Today is a sad day, for today, I fear, may be my last in my village. I am a shaman, an ancient shaman. My life is coming to an end and my suspicions of my nephew grow deeper and deeper each day. I have asked the spirits to guide me and what they show me is terribly gruesome. The mountains are my only escape, a cruel place but much safer than my own bed.

For the last fourteen years I have trained Wymer, the son of my sister. He is a good man and when I was believed to be nearing the end of my life I took his as an apprentice. The spirits have blessed me and my village with life. Wymer, however smart and just he may be, he is greedy, like all men but his heart is dark with the lust for power. He has grown anxious within the last two seasons for I have fallen deathly ill trice, but was saved by the spirits in time.

Now I pack my belongings: my dagger of ash wood handle and flint blade, axe for timber, a flint case for a fire, birch bracket fungus for the pain in my spine and ankles, my arrow of yew and a quiver of unfinished arrows from my youth when I hunted for the tribe and herded the live stock into the mountains with my father. Despondently, I began to layer my clothing. I wore a simple loin cloth and leggings for the first layer, a jacket made of deer and ibex hide, and a cape of grass and bast. My hat was of bearskin as was the soles of my shoes, they were also insulated with grass and goat skin tops. I fill the pocket with dried sloes and had a last meal of red deer and ibex, a last feast.

It was a warm night, summer, as was my favorite, when I crept from my home. Quietly, as to not wake my friends and enemies alike, I began the ascent into the great mountains that loomed over our mere village. I followed the trail my father had shown me and I had shown my own children. The hike was perilous for the wind was cold and the snow thick as I neared my resting place. I sat upon a boulder and looked out at the vastness that lay before me. It was beautiful as the sun began to rise; pink just tinted the sky when blinding pain exploded from my shoulder. I spun around and saw Wymer, dagger in hand, running toward me.
A roar spilt his face into an evil grimace. “It is my turn old man!” he screeched as he brought the dagger down on my heart, and the power of the spirits I fended him off. He brought the dagger down and through my hand. He then pushed me, forcing me to fall off the ledge and onto a boulder, my arm twisted under me.
“I , Wymer, am shaman of the Banack tribe. Let it be know that I have killed my elder and will await trial at my burial.” He looked down upon me with sorrow in his eyes and began the descent down to tell the people of the terrible news.
I laid pleading to the spirits to save my village from him. ‘He is a terrible man, an evil man, who will stop at nothing to gain power. Spirits save them save my people.’