Jon followed Dene as she descended the hill where their home resided, heading north as they often did. The path down was crowded with trees packed close together and thick shrubbery. Low branches scraped his body, and he had to constantly push them away from his face every time they descended or climbed the hill.

Even so, his mother never bothered to clear a path. In fact, she expressly forbade him from doing so. The vegetation helped hide their home, and even something as simple as disturbed vegetation could point out to people living there.

The two walked in silence until reaching the base of the hill, at which point they came across a beaten path wide enough for two people to walk shoulder-to-shoulder. It cut the forest from west to east. Reaching that path, they always turned west, further into the forest. Today, for the first time, they turned east towards Greenflower, a small village ruled by Baron Taford.

“Do you remember what I told you?” Dene asked.

“Try not to attract attention but always keep my head up. Most people will hate us from just a look, so we can never show weakness lest the enemies become emboldened to attack.”

Jon had never been to the village before. The most he had ever seen of it was the top of the baron’s tower peeking over the treeline around their home, with the green and white flag on top. The idea of meeting other people filled him with curiosity. But from the way she told him, he was better off interacting with them as little as possible.

“Why even go there if they hate us so much? Why not just go somewhere far away without any other people?”

Dene raised her index finger. “First, because there’s no such place. People are everywhere in this kingdom. The most we can do is avoid the larger cities.” The middle finger followed next. “And second, because we might need the service of other people from time to time.”

“Services such as?”

“Such as blacksmithing. It’s high time for you to get proper weapons. No more training with wooden swords. From now on we’ll only use Ogun’s element.”

Jon didn’t feel convinced. “We could just do it ourselves if it’s so important. Ogun favors blacksmiths, after all.”

“True, but He also favors warriors. There are only so many hours in the day, so you must pick what’s most important. Coin can buy good steel. It can’t buy skill.”

The path towards the village was lightly traveled, with more grass than earth covering the surface. A few branches stuck out towards the two, but Dene had no qualms about breaking those.

They walked at a brisk pace. The trees became sparser before disappearing almost in full, and Jon saw the tower in all of its glory for the first time. It stood tall at four or five times the height of their house with a crown of wood at the top. Around its base was a collection of small hamlets, like shrubs growing in the shade of a large tree.

The final stretch of the beaten path widened into a road flanked by golden fields. Men and women worked hard to cut away spikes of wheat, gathering them into thick bundles which were then arranged into a neat pile.

They all looked shorter than Dene, especially the women. The men were broad-shouldered with thick arms that made Jon think of the Ogun figurine at their home. They all, however, looked much different.

“Why do they look like that?” Jon asked. He almost pointed at one of them.

The men and women all had white skin with shades of red or pink. Only a few had black hair, with most being either chestnut or golden-colored. The women’s were longer, but they flowed down rather than staying up, sometimes fluttering in the wind and getting into their faces. The men didn’t have that problem. Instead, many of them had hair growing on their faces, which Jon thought was even stranger.

“They are northerners, that’s what they look like. When I told you they would hate us from a single look, that is what I meant.”

“But the Benefactor has white skin too, so isn’t She a northerner?"

“A swallow does not make a summer. A single good person can’t destroy the evil in a group, no matter how much he tries.”

He?

Dene continued walking, ignoring the few farmers who turned to watch the two. “One last thing,” she said in a hushed tone. “These farmers are just peasants. Common people. Strength is enough to keep them in check. But in case we meet any noble, you must always be on your best behavior, understand? Even the most insignificant lordling isn’t someone to be taken lightly. They are often involved in a complex web of shifting alliances, so you never know who you might offend by accident. And trust me, they tend to be easily offended. Best you can do is stay away.”

“Don’t you work for the baron?” Jon asked. Despite hailing from the desert tribes, his mother was Greenflower’s huntswoman, tasked with ridding the forest of wolves and bears. This also gave her the privilege of hunting other animals and selling the leftovers such as hides, antlers, and tusks on the village’s market.

Anyone else who did the same would be considered a poacher, an offense punishable by death and meted out by the huntswoman. Strictly speaking, the privilege of hunting didn’t extend to the rest of the family. But, as his mother puts it, the old baron will never find out.

“Yes, I work with them, which is how I know what I’m talking about. It’s only thanks to my cultivation that I’m allowed to walk freely, as getting rid of me would be more trouble than it is worth.”

Jon nodded. “Fine, I’ll be respectful with the lordlings.”

“Don’t repeat that word in front of them, it’s offensive. You’re to call them ‘My Lord’ or ‘My Lady’. Unless they are a duke or a duchess, in which case they are referred to as ‘Your Grace’. I hope you never suffer the misfortune of meeting one of those.”

Approaching the village, Jon saw tree trunks twice as tall as his mother piled up at the side of the road. More villagers were hard at work taking the trunks, peeling off the bark, and sharpening both ends. Behind them, four trunks were stabbed side-by-side into the ground so as to eventually form a wall to circle the village.

A few of the workers talked of completing the stockade in a couple of years, and how they hoped the war didn’t erupt with them stuck in the middle. All talking ceased as they noticed the mother and son walking by, though.

Walking inside the village, the first thing Jon noticed was the noise. It was overwhelming. Children screeched as they played. Dogs barked. A drunkard sang about a girl named Stela and her tight flower, which made no sense to Jon.

Guarding the tower’s only entrance were two men with longswords on their hips and bored looks on their faces. Their torso and shoulders were covered by bulky plates with rings of steel linked together to cover the rest. The armor looked cumbersome. Even if he were strong enough to use it in combat, he’d still rather not.

North of the tower was a grass-covered mound circled by a waist-high fence. Atop it was a tall pitched roof with eight tree trunks for support and no walls. An old man wearing leather gloves and apron hammered at a red-hot piece of steel before sinking into a barrel of water. He raised his head to look as Dene and Jon approached, immediately scowling. “The fuck you want?” he said, and Jon noticed several teeth missing in the man’s mouth.

“The swords I paid for. I expect them to be ready.”

The blacksmith grumbled about accepting orders from a black skin, and that the swords were shorter than normal. He picked a pair of swords carelessly propped against the side of the furnace, sheathed both in oversized scabbards, and then handed them to Dene. “There, now get out.”

Dene did no such thing. Instead, she handed one of the swords to Jon, who almost burned his hand on the hot grip. She unsheathed the other, carefully studying the dark gray metal.

“Hurry already, ain’t got all morni–”

Dene yanked the hammer from the blacksmith’s hand and then pressed the tip of the sword against the anvil. The hammer tapped the side of the blade, snapping it in half. Dene was livid. Before the man could react, the broken blade was pressed against his neck, drawing a trickle of blood. “I paid for the best steel you could make, not some cheap iron.”

The blacksmith tried to step back. Dene kicked him off his feet and he fell with his back to the floor. She dropped the hammer and grabbed him by the throat.

“Unhand me, you filthy beast! I’ll have your head for this!” He kicked and screamed, struggling to free himself. With no success. It made Jon think of the boar on their first hunt.

At the tower, the two guards noticed the commotion but didn’t lift a finger to intervene.

Dene held the broken end of the blade inches from the man’s eye. “You know what we do to thieves like you down in the desert? First, we rip off the eyes and throw them for the dogs to eat, so that they can never be healed back. Then we do the same with their tongues, that way they can’t tell another lie. And lastly, we take off their cock lest they bring another thief into the world.”

That was a lie. Dene had told Jon about how they punished thieves, and they tended to focus on the hands. Punishment ranged from cutting the palms open all the way to chopping off the hands and throwing them into a fire so that they couldn’t be healed. So at least there was an inkling of truth to the strory.

But the blacksmith didn’t know any of that. He squirmed on the ground. “You can’t do this,” he said, voice faltering. “T-The baron will punish you.”

“Is that so? Let us find out. Which eye first, left or right?”

Maybe it was the fact that no one had come to his aid, or maybe it was the blade grazing his eyelid, but he finally conceded. “There,” he said, pointing to a closed chest dirty with soot. “Now release me.”

She didn’t. “Jon.”

Jon unlatched the chest and threw the lid open. Inside was an assortment of tools, dining utensils, horseshoes, and other metal items. He found the swords wrapped in a brown sheet under a hammer and a pair of tongs. They were a pair of straight white blades, each with two razor-sharp edges and a shallow groove along its length.

Jon sheathed both weapons on the scabbards at his back, suspended from the leather harness that went over his shoulders. Each scabbard pressed against one of the shoulder blades, and he wondered if that was the reason for the muscle’s name.

Only then did Dene release the old man. He scrambled back to his feet. “There, you got your damn swords. Now bugger off my shop. And take that half-breed freak with you.”

Dene stared him down. She still held the broken sword and looked ready to stab the blacksmith. Instead, she whipped her arm to the side and the broken sword flew inside the burning furnace. “We’re done here.” She turned around and walked out of the shop, leaving the blacksmith to clean up the mess.

Jon followed her down the earth mound. “The man called me a halfbreed,” he commented as they descended. “What does it mean?”

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s hurry back home, befo–” Dene paused midsentence.

Walking out of the tower were a couple of northerners, a man and a woman, followed by a black man, to Jon’s surprise.

The couple’s clothing was… colorful to say the least. The man wore a golden puffed-up tunic with red designs embroidered along the edges. The trousers were of a similar design. As for the woman, she was a head shorter than the man. She wore a long blue and purple dress that dragged over the dirt. Golden earrings and a necklace shone under the sun, same for the band on hers and the man’s ring fingers.

The last time Jon saw so much color packed together was when he found a jumping adder hiding inside a bush of poison berries. Or rather, it found him, and Jon’s leg ended up swollen for days.

His mother bought him medicine at the time, but only enough so that he could survive the fever and nothing more. She claimed it was his punishment for being distracted and not noticing the snake.

As for the southerner, he was the only one in drabber colors like Dene and Jon, though they looked old and worn-out. The only thing he had shining under the sun was the collar wrapped around his neck. It was a glossy black with irregular purple lines along its surface. In his hand he held a wood rod with upright feathers stuck to one end.

The nobleman wrapped in gold smiled at Dene, though his eyes showed no change. “Miss Tiwa, a pleasure to see you.”

“My lord, my lady,” Dene said with a bow of her head.

Jon mimicked the gesture without a word. He hadn’t been spoken to so he shouldn’t speak either. The nobleman looked too young to be the baron, so Jon assumed the man to be the baron’s son.

“My wife and I were enjoying our supper when we were alerted by the commotion.”

The noblewoman stood behind her husband, right hand shading her eyes from the sun while fanning herself with the left one. Noticing that, the southerner used the rod and feathers to fan her. She smiled at him.

“Apologies, my lord,” Dene responded. “The blacksmith believed it wise to try and deceive me. I showed him the error of his ways.”

“So I heard.” The nobleman’s gaze traveled from the blacksmith at his shop to Jon and the swords on his back. He looked back at Dene. “Still, I ask that you refrain from solving disputes through violence and come to me or my father instead.”

“As you wish, my lord.” Dene bowed again.

Having said his piece, the nobleman headed back to the tower, wife and southerner in tow. The black man glanced back at mother and son for a moment.

“Tiwa?” Jon asked after the trio was out of earshot.

“A fake name. Now let’s return. That was too much dealing with nobles for a day. At least the peasants don’t try to hide their contempt.”

Jon watched the southerner entering the tower. “He was wearing a collar.”

Dene nodded. “He is a slave. That’s what happens to people like us who can’t defend themselves. Remember this if you ever think I’m too harsh with your training. We cannot afford to be weak.”