The Anomaly's Path-Chapter 69: A Name for the Nameless

The morning sun was barely over the trees when Roran’s camp stirred to life. Men and women packed their gear, saddled their horses, and checked their weapons with the practiced efficiency of people who had done this a hundred times before.

There was no rush, no panic—just the steady rhythm of people who knew what they were doing and trusted the man leading them.

Roran stood apart from the others, watching the eastern horizon. His sword was strapped to his back, and his hand rested on the hilt, his fingers drumming a slow rhythm against the leather.

He was thinking about the village, about the people who lived there, about what would happen to them if no one came to help.

"Still thinking about that place?" Aldric asked, walking up beside him.

"...I am thinking about the people who have no one else to turn to," Roran said. "That is why we started this group, is it not? To be the ones who show up when no one else will."

Aldric did not answer right away. He just stood there, watching the sun climb higher, feeling the weight of Roran’s words settle into his chest. Then he nodded.

"Then let us go," Roran said, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Before it is too late."

_

While Roran and his group were preparing to leave for the east, something was happening in a small, Blackwood village on the border.

The village of Blackwood was small and forgotten, the kind of place that the war had passed by without noticing. The houses were old and leaning, the streets were muddy from the morning rain, and the people who lived there were too poor to leave and too tired to care about much beyond surviving another season.

They kept to themselves, worked their fields, and tried not to draw attention.

On the edge of the village, near the old well where the water sometimes ran brown, a group of children had gathered. They were not playing but enjoying. The sound of laughter broke the silence. It was not the happy laughter of children playing. It was sharp, mean, and full of hate.

"Look at him," one of the boys sneered. He was maybe fourteen, with a round face and small, mean eyes that always seemed to be looking for someone weaker to push around. His name was Dorn, and he was the village head’s son, which meant no one ever told him to stop.

"Crying like a baby. Go on, cry louder. Maybe your mom and dad will come save you."

He laughed, a loud, ugly sound that bounced off the walls of the houses and echoed down the empty street. "Oh wait, you do not have a mom and dad, do you? They left you. Even your own parents did not want you."

The other children laughed with him, their voices rising in a chorus of cruel delight, their faces bright with the kind of joy that came from watching someone else suffer.

The boy on the ground did not answer. He was smaller than the others, maybe ten or eleven years old, with messy brown hair that had not been cut in months and a face that was already bruised from earlier beatings.

His clothes were torn, and there was blood dripping from a cut above his eye, running down his cheek and into his ear. He did not move. He just lay there, curled in on himself, waiting for them to finish.

When will this end? he thought, his fingers digging into the dirt, his nails scraping against stones he could not see. Why do they always do this? Why do they hate me so much? What did I do to deserve this?

One of the older boys kicked him in the ribs, and the pain that shot through his side was sharp and hot and familiar. He gasped, but he did not cry out. He had learned a long time ago that crying only made it worse, that showing pain was like showing weakness, and weakness was something they would always punish.

"He is not even fighting back," another boy said, laughing. He was younger than Dorn, maybe twelve, with a high voice that cracked when he got excited. "What is wrong with you? Are you too weak to even defend yourself?"

The boy on the ground said nothing. He just lay there, his arms wrapped around his head, his knees pulled up to his chest, and waited for it to be over.

"Maybe he really is a demon," Dorn said, his voice loud enough for everyone to hear, loud enough to carry across the street and bounce off the walls of the houses. "That is why his mother left him. She knew what he was. She was probably afraid he would kill her too."

The boy’s hands clenched into fists. His jaw tightened so hard that his teeth ached.

I am not a demon, he thought, the words repeating in his head like a prayer he had said so many times they had lost all meaning. I am not. I am not. I am not.

"My father says we should have left him in the woods years ago," Dorn continued, circling the boy like a cat playing with something it had already decided to kill. "Let the monsters take him. At least then we would not have to look at his ugly face."

The other children laughed, a chorus of high, cruel sounds that echoed in the empty street.

Why...? the boy thought, and for a moment, the pain in his ribs was nothing compared to the ache in his chest.

Why do they hate me? What did I do? I never did anything to them. I never hurt anyone. Why do they keep doing this?

"Hey, look at him," one of the girls said, pointing. She was standing at the edge of the group, her arms crossed, her face twisted into something that was not quite a smile. "I think he is going to cry. Look at his face. He is trying so hard not to."

"Go on, then. Cry. Let us see what a demon’s tears look like," Dorn said, crouching down so his face was close to the boy’s.

The boy stared at him. He did not blink. He did not look away. His eyes were not filled with tears. They were filled with something else, something cold and hard and old, something that made Dorn’s smile falter for just a moment, something that made the other children go quiet.

"What are you staring at?" Dorn demanded, his voice rising, cracking, losing its confidence. He shoved the boy hard, sending him sprawling in the mud. "Do not look at me like that! You do not get to look at me like that!"

He kicked him. Then again. Then again. The other children joined in, their laughter ringing through the empty street, their boots thudding against the boy’s ribs, his arms, his legs. He did not fight back. He did not have the strength. He just curled into a ball and waited for it to end.

Please, he thought, and somewhere deep inside him, something was breaking. Please, let it end. Let me die. Just let me die. I do not want to be here anymore. I do not want to be anywhere anymore.

A voice cut through the noise, sharp and loud and annoyed.

"What is going on here?"

The children froze. The village head, a fat man with a red face and small, piggy eyes that always seemed to be calculating the worth of everything they looked at, was walking toward them. His son Dorn stood up quickly, wiping the grin off his face, smoothing down his shirt like nothing had happened.

"We were just playing, Father," Dorn said. "He fell."

The village head looked at the boy on the ground. At the blood and bruises. At the way he was curled in on himself like a wounded animal that had given up trying to escape.

He did not look angry. He looked annoyed.

"I have told you before. Do not leave marks. We have enough trouble without people asking questions." he said, his voice low, his eyes flicking toward the houses where people might be watching.

"Yes, Father," Dorn said, and there was no shame in his voice, no guilt, just the quiet satisfaction of a son who knew his father would never punish him for something like this.

The village head turned to leave, then paused. He looked back at the boy on the ground, and his eyes were cold and empty.

"You heard about the demons?" he said. "They say a group of them is passing through the pass. Might come near the village."

One of the younger boys looked frightened, his face going pale, his eyes going wide. "Demons? Are they going to attack us?"

"Of course not," the village head said with a scoff, waving his hand like he was shooing away a fly. "Why would they waste their time on a place like this? We have nothing they want. Nothing worth taking."

He looked at the boy on the ground, and a slow grin spread across his face, the kind of grin that made his eyes disappear into the folds of his cheeks.

"Besides," he said, "if they do come, we can just give them this one. He is a demon after all. Maybe they will take him with them."

The other children laughed. Dorn laughed loudest of all, his voice rising above the others, filling the empty street with a sound that was bright and cruel and hungry.

The village head turned and walked away without another word, his boots squelching in the mud, his shadow stretching long behind him.

The children lingered for a moment, watching the boy on the ground, waiting to see if he would move, if he would cry, if he would give them something else to laugh at. Then, one by one, they lost interest and wandered off to find other amusements, their voices fading into the distance until the street was quiet again.

The boy lay there for a long time. Blood dripped from his nose, mixing with the mud beneath his face, spreading into the dirt like a flower opening. His ribs ached with every breath. His arm was swollen, too heavy to move.

His head throbbed with a pain that would not go away, that pulsed behind his eyes like a second heartbeat.

He did not move. He did not have the strength.

Why? he thought, and there was no anger in the question anymore, no rage, just a tired, hollow emptiness. Why do I have to bear this? What did I do to deserve their hatred? Why do they call me a demon? What did I ever do to them?

He clenched his teeth, and for a moment, he let the rage fill him. He let it burn in his chest, hot and bright and terrible, because it was better than the emptiness, because it was something to feel besides the pain.

I hope they all die, he thought. I hope the demons come and kill every last one of them. I hope they burn this village to the ground. I hope they—

The thought died in his chest. The rage faded. He did not have the strength for hatred either. He did not have the strength for anything.

Slowly, he pushed himself up. His arms shook. His legs would not stop trembling. His vision swam, and for a moment, he thought he might fall again.

But he stood.

He looked down at the blood on his hands, at the bruises covering his arms, at the torn clothes that were the only things he owned in this world. He looked at the village, at the houses that had never been his home, at the streets where he had never been safe.

Damn them, he thought, and the word was small and quiet and not nearly enough. Damn them all.

He turned and walked toward the edge of the village, toward the stream where he sometimes went to be alone, where no one would find him, where he could wash the blood off his face and pretend for a little while that he was somewhere else. He did not look back.

The stream was quiet, hidden behind a thicket of trees that bent over the water like old men leaning on canes. The leaves rustled in the wind, and the water ran clear and cold over smooth stones worn down by years of rain. He knelt at the water’s edge and looked at his reflection.

His face was a mess. His eye was swollen shut, and there was a cut on his lip that would not stop bleeding, that stained his teeth red when he tried to smile. There was dirt in his hair and blood on his cheek and a bruise spreading across his jaw that would be purple and yellow for days.

"Fuck those bastards. They beat me more than usual today. This bruise looks bad."

He scooped water into his hands and washed the blood from his face. The cold stung, but he welcomed it. It was something to feel besides the pain, something sharp and clean and real.

While he was washing himself, a strange noise came from the direction of the village. It was a sound he had never heard before—a mixture of screaming and the sound of breaking wood. He felt a sharp chill run down his spine.

Suddenly, black smoke began to rise over the trees.

His blood ran cold.

What is happening...?! he thought, but he already knew. He had wished for it, and now it was here, and there was nothing in him that felt like triumph.

He stood up, his legs shaking, his heart pounding in his chest so hard he could feel it in his throat. The screaming grew louder. He could hear people shouting, running, crying for help, calling out names that would never be answered.

And then he heard something else.

A sound he had never heard before, but that he recognized in the deepest part of his bones. Growling. The sound of something that was not human, that had never been human, that would never understand what it meant to be human.

He walked toward the village. His legs moved on their own, carrying him forward even though every instinct told him to run, to hide, to be anywhere but here. He did not listen.

What he saw stopped him cold.

The village was burning. Houses that had stood for generations were on fire, their roofs collapsed, their walls caved in, their thatch burning bright and hot against the gray sky. Bodies lay in the streets. Men. Women. Children.

Their faces frozen in terror, their mouths open, their hands reaching for something that was not there. Blood pooled in the mud, ran in rivulets down the street, stained the bottoms of his shoes.

And among them, the... demons.

They were not like the stories. They were not horned beasts with red skin and flaming eyes. They were worse. Some looked almost human, their faces twisted into something that was not quite right, their eyes too bright, their smiles too wide.

Others were monstrous—tall and thin, with limbs that bent in wrong directions, with claws that dripped blood, with mouths that opened too wide and showed too many teeth.

The one leading them looked like a man. He was tall, with dark hair and pale skin, and he moved through the chaos like he was walking through a garden. He did not hurry. He did not rush. He just watched, a small smile on his face, as his soldiers tore through the village.

The boy stood frozen. His legs would not move, his lungs would not draw air, his mind would not form a single clear thought. He could only stare at the horror unfolding before him, his body locked in place like a rabbit watching a wolf draw closer.

This is not happening, he thought, but the screams were real, the fire was real, the blood on his shoes was real. This cannot be happening.

A demon spotted him.

It was one of the smaller ones, all sharp angles and hungry eyes, its skin stretched tight over bones that did not seem to fit together right. It turned toward him, its head cocked, its mouth opening in something that might have been a smile.

The boy tried to run. His legs would not move.

Ugh, move! Please move! he begged his own body. I do not want to die here!

The demon lunged.

The boy threw himself sideways. He felt claws rake across his arm, felt skin tear, felt blood spill down his hand. He hit the ground hard, his head cracking against a stone, and for a moment, everything went white.

The world spun. He could not tell which way was up.

He scrambled backward, his hands slipping in the mud, his heart pounding so hard he thought it would burst. The demon was coming toward him again, slow now, savoring the hunt, its claws dragging lines in the dirt.

Please, the boy thought, and there were tears in his eyes now, tears he had not been able to cry for the other children, tears he had held back for years, spilling down his cheeks and mixing with the blood on his face. Please, someone—

He closed his eyes. He did not want to see it coming.

Cling!

And then he heard a sound. A sharp clang, like metal striking metal. The demon screeched. Something heavy hit the ground.

The boy opened his eyes.

A man stood between him and the demon. He was tall, with broad shoulders and messy brown hair, and he was holding a sword that gleamed in the firelight, that caught the flames and scattered them like stars.

He looked at the boy. His eyes were sharp, but there was something warm in them, something that made the boy’s chest loosen just a little.

"Hey, kid," the man said. "Are you alright?"

The boy could not answer. He could only stare.

The demon lunged again. The man moved, faster than the boy could follow. His sword flashed, and the demon’s head flew through the air, landing in the mud with a wet thud. Its body crumpled, twitched once, and was still.

This was Roran. He looked at the boy’s bruises and frowned. "Are you alright? Damnit, you were seriously injured even before the demons got here."

He looked at the burning village and let out a loud, boisterous laugh that sounded insane in the middle of a massacre. "Hey boys! Move up! Let us go hunt some demons!"

The boy watched him go. He saw the man cut through demon after demon, his sword never slowing, his voice never rising above a calm, steady command.

From behind him, a group of armed men and women charged into the village. They were laughing and shouting, acting as if they were going to a party instead of a battle.

"That bastard is going to get us killed one day!" a grizzled man named Aldric shouted, though he was smiling as he swung a heavy axe.

Fighters moved through the chaos around him—men and women who had done this a hundred times before, who cleared the streets and pulled survivors from the wreckage, who tended to the wounded with hands that were gentle despite the blood on them.

They worked with a quiet efficiency, their movements practiced, their voices low, and for a moment, the boy forgot that they were strangers, forgot that he did not belong here.

Then his eyes found Roran.

The demon leader had turned to face him—a creature that looked like a man but was not, with pale skin and dark hair and a smile that did not reach his eyes.

They clashed in the burning street, steel against steel, fire against will, their blades ringing out like bells. The demon leader’s smile faltered when Roran pressed forward, when he found the gap in his guard, when his sword drove home and the creature fell.

The others scattered, cut down by Roran’s people or fleeing into the darkness, their howls fading into the night. The village, or what was left of it, fell silent.

The boy sat there for a long time, watching. He watched them tend to the wounded, their hands steady, their voices calm. He watched them put out the fires, throwing buckets of water on the burning houses until only smoke remained.

He watched them gather the bodies and lay them in a row, covering them with whatever cloth they could find, saying words over them that he could not hear.

By the time the sun began to set, the fight was over.

The mercenaries moved through the ruins, tending to the wounded and saving the few survivors they could find. Roran sat on a crate in the middle of the village square, wiping the blood from his sword with a cloth that was already stained red.

The boy stood up. His legs shook. His arm throbbed.

But he walked toward him.

Roran looked up as he approached. His face was tired, and there was blood on his shirt that was not his own, and his hands were shaking just a little from the fight.

But he smiled when he saw the boy.

"...Why did you save me?" the boy asked. His voice was rough, barely more than a whisper, scraped raw from screaming.

Roran studied him for a moment. He looked at the bruises, the cuts, the way the boy held himself like he was expecting to be hit again. Then he smiled, and it was a tired smile, but it was real.

"Why would I not?" he said.

The boy did not know how to answer that. He had never thought about it before. He had never thought that someone might save him for no reason, that someone might see him bleeding and want to help, that someone might look at him and see something worth saving.

Roran reached out and ruffled his hair, gentle, like the boy was something fragile. "What is your name, kid?"

The boy hesitated. He had a name, once, a long time ago. His mother had given it to him before she left. But he had not used it in so long that it did not feel like his anymore. It felt like a word for someone else.

"I do not have one," he said. "No one ever calls me anything."

Roran was quiet for a moment. Then he smiled.

"Then I will give you one," he said. "From now on, you are Kael."

The boy’s eyes widened. "...Kael?"

"It is a strong name for a strong boy." Roran said.

Kael looked down at his hands. At the bruises that were fading. At the scars that would never go away. He thought about the name, about what it meant, about the man who had given it to him.

"Kael," he said again, testing the word, letting it sit on his tongue. It felt strange. But it felt right.

Roran stood up, wincing a little as his muscles protested. "Come on, then," he said. "We have a long road ahead."

Kael looked up at him. For the first time in his life, he felt something that was not fear or pain or rage.

He felt hope.

Two days later, the group was ready to leave. The village was a ruin and there was nothing left for them there. As Roran climbed onto his horse, the boy ran to him.

"Take me with you!" the boy shouted. "Please! I want to be like you!"

Roran looked down at him and shook his head. "We do not need a kid, brat. It is a dangerous life. You would just get in the way."

But the boy did not move. He stood in the middle of the road, staring at Roran with a stubborn fire in his eyes. He did not say another word; he just waited.

Roran stared at him for a long time. Finally, he let out a long sigh and reached down, grabbing the boy by the collar and pulling him up onto the horse behind him.

"Fine," Roran muttered, though he was smiling. "But if you cry, I am leaving you in the next woods."

"I will not cry," the boy promised, gripping Roran’s cloak.

And so, they left the ruins of Blackwood behind, heading out into the world together.

_

Author’s Note:

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to take a moment to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who has been reading, commenting, and supporting the story. It means a lot to see your names pop up in the comments and your power stones rolling in.

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