Bor'gazak's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Three days later, a boy arrived at dawn. He couldn't have been more than twelve winters old. His skin burned with fever, and his ribs showed through torn cloth. He made it to the edge of the ruins before his legs gave out. Bor'gazak found him there when he went to wake the others for drills. He crouched beside the boy and pressed a hand to his forehead. Too hot. The fever would kill him before nightfall if it wasn't broken. Bor'gazak had planned to run drills at first light, test whether Krel could keep pace with the girl after yesterday's failures. But a dead orphan served no purpose. He carried the boy to an empty stretch of ground and barked orders at Krel to gather furs and bone poles from the supply pile. Together they raised a crude shelter—orange fabric stretched over a frame, lined with pelts to trap what little coolness the morning still held. The boy went inside, barely conscious. Bor'gazak set up a low table outside the shelter, carving symbols into the wood with his knife while Krel fetched water and what herbs grew near the ruins. Clay pots, bone tools, strips of cloth—he laid them out the way the old clan healers had taught him before everything fell apart. He mixed a bitter paste and forced it between the boy's cracked lips, then waited. The girl watched from the training pit, her stance uncertain. She wanted to know if this boy would train with them or die trying. Bor'gazak didn't answer because he didn't know yet. By midday the fever broke. The boy's breathing steadied and his skin cooled enough that Bor'gazak knew he'd live. But the child was still too weak to stand, let alone fight. Bor'gazak walked to the far edge of the ruins where bones and hides formed a low structure—a place for the broken ones who couldn't yet earn their place in the pit. He dragged the boy inside and left him on a pile of furs with water and dried meat within reach. When he returned to the training grounds, Krel and the girl were waiting. Bor'gazak looked at them both and realized something had shifted. He'd spent the morning saving a life instead of hardening warriors, and it hadn't weakened him. It had given him another piece to rebuild with. The old ways protected the weak until they were strong. He'd forgotten that part. Now he wouldn't.