The vultures circled in the sky overhead the old woman like a bad omen.

To them she was a shroud of billowing cloth whisked across a sea of rust, just a meal gift wrapped in a tan coat. She kept her hood up and her back to the sun, her gaze always fixed forward. It was hard to say if she had even noticed her entourage. If she had, she was paying them little mind. The carrion eaters, for their part, didn’t care or question it. It wasn’t their way when presented with fresh meat.

Why was such an old woman in the Blood Basin in the first place?

Why didn’t she sleep, or rest?

None of that mattered, all that mattered was the wetness of the tongues in their beaks.

The elderly were a rare sight in this part of the world, like diamonds in a coal mine. All that concerned the vultures however was when she would finally fall.

It was a hot day in the basin. Even hotter than usual.

Perhaps the sun would be the thing to kill her? Or maybe some nesting poisonous snakes? There was even a chance she would get sucked into a sink hole. So long as she wasn’t pulled too deep, her body was recoverable.

On the rare occasion the old woman would break for a brief moment and take a drink of water. Once in a while she would nibble on something before inevitably setting off once again. She never stopped for more than a few seconds, more of a pause than a rest. When there was a battle nearby, her head would crane to listen, and the vultures would second guess their decision to follow her. Battles always presented meat, even if getting that meat sometimes meant contending with the Basin’s other, larger scavengers.

When they had caught sight of the woman some days back, they had thought themselves lucky.

Easy prey, easy pickings. It would surely be a short wait until she succumbed to the environment?

Yet, she had not succumbed. Instead her march had gone on, and on, without any signs of stopping or slowing. She crested dune, after dune, after dune, always moving in a straight line towards the heart of the dessert. Though her pace was slow and plodding, it was constant. She would plant the butt of her staff, and step, staff, and step.

For the first few days, the landscape around her had remained the same.

The change in surroundings had been gradual, so gradual in fact that, by the time the vultures had noticed, it was already too late to turn back.

The slow rising and falling of the sand gave way to dry dust flats, and the repetitious windswept sameness gave way to Steel Bones and long zig zagging cliffs laced with cave systems. From their vantage point high above, the heart of the basin resembled a battlefield buried in time. A sight where giants had waged war, deepening the color of the earth with their blood.

The flock had never ventured this far, and now they had, a sense of dread was beginning to settle in.

This place was unholy ground.

From somewhere deep within the heart, they could hear the sound of whistling. It was faint, almost imperceptible. The sound wasn’t the wind moving through the giant’s bones, but something else. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Every cave took on the aspect of a mouth, gaping and hungry.

Suddenly one of the carrion eater’s let loose a gargled cry as something flew past it’s throat at incredible speed. Panic and confusion set in as its head turned to face the sky, leaving a spew of blood in its wake. It watched as the clouds shrank away, and it’s flock, followed it down.

*

The wanderer turned her head as something slammed to the ground several strides behind her with a wet smack.

It was one of the birds that had been following her for the past several days. The vulture looked up at her with it’s beady black eyes as it tried to extend its crooked and shattered wings, its head flopping from side to side by a thread of flesh. Before it could so much as utter a cry, the rest of its companions descended around it, their beaks snapping viscously.

The wanderer watched in silence, the wrinkles on her face a tableau of disgust.

“Serves you right for thinking me food,” she said, turning away from the grotesque banquet. Placing one hand over her eyes like a visor, she regarded the cloudless sky and tried to find what had felled the bird. There was nothing. The sky was blue and clear. A beautiful sky over an ugly land.

The Blood basin.

Diadem’s asshole.

It was a gaping, stinking, festering wound of a place. The wanderer wanted to spit her disdain unto ground, but knew better than to deprive herself of liquid. As much as she hated the Basin, she felt more sadness towards it than anything. Before the moon had fallen countless aeon’s ago, it had been a nice place, if a little unremarkable.

“The Green Pastures,” she said, surprised that she remembered. “That’s what we called it… Hm… I wonder what Ohm would say if he could see it now…”

He would smile, but he probably wouldn’t say anything.

It was his way, even when his heart was breaking into pieces.

Bastard…

Reaching into her pack, the wanderer withdrew a small black notebook and opened it to a marked page. She glanced over the first few lines of symbols; circles, broken here and there, intersected by the occasional line along the radius, and her eyes narrowed.

How long had it been since he had awoken? About three weeks, give or take a week maybe…

She was behind schedule.

“Always short on time, even with an eternity to spare.”

The Ruby Way was gone, leaving the old roads open and vulnerable. The cycle was going to repeat itself, as was it’s function… Yet, that didn’t mean things were beyond saving.

Tucking the notebook back into her coat, the wandered Scratched at her throat and cheek with her long cracked nails while she pondered.

“I wonder how he’ll react when he sees me again.”

She was an old woman at present, so it wasn’t as if she wanted him to see her anyway. Thankfully, that was just for now… Her current age aside, she figured she looked more or less the same. It was hard to say for certain. She had worn too many faces, been too many people. Brushing her sweat soaked bangs from her eyes, the wanderer took stock of her surroundings. She was still in the Basin, but the terrain had changed. It was still sandy, but less so. It was flatter too…

The wanderer regarded the feasting flock of birds…

Something sharp enough to sever a neck had plucked one out of them out of the sky, which probably meant she was getting close.

“Brother, give me strength,” she said, trying to conjure his visage in her mind. She could almost see him, as he had been on the fateful day when it had all began so many lifetimes ago. Over the ages, her memories of him had blurred. She could no longer recall his face, only the shape of his silhouette as he stood against the falling moon. She could remember that, and his final request.

“Break the cycle.”

She tried to let his image linger for a moment, hoping his features would solidify, hoping his semblance would come back to her in a moment of inspiration. Instead, she conjured another face.

“Yien, this is where you were? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

It was Gen’s expression in that moment under the plum tree. His big stupid grin, his casual friendliness, and the way he had looked at her… People called him the Archon now, but whenever she thought of him it was always the way he had looked back then, dressed in his fancy festival wear, a blush of drink on his cheeks…

“I wonder if you’d be able to forgive me if you knew the truth?”

She imagined not.

Reaching into one of the front pockets of her coat, Yien, currently an old bag, withdrew a small woven scroll. It was sewed of black fabric, and of a size to fit in the palm of her hand. With great care, she undid it’s binding, and rolled out the fabric over her fingers. Threaded into the cloth, were hundreds of tiny needles in orderly rows, so thin as to be nearly invisible to the naked eye. Gingerly, she plucked one up between her fingernails. Lifting the needle to her forehead, she pressed it into her skin, directly between and slightly above the eyes. She inserted two more into the joins of her wrists, and two more into the soft spots just above her ears. Three went into her throat, and one went into her solar plexus. Once she was sure they were the right places, she pressed each needle in turn. She made sure to press them deep, but no so deep that she wouldn’t be able to retrieve them later. The needles didn’t hurt, but they did make her skin tingle a little. Slowly, Yien lowered her long metal staff to the ground at her side and seated herself in a cross legged position.

Now was the hard part, the breathing part.

She drew air into her lungs, sending a rush of oxygen into her blood. Yien could feel the beat of her heart steady as her veins expanded. Closing her eyes, Yien parted her lips slightly so as to pull her breath in through her teeth. Her surroundings faded away. The sound of the vultures feasting, the wind in the dunes at her back, and the distant ring of a whistle. Slowly, she reached out to either side, placing her palms gently against the earth.

Tap.

She rapped her index fingers against the ground.

Tap.

Followed by her middle fingers.

Tap.

The corners of her mouth lifted slightly. Oh, she was was in the right place alright. It was only a matter of time until.

Yien rocked back slightly as something flew in front of her face, stirring her hair with it’s passing. She opened her eyes and focused on the sound of the whistle.

“How quick,” she mused. “An arrow?” So that was what had killed the bird. Looking from side to side, there was no sign of the projectile.

Calmly, Yien rose to her feet and picked up her staff. She hammered the base of it once against the ground to shake off the sand, and then listened once more for the whistle. She had no doubt it would come again.

“There you are,” she said, an amused grin creeping across her cracked lips.

Yien was off, moving with incredible speed for an old woman, for anyone. She was inhumanly fast, like a gust of wind across the plane.

There it was again.

Pivoting suddenly, Yien made for the source. She darted over the crags and soft sand like a woman walking on water, her sandaled feet leaving no impression in her wake. Every step was fleeting, barely the kiss of a toe. It didn’t take long for her to locate the source of the whistle. Atop one of the cliffs, behind a rock, was the shadow of a figure. Yien halted, and danced to the side as the arrow flew past where she had just been. It was quick, but she was quicker. Making for the bottom of the cliff, Yien crouched low and hurdled herself towards the sheer stone wall. It was a dozen men tall, but she made it in three steps. If she were in her younger form, she probably could have done it in one. Cresting the ledge, Yien cartwheeled in the air, landing softly on the ground next to the figure.

“That’s a pretty neat blood will you’ve got there,” she said, grinning. “I’m impressed you can control it over such a distance.”

A bow clattered to the ground as the man raised both hands in surrender.

“Whoa there, lady Yien. No harm intended. I just wanted to see if…”

Spinning on her back heel Yien kicked her assailant in the chest, right between the ribs. He Wheezed as the air was knocked out of him, how mouth opening wide with surprise. Gasping for breath, eyes squeezed shut with pain, the man collapsed unto his knees. Bending down over the man, Yien grasped his chin with her open hand. She held his face aloft, turning him from side to side so she could examine him.

It wasn’t a man’s face so much as it was a boys…

“You’re one of the Few,” she said. It was not a question.

The Few, one of the third generation.

It was always strange seeing one of them outside of Ryedyn. Even stranger seeing one outside of his armor. Yien had killed so many of the Few during the last war that it was hard not to see them as automatons, subservient nobodies bent to the will of the children of Dyne. The Few grinned up her, teeth bloody, trying to hide the pain he was in.

“I deserved that,” he said. “Please don’t kill me.”

“Pretty stupid for a third generation to attack a first.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

The boy was short, with thin girlish bones and pale milky eyes. Contrastingly, his hair was thick, curly, and dark. Like all of the Few, she could spot a few silver hairs mixed in, but unlike the rest, this one also had silver eyelashes. Around the base of his skill, where it connected to the neck, was a line, a sort of indent or joint that one might see on a doll. Still, compared to others she had seen, he looked more… finished, than most. Even though he looked to be around fifteen years old, give or take, she knew looks were deceiving when it came to his kind.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Awfully kind of you to ask for my name, knowing what you know.”

Yien grimaced.

“Answer the question.”

“Adel”

“You know why I’m here, Adel?” she asked, his chin held vice grip in her hand.

“Master is expecting you.”

Yien released the boy and allowed him to stand, which he did, slowly.

Even at his full height, he wasn’t much taller than she was, and she was currently sitting somewhere around where an average human woman would at ninety. Dressed in an assortment of armors from Tel’Avar and Umbrin, he wore two curved knives at his belt and a thin quiver strapped to his thigh. Straightening his back, the Few coughed into his hand before wiping it against his pants.

“You’ve broken some of my ribs,” he muttered.

“Very kind of your master to send me an escort, even though you tried to kill me.”

“Let us not pretend my master knows anything of kindness…” replied the Few with a dour expression. For a moment, Yien almost felt bad for him. “I wasn’t trying to kill you… I… Wanted to see something.” He frowned. “Anyway, follow me. He is eager to know what tidings you have to share.”

“Not to have me for lunch?”

The boy didn’t reply.

Yien followed her guide as he led her towards his camp, and towards his master. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but when they finally did arrive a couple hours later, she wasn’t very impressed.

The camp was little more than a series of stone huts butted up against a short cliff face. Dozens of men and women milled about, all wearing an assortment of Umbrinese or Tel’Avarian armor, leather pauldrons, a brass cuirass here and there, that sort of thing. Even at a glance, Yien could tell that they were fighters, each and every one of them. Not that she was worried.

They patrolled throughout the camp and along the chest high fence that surrounded it, watchful for any sign of attack or intrusion. A little too watchful, as if they were afraid of being seen resting. She knew why, and was certain they were branded.

Every dwelling was made from the same reddish stone as the cliff face, and Yien wondered if they had a quarry nearby. Even if they did, there were clearly no architects among them. The buildings looked as if they might topple at any moment. The camp was most likely intended to be temporary. Other then the stone, the wanderer could spy a bit of straw roof thatching, and some wooden pens.

“No trees in the basin, definitely no straw.” Biting her sharp canines across her bottom lip, Yien contemplated the implications of that fact. It probably meant they had been raiding outside the Basin… No doubt they had taken more than building supplies as well… She didn’t want to think about it, but it wasn’t something she could blot from her mind either.

All in all, Yien guessed there were maybe two hundred men and women in total. Two hundred soldiers at his beck and call was not a nice prospect, but it wasn’t as bad as she had feared. At the back of the camp, her guide stopped and directed her attention to a thin crevice in the cliff face.

“The master is waiting inside,” he said, cradling his chest with one arm.

Yien glanced upward.

If there had been any doubt in her mind that she was in the right place, it promptly vanished.

Bones…

Bones nailed to the cliff.

Some of them were human, and some of them belonged to the wraiths that hunted in the basin, large scaly canines creatures about the size of a horse. Most of the collection appeared to be skulls, but there were other bones as well. Femurs, pelvic bones, a couple of sternums. Some of them still had bits of meat attached to them.

They stank, but the smell coming from inside the crevice was even worse.

The crevice itself was less of a cave entrance and more of a large gash in the cliff face, just wide enough for two men abreast to enter. It was dark inside, but somewhere far off she could see a speck of light.

Yien entered the cave, her guide following closely behind her. They didn’t have to go far before the cave opened up.

Yien found herself in a open pit around eighty paces wide and thirty tall. A single beam of light from a hole in the cavern ceiling shone down, casting just enough illumination for her to see the inside.

There were bodies everywhere. Dozens, maybe a hundred or more. Women, children, grown men. They were stacked in rotting piles around the edge of the pit, their bodies tangled and twisted as if they had been cast aside like leftover scraps…

Probably because that’s what they were.

At the center of the pit, was a monster, snacking away on a meal that had long since lost the ability to resist or flee. The man looked towards Yien, his eyes glazed over and unresponsive as a chunk of flesh was torn from his leg.

Hunched over his prey like a massive hyena, Rothe’s jagged frame writhed with pleasure as he ate, his long thin fingers scratch, scratch, scratching at the stone floor with every bite. Every time he chewed, his long fingernails would twitch, leaving deep runnels in the rock. Between bites his bald head would twist from side to side, his jaws opening and closing as his piss yellow eyes combed his victim for it’s tender spots, it’s tasty spots. His spine uncoiled like a spun cord, frenetic and eerily sexual. Yien debated making some sound to alert him to her presence, but decided not to. She knew she would simply have to wait until he had finished gorging himself. In all probability, he wanted her to see this, to see him as he had become.

She would oblige him that much, though she kept her fingers tight around the haft of her staff.

The Ravager, the Great Wolf.

“Apologies, lady Yien,” said the Few to her side, the same one from earlier. He must have followed her in. It was unlike Yien not to notice such a thing. “He should be finished shortly.”

Yien said nothing, her lidded gaze fixed on Rothe.

In his nakedness, it was easy to see how he had changed. His once thick muscle was gone, only to be replaced by a sharp gauntness, an unnatural angularity. He was all bones and sinew, veins and taught flesh stretched thin. The light from the hole in the cavern ceiling above gave his skin tan eerily translucent quality.

Rothe was a testament to how far a man could fall.

Hopefully he was not so far gone that he couldn’t be used.

Rothe raked his sharp canine teeth across his food’s exposed femur, shuddering with pleasure at the sound it produced. He trembled slightly, and then froze as his eyes rolled into the back of his skull. He shook once, then twice, then a third time as his pleasure peaked. His breath, hot and heavy, plumed out from between his clenched teeth into the cool air of the cavern, forming a mist.

Leaning forward, Rothe licked along the man’s exposed thigh, his thick pointed tongue scraping flesh as he made for the neck.

“To Diadem you return,” he said, his voice husky and seductive. Craning his head back, Rothe snapped down, slurping and sipping as blood gushed into his mouth and unto his face. He was like a child devouring honey for it’s sweetness. The food kicked once, and then closed his eyes.

A small part of Yien wanted to recoil, but this was not the worst thing she had seen in her long life. Yien had become numb so long ago that she couldn’t even remember. Anyone who lived long enough would bear witness to unspeakable atrocity. It was just part of the cycle. All she could do was hope they would find peace in the flow.

Sitting back on his knees, chest heaving with satisfied malice, Rothe dipped his hands in the man’s blood and began to smear it all over his body. He rubbed it on his face and chest, his member and his arms. The finger painting of a madman.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t eat you…” he said, just loud enough for Yien to hear. “Do you think that because you’ve taken the form of an old woman that I wouldn’t enjoy it? Or are you so confident in your own strength that you don’t fear me?” The way he spoke was slow and breathy. It was menacing, deliberately or otherwise, but he sounded more lucid that she had expected.

“He’s awake,” Yien replied.

Rothe tensed as he rocked back unto the balls of his feet, his hands coming to rest on his legs. He examined her, his cold gaze growing wide, and then thin. She could see it, his curiosity was piqued.

“Is he now? And why do you think I would care?” Rothe moved slowly, his back uncoiling as he slouched his way to a standing position. At his full height he was easily three times her size, and twice as tall as a normal man. He didn’t so much walk as lope, his shoulders hunched forward as if he would pounce at any moment. Yien regarded Rothe’s lunch, and made a mental note not to let her eyes drift below Rothe’s waist.

“Was your meal not satisfying enough?”

Rothe shrugged.

“I have plenty more where he came from. I always keep livestock on hand for when I feel… peckish”

“You always were a degenerate.”

“I don’t want to hear that from you, you incestuous bitch.”

Yien winced at the comment, but didn’t dignify it with a response. She didn’t care what Rothe thought of her as long as he would play her game.

“Let’s drop the act, Rothe. You and I both know that your apathy is bullshit.”

Rothe watched her out of the corner of his eye. He held out his arms to his sides and lowered himself down. One of the Few ran over with a cloak, draping it over Rothe’s shoulders. Tying the cloak around his waist, Rothe took several long strides towards Yien, stopping just close enough to loom, just close enough to reach out and grab.

“I don’t think I need to tell you what the first thing I’ll cut off will be if you try it?”

Rothe grinned, his wolf’s smile creeping just a little too wide.

“I may be an outcast, Yien, but don’t mistake me for an idiot. You’re not here just to tell me he’s awake. You want something, but what could that be, hm? Whose side are you on this time?”

“My own.”

“Of course… Your own. Your default, then. You think yourself above me just because you’re an original? Like father, like him?”

Yien directed her gaze towards Rothe’s bald head. She had seen him naked and hairless. Not a single hair on his entire body save for his eyebrows, which were razor thin and silver. Rothe snarled.

“My ambition is my own. I want the same thing we all want, and to that end I’ll do what I must.”

“What if what I want is to see the one you love most pressed beneath my flesh as I eat him piece by piece, starting with the ears and fingers? Working my up to the good bits.” Rothe licked his lips, smearing more of the blood around his face.

“He awoke a few weeks ago now, and the Ruby way is gone. It’s only a matter of time until the other children begin to move, and the cycle starts again. This could be your last chance to redeem yourself.” Yien could see the drool starting to form at the corners of Rothe’s lips. He would take the bait…

“I couldn’t kill him the first time, even with the help of two of my brothers. My failure led to my exile, and me becoming… This. Why would I try again?” Rothe raised his hands towards the cavern ceiling, as if it were his kingdom. “I maybe be the black sheep of my family now, but I have everything I need. The Blood Basin is the perfect place to endlessly feast and indulge myself. Life is too good for me to throw it away on something as petty as redemption.”

“Then how about revenge?”

“Revenge…” Rothe purred the word as if to taste it, to sample it on his tongue.

“Also,” Yien continued, giving the dagger one final twist. “I have reason to believe that he has been… Contracted, by the Archon, and that the terms of his contract are less than favorable…”

“Oh, do you know the terms of the contract?”

“Of course not, but the Archon is a cautious man. I’m sure you could fathom a guess.” Yien paused, knowing it was the perfect moment to lay her final trap. “One final thing… The new Redshield is here… In the Basin.” Yien pressed her fingers into the front of her forehead, remembering. “He’s… More dangerous than I expected. You’d do well to tame him or steer clear.”

Rothe began to chuckle from deep within his chest. He seated himself on a stone along the cavern wall, his eyes glimmering from within the shadows.

“I see,” was all he said. “I see.”