"There aren't as many people as I thought there would be," Yunkef whispered as they made their way around shacks, keeping to the corners and moving swiftly. A few darkness-touched still busied themselves around the camp, having ignored their fellows earlier. "We just need supplies."

"I know, I know," Red whispered back. She led the three of them through the camp, signaling and pausing whenever a darkness-touched passed near them. "The kitchen area seems to be over there. We just need some bags to swipe the food."

"What about the armory? Have you seen any weapons?" Cross asked.

"Haven't seen any yet, but they might be towards the back of the camp. Let's split up, I'll get the food. You two look for clothes and weapons."

"Right. Be safe, Red." Cross clapped his twin on the shoulder and Red went on ahead, darting to the next shack and keeping hidden. "Yunkef, you're with me. We're getting more spears."

"Are you sure? Shouldn't we stick to Red?"

"Don't be a coward on me now, Yunkef! You heard her, let's split up. We need to get as much done as we can. Now shut up and come on!"

Cross led the way around the camp with Yunkef following him as closely as possible. Cross had a larger body than Yunkef, with a broader chest and stockier build. Yunkef all but disappeared when he hid behind him as they went from shack to shack. Soon, they made their way towards the far end of the camp without attracting the attention of whoever manned the watchtower.

At the far end of the camp was where the darkness-touched processed the beasts from their hunts. Dozens of beast carcasses were laid out on the ground, some skinned for their hides, others gutted, all dead. There was an assortment of beast shapes, with some having tentacles and others with more legs than necessary. A pile of bones still wet with black blood had been thrown into a corner, while large sheets of beast hide were stretched in frames to be made into leather. As they moved behind cover, Cross pointed to another section of the beast processing area. A long table strewn with ropes and cords chipped and filed chunks of rock, and sharpened beast parts also had a selection of newly finished weapons.

Cross looked around him to make sure there was no one near before approaching the table. He grabbed a spear tipped with a slightly curved length of beast jaw bone filed along its edge to razor sharpness, and a beast-bone blade with barbs at the tip and a polished stone handle. He nodded to himself, happy with his prize, and looked back to Yunkef. He wasn't there.

"Yunkef?" Cross whispered, looking this way and that. "Yunkef! Where've you gone?"

Yunkef had gone ahead through the beast processing area. There was something past it, something he had not seen from their vantage point earlier near the sheets of rock.

The faint sound of a woman's laughter was coming from the farthest area of the camp.

Yunkef found himself walking without meaning to, drawn to the far edge of the darkness-touched camp as if called by the voice itself. The beast-bone palisade stopped flush against a tall, sheer cliff, both sides of the fence flanking the entrance to a cave. Yunkef's blood went cold as he saw it.

Strewn all around the ground near the entrance to the cave were not offerings of beast parts, as Yunkef first thought. Arrange into neat piles and placed with reverence were human bones. A skull sat ghastly white against the backdrop of the pitch black cave, and shreds of bloodstained clothes had been carefully folded into its own pile. The circle-with-rays motif of the Church of the Eternal Flame was prominent among the clothes in the pile, being repeated with worrying regularity.

Terror jolted through Yunkef's every nerve, and yet he walked on, drawn towards the cave. He gingerly stepped over the pile of bones, his foot nudging a beast-bone blade that had been left on the floor, still bloodied.

The woman's light laughter rang out from the cave as he approached. "How interesting, to see you here so soon." the voice said, soft in his ears but ringing in his mind.

"Who are you?" Yunkef breathed.

"You know who I am."

"The Lady Black."

The woman's voice laughed lightly as if hearing a great joke. "You're a smart young man. I am sure you know what that pile is by your feet."

"The darkness-touched have been hunting people from the Citadel."

"Observant, as well. Yes." Yunkef could hear the smile in the voice. "My lovely followers are eager to hunt those that cling to the light, the poor things. My zealots, my chosen ones, they are simply so excited to hunt. Just like my little ones, my pets, they're all the same and it's wonderful to watch."

"But why?" Yunkef's voice caught in his throat. He ached to turn and run, to grab Cross and Red and run screaming out of the camp, but his legs refused to move. "Why are you doing this?"

"Why?" the voice laughed again, but the hint of malice in it sent shivers down Yunkef's spine. "Because I am the god of this world, little boy. Nothing is beyond my reach, nothing is beyond my darkness."

The darkness within the cave, impenetrable even with his enhanced vision, began to creep out from the cave in a cloud of mist-like wisp. "Everything within the darkness is mine, and there is no escape. Those who cling to their light and flame are fools living on borrowed time. Those who hide in their Settlements of stone and foraged scrap delude themselves with the belief that they are safe from my touch. All will fall into my fold, my followers and children will see to that."

The darkness stretched out towards him and Yunkef screamed. He fell backward, into the pile of bones and shredded clothes, and scrambled to his feet in a flurry of panic. As he clawed at the ground to steady himself, his hands closed around the handle of the bloodied ritual dagger.

The playful, mischievous laughter that echoed out from the cave was tinged with malice. In the second it took Yunkef to turn his back on the cave and get to his feet, the terrible, heavy sense of dread weighed down on his heart as if he was a prey animal realizing there was no escape from an all-powerful predator. The sound of a hundred teeth gnashing at once erupted from the cave, accompanied by the scratching of claws on stone. Large beasts poured out from the cave, with bodies as large as the beast-bone palisade around them suggested. Yunkef screamed and ran full tilt away from the wave of beasts and twisting cloud of darkness. He didn't care if he attracted attention from the rest of the camp, he didn't care.

The Lady Black's playful voice laughed again, loudly ringing in Yunkef's ears and for the first time, her voice did not sound like it was only inside his head. "You know what to do!" she said in a tone that suggested it was all a grand, fun game.

"Yunkef!" Cross said as Yunkef ran screaming towards him. His hands were full with a collection of weapons and armor. "Where have you been?"

"Run!" Yunkef's eyes were wide with panic, and he grabbed Cross's arm as he ran and pulled him along, causing him to drop a few blades. "Run!"

"Why?" As soon as the word escaped his mouth, he heard the wave of beasts before he could see them. He turned and ran after Yunkef without another word.

"Red, run! Get out of the camp and run!" Yunkef said as he ran into the main camp, not caring if he drew attention to himself. He ran past darkness-touched zealots that were working around the camp, and they were slow to draw their blades as the wave of snarling beasts and true darkness descended upon them. Yunkef didn't pause as the agonized screams of the zealots were cut short by the slavering, gnashing mouths of the beasts behind him.

Red was in the act of filling a beast-hide bag with spare clothes from the tents when she heard Yunkef's terrorized screaming. It was hard to miss from the general quiet within the camp. She exited the tent, and saw Yunkef running as fast as he could, followed by Cross, who was followed by the biggest beasts she had ever seen in her life. Red didn't need to be told twice.

The three of them were almost at the gates of the camp when the guards that were left noticed the source of the commotion. Though they turned towards the group and brandished their weapons, their faces paled the second they looked past the three and farther up the path.

"The guards! What do we do?" Red said as she ran, bags in tow.

"Run past them! They don't matter, we just need to get out of here!" Yunkef's voice was high-pitched with panic.

They ran full tilt towards the guards and ducked under their weapons, but the guards weren't paying attention anyway. Yunkef ran on without looking behind him, but Red screamed.

"Cross, no! No!"

Yunkef looked behind him and saw Cross be swallowed by the wave of darkness in a split second, and Red starting to run back towards her twin. He doubled back and grabbed Red around the waist, hauling her bodily away. "We have to go, Red!"

"No, Cross! I have to go back for him!"

"He's gone! You need to get away!"

"No, no, no!" Red screamed over and over again even as Yunkef dragged her away from the camp. "That's my brother!"

"Anre!"

Within seconds, Anre rushed over atop his beast. With his help, Yunkef got Red onto Ice's back and he climbed on as well. With Red unconsolable, they sped off leaving the darkness-touched camp behind to be swallowed by the wave of beasts and darkness from the being the zealots worshipped.

"What happened?"Anre yelled over the sound of Red sobbing. "I was leading the guards on a chase and suddenly everyone's screaming!"

"Lady Black! She was in the cave behind the camp, she sent the beasts!" Yunkef held onto Ice's hide even as his knuckles went white.

"What! Did you see her?"

"No but I heard her, and she's been making darkness-touched and beasts to snuff out all the light in the world."

"If the beasts were on her side, and so were the zealots, why would the beasts eat them?"

"I don't know, but I don't want to be close enough to find out. Where can we go?"

"There are more darkness-touched camps where the ground starts to go up; I heard them all over."

"If there's opposition, there must be a reason for it." Yunkef bit his lip, scared and unsure. Draped across the back of the beast, her tears falling from her face and into the many eyes dotting Ice's hide and causing them to blink and tear up themselves was Red. Usually surefooted and confident, to see her like this tugged at something in Yunkef's heart. "Let's find somewhere safe to set up camp first, Anre."

Ice ran hard for a long time, bogged down by three humans, and the going got progressively harder the farther the beast ran. The ground's incline was increasing slightly, but it was enough to take a lot out of the beast. Ice finally had to stop by a shelf of rock, open to the elements but flat land among the slopes. While his beast flopped over on the ground, panting heavily, Anre took charge of setting up camp. Yunkef looked just about to faint, and while Red had finally managed to stop crying, the wild man knew it was rude to disturb her now. They had only what Red managed to steal from the darkness-touched camp and no weapons.

"We have food, and a change of clothes," Anre said softly, feeling his way through Red's pack. "Yunkef, I think you should change. I smell blood."

"What? Where?" Yunkef groaned as he sat heavily on the ground. As he did, he realized, with a jolt of pain, just how ruined his Citadel sandals were. It was easy to remove the footwear as it was hanging on by threads and frayed ropes. His feet were bloody and raw from running so far and fast on rough ground with flimsy shoes. Wincing with every movement, he gingerly took the change of clothes from Anre and changed out of his filthy Citadel robes.

Wincing, Yunkef went to tend to his feet. He had not noticed the pain at all from the sheer amount of terror coursing through him before. But now that they all had a moment to sit and calm their racing hearts, the various pains started to make themselves known. Yunkef reached for his cast off robe, tearing it into strips.

"Here, let me." Yunkef looked up at the sound of the voice and saw Red approaching him. Her eyes were still red from crying, but she had stopped sobbing. She took the torn robe from Yunkef and started wrapping the strips around his bandaged feet.

"Red, you don't have to. Please rest, I can handle this." Yunkef said softly.

"It's fine, I need to do something. I can't just sit around doing nothing and thinking about..." Red took a breath, the tears threatened to spill from her eyes. One tear did drop and soak into the makeshift bandages, and Yunkef winced.

"I'm sorry about Cross."

"You didn't let me go back for him."

Yunkef looked away, a lump in his throat. "If I did, you would be gone as well, Red. I..." he trailed off.

Red said nothing in response, instead she focused all her attention on bandaging Yunkef's wounds.

After a short while in uneasy silence, Yunkef cleared his throat. "Thank you, Red."

"Don't mention it. It's the least I could do." Red said with a bit of a sniff. "I've always wanted to heal people, but it's only ever been my brother and me. So consider this practice too. I'd give you something to put on the wounds to speed up the healing, but we don't have much right now. If we could find well water and mushrooms..."

Anre's ears pricked up when he heard. "Mushrooms? There are some here on this shelf. Not a lot, but we have something. No water around though, just rocks."

"It's alright, I'll make do. Thank you for the clothes though." Yunkef pulled over a pair of boots stolen from the darkness-touched camp. "These fit just right!"

"I tried to get the ones I thought would fit you boys, of course. I'm surprised they had boots lying around too." Red said with a slight smile as Yunkef gingerly pulled on his new boots. "And it's good that I found them if that's the state your sandals ended up in."

Yunkef picked up the bloodied, torn sandals and threw them over the side of their rock shelf. The sandals bounced and flopped against the rocks as they fell. "Well, can't get much use out of them now. And I think that keeping anything tying me back to the Citadel while we're out here will just attract the worst kind of attention."

Red couldn’t help but smile. "Yunkef, it was white. It showed up too well in the light."

Anre burst out laughing, and Yunkef gave a chuckle. He was happier to see Red in a lighter mood now than before.

"You have a point! Now all three of us can blend in a little more in case we come up against more darkness-touched." he said.

"Hopefully we won't have to run into any more of them at all. I think once was enough for a lifetime." Red mused, sitting on the ground and looking back at where they came. "Where are we, anyway?"

Yunkef looked out there too. There was something strange about the way the area looked. They were some distance uphill he knew, and while he could see a fair distance into the darkness, there was an odd grayish quality to his vision. "I have no idea. We're so far away from our homes, I don't even know where it is from here."

"And we don't know where we're going."

"No, but think of it this way." Anre chimed in from where he lay on the ground, his arms folded under his head. "Nothing important would be guarded by so many enemies, right? Maybe you found back at camp was really precious to those guys."

"Oh it was precious alright," Yunkef muttered. "Lady Black herself. But it's strange that I found her there though."

"Why, what do you mean? You met her before, right?"

"Yes, but it was at another cave, a lot closer to my home Settlement. How did she get here?"

"Maybe she travels like Night does. Seems all-powerful enough for it after all."

"That's true." Yunkef sighed, idly looking out at the way they came. "She said something before letting the beasts out of the cave though. ”You know what to do," she said."

Red looked over at him. "What did you mean by that?"

"I have no idea!"

Anre huffed. "Maybe she wasn't even talking to you."

"If she wasn't, then who?" Yunkef trailed off, deep in thought. His two friends shrugged, just as clueless as he was.

The group took a while to rest at their makeshift camp. Going through their supplies, Yunkef found that they really didn't have that much. Most of the provisions from Red and Cross's home had been lost from various encounters, and they only had what Red managed to steal from the darkness-touched camp. Some food rations and a change of clothes were all they had left. Cross had the weapons, but those were lost along with him. Sighing heavily, Yunkef returned to the edge of the shelf and sat, looking out at the sights. He found himself looking out from his spot a lot, as all his life in the Settlement was on flat ground with the watchtower as the only significantly high point. Now, he was able to see great distances around him and from a great vantage point. Close to the horizon, he saw the jagged beast bones palisades of the darkness-touched camp, but something closer to them drew his attention.

The rock pillars they had been passing as they moved upwards formed a pattern. They were arranged in a rough circle, with some pillars clearly being meant to have connected to the one next to it but have eroded or collapsed in time. They also grew in size as the ground began to slope upward, and started to thin gradually as the incline increased. Yunkef followed the pattern till he looked to where they were going to go next, and saw the ground slope to a near-vertical wall some distance away from them.