Wind Blown Ashes: Episode 20, A Tiny Village

Suspicion greets a dirty and ragged Ashes as she enters a village on the edge of the desert.

As Ashes entered the tiny village that the wagon track led, the sun sat only a few candle marks above the horizon. The villagers all stopped what they were doing, with suspicion written in every look and movement. Not that she blamed them. Mages were dangerous and unpredictable. Her dirty and trail-battered condition, combined with her mage robes, would strike fear into most. There was no getting around that.

With caution, she approached a weather-beaten old woman leaning against a fence post that appeared angry instead of fearful and bowed deeply to her. “I beg your pardon, Matron, I need to know where I might buy food, water, and cloth-n-needle to sew a new robe. I just spent four days fleeing a sand ghoul, and I fear my robe is a lost cause.”

Rage filled those old eyes, and she shrieked, “Sand Ghoul, you brought a sand ghoul to our village?” The anger spread to the other. She did not need that.