Magic Of Light

Fire on the Sky

29th of Summer, 492

Sevron and Tremol saw the fireball on the sky before they heard the distant rumble. It lit up the horizon, painting a bright line into the dark night.

A few minutes before that everything was calm, the village slept in the silent summer night. Golatran gave enough light to see the clearing around the village, and the dark line of the forest beyond. The waning moon was only half full now, soon it was going to go completely dark, only to appear slowly and grow again to full size just before dawn. Some said that it was the eye of a god, watching over its people, blinking once every night. A few torches blinked like sleepy eyes, but nothing moved between the low wooden houses.

Sevron walked on the wooden railing of the pile wall, towards the point where his designated path met with Tremol's. Time after time he kicked at the piles, murmuring under his breath. He heard a squeak outside of the fence, but he didn't bother to look that way. Just a groundbird. What a great way to spend his time, walking up and down and listening to stupid birds.

He arrived to the end point of his path the same time Tremol did from the other direction. The bird squeaked again, but this time it ended abruptly, followed by a noise as if something was squirming.

"Darecat," Tremol said. "Probably more than one. They like to hunt on warm nights."

Sevron looked out, but could only see dark rough shapes in the light of the moon.

"I wish I could catch a darecat," Sevron said.

Tremol gave a short laugh. His blue eyes seemed dark gray in the dim light, and his beard made his face even darker.

"What would you do with it?" he asked.

"Keep him and feed him."

"Why?"

"To do something worth doing." Sevron kicked at the wood, putting his boredom and anger into it. "Why do we have to do the watch? No one have ever tried to get in. Never. Waste of time."

Tremol shook his head. He leaned on his spear, looking out to the clearing and the forest.

"You're too young," he said. "If you had seen what I had, you'd be the most careful watchman."

"Yeah, the big war. You told me thousand times. But that was a century ago."

"Thirty nine years. Not long enough to forget about the horror."

"Come on, Tremol, we live in peace for ages now. Why waste the time just standing up here."

"If I were you, I wouldn't be so loud. The Captain never sleeps."

Sevron rolled his eyes, but stopped himself from giving a riposte he later would regret.

A flock of birds took off from the forest and flew eastward. Tremol watched them, scratching his beard.

"Odd," he said.

"Just birds." Sevron shrugged.

"They never fly in the dark. Unless..."

Sevron saw a movement. A dark figure of an animal emerged from the woods and run through the clearing in the same direction as the birds, disappearing on the other side.

"A nightwolf in the open." Tremol sounded surprised.

Another dark shapes followed the nightwolf, running in the same direction. Tremol leaned on the pile fence, staring at the clearing. More birds flew by, and more animals run. Sevron recognized rabbits and foxes and bears, even the undergrowth came alive with fleeing rodents.