*thwipp*  The quarrel whispered its song, speeding along its path to the chosen target.

Kasem skillfully worked the gaffe lever on his crossbow, ingeniously designed by Dwarven artisans, and slapped another quarrel in the channel before he smoothly shouldered the weapon.

Taking a heartbeat to ensure that the clearly delineated target area was well clear of anyone carelessly or Gods forbid unwittingly wandering through, Kasem centered his sight as quickly as he could on the target below, then fired.  The quarrel flew straight and true, down and over the wall of the family compound to strike the target butt just off center, right next to his first effort.

“Consistent,” he thought to himself, a blossom of pride sprouting in his chest.  He was getting better and better.  Although it pained him just a little to admit it, even if only to himself, his skills were improving just like Weapons Master Abraxas said they would.  That outworld dog.

Kasem scowled.  Where was Makmel?  The oaf was supposed to join him here for guard duty.  If that lay about made him look bad, he, Kasem, would give Makmel the thrashing he deserved.

“If I look like a meat headed dolt, Fahtmi might hear of it,” he thought.  Such a possibility was intolerable.  Maybe, just maybe, if he became good enough with his weapons, and was diligent in his duties, Fahtmi would stop laughing at him behind her veil and sit with him under the date palms.  Or the fig trees.  That would be nice.  He could even climb one of the trees to pick her some fruit for her to eat while they sat and talked about… things.

What things they would talk about, precisely, Kasem was not quite sure of yet.

Lost in the dreams of a boy on the verge of becoming a man, Kasem looked outwards from the commanding heights of the central tower, over the stone shaped walls of the family compound.  His gaze meandered over plots of vegetables, long fields of grain, and much farther out carefully tended groves of figs and dates.

His eyes followed the rutted dirt road that mirrored the path of the ancient aqueduct bringing life sustaining water from the Crown of the God mountains far to the south.

This construct, built generations ago when the Sultan ruled and the kingdom was strong, brought blessed water league upon league into the flat arid badlands to sustain fragile life.

All seemed as it should.  Quiet.  Peaceful.

Boring.

“I wish something interesting would happen.  Anything.  Before I wither away and die,” Kasem complained to himself.  Of course, that made him think of the obnoxious Weapons Master, who always said that boring was good.  Boring was safe.

Stupid dog of an outworlder.  Just because he came from a different world.  What did he know?

Kasem once again went through the well practiced motions of loading and firing a quarrel.  Another solid hit.  Not even the gentle flapping of the awning overhead that provided slight cover from the searing afternoon sun succeeded in breaking his focus like it had so many times in the past.

Maybe lots of practice was not a complete waste of time.  Perhaps that outworld dog was not as completely full of dung as Kasem had imagined.

Thinking it prudent to test another piece of advice, Kasem donned a pair of gloves, tight fitting and made of light cloth.  “Wear leather gloves.  Always protect your hands,” Weapons Master Abraxas had repeatedly intoned.  But leather was hot and made Kasems hands sweaty.  Surely these would work just as well.

“I will have to take Ruhdi with me when I retrieve my quarrels,” Kasem thought.  Ruhdi would make a good witness to his successes.  Ruhdi was trusted by older warriors, Kasem reflected as he ran his gloved hands over his weapon, familiarizing himself once again with the differences in how cloth made it feel.

It is not that the Weapons Master thought him a liar; it is just that the older man always seemed to know when Kasem… stretched… the truth in his own favor.

Sighing at the monotony of his watch, Makmel still not showing his homely face, and seeing nothing of interest near or far, Kasem peered over the parapet at the sprawling, enclosed courtyard far below.  The young man strained to see if he could by chance spot Fahtmi far below.  There were several women in sight that wore yellow as did Fahtmi, but from this vantage point he could not quite make out the individual details of their cloth.

However, Fahtmi had a distinct way of walking, a sway of the hip if you will, that distracted him without fail.  Kasem leaned farther out over the parapet to better see the figures below.

The movement of a shadow in the corner of his eye alerted him to his imminent danger.  Blessed by the speed and reflexes of youth, Kasem spun about, loading his crossbow with an efficiency that only long hard practice could produce, shouldering and firing almost as one.

Kasem’s quarrel flew true, striking the swooping Bhutapo in what the Weapons Master referred to in his uncouth offworld accent as ‘center mass’.  The ugly, ungainly creature let out a piercing squawk of rage and pain, its wings failing to hold it aloft as it plummeted past the young man over the parapet and to the stone courtyard below.

Muscle memory instilled from the nagging Weapons Master and his obsession with incessant training taking over, Kasem reloaded his crossbow while moving to his right along the parapet.  He could hear Abraxas’ voice in his head, offworld accent grating to his ears, yelling, “Load and move!  Load and move!  Don’t let the bloody wogs get you in their sights, or you will be one dead dog face!”

That offworld taskmaster said things Kasem did not quite understand.  He had no idea what a ‘bloody wog’ is or was, considering that he had never been to Abraxas’ home world.  They did, however, sound formidable.

Kasem knew what a ‘dog-face’ was; after all the Huzhago tribes lived throughout the seemingly endless flat arid badlands surrounding the plantation that Kasem knew as home.  The hyena-heads were mostly hostile, but a few tribes could be traded with.

Kasem took umbrage at the name dog-face, in spite of the Weapons Masters use of it making no real sense.  Abraxas stated that there were no living Huzhago on his home world outside of myth and legend.  Of course Kasem tried to defend his bruised honor in the face of insult and give that dog of an Weapons Master a sound thrashing to teach him the much needed lesson of humility.

He never succeeded.  Abraxas always made him eat dirt.  Lots of dirt.

So Kasem moved.  A second Bhuhapo shot through the spot the youth had just vacated, so close that it ruffled Kasems black hair with the rush of air.  The smell of bird dust and musty feathers filled his nostrils.

Abraxas said the Bhuhapo looked like an extra retarded gooney bird.  Kasem did not understand fully this offworld expression either.  He agreed the ungainly bird to be extremely ugly.  But everybody knew it was a cross between three different types of large predatory birds, the obscene result of an arcane experiment gone horribly wrong; the creation of a mad cackling mage whose name had been lost to time while the product of his ineptitude spread regrettably far and wide over the Badlands.

Bhuhapos are sneak attack artists, flying high overhead until their chosen prey lowered his guard.  Wherefore the ugly stinking things would swoop silently down, gliding in to peck a hole in the back of the head of their victim.  Everybody living and dead hated the stupid birds with a passion.

Kasem successfully demonstrated his own feelings towards the stupid bird that had just tried to knock a hole in his skull by driving his quarrel to the feathers into the back of his enemy, right where the flapping wings joined together.

Another shrill screech split the air as the second creature followed the first down to the stone courtyard below, a swirling cloud of molting feathers marking it passage.

Sounds of agitation filtered up from below to Kasems ears as he continued moving and reloading.  Skewered Bhuhapos raining down from the sky was certain to cause upset to the daily routine.

What puzzled Kasem was that the stupid birds were, to the best of his knowledge, solitary predators.  Two attacking together was not normal.

It was well that Kasem kept moving as trained.  A third, much larger figure tore through the thin fabric of the overhead awning, landing right next to the young guard.  A searing line of fire traced its way down the side of the young guards head, shoulder, and arm.  The force of the blow knocked the youth sprawling, spoiling his next shot.  Kasem caught a glimpse of his wasted quarrel as it weirdly skittered away across the stone.

Kasem landed hard on his back, the breath knocked from his lungs.  Stunned, he could but watch as his monstrous attacker stagger awkwardly on the parapet, claws scrabbling hard for purchase on the smooth stone.

Long spindly legs ending in wickedly pointed talons jutted from under a hunched feathered torso.  Overlong arms with an inhuman extra elbow stretched widely.  An egg shaped head with a cruelly hooked beak stretched wide as it screamed, spewing viscous goo in an incomprehensible shriek of hate.

Round goggle eyes wide with insane intensity fixed its human prey in place as its form finished the repulsive change into a mockery of humanity.