Rathma
Rathma was lost.
He had no idea where he was going, save for the fact that the Wastes were now behind him. He had unclasped his cloak hours ago and slung it over his shoulder to let his body breathe; the punishing sun was almost directly overhead, but the grasslands of Derenar made for much cooler climes than the deserts of Khulakorum. His dark red hair was tied up behind him, letting the rest of him cool off in turn.
He wasn’t sure how far he would have to travel to find word of Jinda’s whereabouts, but he knew that Farsteppers were rare outside of the Wastes, and the odds were good that someone would know something about a man matching his brother’s description—and that’s what he was by now: a man. Jinda had been younger when he left the tribes, but even Rathma had grown up in the intervening time, leaving the ignorance of boyhood far, far behind. Just as Rathma planned to do to the Wastes.
He planted his feet in the rough dirt trail and looked around, squinting to make the light more bearable. Behind him, directly south, was his desert home; and before him, leading north, was a trail going Holder knows where. It was clearly not a well-traveled path, although it appeared to have seen some recent use. Strange tracks, which looked as if they belonged to the biggest wolf he’d ever seen, led southward into the desert. Thanks to the relatively undisturbed topsoil of this region, the prints of the creature—creatures?—were well preserved. But when faced with the sands of the south, they became nothing more than a passing, forgotten mark on an endlessly shifting landscape.
“I guess north is as good a direction as any,” he mumbled to himself. Anything to get farther away from the Wastes. Placing one foot in front of the other, he began to walk.
***
Many times the road split off, branching westward or opening eastward, but Rathma stayed the path. He reasoned that his brother might have thought the same thing, wanting nothing more than to distance himself from the warring tribes of the south. So he fastened his cloak and kept walking, step after step, slowly making his way along a path he hoped would lead him to something familiar.
By the time the weariness began to creep upon him, the sun had already started sinking. He had been walking long, and only now began to notice just how sore his legs had become. Knowing nothing of the geography of this land, though, he decided to press on. He would rather follow the path, and maybe stumble upon a city, than stop at night on a strange road with nothing else in sight.
But, as luck would have it, he would not have to walk much farther. For, up ahead, and barely distinguishable against the setting sun, were the outlines of something that made Rathma thankful that he was born a Farstepper.
“A cloak like that must be hiding something worth some money,” he heard someone say, followed with the sound of sharpened metal slicing through the air.
Rathma didn’t wait to count how many there were.
He took a breath, closed his eyes, and reached for the power that had been his since birth. But what was even more surprising to Rathma than how quickly he had been caught by these bandits was the fact that, when he attempted to beckon his power, he was met with nothing but empty silence.
The only sound he could offer was a disappointed “Huh.”