The sun hanging lazily at highest point in the sky, a dry wind blew through the dusty village. Small, scrubby plants twisted in the breeze, and hardy livestock munched on them placantly. It was noon, which meant that Old Singh would come out of his hut and comb his long, white hair as he sunbathed. Sure enough, soon emerged from the wooden shack a shirtless, wiry old man, stood straight as a weather-beaten fencepost and moving with the sure-footedness of a mountain goat. His skin was like leather, long browned and mottled by the desert sun, and a mane of fine, hung from his weary head. No sooner had he sat himself down on a stump just outside of his hut and began to run through his white locks with a wooden comb, the children of the village fearlessly seated themselves in front of him, each silent and staring in wide-eyed anticipation.

Seeing the small gathering from under his bushy eyebrows, Old Singh grinned with the good number of teeth he had left, and began to speak in a voice both hard and smooth like varnished wood. "Ah, good day to you, young ones."

"Good day, Old Singh." They chorused back, as was their routine.

"Hm, now, forgive me, but I don't quite remember where I left off yesterday." He said, still smiling.

An older boy, sat near the back of the crowd piped up, "The Kukik Horde had just sent their elephant at your camp."

Old Singh's face lit up. "Ah, of course. A fine day, that. Now, I've met an elephant or two, and they are normally quite kind, gentle creatures. Only when the bulls go to rut will they threaten a man. What the Kukik had done with this elephant was gotten it drunk on their spicy wine. Not something even I would drink. I hear that it turns your teeth inside-out and your tongue to sand. But still, this old bull, drunk on bad wine, had come charging at our encampment. If you'll remember, we had been on the Ashak Dune Sea for a month now, and the men were well tired from the heat and the battles. We didn't have it in us to fight off an elephant."

"Didja kill the 'nellifant?" Interjected a young girl, clutching a roughspun doll.

Still, Old Singh only smiled. "Listen, child. The Kukik were a long ways away, and we could see the dust of the elephant from a league beyond the dune. So I had the men gather the last of our sweet, indigo wine, and pour it into a washbasin. By the time the elephant came to us, it had already caught scent of the delicious indigo. Elephants have terrific noses, you know." He mimed an elephants trunk with his veined arm, evoking laughs from his audience. "Once it came to us, it forgot about fighting, and went right to drinking the wine we set out for it. It had a good nap, then, and when it awoke, we became good friends!"

"Friends with an elephant?" Asked a curious boy, still clutching a shepherd's crook.

"Of course!" Old Singh laughed. "Someone with such good taste in wine couldn't be anything but a friend. He was really quite a jolly fellow. We called him Brum-Brum, as that is what he liked to say the most."

"You didn't kill it?" Asked the older boy that had reminded the old man of his place in the story.

"No, no. If there is a way to solve a problem without fighting, without killing, I promise you that it is the best one. Especially sharing a drink. Of course, not everything can be solved so easily. When the Kukik had realized that we had subdued their war beast, they were furious. They decided to stalk us through the dunes for the day, and attack our camp as we... slept..." Old Singh trailed off, spotting a gleam in the distance. He squinted, spotting horses and men with swords bared. The old man stood up quite suddenly, tucking his hair into a topknot secured by his wooden comb. "I'm afraid that will be all for today, young ones. Get to your homes, now, it is time for midday meals and prayers."

The children groaned in frustration, but dispersed regardless. Singh vanished inside of his hut only to reemerge a moment later. Over his bare chest he wore a golden breastplate, dented but polished to a mirror sheen. He carried a spear in his right hand, the shaft of fine wood and the head of carved ivory. The eldest boy from his audience stood just outside his tent as he emerged, a serious look in his eyes.

His voice firm, but not impatient, Singh asked, "Why do you stay, young one?"

"I want to know, Old Singh," he said, his voice unsteady, "What did you do when they attacked you in the night?"

Singh looked to the boy, and answered him simply, "I killed them to the man." With that, he turned away from the boy, and strode out to meet the wild horsemen.