"Follow me, bound one," The small woman said, still hovering in mid-air. Her hair, braided around strips of barbed wire that scraped Ryder's skin, still spilled from inside her hood like tentacles. The hair tightened painfully on Ryder's forearms, biceps, and several braids slid around his neck, tightening slightly.

The woman, suspended on her braids, or something Ryder couldn't see or understand, turned in place, floating deeper into the massive sledge. Ryder followed, the braids tightening painfully until he began moving. Once he began moving into the darkness, the braids relaxed slightly, the barbs dimpling his skin.

"This, little Xue'nghozi, is the House Steel and Blood," came the whispers from the darkness around him. Ryder looked around but didn't see anyone beyond massive suits of archaic metal armor, like he had seen in museums about the Crusades. Only these seemed like the plates were thicker, the suits bigger, and all of them engraved with complex runic patterns that flickers or burned with their own inner light.

The suits must be for show, some of them are ten feet tall and six feet wide. Nobody could actually fit in them, Ryder thought to himself.

"The mage blooded may boast and brag that it is their power that created the civilizations of the Six Worlds, but that is folly and arrogance," the whispers continued. "It ignores the reality of our existence, where the Gods have chosen to have us dwell."

They're so superstitious. Still, I should remember to not belittle their beliefs, all cultures are equal, no culture is better than any other culture, Ryder reminded himself.

"Magefire may create breathtakingly beautiful architecture, may enable creations akin to what the Gods would make, but it is steel and blood that tamed the Six Worlds, that protects it, and that destroys any threat to civilization," the whispers continued.

Violence is never a solution, Ryder thought to himself.

Sure as shit solved things for Nagasaki and Hiroshima's residents, another voice, a voice like his, only darker and crueler, sneered inside his head.

"Flint and muscle drove back the hordes of abominations of the Elder God War that followed out ancestors after the Great Trek," A sibilant voice whispered from the shadows. When Ryder looked he saw broken weapons scattered on the floor and hung on the walls. Battleaxes with broken blades or hafts, sundered and riven swords, pikes warped and smashed. All scattered about in a strange kind of order.

"Copper and determination slew the savage creatures of this world as we carved our place on the Plains of Blood," another voice whispered, this voice a rasp of a file on metal. When Ryder glanced over he saw hanging banners, arranged so as he passed them they gathered together in the shape of a massive armored figure with an axe raised over his head.

"Bronze, shields, and discipline enabled those willing and able to use it to carve out the first kingdoms and subjugate their more savage and barbaric neighbors, enabling the founding of farms and the breaking of beasts to cattle," this whisper sounded bubbly, as if they were talking though a mouthful of liquid. This time Ryder could see shields, heavily dented and in many places showing deep gashes, hanging on the walls in the shape of skulls.

"Then came iron and with it, came the rise of the great empires," the voices whispered from all sides. Ryder looked around wildly, feeling panic bubble up in his chest.

"Horrified at what they done, hacking those empires from the flesh of their neighbors, iron was set aside and magic allowed to rise," the whispers sounded angry, outraged. "And with the rise of magic, which only those blessed by the gods possess, came the rise of tyranny."

"Four thousand generations toiled beneath the yoke of the arcane and undying tyranny, power descending not from noble blood, not from sacrifice and dedication to books and knowledge, but to what the Gods of luck and chance placed in their blood. Each generation toiled under a heavier and heavier yoke," The voices hissed, growled, rasped, and bubbled around him. The darkness fully surrounded him, even the light under his skin failing to illuminate anything around him.

"Then steel and blood ripped the undying hands of the Lich Kings from our throats, cast down and shattered the armies of the undying, the dead, and the proud," The voices dropped low silken whispers, sighs of pleasure mixing in.

Hands touched his skin, caressing his bare flesh, making the light in his flesh blossom and twinkle. The braids around his arm and neck yanked tight, pulling him to a stop.

"Here, in this house, we shall burn away the weaknesses of your flesh and reveal your true self," The larger Phaelani's voice was cold, imperious, and cut through the whispers. "Even now, even in your ignorance and naivety, your hands cry out for the feel of a weapon's haft, your body yearns to be clad in steel, and your blood craves the surge and violence of hand to hand combat against those who dare think themselves your equal."

Ryder shook his head. "No, I'm a pacifist," he said softly.

Laughter shook the darkness around him.

"Deny as you want, little Xue'nghozi, but we see here, in the House of Steel and Blood, your true self," the larger of the little black women said. "We know what darkness lies in your heart, Ryder Tristan Black."

"Violence is the refuge of the ignorant," Ryder tried, shaking his head again. Everyone knew that.

More laughter. "Is there nothing you would fight to protect, little Xue'nghozi? Nobody you would be willing to feel the crush of your hands against the flesh and bones of those who would attempt to harm them? No ideal that you would stand in the pass, face the screaming hordes, and bellow back 'I WILL NOT YIELD!' against?"

Ryder shook his head. "Violence only begets violence."

Silence in the darkness. The braids slithered from around his throat and arms, releasing him.

There was no light, no real sense of up or down. Ryder looked down and realized the light from the fire in his skin only let him see to just below his sternum, darkness swallowing the rest of him.

A tiny red spark bloomed, seemingly far away. Ryder instinctively moved toward it, shivering slightly as a chill enveloped him.

Shivering, he stumbled toward the spark, instinctively reaching out for it. Four stumbling steps, goosepimples rising on his skin, before his fingertips found the tiny red spark.

Ryder screamed as the red fire in his skin suddenly surged, filling him with agony. The tiny light exploded into a shower of dazzling sparks that left behind trails of red glitter. A suit of heavy armor stood silently before him, blank, unadorned, the black steel ignoring his screaming presence as he went down on his knees.

Whispers started. Strange, twisting whispers that merged together, wound around him, wormed into his mind.

Little brown hands, tattooed with savage swirls and jagged points, reached out and touched Ryder Black's skin. Where they touched, red fire filled runes graven beneath into Ryder's soul that shown faintly through his skin.

Fire filled his mind, and with it, images. Men with sabers and spears, mounted on horses, sweeping down on defenseless farms, slaughtering everyone. Cities of sweeping stone and statue, full of philosophers and thinkers, burning as the heads were put on pikes and the beards burned away. Magic burning away the lives, the bodies, the souls of unarmed screamed people for the mere crime of existing.

He screamed again, recoiling from the images.

Young children being slaughtered, pregnant women, women cowering and begging, pleading, for their lives or the lives of their children. Swords, spears, pikes, magical fire and acid, even stones used to shatter bone and split flesh.

In a split second he lived their lives. Their simple joys, their contentment in a full belly and a happy child, in a warm bed and the arms of a loved one.

Then their fear as reavers, who killed and took merely because they could, swept down on their small humble homes. Killing, burning, raping.

Reaving.

He lived a woman's life feeling life grow in her belly, the pride of the child's first steps, the unconditional love a child has for a mother, and then

the horror

of a reaver grabbing the child and hacking apart the screaming child's head with three sharp saber strokes.

Another life. Another.

And another.

Surrounded by the bodies of the dead, who's lives he'd lived between one heartbeat and the next, kneeling in the blood soaked mud, the houses burning around him, Ryder raised his face to the uncaring sky and screamed in pain and horror.

More images flooded his mind. Living a life, heartbreak and love, watching children to grow, even as he hoarsely screamed from a throat he could no longer feel, growing crops and living a humble life of labor and love.

This time, when the riders appeared, so did the little woman in black iron mask. She made a yanking, hooking motion with one hand, and Ryder felt himself pulled from the body of the farmer, to stand before the diminutive woman.

"Will you stand aside?" She asked, her voice iron grinding. her braided hair raised a spear with a cruel looking head. "Will you stand aside and let the rider's will be done upon those who cannot protect themselves."

Ryder looked behind him, seeing that the farmers were unaware of the approach of riders, who were already joking about how the farmers would scream, how they would ravish the women before killing them, how one bet the other he could throw a child's head over a barn.

"They cannot protect themselves, Ryder Tristan Black," The short woman said, pointing behind them. "Those reavers cannot be stopped by mere courage, pleas, or begging, Ryder Tristan Black. You can stop them, if you are willing."

Ryder shook his head.

"So be it. Know, that you brought this on them," She faded away, leaving only a few words behind. "And upon yourself."

He found himself inside not just the man, but his wife, his children, everyone on the farm. He felt each cut of the sword, each thrust of the spear, each impact of an arrow. He felt magic sear his flesh, burn away his skin to make the fat pop and sizzle, acid melt away muscle, and worse.

Two dozen people on the farm, and Ryder lived all the lives at once.

Still trying to scream, trying to struggle with a body he couldn't feel, Ryder found himselfr thrown into another life. And another. And another.

Finally, the small woman pulled him free, standing before him. That black iron mask judging him, those violet cat's eyes boring into him.

"Will you stand against them, Ryder Tristan Black? Only you can save them. It falls upon you to protect them as they cannot protect themselves," The woman said.

This time, his will broke, and his hand wrapped around the haft of the spear.

He was larger, stronger, and he knew how to use the spear, knew how to use the weight of the bronze armor that covered his body. As he fought, a fierce joy filled him. Perfect certainty that here was where he belonged, that this was what he was born to do.

He screamed in denial, in rage, as he slaughtered the eight horsemen.

But he knew, inside, the it was all him, all his decision, when he pulled the last man's head back, smiling down at the crying pleading man from behind the mask that covered his face, and slit the man's throat.

The words came unbidden, welling up from his very soul.

"YOUR BLOOD SHALL WATER THE WHEAT!" Ryder bellowed out, throwing the man aside.

He stared at the farmers, at the laborers, for a long moment.

"Your crops will be bountiful," Ryder growled. "Your stratgurt's bellies will swell with strong children."

He turned away, his hand going to his waist, finding the bottle of red wheat rye. He opened the blank bronze mask that covered his face, taking a long pull off the bottle, before staggering into the red wheat in front of him. The wheat closed around him.

The world whirled.

"The child is ready. Bathe him, shave that obscene tangle on his head, then feed him," The Matron of the Steel and Blood said. She reached out, resting her hand on Ryder's bowed head. "There is iron inside this one, it is up to us to begin tempering it to steel to gift Bloody Elshon."

On the floor of the wagon, Ryder knelt in front of the large suit of armor, weeping.

Not for the lives he had taken.

But for what the Matrons of Steel and Blood had revealed inside of him and made him face.

That he had enjoyed what he had done.

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

Ryder looked up the Matron of Steel and Blood, who stood between his outstretched arms. She was staring down at him, her violet eyes inhuman, unreadable, as her unblinking gaze burned into his brain.

"Your soul was nearly soured. You felt entitled to others, to their feelings, their actions, their labor, their bodies," The matron said coldly. "Those reavers, those raiders, were all reflections of the poison inside you."

She shook her head. "Inside of your heart, where others could not see, you used shame and ridicule to elevate yourself to become others betters in your own eyes and the eyes of your peers. You shamed others when they verbalized, acted upon, or merely if you could project your own desires and feelings onto them."

She grabbed his hair, lifting Ryder's head with surprising strength.

"Your mind was filled with madness, Ryder Tristan Black," She said. "Denying your own nature left you unable to temper and guide your own feelings and desires."

She stepped back, staring at the naked human before her. While her witchcraft was powerful, enough to bring a dead human back to life as a Duty Bound, she knew she needs must tread carefully around the warfired young human.

"You desire and threaten violence against those who do not believe as you do even as you mouth platitudes of pacifism in order to control other's urge to do violence against you," She told him as her hair snaked out into the darkness. It returned with a steaming cup that she sipped from, still staring at Ryder.

"You decry violence, but as you saw," She took a long sip, still holding his eyes with her own. "Violence must be met with violence."

The braid of hair holding the cup lowered slightly. "When I was young, I thought that it was not my responsibility, not the responsibility of my Consortium, not the responsibility of civilized peoples, to use violence to stop violence. That I was somehow above violence if I but turned my cheek to deny that violence my voice, my eyes, my witness, my deeds."

The Matron stared at Ryder. "Then the Lich King armies destroyed my Constortium, destroyed the caravan of my youth," she turned and another braid moved from her hood to the darkness. "They raped the Phaelani of my caravan, even me, in my youth. Raped as they cast my younger siblings into pits, slew the Phaelana of the caravan as they begged for mercy, burned our baishin, stole our goods, reaved my Consortium, my family, my caravan, from the face of the Six Worlds."

She stared at him as the braid returned, the end wrapped around a bronze knife with an inlaid bone handle.

"Crucified me."

She stepped around him. The whispers around them repeated the two words over and over.

"Blinded me."

Ryder stared at her, turning to look at the tiny woman. Again, the whispers echoed her.

How did they blind her if I can see her eyes?

"Stabbed me in the belly," she said, turning beyond Ryder's ability to turn.

her belly her belly her belly

"I lifted not a hand in violence. I studied philosophers who stated that it was better to look away so as not to sully one's own soul with violence," She hissed. "I believed them."

she believed she believed she believed

The braided hair, the barbed wire woven into the complex braiding, slid out to Ryder, wrapping around his biceps, his forearms, and around his neck.

"There, crucified, I saw with my blinded eyes," The matron said.

she saw she saw she saw

"I saw you, little Xue'nghozi," The Matron said.

she saw she saw she saw

"I heard your name in the booming of my headbreat, in the agony of my sobs, felt your name in the tears flowing from my ruined eyes down my split open cheeks," the Matron said.

she heard she heard she heard

"And now you are here," The Matron said.

he is here he is here he is here

"Warfire made flesh. More than I have seen in my three hundred years," The Matron said. She placed her hands on Ryder's shoulders. Her skin was hot against Ryder's and he was surprised in how gentle they were when they squeezed lightly. "More than any I saw during the Red Wjeat Rebellion, during the Iron Confederacy Uprising, even during the Lich King War."

warfire warfire warfire

"And now you are here," The Matron whispered, her breath hot against Ryder's neck. He tried to ignore the tingling and pleasurable feeling of the small woman's breath stirring the fine hairs on his neck and warming the skin.

Ryder shuddered as the braids began moving back and forth, sliding over his skin, the barbs first stinging then feeling strangely pleasurable. He tried to push the feeling away, but a long tongue licked up the back of his neck, hot, wet, and pleasurable.

"We have waited, my sisters and I, for your arrival, Black Ryder," The Matron said.

He felt his hair grabbed, lifted up on his head, and it began falling around him as the Matron sawed through each handful and let it fall.

The lesser war-witches around the Matron and the Black Ryder sighed in pleasure as they could feel destiny and fate grind against reality, the static pleasure on their raw nerves, the cool warm trickle of destiny ground against fate spilling through the souls, the slick fire of legends yet to be born filling their loins with burning pleasure.

One, then another, began to dance. A whirling explosion of ecstacy and release, limbs flinging out, braided hair snaking and writhing through the air, breathless whispers of pleasurable agony as the young titan fired war bound one had his locks shorn away.

When only small chunks of hair remained, the Matron held out one arm, gashing her wrist from wristbone to the opposite side of the elbow, blood spraying across Ryder's scalp, running down his face, down his neck, thick spurts of blackish red blood thickly coating his back and shoulders.

A single braid, as thick as the Matron's wrist, lifted from inside her cloak, the razor sharp fragments of runesteel and runeglass gleaming in the light as she cried out in pain and pleasure. The sharp edges carressed Ryder's head, shaving away the last of his hair.

Ryder was holding himself still, his hands flat behind him, ignoring the lust that kept surging up inside of him, trying to ignore the lewd way the razored edges felt against his skin. He knew he should feel repulsed by the blood running down his chest, down his stomach, down his back, but all he could feel was the burning heat and the strange tingling beneath it.

The Matron held out her arm and one of the dancing lesser war-witches pirouetted to her, a curved needle threaded with black wire held between her teeth. She bowed her head, using tongue and teeth, and stitched the wound that would never heal with small neat stitches of blood quenched arcanium steel wire.

The Matron fell, the strength leaving her blades, the knife falling from her hand to shatter into small beads that bounced away into the darkness. She fell heavily into Ryder's lap, looking up at him, her mask slipping slightly to reveal an unblemished cheek and pointed chin.

Ryder noticed that her flesh was pale, like an albinos. Curious, and unable to resist, he pushed her iron mask back at stared at the face beneath.

It was unmarred, youthful appearing, with full lips and a slightly upturned nose. Her lavender eyes glowed softly as she held her lower lip between sharp jagged black iron teeth.

Curious, wondering if she's stop him, he moved his trembling fingers lower and hooked one finger into the top of where her cloak was folded together.

Small hands touched his back, and he jerked slightly as he felt two tongues run up his back.

he wakens he wakens he wakens

The whispers surrounded him as he slowly pulled his finger down, the robe opening at his touch. He wasn't sure what he expected at the tiny woman's admission to being centuries old. Wrinkles, sagging flesh, spots.

Warm, plump skin, covered in savage looking tattoos, many of them apparently done with metal. He stared at her breasts, then swallowed thickly and moved his finger down. Her robe opened, and when he reached the point between her thighs she let her thighs open with a gasp.

Her hair was long, caressing him, the barbs pleasurable.

he wakens he wakens he wakens

When his finger touched her mound she gasped, her back arcing.

he hungers he hungers he hungers

Ryder went to protest as four of the smaller women darted out of the shadows, grabbing the Matron by her wrists and ankles. They pulled her from his lap, moving so they held her spread eagled before him. Kneeling and using their hands to press her wrists and ankles to the polished tile of the baishin floor. Their hair came out from under their hoods, unwired braids, and wrapped around her forearms and calves, tightening enough to make the flesh bulge out slightly. Other braids tangled in the Matrons, holding them still.

The smallest of the war-witches put one hand on the back of Ryder's neck, swinging slowly until he turned to look at her.

Her face was covered by a white porcelian mask without any markings. He didn't move, didn't show any of the shock he felt when the lips of the mask moved and the Phaelani war-witch smiled at him.

I shouldn't, this isn't...

shut up

The other voice was his, just... different. It was the voice he denied, shoved away, pretended wasn't there.

The war-witch took his chin in one warm hand, turning his head so she was looking at where the Matron was still being held spread eagled in front of him. She swung out, one foot in the middle of each thigh, her strong fingers holding onto his shoulders.

She suddenly shifted her fingers so they were dug into his collar bones, then leaned back, making him lean forward to avoid the painful pulling on his collar bones. She kept leaning back, squatting slightly.

Ryder lost his balance, falling forward, the small war-witch under him. She put her feet in his stomach, kicking off, rolling to the side as he tried to catch himself, only to land between the Matron's legs.

The Matron was smiling at him, her too old eyes canny and calculating as the young warfired fell onto her. The smallest of the war-witches, all of them centuries old, wrapped two braids around his neck, pulling his head back, choking him slightly. Her hands moved quickly, guiding him as her sister war-witches held the Matron still.

Ryder tried to pull back, tried to avoid what was happening.

No, this is wrong. This isn't right, he thought, They are only doing this because I'm a member of the privileged class and they hope to...

Whatever Ryder thought they hoped to do was lost as the smallest war-witch jumped up, doing a complete somersault in mid-air, and landed with a foot on each of his butt cheeks, driving him downward.

In Manor duRalvden Bashette duRalvden sat bolt upright in bed, arcane burn flaring to life around her, casting aside the expensive mage-fire rated bedding, the paint and decoration on her bed stripped away by the burning fire the erupted from her. The windows, simple glass, exploded outward in a cascade of diamonds as the arcane burn turned the shards into shining polished quartz. The tile on the floor around her cracked and shattered, small creatures came to life in the wash of white fire, capered about, then faded away. The furniture, chosen to resist such outbursts, held fast, although the mirror on her vanity imploded into empty space beyond it, pulling her makeup into the blackness between realities before the empty hoop suddenly warped, folded, and vanished into the blackness, leaving behind scarred cherry wood.

A maid, older now and barren, lifted her quill and stared at the plump woman as fire poured from her mouth and onto the ceiling for a single breath.

When Bashette inhaled, the room creaked and it looked to the woman's eyes like the walls and ceiling bowed inward.

"THE BLACK RYDER IS MOUNTED!" Bashette screamed out.

The maid wrote those words down, ignoring that Bashette lost control of her bladder, her eyes rolled back in her head, blood poured from her nose and ears, and white fire flowed from her mouth like water then was pulled back in as Bashette inhaled in a whooping gasp.

The two windows that had survived the explosion of arcane burn shattered inwards, turning into whirling orange oak leaves of fall.

"THE SINGING WIND APPROACHES!" Bashette screamed out. The arcane burn wrapped around her, lifting her up spread eagled.

"THE UNNAMED TITAN STIRS IN HIS DREAMS!" Bashette's scream caused the wall of her room shudder as the wood slammed against the treated stone of the manor's outer wall.

Each phrase the matron wrote down.

Bashette fell from the air, the light vanishing. She landed in a tangle on her blankets as the two black silk clad maids rushed forward.

In the garden, sitting in the Third Position outside the small yurt, Nadrak looked up and saw a handful of stars fall from the sky.

Elshon rolled over in her sleep and passed gas.