An absolute silence reigned among the crowd that had gathered around the arena to witness the combat. Anthos was kneeling on the ground with his other leg extended to the side. The crossbow in his hand was trembling. In front of him, Akhram Nut fell backward, sitting on the stones and clutching his wounded hand. He started laughing heartily.

  "By all the Gods of Dorlan! How did I not see that coming?" he said between laughs and groans of pain. "Well done, Anthos! You have defeated me easily!"

  Anthos broke out of the trance that the ending had caused him and approached Akhram.

  "Master, let me help you, please, I didn't mean to..." the young swordsman said, his voice trembling.

  "Yes, you did, Anthos, and thank the Gods you didn't mean to earlier, when I had the saber in my dominant hand!" the veteran Nut continued to laugh. "Come on, help me get up and let's go back to the house. We need to talk and organize your future here. Now that you've proven yourself a duelist, you have earned certain privileges and responsibilities within the Nut clan."

  The young warrior picked up his sword and sheathed it. He adjusted his clothes, dried the blood that was still dripping from his nose again, and prepared to return to the estate where he lived. Akhram was bandaging his hand with pieces of cloth as he walked alongside the victorious young man. The people who had been watching the combat spectacle had dispersed.

  Upon reaching the entrance arch of the Nut house, the master spoke: "Let's clean up, boy, and we'll see each other at dinner. We'll slaughter a fawn to celebrate your feat!"

  He entered his room, where there was a bowl of water and some towels, and began to wash himself while still trying to process what he had achieved. Passing the dueling test allowed him to fight in new duels, to teach, and to earn some money to support himself. After so many years, he was going to be able to start building his own life. For some months, he had been frequenting the daughter of a family very close to the Nuts, Trygga Fraqim, and with his new abilities, he would be able to lavish attention on her and court her to be with her. On the other hand, he knew that with the arrival of his master's son, he wouldn't have as much time to train and talk as before, so Nut's life would surely now focus on Grumenur and Sofía, his wife.

  A few hours passed between finishing his cleaning and polishing his brand-new rapier. He changed his clothes and went to the common room of the estate. Sofía and Grumenur, the baby who was only six months old, were there. Akhram was staking the now-lifeless animal and setting some coals to roast it. Sofía, seeing him, immediately stood up and went to hug him.

  "Congratulations, dear son, you have achieved everything you set out to do since you arrived in Elbarie. Akhram and I are happy to have welcomed you as a son," she said with tears on her face.

  Anthos returned the embrace like a son and thanked his adoptive mother for her words. Sofía was much more outwardly affectionate than her husband and had always let him know it. Anthos approached the child and rocked him for a few seconds when Lord Nut entered through the door.

  "Well, Anthos, a lot of sand has passed through our hourglass. It's time for you to take a role in our family and handle business with me," Nut began, combing his beard. "Sofía and I are going to the city of Akaphet to look for some grains and materials for the season, and we think you could stay to make the purchases we need here and, incidentally, take care of little Grumenur," Akhram concluded.

  It had been a long time and he had passed many tests for the family to entrust him with responsibilities, for Anthos had always been treated like another son in the home, but they had never entrusted him with tasks related to the family business, and much less, the enormous responsibility of caring for the firstborn. But he knew that the harvest and tanning season was approaching, and that it was the time when Jaihmid was most exposed to looting, so he understood that Lord Nut should travel to the regional capital in search of resources and provisions to strengthen the trade and defenses of the small city.

  "It is done, sir, I am at your and your family's disposal," Anthos said as he bowed his head as a sign of respect.

  "Very well, we will leave tomorrow then, Sofía," he stated as he raised a horn of wine. "To your health, duelist!

  Bebero Jumonka was at the head of the caravan. About thirty men and women rode behind him, armed with scimitars, spears, and some large bows. It had been a week since he had traversed the desert in the far south of the Elbarie region, where the legendary Forbidden Empires were, and the heat did not abate. On the contrary, their water reserves were almost depleted, and a failed mapping attempt had left them on an erratic course.

  A king does not always have lands; some people are rulers of ideas, actions, and fears. This characterized Bebero Jumonka. He was known throughout the desert region as the King of Bandits, a title inherited from his father, who in turn had inherited it from his grandfather, whose main activity was looting. He used to prowl villages and small cities in the region in search of booty and riches, only to disappear back into the desert with his followers. No one knew where his lair was, but some had claimed that his fortress was gigantic and the color of the sand, making it not easily visible. The truth was that the desert itself was his hiding place.

  On this occasion, he had received news that the small city of Jaihmid, south of the capital, possessed war artifacts unique in their kind and worth a fortune. This was enough for him to take a handful of soldiers and venture out in search of them. His methods were usually merciless. The attacks rarely left survivors, or if they did, they were captured and disappeared into the sand. Even Bebero's story was commonly told to small children to correct or improve their behavior.

  Jaihmid was small, but not so small that it would decimate the population. Furthermore, leaving survivors could imply new looting in the future after its reconstruction.

  Finally, after more than a week of wandering without a certain course, at night and thanks to the full moon, he could see on the horizon what looked like smoke from some bonfires or houses, perhaps from a settlement. When he got closer, posted on the top of a gigantic dune, he spotted the buildings of Jaihmid. It was easy to recognize, as the city was a large, almost perfect circle, and right in the middle, a rectangular square with two combat arenas surrounded by torches, which could be perfectly distinguished.

  Jumonka was a tall man of great stature. His skin was as black as night, and his face was covered in gold rings. No hair occupied his face or head, and his deep honey-colored eyes were made up around by a shadow even blacker than his skin. In his case, he carried an excellent-quality scimitar and a curved knife at his waist. Although he was dressed in several tunics and a large turban to protect himself from the heat, underneath he wore light clothing. An amber sleeveless shirt and dark, wide trousers, with tied leather sandals. Clothing that allowed him to fight unhindered.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  "Hey, Torkgar. Let's set up camp here. Let's rest for a moment. Eat and drink what's left of the provisions. Before dawn, we'll fall upon them," the king ordered one of his trusted men.

  He then dismounted and transmitted the orders to the rest of the bandits, who began setting up a makeshift camp and preparing for the looting.

  That morning, Akhram Nut and his wife, Sofía, had left for Akaphet to carry out the errands they had mentioned. Remaining at the estate were Anthos and three women in charge of cleaning and caring for little Grumenur, who, despite being only a few months old, made his crying heard quite often.

  Anthos dedicated the entire day to buying the goods his master had tasked him with and restocking the house. Every now and then, he would return to the estate to check if the child was well. In the afternoon, he decided to visit Trygga Fraqim, taking advantage of the fact that her parents had also left the city.

  The romance was budding but intense. Anthos believed he was starting to feel something akin to love, and his mind was already projecting some dreams with her. Trygga was a young Elbarien woman of about fifteen, with a dark complexion and exquisite features. Her eyes were clear green like jade stones, and her body traced a slender silhouette, yet with enviable beauty traits, perhaps for all the women of Jaihmid.

  Anthos had spent the entire afternoon with his beloved and had completely forgotten about Grumenur. Although he had carried out all the tasks Akhram had assigned him, he was supposed to ensure the child's safety, even if there were no dangers nearby.

  As night fell, he decided to immediately return to the estate and postpone his romance, as the baby also required his attention. He gathered his clothes and returned to his home. Grumenur was sleeping peacefully. His bald head rested among silk fabrics and feather pillows in a large cradle. In his room, only a dimly lit oil lamp illuminated one of his matrons, who was sitting beside him, watching over him. Nights usually passed quietly in Jaihmid, and Anthos decided to go to his quarters to rest. The day had been quite exhausting, and he was still tired from the previous day's combat, which was still claiming a large part of his energy.

  But the night brought sleeplessness, blood, and fire. The first arrows fell on the houses in the periphery, and as the wave of looting and death advanced, they began to fall on the more important houses. What interrupted his sleep was the smell of burning tar, sulfur, or "God knows what pestilence from the Underworld." He opened his eyes and, for a momen,t thought it was just a dream. Before closing them again, a distant shriek made him jump out of the cot. He opened the window curtain, and an orange glow now illuminated Jaihmid.

  Memories rushed to the surface. In the frozen region, the night he was captured had been during a raid on his village, where everything had been burned to the ground. That smell was what had awakened him and which he had mistaken for a bad dream. He grabbed his rapier from the table and began to dress at full speed. A new scream broke his concentration. A female voice he thought he recognized. "Could it be Trygga?" he thought for a moment, and his blood ran cold.

  He kicked the door open and rushed across the room toward the main entrance. The girl's house was about forty meters from the Nut estate. He had to get there before something happened. In his mind, he had no sense of the magnitude of what was happening. The entire village was burning, and Anthos, recently considered a man by the warrior caste who lived there, had never been in such a conflict, except when he was nothing more than a child. The landscape became more terrifying with every meter he covered.

  With enviable skill, he leaped over the wooden entrance gate of Trygga's house. Flames were bursting out of the windows, and the screams were no longer heard. Out of the corner of his eye before entering, he could distinguish a group of three or four bandits running down the street, with a tall man in front of them. However, he was blinded by the need to save Trygga, his love.

  He kicked the door, tearing it from its hinges, and rushed inside the house. Smoke dominated the interior, and seeing clearly was an almost impossible task. Nevertheless, a scream from the upper floor alerted him, and he ascended the stairs almost blindly.

  Upon reaching the first floor, a silhouette was drawn in the black smoke that pervaded the place. He approached cautiously, and the scene was terrifying. Standing before him was an exceedingly overweight, bald, and completely naked individual. He was facing away, and in front of him lay Trygga. Also naked and with cuts all over her body. Her head, with a grimace of pain on her face, was a meter away from her, freshly severed. The individual turned to face Anthos, who was sobbing, paralyzed by the scene. The bald man tried to utter a word, but in a sudden movement, Anthos unsheathed Ak-Ahrimma and cut his throat instantly. In a frenzy of madness, he threw himself onto the enormous man and continued stabbing him with his rapier while tears fell from his eyes and screams escaped his throat. When his arms could no longer move due to muscular exhaustion, he threw himself to the side, still with tears in his eyes, and embraced the lifeless body of his beloved, ready to die suffocated in that very room.

  He woke up. Somehow, supernaturally, the smoke had not killed him yet. The enormous bandit had been buried under a collapse of burning wood and was, literally, cooking. "No, no, no, please, no!" he exclaimed as if someone alive could hear him in that room. "Grumenur!" In his fit of teenage love and his idealization of a life with his beloved, he had overlooked the main reason he was now in the village.

  He ran across the street, lungs burning for air, but at a surprising speed. He should have died from the amount of smoke he had inhaled. As he returned to the estate, he remembered the silhouettes he had seen in passing. He was terribly afraid. A fear that was incomparable to any other. What was happening was a nightmare. He had just witnessed what he had thought would be the worst image of his life. His heart was exploding with sadness and anger, and his mind had left his body minutes ago.

  The estate was also beginning to burn. The half-open door was held that way by the body of one of the women who cared for the child, who, with her throat slit, obstructed the entrance. With a look of horror, he entered the house, trying not to be seen. He unsheathed his rapier and walked toward the child's room. The child he had to protect. His body trembled like a branch of a dry tree in a storm. Cruel and paralyzing fear was governing him.

  "Not another step," he heard behind him.

  Turning around, he discovered Grumenur being held by one of his little feet. At the end of it, a gigantic hand held him in the air. He couldn't tell if the baby was unconscious or dead. The paralysis was complete. It was the very Bebero Jumonka, unknown to Anthos until then, who was pointing a large crossbow in his direction with his other hand.

  “Burn, boy,” Jumonka murmured and fired a bolt directly into his chest.

  Anthos had a spasm while still standing and fell backward. An image blurred where the bandit king turned, holding the child by the foot, moving slowly as if time itself were passing with difficulty.

  Darkness.

  When he opened his eyes, days, perhaps weeks, had passed. He was on a straw mattress, in a place he did not recognize.

  "You are in the stable, like the animal you are," Akhram had been standing in the doorway for days, waiting for him to wake up. "You have failed, and I have lost what I valued most in life," he continued. "What you have done should be punished with death. The matron who survived said they were alone when they were assaulted. I cannot believe it, Anthos. I would have trusted everything to you fulfilling my orders. I considered you a son, and I even entrusted you with..." He swallowed. He was sad and disappointed. "You will have safe passage because of all the history that has united us. But you will be exiled from here and from Elbarie. Out of respect for my son and my family, I beg you to leave and not force me to crucify you in the square. Even though you deserve it."

  Anthos was never able to utter a word in response to his master's, his father's, decision. He perhaps believed that explanations would have hurt Akhram even more. Perhaps he had spent weeks in silence until he spoke again. Nut threw his saber down in front of him, as a final permission, and walked away from the doorway. The young swordsman took the rapier and, in the rudimentary clothes that covered his still seriously wounded body, left the stable without raising his head. He walked far from Jaihmid, looking at the ground out of shame, entered the desert, and never set foot on those lands again.

  A name would certainly resonate forever in his mind: Grumenur.