It was a beautiful day in the village of Ilusu.

The sun was up and the people were happy. 

Why wouldn't they be?

It was the Market Day. 

There was no one who didn't love the market day. For the buyers, things were found at a cheaper rate and for the sellers, they sold more because different buyers from other villages would come to buy from them. 

The voices of people filled the air as they haggled with one another, shouted loudly to advertise their wares to buyers, laughed at the light banter of getting or selling the goods at their desired prices, and gossiped with one another about the interesting but unverified rumours they have heard. 

It was a beautiful day in the village of Ilusu… until it wasn't.

"Get out of the way!" A man yelled and the crowd stumbled into one another, mumbling at the sudden chaos.

"Give way!" The man yelled again.

"Who is that? Who is yelling?'

"It's a warrior!"

"What is going on?!"

"Why is he shouting?!"

"What is that?!"

"Why is he pushing us?!"

They said to one another as some more warriors tried to create a pathway by pushing the crowd to either side.

"Chief Umbari! Chief Umbari!" Some other warriors yelled as they rushed through the pathway that had now been created, in order to get to the house of the Village Head quickly. 

The people gasped in horror and a woman screamed when she saw what the running men carried in their wheelbarrow. 

"MY SON!" She slipped to the floor and wept, her eyes fixed on the lifeless body that was being wheeled away. 

The murmurs increased, and some villagers followed the warriors as they dragged the wailing woman along with them. 

She wasn't the only one weeping.

It seemed that even the sun knew of the woes that had befallen and more that was about to befall Ilusu that day, for it hid behind the darkening clouds and the sky wept. 

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The straw curtain of the hut was swept aside, the noise of the rain and the wailing people seeped in as the Village Head stepped in. 

Chief Umbari was a dark, broad, huge man with a crown of red feathers on his head, a large interlinked tattoo all over his chest, his hands, and his back, red beads straining around his upper arms, and a necklace made out of animal teeth around his neck. He had a red wrapper tied around his waist which ended slightly before his knees to cover his loincloth away. 

"Chief!" The men in the room bowed to him and one stood up to hand him a lantern. 

He walked past them, a frown on his rigid face, and the lantern before him. 

His eyes landed on the corpse that had been laid on the mat. Quickly, he observed the words and the drawings that had been carved across the chest of the dead man. 

That language. 

Was that—

"Bring me my daughter!" He ordered and one of the three other men in the hut quickly ran out to bring the Daytu. 

Soon enough, the Daytu stepped into the hut along with the man who had gone to call her. 

Daytu Aryka was a young dark-skinned woman with bright pink flowers in the two big cornrows her long black hair had been braided into. She had a small piece of red cloth tied across her chest to cover her breasts, and a brown flare skirt that ended some distance past her knees. The pendant of a seashell that rested on her chest, moved as she rushed in. The light of the lantern in the room almost made the tattoo on her right shoulder seem alive.

"Baba—" her words vanished and her skirt slipped away from her grip when she saw the corpse. 

Her heart skipped when she saw the writings and the drawings.

That language.

It couldn't be. 

"What does it say?" Her father asked. 

She stepped further into the hut, not looking elsewhere but at the drawings. 

Three moons and a dragon with a circle of flames around it. 

Then she looked at the message they had written. 

"Three Moons," she read. "Be Prepared. Drakkons." 

The hut fell into dead silence and the men exchanged shocked looks immediately.

Aryka looked at her father who had his fists clenched by either side. The frown on his face deepened but he refused to show fear. 

The Village Head stepped out to address the people waiting for him under the pouring rain outside the hut. 

Aryka couldn't think. 

This must be a nightmare, this had to be a nightmare!

The Drakkons were the cursed people who lived on the other side of the Realm. 

It was rumoured that they could breathe fire, and they had the ability to take the form of a beast. A beast with wings and talons, which had destruction as their only desire. 

Now, those very same Drakkons had declared a war upon them, had even given them time to prepare. 

The mockery!

Such was their confidence in their strength, such was their thirst for violence. 

The people of Ilusu might as well consider themselves defeated before the battle, dead before the war.

Unless… maybe, just maybe… if they could get help from other villages. 

Or even better, if the Kingdom of Feytiviti, the only Kingdom that had ever fought against the Drakkons and survived, could help them. 

But that would be impossible.

For what could they possibly use to entice such a powerful kingdom to make them fight a war that wasn't their own?

___

Glossary.

Daytu is what the daughter of the village head is called. 

A moon means a month. 

Thank you.