Kicking Roc

As a Mangurun youth, Agapito wasn’t permitted to join the tribe’s hunts. They said he was too clumsy with a spear, too impatient for the bow. Instead, he was assigned to mind the poultry. The other children mocked him for it. It was humiliating, and he kicked at the birds in frustration. They mocked him for that, too.

Until the day the roc came.

It dropped through the canopy in a rush of wings and talons, scattering birds and feathers in every direction. Agapito didn’t hesitate. At the butcher’s post beside the coop, the old chopping axe still sat buried in the log from the morning’s cull. In one fluid motion, he grabbed its handle, yanked it free, turned, and hurled the axe end over end.

It struck the roc in the shoulder, blade first. The beast shrieked and tried to take flight, but its wing gave out, and it crashed into the dirt. Agapito was already moving. He vaulted the fence, sprinted toward the thrashing bird, and kicked it in the side of the head with all his might. As it reeled, stunned, he tore the axe from its flesh and drove it home a second time—this one clean and final.

From that day on, they called him Kicking Roc. No one mocked him ever again.

Now he stalks the Great Lowlands as one of Mangurun’s fiercest warriors. Fast, fearless, and stubborn, Kicking Roc carries only his tomahawk and a legend still told around the campfires of the Mangurun tribes.