Neda hadn’t been this angry in the pit before. The darkness had always had a way of stealing away her fighting spirit and remind her of the uselessness of struggling against a whole world full of people who were- no... who thought they were her betters. In their brief moment out in the desert, the tall, thin, pale man had done something to her- given her something she feared he could never take back. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to lose it, now that she had it. The people up there- those wicked, cruel people were as bestial as they’d ever been. Cleftus had continued about his day and ignored as the others had dragged his recently deceased brother through the village- she had seen it with her own eyes. Under the guise of caring for their own; they justified selling children to slaughter, but if that was all she had suffered for... if the village up there was what she and Rallo had been sold to save.

She felt nauseated- far too nauseated to eat any more of the food, where she sat and watched the clear, distant, starry skies above. Barrel lay next to her- shining his small, black, worried bulbs towards her with an empathy and a care she’d rather not receive- not now... not when her thoughts were so dark. Finally; Asrael stood up from his dark corner and calmly strode towards the two.

“It is time.” He informed. At his command; a head of dark hair appeared to peer down the well. A moment later; the familiar rope fell down and struck Barrel’s abdomen with a slap.

Neda looked at the gleeful necromancer with disbelief. That was one of his soldiers- one of the three women. He grabbed the rope and began his climb in silence, soon to be joined by the curious Neda- leaving the chauffeur to his momentary safety with a wave of her hand.

Outside; the village was calm- almost abandoned in the darkness, save for Asrael, Neda, the tall, naked Ogre and the three women. The woman who had peered down the well stepped up to touch Neda’s cheek with a transformed hand of long, black claws.

Asrael began walking towards the storage-house and spoke a warning over his shoulder; “I have made some minor modifications to her nails. You will find they are quite sharp.” The woman smiled at the wildling girl before joining her master on his journey towards the storage-facility.

“They’ll find us-” Asrael shook his head decidedly.

“No. Nearly all of them are outside the village- digging graves and lighting pyres. I have Kerras to watch them and to make certain we are still alone.” The necromancer waved his hand to the right and at his command; the massive Lieutenant began lurching to the east- towards the maggots. Next; he sent one of his women into the storage-house before turning towards a familiar, recently-reconstructed yurt in the middle of the village with a malicious smile. His green eyes had that same darkness about them- that pitch-black center of evil she had glimpsed on the night of her freeing.

She followed after him and hurriedly questioned; “W-what are you planning?” He cocked his head and paused to look at the tent ahead of him- properly gauging that they had taken the time to expand it since last its canvas was torn.

“I am planning on finding out how she knew.”

_______________________________________

Manjuseth lay awake- staring up at the peak of the yurt. She could count on one hand the number of times she had cried ever since becoming the Elder and correctly assumed this day would count two fingers. Her heart had sunk into her stomach as soon as she had heard the news- an exile, a filthy, disgusting criminal from another tribe had killed their hunters. All of them. She imagined her poor, terrorized boys; minding their own business out there on the flats, only to suffer from the murderous assassin. Cleftus had theorized that the man had to have been some form of magus, but she knew it to be false. If he had been; she would’ve been able to tell- even after his death.

A rustle at the flap made her sigh and croak; “Leave me be. I must rest before the ritual-” the rustling continued, even as she began speaking her dismissal. She looked down towards the flap to see a green, malicious eye glare at her through the canvas. She froze. It couldn’t be-

“This time; your men will not be so quick to cut us off.” Asrael spoke as he pressed past the flap, followed shortly by the wide-eyed, open-mouthed Neda.

“Men! Intruder!” Manjuseth shouted, only for Asrael’s smile to grow wide across his face.

There was a dark bemusement to his voice as he retorted; “Oh, you will have to scream louder than that. The few men still inside the village are now nursing their shattered limbs down in that pit of yours... not that they could have done much to help you. The median age of this encampment is now quite high and it would seem your kind have a propensity for osteoporosis.” He stepped over towards the frozen woman and crouched down to glare at her and whisper;

“Tell me... how did you know I was not Kerras?” Manjuseth looked to Neda with a pleading grimace;

“Please, Neda! You’re still one of us, you-” The unnerving, pale man was frightening on his own, but something had changed in the girl since last she had seen her. The red eyes met hers in a glare to freeze blood- such was the girl’s fury. Asrael looked over his shoulder to revel in the madness of his silent companion, only to feel a painful sensation in his chest. Neda grabbed for her mouth and yelped as she saw the silver dagger the ancient woman had buried through his sternum in the brief moment of his inattentiveness. As disapproving as he was of the painful intrusion into his flesh, he could not help but grin at the resulting look of horror on the old woman’s face as she realized... something was wrong. He grabbed the old woman’s hand holding the dagger in his chest and squeezed his fingers around her wrist.

A series of cracks were followed by a muffled scream as he shoved her broken appendage into her mouth to still her lips. Next; he dragged the dagger from his flesh and glanced about the yurt. There had to be something here- some piece of intelligence as to how this woman knew how to tell magi apart from non-magi.

“I will give you one, last chance, old woman. Tell me your secret and I will allow you to live out the remainder of your days in this Hell you've built.” Stricken by the panic of being held hostage by what could only be a Demon; she squeezed her eyes shut briefly and bit down on her broken hand. When her eyelids slid open; he could see the secret she had been hiding- a most curious mutation. There was a glint of magic to her eyes- a faint reflection of green- his own magic. He reached up to touch her face and bled a tendril of power into her orbit to verify his suspicions. The old woman’s eyes were highly vascularized- highly empowered in comparison to the rest of her, meaning they would potentially be useful to express some form of magic. Such gifts were rare and in the days of old; he had come across traits similar to them and pondered if they had been some form of rudimentary, magical organs...

But now... he had seen it first-hand. They were not rudimentary, as much as they were unused. Now that the magi were stronger and the magics flowed freely through the world; he imagined he’d see more mutations like it. He would be a fool to pass up such a rare treat and raised the blade to the side of her face.

She jerked and screamed into her broken hand, only for the necromancer to smile at her and say; “I had imagined you people would be more stoic out here in the Blight. Those men of yours who died out on the sands were just as terrified- just as weakly and pathetic as you are.” Tears ran down her cheeks as she imagined the tortures he had in store for her. Above him; Neda’s red eyes glared upon the woman who had cursed her and Rallo to their horrific fates. He had been just as terrified on numerous occasions, she had been even more scared.

Slicing out the bulb proved a surprisingly easy task. Perhaps it was due to her age or some anatomical variation of her orbit, but the extraocular muscles seemed eager to rid themselves of her right eye. It had taken him less than five minutes to completely gouge it to the point he could turn it over in his hand and study the remarkable piece of anatomy and she had remained impressively still throughout the procedure- lightening the burden of his work.

Asrael turned the eye over in his hand and rose to his height- dropping the knife down unto the blood-soaked, old woman to devote his attention to his freshest study. Neda wished above all she could lunge across the tent, grab the dagger and finish the job.

Neda questioned the now-disinterested necromancer: “Aren’t you gonna kill her!?”

He raised an eyebrow and shook his head at her. “No. The war is just starting for her.” Neda tensed her fists and took the initiative- pushing past her companion to grab the knife.

She knelt down and watched the near-unconscious, old bat’s hand drop from her mouth in a series of disorganized mutters. Neda’s eyes were welled with tears. This was her chance- this was her moment to avenge her brother... but the silver knife remained in her petrified hands.

Through tremoring lips, the girl spoke: “The fuck do you mean, war!? S-she... y-you said...”

Unexpectantly; Asrael chuckled darkly behind her as he made his way for the flap. Glancing around outside; he saw the tall column of smoke from the direction of the storage and turned to speak; “Come, girl.” She tried several times to sink the blade into the woman’s chest, but to no avail. Something was preventing her from going through with the deed... and that something was the darkness in Asrael’s eyes. He ripped the canvas off of the yurt and sent it soaring to the upset winds- towards the conflagrated storage, where the precious, few foodstuffs they had left flew like ashen butterflies in the chaotic streams of air.

This time; Manjuseth’s cries were of a much more profound agony- far worse than when Asrael had crushed her hand or taken her bulb. The fire’s reflection glinted in his eyes as he promised; “Without hunters, without cattle, without water and food; I wonder what the bestial folk of your village will do.” He chuckled. She screamed diabolical, panicked gibberish repeatedly, as she thrashed around on her bedroll and watched their future go out in the tall inferno.

Neda dropped the knife and stood to her feet for Asrael to speak; “Our kind, girl, could have saved them. We could have doused the flames and regrown their crops, healed their wounds and seen to the success of their hunts. But no... They would rather throw our gifts to the hounds and be like beasts.” This man... this terrible, evil creature of a man, had just doomed them to spend the last of their days starving and thirsting.

He continued; “The war she so vehemently insisted on avoiding has caught up with her. It was never a battle of us against them, but rather; them against themselves. They are weak- unworthy of life and she will soon see it as they start devouring one-another in starvation.” His lips split apart in a grin once more as he raised the unique prize to stare into its dark uvea.

Manjuseth writed and screamed; “You monster! You’ve killed us all! You’ve murdered our children!”

Asrael turned over his shoulder to scoff at her. “I merely accelerated your natural decline. Your hunters were weak, your stores were unprotected throughout the night, but the gravest of your faults are your own to carry. You chose to discard us. Now; we discard you.” With that; he turned towards the distant carriage- either ignorant or uncaring for the roaring, panicking villagers approaching from the hastily construed graveyard in the distance.

Barrel’s stomach still hurt from where the women had tied the rope around him and dragged him to the surface through the rain of screaming, elderly men crunching to the ground beneath him. But their silent message had been read loud and clear and as they hurriedly led him towards the horses; he knew what he had to do. He bound them while apologizing for his tardiness, only to receive their scrutiny and the commonplace jabs from the gentle creatures and by the time Asrael had made his way over towards the carriage; Barrel and the five dead were ready to go and patiently awaited their Master.

Words were unnecessary; the chaos in their wake spoke for itself. They would have to brave the night and traverse the dark paths with naught but the stars to light their way. Even Neda knew, despite her lack of experience in regards to travels, that leaving the camp was sooner rather than later was in everyone’s best interest. She set her foot on the ramp and froze as she saw a pair of bright-green bulbs peer back at her from within the darkness of the carriage. This brutal, uncaring man could be nothing less evil than a Demon. His strength aside; his presence alone spoke promises of the power to change a world- to bring about his vision of justice... and from what she had seen thus far... the world needed his justice.

She braced herself for him to protest her arrival, but instead; he shouted for the front of the carriage.

“Set a course for the wall. I am done toying with these wildling primates. And you.” Her heart sank as she heard him speak in her direction. Was this when he would finally discard her? Would she find herself thrown back into the pit by the end of the night? He continued; “close the hatch and sit down. You’ve lessons to learn.” Despite the horrors they had sown; her chest slammed a palpitation of rare joy- curiously contrasting what she had felt just a moment previous. Perhaps, she thought as she sat down; he was right? Perhaps this was right?