The sun rose over the fertile fields of Ramgate, painting the sky with streaks of orange and violet. It had been a good year—his wheat stood tall, his livestock fat and healthy—but none of that mattered anymore. Those fields were ash now, and the only thing that remained of his past life was the curved blade slung over his shoulder, nestled between his body and the pack on his back.
The Farmer, Not the Thief
Iskender never thought of himself as a warrior. He was an elf raised on the frontier, the son of an outcast who had chosen to live among humans rather than with his own kind. His father, Serkan, was a swordsman once—so the stories went—but he had traded war for the plow, raising his son to tend the land instead of spill blood over it.
That life suited Iskender well enough. He built a modest farmstead, married a woman as fiery as the summer sun—Leyla—and together they raised four children: Darin (12), Elif (10), Miran (8), and Zeynep (6). They ran through the fields barefoot and free, their laughter rising with the wind. Iskender bartered with traveling merchants in Phaendar, kept his head down when the Molthuni war machine marched past, and didn’t take sides.
But war doesn’t care for neutrality.
The Night of Fire
It happened faster than he could understand. The drumming of war horns, the crackle of flames, the shrieks of the dying. The Ironfang Legion fell upon the Ramgate farms like a storm, hobgoblin raiders burning everything in their wake. Iskender was inside, drinking tea by the hearth when he heard Leyla’s scream from outside.
He reached for his father’s sword.
It had always hung above the mantle, a relic of the past, a curved elven blade that had gathered dust for years. He pulled it free with shaking hands. This wasn’t supposed to be his fight.
But they came anyway.
The hobgoblins tore through the doorway, their armor blackened by soot, their blades already wet with blood. He fought like a man who had never fought before, swinging wildly, blocking where he could. He heard Darin shouting, saw Elif trying to shield her younger sisters, and for a moment, he thought they had a chance.
Then the blow came—a brutal strike across the ribs, knocking the air from his lungs. He collapsed, his blade slipping from his grip, and the world blurred.
The last thing he saw before the darkness took him was the shadow of a blade falling toward his wife.
A Survivor’s Guilt
He woke to the stench of burning wood and flesh. His body ached, his head throbbed, and the pain in his side was white-hot. He tried to rise, but his limbs were slow, unresponsive. Then he saw them.
Leyla, Darin, Elif, Miran, Zeynep—gone. Their bodies lay in the dirt, lifeless.
His farmstead was nothing but embers and ruins. The hobgoblins were gone, the battle already done. And he—he was left alive, the cruelest fate of all.
He buried them with his own hands, numb with grief. And when the last stone was placed, he didn’t pray. He didn’t curse. He simply picked up his father’s sword, slung it over his shoulder, and started walking.
To Phaendar.
The Man Who Walked Into Phaendar
A few days later, a gaunt, hollow-eyed elf arrived at Phaendar’s Market Festival. He carried a blade too fine for a farmer, its hilt protruding from behind his shoulder. His clothes smelled of ash, his face was marked by grief and weariness.
He did not speak much.
He bartered for supplies, kept to the edges of town, and when asked where he came from, he simply said:
“Ramgate is gone.”
Now, he waits—though for what, even he doesn’t know. A cause? A purpose? Or just another storm on the horizon?
Whatever it is, he’ll be ready this time.
