their boughs for a hundred yards around.

The creatures whom had placed the charge upon those tribes people had taken notice.