He had been born in a small independent village, one of the many in the western continent. Life in a small village was pretty boring, with an established way of doing things. From birth, never would Batoo had thought of becoming anything more than the set path before him.
Born to a very influential man in his village, Batoo could have been said to be from a well-to-do background. It should be known that this was relative to the neighbors, in the grand scheme of things, his father was still an insignificant ant.
Batoo was the 3rd son of his father's favorite wife. She was termed favorite since she was the one he had married out of love. The others were organized marriages made more like a business deal or a political agreement.
Disaster struck when Batoo was a baby, an infant. His mother had died during childbirth, but that was not the true disaster. As a legitimate child of a village elder, Batoo still had chances available for him. unfortunately, his father and indeed the tribe blamed him for his mother's death.
It was said that if a mother dies when bearing a child, the child was an emissary of death. This was just one of their beliefs as a community, but one that didn't augur well for Batoo. From the moment he was born, he had been labeled a bad omen and everyone shunned him.
The one silver lining in all this was that since he was a child of omen, no one would dare harm him. Even his father wouldn't dare throw out in the streets for fear that if one harmed a child of omen, they would be the omen bearer themselves.
And so Batoo lived in this suspended existence, no one daring to get close yet no one daring to harm him. He was a pariah everywhere he went. It seemed his life had one sordid ending. With no end, Batoo learned to live life a shadow, with nothing to live for.
In his small village, trade, and agriculture were the order of the day. Since the big cities could go out and farm, the outskirts and the independent towns and villages were the ones that did the farming for them. The small villages relied on merchants who were willing to pay and move their produce across bandit-controlled lands to the big cities. There were established and regularly patrolled trade routes, but to get to the trade route was another matter.
It was not uncommon for merchants to come and go in the village. Occasionally, the village would get stragglers looking for a new life or just running away from demons in their past. Such people would choose to leave the vibrant life of the city and adopt a quiet life.
One such pair, a mother and daughter came into town. They were traders themselves, but they didn't come to trade the big stuff. Mrs. Freda, as Batoo called her, set up a motel for the traders to stay for the night.
It didn't take long for the woman to hear about the poor child. Bewildered, she wondered how an entire village can blame a child for the passing of the mother at childbirth. She quickly took him in in a matter of speaking. Since Batoo was not destitute, she couldn't just take him in. Most nights Batoo ended up staying there, and for a time he had a happy life.
In the village, options for employment were very limited. Everyone was virtually a farmer. Every other profession was meant to support these 2, the farming and trading professions. Those that didn't fit into any of the common professions found themselves stranded and malcontent, eventually drifting out of the village where they joined banditry.
Yes, such a village was a seed for bandits, but they had an understanding, as long as the village paid tribute, the bandits wouldn't disturb the trade routes. The bandits would then serve as protection, keeping peace and order in the routes.
Mrs. Freda was extremely outspoken, and that tended to bring her more often than not. Despite that, she would sweet-talk or seduce her way through any obstacle, but some were too difficult to handle. This was one of the reasons she had run away from her home.
On one such occasion, she found herself without enough money to pay. This was not new since she had 'other' ways of payment, usually. However, this time, she found that the previous bandit foreman in the village in charge of the collection of 'protection fee' payment had been changed.
The new guy was not as loose. Unlike the previous guy who loved to maintain order, and understood the deplorable conditions of the village merchants, this guy was all about power and control. Absolute dominance, that was his mission. Seeing the woman fail to give up money, even though she offered her body, was not good enough. He had to make an example out of her, and he did.
Mrs. Freda and her daughter were invaded in the middle of the night, brutally murdered and left for display at the inn's reception. The gruesome sight came as a major shock in all of the village.
"It was because of her association with that boy!"
"She shunned out beliefs and ridiculed them, now look."
"Who did she think she was, taking in a cursed boy like that?"
"So this is what the omen was about!"
Naturally, after this all happened, the one who took the blame was Batoo. Everyone pointed their fingers at Batoo, convinced that the woman was ill-fated because of her associated with him.
Batoo himself was downcast and conflicted. Mrs. Freda had been like a mother to him, always kind and caring. Before her, he had never experienced such emotions before. There had been no one willing to be there for him, to care and listen to him and offer comfort when in need.
Her daughter was an even greater specimen. Pretty, brains, warmth, all in all, a beautiful soul. His great love. She had been with him through everything, the good times, the bad and the ugly. She was there to pick him up and offer him encouragement when he needed, his very own cheerleader.
In his heart, he felt as though he had lost the only family he ever knew. He couldn't help feeling responsible, especially with everyone pointing their fingers at him.
Many were the times when Mrs. Freda had cradled him in her arms and convinced him that there was nothing wrong with him. He had been living with a painful wound all his life, believing to be the cause of his mother's death. She had helped him move past that, heal. He accepted that it was ill-fate that befell him, not some omen as the village believed.
Now, seeing her death come in such a way, who could blame him for forgetting those lessons. He cried himself to sleep that day, and the next, he set off. He wanted to find those d*mn b*st*rds that had stolen everything he loved and make them pay.
He wasn't a fighter, but he wanted the same ill-fate that befell the family to fall on the bandits, and if they couldn't get it by association, he'd make them kill him, thereby inheriting the curse.
Never would fate allow him to go so easily, for it was not done with him yet. It took him 3 days of wandering in the forest and the wild to find any sights of human activity, and when he did, it was a war going on.
When he got closer, he realized the same bandit organization that had attacked his family engaged in combat with a group of people. The battle was fierce, and the bandits had the numbers. It seemed as though they would win fast, but that was not the case.
This group of people consisted of fighters, armed to the tooth. They not only held their ground, but they also caused massive losses on the bandits' side without taking any.
That was when that ugly bandit showed his face. He had a nasty scar on his cheek, one that looked like a slash of a sword or a knife. He was huge and very overbearing, adding to his oppressive domineering aura, he dominated everywhere he went.
Yet surprisingly, on this battlefield, he was being suppressed by a woman. With grace and skill, the woman was able to push him back and place him in a desperate state. But Scar Cheek was not one take this lying down.
He grabbed a handful of dust and tossed it at the woman. This was a very unexpected move so it caught the woman off-guard, exposing some weaknesses in her defense. Seeing this, Scar Cheek swung his sword viciously, aiming to claim her life.
The woman had no way of escaping, and so she waited for death to come, but it never did.