The Second Generation

Somewhat confused, Tanin and Sturm nevertheless drew their swords, as Dougan, his face grim, lifted his axe. The words to a spell chant were on Palin’s lips, and the Staff of Magius seemed to tremble with eagerness in his hand. But Palin hesitated. From all he’d heard, battles weren’t supposed to be like this! Where was the hot blood? The ferocious hatred? The bitter determination to die where one stood rather than give an inch of ground?

The warriors shuffled forward, prodding each other along. Tanin closed on them, his sword flashing in the sun, Sturm at his back. Suddenly, a cry came from the jungle. There was movement and a rustling sound, more cries, and then a yelp of pain. A small figure dashed out of the trees, running headlong across the sand.

“Wait!” Palin yelled. “It’s a child!”

The warriors turned at the sound. “Damn!” muttered the chief, tossing his shield and spear into the sand in disgust. The child—a little girl of about five—ran to the warrior and threw her arms around his legs. At that moment, another child, older than the first, came running out of the woods in pursuit.

“I thought I told you to keep her with you!” the chief said to the older child, a boy, who came dashing up.

“She bit me!” said the boy accusingly, exhibiting bloody marks on his arm.

“You’re not going to hurt my daddy, are you?” the little girl asked Tanin, glaring at him with dark eyes.

“N-no,” stuttered Tanin, taken aback. He lowered his sword. “We’re just”—he shrugged, flushing scarlet—“talking. You know, man talk.”

“Bless my beard!” exclaimed the dwarf in awe. More children were running from the jungle—children of all ages, from toddlers who could barely make their way across the sand to older boys and girls of about ten or eleven. The air was filled with their shrill voices.

“I’m bored. Can we go home?”

“Lemme hold the spear!”

“No, if s my turn! Dad said—”

“Apu said a bad word!”

“Did not!”

“Did so!”

“Look, Daddy! That short, fat man with the hair on his face! Isn’t he ugly?”

Glancing at the strangers in deep embarrassment, the warriors turned from their battle formation to argue with their children.

“Listen, Blossom, Daddy’s just going to be a little longer. You go back and play—”

“Apu, take your brothers back with you and don’t let me hear you using language like that or I’ll—”

“No, dear, Daddy needs the spear right now. You can carry it on the way home—”

“Halt!” roared the dwarf. Dougan’s thunderous shout cut through the confusion, silencing warrior and child alike.

“Look,” said Tanin, sheathing his sword, his own face flushed with embarrassment, “we don’t want to fight you, especially in front of your kids.”

“I know,” the chief said, chagrined. “It’s always like that. We haven’t had a good battle in two years! Have you ever”—he gave Tanin a pained look—“tried to fight with a toddler underfoot?”

Profoundly perplexed, Tanin shook his head.

“Takes all the fun out of it,” added another warrior as one child swarmed up his back and another bashed him in the shins with his shield.

“Leave them at home with their mothers, then, where they belong,” said Dougan gruffly.

The warriors' expression grew grimmer still. At the mention of their mothers, several of the children began to cry.

“We can’t,” stated a warrior.

“Why not?” demanded Dougan.

“Because their mothers are gone!”

“It all started two years ago,” said the chief, walking with Dougan and the brothers back to the village. “Lord Gargath sent a messenger to us, demanding ten maidens be paid him in tribute or he’d unleash the power of the Graygem.” The warrior’s gaze went to the volcano in the distance, its jagged top barely visible amid the shifting gray clouds that surrounded it. Forked lightning streaked from the cloud, and thunder rumbled. The chief shivered and shook his head. “What could we do? We paid him his tribute. But it didn’t stop there. The next month, here came the messenger again. Ten more maidens, and more the month following. Soon, we ran out of maidens, and then the lord demanded our wives. Then he sent for our mothers! Now”—the chief sighed—“there isn’t a woman left in the village!”

“All of them!” Sturm gaped. “He’s taken all of them!”

The chief nodded in despair, and the child in his arms wailed in grief.

“And not only us. It happened to every tribe on the island. We used to be a fierce, proud people,” the chief added, his dark eyes flashing. “Our tribes were constantly at war. To win honor and glory in battle was what we lived for. To die fighting was the noblest death a man could find! Now, we lead lives of drudgery—”

“Our hands in dishwater instead of blood,” said another, “mending clothes instead of cracking skulls.”

“To say nothing of what else we’re missing, without the women,” added a third with a meaningful look.

“Well, why don’t you go get them back!” Tanin demanded.

The warriors, to a man, looked at him with undisguised horror, many glancing over their shoulders at the smoking volcano, expressions of terror on their faces, as if fearing they might be overheard.