It was a full moon lite night, a hunter’s moon as we would call it. We were on the side of a hill that had some tree growth but was mostly tall grass. I was leading a group of men that were not my Embers. I could tell they had all been in past battles with humans as they were wearing shields and had swords or axes. Some of them still wore furs on over their chests, but others had woven shirts and chainmail or a cuirass. We were far from a uniformed group, and we were running. It didn’t seem like we were fleeing in the dream because I didn’t see wounds, but rather we were trying to get somewhere.

None of us talked as we ran. Instead, we were focused on breathing and where we put our feet. We ran in a single line to cover our tracks. I knew in my dream that we were looping around an enemy and that we would soon be upon them. We were the spoilers, the ones that would flush our foes into the trap, and so we had to go the furthest. To a man, we carried a fire horn and a bundle of rushes. We would loop around between the invaders and their home and set fire to the hills.

It hadn’t rained in months, and the ground was dry here. It happened like that every year. First, we would get three or four months of no rain. Then we would get days and weeks of rain almost nonstop. Some of the valleys would turn into lakes and ponds as they were closed on three sides. The herds would then come, and we would hunt in the hills and planes where we had for generations.

Likewise, those that wanted our land would come in the dry time. When it rained, they could not fight as well. Their bows would be wet, and their fires wouldn’t light. We could fight in the rain with our spears. We had beaten them many times in the rainy season, so many that people stopped coming. In the time of the herds, they couldn’t move an army through as the herds were so large that they would break any group bigger than a few.

These battles were not where I tended to go. The struggle that Chaos had me fighting was with the dark ones. Yet this time, she sent me to the elders to fight the human armies that were invading our lands. They should have been our friends, but they wanted to conquer us and claim our homes as theirs. They didn’t know that we stood between them and the dark ones.

This year they brought a great army with them. It was larger than any that I had seen before. We tried to crush them at the pass as we did before, but they beat us there. Their mages were more powerful than we were expecting. They came on beasts that we would hunt, and so they moved fast. When we tried to stop them, they just sent in more men, and our trap pits were filled with bodies. Our rocks had bounced off of the shields the mages created, causing minor damage. Yet now we had a group of them where we could cut them off. We could take and crush them in pieces if we could break the army down.

So we ran to cause a fire that would cut the advance off and put their lead group into a trap. We hoped we would be able to escape before the group that rode got to us. If we could not, we would die fighting as there were too many.

It was another hour before we got to where we were going, and we took a break. After the break, the war leader stood and spoke, “We separate here. Remember to wait till the sun starts to come before you light your rushes. If we don’t then they will see them and may be able to react. We must light the whole valley and then run. Scatter and then regroup as you can back in the hunting lands. If this works right we should be able to blunt the attack and crush the lead group. Those who have other things they have been tasked with may the gods watch out for you.”

We ran down the line. I was the one on the furthest edge from where we came. My fires would be the ones that anchored this. I also wouldn’t be able to get back the way that we came. There was no way to make the mile run after the fire started without being spotted. Just under half of us would be on other missions. I would start the fire and then make a run for a cave I knew of.

I would rest there, and if I wasn’t found, then I would make my way towards the camps. I looked the most like an outsider in how I dressed and moved. So I could get in at night to the main camp. They hadn’t moved their headquarters in over three weeks as it was around the only pond for a few days’ travel. So my job was to sneak in and poison the pond.

The Great Shaman gave me a bag of bad water. It was made from the berries of the hookium tree, and just a few berries would be enough to kill a man. The juice from them would be used to help heal or, in this case, kill. If I could dump it in the pond, then those who drank would die in about a day.

In this case, I would cause the bodies of the human to be like ash and cover the ground. We may be burning the plains, but the poison was what would cover their attack in ash. It would end them, and they would break. If any of them made it back, they would talk about how everyone started to spit up blood. They would fear us and fear what we could do, and that would keep us safe.

My fire setting went according to plan, and I was able to start fires all the way up the hill before it was time for me to run. I ran towards the cave I knew of. It was a small cave under a bush and would be hard to get into or out of, but that would help me. When last I was at the cave, I had to kill an armored badger that had started living there. I was hoping that the food that I left there in jars would still be there and good after two years. I had tried to block off the entrance with a rock.

I was tired when I got to the cave. I unblocked the hole and went into the darkness. When I felt around, I found that the clay jars were still where I had left them. It used to be a larger hole when I was younger, and I would come here and sleep when out hunting. Now that I was older, it was a much smaller place. I could still fit, and I was able to reseal the hole and go to sleep.

When I woke, I drank water from one of the sealed jars and ate some of the raisins and nuts that I had left. Most of the nuts were spoiled after two years, but the raisins were fine. It was the best I would do this close to the enemy camp. When I opened up my hole, I smelled the smoke. Our fire had gone great; it looked as if I could see a haze that filled up most of the sky.

A few hours later, once the sun started down, I started my move towards their camp. It was a loping run until I was close to where the pond should be. It was one of the deepest valleys some years like this one; it wouldn’t dry out. On others, it would be as dry as everything else unless you dug. I had done that a few times.

As I got closer, I saw the tents of the enemy. I lowered myself and moved slowly through the scrub as I could. It wasn’t fast, but I was a hunter and warrior-like my father before me and his before him. I was the Ash and could strike this blow to send our foe out of our hills.

I watched in my dream as I moved to the edge of the camp, and then I slipped between the tents. I made my way to the top of the cliff that overhung the pond. First, I opened the bag of bad water and poured about half of it into the clay jar I had from my cave. Then I threw the bag as far as I could. Next, I chucked the jar in another direction. I hoped it would spread out and poison the whole water supply.

I made my way back to my cave to wait, but I never made it. The men riding saw me and thought I was a deserter and took me back. My weapons were taken from me; they put me in a wagon with bars and other men with nothing after whipping my back raw. I didn’t cry but only asked why Chaos had sent me here.