No one remembers the name he carried when they caught him, only that he was not from their land. Skin soft from city shade. Eyes too tired to fear the wind.
He was bound like any other and tossed into the cage, left to wait for a better death, one the elders could bless.
But the spirits heard him first.
When the moon was a sliver too thin to cast a shadow, the beast came. Not great and mighty, no.
A small thing.
It wore stripes and a mask. Eyes like wet coals and hands too clever to belong to a beast.
Each night the conjurer summoned the trickster. Each night they hunted it. Each night it hissed like wind through bone and vanished into smoke.
On the third night, the child watched as he summoned the beast for a final time.
The conjurer had been stripped bare, but still he summoned the beast. Through pain and fire, it burst from his shoulders. And by morning, he was gone.
The elders claim it was not a beast, but a companion. A spirit of the in-between. A creature of cunning and teeth and quiet escapes. It chose him, not the other way around. Since then, the warriors leave bits of raw sinew and cracked bone outside their tents. An offering to the spirit to make amends.