I walked along the shores of a small creek, my sandals hanging in the loose grip of a hand and bare feet pressing down into the soft ground. My eyes traced the path of the water, watching small trout swim downstream as their scales glimmered against the sunlight. It was midday and the sun’s rays broke in through the forest’s green leaves, setting everything aglow with the stillness only this forest could have. Magpies and robins chirped in their branches amongst the aspens. I spied one standing firmly on the very top of a tree. The black and white magpie let out a tune hat sounded like it belonged in a symphony. I smiled.

I looked back along the shore, seeing my footprints indented in the moss that grew there, and I saw the small tufts of grass and mushrooms that had sprouted behind my bare feet with every step. Even as I looked down, I could feel the tendrils of a vine crawling up around my calf, and I saw a flower blooming, it’s bluish petals extending forth in the light.

This might have been considered a strange phenomenon to anyone alien to my land, but most people who saw life bloom around me automatically knew that it was merely a trait of my abilities. I am what most would call a Life Reader, someone who had the power to manipulate and accelerate the growth of living organisms. In my case, it was plants. There were some who were in tune with animals, and even the rare person who possessed that power over other human beings. The select few who did possess that power were often great healers… or great murderers.

I shook down that last dark thought, and kept on walking along the creek, content to be in the midst of such lush beauty.

“Senata!” A voice.

It rang out and pulled me from my state of tranquility. I looked up form the stream and off somewhere into the forest. “Senata! Where are you?” it rang out again. “You missed lunch and your mother’s convinced you’ve been eaten by a bear!”

I recognized he voice of my friend Alat, and I called out, “By the creek!” while slipping on my sandals. Without direct contact to the plants, they stopped growing around me. I smoothed out my tunic and patted down my short trousers; they only fell down to my knees.

“There you are!” exclaimed my friend. Alat came running forward and clasped my shoulder. “You wouldn’t believe how worked up your mother gets if you’re missing for an hour.”

I rolled my eyes. “She does this all the time. If I linger out some place too long, she assumed the worst has happened.”

“I guess all parents are that way though, eh?” joked my friend. I laughed lightly and we began walking back towards the town.

“I’ll apologize to my mother for missing lunch, but is there any left?” I asked, hearing my own stomach growl with ferocity. Being sixteen and growing had so many drawbacks.

Alat smiled and shook his head. “Woman!” he proclaimed, “You are always thinking with your stomach!”

“So that means there’s nothing left?” I asked hopelessly.

“Not a spec,” replied Alat, shaking his head. He wiped his brow with an unsteady hand, pushing back midnight black hair.

I sighed and kneeled to the ground. Alat stopped to watch what I was doing. I pushed a palm flat on the dirt and let my gift flow from my fingertips to the earth. In a moment, I felt the head of a tree pop from the ground. I lifted my hand up, and the tree extended with it. An orange quickly sprouted from a knotted branch and I snatched up my meal. As I stood and started walking again, Alat shook his head in envy as I worked at the orange. “You see,” he sighed, “You got useful abilities.”

“Nonsense,” I chided my green-eyed friend. “Being a Wind Reader is very useful!”

“Yeah,” Alat sneered, “if it’s a hot summer day. Do you know how sick I am of people asking me for a breeze? I’m not a fan!” My friend’s sarcastic tone made me laugh. “And if I’m not pushing wind around, I’m accidentally creating a tornado that I immediately have to pull apart.”

“You have a very promising future in windmills,” I mused. We both snickered. “But seriously, there’s some cool stuff you could do with wind. You could fly!”

“Oh yeah, just like we tried back when we were ten,” Alat remembered. He kicked a pebble aside that was in our path. We were getting very near to the town, now that we had found the dirt path that wound out of the woods.

“Hey, you were airborne until the suit came apart at the seams,” I replied, remembering the pathetic excuse for a flying suit we had sown together as small children. “We’ll make a better one again some day.”

We lapsed into a silence after that, crossing into the small town we had lived in since birth. Alat was my best friend, and we stood by each other no matter what. Recently, that meant helping Alat trying to impress one of his crushes. All attempts had been futile so far. When Alat had offered to help me with someone in return, I had merely responded there was no one special in my life yet. “There has to be someone you think is dashing at least!” he had proclaimed.

I had just shaken my head and that was the end of Alat pursuing the topic. Right now we just observed the children out playing in the dirt roads. There were a lot, considering there were no classes for two days after a five-day stretch. Many of the children were playing games they had made up themselves, and I looked on in fascination as they clumsily used their budding abilities. One child was creating a water show from a puddle, another making chess pieces out of the earth so he could play with a friend. Almost everyone was born with an ability of some sort in our land, and they all differed widely in their specific function.

Alat suddenly nudged me, pointing to a child huddled over a small campfire. “Check out this kid,” he muttered. The little boy he was referring to scooped up a flame and stretched it into a blade-like form. He ran off to play with some other boys who were wielding sticks as swords. His mother immediately dashed after him, yelling warnings and threats. Alat and I laughed and continued on, finding my home nestled in its end of the town. My father was working on the roof, putting more thatching and wooden boards into place.

“He kids!” he called down at the sight of us.

“Hey father!” I called back. “Mom is not too worried about me, right?”

He laughed. “You better go inside and show her you have all of your appendages firmly attached.”

I nodded and went in, dropping what was left of my orange into a small bucket by the side of the door. “Hey, anyone home?” I called as Alat and I flopped down onto a couch. Alat immediately went for the chessboard on a near by table and began setting it up for us.

“Oh Senata!” my mother’s voice range out as she came running in from the kitchen. “You’re finally back. Thanks for finding her Alat!”

“No problem,” he muttered, setting up the chess pieces with care. I looked to my mother, seeing her arms covered with suds from washing and her light brown hair looking windswept, a grey streak askew. My hair looked an awful lot like hers, except I had golden streaks instead of grey ones, the strands shining like precious metal amidst the brown locks. A light reader had once told me it was from staying out in the sun so often.

“You didn’t get in trouble, did you?” my mother asked, still wearing her look of worry.

“I was fine,” I explained. “Just felt like taking a walk through the forest…”

“Well, let me know you’ll be gone for a while next time,” she ordered, turning and heading back to her chores. I rolled my eyes, feeling only a little annoyed at my mother’s caring.

“Hey, it’s all set up,” Alat declared, drawing my attention to the chessboard.

“You’re going down,” I said.

“If it’s a war you want, it’s a war you’ll get,” Alat replied in a mock-serious tone. We ceased talking after that, concentrating on the game in a stony silence. Chess was an important part in a person’s life in the town. It was one of the few activities to participate in, being so isolated from the heart of the kingdom. Our town, being named Arkan, rested on the border of our country. It was rare to ever see traveling performers, caravans, or any other means of entertainment citizens close to the kingdom received.

The match wore on for a long time. Alat and I traded off on who had the advantage, always fighting to regain it. It was hard to play against him because we knew each other so well. We always had to think of new ways to outsmart each other. As the sun was setting and my parents were busy cooking a meal, the game was drawing to a close.

“Who’s winning?” asked my father, peaking his head into the room.

“It is hard to tell right now,” I muttered, waiting for Alat to make a move. We had so few remaining pieces. It looked like it might be a stalemate.

The game was never concluded, however, because right before Alat made his move a war trumpet sounded out through the air and Alat and I immediately sprang up to run off to the town square. As we dashed through the door, my mother called after us, “Find out what is going on for us, alright?”

We didn’t respond. We just ran as fast as our legs would carry us. It was not often that someone sounded a war trumpet. The last time was to draw the people out and let them know the army was passing through to recruit new members. Everyone always feared for the day it meant there was an attack coming. The trumpet called out again from the center of town, and Alat and I turned down an alleyway to get there faster. When we burst into the cobble-paved town square, I saw that many people had already flocked there. Alat and I fought our ways to where a platform had been set up in the center. A few soldiers stood upon it, their steel and maroon armor glittering in the twilight. Another man stood with them, his skin pale and his armor as black as the cape he wore. Despite the dark appearance, he smiled and spoke calmly as citizens called out to him with questions. “All will be explained shortly,” he would state, smiling a perfect grin and smoothing back his sandy blonde hair.

When the town square was fully packed with people, a large man with many decorations and medals hanging from his armor raised a maroon-gloved hand for silence. The babble died away in an instance. “Good people of Arkan,” he called out. “I regret to inform you that your town is in danger.” A few gasps came from the audience. A baby cried in protest of being dragged outside. “The barbarian tribes from the southeast have set a course for invasion on our borders. All the towns on the southern rim are being occupied and fortifications are being made as we speak.” The man paused. He looked, old, serious, his slightly wrinkled face marred with small scars and his once dark mane more grey than anything else. “An intelligence report, however, tells us that more forces will be trying to come in along a route that passes very close to this town, which means that a larger than usual garrison will be set up here.” Murmurs broke out in the audience, and the man merely raised his hand again and waited for the people to quiet. “We will not be conscripting any warriors unless the situation proves dire, and all men and women from the ages fourteen and up will be required to take swordplay lessons. I will not have a mountain of civilian casualties due to an inability to defend your own family. We will be occupying the town until we deem the situation under control. That is all for now,” declared the man.

As soon as he was done speaking, the crowd burst into a roar of questions. The warriors merely said there would be more discussion later and forced the crowd apart so that they could leave. As they went, I saw our town’s mayor accompany them, talking in earnest with the grizzled old warrior. Good, he would be able to explain more to the town later.

“Let’s get out of here,” Alat muttered, catching on to the anxiousness of the crowd. He and I immediately began the fight out of the dense sea of people and back to the alleyway. We parted ways there for the night, Alat deciding he should head home and check on how his family was doing. I made my way back to my house and informed my parents all that I had learned over dinner, their constant questions that I was unable to answer giving me a pounding headache.

“How long will they be here?” asked my father.

“Where will they stay?” my mother put in.

“When do they think the enemy army will arrive?”

“Is it really necessary to train children to fight at such a young age?”

“Senata-“

“Mom, dad!” I yelled, cutting them off. They both silenced, and respectfully waited for me to say something. “I don’t know anything else… you’ll have to talk to the mayor or one of the soldiers.”

Over the next few weeks we learned that a legion of soldiers had set up camp in the woods beyond our town. That meant I had to be much more careful about my strolls through the forest. My mother began insisting that I stop the walks all together. But I could not stop doing the one thing that gave me such peace and quiet, especially with so much happening inside the town now. Every other day, after classes for the students were concluded, everyone from the age of fourteen and up were taken to cleared areas around the town and forests and set to practice their fighting skills. The groups were split up according to age, and if anyone volunteered to be a soldier, they were taken for special training amongst higher-ranking troops.

Alat and I were in a combat class together, the age groups being small and manageable in the little town. The first day of training was intense, yet somewhat enjoyable.

“Good afternoon students,” greeted a young soldier, his real armor changed out for leather padding at the moment.

“Good afternoon,” the twelve of us replied.

“My name is Captain Dumar, and I will be instructing you in the art of swordsmanship and other fighting techniques over the next several weeks,” he said. He turned and looked to some other soldier, and they picked up bundles of wooden training swords and began handing them out to us all. “We will begin with basic blocking and striking techniques, and depending on how you all handle that, we’ll move on to more advanced moves. This class is merely for self defense,” reminded the instructor. More soldiers began passing out leather armor similar to what the captain was wearing. “We’re not going to turn you into killing machines… Now I want you all to pair off and follow my example with Lucas up here,” he began, taking a training sword for himself and passing one on to another soldier.

Alat and I made sure to pair up whenever possible. The training was merely another strategy game to us, always trying to find a way to out smart the other. On occasion, however, the instructor would make us pair off with other people, and I was met with a whole new challenge, a whole new opponent I had not yet squared off with.

Our group mastered the basic sword skills easily enough. We weren’t as fast as the age groups in their young twenties, but we did better than those younger than us and the elderly folk. Captain Dumar moved us right into intermediate sword fighting after our fourth week of training, but only after six days of practicing with those move, the class was interrupted.

We were in the middle of drilling through all that we had learned, when a messenger came running up to the captain. “Sir!” he declared, standing at attention. Dumar nodded at him, and he relaxed his posture. “Captain Teslkin will be taking over this class for the day.”

Dumar looked a little shocked. “Why?”

“Reports show that the tribal armies will be here within two weeks. The Captain suggested we begin teaching the recruits alternative defense methods.”

“He has the authorization for this?” asked Captain Dumar, looking a little upset.

The messenger nodded. “Permission granted from the commander himself.”

Captain Dumar seemed to scowl for a moment before asking, “When will he be here?”

“Within ten minutes.”

“And what am I to do?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“You are to report to the town outskirts with everyone else to help construct the walls and defenses,” the messenger said, “immediately.” Dumar seemed to growl a little, but merely dismissed the messenger with a wave of his hand and ordered us back to our drills. It seemed he had been using the classes to get out of the backbreaking labor many of the troops were participating in with fortifying the town.

Alat and I lost ourselves in the drill routine: low block, high vertical strike, side vertical block… The moves went on and on, engrained into our heads so that every action was executed fluidly and flawlessly for the most part.

“Soldiers!” rang out a voice. We all stopped the drill, turning to where our instructor usually stood to see the pale-skinned, blonde haired man dressed in black padded leather customary for training. He studied us as we snapped to attention, all watching him with a wary and unfamiliar gaze. He smiled, and the twelve of us relaxed ourselves slightly. This man was going to be a good instructor. “It is good to see all of you practicing so hard,” he started, “but for what I am teaching you we won’t need those practice swords. Go ahead and set them aside.” He waved a black-gloved hand to tell us to get on with it, and we all quickly made a pile of the swords. “As you all may have heard, we don’t have much more time until the opposing army arrives, so I felt it was suiting to bolster our defenses by training up a skill that the enemy does not have. Does anyone know what that might be?” he asked in a friendly, scholarly tone.

A few people raised their hands; even Alat shyly lifted one up. The man, apparently Captain Teslkin, selected a gangly boy by the name of Yelto. “Is… is it our… abilities?” he asked hesitantly. Anyone’s powers were referred to as abilities.

The man smiled and nodded. “Yes, it is our abilities. No other country has a gift quite like ours, so why not use it to our advantage?”

“Do you guys already use your abilities in combat?” asked a girl, raising her hand and speaking right away.

Captain Teslkin nodded. “Yes, but usage of abilities is limited to when a soldier has enough space to use them in a battlefield and whether they have proper training or not. An untamed ability can be dangerous,” he cautioned. “So, let us get down to business!” He clapped his hands together, an eager look about his face. Most of us looked uncertain. “Line up, all of you! I want a demonstration of what you guys can do.” We all scrambled into a line, Alat and I taking our positions next to each other towards the end of it. “Lets start with you,” Captain Teslkin said, pointing to a boy at one end of the line. “What’s your name?”

“Nicar, sir,” the boy replied.

“And your ability?”

“I uh… I’m an Earth Reader. I can manipulate stones and such,” the dark haired boy explained.

The captain nodded, looking impressed. “A powerful gift,” he said. “You could manipulate great earthen barriers or create deadly weapons, with the proper training of course.” This was how it went along the line, the captain asking for a name and ability and them commenting on the potential each of his new students had. When he reached me he asked, “And what about you, miss?”

“My name’s Senata,” I replied, slipping off my sandals, “and I’m a Life Reader.” When my bare feet came in contact with the ground I could feel the plant life boom around me, reaching to the sky in a slow, lazy manner.

The captain laughed and clapped a few times. “Very interesting,” he commented, “and limitless possibilities.” His eyes lingered on the plants growing around me for no more than a second, and he moved on to Alat. “Name and ability, son,” he instructed.

“I’m Alat, and I’m a Wind Reader,” he said dully.

Captain Teslkin frowned for a moment. “You don’t sound too enthusiastic about your ability. What can you specifically do?”

“I can make breezes and I accidentally make tornados every now and then,” Alat explained, not looking thrilled that the captain had decided to linger on him.

“Have you tried making harsh gusts of wind?” asked the captain.

“Well, yeah,” Alat said, “but I don’t do it often, unless I want to push something over.”

Captain Teslkin nodded and bent down, picking up a pebble. “Could you direct a fast wind current at this?” he asked. Alat nodded, looking confused. “Could you direct it at this tree?” The captain held the pebble in front of a tree trunk and Alat nodded once again. “Okay, just use the fastest wind current you can and try to push this as far as it will go, understand?”

“Uh, I think so,” Alat said, still not understanding what this man was after. He took a few moments to concentrate, and then made a fist and punched through the air at the pebble the captain was still holding. It shot out of his grasp, and right through the tree, making little splinters break off. Everyone stared at the neat hole that had barreled through the tree, shocked.

Alat’s mouth hung open slightly in awe, and the captain merely grinned. “Deadly,” was all he said.

The training we received was unique, and it made us feel important, special. Captain Colovar Teslkin, or Captain Col as he insisted on being called, quickly became our favorite mentor, an idol of sorts. He gave us purpose, showed us new uses for our abilities that we had not thought of before. In a matter of days he had everyone in town using their abilities to help fortify the defenses in some way.

One day, around five days before the estimated arrival of the enemy, I was walking through the forest, trying to ease some of the building tension inside of me. I heard strange noises coming from the west, and I quickly padded through the forest until I stumbled upon a girl, a young woman around my age, training her fighting techniques. She had not noticed me, so I moved back to watch her from a distance. This girl enchanted me. There was something absolutely wonderful about how she moved around the clearing, slashing and arcing her practice sword in graceful patterns. I could not take my eyes off of her. Her body was toned, lean muscle springing and contracting just under her flawless skin, and her glittery blonde hair flowed with her every move.

I stayed and watched her for a long time. At one point, Alat came across me. He looked over to what I was watching and laughed. “Pretty, isn’t she?” he whispered slyly before chuckling and walking away.

When I finally peeled myself away from the beauty I discovered, I walked back to the town, finding Alat sitting in the grass of his front yard. He was shooting arrows at a target using only the wind currents, his favorite new trick. Alat noticed me walking towards him and smiled. I took a seat next to him, slipping off my sandals so I could bury my feet in the longish grass. Vine tendrils began curling around my toes. “It doesn’t surprise me, you know,” Alat suddenly said, picking up an arrow and running a finger along the fletching.

“What?” I asked, still in a daze from watching that girl.

“That you’re into… you know… ladies,” he reminded, throwing the arrow at a haystack target. It sunk into a small bundle of other arrows already shot towards the center.

“Oh,” I said, my mind drawing a blank still. “She… she was the first person that has ever caught my interest.”

“So you’re a late bloomer when it comes to feelings,” Alat sighed. He got up and trotted over to the target, yanking his arrows free. “I knew something was up when you resisted my roguish charm.” He sat down by me, smoothing his hair back in emphasis.

I laughed. “You’re a good friend,” I said. “I just… I need to think all this through. What if it was just a fluke with that girl? Who knows who I’ll look at and find attractive next?”

Alat held up a hand, stopping my series of questions, stilling my mind from some sort of collision. “Don’t worry about it,” he advised. “Just… go with the flow.” He sent an arrow zinging into the center of the haystack. “If you look at someone and like what you see, then that’s all there should be to it.”

“Wise words,” I muttered. “But you don’t have an attraction to the same gender.”

“True, but you did say it was good advice,” shot back Alat, slinging another arrow into his hay.

I would have made a remark about how advice from him, the luckless man when it came to girls, was foolish, but the bleating of a horn rang out from the center of town, and Alat and I immediately shot to our feet. I slipped my sandals on, and he dropped his arrows with a clatter. We sprinted to the center of town along with many other people. Soldiers ran down the street, and the bleating of the strange horn continued. At the town square, a soldier stood atop a platform, yelling out to the crowd. People were noisily running to and from the square, and it was hard to hear his voice amidst the chaos.

“Remain calm! The enemy army approaches, but our troops are moving to the frontlines! Take your families inside and make sure your homes are secure!”

That was all I needed to hear. I grabbed Alat by the arm and yanked him away. “Time to go!” I yelled to him.

“The enemy is here?” he asked in a panicked tone. “They weren’t supposed to come yet!”

“Yeah, how dare they not follow the schedule!” I yelled sarcastically. We reached Alat’s home first, and I hugged him and whispered, “Stay safe,” before running off to my own home. I ran into my father on the way, and we both went back to the house together.

“What’s happening?” he asked, looking around at the chaos breaking loose on our town. We had never been through a war.

“The enemy is here. The soldiers want us all secured in our homes,” I said, trying to slow down my racing mind. These weren’t the best situations to fall to pieces in.

“Already?” asked my father. I merely nodded. “And where’s Alat? Did you make sure he made it home?”

“Yeah, I took him home before I ran here,” I explained.

“Senata!” exclaimed my mother. “There you are. Is everything alright?” I once again relayed what was happening and my mother’s face darkened. “They’re here already. This can’t be good,” she muttered. My mother then walked off to her room. My father followed.

The battle did not go over well. Eventually the enemy had to retreat and reorganize their forces, but our own army took grave losses at the surprise attack, even with all of the fortifications. It was like stepping into a nightmare when I set foot out onto the streets. A war horn had signaled people to come from their homes and gather at the town square. It was a surreal sight, seeing a few bodies still lying about, our own men or even some tribal warriors that had managed to get past the defenses. I stepped through the streets with caution as my family and several others journeyed to the center of town. I ran into Alat and his family, his younger brothers and sisters gathered around him. “You okay?” I asked hesitantly, seeing that he looked intact.

“Yeah,” he said. “That was something though, wasn’t it?”

I did not have a response. Instead, I looked to the platform in the center of town where the commander and Captain Teslkin stood along with a few other men. After a few moments the commander cleared his throat. The townspeople were already in a state of quiet. “Everyone, we’ve taken a hard hit today, but rest assure that we dealt a harder blow to the enemy,” he said, trying to restore hope back into us. “Our numbers have been damaged, but so have theirs. We will drive these barbarians back! And even though it seems like the chaos just ended, we cannot rest. I want crews to immediately begin restoring damage done to our defenses. Also, our troops are getting small enough that we may need to begin drafting. If any young man has the bravery to come forth and volunteer right away, your service is greatly appreciated.”

At the commander’s words, a few young men stepped forward, and they were beckoned onto the stage. Around twenty volunteered, which was a fair number for our town considering quite a few had already joined ranks with the army.

“Lieutenant,” barked the commander, “take these men back to the camp and get them outfitted in armor immediately. As for the rest of the townsfolk, I want all healers taking care of the wounded and everyone else fortifying our defenses. We must be ready for the next strike,” he told us grimly. After that being said, the soldiers left the platform, taking the volunteers with them. The audience began to dissipate and Alat and I made our ways to the southern outskirts of the town where the wooden walls had been set up. The wall was broken up in many places. I grew sturdy trees in any gaps I could find and created thick patches of bramble along the outside of the walls. Alat was busy moving dead soldiers away to piles that would later be made into funeral pyres. While he was working on lugging a tribal soldier over, Captain Col came over and helped him, lifting the other end of the body.

“He looks to be part of the Grustan Tribe,” our instructor said. “I noticed there were a few different tribal members when fighting earlier today. Heave!” he instructed, flinging the body onto the pile with Alat. “It’s strange that the tribes have allied themselves. Strange, but smart, unfortunately for us.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to drive them off?” asked Alat, picking up some scattered weapons and handing them off to another townsfolk, who was stocking the armory with enemy swords and spears.

Captain Col nodded. “Of course. But we are going to lose many men while trying to do it. They may have numbers, but we’re on the defensive and have tactics on our side. These tribal warriors do not put much thought into their attacks, unlike the raiders in the north. Thankfully they only worry about pillaging loot.”

“You’ve been all the way to the northern border?” I asked, awed.

The man smiled. “I’ve been all over the Kingdom of Osota,” he boasted. “Travel comes with being in the army.”

“Are… are battles scary?” I asked hesitantly. Captain Col looked away to the sky for a moment while he dragged another body, this one a soldier of our own, to a pile.

“I suppose they are,” he said after some thought. “You never really get used to them.” All of us then worked quietly for a moment, and I noticed many more people were now helping with the defenses and clean-up. “Senata,” Captain Col finally said. I turned and saw him standing at my side, looking down at me with a hopeful expression.

“Yes, Captain?” I asked, wondering why he had approached me.

“Do you wish to help the army?”

I fervently nodded my head, wondering if he was about to administer a test of loyalty or something. “Of course, anything.”

The captain smiled and reached into a pouch hanging at his side. He withdrew a small, grayish mushroom. “Could you grow some of these?” he asked hopefully.

I studied the fungus closely, narrowing my eyes. “Why? What do you need them for?”

“The caps are ground up to make a poison that our soldiers can apply to our weapons. We could save a lot of lives and fighting time with them,” Captain Col explained.

I carefully took the mushroom in my hand, noticing there were still spores of life clinging to it. I kneeled down and pushed the mushroom into the dirt. I closed my eyes in thought for a moment, and when I opened my eyes, dozens of mushrooms were slowly crawling to life around me. I could feel the essence of growth throbbing within them along with the deadly potential hidden in their caps. Captain Col had been right when he said a poison like this would save fighting. Even the tiniest bit of the concoction would kill someone in a matter of moments. When they were done growing, I got up and immediately found some water to thoroughly scrub my hands with. When I returned to where Alat was working, I saw the captain picking the mushrooms with his gloved fingers and dropping them into a black sack he must have been keeping on himself. When all the mushrooms were collected, he said, “Thank you. This should help a lot.” And he left for the camp.

“Why do I feel uneasy about doing that?” I asked Alat after he left.

“You’re contributing to the slaughter of other humans?” he asked with a shrug.

“Damn, how do you always know the reasons behind my emotions and I don’t?” I asked. Alat just shrugged again. He went back to moving corpses about, but now he used the wind to make his task easier, pushing bodies against the pile rather than carry them.

“That has to be disrespectful in some manner,” I said, watching him work.

“Hey, it’s faster than carrying them,” Alat replied. “And besides, we need to work as fast as we can. The enemy can regroup and attack at any minute.”

As if summoned by Alat’s words, the sound of something thudding into the wooden walls reached my ears. I grew a thick, branched tree, and climbed up it to look over the wall. The things that had thudded against it were flaming arrows, and I could see doom marching towards us.

A sea of tribal warriors stood on the horizon, and I failed to see how we had driven them back earlier. I could see shirtless warriors waving swords about, with the rare armored man standing amongst them. They roared, howled, and beat their swords upon their shields, making as much noise as possible. I could hear alarms sounding from within our town, and Alat calling from what seemed to be from a distance. But I could not register anything being said. I was struck with the sight of these warriors. It frightened me, yet something else stirred within me at the same moment.

They were moving large catapults into place, boulders loaded within them. They were launched, and their rocks whistled through the air in what I saw as slow motion. One hurtled right at me. It struck the wall, splintering and crumbling it. I went flying backwards, finally shaken from my daze as I landed with a hard thud on my back.

“Shit! Are you okay?” asked Alat, pulling me to my feet.

“I’m fine, but we won’t be for long if the soldiers don’t get here soon,” I said.

“They’re coming. The alarm’s been blazing too loud for them to not hear it,” said Alat. I could hear the bleating call of a horn from the center of town, and I could hear marching from the woods.

But I could also hear the roar of tribal warriors swarming towards us.

I sprang to my feet, grabbing a discarded sword nearby. “What the hell are you doing?” asked Alat as I ran toward the smashed wall.

“Come on, take some arrows and shoot them at the approaching soldiers. I have to fix the wall while there’s still time,” I said, trying to re-grow tall trees in absence of the wall.

“You’re crazy!” yelled Alat. But he still bent down and gathered arrows before climbing my previously grown tree. “You really are crazy!” he reaffirmed, looking at the onslaught heading towards us.

“That’s why we need to do everything possible to help, otherwise the town will be overrun!” I said, trying to grow more trees. But I had not trained my powers for this sort of exertion, and it was becoming more and more difficult to grow the thick trunks required to keep the wall intact. Finally, I could no longer create the trees and there were still large gaps. I looked up to see Alat fling one last arrow away and then he scrambled down to me.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. I tried to stand, but I felt weak. My legs were shaky, and Alat helped me try to hobble away to shelter. But as I turned and gave one last look backwards, I saw the first warriors swarm into the city. They were heading right towards us, roaring like mad men. I closed my eyes tightly; convinced my end was near.

As I prepared for a blow from a weapon, I heard a familiar voice shout, “Senata, Alat, get down!” My eyes snapped open as Alat and I fell to the ground. I saw Captain Col run forward, his black armor glistening and his gloves removed. He went directly at the first few warriors coming towards us. They tried to strike at him and he dodged the blows, bringing his hands up to any spot of bare flesh on them and pressing down.

Men dropped like flies around him as he reached out and plucked away their lives. “He’s a life reader,” I said, feeling some of my strength returning, “like me.”

“Yeah, cool, but we still need to get out of here!” yelled Alat. We got to our feet, and I looked down at the weapon in my hand. Would it be better to stay and fight? “Let’s go Senata!” Alat yelled. “The soldiers are here, they can fight off the enemy better than we ever could!”

I looked around and saw the men in their maroon colored armor moving to meet the tribal warriors. I saw a black blur that had to be Captain Col taking out more men. “You’re right,” I finally said. “Let’s find safety.”

Alat and I began running towards the northwest end of town, where things would be the safest, but we did not get too far before we ran into a band of tribal warriors that had slipped past the soldiers. We froze in our tracks, and one of them barked something in their native language. As they charged, I tried to remember my training and raised the sword in my grasp. The enemy stopped once again and laughed at me. They all babbled about something and pushed one of their own men forward. He grinned at me and raised his own sword. “Fight me, witch-child,” he rasped off with a heavy accent.

The man struck down on me hard, but I blocked the blow to everyone’s surprise. The man smiled, realizing I would not be as easy of a kill as he expected, and came at me again, striking several times in a row. I blocked them all, and he laughed, shouting something back to his friends. He had been toying with me. But with the new scowl across his face, I knew he now intended to finish me off. I saw Alat looking around for something to fling at them, and I braced myself for a real attack.

With a cry of rage, the warrior swung at me with a newfound ferocity. I blocked once, twice, and then my sword shattered at the middle, leaving me with only a broken stump. Alat saw his chance and sprang forward. He grabbed a piece of the sword and lunged it with deadly precision right through the man’s heart. He looked down, eyes wide, before falling to the ground with barely a gasp. His companions stared at us angrily and one of them shouted, “Kill the witch-children!” They ran at us, and Alat picked up another piece of broken sword and downed another warrior with it. I managed to duck under one and ram what was left of my sword into his back. As it pierced his flesh and released the flow of blood a sickening thought struck me: I had taken a life.

As he fell to the ground, screaming and gasping, I knew he would die, and when he gasped no more I knew it was over. I was in a numb shock, and the rest of the fighters had surrounded Alat and I. This was it. We were going to die a brutal death under the hands of these monsters.

Then another savior came to our aid. The woman with the golden hair and mesmerizing look about her sprang forward, cutting down two of the men with glittering twin swords. The blood sprayed in all directions, and as their companions fell, the remaining men yelled in shock.

“Get out of here, ya brats!” she yelled to us. What? She blocked a man’s advance at her and turned her sword to jam the hilt into his gut. As he doubled over in pain she slit his throat. “I said go!” she yelled again when she noticed us still cowering in her presence. “I don’t need some kids getting in my way!”

Her words stung for some reason, but they also forced me to flee with Alat. As we ran, I felt angry inside. This woman, who I had thought was so beautiful, had said such crass things to Alat and I. Though it was a little silly, I had expected her to be charming and kind at all times when I had watched her train, not rough and uncaring. When Alat and I finally stopped running, I noticed we were all the way in the soldier encampment, probably the safest place to be at the moment. “Who does she think she is, calling us kids?” I asked out of nowhere.

Alat, who had bent over and was wheezing from exertion, looked up and asked, “What?”

“That girl who saved us, she couldn’t be more than a year older,” I clarified.

“You’re getting all hung up over that?” asked Alat, disbelief in his voice. “She was the only thing that stopped us from being shish-kabob for the enemy!”

“I know,” I cried, “I know… I’m just new to this whole emotional thing. If I thought she was pretty I assumed she’d be this nice, amazing person as well.”

“Well,” sighed Alat, taking me over to an abandoned medical tent. “A rose can have thorns.”

“What book did you steal that line from?” I asked as we sat down on a cot. Now that I examined myself closely, I noticed several small cuts and scrapes. Alat was already washing his wounds out with a damp cloth. He passed be the bucket of water he found and a rag.

“I think it was some philosopher… I can’t remember for sure right now,” he lamented.

“I don’t blame you,” I said. “My brain is barely working right now.”

The battle eventually was concluded, the enemy pushed into full retreat. Both Alat’s parents and mine were in tears when they discovered we were fine. They were convinced that we had been killed in the battle. Many had died though, and there were several funerals to be arranged after the battle. But after everyone had been buried and the town was cleaned out, the soldiers insisted on festivities and an awards ceremony.

Captain Col was one of the people to receive an award. The mayor himself gave it to the man. The captain’s eyes had shone with pride as the mayor shook his gloved hand and handed him a crude medal in honor of saving his own five-year-old daughter from the clutches of the enemy. Even the commander gave Captain Col an award for outstanding service. He was promoted in the ranks.

The captain had become a true hero to the town, and it was a sad day when he and the rest of the army were going to leave. It had been a month after the attack, and the soldiers had finished helping us restore the town. A small handful of scouts were being left behind, and a fort was being set up close by so that the border would receive optimal protection. Still it was strange, knowing that the soldiers we had grown accustomed to were leaving the town.

“Good people,” addressed Captain Col right before he left. “I want to say that you have all been brave in the face of danger, resourceful when presented with the impossible, and daring when fear would have paralyzed others. This town is filled with extraordinary people, and I will miss all of you, especially those that I trained with.” This part made Alat and I smile sadly. We were going to miss this man.

And so the soldiers left with well wishes from every member of the town and several wildflowers flung in their wake. It seemed that everything was going to go back to it’s dull, normal self, except with more news form the happenings in Osota due to the scouts left behind.

--

A month after the army had left we received news about Captain Col. He had unexpectedly become Commander Col, replacing the man who had lead the army that saved us. There was not much said about his predecessor except that he had been found without any signs of external injuries.

--

Three months after that Commander Col became a general after one had died of food poisoning. I heard someone say that one of the cooks had made a bad batch of mushroom soup. I felt sick inside afterwards, remembering the deadly mushrooms I had made for him. They were rare. Had I given him fuel to take out anyone in his way? Perhaps it was only a coincidence.

--

After a year had passed since the battle, General Colovar Teslkin made another leap in rank. He was now in charge of the personal bodyguard to the king along with most of the nation’s army. I felt disgusted with myself when I heard that he had managed to rise so high in rank because of poisoning the right people. Many citizens knew he had unfairly risen to power, but the armies were behind him, and there were still people among the general public, more towards the inside of the kingdom, that trusted him. Some even felt that he should be king.

--

Another year later, right after I had turned eighteen, Colovar Teslkin, the former hero of Arkan, seized the throne for himself, overthrowing the entire seat of government and installing a new monarchy under his own rule.

That was when things started getting bad.