Shadrach Sandwalker's page

Shadrach watches the fire burn, as Wolf rests by his side, fingers idly toying with the bracelet that is all that remains of his old life. Beads of bone, hardwood and polished stone, with any traceries worn smooth from decades of handling, slip between his calloused fingers, as he remembers his mother.

Safiya, she was named, although he always thought of her as Mother. Born daughter to a caravanserai owner, she remembered herself as a willful child, always out with the camels and horses, riding like a boy, instead of tending to her studies. Having no brothers to assist with the chores, her parents tolerated this behavior, until she grew into a young woman, and began, in their eyes, spending an unseemly amount of time with the caravan guards and one desert guide in particular, named Ahmut.

It was Ahmut who gave her the bracelet, that he had fashioned himself from stones and bones and bits of wood he’d found in his travels, inscribing them with sacred passages in script almost too tiny to be read, during the long desert nights around the fire. He swore that they would be husband and wife, one day, but he never returned from a job, and reports came back that the caravan had never made its destination, all men lost to the desert. Safiya’s grief at the loss of Ahmut came as a surprise to her parents, and when they discovered that she carried his child, she was disowned and cast out of her home.

With some sun-touched notion of finding him still alive in the desert, Mother took up some clothing that he had left behind, hiding her face and body behind swathes of cloth, and pretended to be Ahmut, joining a caravan leaving that very day, in the direction she last saw her love. Using the skills her parents had never approved of her learning, she successfully guided the caravan across the desert, seeing no trace of her lover’s lost caravan, and arriving at the next city with a heavy heart. Her disguise was not nearly so perfect as she had imagined, and by the time they reached their destination, all of the men knew her ‘secret.’ And yet a cheer went up when they arrived safely, and a couple of men hoisted her up on their shoulders, dislodging her hood and scarf as they did, and thanked her for getting them safely through the bandit-haunted lands that had claimed the last caravan. Where she was considering her life at an end, disowned, dishonored, with the love of her life lost to the sands, now a new path opened up before her, and she continued as long as physically able to follow this new path, pausing only to bear her son, and return to her new profession as guide.

Watched at first by the families of merchants and guards she had met in her work, Shadrach was following his mother into the desert as a child, and the fiercely independent woman guide and ‘the boy’ became a frequent sight on the local caravan routes. Growing up with less fear of the merciless desert than was perhaps wise, Shadrach also felt less respect for its dangers, and its beauty, than a less experienced youth. He had weathered its storms, endured its dangers and seen its brilliant sunsets, so many times that the reactions of those less-traveled left him bemused.

It was in his fifteenth year that an attack by gnolls savaged a caravan that his mother was guiding through the desert, and while she had never abandoned a caravan before, she quickly realized that the half-dozen guards were no match for the thirty or more gnolls she could see emerging from the hills. She seized her sons arm and dragged him to safety, abandoning her employers to their fate, feeling the bitter taste of her honor and reputation turning to ashes, in the name of saving her only child. Shadrach remembered that he recognized the sacrifice she was making, and protested, but she would hear none of it, and marched them at a brutal pace into the desert, and then began making the long arc back towards civilization, and safety.

Forced to leave their provisions at the campsite, she attempted to find food and water for them, but cactus pears and muddy water were their only respite, and worse, desert wolves had found their scent, and were working up their courage to strike.

His mother placed their backs against a stone, so that the wolves could only strike from one direction, all-too-aware of how deadly they would become if allowed to surround them on all sides, and fought like a lioness to protect their lives, blades flashing in all directions punctuated by sharp yelps of pain and alarm. The wolves should have retreated, after such a fierce display, but as they dashed into the firelight and back again, Shadrach could see that they were sickly and starved creatures, desperate and already at death’s door, that this would be their last stand, in any event.

Their bites struck flesh once, and again, and Shadrach remembers the sight of his mother going down, and a surge of fur and fangs swarming over her, only to howl and strike at them with the staff he carried as his only weapon. Somehow, his impassioned blow struck down the wolf that brought his mother low, and she raised to one bloodied knee and slew the last wolf within arm’s length. They bandaged her wounds, as best they could, and with no other recourse, she butchered the fallen wolves, so that they might slake their thirst on hot blood, and roast their flesh to survive another day.

For the next five days, they moved slowly, Mother limping as the wound in her leg grew infected, and for those days, they were aware of the eyes of a wolf in the night, tracking them slowly, never coming within the range of the firelight. He awakens to hear a howl as they rest in the hottest part of the day, and sees that his mother’s labored breathing has stopped, and that while her body is warm, it is only the warmth of the sand beneath her, and not that of life. So peaceful, finally, the look on the face of a mother he has known all his life as a hard, strong, proud woman, fighting for every inch of acceptance and respect, and now freed from all obligations. He remembers hearing the whine, and looks up to see the wolf slinking into view, the one who has trailed them for so many days, also the only survivor of her family. It is a she-wolf, and he sees why she hung back from the attack, as her belly is swollen with pups, despite her malnourished state.

He cannot bring himself to hate this creature, a mother, doing what she must for the sake of her young, living a life as hard as the one his own mother faced, and he reaches for the bracelet upon his mother’s wrist, the only remembrance he has of a father he never knew, and the only thing, other than himself, for which she ever displayed the slightest bit of sentiment, and then moves away, knowing what will come next.

The she-wolf slinks low to the ground, warily, sniffing as she does, and Shadrach turns away before she begins to feed, unwilling to watch. There is a grim symmetry, that he and his mother survived these extra days by feeding off of the she-wolfs family, and now the cycle is turned. For a moment of grief and madness, he is all-too-aware of the cruel and merciless nature of the desert, and he finally accepts its harsh truth.

The night descends, and, as he has too many nights before, he mouths empty prayers through cracked lips to whatever gods will listen, to allow him to find water. His hands feel damp and cool, and he opens his eyes to see water dripping down upon the sand! Looking up to see if water comes from the sky, or the rockface against which his Mother had made their final camp, he instead sees that the water comes from his hands, and when he cups his hands, they fill with water, which he swallows so greedily that his stomach rebels, and he throws it all up, only to drink yet more from this miraculous supply. He remembers laughing like a madman, and flinging water around himself from his damp hands, only to cup them again and drink anew.

And so his life as a druid, begins.