Cold Blooded, Part 3: Do Know Harm

I have an excellent memory. It helps with surgery. And I remember the look in Ash's eyes when we first met.

He was a very different man...in a lot of ways, not a man at all. A boy. I was also a different person, or at least in a worse position. At the time, I didn't recognize it. Looking back, I do. That faint glean, dim but there. Feral. Hungry. He saw me, alone, a girl in dirty clothes and a pretty face, his life so suddenly, drastically changed...and he saw me as an acquisition. Something he could have. Something he wanted.

He didn't do anything, but it was there in his eyes. The need. The sense of deserving that need. Beyond attraction, in a place that makes me nervous.

Jay was close by, and I don't think Ash would have done anything even if he hadn't been. Still, now that I think of it, Jay recognized it too. Jay was different. He saw me as a sister, someone to protect, especially after the rest of our family was killed, taken by Xaxargas. It was the sole time my old family and what would be my new one would meet.

Jay died that night. Ash fought to save him and failed. I could have saved him if I'd known my power...but it was not to be. That night was the worst of my life. I was more...vulnerable than I'd ever been.

The look in his eye when we met showed Ash had that dark spark, but for him, his heart had greater power. He did nothing but try to comfort me. Having barely met me, he didn't feel comfortable offering a shoulder to cry on, and he fumbled with words. So he did what he thought was best, and tried to distract me by offering me a bag of baked pumpkin seeds. He tried to ease my pain.

That trace of blackness would not vanish that night, and Ash would need other lessons in that part of him. That part limited the connection we could form in those days, something that first angered him, and then made him incredibly sad. The things he offered me though, I never forgot them. When he made his way through his trials, as I did mine, and we did together, with allies who grew close to us and formed my new family...in time, he changed. In time, I felt my affection deepen. It's a strange thing. The man Ash was then would have cut off his own arm for these feelings. Now, he struggles with their reality. Another trial, but one we will pass. Together.

My ring is actually a cluster of diamonds, but there's a small enchantment on it. An illusion, that presents the gem as a diamond-shaped pumpkin seed. Some have said this makes the ring appear ugly. Everyone has their own opinion.

Their own wants. Their own...things to be acquired.

I am a giving person by nature. I help anyone who comes to me for help, regardless of what they've done, though they must answer for it themselves. I believe that people can be better than they are.

I also know there are those who never will be. I saw that faint trace in Ash, and I understand its nature. Its essence. In Ash, it was small, and he overcame it. In others, it is who they are.

Every problem has a solution. Some solutions I don't like, but I will do them anyway. I know the foul breath of acquisition.

If it stands against me, it will learn why I learned to be cold.

------

All in all, a rapier was a poor defensive weapon. The long, thin blade was designed to thrust and stab, not parry and block. Anyone with any sense would recognize a sword being wielded in such a way as a sword that would soon be tumbling from dead, foolish fingers.

It was amazing what you could trick people into believing via the power of convention. Let them do the work for you.

And to be fair, Christine could have been wielding the biggest, meanest sword on the planet; it still wouldn't have offered her much protection against Salkorot's gigantic, man-crushing club. A club that he swung with knee-weakening speed; Ihmensel’jk were not fast runners, but they could be horrifically quick in close quarters.

So she didn't bother with a defense at all, siding with discretion. The club swung down, the club slowed down, and the club came down on empty ground, Christine taking two large steps to the side to avoid it. She felt like someone had stuck an ice pick into the back of her skull as she moved. She did it anyway, mud splattering onto her body from the club's impact.

"GOLDEN HAIR!" Salkorot said, clearly wanting an up close look at said golden hair, his free hand thrusting for her head, giant fingers seeking to turn it crimson. Christine took another two step backwards to dodge it, causing Salkorot to yank up his club and swing it out. Christine ducked under the first swing, before almost standing back up into the second swing, Salkorot going with the momentum and spinning around, his club sweeping low and up. Another two steps to the side ensured it only hit air, Christine more concerned about having to jerk her arm up and possibly interrupt her distance-repair.

Black smoke erupted from the Ihmensel’jk's mouth as he growled his displeasure. Wyrms could actually breathe fire and other unpleasantness, something that did not transfer to Ihmensel’jk who drank their blood. One small blessing, but Christine hadn't forgotten what Salkorot had made his entrance from.

"STAND STILL!" Salkorot said. That old chestnut.

With a growl, Salkorot twisted the head on his weapon, and the sides of the bludgeon opened up, hardened spikes snapping into place. And that one.

"CRUSH YOU!"

Christine did the last thing Salkorot expected: she stood still. This time, she spun her rapier up, and as the club came down at her, applied a quick one-two punch of slowdown and speed up, the tip of the blade knocking into the club and deflecting it aside into the ground next to Christine. Another ice pick slid into her brain. She ignored it (again). She'd had a very good teacher in learning to handle pain.

Another swinging downward slam. Another deflection via rapier. Salkorot next pulled a decent feint for his size, swinging his weapon up and then attacking with a thrusting kick instead. Christine just jumped up on his leg, bouncing off with impossible grace and landing on her feet, sword out, arm out. Salkorot howled, swung his weapon up again...and let it go, the giant club flying into the air as he lunged at Christine, trying to catch her off guard.

He failed. Christine promptly stole his trick, instead ducking down and grabbing up a second glob of mud that she hurled into his eyes before dodging aside, holding up her hand and calling her sword back to it as Salkorot clawed at his face. His club thudded heavily into the mud nearly, the sound getting the Ihmensel’jk's attention, as he stalked over to retrieve it, more black smoke shooting between his teeth as he growled.

"YOU CALL THIS A FIGHT?!"

"Yes." Christine said, her tone plain. The dark chuckle that the giant gave in response spoke of few good things. But he was still focused on her. She hadn't lost her connection to the wounded soldier. He only needed a little more time, she'd have been done by now if this creature hadn't just been so damn eager to spill blood...


"YOU NOBLE TYPES SEEM TO THINK THERE'S SOMETHING IN THESE WAYS. THERE IS. YOUR SCREAMS FILLED WITH ALL THE MORE AGONY." Salkorot said, gripping at his weapon. Lovely. He has philosophical leanings.

Salkorot twisted his weapon again, and the head came free, the chain spilling out from inside the weapon head, turning his club into a morning star. And also that.

"DODGE ONE BLOW, DODGE A THOUSAND. THE ONLY ONE THAT MATTERS IS THE ONE I LAND." Salkorot said, and then swung the head of his weapon, the chain allowing it to reach across the battlefield to Christine. Christine swiftly judged its range and ducked backwards, getting a close up look at the barbed spikes as it swung past. She juked to her left, moving around and trying to keep his eyes on her. It worked; even with her arm out, he hadn't seem to have clued into why. Maybe he thought it was a combat stance.

Or a convenient limb to snap off, Salkorok yanking the head of the weapon back and swinging it up and down. Christine dodged again, only to be nearly knocked flat on her side from the force that emitted from the impact. Harder downstrike. Can't just dodge by inches-!

Another yankback, another swing down, another dodge, more mud spraying on Christine. She deemed to return fire with a weak Stream blast directed from her sword, the force lance making a small dent in Salkorok's armor and nothing else. Salkorok sneered, yanking back his weapon again.

Before punching it, his armored fist sending the spiked mass flying directly at Christine, faster than it had been swung before.

Not fast enough. Christine flicked her arm towards the weapon, and the flow of time around it reversed for a quarter of a second. Nowhere near enough to send it flying backwards, but more than enough to stop it in its tracks, all its momentum deadened as it crashed down onto the ground. Christine thought the Ihmensel’jk might have been comically surprised; it was hard to tell with the helmet.

"RARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!"

They always lost their temper. They always lost control. Salkorot was no exception, yanking his weapon back as he began swinging it wildly at Christine, smoke wafting off him like he'd caught on fire in a literal as well as emotional sense, Christine ducking repeatedly to dodge the strikes.

"GOLDEN HAIRRRRRRRRRRR!"

Just a touch more, just...wait, check your-

In surgery, in combat, in so many things good and bad, it was easy for it to become your world, everything else falling away. The rest of the world was still there though, and sometimes losing sight of it could come at terrible cost. The two crossbowmen who'd snuck up behind Christine aimed to prove that.

Too bad for them Christine had good eyes as well as a good memory.

She promptly pulled out her own old chestnut and threw herself flat on the ground. The crossbow bolts hissed over her, one of them slamming into the Ihmensel’jk instead. Christine took a moment to scramble to her feet and check the other angles for more ambushes, but the two crossbowmen seemed to be alone.

And deeply regretting their choice, as the giant blood-crazed Ihmensel’jk was now charging at THEM. Christine's eyes widened, reading all the emotions cross over their bodies; fear, confusion, paralysis in the face of a monster. Then one exploded into a messy spray of viscera as the Ihmensel’jk brought his weapon down on him. Christine's heart wrenched.

I can't do anything...

The second soldier ran for it, but he didn't get far. Salkorot yanked up his morning star, swung it back up, and then lashed it around, the blow literally smashing the Vurnir crossbowman into two, his body separating at the knees before his shattered corpse hit the ground some twenty feet distant. Another one dead, in an unfair fight, in a battle he probably didn't even understand. Fed to something that regards killing like a second stomach, one that's never full.

...Damn you Incael. I hope Ash...

...Ash.

Christine put her thoughts into a box, cracking her neck as she began walking to the left again, trying to get into the beast's line of sight, making sure he didn't turn around fully, didn't realize what she was (still) really doing. The Ihmensel’jk seemed to take a few moments to remember she was there, turning to face her, giving his chained weapon a lazy pull backwards to return the head to his side.

"I could have killed you just now, you know. Surely you realize that." Christine said. Pointless words, but she would speak them, if only so he'd look at her. "You want to keep fighting? The next reinforcements might not be on your side. Or armed so lightly."

"I WILL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU. MAKE A STEW OUT OF YOUR REMAINS."

"I really doubt someone as crafty in combat as you are believes that."


"I DO BELIEVE...THAT YOU THINK I'M STUPID." Salkorot said.

Then he turned towards the wounded soldier, spun his weapon up, and brought it crashing down.

---

...they called them Warmfangs. Foul canines with a poisoned bite. Even driving them off, Jay was doomed.

Celia took an arrow in the chest. She just looked confused as she died, that last bit of light in her fading away as soon as she'd hit the ground.

Reid got washed overboard in a sudden storm in a sea that never had storms. We couldn't even try to save him, the waters carrying our ship away.

Joanna and Beau, Saul and Alec, Danica...

They would have died no matter what I did, what they did. We chose to explore this new world. We had adventures. We had good times. By the time we realized the nature of our fate but not the source of it, there was just Jay and Elliot and Jane, and I. Jane tried to run, tried to hide. When we found her, she'd been killed by a noble for sport. Elliot fell prey to a bartender watering down his drink with a normally harmless chemical that Elliot turned out be allergic to. And Jay was killed by wolves that seemed to seek us out like they held a grudge.

...I do not know if the world can be called cruel. I don't think along those lines. I stick with what I know.

I didn't have the power then.

--------

But now was her plaything. Christine felt blades slam into every part of her spine as she emitted one last, concentrated burst of her power towards the man she'd worked so hard to save, closing up what last damage she could...and giving the wounded soldier three seconds in the span of one.

It was just enough for him to roll out of the way, the impact force throwing him end over end another ten feet. Just in time.

"YOU BLINKED."

Salkorot swung the weapon around, and for the first time, Christine found she had no more seconds left to give.


The sensation of the impact was strangely cold, Christine almost feeling like she was partly outside her body, even as she felt her feet leave the ground, felt the spikes pierce in, felt the bones within her begin to snap and fracture, feel the hot jagged maw of pain open up to bite deep. Then she found herself lost to the darkness, her body crashing down and sliding along the ground, blood spilling out to mix with the mud.

"NO!" The wounded soldier yelled. She'd never even gotten his name.

"I GAVE YOU FAIR WARNING. YOU SHOULD HAVE FOUGHT. HE'S GOING TO DIE ANYWAY." Salkarot said, smoke snorting from his nostrils as he yanked his weapon back, turning towards the wounded soldier.

Arondight had fallen down near him, and he'd snatched it up, one arm limp at his side, the other brandishing the weapon. The Ihmensel’jk snorted more laughter, running his knuckles along the spiked club, wiping up some of the blood that he lapped up with relish.

"SO YOU WANT TO FIGHT."

Doubt crossed the soldier's face. He was still hurt. He was nowhere near as strong...

...did that matter?

"Come on!" The wounded soldier said. Salkorot chuckled again. More death was always good.

"RUN, FIGHT, NO MATTER. YOU'RE WORTHLESS. ALL WORTHLESS."

 "Can I join this debate?"

The Ihmensel’jk turned his head at the new voice, before a wholly new kind of roar boomed out, a fearsome impact slamming into the beast's back.

"Because I have my own argument." Sergeant Reemer said, ejecting the spent slug from the shotgun. "It's called, YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONES ON THE FIELD WITH ORIAM WEAPONRY, SHITHEAD."

The shotgun boomed again, the hardened metal mass it fired slamming into the Ihmensel’jk, Reemer advancing forward, his body a clockwork cycle. Cock, aim, fire. Cock, aim, fire, even the giant unable to stand up against the impacts. The wounded soldier took the chance to get the heck out of dodge, running around the Ihmensel’jk and joining his sergeant at his side, Reemer pumping another round into Salkorot. Another. Another.

The chambers finally clicked empty.

Salkorot remained on his feet, smoke drifting from a dozen holes in his chest armor. A more virulent smoke poured from his mouth as he looked up, eyes blazing with hate.

"....Um, Sir? What do we do now?" The wounded soldier said.

"...To be honest Private, I was kind of hoping that would be more of a difference maker." Reemer said, mild alarm now creeping into his heart. His backup was a good twenty seconds behind him...

Salkorot threw back his head and roared laughter. It was more than mirth in his voice though; it was rage, and hunger, and triumph. An animal come to feed. A monster come to devour. A beast with darkness within, darkness so deep it poured out between his fangs...

A creature that suddenly wasn't laughing any longer. A moment later, a hand came down on Reemer's shoulder.

"Thank you, sergeant." Christine said. The two men snapped their head backwards. The woman was bloody, and her armor was banged up, but she was back on her feet. And no longer shedding fresh blood, clear eyes checking the wounded shoulder's arm. "I'll take it from here."

"...ma'am, I must insist..."

"My Intricacies are designed to do a lot of things. One's to keep me from staying knocked out when I can fix myself. And fixing myself is the first thing I learned to do well." Christine said. "Get back to the back, soldier. That arm still needs some treatment."

With that, she slipped past the two, walking towards Salkorot, who stared a bit more and then began laughing again.

"NEVER KILLED A FOOL TWICE!"

"Ma'am, your weapon! Weapons!" The wounded soldier said. He was still holding Arondight, the Soulstorm glaive now on the ground after being knocked over from the wounded soldier's dodge. Christine hadn't retrieved either of them.

"I know." Christine said. "My Intricacies do other things too."

Christine thrust down her hands, and the shiny plates on her forearms and shoulders lit up with elderich sigils, the armor sliding down and reworking itself around her hands.

"YOU ASSUME TOO MUCH, GOLDEN HAIR!" Salkorot said, lashing up his giant morning star and swinging it down.

It was the same basic slowdown/speed up combo she'd done with her rapier. It looked a lot more impressive when Christine deflected the giant attack by punching it aside, the weapon slamming into the ground. Smoke erupted from the Ihmensel’jk's nostrils in surprise, and then, perhaps concluding that he must have been seeing things, he yanked the weapon back and swung it down again.

Christine punch-deflected-timewarped it just like she had the first time, the weapon slamming down onto her other side, nothing breaking her stride. Snarling, Salkorot yanked back the weapon.

Then he pulled out the throwing axe he'd had on him the whole time and threw it directly at Christine.

Christine caught it in mid air and tossed it aside in one smooth motion, like she had axes thrown at her face every day.

"...STOP IT WITH THESE GAMES! FIGHT!!!" Salkorot said, his voice bellowing across the battlefield as he swung his weapon in another wide sweeping arc. Christine ducked under the first swipe. The second went low; she jumped over it, her hand actually using the weapon as a brief brace. Roaring, Salkorot pulled his weapon back...

I know your tells now,  Ihmensel’jk...

The beast leaned forward and spewed forth black, choking mist, the cloud engulfing Christine, before he swung out and lashed his weapon through the sightless murk. A blindsighting blow.

It hit nothing. A second later, a gust of force blew the cloud away. Christine had just jumped backwards out of range. The problem with using a cloud of smoke to try and aid a blow was it made it very obvious where the blow was going to be aimed.

"Your armor's joints." Christine said.

"WHAT?!"

Christine held out her hand, and Arondight flew out of the wounded soldier's grip, sliding into Christine's. The next thing Reemer saw was a golden blur.


The next thing Salkorot felt was the rapier being rammed through his right ankle, the point exploding out the other end of his foot.

"Too obvious." Christine said, spinning on her knees, and even as Salkorot opened his mouth to yell, she slammed out her palms into the side of his left knee and dislocated it to the point of near amputation.

Salkorot finally got it emit his yell. Even as he did, Christine was behind him, reaching down between his legs and yanking her rapier free, immediately thrusting it back out, driving the point into his right achilles tendon, snipping it in two and completing her destruction of his vertical base. Salkorot fell to his knees, unable to support his own weight, and even as he tried to reach behind himself to grab his attacker Christine rammed her rapier up underneath his left arm, piercing up and through his shoulder blade, firing a burst of force along the blade to shatter the delicate mechanisms within for good measure. The giant's weapon arm went dead, but his free hand closed on Christine's own, his fingers clenching onto her arm like iron.

In the half second that followed, Christine broke free, switched her angle, and rammed her blade into another open point on Salkorot's armor, destroying his right shoulder in turn. Christine yanked the weapon free so hard she seemingly lost her grip on it, the blade spiraling away. She didn't seem to care.

Reemer saw the first few punches she threw into the Ihmensel’jk's chest before it all became another blur, a blaze of motion that ended with one pistoning blow that shattered the giant's weakened armor. There was a pause.

Then Christine threw one final punch, striking the giant so hard Reemer swore he felt the re-directed force on her armor tease his hair from twenty feet away, the Ihmensel’jk's helmet flying off like it was a paper crown caught on the wind. There was another brief pause.

A moment later, the mud thrown into the air from the impact splattered back down. And just like that, the fight was done.

Christine stepped back, turning away and rubbing her hand, barely seeming to notice the Ihmensel’jk she'd just dissected. The fearsome beast suddenly seemed a lot smaller, though he was still moving slightly, focus dancing in and out of his eyes. When Christine's armor began to snap back into place, Reemer finally acted.

"Get back to our lines. Do what the woman said. Now, NOW!" Reemer said, walking forward. The wounded soldier reacted on instinct, though he glanced back behind him once more as he retreated, looking at the sight of the girl and the giant. Reemer wasn't as impressed, in terms that he still had a job to do. His shotgun was empty, but he had a perfectly serviceable sword.

Christine flicked her eyes to him, and for a moment Reemer got a real glimpse at how tired she was. The 44 had amazing powers and could channel Stream energy like it was going out of style, but even they had limits. Then again, Reemer was amazed Christine still hadn't reached hers, though it was clear she was close.

"....pretty damn savage for a doctor." Reemer said. Behind Christine, Salkorot tried to reach for her.

"He's not my patient." Christine said, and turned and lashed out with her foot. The dull thunderous crack of the Ihmensel’jk's neck breaking washed over Reemer, and as the beast collapsed completely, Christine let out a slow breath and rolled her shoulders, trying to work blood and feeling back into her hands. Reemer nodded a response, and then stepped in close to check something.

He wasn't wholly surprised to find the giant still alive.

"Ma'am?"

"Drag him back to your camp. If his detoxifying doesn't kill him, I'll consider fixing him up enough for trial..."

"With all due respect ma'am, this THING murdered my men. Gleefully. This isn't a city...this is war." Reemer said, drawing his own sword. It was just a simple sharp piece of metal compared to the Hourglass' weaponry, but it was all he needed.

"...that is true. I will defer to your judgment, sir." Christine said, her expression unreadable. "I'd just like to say...he's helpless now. They deserve justice...but at some point...war..." Christine said.

"...I understand." Reemer said.

A quick stab through the eye was enough to finish the Ihmensel’jk off. Christine followed the motion with her eyes, but she did not raise a hand to stop him.

"Thank you for protecting my men. But...you won't always be here, ma'am." Reemer said.

"...I understand." Christine said, nodding. She did not spare the creature another glance, the young woman walking back to her sword and picking it up from the ground.

"...he wouldn't have survived burnout, anyway. There's a reason only lunatic Icks drink that shit." Reemer said, following.

"...Probably." Christine said, having made her way to Soulstorm. Instead of sheathing her sword, she picked it up with her free hand. More Crown Point soldiers were arriving, fanning out to secure the area; Christine spotted the officer who'd been trying to help the wounded soldier being taken away on a stretcher for aid. At least one less death. It was something.

"You've done more than enough, ma'am. Return to the lines, rest. We can handle it from here."

"I know you can. But I will still politely decline." Christine said, as she turned around and began walking back towards Reemer.

"Ma'am, you have fought enough! You have nothing to prove!"

"I don't want to prove anything. This is personal." Christine said, walking past Reemer. "Continue, sergeant. You don't need me to do your job."

"...you, you, and you! Go with her, back her up! Follow her as best you can!" Reemer said, several soldiers from his reinforcements peeling off and running after Christine. "The rest of you form up, get the lines solid! We're almost done here people, let's not falter now!"

"We're with you, ma'am." One of the soldiers said. Christine glanced back at them, and for a moment, she smiled. In that smile, the soldier felt like she could do anything. That to die would terribly disappoint this woman, and that would be a tragedy.

"So am I." Christine said, and swung both her weapons down into a ready stance, continuing to move. Reemer was not wrong. Her previous assessment of herself hadn't accounted for events like what had just occurred. She was at ten percent, at best.

She'd make it work.

She always did.

In Verse, Part 2

The world you have...imagine it.

Imagine all its troubles and sins, bloody paths carved for decades, centuries, all the way back to strange apes learning to chase down food and beat them with rocks. All the reasons we have to disagree with each other, to do bad things to each other...its so vast, isn't it? So ingrained, inescapable. Some would say we were set onto a path to doom long before we were born, each generation another step until the last.

Wouldn't it be better if it was all swept away?

But...think of all we've learned from our dark deeds. Think of the systems of checks and balances we've forged, that endure at their base level. Think of how much it takes to do more that spread small patches of misery, how to end the world requires hundreds, thousands of hands, nearly all of which want anything but. Think of all we've created, all we could yet learn. Is the world truly so bad that the only way to go forward is to wipe the slate clean?

Now...imagine a Changed world. A world reworked by a god. Imagine a world where countless people got their dreams, and how dark dreams can go. Imagine so many of our lessons blighted away, replaced by stories that ring false on a deep, subconscious level. A world where the right man with his hand in the right place can annihilate a country through nothing but his own will. Where a woman can create unthinkable horrors with the power of thought and spread a plague that, with one step that cannot be taken back, will not stop until it has consumed everything. Imagine a world covered with broken fragments of malignant power, that can no longer be what they once were, and can only exist to remake and unmake everything there is.

Imagine a world where the wrong person could spin the planet off its axis, the only thing stopping them being the right man, at the right time...a man who cannot be everywhere at once, know every crime, every desire, who could simply...not be there. A redone world, so many old sins and failings gone, replaced by brand new ones, so many lessons scrubbed away and perhaps no time to relearn them, with so many new options for old and new sins to take everything away for good.

Would the old world not be...better? Safer?

....would it not be your responsibility to pull the world back to what it was once, what it would have never become save for one internecine will?

....A world where you are no one?

...Is the greater sin that of the remaker...or the one that could not, would not, when it was in his hands...change what was remade?

-----

The Remnants.

Ash had no idea how many there were, how many were already found, and just how they affected the world when they were lost. Were people drawn to them, or did they whisper for people to find them? Maybe there was no difference...the initial information suggested they might not even be innately evil. They just served as amplication tools. Good became great...

...and bad became worse.

Thus is the duty of the boy who wanted to touch the stars...is today the day I fall?

Let's find out.

Let's burn.

Incael was the one to leap this time, but his jump was nothing like Ash's, an arcing, almost lazy pounce compared to Ash's lancing bullet-like strike. The end result was the same though: a hand clutching a sword that was more than a blade, a blade that Incael brought right down onto Ash's, the blonde warrior bracing for impact...

He was expecting a strong hit; a Remnant combined with a Stream user potent enough to summon it through butchery was not to be underestimated. He was not expecting the blade to literally SHRIEK when it made impact with his own.

And even that was secondary to the power behind the voice. Ash had tried to brace himself and it still didn't work; half a second after impact his legs felt like they were exploding under him, a spiderweb of cracks shooting outward from his stone ground underneath his feet, hissing waves of re-directed power exploding off his armor in waves that rattled the statues and pillars around him. The pain blazed through him, the fire in his nerves reflecting the mad fire in Incael's eyes, his grin as sharp as the blade he'd brought down onto Ash...

With one hand. The other hand swung in and slammed Ash across the jaw, Ash feeling the joints in his mouth wrench as he went flying again, clipping a stone pillar before he landed in one of the small streams cut into the rock floor, water spraying up from around his body.

"They speak of what your blade has done...I'm not impressed." Incael said, approaching Ash with the steady tread of the assured, of a beast that knew its prey was bled out and only required the final bit of life to be ripped from it.

When the sword flew upward from Ash's body, Incael stopped, thrusting up his own, expecting an attack. It wasn't; the sword had been tossed straight up. Instead, Ash flipped up to his feet, water splashing up from his boots as he landed, one hand rising up and grabbing his sword as it came down.

"Yeah, I get that a lot." Ash said, and ran at Incael. Incael laughed again, spittle flying from his mouth.

"It knows your moves before you make them, boy!" Incael said, and feinted to the left before slashing outward with both hands on the blade, the black edge slamming against Ash's sword, tearing the blade from his hands.

Too easily. Incael realized he'd been overbalanced right before Ash's fist smashed into his face, Ash using his now free hand to follow it up with another punch that knocked Incael backwards, blood erupting from his lip.

"There's something NEW." Ash said, and ran for it, Vyrepul carving deep into the stone floor as Incael missed his next swing. Ash ran to where his sword was impaled, yanking it free from the statue it had struck like drawing a knife from butter, before fleeing behind the stone effigy.

"This is not a game of cat and mouse, Marsello. If you think you're-" Incael said, advancing towards the statue. It put him directly in range of Ash's own leaping slash, the blonde man having scrambled on top of the carving, leaping off and crashing blades together, the scream of the weapon echoing off Ash's ears and through the depths.

"I don't think!" Ash said, drawing back and blocking another slash, Incael's terrible strength still shooting through him, but he took it, he had to take it. Sparks flew from the clash of swords, Incael advancing with vicious, brutal cuts aimed at the arms and neck, Ash blocking them all, one after another.

"So it's true. You survive with the stance of a coward!" Incael said.

"Yeah, that's it." Ash said, dodging backwards from Incael's cleaving roundhouse swing.

"No wonder you so easily-"

Incael didn't finish his insult, instead swerving and slashing his blade across the statue Ash had leapt off moments before, the stone exploding into a spray of rocky shards that pelted Ash, making him recoil a moment. He got his eyes back on Incael in time to see the golden light bloom in his outward palm.

"Burn." Incael said, the blast erupting and engulfing Ash, a spreading discharge strike rather than a concentrated blow. Ash was driven backwards, his feet sliding across the rock like it had become ice, finally stopping two dozen feet from where he had been standing, his body smoking, his face seared with angry burns, the statues on either side of him erupting into flame. Ash stood there a moment, trying to breath.

The Warp-bolt slammed into his sword as he snapped it up, and then Ash ducked beneath Incael as he blurred in, Vyrepul cleaving through one of the flaming statues like it wasn't there. Ash ducked low to the ground, sweeping a leg out, only for Incael to jump over the kick and thrust his leg down, pinning Ash by the ankle and sweeping his sword down. Dust sprayed out from beneath the boy's body as he managed to block it, every muscle in his arm screaming as he did so, the force shockwave so intense it blew the flaming statues out. Ash felt numbness begin to slip into his finger; if Incael swung again...

He didn't.

Instead he reached down, grabbed Ash by the throat, and hurled him into the nearest stone pillar. Face first.

"Weak!"

Spots flashed behind Ash's eyes, his legs briefly turning to jelly as he slumped against the pillar. Blood began to run down his face, inarking it in the red agonies that drove through his body.

For once, he did not end up on his knees, Ash bracing himself against the stone pillar to keep from fully falling down, blinking blood from his vision, staring at the face of the mermaid carving that looked back at him.

Then he ducked, Incael obliterating the carving and cleaving right through the pillar in another spray of dust and stone. Ash shoved himself backwards, elbowing Incael in the stomach and then swinging backwards with his own sword, Incael barely dodging out of the way. Ash brought his sword back in front of him, and with a snarling growl Incael slashed at him again, blades slamming together, even while the pillar collapsing behind Ash and engulfed the two in dust, Their clashing forms were consumed by the grey murk for a few seconds before it exploded away, the stone cracking beneath the pair's feet as their weapons warred for dominance. Ash blinked dust from his eyes, and then the tear that began streaking down his dirty face literally got blown off his features when Incael brought his sword around in another titantic blow that Ash, again, barely endured.

"So nice of you to fight the battles for everyone out there. Leave it all behind you so you can die down here." Incael said. "What, no reply? Of course not. You're too busy sucking wind to make wind."

Ash spat bloody saliva as a reply. Incael jerked his head to the side, the defiance falling short.

"My turn." Incael said, and with a gurgling gasp yellow fumes exploded from his mouth. Gold damp. Ash recoiled, fear shooting through his body.

His back slammed into the statue Ash wasn't even aware was there. He'd been lured into a corner. A moment later, Incael had closed in.

"Fool."

The knee drove the wind from Ash, doubling him over. Before he could recover, Incael seized Ash by the head and yanked him backwards, slamming the back of his head against the stone, and then as Ash staggered forward in a daze Incael spun and brought the hilt of his sword down between Ash's shoulders, sending him sprawling out onto the ground with an agonized gasp. Incael stepped back, blade at the ready, and when Ash didn't immediately get back up, he snickered, resting his sword on his shoulder again.

"This is it?" Incael said. "This is the Bloody Fire? Who my men fled in terror from, who I had to threaten to get them to face you to begin with? THIS? I expected a liar, but not a COMEDY!" Incael said, and lunged forward, his leg swinging out and taking Ash in the ribs in a vicious toe-first kick as he tried to get up, flinging Ash backwards until he bounced off the same statue he'd been trapped against, crashing back down to the ground. "This is the man who cut down the Widowmaker? Antiwan? Spinne?"

Ash had no reply; he could only try and get up, blood dripping from his face, running down his arms and chest where daggers of stone had cut. Incael's fingers were as cold as the metal he draped himself with as he reached down, seizing Ash by the throat and hoisting him up.

"THIS is the GODSLAYER?" Incael said, and hurled Ash back against the statue, and Ash struck it with a bone-jarring thud, Incael turned around, walking away from Ash as golden energy erupted on his sword.

"THIS is who wants MY power?" Incael said, turning around as he swung his arms up. "YOU'RE A DISGRACE!"

The golden eruption of power consumed Ash and the statue, the carved stone shattering into a thousand pieces as Ash flew through it, bouncing across the ground several time before he crashed through a small bridge, coming to a rest in an ankle deep pool of water, nearly making it all the way to the center of the forty-foot tarn.

"...I can see what you are now. Truly. You're like me in every way." Incael said, approaching the fallen Ash through the battered chamber. "You saw a chance to seize it and you took it. Waited for them to all die and then stepped in and declared yourself victor. And the world believed you, because they will always believe what those who seize them tell them! Ah, Marsello...you should have stayed away. For I desire it more and deeper than you. You are nothing compared to me, GODSLAYER. For your foolishness, you will in turn be slain by this world's new god."

Incael splashed down into the water, bringing his sword to bear. Ash had managed to get up, but only to his knees, his head bowed. Broken. Like his brothers. Like all the other liars.

"There is only room for one to feast." Incael said, and with one final burst of speed, he charged and swung. Why speak the curse of his blade when he could so easily do it the natural way? A fine way to finish it...

Right until his sword stopped cold.

Ash was back on his feet. Still hunched over, water and blood running down his body...but in one arm, he held his own sword. All the abuse, and he still held the sword. Straight out, like he was using it to point at Incael.

The tip of his own sword had met the edge of Incael's, and stopped the decapitating blow like it was a wall of bedrock. When Incael tried to yank his blade back, he found it stuck, like the two swords had fused together.

Ash wasn't looking at him, bloody and wet blonde hair draped his face. And for all the weakness in his stance, for once there was no weakness in his voice.

"I...HATE...that name."

Force erupted off Ash's sword as it broke broke away from Incael's, the king staggering back as Ash knelt down again, plunging a hand into the water, and within a second every bit of liquid in the pond ceased to exist, going from murky liquid to obfuscating mist, the cloud of water vapor and steam engulfing Incael and Ash, the fair-haired boy vanishing from Incael's sight.

"Do you know who I really am, Incael? You're close...and yet...so far."

"What are you talking about?"

"...I guess we'll see."

"...Rrrgh. Parlor tricks." Incael said, slashing his sword out, his rage growing when it failed to disperse the steam. "The stance of a coward!"

"I am a coward." Ash's voice drifted from the fog, Incael unable to pin down its precise direction. "Hundreds of us went to the Blacklands. Champions. Generals. Great men, great women, heroes. And then there was me. The load, the liability, only allowed along because of his inexplicable friends. They never would have understood the truth of their rancor towards me...but they were right in me being lesser compared to them. They laid it all on the line, gave everything, their lives, their souls. Everything they could have offered. And when it was all over...when they'd made the way with their sacrifice...I slipped in and claimed the last inch. Miles carved by them, and all their glory granted to me. Lauded. Worshipped. The savior of the world. They were the savior. Even the living; the rest of the 44 are greater than me...because they survived too. Survived and went back to the world that ignored them so they could hoist me up and sing of their great, noble, golden hero. I could have done..,so much more...they deserved so much more. They didn't deserve to die because of me. All of them, on the Blacklands, against the Necromancer...at Mysar's Tomb. All the way back to my pathetic little entrance into this world. Their ghosts stand behind me, their eyes on my back, forever marching behind me, letting me know they're there."

"Get going kid, or get got..."

I'm so sorry, Deb...I will never stop, you would never stop, I will NEVER stop...

"...Heh. I always suspected the stories were too good to be true." Incael said.

"They always are."

The steam abruptly receded from around Incael, his vision becoming clear again...as it was called around Ash's blade, the boiling air roiling around his sword, red mist now surging from his body, gushing from his wounds in a framing cloud, the fire in his nerves now dancing in his eyes, a fire to match Incael's.

"You want to kill the world they died to protect. If you think I'm going to just stand by and be a coward again, YOU HAVE ANOTHER THING COMING." Ash said, hoisting his sword, red steam seething out from his mouth. "LET'S BURN."

"...so well done, saving all your words for the end. Meaningless. I WILL SNUFF YOU OUT LIKE A CANDLE YOU ARE." Incael said, and charged.

"YOU AND WHAT ARMY?"

The blade met in a cacophony of otherworldly energies, the steam exploding away from the pair and then the rock in the floor shattering in an expanding outward spray of force, not a trace of pain in Ash's eyes as he blocked the blow, the flame blazing within him, burning from his wounds, his sins, his will...

Then the crack appeared.

In Ash's blade. With a sound like mournful ice, the weapon broke in half, Incael's blade cutting through. And just like that, Ash looked as small as he'd ever been,

"...oh crap." Ash said, his voice a whimper.

"Exactly." Incael said, and swung to cleave Ash's skull in twain.

In Verse, Part 1

"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still..."

-George Gordon Byron

(Author's Note: Mildly NWS albeit censored image in a link in this chapter)

The legions of guards were expected. The twisting palace hallways, likely under some sort of distortion effect, not so much, but Incael ended up shooting himself in the foot by having his guards in fixed, unmoving positions; a maze somewhat lost its potency if all you had to look for was fresh meat. Behind him, Ash left a trail of shattered armor, some of it still falling from the bodies of unconscious men and women, along with a lot of wrecked, and expensive looking, furniture and art that Ash hoped he wasn't going to have to pay for.

The door to the depths had its own lesson: if you're going to seal a door, don't mix conventional locks and chains with a destructive effect if someone tried to open the door without the key. You didn't need a key if the door blew itself off its own hinges, and the unfortunate effect of such a precaution didn't work out so well when instead of being right in front of the explosion, you set it off by firing at the door from across the room before hiding behind an overturned table of heavy oak.

Then again, considering that Ash got about five steps down the stairway behind the door before said steps collapsed in a manner benefiting toothpicks, maybe Incael had expected that. It was a long way down, after all.

The poison gas that awaited Ash at the bottom of the stairway more or less confirmed it.

----

Uncle taught me a great deal about what can happen when men dig below the earth. Forget being buried alive, what will often kill you will kill you without you even realizing its there.

Damps, they're called. There's all sorts of nasty gasses down in the depths. Firedamp will explode at the slightest spark. White damp will put you to sleep and then kill you. Black damp will rob the air from your lungs, leave you flailing as you drown without water. Stink damp will just burn your eyes and lungs out of your body before you die. Afterdamp will mix and match the toxic fumes; how do you want to die? There's a reason the old ways of mining included bringing birds down beneath the earth and fleeing if they went quiet and still.

You made art down here uncle. So for you, I made a damp. Gold damp. A lovely bright yellow so you know you're doomed, and a gas no mine could produce, one that turns the air in lungs to stone. Let the weight of earth crawl inside you and lay claim to all of you.

Let any who would seek what's mine be crushed without a single stone being turned.

----

Gas, as a weapon, had limited application. If you used it outside, it was at the mercy of the wind, and in a wide open area, could easily disperse before it did any damage unless you dropped it right on top of your enemy (which could be easier said than done). If you used it inside, you ran the risk of falling prey to it yourself if you hung around; even if you brought protection, gas did not hang around where it was most convenient.

Normal gas, anyway. Gold damp was anything but normal. Incael had placed it at the bottom of the stairwell and throughout the lone passageway that led into the exhausted mine turned memorial and tomb, and it remained where it had been set, its thaumaturge-forged essence designed to slowly thicken the air that flowed into lungs and blood until it became as hard as rock. A horrible way to die, and in theory, a gas that wearing a filter could not stop, as the magically toxic air would rapidly clog said filter.

The problem with magical-based weapons, though, was that if left unattended, they easily fell prey to countermagic. Like say, a Fordaring charm that was made by a competent magician.

Unfortunately, that could not fully compensate for the fact Ash was not an actual thaumaturge-study Stream user. His abrupt entry into the gas didn't help either. Losing his cloak and hence having no convenient filter was the last straw.

He did not die, but he damn sure felt like it as he exploded from the golden fog within the tunnel, falling onto his knees, the Fordaring charm clattering to the stone ground. He'd managed to 'reverse' enough of the gas into actual breathable air to get through, but that did nothing for the gas Ash had already inhaled. He'd planned to use it on himself when he got clear...

Only for the charm to run out of juice several feet from safety. Which had caused Ash to take a fresh lungful of gold damp. Bad luck, that.

It was balanced, however, that he was engaged to a woman highly skilled and practiced in the medical Stream arts, which she was teaching him. He'd never be a doctor like her, but he could probably stand in as a nurse in a pinch.

Purge. Get it out.

Getting the gas out via 'Knitting' was even more painful than it going in; Ash felt like he was coughing out his whole set of lungs, poison and some other things being violently ejected from his body as he coughed and retched. I guess...sticking to the nutrient bar...for breakfast...was a good idea...after all....oh god this is why I hate ale...

All the while, in the back of his head, Ash expected the voice to speak up, to warn him of danger, of the threat he'd come here to stop. It wasn't until Ash had finally stopped hacking out what felt like half his innards that it moved to the forefront of his mind, the young blonde man feeling his hair stick to his forehead with sweat as he leaned back, gasping air that was thinner and dirtier by virtue of it being in a mine, but felt as sweet as pure oxygen. After another thirty seconds spent retriving his water canister, rinsing his mouth, and drinking the rest of the water before tossing the cannister aside brought no new threats, Ash slowly got to his feet.

He's waiting for me.

The room Ash had ended up in was roughly oval shaped, with a flattened stone floor worn smooth by endless feet and dragged equipment. It was lit by smokeless torches, the dully white fire sending flickering shadows over the two gargoyle statues that emerged from either side of the lone way out of the oval, the growling faces and armor-clad bodies of the carved stone making it clear that whatever lay beyond was about as inviting as them.

"Get going, kid. Or get got..."

Another flaw of static, unattended magic defense; keeping it active if someone tried to disperse it. In the end, Incael seemed to have skimped on longevity in engage for lethality, and a few force-slashes from Ash were enough to tear through the gold damp's enchantments and cause it to disperse back into the nothingness it had spawned from. Sheathing his sword, Ash turned back to the gargoyles, slowly approaching.

They did not spring to life, either when Ash got close to them or knocked a gloved hand on their heads. A sparkle caught Ash's eye, and he quickly turned around and picked up the fallen Fordaring charm, almost forgotten. And now just jewelry. Well, it got me out of several scraps already. Rest is on me.

-------------

He's alone.

Of course he is. Bringing people means he'd have to share. This way, he thinks he can have it all to himself.

That was something my brothers never realized, that I spared them from. People would point and call me beast, but they were true beasts. They just never realized it. If faced with the true needs within them, they'd have ripped themselves apart. All of them wanted to be at the head of the table. All of them wanted it all for themselves. I spared them from that. I am more merciful than them.

And for this 'hero' who seeks to fatten his glory on my name, to steal my power so he can lord it over his servants and the rabble outside.

He will know my mercy too, before it ends.

-----------

Ash had expected another maze to lay beyond the gargoyles. He was given the exact opposite.

Beyond the gargoyles, the ceiling began to slope upward, the passageway beyond brief before it opened up into an underground chamber so big that Ash paused to make sure he hadn't stepped into another distortion field. No dice: the grotto was real, and so large it could have easily hosted a lancing tournament and feast as easily as the typical fields for such things could, had said chamber been wide open. While as vast as a football field, it was nowhere as flat and available; across the room, pillars of stone stretched up to the ceiling, marked with carvings and engravings of everything from maps to historical moments to faces of various stripes, some even having water flow from their mouths like a classic fountain, the streams cascading down into passages carefully carved into the rock floor, the murky water passing around and underneath the main floor and walking areas. Other rocks had been fully transformed into statues instead of combined art and bracing, images of men and beasts in a dozen different sizes...

A lot of which were not exactly well crafted. Ash didn't have much of a hand for art himself, but even he could tell that half of the effigies had been carved by an amateur. Still, there was a certain calm, unusual beauty of the place, old dark stone lit with more smokeless torches transformed into a giant work of art...and obscuring the room, giving it a hundred shadows, nooks and crannies and broken lines of sight that wouldn't have existed had the room been wide open. Then again, if the room had been wide open, odds were the ground above would have collapsed into it by now. Once this held silver, once it held dreams...

Ash smelled it before he found it. It didn't make it any less horrifying.

...And now a void of neither...

A famous artist had once carefully posed a group of nude women to create a skull with their bodies. What lay before Ash as he moved around the seventh pillar he crossed was like something.pulled from that artist's nightmares, bodies and what lay within them crafted into a five-pointed, trident like shape that lay within two interlocking diamonds. A more cold-blooded man might have noted the different kinds of bodies, bodies in different points of decay that indicated different times of death. Others kinds of men might have even known what the sigil meant.

...there are children in- Was as far as Ash got. He fell to his knees again, hand clutching at his face, trying to block out the sight of it, the smell, the atrocity. Any words he might have said got lost in the horror that had driven its fingers into his throat, his lungs, his heart.

Children...women and children, why...even Ursula didn't...how can people god god...Oh GOD...

You can't help them.

Ash hitched a breath into his lungs, trying to regain his composure.

You weren't here, you can't change that. Give them peace. Get. Up.

Ash pushed himself up, his left hand finding one of his side pouches, his right gripping firmly on the hilt of his sword. The nose filters were normally used when he helped Christine out with the foul odors wounded human bodies could emit; they wouldn't have helped him against the poison gas, but they served fine here. With them in place, Ash began taking a wide berth around the desecration...

"I expected more green eyed than green faced."

The corpse-made sigil did more than shock the soul. It drew the eye, and had kept Ash from seeing the throne tucked away to the upper left of the area he'd wandered into. It was a simple chair, carved from rock and clearly meant for more ceremonial purposes than actual sitting. Ash's eyes narrowed as they finally settled onto his target, and the source of all this misery.

"Incael."

"Marsello." Incael said, his posture relaxed, one arm on the arm of his throne, the other holding his chin, his pointer finger stroking his upper lip. Outside of his gorget, pauldrons, and the braces on his upper and lower arms, the fratricidal liege of Vurnir wore no other metal; like Ash, he preferred leathers, cast in dark reds and purples. The cut on his face had stopped bleeding, said wound having neither been repaired or bandaged. And across his lap...

"So nice of you to make the extra effort to come see me."

Ash barely heard the words. Now that he could see it, he could feel it, pulsing behind his eyes, in the veins in his neck, all the way down his spine and to the heels of his boots. Old memories came. Of another battlefield, and another, and another. What it meant then, and now.

"At least you know death when you see it." Incael said, lifting the blade. "Do you like it? It whispered its name to m-"

"I know its name."

"Vyrepul."

For a moment, anger and alarm flickered over Incael's previously impassive face, though he quickly squelched it down.

"Impressive! And how did you know that, golden child? Does it speak to you too?"

"Broken things can only speak to other broken things." Ash said. "I know what that is because...because. Why tell you? Let's get on with it." Ash said, and drew his own sword. The sound of its task sang out from the motion, echoing through the depths.

"...so. You mock me. Dismiss me. How very expected. So tell me then, Marsello. Did it speak to you of this?" Incrael said, his hand raising the dark, cursed blade before him. No, not a sword. Something more, something that stained the world despite all of Ash's best efforts.

Get a measure...let him do the work...

"It echoes the need for power and the might of the powerful. Allow me to show you. All...heads..."

Ash expected some kind of blast, maybe from a different angle, making in smoke form to mirror the gold damp. The sudden agonizing pain in his neck caught him completely off guard.

"Off..."

What the hell-!

His spine felt like it was caught in a rack. His skin was on fire. Lost in pain, Ash fell to his knees again, grabbing at his throat, trying to stop the pain and failing, it HURT...

Ohgodnononono

"But..."

The horrors of terrors past whispered in Ash's ear, just before the pain stopped. Incael let out a low chortle, running one hand along the blade like it was a treasured pet.

"All it can see, dies at my whim. I would have had to do was finish the sentence. Say 'mine', and you would be dead at my feet. Even the Bloody Fire cannot resist the power of this sword. What does that say of my destin-"

Incael leapt off his throne, juking and rolling to the side as Ash's own sword cleaved through the rock, a rippling wave of force shattering the carved stone, Ash jerking his head to the side as shrapnel sprayed across his face, his legs and body pivoting to where Incael had fallen, to cut him down before he could...

Another misdirect. Seeing a man holding a Remnant on his lap took away one's eyes from other things. Like the weapon on his left arm, a Hemel device known as a Tarantula Hawk, a micro-crossbow whose arrow sizes did not denote their strength. The two bolts slammed into Ash and hurled him backwards, his feet splashing into water as his momentum carried him into one of the statues, a carving of a basilisk, its tongue and tail breaking off from the force Ash hammered into it with. Ash managed to avoid falling down this time, his free hand grabbing the statue behind him for balance, his other hand holding onto his sword.

"...good armor there. Your own personal Blackbird? I've always found getting them to part with quality Intricacies is like pulling teeth. Their own, usually." Incael said, standing and approaching Ash, his Remnant blade, the avatar of death known as Vyrepul, laid gently against one shoulder. Ash sucked air between his teeth, reaching up and yanking the crossbow bolts out of his own armor.

"Get going, kid, or get got..."

"You see how easily I could have killed you. Your death is already mine three times over. It will not be as kind as what I have denied myself." Incael said, bringing the Remnant to bear. "The world exists to be seized. You will NOT take it from me."

"I'll take something away from this. It won't be the world." Ash said, standing up, his sword gripped in both hands. "You wanna deny me mercy? Come on then.

"DENY ME."

"Efficient, Thorough, Strong, and Brave; his vision is to kill
Force is the hearthstone of his might; the pole star of his will
His forges glow malevolent; their minions never tire
To deck the goddess of his lust; whose twins are blood and fire."

-Robert Grant
 

Cold Blooded, Part 2

I still see Jay, sometimes.

It was that...sadness in his eyes when he died. Fear, and pain...and under that, he was so sad. Because in his eyes, he'd failed me. He'd promised, and he'd tried so hard, and in the end he still failed. He was just the one to fail last.

He'd never know it was my fault he died.

Xaxargas changed the world, changed so many of us...but he wanted amusement. He wanted...a good show. His little games. His little pre-conditions for his deals. So he made sure I was strong. So very strong. The lone caveat was I'd never realize it until it was too late. Until the world, nudged by his hand, his will, took my family.

They died because of him, I know. Not me. I tried to protect them. Tried to save them. He murdered them...but I was the lynchpin of the murder. It was all for my pain, my grief. It was me who got plucked from the masses to get his special blessing. Why? I never did learn, if there ever was a reason.

I know if I saw them again, they'd tell me they were proud. I avenged their murder. I made sure others didn't follow in their footsteps. I will live the life that was stolen from them. I'm strong now. So very strong.

I have to be.

I protected the seargent. It was all I could do, even though it cost me. I can live with pain. I've felt worse.

I can't save everyone...but no one dies on my watch.

No one.

------

Christine wasn't wholly sure if the noise she made was a gasp, or a sob. She was vaguely aware of the pain in her leg, a twisted length of metal jutting out of her thigh, blood pouring down into the mud. Her focus, however, was on her face.

Lost an ear oh geez its hanging off

Reemer could only stare in horror. He'd seen terrible wounds before, and he'd seen men and women sacrifice their bodies for their fellows, but both at once and its immediate aftermath was new, even to him, and it was enough to even give him pause. The girl before him had lost more than that: it was only her hand that was keeping half her face was sloughing off.

She'd blocked one of the blades with her helmet. Literally stuck her own neck out to protect him. The impact had knocked it off and allowed the follow-up blade to catch her square in her features, this one shearing rather than impacting. Blood was pouring down her arm, the girl fallen to her knees, mewling noises of pain bubbling from the mess she'd made of her face.

stop stop

"Hold on ma'am! MEDIC! MEDIC!!!!!!!!!!" Reemer yelled, his bellowing voice echoing across the battlefield. He looked away to do so, and nearly had a heart attack when Christine's other hand seized onto his belt. One last hitching sob whispered from her.

Then the wound began to vanish.

"...else. Send it...somewhere else." Christine said, coughing. She'd finally clawed through the pain and gotten a moment of focus, and if there was any world she knew, it was her own. The burning, rending brand cooled as the flesh climbed back, muscles re-attaching, veins re-knitting, an ear slipping back up and falling into place. Christine partially pulled herself to her feet, the last of the damage fading away as she put her hand on the shaft of metal in her leg, her eyes narrowing in concentration, one last hiss of pain flitting between her lips as she slid it out, the hole in her leg armor soon the only evident she'd been wounded.

After a moment, Christine coughed violently. the taste of copper filling her mouth, before she turned and spat a lump of clotted blood onto the ground.

"I'm okay. Are you okay?" Christine said, gesturing. She'd had her glaive weapon knocked from her grip near the end, but it was a simple matter to recall it to her hand.

"I am uninjured, ma'am. Thank you for your assistance." Reemer said, putting a professional face back on.

"...We need to get the injured off the field. Regroup with those who aren't hurt, make sure Vurnir's troops can't pull themselves back together." And hope that Incael doesn't have another Tatterdemalion. Or worse, something like a Blue Moon. Bad enough he likely has a Remnant...

"Understood. You, ma'am?"

"I'm going to get the injured off the field. Once that's done...I'll fall back. Probably. Unless you need more."

"In all honesty ma'am, re-deploying you might be overkill."

----

"WHOOO-HOOOO!" Corperal Berkow said, snatching the throwing javelin from the enlarged quiver that was strapped to his horse's side, his arm jerking up and hurling the length of metal almost as soon as his eyes sighted a target for it, said target going down with a scream. Any army with any quality did their best to weed those inclined to bloodthirst rather than discipline out in the initial training process, but a few inevitably slipped through the cracks. Berkow liked his job, perhaps a little too much, especially when he got to rid down any soldiers beneath his horse. He liked impaling people with javelins too, especially the Blackbird-forged ones that returned to his hand post impalement. If there was anything to be said about Corperal Berkow, it was the fact he liked doing this to enemy soldiers and not women and children. It wasn't much.

"Will you stow that shit, Berkow? You want the gold kids going after you next?" Corporal Matthews yelled, turning one of the Vurnir soldiers over and kicking them in the face when they tried to get up. Let someone better than him drag their carcasses back to wherever they were keeping P.O.W's: he considered his duty done by not stabbing the treacherous bastards when he had the chance.

"Hey, they took all the fun stuff already. So I'll take my...fun stuff where I can find it." Berkow said, adjusting his horse's trot to move around a small mud sinkhole that had opened up in the ground during the fight. His eyes flicked to his left, and then back again, as he watched several more Crown Point soldiers vanish into the horizon-smearing brume that cut off his long range site. The movement of his head was enough to make Matthews cut off his follow up comment. Berkow had too much nut in him, but he had good eyes, and he'd noticed something

"What is it?"

"Do any more soldiers have those flame shooting weapons? On Vurnir's side?"

"I haven't heard anything about it."

"Then where did that smoke com-"

There was no scream. That was the worst part, as the body flew out of the fog. The second worst part was that the body didn't bounce; its backwards momentum was so intense.that it flew perpendicular to the ground before it finally came down near the two soldiers, a spray of mud covering up the sickening, crunching squish the body made as it was driven into the soft, watery muck like a railroad spike.

"Fucking HELL!!!" Berkow said, his horse rearing upward. Matthews let out his own curses, bending down and drawing his enchanted knife from his boot, locking it into the hilt of his two-headed axe and merging their strengths. "Was that another bomb?!"

It wasn't a second bomb. Bombs didn't walk.

Berkow reached down to collect another javelin, and as he looked up it was coming. Matthews, to his credit, went straight for the enemy and did a marvelous feint, faking a forward attack and getting around the gigantic form when it swung at the misdirect, his axe swinging in and hammering him in the back.

All that did was buy him a few extra seconds of life, the massive beast pivoting around at the hip, clamping a hand on Matthews' head, finger the size of corncobs clutching down and reducing his skull to smeared mush with one good squeeze. Dropping the corpse, the beast turned around in time for the javelin to strike him directly between the eyes.

It stuck fast in the scarlet metal that encased the creature's head, and it didn't slow him down an iota. He didn't even bother pulling it out. Berkow considered fleeing or trying another javelin, and went for option two.

He didn't make it.

The wet, thundering smack echoed across the battlefield. The last thing that went through Berkov's terrified mind was the crumbled rock wall he and his horse crashed through before it all went black, the two smashed through the air like they were connected at the hip and weighed nothing at all.

Dark, rumbling chortles came from a mouth that could bite off human limbs in one quick snap, choking black smog erupting from within the foul-smelling void as it did so, the javelin falling impotently to the ground as the beast shook it free.

Then it turned and began seeking new targets.
--------

Screams of pain were not a sure sign on a battlefield: often the more serious medical cases were the ones that could make no noise at all. Fortunately for Christine, she'd always had an eye for what was important, and the soldier screaming he'd lost his foot was a fair choice to tend to first.

"Let me see. Let me..." Christine said, trying to get the man to stop thrashing as she inspected the injury. As it turned out, he still had his foot, but between the muscles that had been shredded and the blood pouring from the wound, he'd probably been on the verge of passing out from blood loss within the next several seconds and dying not long after that. Christine immediately got to work, one hand clamping on his leg and activating her powers, reconnecting the blood vessels, then the muscles, all while trying to ignore the man bellowing in her ear because she had to keep his nervous system active, and hence sending screaming agonies up his leg every time she re-connected something. Her other hand clamped onto his chest, working Stream-based traditional healing to keep him from going to shock from the pain. I envy you sometimes Brigh. Wish I was ambidextrous.

"There, you can put weight on it, Get back to the medics, they'll finish up. Don't kick anything with that limb!" Christine said, helping the man up before she headed onward. The next soldier she found was dead, his throat impaled through with metal: Christine locked the sadness that sprung up inside her into another box and moved on. She was starting to encounter other soldiers assisting the wounded from the Tatterdemalion, either pulling/dragging them back or working on them on the ground. Christine went from cluster to cluster, giving what aid she could, even as she ran a self-assessment.

No trembling. Vision's clear. Muscles ache, but only if I stand still...I can probably keep going for another half an hour, if I need to...maybe I shouldn't return to the lines. Maybe I should go back up Ash...it's been too quiet since he was-

"Ma'am! MISS BRYNN!" A soldier yelled, snapping Christine out of her introspection. "We need you!"

Christine darted over to where the soldier was waving to, knowing what was wrong before she got there based on the position of the three kneeling soldiers. No one lying on the ground. they're clustered close, arms up around his shoulders, that likely means...

A severed limb, in the soldier's case a right arm, cleaved off at the shoulder by the Tatterdemalion. One had a blood-soaked mass of rags pressed up against the wound, while the other, apparently a commander of some stripe, yelled at the soldier to stay focused on him, something the injured soldier was clearly having trouble doing.

"Keep the pressure on! Where's the limb?" Christine said, kneeling by the trio, her eyes snapping to the soldier who had called her over. "FIND THE LIMB!"

"Hurts..." The wounded soldier said, his voice starting to take on the glassy tone of shock.

"It's okay, sir. I can fix this...just listen to me..." Prevent shock, close the wound if I can't retrieve the limb...

"Ma'am, I got it!" Calling Soldier said, running back over with a mud-smeared arm. Christine took half a second to admire the stomach on the kid. It wasn't easy to just pick up severed body parts.


"Get this on the limb. I need the connection point clean." Christine said, producing an Ehetacl's Hand from her pouches and tossing it to the kid, holding onto the second as she pressed it down near the wound. She tended not to use the magical cleaning trinkets on herself for moments precisely like this, the filth of the battlefield being drawn away from clothing and skin and injury, the injured soldier letting out a low moan of pain. "Look at me, soldier! You're doing good!"

"Listen to the Hourglass, soldier!" The officer said.

"My name's Christine."

"Listen to Christine, soldier!"

"Charm's done, ma'am!" Calling Soldier said.

"Good." Christine said, plucking the one she'd used on the injured soldier off and dropping it, as she looked at the one still pressing the makeshift bandage-pad on the wound, the rags now clean save for blood. Angie made such fine product. "Okay, soldier...you with the arm...!"

"Private Gage, ma'am!"

"Gage, bring the arm in close, and when I say so, you with the rags, pull it away. Gage, you bring the limb in closer then, but do NOT press it against the injury. Just as close as possible! On my mark. Three...two...one...mark."

One last squirt of blood escaped the injured soldier's wound when the padding was yanked away before Christine reversed the blood flow, her teeth clenching and air erupting in quiet cracks from her knuckles as she held out her hands, her fingers coiling in concentration while Gage brought the limb in.

"Just...hold it...there..." Christine said, the battlefield dropping away, her eyes seeing the millions of cells that laid before her, envisioning them all as tiny hooks that needed to be locked together. Her world. Bone first, then nerves, blood vessels, then muscle...

"Hold it...hold it..." Christine said, fully synching her powers to the wound. Re-attaching limbs was a tricky business, even with the incredible talents Christine had (and all the effort she'd already expended also playing a role). It was times like this she was grateful she could back up her reputation, as she began to restore the connection on a skeletal level. Spooky scary skeletons...now why did that pop into my head?

"Okay, let go, I have it." Christine said, Gage doing so, the limb settling a bit and prompting a whimper from the injured. "I have it, soldiers. Go help others, or reinforce the lines. I'll make sure he gets back to safety."

"Yes'm. You heard the Hourglass!" The officer said, the three soldiers getting to their feet.

"My name's Christine..." Christine said, more to herself as the three moved on. She looked around herself, checking for more wounded soldiers or other signs of trouble. Wait, what's that smok...

The three soldiers fared better than Berkow or Matthews, but that was likely little comfort as the form emerged from the murky darkness, appearing from within the smoke as suddenly as the smoke had, a stomping, crushing hurricane that lashed out and struck all three almost at once, the soldiers flying through the air in high upward arcs, Christine's eyes going as wide as saucers at their screams as they crashed down on the battlefield around her.

Damn it, no. They went that way because I said to...

No.

I didn't do this. He did.

The figure was nearly ten feet tall, his shoulders as wide as the fallen logs Christine often sat on around campfires. The beast's chalk-white skin was barely visible under the scarlet-red metal armor that covered nearly his whole body, dark brown leathers the color of dried blood under the crimson mithril. The club he held in his hand was bigger than Christine, metal and stone interlocked in a blood-splattered cylinder that the beast clung to via a black ironwood grip. Despite the creature's full helmet, Christine could already see what lay beneath from a score of memories. Eyes set deep into a skull that held a jaw that seemed a shade too big for it, a mouth of slicing, crunching teeth honed to even greater sharpness via tools of stone.

Ihmensel’jk.

The smoke that erupted from the creatire's mouth as he roared made Christine's stomach sink even deeper, though it was well on its way there already. Ihmensel’jk tended to grow large, but even their strongest topped off at around seven feet. There was no way for the Teeth of the World to grow that large...unless they had...help.


Wyrmblood Ihmensel’jk. What have you done, Incael? How many of your own men died to slake the lusts of that thing?

Worries aside, though, Christine never lost her focus, years of training allowing her such temporary divisions. The fact that a giant, battle-crazed mutant was less than twenty feet away from her faded into the background, Christine returning her full efforts to her patient. Some healing you could stop in mid-process, but limb reattachment wasn't one of them.


"GOLDEN HAIR!"

He sees me. Does he know who I am?

"DO YOU THINK I DON'T SEE YOU?!" The Wyrmblood Ihmensel’jk roared, his armored foot squelching into the mud as he began to advance. Nope, never assumed that. "STAND AND FIGHT!"

The wounded soldier had recovered enough to be aware of the situation, Christine realized. The look of mortal terror on his face was enough to yank her stomach back up into place and screw it into position.

Just like Jay.

Never again. NEVER AGAIN. 

"I AM SALKOROT BLACKHOWL! I DEMAND YOU STAND AND FIGHT!"

Of course you do. You'll consider anything you can hit and kill with your weapon a 'fight'. Even if they can't fight. Even if they're on your side. Did they force Redsin's foulness on you, or did you drink it willingly? 

"IF YOU THINK I WON'T CRUSH YOU IF YOU JUST COWER THERE, YOU ARE WRONG!" Salkorot said, bearing down on Christine with the intensity of a rabid bear and ten times the strength. Christine wanted to call out to him, to make him see sense, to just make him STOP until she could finish, she'd fight him then, just stop for ten seconds, five seconds...

She knew he wouldn't.

So she threw a glob of mud in his face at twenty-times speed instead. Salkorot had a good enough helmet that this didn't blind him completely, but the suddenness and impact of it still gave him pause. He regained his bearings just in time for the shower of sparks to explode from his armor from the weapon slash. It hadn't penetrated, but it wasn't meant to. Just to get his attention, make him turn away from the soldier, ignore him.

It was a lot harder to heal someone at range. Christine continued to do it anyway, her left arm extended towards the soldier.

Can't use Soulstorm. Need both hands...Arondight it is. May he be so damn enamored with killing the annoying one that he doesn't notice the helpless one.

No matter what it costs.

"BETTER." Salkorot said, unable to even growl quietly, as he looked at the female before him, mud-splattered and small of frame, one hand out and the other clutching a thin rapier. "AND YOU BROUGHT ME A TOOTHPICK."

No one else dies because of me.

No one.

Titus Andronicus

They called him Ore Om, though he had other names. He made the heavens and the lands, the fire and the water, the plants and animals and bugs, and all in between. Other stories say others made such things, but they do not tell our story.

Our story begins with his bride. Ar'Chel. Ore Om crafted the grand planks of the world, and Ar'Chel came after with thread and patch and binding, crafting the smaller details, the underpinings that all great things stood on. They did this because they wished it, and because they must, and because they desired worship, and for no reason at all, for it is impossible to know the minds of such beings. Once they stood before their creation, they pronounced it good, and began to watch it to see what it would do.

It made mankind, and mankind rose to stand above all others. Man grew beyond animal, began to grasp the greater wonders of the world. Ore Om was pleased, and allowed some men barest glimpses. They built temples to him and his wife, assigned them places as they saw fit. Ore Om made the animals men tamed and fed upon, the crops he grew, the water that he drank and the fire he used to make the world his. Ar'Chel made the family, the mothers who made sons, the lessons that let men pass their knowledge on. the desire to go forward and learn ever more. As the two effected changed on mankind, mankind affected change on them. And it was good.

But man did not just change as their gods would wish. Man changed in other ways. New thoughts came to them, to him, solely from himself. Man began to grasp the concept of ownership, of being master in all ways instead of the greatest, most important ones. To be what they could be, man must change. They must kill other man. They must cut themselves off from lessons. They must sometimes, too many times, remove everything that makes them man. They saw it good.

Woman fell prey to man. Woman became property. Woman became despised, for she had powers man never could have. The temples to Al'Chel were torn down. Her words and stories were scrubbed away. Al'Chel wept and begged her husband to guide man away from such deeds, or allow her a chance for them to learn lessons anew, but man and god were linked too close now. Ore Om had created man, but in turn man had created him, and so Ore Om took up a rock and struck down his bride, and left her to wither away. Forgotten. Loathed.

It was the foolishness they could never grasp. That if thoughts could affect such a mark on a god, than other thoughts could not be so easily purged, no matter how much man wanted them to be.

Who was the first, cast out for whatever reason given? Who found where the old thoughts lay, the anger and rage that was born for the choices of man? Who first began to learn the knowledge of blood and thread, of seeing what lay beneath all things, of making them yours, devouring them? Her name is lost, as are many others, for man never ceased in his desire.

It has been many ages since then. What became of Ore Om is not known. Perhaps he eventually grasped the shame of his deeds and fled in penance. Perhaps he was forgotten, and ceased to be a presence on our lands and skies. Perhaps he changed so much that he exists still under another name, dead in all ways save the absence of life. Man has changed too, in some ways. Many have realized their foolishness and have tried to make amends for the deeds that murdered Al'Chel. Others have not, and yet others come from other lands, other planes, other gods, with eyes that see a thousand thousand ways.

It does not matter. The lessons we learned, have passed down from the blood and body of Al'Chel, have remained. It was the worst thing man could have done, for they taught us the joy in dominance, in pain and death and inflicting horror, taking everything and draining it dry. It does not matter if the paths of man have forked. That elixir is the sweetest of all, and our being, our lineage, is to drink it until the last man draws his last breath. Ore Om changed, but we will never change. We know the dark truths that birthed us, and we will give rise in it to those who have not changed and brand those who have, the inescapable sin, the crime of man.

We are the secrets in blood, the noosemakers of thread, the savage hand that strokes the savage beast that allowed man to break gods in mind and body. We are the truth, and we have existed too long to be brought down by knowledge, or star people, or heroes like this poor unfortunate girl who could not resist the curiosity of our grand ritual, and the war it will bring to those who will surely seek to destroy us like man destroyed his gods.

We are the Haruspex. We are the reapers of man.

And it is good.

Small Print

...I'd have done it too. If I was in their position.

The lands have a saying...'If you see a merchant with gold in his ears, listen. If you see a merchant with gold on his tongue, don't listen. If you see a merchant with gold in his eyes, you didn't listen.' What does it mean precisely? You're asking the wrong person, I'm a soldier. It probably has something to do with seeing things coming, and what happens if you don't. Good advice, good advice...

Doesn't always work though. You can be the smartest person in the room, the town, the lands, you can look under every rock and cast a light in every dark corner, you can sit and think until your think muscle just gives out entirely, but you'll never be able to see everything coming, all the time. Sometimes that's all you need. People will always go for easy and stupid most of t'time anyway. Hell, most of the time, the thing you don't see coming ain't that bad.

Of course, sometimes it is.

Take the Aarde. Good solid folk, if a little too happy to be digging in the dirt. Everyone knows the story of the Aarde. They were men and women enslaved by the Imnoblis Empire, forced to work in the Glareihgem mountains, digging endless mines to let the empire forge its weapons.  Generations sweated and bled and died down there, digging ever deeper, and in time, the Aarde began to hear the world speak to them. It promised them freedom in exchange for their services, power in exchange for speaking its will. The Aarde accepted, having been slowly changed already by all those years of digging in that 'magic dirt', though they'd be cross to hear me refer it as such.  They rose up and threw off the empire's shackles, pulled down the empire that had changed them, but they let the people of the Imnoblis empire go and live elsewhere instead of wiping them out, giving them the second chance the world gave them. Ever since, the Aarde have been in touch with the world, able to hear it, move it, command it. They are the bankers and the wordsmiths of our lands, a sign that the world has a soul and it means us well.

Well, except no one's ever found any solid proof the Imnobilis Empire ever existed. Oh, several kingdoms trace their lineage to them, but there's no pottery, no crumbling ruins, nothing. There's no Glareihgem mountains either, with tunnels that lead to the soul of the world: hell, there's been active disagreement over the years just where the Glairehgem mountains could be or could have been if they've fallen down, even among Aarde. The Hemel have Verloren: it might be damn hard to get to and there's little damn reason to go there, but it's THERE. You'd think the Aarde would have preserved the site of their creation in SOME way beyond a story, but no. They have the tale and that's all they need.

Least so they thought. If it was truth, there wouldn't have been the Vassere'c Schism, what was it, eight hundred years ago? Some Aarde named Vassere'c stumbled over another possibility for where the Aarde came from; wasn't from mining magical earth for years or hearing the world, but just some Blackbird weaving the spell of a lifetime that caused a bunch of babies to be born changed, the reason for it being lost. A weapon? To make their mark on the world? An accident? Whatever the reason, the Aarde were nothing more than the ego of a magician, their past a lie to feel less like freaks. Not many Aarde bought it, but Vassere'c actually had something they didn't: evidence that support his claim. Nothing perfect, but it existed, unlike the empires and mountains of the story. The people were divided, and even today, there's still tension. Me, I'm more prone to believe the latter. There are evil Aarde out there, who use the gifts they're born with for evil things. I don't think a world blessing would stick with them through that. Hell, what the Grandsteppers can do if you piss them off...that's more appalling than what most criminals can do. But I won't be saying that to their faces.

Does it really matter? Picked of the world or a magical bug people, who cares? Really, we're all just trying to do the best we can. Our towns, our food, our lands, our talks with others, our fights, our wars, we're all just trying. Even our pasts is just trying. We all have our stories: humans, Aarde, Icks, Hemel, Ergernis, even Mergewraths seem to have their tales of where they came from and how the world likes them.

Not a single one of them ever spoke of Xaxargas.

No one saw Him coming. No one. Some people talk and try and say that they did, but they're doing it by saying water is also wine if you look at it hard enough. There was no sign, no great calamity, no ancient story that talked about the Fatespinner. Just small and big things that began to come together seven years ago. The discovery of that island, the Blacklands. The formation of the Raze. Whispers of the wilds producing beasts and horrors unlike anything ever seen before. Over time, half the world just sort of...backed into knowing He existed. And the rest...

They knew when the Twilight fell. When He fully revealed himself. When He broke our world in every way. When He told us we would all die soon.

Cynics and nutcases still talk about Him. They say everything in our world was actually created by Him. He made the Stream. He made the peoples. He made the lands and the kingdoms, set everything in motion. That our world was a crop to Him, and the Twilight was the harvest of a god. Others tell other stories. That he was a horror from somewhere else, who devoured the god or gods of our world, or merely set Himself up where they would have been, an outsider who could only exist in our realm by defining Himself by its ways. Or he was a man who sought to be a god, who came so close and yet fell short, leaving Him almost there and unable to go back or forward. Others say He was all the sins and horrible things we'd done finally given the spark of life, our punishment for not living up to our best. No one knows. I don't think we ever will. Unless something happens we don't see coming.

I knew about Him, before the Twilight. You wanna know what some people just don't get? Even knowing about something like that, you still gotta get through the day. 

I'm a soldier. I joined my prince and his council to serve their interests. I have never killed anyone who didn't want to kill me too, and I have never done anything that has cost me sleep at night. But we were a land of many people, a land that could grow, a land that could be more. So my superiors did what they did, even with Xaxargas' baleful eye always on us. Now, when the Twilight happened, things changed. But that was the Twilight, and it's over.

Vurnir's was just...it wasn't worthy of our respect, you know? Not our real respect, not what I feel for Caleb, for his brother Hillel who I joined up under. For Leah and Mattan, heroes who died on the Blacklands so we could live. Incael kings never made their bones on strength of arms, or wisdom, like when King Yael of our lands, the Blessed Mind, chose to share his power with a council who would figure out what the people wanted, even reducing his title to Prince to show his desire to be equal to them. The Incael line never had anything like that. They bought what they wanted. Their respect is the kind that follows a shower of coins, their armies are mercenaries who care more for their own needs than for the needs of their land. I will not lie and say Crown Point never hired mercenaries, nor that mercenaries cannot make fine soldiers, fine warriors, but that kind of man was rank and file of the Incael armies. Their lieges made money (oh, they were good at making money, I'll give them that, but it's not something I could respect) and spent it trying to find everything money didn't give them. King Piers Incael, the one who reigned through my whole service until recently, he had a knack for finding silver mines...without Aarde help. Fortunate, that, as Aarde mining assistance always comes at deep cost. I'm not the first to think he got his things by cheating. Considering the rumors of his death that persist beyond the official story of an accidental fall, it's possible his cheating caught up to him. He left behind five sons...

You must understand. Before the Twilight, it was just...what was needed. We shook hands sometimes, and shook our fists at each other other times. They wanted things, we wanted things, and the council and our princes were quite willing to step outside the 'nice ways' to get them. You think Vurnir wasn't? You think Incael never did? The Twilight was different. We'd have gladly forged alliances, marched together to hold back the end of the world. But Vurnir never made a move. Our spies tell us Piers' sons were paralyzed by fear, unable to look the Eternal Titan in the eye and be prepared that the only thing we might do is spit in it on our way down. So when the Twilight was over, when it was clear the world would not end...

They were weak, so we pushed for an advantage. We wanted proper concessions, alterations to our trading deals, who got what in imports to favor us. Unfair? Maybe, but fair doesn't enter into it. They'd shown us we were weak, and things had to go back to the way they were. That's how the world works, that's what I accept as the world. You think they wouldn't have done the same?

Would we have gone to war if they'd said no?...Maybe we would have.

But I know what kind of war it would have been. Quick. Quiet. Minimal death. Not like this. Not like...this.

We knew about Eudes, that he was the family black sheep. But none of us predicted he could, or would do this. When Vurnir first struck back, we were surprised but not caught off guard. Over-aggression in the face of a weak position is very much something men do. But when it became clear who we were fighting, that he was fighting a war of horrors instead of advantages, when he began to use the weapons of Oriam, the weapons made for the war at the end of the world, not in a disagreement between two lands like ours...

Maybe we started this fight, but we'll finish it too. We didn't start it to pillage and steal, and we will not back down in the face of a madman. 

But...it was unjust.

I can admit that. Our motives were unjust. Not something sparked off by the need to protect ourselves. People suffered because of our choice. Our Prince and Council will never admit it, but they did the wrong thing.

Some things had not changed since the Twilight, and neighboring countries dragged their feet over the lack of clear things. People would die because of what we chose to do.

....But some things were born out of the Twilight. Of the 44, there are two primary groups. Marco Millions' lot...and Marsello's. The largest of them, the champions of the world, with golden boy Marsello at the front. Ask me a week ago, I'd say too good to be true. Ask me a week ago, I'd say this is a fight we could finish ourselves.

...I should be dead.

The group the Hourglass belongs to, Outreach or whatever. Not surprised they showed up, bad things had begun happening in our war and that's what they do. But I'm surprised she did. She once shared our prince's bed. According to some, he kicked her out because she was unfaithful. Others say he felt they were going different ways and made it simple. However it ended, they had personal history. Not only did she come, she brought Marsello.

Marsello has powerful allies, and he's called them in. He could have done that and stayed back in a defensive position, serving as a shield wall until he had greater strength by his side. But when it became clear that it wasn't going to happen in one spin of an arm, he went into the field without them. And Miss Brynn, who clearly hates fighting, hates all the bad things we do because we have to, she strapped on arms and armor and followed right after him. The bargain was anyone they disabled was to be taken alive if possible, a bargain I really didn't care for...

But I'm a man of my word. So are they. And they promised to protect me and all my peers, all my men.

That bomb should have cut us both to shreds. There was no cover, nowhere to hide from its teeth.

She stood in front of me and she brought the world to heel. She made things slow down and she battered and smashed the death flying at us away until none of it touched me. 

Now she's on the ground. Bleeding. In agony. For someone she barely knows. Who she probably doesn't agree with. She does what she thinks is right. 

So do I. Mine probably wouldn't have included trying to save her. Not in the face of this.

...My name is Avidan Reemer, and I look upon something I didn't see coming.

...And in the face of the choices of men, all I can do is hope that I see more of it.