3. Magical Mask

For several days, Himnib traveled through Foenix without delay. The territory was far from full. He only met empty fields and untouched plains. As he traveled further, they stopped growing rice and started growing grain.

He remembered how small these plants were, when they just appeared during the First Conflict. Barely edible. They said you could be “hungry as a horse”, because a horse had to eat hundreds or thousands of these things to get enough energy.

Nowadays, these crops were big, shiny and nutritious.

Sometimes a group of animals worked a garden. The smallest plants, the “worst” grain, was thrown away immediately, leaving only the best seeds and plants. Those farmers looked at him suspiciously. They saw his herd and yelled the sheep were not allowed on their farm. Otherwise, they left him alone.

He wanted to keep watching. Enjoy the fields and the unobstructed sunlight. Let his sheep play amidst the stalks.

But time was running out.

He stuck to the beaten track: dirt stomped flat by countless animal paws, which turned into a wide stone road near the big cities. If that happened, Himnib knew he had to take a different direction, because the birds would probably have spread the news about him already. They though they’d solved the issue of the Spydoves—but no, they kept coming back.

Their luck had to run out at some point.

When evening fell, all the rules changed. Himnib had an incredible sense of direction, based on the position of the sun and moon, and even the smell of the wind and its speed. Even in the deepest dark, he’d walk straight at his target.

But that skill could not magically sense the presence of hidden creatures.

Himnib’s fur stood upright and his ears perked up. Crunching sounds. His sheep ceased bleating. Sure, he was an easy target. His herd was large as a forest, even when they pressed into each other’s fur for safety, and their white wool was clearly visible at night.

He thought this path safe, the Wilderness a long distance away. Now he trusted his intuition, which found the sounds odd, the shadows odd, everything odd. That’s what you get when the gods are gone and you—

A wagon on wooden wheels rolled from the bushes and blocked his path. A creature kicked open a latch on the roof, jumped out, and yelled something. This made the wagon turn around a half circle.

He knew these wagons: the Bearchitects built them too. Any moment now, the backside would open, and anything could come out of it.

The creature turned out to be a raccoon dog. It swung through the herd, straight at Himnib, with complete disregard for the sheep. It looked like a bandit with a black mask over his eyes, but that was simply its fur. Several balls, covered in leaves, fumed in his paws.

Leafbombs, he thought, should never have been invented by the Primas.

He could take one raccoon dog, but such weapons—

An entire army of raccoon dogs streamed from the wagon. Their faces all seemed covered in black masks, but in reality they wore nothing besides a cape on their back. And a few sharp weapons pointed at Himnib.

“Surrender! Give us all your money and possess—” He sighed, as did his army. “Ugh. It’s a shepherd.”

“Then we take the sheep!”

“Stealing from shepherds is no stealing.”

It was that bad? Did everyone hate shepherds? Or did they see him as a criminal too and refused to steal from colleagues?

Himnib ignored them and continued on his path, but the wagon blocked every exit. One of its wheels had broken in two, causing the wagon to sink partially into the sand. At the front, even more raccoon dogs waited. They pulled the wagon forward, as wolves pulled snow sleds in the Hima mountains.

“Not so fast,” the dog said. His eyes fell on Himnib’s walking cane. “Give us your stick and we leave you alone.”

Barina stood behind him and whispered in a croaky voice. “What do they ba-want with a ba-walking cane?”

Behdiël reacted. “I don’t know. Maybe they love ba-wood.”

“Then go hug a ba-tree.”

“Maybe they kidnapped Behdo.”

Himnib’s claw grabbed the cane more tightly. “You will never get it. Let me through, or the entire Council of Kame will destroy you.”

“Ah. Yes. Forgot about that.” The dog could not leave the cane alone and circled it. “The same Council that promised to remove all bandits from the roads? That one?”

“They’re not perfect. We’re figuring it out.”

He barely believed it himself. The Companions wanted to punish and restrict shepherds now. What would they come up with next? Were they even a good influence on the world?

“Sure. Tonight fifty raccoon dogs stand before you and your …”

“Hundred sheep.”

Yes, that sounded more convincing. The dog seemed to make calculations in his head. Could one dog beat two sheep each? Himnib hoped they would think not.

“The cane,” he eventually said. “It’s just a bunch of dead wood to you.”

“It is far more than a bunch of dead wood.”

This cane was his last memory of home. Of the other Bear Shepherds. Jorib had taught him how to make a cane like this, a week before he left for Compana and never returned. Bellib swore the gods were still alive and went looking for them with this cane. He never saw that kind face again; when he led an expedition to find Bellib, he only found his walking cane stuck between some rocks.

He distinctly remembered there being three other Bear Shepherds. But he had never known who the third one was, just like he never remembered how most of his sheep had entered his herd. Perhaps his old age had ruined his memory.

“Sure,” the dog said. “Give it to me and we let you live. We really need a walking cane.”

That made Himnib laugh. “You have a wagon! Besides, you can’t even walk on two legs.”

The raccoon dogs had circled the herd. For every pair of sheep, they had indeed positioned a dog, like a circular jail that shrunk every second. Their tails impatiently beat against trees.

“Then we take ten of your sheep.”

“Also won’t do, furry friend.”

The dog growled and bared his teeth. A flash, a push. Himnib felt a deep cut in his arm.

Blood trickled over the surface of his cane. He kicked up the end and hit the dog from below, square on the chin, sending him sprawling backwards into some sheep.

The army of bandits attacked his herd. The sheep bleated loudly; Himnib had to press a claw to his ears.

This made him deaf to his attacker from behind.

A hit to the head, a world that darkened even more, and he was unconscious.

When Himnib woke up, the wagon was upside down. Light had returned and the path was being used by other animals, all of whom walked past the scene of chaos in a wide arc. The bandits had disappeared, but not all. About ten of them were bound with ropes to the wagon, as its broken front wheel twisted in the wind.

His sheep were scattered over the entire area. He could hardly count them, laying on the floor. Most of them were still there, it seemed.

He felt around him.

His walking cane was gone.

“Let us go! Please!” The raccoon dogs fought against the vine ropes. “Before they return!”

They? Himnib stumbled towards the wagon. He could walk just fine, that’s not why he kept the cane, but his body felt as if it had just woken up from deep hibernation.

The dogs seemed scared. And smaller than they were—no, not smaller, their fur had been shaved off entirely.

In a moment of sympathy, Himnib cut them loose.

“What happened?”

“It was … it was … I’ve never seen something like it.”

A female dog supported him. “I said it. We must get magic too before everyone else has it!”

The dogs jumped to the trees along the path and ate every nut and leaf they could find. As if they hadn’t seen food in years.

Himnib froze. “How long was I unconscious?”

“A few days.”