Kofi Ashanti's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Kofi Ashanti saw the dust before he saw the riders. He stood on the half-built stone tower he had raised at the high point of his land, the only finished thing for a day's walk in any direction. The crystal at its peak caught the morning sun and threw blue light across the grass. He had cut every stone himself. He had buried his mother to buy the deed to this ground, and he meant to build a free city on it, so no boy would ever again watch his father dragged off in irons the way Kofi had watched his own. The dust on the south road meant slaver outriders. If they reached him here, alone, he would wear those irons himself by nightfall. He counted four horses. He had one rifle, twelve rounds, and an unfinished hall at the foot of the tower with thick walls and two squat defense turrets. He climbed down. He dragged the heavy doors of the hall shut and barred them. He carried the rifle up the tower stair, two steps at a time, and laid out his rounds on the railing. He waited until the lead rider was close enough that he could see the coiled rope on the saddle. Then he fired. The lead rider dropped. The second rider's horse went down on the next shot. The remaining two broke wide, circling, and Kofi tracked the nearer one and fired again. He missed. He fired again and did not miss. The last rider turned his horse and rode back the way he came. Kofi came down from the tower with shaking hands. He dragged the two bodies off his land and left them on the road for the buzzards and for anyone else who came looking. He kept the horses, the rifles, and the rope. That night he sat in the hall with the doors barred and understood what he had done. One rider had escaped. That rider rode for a company with ledgers and paid men. They knew his face now. They knew the tower with the blue light. They would not send four next time. Kofi cleaned the captured rifles on the long table and began to count, in his head, the names of every free man he knew who might come if he sent word.