Chicken awoke in the shade of a rock. It was daylight, but the atmosphere here was comfortable. Looking around, he found he recognized this nook. It was one just out of sight of the village, a regular spot he would come to if he needed to be alone.
His muscles protested as he sat up. His arms felt weak. His legs ached. He had a sharp pain in his head, like some beaked thing was pecking from within his skull.
"Hey! Chicken's awake," someone said in a hushed tone. He was offered water, which he drank, though he was unable to identify who was giving it to him. Looking out at the familiar terrain, it was indeed his hideaway near the camp. There was something out of place, however.
An amalgam of billowing grey smudges streaked the skies. They marked exactly where the village would be.
A voice intruded on his thoughts, filled with excitement and tinged with fear
"Auntie said to gather at a safe distance," it was explaining hurriedly. "She said you would come out of it, or she'd catch up. She hasn't yet." The speaker was worried. "We don't know what to do now that the orcs have run off."
Chicken recognized the voice now. It was Melrose talking to him. A mental image of kobold shelters, burning, flashed in his mind.
"You came out of the sky like fiery vengeance, Chicken. I was over at the edge of the field trying to shift rock when I heard you roar like that." Chicken didn't know what he meant, though he spoke proudly about it.
Another fragment of memory flashed. He remembered power at his fingertips. The sensation had coursed through him, holding him aloft. He could do nothing but bellow, for the power filled him so completely. His chest would have burst from the pressure.
"The orcs weren't scared, but I was. I thought it was a roc coming out of the sky to carry one of us away. Like the one that grabbed Gabber when we last saw him, you remember? But the orcs just drew their weapons. You know how orcs like a challenge."
Another memory shard joined the first. Tiny orcs gathered under him. He remembered finding it almost funny. Instead of laughing, though...
"They didn't know about your new gift of fire," the kobold said to him, pride welling from his words. He elbowed Chicken in the side companionably.
Chicken looked down into the reflection on his cup of water. His face warped and distorted as minute waves distorted the surface. Shadows gathered, showing in places only the bottom of the cup. The memory of fire had come back, too.
Just like in the dark underground, it had come forth. The fire did not take effort. It was his force of will, projected and given form. He remembered reveling in the power as he towered over those tiny orcs.
"We knew you wouldn't set them on fire," the kobold prattled, "but they didn't know that, eh?"
He remembered restraint. It wasn't restraint like ropes wrapped around him, but a kind of resistance in his mind. He remembered being both the wild creature and the one wrestling with it.
They burn! the thought had said. The thought had been at once gleeful and pleading, but hadn't been his own. It felt like standing in a strong, hot wind, but he had held fast against it. The torrents of blue flame had landed on tents and rocks, but not on any living thing.
"I think what really drove them off, though," said the kobold conspiratorially, "was when you swooped on that one. I didn't think you would have stood a chance, small as you are compared to those orcs. Fire is one thing, but orcs respect power. Like the power in that tackle. That's the moment they knew they were bested."
Chicken didn't hear the last part. Thinking of the fire reminded him of the underground. The underground reminded him of...
"Where's my friend?" he demanded suddenly. "Did I have someone with me when I showed up?"
"No, I don't think-..."
Chicken dropped the cup and ran towards the village.
"Chicken, wait! What do we do?!"
He ignored Melrose's pleas like he ignored the ache in his legs. Sometimes these things don't matter.
When he arrived at the village, he was greeted by carbonic devastation. It was a familiar sight. He could recognize structures from memory. But reality twisted his recollection. Instead of inviting tents, there were merely remnants, charred black.
The air smelled like burned leather, with a hint of sulfur. Some of the village was still cooling, making small crackling noises among the rocks and charcoal. The black skeletons of tents now stood where his relatives had lived.
He noted only a smear where there had once been the tent he had earned his first knife. Finnian, the name appearing in his mind, had been the one who trained him as a scout.
The structure must have collapsed and then trampled as the people fled.
An ashen haze filled the air. Small fires still burned. These were proper orange fires, though. None of the blue fury he had justly rained upon-
He shook his head, freeing it of the thought even as it was building.
Walking like one asleep through the charcoal maze, he saw Auntie's tent. It was somehow unburned.
The padding of footsteps came from ahead, rapid. The sound of someone running.
A goblin turned a corner. Recognizing Chicken, it stopped, frozen in fear.
Chicken noted it carried a white something, streaked with grey from being handled with ash-covered hands. The goblin looked down at the white thing it was carrying, following Chicken's stare. Shouting something quick and angry in Gobbeldygook, the creature ran another way.
Chicken did not give chase.
He walked towards Auntie's tent, swayed by habit.
In front of the entrance was a pile of unburned material. He recognized it as Auntie, collapsed in a heap.
Now entirely numb, he looked at her dispassionately, organizing the facts.
Here was his Auntie, unconscious and lying on the ground. She was in front of her hut, which was no longer in the village he knew, but in a skeleton of a village.
His brain provided no course of action, so while he waited for it to assemble one he remained standing there, staring down at her.
****
Amerigo was tramping across the open area of the field, the result of much hard work at the hands of the kobolds and goblins. He had walked quite a distance following on foot.
"There's my village!" Chicken had shouted, reeling in excitement. And shortly after, Amerigo had been formally introduced to the ground. Luckily, they weren't too high, and Amerigo hadn't landed on anything highly resistant, like a boulder, or venomous creature.
He became worried when a column of smoke rose ahead of him.
Here, at the point where the plumes touched the horizon, he finally saw Chicken.
His friend was standing stock still amidst a charcoal landscape, staring down at what looked like another kobold. Or a pile of discarded rags, though there was a bit that seemed very much like a scaled snout.
Neither figure had moved as Amerigo ran to them, and there was still no response when he took his friend's arm and shook him.
Amerigo tended to the bundle on the ground.
It turned out to be a much older kobold. Female. She was very much unconscious. Amerigo's best guess was that she had received a blow to the back of the head.
The remains of a few bundles of dried plants and a small jar lay scattered around her, likely dropped in the attack. These he gathered quickly in one arm and, using his other hand, snapped in Chicken's face. Not waiting for a response, Amerigo shoved the items onto Chicken, snapping more, working the kobold's arms around them.
Chicken shook his head, coming to from his waking dream. He carried the materials instinctively, but said, "Auntie! Auntie, what happened?!"
Amerigo stopped him from dropping to his knees and instead turned him around bodily, a stern expression on his face.
"But what about Auntie?" Chicken asked lamely, half turning back around.
Amerigo was already bending to scoop the old kobold in his arms. He found she was incredibly light.
Amerigo gestured with a nod for Chicken to lead the way.
"I don't know what we're going to do," he lamented.
A voice from behind Chicken spoke up.
"What do you mean?"
It was Melrose. He was being followed by a gaggle of survivors, each investigating the mess.
"You're the one who saved us, Chicken," Melrose said. "We'll follow you."
Chicken watched the expressions on their faces. One of them touched a charred tent, causing it to collapse.
He saw, reflected in their faces, the despair he felt inside.
You can lead them.
The voice came from within. It wasn't the despair. It seethed with an undercurrent of familiar power. The power he felt overcome him at the sight of his village having been overrun by orcs.
You know a safe place for them already, the voice said. It was soothing, no longer frothing and red.
They will follow you anywhere.
He looked from the kobolds, to Amerigo, to his Auntie, sleeping in his friend's arms.
In his mind, he leaned against that power. It was stalwart. It was his.
He prepared to speak to his people.
He did know a place.
They would follow him anywhere.