Gord woke up tired.

What the shit?

His brothers and father were standing above him, worry scrawled across their faces. The smoky haze in the air and pungent smell of herbs gave everything a dream-like quality. Eldest Mother was cackling as usual.

"What happened?"

Gild burst into sound.

"What happened? You went into this weird trance then started convulsing on the floor! Your head was glowing! What the-"

"Gild, enough."

Everyone turned to look at Greg. Greg turned to look at Gord, sighing.

"Son, we need to talk."

"Chief, wait."

The Mother held out a wrinkled arm.

"Gar. Gild. Leave. The chief and I have words for your brother. You shall be informed in due time."

His brothers scowled like they were going to protest but a look from their father silenced any defiance. They knew Greg wouldn't support the Mother in her little political games. This was serious.

They shuffled out along with the Mother's attendants, leaving only Gord, Greg, the Mother and the unconscious stranger on the chief's bed.

Gord, still confused, bounced his gaze between the two adults.

What's going on?

"Da, what's going on?"

Chief Greg was... hesitant? He'd never seen his father so much as blink at unexpected situations, this was completely new. The man then looked at Eldest Mother, beckoning her to explain. Father hated Eldest Mother. What was happening?

Eldest Mother's eyes were starting to dim, slowly reverting back to their dull brown. The herbs usually lasted a lot longer but Eldest Mother was old. Eventually the herbs stop being potent enough. Or at least that's what Cad said.

She cleared her throat and started speaking.

"Boy, when you were in the womb, there were no visions. No omens, no prophecies. You were taking so much strength from your mother that you had to be something different, but to normal and spiritual sight, you were just another soon-to-be-born babe. I had my suspicions nonetheless, so I made sure to deliver you personally. Still nothing."

"You've made my unimportance clear enough, get to the point."

"Quiet, boy! Youth these days have no respect. Yes, your birth was anticlimactic, but that's not the whole story. You have a birthmark on the left side of your scalp, behind your temple. Not unusual in itself, but this mark is in the shape of a closed fist. A six-fingered fist."

Gord frowned. Marked had birthmarks shaped like a six-fingered hand spread open. But he wasn't Marked. He looked up at his father, who nodded in confirmation.

"Is that good?"

The Mother cackled once more.

"I appreciate that you don't instantly jump to conclusions, but we simply do not know. At your birth, when I touched your mark, I caught flashes of hundreds of possible futures. They all had two things in common. Fire and blood. It only happened that one time and no other wise woman saw anything when they did the same thing."

At this, Greg took over.

"It's why I've never let you cut your hair below a certain length. You're not the first with a birthmark that could be mistaken for a Godsmark, but you're the first that's had a vision, however brief, attached to it. Not only that, lesser spirits do not interact with you. This can only be true for Marked. But like the Mother said, it's impossible. Any new Marked are like earthquakes in the spirit realm. A god cannot touch a human without everything around him feeling the ripples. Not to mention the fist instead of the open hand. We simply do not know. So we kept you a secret and hid your mark under your hair."

Gord, bewildered, brought his hand up to the side of his head. It felt warm.

"Is that why I just passed out?"

Greg and the Mother shared a glance. She responded.

"Yes. Your mark, whatever kind it is, started shining when you put your hand in the pouch."

Gord looked back at the pouch on the sleeping man. He still felt that tingling sensation, but now it pointed him directly at the rock inside. He could almost feel it pulsing in resonance with his heartbeat.

"I see-"

"No, boy, you don't. I am older than you can know. I was ancient when your grandfather's parents were still in swaddling. I saw the end of the Godswar and watched all the Great Spirits fall to slumber. Now, they are waking up, spirit beasts rampage unchecked and you have a Godsmark I have never seen before. I fear we are entering an age of strife."

Greg chimed in.

"Unfortunately, she's right. I cannot stress enough how important this is to keep to yourself. Marked irrevocably change the balance of power wherever they appear. If you are one, you'd be the only Marked in the entire Frontier. The other tribes are already chafing under our supremacy, they would band together and go to war with the Ashwalkers or outright assassinate you if they even suspected that you were a nascent Marked."

Gord's breath quickened.

"But we're going to the tribemeld! We'll be surrounded by the other tribes for the entirety of Ashfall!"

Greg set his mouth in a grim line.

"There's nothing for it, you'll simply have to lay low, at least until we can figure out for sure what's going on with you."

He shot a glance towards the door.

"We'll have to continue on like nothing has changed," he said, turning to look at the Mother. "But your attendants saw the whole thing."

Eldest Mother waved the concern away.

"It's of no consequence, they will have their memories excised. They know the protocol, we have procedures in place for if a Marked appears."

Still, she raised her pipe to her lips once more, relighting the herbal mixture. The violet in her eyes, dim and nearly gone, surged in brightness, casting the room in a soft purple glow.

"Chief."

Greg looked over at her and she nodded towards the unconscious man.

Frowning, Greg walked over to her. She said a short phrase in the language of the spirits and touched his arm. He began to shine from within, his veins and arteries illuminated through his skin as though liquid fire coursed through his body instead of blood. A blessing.

The chief put a hand on the unconscious man's forehead and pushed. With a wet crunch, the man's head caved in, spilling blood and chunks of brain matter all across what used to be Greg's bed.

Gord sat with his mouth agape at the casual violence. Greg looked down at him and shrugged, shaking viscera off his hand.

"He was pretending."

It wasn't the first time he'd seen his father kill a man, but the nonchalance with which he ended the stranger's life shocked him.

"Why keep him here then? He didn't have to die."

The Mother cut in.

"We had to know if he could be trusted. He would have been travelling with us to the tribemeld, we can't have an outsider peddling our secrets to our rivals. We tested him, he failed. You would do well to learn from this."

"We will give him a proper pyre though," Greg conceded. "Even if he was not trustworthy, we only bury enemies."

That assuaged Gord's conflicted heart. Killing a vulnerable person then consigning his soul to the Earthmother for eternity was too evil to consider.

Chief Greg left to organise the man's funeral and assemble the caravan. They'd be setting off in a few spokes of Balo's Wheel, just before he reached his highest point in the sky.

The Mother stayed to prepare the man's body and Gord left, leaving footprints in the ash as countless thoughts tumbled over each other in his head.

Foremost among them was the matter of the rock that he now owned. Even just resting his hand on it filled his body with a soothing vibration, like all was well as long as he had it in his possession. Curious.

There was no one around any more, every tribe member having joined the caravan gathering at the edge of the settled area. It was nearly time to leave.

He went towards the shaman's section of the caravan, to talk to Cad and maybe make sense of all this.

He found Cad trying to explain something to a wise woman's apprentice. The man was engrossed in the explanation but she was engrossed in his face. Typical.

"Cad! Big news." Gord said, making not-so-subtle shooing gestures at the woman who was now scowling at him.

Cad gave a clearly made-up excuse to leave with Gord, and the two walked off to a secluded spot in the now almost deserted settlement.

"What's going on? You look like you just saw a bald mammoth." Cad said, looking concerned.

"Somehow, it's more unbelievable than that."

In breathless haste, Gord told Cad everything that had happened in the hut, bringing out the rock nestled protectively in his hands.

The man's eyes gradually widened, especially when he heard about the chief killing the stranger since they could now see a column of smoke rising on the other side of the living area. He asked to hold the rock, which Gord only gave over reluctantly.

"I think I know what this is." said Cad, after studying it for a bit, offering the stone back.

Gord grabbed it from him, clutching it to his chest.

"Do tell. I don't know why I'm so drawn to this and it's honestly a bit freaky."

Cad flashed a grin at him.

"It's a totem, you idiot. Whatever power is inside you is resonating with the remnant spirit of whatever beast fragment is in there. You know the stories. Fara the White had a bearskin cloak that she summoned Frostfang from. Akka Longclaw had the claw on his neck that he called Giant from. This is your chance to get a totem spirit!"

The reality set in on Gord. He really was a Marked. It all made sense.

"I- I need to sit down."

"What, does the thought of earth-shaking power and immortality not sound appealing to you?" Cad laughed. "Cheer up, this is amazing news."

Gord was still internalising said news. He'd always known he'd never be the great chief his father was, and having six older, more capable brothers meant he wouldn't even get the chance. He'd accepted that glory and renown were for others to achieve, all he'd wanted was to grow his collection. Now, he'd suddenly become the most valuable yet vulnerable person in the whole tribe. And he finally had a chance to be great.

Cad was still talking in the background.

"-lways had this fear deep down that my eventual tribal duties would end up with us not being able to hang out as much, but now you're a shaman too! The most powerful kind, much better than us simple Touched. You could be the strongest Ashwalker ever!"

Cad's gushing elation was comforting to Gord. He'd worried that his friend would worry too much about the unknowns and try to convince him to talk to Eldest Mother again. Who knew what that crazy old woman would try on him?

A horn sounded from the caravan. They were moving.

Gord and Cad quickly made their way back as the Ashwalkers started their long trek out of Ashfall Valley and into the tribemeld.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A six-day later, the Ashwalkers trudged out of the Valley, having walked across its entire length to Drakon Pass. The Drakonback Mountains lay at the entrance to the valley, providing a counterpoint to Ashfall Mountain that stood at the very far end and giving only one easily accessible way in and out of the Valley.

The Ashwalkers filed through the pass, wagons and pouches loaded with all their belongings.

The tribemeld took place in a cave system in the Drakonback Mountains. Far out of reach or sight of the pass, all the different tribes of the Frontier gathered together. While the Ashfall Valley became completely inundated with ash, the surrounding regions of the Frontier fared little better. The ash choked out Balo's light and survival became much tougher. Plants didn't grow as fast or as big. Prey animals became scarce as they migrated away from the Frontier en masse. Predators started ranging further and hunting more humans than normal. Not to mention now, the threat of spirit beasts loomed over everyone. Banding together was the only way to survive.

There were plenty of food reserves, every tribe was required to bring enough supplies for the two moons they'd be staying here without being able to hunt or forage. A few talismans imbued with chill sprites kept the meat from spoiling. They would weather this together, then when the life spirits populated the valley, they would reap the benefits together. It was one of the revolutionary ideas Garkal, Gord's great grandfather and most legendary chief of the Ashwalkers, came up with to stop the constant wars over the valley.

Understandably, every tribe wanted Ashfall Valley, specifically for the period after Ashfall when the food available became practically infinite. Garkal was the first to realise that there was no need to fight over who could access the Valley during this time, as no one tribe could fully utilise all the resources that appeared. So he sent delegates to other tribes, laying out his plan. As the chief in control of the Valley at the time, his invitation to plunder its wealth stunned the other leaders. They agreed, and in one stroke, Garkal ended the seemingly never-ending conflicts over the valley, ensuring the Ashwalkers ownership of it forever more.

They'd live here in close proximity for a few moons, long enough for the ash to settle and the spirits to arrive, then move to another cave system on the valley facing side of the mountain range, more spread out. At which point the fun would start.

The Ashwalkers, having waited until the first day of Ashfall to set out, were the last to arrive, though a few of Eldest Mother's shamans had raced ahead and were there to greet them.

Joining the tall, lanky Plainshunters, the wide, stout Rockbreakers, the secretive Nera's Children, the aggressive, red-haired Bonespears and many smaller, miscellaneous tribes, the Ashwalkers set up in a section of the cave system reserved for them. Glowshrooms, cultivated here for specifically this purpose, lined the sheer walls and high ceilings of the caves, giving them an eerie blue-green radiance. The air smelled stale and musty, but it was a cave. Any stalactites or stalagmites had long since been shaved down, populating the caves with protrusions reminiscent of tree stumps.

The cave system was large and spacious, with a few clearings and plateaus that people of different tribes mixed and conversed in. Most of the people attending never saw such a concentration of humans anywhere outside the tribemeld. Thousands of humans called the tribemeld their home for these few moons.

Finally making an entrance, Chief Greg was immediately whisked away into a chiefs council, while Eldest Mother called the various Shamans Circles to her. Gord and Cad meanwhile, were deep in conversation.

During the trip here, Cad had been explaining to Gord all he'd learned about spirits from his master. The lessons were less helpful for Gord since he could not and likely would not be able to see spirits but the fundamentals were useful. Not to mention be finally understood Marked. Any non-shaman only really has fireside stories and any shaman relatives they may have as sources of information for what exactly a Marked was. The stories were thrilling, no doubt, but surely they couldn't be that powerful. Turns out they were, or at least, could be.

Every Marked has a patron god, known as a Great Spirit in shaman terms. This god will give tasks for their Marked to complete. Upon completion, the god can put the Marked through an Ordeal. Survive the Ordeal, and you're granted a Boon. The Boon of Companionship gives you the ability to manifest your totem spirit. The Boon of Endurance granted increased strength, speed, healing factor and made Marked immortal unless killed, which became very hard to do at this stage. The Boon of Conquest granted the ability to channel the patron god's power through your totem spirit, making you for all intents and purposes, a demigod.

Cad wasn't sure if these same rules applied to Gord, because of all the weirdness surrounding his Godsmark, but it was a rough outline of what to expect. To access his powers, Cad said, Gord would need to connect with the spirit inside the totem.

This was much easier said than done. Over the past few days, Gord had been unsuccessfully trying to communicate with the spirit in his rock. He couldn't replicate the trance-like state he'd entered in his father's hut. In that state, he'd known the rock, and by extension, the spirit inside, on a level deeper than anything he'd ever experienced before. He was convinced it was the key but he couldn't rouse the spirit to do anything but give a lethargic vibration whenever he tried. It was like the spirit was asleep.

Making himself at home in the alcove he and Cad had claimed, Gord tucked the chest containing his collection far to the back of the recess in the cave wall. Can't trust non-Ashwalkers not to be tempted. However, the tribemeld was also Gord's greatest opportunity to expand his collection, so gathering his least valuable artifacts, he got to work finding like-minded individuals.

Most people here didn't interact with other tribes on a regular basis, so after a bit of awkwardness in the beginning, curiosity pushed the tribes together. Many items were traded, allies befriended and babes conceived during these moons.

Walking up to a tall group of Plainshunters, Gord started the arduous task of spreading the word of his interest in artifacts and his willingness to trade. Over the next few days, through clever trades and leveraging his tribe's position just a tad, Gord had a steady stream of interested traders walking to and from his alcove. Cad, ever the popular one, had a steady stream of women fascinated by him coming to visit, each and every one of them unceremoniously kicking Gord out. No doubt a wave of square-jawed, green-eyed children would be born nine moons from now.

Collection steadily growing, Gord turned his attention back to the spirit that still confounded him. Late nights spent probing it with his mind yielded no gains. He'd taken to calling it Sleepy because that's all it really did. He just needed it to wake up for a moment, to let him connect to it, but it was content watching him struggle.

Blighted spirit. I finally have a chance to be something more than just my dad's last child, and Sleepy won't stop sleeping.

Nothing worked, and Gord was still mulling the problem over when Cad ran breathlessly into their alcove.

"Spirit beast! Come! Now!"

Without even waiting for a response, Cad shot back the way he came, Gord following close behind. There was a mass of people moving away from the commotion further on, Gord and Cad having to push their way through the panicking crowd. What Cad was talking about became terribly clear.

A pack of wolves had invaded the cave system, slaughtering a few tribesmen, taking over a section of cave and tinging the air with the faint scent of blood. The wolves were normal dire wolves, the height of a man's stomach at the shoulder, with grey fur and menacing teeth, but the real threat was the alpha. A spirit beast.

Jet-black with matte fur that didn't shine in the light, the alpha looked like a pool of darkness with eyes and teeth. It was half again the height of a man, three strides tall, and possessed of a lean, explosive power in its muscles.

Defenders had already been rallied around the marauding pack, holding them back with spears as the wise women and medicine men were sent for to provide blessings and heal the injured, respectively. Medicine men could usually talk to animals, but none of them were powerful enough to wrest control of a dire wolf pack from a spirit beast.

Gord's third eldest brother, Gett, burst into the clearing. He had the telltale vascular glow of a blessing of strength, the light pulsing in time with his heartbeat. He was carrying his bonespear, a singular, straight rod of polished bone slightly taller than him, with a spiral pattern somehow engraved from bottom to top and a point carefully honed into the tip. The Bonespear tribe never traded their spears (and no one else knew how to find or make them), you could only gain one by defeating a Bonespear in a duel. Gett, the most martially inclined of all Gord's brothers, did so at the last tribemeld and was determined to show that he knew exactly what he was doing with it.

Lunging at one of the wolves, he skewered it through the neck, ripped out his spear with a spray of blood, then pierced an adjacent wolf through the front left leg. The other defenders, seeing this, surged forward, driving the wolves back with shouts and stabbing motions. They weren't blessed however, and nowhere near as skilled as Gett.

A wolf leapt, grabbing one of Nera's Children by the throat. As it did, the man pulled out a talisman from his pouch. His final act, he activated it before his throat was fully torn out, setting the wolf's coat ablaze. This made the wolf go crazy and it ran straight into the group of gathered warriors, rending and tearing until it was finally taken down.

Gett was running rampant through the wolves. An eye stabbed out here, a leg crippled there, he was moving too fast through them to get decent killing shots but he was dealing widespread damage without getting hit himself. The alpha, seeing this, finally acted.

It stood up off its haunches and let off an ear-piercing howl, bringing all who heard it to their knees. Everyone in the cave system must have felt its power. Unfortunately, the wolves did too. As soon as the night-coloured wolf ended its howl, the others started growing. They expanded to the height of a man's chest, tall enough to bite his throat out without even leaping. Gett was on the ground right in front of them.

A deep, primal anger roused itself from within Gord. They would dare attack the tribemeld? His brother? The feeling of righteous indignation and the need to punish slowly built inside Gord's mind.

Gett struggled his way to his feet as the wolves finished their growth and started advancing once more. He tried staggering away but one of the wolves pounced. Rapidly turning, he braced his spear against the ground before the wolf fell on him, impaling itself on the shaft.

The wolf slid down, dead, but posing a huge problem for Gett. His spear was stuck. Pushing the wolf off him, he ripped the spear sideways out of the beasts body, nearly bisecting it. This distracted moment let one of the wolves sneak close and bite down on his shoulder. Blood dripped. Gett screamed.

Gord's anger, a simmering pot just kept under control, boiled over.

"Stay away from Gett!"

Gord ran towards the action, followed by a protesting Cad. Gett, hearing his brother's outburst, looked up at them.

"Gord you idiot, get back!"

But it was too late for reason. The wolves were already turning his way. Gord felt his rock release much stronger vibrations than usual. He put a hand in his pouch, touching it directly.

Sleepy, if you're going to do something, now is the time.

And gloriously, Sleepy responded.

The vibration that had been slowly pulsing from the rock quickly sped up, gathering strength and coalescing in his chest. He felt it push its way up past his lungs, into his throat, and with all eyes on him, he roared with the fury of a volcano.

The wolves were instantly cowed. Every pair of ears flicked downward and every tail tucked itself between hind legs. The wolves threatening Gett all backed away. Except for the alpha.

Hearing Gord, the alpha reacted immediately, jumping from the back of the battle to the very front in a single bound, ready to cut this nuisance off at the source. Seeing this, Gett grabbed Gord and bodily threw him at Cad. The alpha, midswipe, just barely grazed Gett instead. But this was a spirit beast. The light scratches rapidly started filling with liquid darkness, which began eating away at Gett's flesh. Gett shrieked. Sure he was finished, the alpha turned its attention to all the other gathered tribesmen and started savaging their ranks.

Gord blew up. His anger was blinding. He was a Marked, chosen directly by a god and he could do nothing but watch as his brother died? In the back of his mind, he felt Sleepy, seemingly nearly completely roused and just as indignant. The two were finally in tune. Ready to unleash annihilation on the big wolf, Gord pointed a hand at the alpha.

Then Cad grabbed him and pulled his head into his chest.

"Bury you Cad, what the blight are you doing?!"

"Gord shut up, you're glowing."

"I wi- what?"

Gord took a breath, calming down for a second and felt it. The left side of his head, the side buried in Cad's chest, was much much warmer than it should have been.

Shit, I'm in public.

Given that his entire viewpoint right now consisted of Cad's armpit, he asked the burning question.

"Did anyone see?"

Cad paused as he looked around.

"I don't think so, everyone is pre-occupied with the fight. Luckily, just as your head lit up, the shamans arrived and started mass blessings and healings. The wolves are getting massacred."

Gord heard yelps and yowls of pain from behind him and thought about his brother.

"How's Gett?"

"He'll be fine, he was in a bad way but the medicine men got to him."

Gord breathed a sigh of relief. His head was still shining though.

"So uhh, how are we gonna get back to our spot?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Report."

"It was a spirit beast incursion, shaman. A dire wolf alpha, though likely a young one. It must have had some sort of stealth or movement ability because it completely bypassed our scouts both when entering and when it escaped. The pack was dealt with however, with minimal losses."

"Hmm. This has never happened before, usually a spirit beast would be smarter than to attack a stronghold with so many humans. It seems the Ashwalker chief may have been telling the truth. I'll have to set some wise women to constantly scanning the omens, we cannot be taken by surprise again."

"Speaking of the Ashwalkers, the chief's warrior son acquitted himself bravely. He led the charge on the pack on his own and stopped their momentum. There would have been many more deaths if not for him."

"Yes, Greg does have strong blood. Send a few 'admirers' to this son of his tonight, we could use warriors like that in our own tribe."

"Of course, shaman. Uhh, I'm not sure whether this is important or not but Chief Greg's other son was there, the runt."

"So?"

"He contributed too. When his brother fell, he ran out and used some sort of sound talisman to scare the wolves."

"Okay? Good for him, I don't care."

"The thing is, I could swear I saw something strange happen just after that. It was only for a moment but it was... weird."

"Go on..."