Archos stood beside Ayente as they walked the last stretch of land in front of the low hill that hid what he counted as a rudimentary village. They reached the base before he touched her shoulder. “When we crest that hill, much will change for you.” He looked down at her as he spoke, and her ocean blue eyes looked back up, she turned to him, and the talon that she saw tear open flesh and muscle with ease, fell away from her without leaving a mark.

She bit her lip, looked down to his feet. “Words… I have them in my tongue, remember the first I spoke to you, when sight was taken and before I saw?”

“Yes. You said, ‘Ya me’lope’. You asked me to help your people.” Archos gave a grave nod to her and put his lethal talon under her chin and curled it up so that she would meet his eyes. “That was not my first impression, you know. I saw you fight, your ax gone, just a spear, your spear, between not you and they, but your fallen and they. I saw from the waters I came out of, they feared you, even outnumbered, I could smell the fear coming off their bodies.”

Ayente looked up through narrow, villainous eyes, but ones which faintly wavered as he spoke, “Then after, when I healed you, you took up your spear and put yourself in between me and more of your fallen I had gone to help. It is not a small thing to do, because you are a very small, very squishy thing.” His jaw dropped and his rough, savage laugh came out and dissipated her tension.

Her breasts heaved and fell as she choked back thoughts she did not have the words to express to him. “Yes, now, now all comes to an end. His gods are not gods. Malach, the liar has ruined my life, treated me as a Kieb might…”

“A kieb? What is a ‘Kieb’.” Archos paused her words, and she scratched her head, bouncing her blonde hair around a bit.

“They are like monsters, but they all think, and use magic, few, but they are strong, some have horns, and like fire, some have wings like bird but not a bird, and…” She stopped when he nodded.

“We call them ‘Demons’ in my home.” Archos replied with a grim thought. ‘I will have to ask more about this later… but if there are demons, that changes things.’

“As you say. Demons. Kieb. Same. But that is what Malach is to me. He knows he lies, and does so for himself, I must kill him, I have to or I will never be satisfied.” Ayente answered and her hand went tight around the crude hilt of the unusual sword she’d made.

Her other hand touched the deep marks that raked her face and were starting to scar over, and drifted down to the necklace made of the claws that did it. “I know why you stop, this is a great change, you worry. You are good to me. I did not know how much until I knew you would not end me. I am ready, I will do what I must. And if… if something happens to me, promise me.” She swallowed and chewed on her tongue for a moment.

“Promise you what?” He asked, taking his talon away from her chin, he withdrew it until she grabbed it with both hands and held it tight enough that her skin split.

“Promise, kill Malach, but not the rest, even if you will not help them, they are his victims too, he lies to all, deceives all, I know I may have to take more than his life, but this is for the tribe. What use is any of it, if all die? So please… mercy, Archos. Mercy for them. “Los lak.” [No kill]

The silence hung there like a knife dangling over someone bound and helpless, waiting for it to fall. Finally Archos cut the thread of anticipation himself and replied, “As you want. On condition that you shrink from nothing. A grim thing comes, and you will not survive if you do not charge ahead.”

“I will not forget. Now, come, Archos. I want to see their faces when we show the never done to those who said it could not be, and that we made it so.” Ayente grinned at her convoluted statement and took a step forward, she was a half pace beyond Archos before he understood her meaning, then he snorted and began to pull the sled. Behind them, standing atop the heap of fur and flesh, a little fenrisu barked excitedly as if he were driving the sled, his little paws bouncing up and down at the dragon’s back, his tiny heart pounding at the range of new smells blown from over the hill.

Fey’Ka’El clenched his fists into the dirt for the thousandth time as he tracked them. The hard packed ground scraped against his fingers. He gritted his teeth and his long pointed ears twitched at their words, none of which he understood. ‘What good is it to hear them if I understand nothing?!’ He cursed. He rose slightly in the field of high grass to see better what they did, and watched as the human female attacked the dragon with the long bone again and again.

‘Are they fighting?’ That had been his first thought, the marked woman certainly gave it her all, but he never finished her off. Only let her rise. ‘Training, he is training her.’ He bit his lower lip as he thought back to the stories of the last dragon to come to the world. ‘I don’t recall that one ‘training’ anybody, at least no stories of it… just killing in exchange for what it wanted until it vanished. How many demons did it take to bring that one down…?’ Unpleasant thoughts became dreadful thoughts, but he forced them to silence while he watched her create the crude imitation of his weapon.

When they moved on, he followed, low, distant, watching, as his race had always done with not even the rustle of plants to give him away as he moved through them more silently than the wind itself, stopping his movement only when they came to the base of the hill, and frowning at the two words he did understand. ‘No kill? No kill who? Not us… definitely not the fenrisu or the onikoslof. Something might be made of this, if I knew what she was speaking of.’ His ears twitched instinctively when he saw them begin to move up, and he resumed the long, slow process of following them in a round about way, to watch from another angle for whatever would happen next.

Malach grimaced, he was watching the way they’d come, and had been for some time, ‘They will come back today.’ he thought to himself. He knew that as his skin had been crawling all morning, and he was watching for them. ‘Divine curse on you both. Monster and demon girl! Cursed child! Shame child! Die out there! I hope your monster eats you the way you say he will!’ Malach cursed her over and over again on a loop, her and the monster she brought with her to the tribe.

He felt a hand on his arm, Ayente’s mother, he knew her touch. “Does my curse come?” She asked with bile dripping from her tongue, she practically spat the words and would not say Ayente’s name.

“The gods tell me she does.” Malach whispered, her fingers tensed on his bicep.

She lowered her eyes, “I will come to you tonight, if that is what the gods will.”

She brushed her straw blonde hair back and closed her eyes. “No, look at me.” He said and touching her cheek, he turned her face to his. She looked so much like her daughter. “You will atone for her again.”

She touched the cheek where the red palm imprint started to fade. She nodded. It was muted, it was silent and humble, and it was full of wrath.

Any further talk was cut off when Malach sucked in his breath, there cresting the hill were two blurred figures. Malach’s stomach growled, and as if she heard him, as if the cursed bitch heard him where she stood, she shouted.

“Paek yut yas! Paek yut yas! Paek Yut Yas!” She shouted from the crest and yanking out her imitation sword she jumped and thrust it at the sky in triumph.

Archos worked out the meaning for himself, ‘We have food.’

It was amusing to watch her antics, her faux bone sword waving around, unmade yet into what it would be, her lingering looks and long touches over it were uncountable as they walked. He watched the wheels of her mind turn through the corner of her eye as she worked out one detail after another. The base handle was nothing but a strip of wrapped fur, crude but comfortable, and the way her hand went up and down it told him there was more ahead.

Her face was alight as she spun in the air to alert her people to her return, and he barely restrained the urge to shake his head.

“Come, they hear.” He said, and began to pull the sled. She stowed the long bone and followed after, while behind her Fen’Biter was giving a ‘rooo’ noise, howling with his small legs open and apart and baying to the sky.

The small tribe, drawn by the promise of food, ran from the many different things they were doing to gather at the base of the hill a few feet behind where Malach stood with his wrinkled brow above hate filled eyes. His hand palmed the handle of his ax, He felt his fingers prickle at the splinter that broke off into his skin, and tightened his grip. Muttering behind him as they saw that the pair had not been lying in the least.

The large wooden sled pulled by the brute monster was piled high with fenrisu and unikoslof bodies. The piled heap was taller than Ayente herself, and she snatched up her spear from off the sled and planted the butt of it into the earth, she put her hand on her hip and looked through eyes of blue to the only people she’d ever known, and her eyes locked onto Malach, and her mother beside him.

They stared at her as if they’d never met her before. Her back was rigid and straight and her eyes narrowed deep with rage, her body shook, silence hung in the air, most of all they stared at the long streaks over her face that were already forming scars that would never go away.

“Go… get the food.” Malach barked at the nearest of the surviving warriors, one of the shame children.

“No!” Ayente sharply snapped at him, “Brother, do not move!”

The heavily muscled man stopped in mid step and looked at her through hazel eyes that were widening with uncertainty.

“I will speak first!” She exclaimed and drew up her spear and leveled it at Malach. Collective gasps ran through the tribe at the unthinkable act.

She held the spear out from her body and a low growl emerged from her lips, her teeth slowly bared. “What is this?! Are you not cursed enough that you bring your curse down on all of us?! You anger the gods!” Malach began to raise his hand to point at her, and then fell silent with his mouth open when she answered him.

“There are none! You are a liar, Malach! You lie to us all! To me! You ruined my life! You took everything from me! Even…. Even her… what no one should take… you took…” Ayente’s spear moved from pointing at Malach, to pointing at the breast of her mother.

Her spear shook in her arm as the flesh of her form quivered in pent up fury. “You have lied about being the voice of the gods! You speak for none but yourself and today that all ends! I am not cursed! I am not shamed! I am the killer of the Onikoslof! Mother and killer of the fenrisu! I bear dragon’s blood in my veins and I will be stolen from no more!”

“Ayente! Are you…” The voice of her mother began and Ayente shut it down.

Ayente’s teeth bared like a fenrisu in fury as she shouted down her mother. “Shut up! You have cursed me all my life! Hated me all my life! You are no mother to me! I did not cover your body! Makine’s father did that! I did not beg you to birth me or nurse me! I did not demand life! I did not cause your shame! And I will be shamed by you no more! I am not the curse! You are the curse! You are my curse!”

“I reject you!” She looked at her mother with icy hatred in her eyes, and turned her gaze to Malach, “But you… I don’t reject. You I will kill.”

Malach’s heart began to pound in his chest, the happy dance he’d seen at the top of the hill was gone and in its place was a whirlwind of hate. He snapped out of his disbelief when she spoke of ending his life, but she was clearly not done. She took a step forward with her spear still out in front, drawing closer to him.

“Our tribe needs a chief! I say it is me. I knew the mind of the last chief better than any other, I was like a daughter to him, you all know this, many of you argued against him for it. But now he is dead. So now I will take his place.”

“She’s gone mad! The monster corrupted her, he used her curse! Stop her! Kill her! Kill the cursed one! Kill the shamed one or the gods will abandon us!” Malach staggered back when she demanded the chiefhood, and took a step forward with her spear leveled at him.

“Nobody move!” Ayente shouted, cutting off the sudden stirring of action, “I bring food, anyone who moves to help Malach, does not eat of it! Anyone who refuses to support me, does not eat of it! I will not feed the snake that will bite my breast! I will feed my tribe!” She shouted it loud and raw, so raw it cracked her throat to spill the words out.

“But who is my tribe?! He is not!” Ayente leveled her eyes at Malach. “And I do not even know her…” She spat at the dirt in front of her mother’s feet. The woman stood frozen, save for a single motion to cover her mouth, until at last she began to shake her head in a tiny gesture of denial.

The tribe was frozen… hungry bellies growled, desperate eyes looking longingly at the greatest amount of food they’d ever seen in one place. A little fenrisu pup stood atop an onikoslof head and growled at them, daring to come closer. Archos however, did nothing, he kept his fingers calmly wrapped around the hilt of his blade, he didn’t open his mouth, he didn’t glare, he didn’t make a sound.

His tail swished slightly back and forth behind him, bending the grass back and forth the heavy clublike end occasionally driving off an insect. He simply waited.

Ayente’s voice grew calmer, “I know all of you, love… all of you… almost. You are my people, my only people, everything I ever did, even trying to win the favor of the gods… it was all to help you. That is all I wanted, my growing plants, my hunting, fighting, the new makings… please… see me! He… he has blinded you, all of you! Convinced some of you that you were born cursed, hated by the gods… But he lies, lies about everything! He slakes his lust when he wants by saying it is what the gods wish, he consumes food he never hunts and takes credit for victories he did nothing for! I will feed you! Will Malach?! Will the gods?!”

“I willed the gods to bless you!” Malach shrieked in sudden fear as another step brought her closer to him, he stepped back, the path opened as the tribe moved out of his way.

“That is why your hunt is successful! That is why! My prayers saved you!” Malach looked around frantically, his heart continued to pound harder, he looked to Ayente’s mother, she looked at him in a way she never had.

Her eyes held doubt, they shimmered and shook, and the head shaking grew more and more obvious. ‘It can’t be! It can’t be! I can’t have traded away everything for this… he’s lying right in front of me. He would never… ever have blessed Ayente or her efforts. All this time… no… she’s the curse, she has to be! She has to be! But he is clearly lying now… I know he is… I know it because…’’ She touched her cheek where she’d begged his forgiveness for her daughter’s defiance, where he’d hit her repeatedly before letting her offer supplication. ‘There was no blessing… and if there was no blessing… was there a curse?! Did he do all that just to use me, just to use her when she got old enough…?!’

The tribe parted ways for Ayente to pass through them with her leveled spear still pointed at Malach, who stumbled backward after his protestation of blessing, and fell hard onto his ass. His hands scrambled frantically, his legs kicked, and he walked himself backward in the grass and dirt, sweat poured down his flesh, and that was not the only liquid to stain the ground beneath him.

“You smell like fear…Malach.” Ayente spat at his face. “You’re the voice of the gods, their blessed, one, their chosen favorite… don’t you want their reward?” He scrambled back further as her legs carried her closer and closer, eating up ground, he fumbled for his ax. He yanked it up and threw it at her with a defiant, terrified shout.

Ayente batted it away contemptuously. The ax slid along the ground until it stopped at her mother’s feet. The sound of the slap, the gentle thudding of it before it slid to a stop were the only noises to precede the whimper Malach let out.

“You stole my life from me. Now I take it back, by taking yours and ending the line of lies you have lived by… if the gods wish to spare you, if the gods love you and despise me, then let them strike me down to save you.” She snarled the words out and thrust her spear into his foot, he howled and thrashed as the blood spurted out. He clutched at the wound.

“Stop her! Stop her!” Malach cried out, his jaw opening wide enough to let a thousand words emerge, but he only used two, over and over, growling stomachs and fearful looks were all he got in return as the chosen of the gods lay at the mercy of a curse.

Malach’s eyes fell to Ayente’s mother. “Strike her down!” He shouted to the trembling woman, “Strike down your daughter, and I will bless her soul so that she is redeemed in death! This is your chance to save her! Don’t you want to save her?!”

Ayente barely processed the words before the desperate older woman snatched up Malach’s axe and charged. Her legs pumped hard and she came on shrieking wildly with the ax raised overhead, her long hair flew high behind her, her breasts heaved from the sudden rush of effort.

Ayente spun around instinctively, her spear still out, the tip of it reached her mother long before the shrieking woman could close the gap and bring the ax to bear. The sharp obsidian opened up the front half of the throat of Ayente’s only parent. Blood fountained and all sense of coordination and will were shattered, the ax fell from twitching fingers and she staggered and stumbled into the grass, staining it red before she fell gurgling, choking, gasping on her own blood. The bright red flow of life slipped down into her lungs when it didn’t spurt out and stain the grass even further, and wide eyes full of life faded and dulled as death took hold to stare at the endless sky until they saw no more.

“That is the last thing you’ll ever take from me… and it was nothing of value.” Ayente snarled as she spun back before Malach could say more. She took the final step forward and thrust the spear into his chest, through the gap in his ribs, ripping open his heart. She felt the meat of his flesh part under the force of her thrust and let a banshee cry of hatred fly from her lips to chill the blood of those near at hand, and for good measure, she twisted the spear, tearing away the last beat to deny him even one more second of life.

He jack-knifed and clawed desperately at the wound for only a moment, the whites of his eyes enormous with terror, and then blank, he fell back to the ground with a pathetic ‘thud’.

Ayente was breathing hard, ragged, as if she’d been in a great battle, her chest rose and fell as if longing for breath that was fleeing from her. Her fingers trembled, nerveless and shaking, she let go of the spear, allowing it to stand up, erect, lodged in the body of the dead Malach. “You never saw that coming… did you, Malach?” She asked the silent body, and spat into his already slackening face. The spit struck him at the eye, and trickled down the side like a tear, to pool and mix with red blood on green grass, and only then did she turn around to face the rest of her people.

After staring from one corpse to the next for what seemed an eternity, Ayente leveled her eyes to the remainder of her people, who stared at her with a mix of horror and fascination. Open mouthed, wide eyes, wringing hands, nervous shuffling of their feet, and to her surprise, among the surviving cursed children, some joyful smiles that could not be repressed. “Who wishes to starve, tend to their bodies, who wishes to eat, follow me and help me prepare the food. Tonight, we declare a new chief, and a new beginning for the Red Ax.”