"Blade of the Eagle Clansman" Ch8-C

There will be one more part to this chapter, as time moves on. These two characters are just being stubborn about me not skipping things, and surprising me at what they reveal to me about their world, or this part of it. -D.R. 

Galen snarled as light fled the prairie, staring incredibly at the still glowing line where the head of his mace once supported a fin. Such a thing was thought impossible, that only portions of something would be taken with a teleporting item or person, not all of it, and what it was connected to. Not to mention, this being yet another blade to snap from the head of the mace, another problem to ponder, for it's enchantments were to prevent such incidents due to the design. Without a mage-smith nearby, to look into that matter, he shelved it, mentally.

Tagrun stalked about the circle of dead grass surrounding him, warring emotions dancing across his face. Anger at the escape, grief over the deaths, and relief and worry stuttering between those, over Chanti being alive, but once more beyond his reach to save. His feet moved closer, then farther out, but rarely more than two paces from the circle, as he moved. Something seemed to keep him out of it. Superstitions, perhaps, or an ingrained sense of self-preservation.

The elven assassin glared at him, not sure if the boy's hesitation, suddenly, was cowardice or wisdom. "Enter it. Show the mage you do not fear his spells."

"I seek his footsteps, none are here though." Tagrun raged, casting about for some way to trace his foe.

"The only steps you will find of his lie outside this realm, and mortal eyes cannot trace." Galen sighed. "Fools we were. Thinking we could kill him so easily."

"When he dies, it will be at my hand. The sands said so." Tagrun walked around the circle of death again, stopping to lift up a weakened, but still alive child. "Some trace must be where eyes can see it, for me to follow."

Galen's eyes narrowed, those words too close in his memory to another student's words decades before. "Perhaps. But not where your eyes see the trace of his steps, but the effects of the passage. Like the moving of blades tells of your namesake's stalking of prey?"

Tagrun whipped his head around, eyes seeking for such in the grass, but sighed after a few moments. "No. You are right. This is magic, something beyong the ken of my eyes. Only another mage could trace the foulness he did unto these innocents."

Closing his eyes, Galen nodded silently, thinking hard. It was in the distant desert of volcanic ash and sand his mind sought the answer, amid his memories of that other student, one who did not embrace what he was, but denied it, seeking to quell the gifts the gods had laid upon him, not use them. That boy's gifts, so similar to his own, rose up as an answer.

"There might be a way. Place will not matter, I think. At least, not to find where a trail you can follow for us will resume." Galen smiled, lifting his mace, turning the radiant seam where once a blade projected to his face. "And our prey cannot block it."

"What way is that? A user of the dark powers knows all." Tagrun said.

"Knows them, but not the ways of the user of them." Galen knelt, sifting a handful of dead dust through his fingers. "Nor that a hunter can use them as well as a mage."

Tagrun grunted, still not convinced, but let the matter lie, for the moment. "We must save these, and he will use that time to flee, covering his tracks, having seen a grass stalker follows with you."

"Yes. But he has only a few places in reach, if my own schooling tells true, of a spell only fueled by a few, instead of all these. West, unless he seeks sojourn among the blood drinkers, is out. North would keep him from his goal, but confuse us, so we must consider it." Galen shook his head, standing slowly. "No, East or south is my guess. Kensorthi or Jandalin."

"Kensorthi would expose him. Most there are of the grass, and would not tolerate a mage hiding among them." The boy scoffed, staring down the valley, as the lesser moon at last rose in the east. "Jandalin also gets more ships."

Galen stared at the boy. "I thought you never left the grass of the north before?"

"Once, we traveled to the coast. Trading furs for spear and arrow heads." Tagrun smiled shyly. "I never said I had not left the grass of the Eagle, but Jandalin is on the grass, as is Kensorthi."

"You tribesmen amaze me again." Galen smiled, looking over the slowly reviving clan around them. "Take them to the river. Washing may not be a remedy for their ailments, but it will let them wash the feeling of filth this foe undoubtedly left upon them."

Tagrun grunted, sensing there was more to leaving the place to just his uncle. Galen's face left no room for argument about the decision, though. Moving gently among the survivors, he aided them up from the ground, checked their steadiness, then urged them down the draw. Risking one last glance back, the boy nodded to Galen, even as the older elf closed his eyes, holding the mace's broad head to his own. The hunter moved faster after the others, taking the arm of their shala to aid her over the rocky terrain.

For Galen, only the mace was left in his world. The boy, despite their shared blood, was not part of his true kin. Tagrun felt none of the bonds the numeni held dear, lived his life as one of the clansmen, which might be fine for him, lacking a doni so far. Reaching into his soul, in the spot he once shared with his sister, the boy's mother, the assassin teased at the powers within his mind, calling them out gently, into the mace. The trick would not be invoking the connection between the head and missing fin, but in keeping the connection faint enough to avoid alerting the mage.

Chablys being much sought after by all mages for various rites and spells, not to mention the fact that their foe might even use a magical summoning of the power to drain the mace's enchantments through the portion of it he now possessed, he was sure their prey would not toss it aside.

Reaching out his doni, Galen stirred the power inside the mace, caressing the flow just enough to create a tiny ripple in those currents. A disturbance that fled out from the center of the great ball, finding the jagged seams that once held the missing fins, trickling out them to seek missing parts. Opening his eyes, the assassin shifted his vision from the world of matter to that of energy. Flares of power and life burst all around, swirling whirlwinds of fire marking the creatures, a flow from river to hilltop marking the grass and other scrubs, but over it all, a faint golden stream, marred by darker orange ripples along it, flowed into the heart of the dead circle, disappearing.

Patience, the greatest virtue of a hunter, be he of beasts or men, became Galen's only companion amid that maelstrom of hues, as the world moved about him in ways few others ever saw. Time ceased to exist in the normal sense for the assassin, now intent upon finding his prey and redeeming the knife on his belt. When the returning ripple came, it flowed over the scenery, not through the evaporated portal opening. A long, faint lone, stretching to the south, and a bit west. A line almost washed out when the boy stepped between him and the distant fin by Tagrun's angry red aura.

"Kensorthi." One word said it all, for both of them.

"Good. But we need to get these Otter folk down to help. Their shala is too ill to tend their wounds and sickness for them." Tagrun's rage forced Galen to abandon his effort, and look once more upon the physical, not the spiritual world.

"It will take too much time to find another encampment." He snarled.

"No." Tagrun grinned viciously. "Their main band is in the port, trading. And they were making rafts to join them."

Galen smiled himself, sensing something their foe had not anticipated. The hand of the Parcae, the three goddesses of Fate, being on their side, aiding their hunt. "Well, that changes things. How much more to do?"

"Those able to work managed to help me finish their rafts. A hundred spear throw walk, then the ride down the river." Now Tagrun's face showed worry. "But the river is not an easy thing, from here to the Sandy Grasses below. Many rapids, and rains must have fallen, for the channels here are swollen."

"But swifter than one would think, for this time of year." Galen stared up at the stars, blessing them, as the clouds broke for a few more moments, then sealed them over. "Let us see your rafts, and take a day or so to make them stronger and safer. It will not matter. Our prey is grown over-confident, thinking we were but lucky."

"How would you know this?" Tagrun asked, starting down the draw to the bank of the Kensorthi.

"He did not toss aside the fin of my blade. Instead, he plays with it, hoping to steal its magic, and my life through it." Galen sneered. "Fool, I say, and lucky for us. Even the masters of yore often failed at that."

"But some did it, that implies." Tagrun scowled again, noting flashes in the clouds, distant echoes of lightning to come.

Galen refused to answer, trusting to his goddesses to grant him victory.

Okay, now I have to do some worldbuilding in advance of the final part of the chapter, the river ride you see coming. And on Kensorthi the town, and its surrounds. And the path after that... no, this is not an easy hunt, and will end in frustration, if not for my characters, at least for me. =D.R.

"Blade of the Eagle Clansman" Ch8-two/B - The first Hunt of Scorpio Kenrai.

Moving along the trail their prey left, the signs pointed to another atrocity to be found early. Yet, even by sundown, none was found, save the implication of one to come, by the number of footsteps joining the Necromancer's tread marks. This was not a single gathering, but one marked by well spread out along his trail harvesting of bodies for something worse than before, both hunters knew. Just before sundown, they found an encampment, with fires still burning amid the tents, and knew that this night, the beast they followed would feast, unless they made haste.

Worse, Galen stared at the moons in the sky, as the sun set, knowing the night would grant the one they stalked complete darkness in the hour of dark magics, midway between dusk and dawn. Such a lack of light gave the dark arts greater power. Power enhanced more as clouds streamed north from the Great Water at a rapid pace, cloaking the stars as well.

He barely noticed the boy's sudden stop, nearly running into him, stumbling into a cluster of rattle-tails, whose seed pods gave their namesake sound loudly, drawing ire from his nephew.
"Sha!" Tagrun hissed. "Over this ridge, see it?"

Shifting carefully back to their path, Galen squinted a bit, but noted the faint yellow-orange glow indicating a fire. "Yes." The word was more breath than sound.

"He waits for something. What?" The boy's head turned slowly, taking in the surroundings, eyes glittering in the dark, seeing the land's heat and auras more than it's forms.

"Midnight. As always." Galen whispered, moving in closer to his companion. "That hour marks the zenith of the ars arcanum."

"This will be his last casting amid the Grass, then." The boy's grip tightened upon his spear's shaft, knuckles popping enough for Galen's ears to register the sound.

Hand upon the boy's shoulder, Galen moved around him. "Perhaps. Or it might be he wants us there, to feast upon our anguish as well. Think of what you will feel like if a whole tribe is consumed by his power tonight."

"The only thing I intend for him to feast upon is bile and my spear." Tagrun snarled, crouching down as he slipped past his uncle. The boy's sudden burst of energy shocked Galen, who'd thought the toll of the hunt more than it now seemed. He moved slower, but kept close, hoping to dissuade Tagrun from making a terrible error.

"Tagrun, no..." In a blink, the boy was over the ridge, and sprinting at the fire, where all looked away, facing south towards the heart of the night. The magus stood with his back to them, oblivious to all but his own rising chant, violet and purple flames dancing over his extended hands, reaching out towards the tribe held in thrall before him.

Tagrun hurled his hasta, the long spear whistling through the air, seeking his prey, even as one of the long hunting knives filled his right hand. Galen struggled to free his mace from its belt loop, forced to prance awkwardly down the rock strewn slope, stumbling twice when Nature's caltrops rolled under his steps. The elf waded into the rattle-tails, stirring pods into their namesake call.

The mage turned, eyes glowing with the violet fires necromancy fueled, a snarl creasing his face. "Fool, you cannot stop what is to come. Embrace it, join me."

Streaking through the dusk, a glint of bronze announced the flight of his sister's hasta, as Tagrun tossed his spear towards the Necromancer. The mage blocked its path with a backhanded gesture, shimmering purple field summoned out, as one of the sacrifices dropped, body crumbling to dust, leaving the spear to glance away into taller blades of grass behind him. The man thrust out his right hand, left held before him, cloaked in the field he'd summoned now, pulled in tight to his chest, unleashing a bolt tainted deep blue, almost the indigo of dusk's sky, at the charging boy.

Tagrun dove into a roll beneath it, coming up to his right, long hunter's blade slicking the Necromancer's forearm with an upward slash. The hunter of beasts stepped in, trying to lock the arm outward, but gasped as the mage splayed his fingers into Tagrun's chest, forcing the boy back, gasping for breath, a nimbus of blue static spreading over his torso, abdomen, and neck.

Using the boy's fall as a blockade, the mage snarled, grasping two of his victims, one recognizable as the elven girl, Chanti. Cursing, the mage lowered his head, as the male his right hand rested upon crumbled away to dust, and the mage and girl seemed to stretch away to the south.

Galen reached them before the distancing effect finished into vanishing, swinging his mace at the mage. One blade managed to entangle in the wide sleeves of the mage's loose robe, before a sharp crack, followed by a hollow bang announced their escape. A tendril of smoke rose from the mace's head, hot molten chablys giving the campsite an eerie light. A line that marked where once a blade, now departed with the mage, had been.

Blade of the Eagle Clansman - Chapter 8 (partial)

(You be the judge, vote with comments: Do I have my chops back and have the thread of this story again?)

Three bleak, grey dawns now lay behind them, as Galen stared across the dying coals of their night's fire at the hollowed out boy across from him. Losing two so close to him, and the mess at the Burning Rocks still sore to the boy, left the eyes vacant save the occasional stirring of vengeance's flames within them. Today, the embers of the fire and the eyes were dim, but not for long, the elven assassin thought.

Something would spark a rage, a killing one, and the boy would be lost, every bit the killer the one they hunted obviously wanted to make him. The Necromancer was not just playing a game with primitives, that much had become clear. The creature of darkness wanted them on his trail, and moving through the land in a rage. Each day, near to noon, they would find his camp from the night before, a place of death, even the grasses brown, brittle, and lifeless, adorned with strange trees made of bodies drained of life, that they lost time in burning, to prevent the dead from following them.
Tagrun rarely spoke, only a few words about the trail in the morning, and nothing but gestures in the trade sign-language after they'd dealt with the foul messes left behind by their prey. His eyes died more with each night, but the hate blazed up each noon, when they beheld the new horrors of crucified corpses, some twisted into trees in their own right, before their essences drained into their foe.

His eyes drifted across the prairie around them, the soft, rolling grasslands of the place his folk once called the Eastern Deadlands, ravaged by the remnants of the volcanoes around them, and a sorcerous war three ages before that triggered that cataclysm. The grass was not the green of the northern prairies and plains crossed before reaching the Vault. Dull teal to blue blades swayed in the wind, shorter, cropped often by herds of auroch and bison, among other creatures. The tall spires of the old vents and runs of dykes left behind when the ashes of the eruptions which formed the bowl of the land cast strange shadows, as their gleaming rocks, rich in precious metals, studded by clumps of wind and rain polished gems that sparkled in the sun. Those towers, numerous, but still spread apart by stadia, left him stunned, but the boy ignored their beauty. The tribes all ignored the riches, having paid heavily when they'd overrun the land during the Age of Convulsions, as the Old North Empire collapsed, for trying to harvest such, finding them enchanted against harvest by any not of that fallen nation. Something Galen fought testing, to see if those spells still held out against the fading of power the years passed brought on all such power.

Three days of sporadic sprinkles left the trail still there, but weak, hard to follow. The delays in setting the funeral pyres merely aggravated Tagrun, the boy simmering over the delay, but knowing the cost of not burning the ensorcelled bodies, the young hunter took the time, and did it well. This morning, though, his half open eyes meeting his uncle's.

"We go about this wrong. He wants us wasting time."

Galen grunted, pouring out the last of the pot of kaf, frowning. "Yes. But if we do not find the camps, others will suffer."

Tagrun shook his head. "No. Here there are fewer night hunting beasts to fear. That is what I mean." He leaned back, noting darker bands of clouds to the south. "Tonight, I say we keep on the trail. By torchlight if necessary. Drive him to abandon this, make him hasten to his chosen place to meet us, and perhaps fail to have it ready as a trap to kill his pursuers." Leaning forward, the boy stirred the coals, letting them brighten a bit, before seeking Galen's eyes and judgement.

Galen narrowed his own almond eyes, staring across the waving grasses, noting the increase of shrubs amid the landscape, compared with further north. Sipping his drink, he thought over the suggestion, not liking it. If the clouds broke, the trail would be easier to follow, and the hunters were not known for night tracking, to those outside their lands. Ones who knew them feared the nights they hunted, for the clans proved good in the dark hours at tracking their prey, or maybe more than by the light of the sun. So far, their prey counted on the edge night gave his powers, so perhaps Tagrun was correct. But to confront a sorceror in the dark, or the dim light of dawn might just be too much for them.
"He travels by day, that we know." Tagrun now opined. "Gathering up those he finds out, for his evil. If we push him, perhaps he will not take more of the Otter clan, whose grass we now tread."
"Or perhaps we will meet the Otters themselves, at night." Galen stretched, feeling muscles still tight from their fast pace and short nights protest at the movement. "Against such as this man, we know not what they will be sending out now."

 Tagrun grunted, knowing his elder was right, but feeling his own idea worth trying. "Otter will understand. We know word is spreading, you saw the curse wards they leave, the wands in the rock piles, the staff with the burnt skull of the beast set upon one of their camps." He noted Galen's motions, knowing they meant the elf was ready to move on, but waited only for him to finish his idea. "One night, if it works, and we stop him from destroying souls, we keep it up. If not, back to the day trekking, but longer hours, camping only after the sun sets. The moon of migrations grows rounder each night, let us use that light."

Nodding, Galen admitted that one night would not harm them, if they could catch the horror they stalked. "Very well. One night of tracking him onward, but we do not approach him until dawn. Can you go so long without rest?"

"Once, I followed the tusk-cat I am named for, six days and nights, eating on the run, never sleeping. For this monster, I would run all the days and nights until the moon leaves the night sky. And into the dark, if the lesser moon lets us."

Kicking dirt over the fire as he rose, Galen met his nephew's eyes. "So be it."

Paths of Damnation 5 - (Billenius)

There is beauty to a desert sunrise, one that belies the brutal day to come, but still makes it something to enjoy. The clouds, usually high feathery ones, tend to glow orange or gold as the sun begins his daily voyage, after his underworld passing the legends tell of. Then the light blooms across the landscape, turning the nighttime grays to gold or shadowy black. Sandstones blaze their redness like torches as the buttes to our west caught the sun before the ground below them. And the dust raised by the various folks using the coolest part of the day to travel the Sands were like silver bushes on the horizon around me. Shiny silver to the west and south, blue to the north and east.

I took a deep breath, having rode hard for three days across the Riparian Neck, which is a tongue of the desert that extends east between the rivers of the land. It was north we sought, as we left Radixium further behind us with every turning of the horas. This long neck of sands and desert between the rivers was not as deadly as the rest of the desert we would face later, but still worse than the gentle lands near the Amnis Radix along the foot of the Last Mountains. We had rode east, not out of need, the faster path was due north, along the edge of the eastern most of the Grey Mesas. But one had paid a price I had avoided in my fight in the city of the foothills.

Quintas Marinius Varamadis, a distant cousin from these lands, had met my foe before the duel. Despite knowing the fate he would face, he had confronted the assassin. Marinius job with us here was as the local Castrorum Preafectus, the one charged with ensuring the supplies to the outposts and one of only five animas trusted with delivering payrolls to our posts every third hebdoma. So I had one last job as a Custos, one I had been trusted with several times before of late, due to my record of service. One I did more for a lost relative than duty, and to aid out my former colleagues, then from allegiance to the Custos.

So we had ridden the river's valley for two days, before turning north again up the Valles Favillae, the long brush filled series of draws as the land climbed up to the small volcano in the center of the Callix. We were halfway up it, the point where the dense briers gave way to scattered cactus and sage, with some scrub oak and other trees. At least it was not a place loaded with fire grass, which I would have hated. Not to mention having to dig into the supplies I had for the desert crossing to come yet. We had at least six or seven leagues of sand, depending upon the winds and recent eruptions of the volcano, to ride over. And those would be hard milles to make in one day.

But for now the worst of it all was the four extra pack animals. Marinius had no skill at choosing animals, and these four tried my patience at every stop or turn of the draws. Skittish, mean tempered, and if Pater thought Turbator kicked too often, he should try to shoe these beasts. Not that shoes were needed on a vartengi. Their clawed feet had thick pads of tough scaled leather. Claws that Marinius never had covered with blunt sheaths, but at least we had muzzles so they could not bite us.

Yes, us. Didius Lorcius was with me, as he had promised. Thankfully. These beasts were more than I could handle, for my doni was not of calming animals. Barely pack broken and every night they looked over my onagers with hungry eyes, ready to leap into their dinner, or chase it down. While the pack beast was one they scared, Turbator just gave them the look only a stallion of his kind can. The one that says "I can out run you, and come back and kick you into a pulp". When we had mounted up before first light, the Triari kept me from letting Turbator have his go at all four at once, and help me fix my left boot as we rode. One of the vargenti had stepped on it and tore the outer leathers to shreds. As well as the linings, and my socks.

Luckily I had a concoction from a alchemist in Vepresium, who had noted the beasts. It was a reddish liquid he said prevented wounds from becoming gangrenous. It smelled awful and hurt like the fires of hell, so I was fairly sure it was real medicine for a change, not some snake-oil unguent. Then again, some said snakes were put on the world to aid in cures and healing. People that believe that way should be tossed into a pit of snakes, and see how they feel afterwards. I admit to using the oil, venoms and even shed skins in the field to preserve a life, but not to the point of worshiping the legless lizards.

As we rode, I noted that despite my own skills at leather working, developed by trial and error over my decadi here doing my own repairs, Didius was better. The touch of the Lorcius was swift and deft. Fine little stitches of his repair, almost perfect as new, gave the boots a new life beyond the next town. Pulling them on, I barely noted any tightness. It made me wonder where the Triari had learned such a skill, or if my own fumbling would improve with age as his must have.

This left me worried again about why he was with me. He had not again brought up the subject, but I knew he felt that the call of the gods was upon me to return to Jai’ and serve them in the temples. Not just any temple, he had mentioned the imperial ones, up above the desert, further north from my home ranges. Jugosium was a place I had gone to only by need, carrying messages, taking my oath. The city of hills and broken dreams, some called it, others called it the fog bound island town it once had been.

Regardless, it was not my intention. The Desert and the Plains were for me, not an island on an inland sea of fresh water. Folks on islands eat more fish than I care to taste. What can I say, not all folks like all foods. To each is a taste that is unique to them when it comes to foods. I knew my family would have horrors at my love of dwarven pastries. But the Pumillo's made such wonderful ones. That more than anything else I would miss during the journey. The ovens and special cookers for making such could not be transported easily, nor used very much in a desert with little fuel, save that which could rage into a wildfire around one in the space of a sneeze.

Two days of struggling up draw, the ground began to shake from time to time, with sounds accompanying the motions I knew too well from some anni spent upon the patrols of the edge of the Rima Magna, that great cliff that was the boundary between my home plains and this desert far to the north. Cracks and booms of rocks breaking. The beasts were jittery, I was worried. Even Didius seemed to have lines of concern around his eyes, but that could just have been the fumes that were filling the draw.

The winds came from the west most of the time in the desert, but this was a rare calm spell, when the air had only faint and erratic motion in it. That could just be from being below the vast flats of the desert as we climbed into its realm, or something more dangerous. One thing I knew for sure, this draw would fill with the fumes of the volcano, for that smoke did not just rise, but more often sunk into low places around the portals to the Realms of Fire and Lava. Fumes that formed clouds and fogs known to kill entire civilizations in the past. We needed to be up on the hard-pan of the desert, where we could move as needed to avoid the rage of the volcano. If the gods allowed it.

East and West there were draws, Didius was too busy keeping the vargenti under control to speak, so I would have to make the decision. East lay the Head of the Sands, the Callix, a dangerous area of shifting dunes, known to be filled with dangers. To the west was hard-pan of the Shallow Sand Arm, a place where only a few dunes and little sand accumulated, reaching to Amnis Radix to the south in a narrow plain between this valley and the Campi Fornax used by the desperate herders when they dared the fire-grass to feed their beasts. It widened as it met the Neck, but the Arm was my best choice. In this season the winds most commonly blew west to east, so passing west of the Favilus Vulcan was the safest.

Unless I was wrong. Much depended upon my choice, but I made it.

"Sinistra, Triari! We have to get out of here." I shouted, but it was already too late.

A cloud of hot ash rushed around the bend above us, telling me we were statistics, as my cousin and companion of my youth Norbanus would say. That was a tomb maker coming towards us. I had helped dig out hamlets and caravans from a hot ash avalanche before, it was not survivable, nor was it pretty in its aftermath. Such a blast could be confined to the draw we were in, or spread across the whole of the area if the mountain was viscious. I could ask the gods, or my donum of foresight, but these were things I was not eager to try. The gods were fickle, and my doni were untrained.

The vargenti needed no encouragement to leave the draw, just herding to keep them from spreading out into every gulley out of the place. Lorcius raced by me, disappearing into the first stinging wall of the ash-flow. Driving the lizards and back beasts before us, Turbator and I entered it next. Thankfully this was a light one, but a darkness to the north and east boded ill for the next part, as the eruption continued. Inside the ash fog I was reminded of the great wildfire my cousins and I had caused in our younger days. Cinders burned into my flesh, the tang of iron was in the air, which was not a good thing. There were many villages of my folk nearby who could die if exposed, or suffer long illnesses. Turbator hated dust storms, and was trying to race ahead of the others, which I could not do, lest the pack beasts turn back down the washout.  As we rose up the gully to its head wall, luckily one all the beasts could leap up. There I yelled into to air, driving the beasts west from the lower ground we had left.

It was a good choice, as the wind rose at last. Or so I thought as we broke out of the cloud. Only to find that Didius was not stopping, but urging the beasts further towards the west, looking back in fear every few beats of a heart. Looking towards Favillus, I knew my own fear. We had been lucky, already the earth shook more, as a pillar of fire, ash, and ruined mountain climbed into the sky. This was not a small blast, and already i could see the outer edges of the column of destruction falling back to the ground around whatever would be left of Favillus.

The distant buttes to our west and north marked the cliff above the Campi Fornax were suddenly very inviting, I just hoped that the devastation did not reach Statiheranae and the rest of the hamlets scattered around the Callix and the few safe havens within it. We would have to detour north and mak a longer crossing than I had hoped. But the Desert never co-operated with the plans of any save the gods, and some say it fought even them.

Turbator bunched under me, then showed his strides

What the Re-Write of Predator's Ground was looking like... chap 1 unfinished

The streets of Dhibt- bustled with people, unlike most cities Scorpio visited, despite being past the midnight hour. Hrelgim, humans, even a few of the pale elves from the northland underworld partied, conducted business, or plied their trades. All strangely in darkness only broken a few times, when Kaljorn, the lesser moon, peeked through broken clouds above. Outnumbering the living, the walking dead and demons also prowled, seeking prey. The hunter from the Grass found himself playing such, hiding from those still stirred up by the assassination the red blade his mentor recently left in the headless body of the current lord of the city called for.
But still neither man had a clue whom the golden bladed knifes that came with the crimson one were meant for. Still puzzled, Scorpio eased the sheathed knife from his leather vest, using the faint light of Kaljorn to read again the marks, nine in total. Three marks on the Sheath. At the bottom, the seven blade star pattern that said all members and houses in the Allegiance of the Blades must aid him in all ways, near the opening, the upturned hand marking this as a rescue mission, and between, a bear skull lying upon a broken spear. The middle still puzzled him, as it marked the one he was to save.
The hilt gave three more clues in similar sigils. At the pommel, a wolf and pup were marked, near the narrow guard, a fanged skull of a man, and between them a symbol from maps, but different. Four arc marks used to show hills, three overlapping, with one beneath and to the left.
Skittering of pebbles over the cobble stones in the alley leading to their hiding place drew both Scorpio and Codi's attention. Before the walker came much closer, they heard nails scratching the baked mud walls five times. Then barely a whisper of cloth, as the tall, hyena-headed Hrelgrim called Seth-ma joined them.
"Your acts, though appreciated by the living, have stirred the hornets harshly, Codi." Seth-ma let his tongue twitch out the side of his fanged mouth, a sign of amusement. "But the boy, his acts have the whole city in a fit. Does he have to carry that damned stinger?" A three fingered hand, tipped with long, black claws gestured to Scorpio's back.
Codi Duhn grinned. "You try to get him to leave it. Besides, we all would be dead in that chamber, save for that dammed chained ball of his."
Seth-ma gave a soft bark of agreement, but still shook his head. "All now know who to seek. The Scorpion is too well known, and that stinger well feared. The city is on guard for him." The Hrelgi snarled, as a strong smell of blood tainted the air. "And trying to draw him out. Too many bards tell the tales of how he turns vicious when children are hurt."
Scorpio clenched his fist on the knife hilt, as the screams of little ones began nearby. It was his great weakness according to fellow Blades, but one he refused to set aside. And that pup beside the wolf on the hilt called to that belief that children should be protected at all costs. "Leave me if you must." He whispered.
Codi merely chuckled. "Hell, boy, draw the blade and find out if it is here we must act." His own golden knife lifted from its sheath, as the older man used another short appearance of Kaljorn to read the marks on the steel's business end. His teeth showed suddenly, as the mirth died and anger rose.
Feet padding on stones beyond the crates turned Scorpio's head to the gap, noting two shadows racing down the alley. A woman and a girl, by the hair lengths flowing atop them, but that was not sure. His own coppery mane, fallen from the traditional braids, was nearly as long. The pair slowed as they reached the crates the three assassins hid behind. Years of hunting prey, beasts and men both, let Scorpio stay still, as the two caught their breath. Kaljorn's light lit them for a few breaths, making them flinch. Both wore leather breeches, wide belts that cinched their waists and abdomens gently, and wool tunics. The woman's all deep verdant of a forest, the child's had green bodice and long red sleeves. Their leathers black, save circles etched into those girdles. There the elder sported two green circles, inscribed with black marks of a bear holding a spear, the child's were different, one like the woman's, the other very familiar to Scorpio. A Wolf holding a saber in its teeth. The same design on his mentor's own red and black leathers.
"Kiltyen." The word slipped out, leaving the clansman to star back at his companions, as the runners jumped back, distancing themselves from the crates.
"Blood drinker, you will not have my child." The woman snarled.
A foul curse in the tongue of the short folk burned the air, as Codi rose up, revealing himself. "Yania, we seek not your blood."
The woman's arm, trying to push the girl behind her, halted suddenly. "Codi?" The voice broke into sobs. "Though we were lovers, I cannot trust one of the clan that destroyed Hanval."
Codi stepped carefully from the knife and sheath where they could be seen. "Though I wear the badges of my clan, you know I am outcast for what I do, Yania. And you know what this means." The blade on the dagger was red, not gold. "Who escaped Hanval?"
The woman hesitated, trying to keep the girl behind her, but youth's curiosity overwhelmed her attempt, as the child sidestepped the arm suddenly. Snarling again, she attempted to snag the child's arm, failing. "None I know of, though Katvi was riding circuit of the farms."
"And your sister knows who to speak to amongst the clans, to buy a blade of vengeance." Codi whispered, eyes locking on the young girl, about seven walks of the stars across the sky old. "Eight years ago, the last time we met..."
Nervously silent, the woman merely nodded.
Seth-ma rose suddenly, disturbed. "Who would buy a blade that lets a killer save his own love? Who would take such coin?"
"Dzhino would." Scorpio said, softly. "And the Master of the Blades recently serviced of a blade he would offer to no others, amid the hill-baronies."
Standing up, the moon lit up the great bronze ball of the Scorpion's Sting, upon the hunter's shoulder. "It would be best we find some refuge, and other way from this place."
Seth-ma growled, turning back into the alley they'd used to reach this point, so close to the wharfs and ships that promised escape. "Stealing the fodder of the Asa-amu-mud is foolish. No paths will be left to us, save those into the Ki-Gedim-Du, and the land ghosts walk is not safe for you, Scorpion."
"Nor for the one who raises those ghosts, and owes me a debt of blood and souls." Scorpio whispered, still staring at the pair of Kiltyen females. "But if that is the path for them to be safe, we must take it." Lifting the gold dagger from his vest, he drew it finally, noting the blade was black.
Seth-ma fell silent, turning back. Blades of Vengeance and Succor were rare, never had he seen two at the same time, in all the centuries he had lived.
Along a wall, something stirred. A form rose, one of the tusked swine from the forests and plains around the city. The shoulders of the beast rose nearly to the chest of the half-elf, who stood a full spear tall. The death pig, snorted, eyes glowing a strange yellow in the moonlight. Seth-ma drew in a sharp breath. "Athalani, a namusah!" He roared, grasping a javelin from the quiver on his back. "Run, you fools."
Even as the Hrelgi moved forward, the beast rose on its hind legs, as a sickly saffron glow covered the wiry-haired hide, body twisting into something fouler. "Slayers and fodder, all caught in one grasp." Gravel marked growl sent shivers even up the spine of one used to such foes. Scorpio reached for the end of the chain of his Stinger, knowing this fight would draw more such beasts.

Renegade from the Crimson Inn {chap 7 finale of a complete Hunt of Scorpio Kenrai}

She felt the death of her last warrior, and hoped his failsafe plan would work, knowing in her heart that this fight was truly over. She was well fed, and able to fight, but the hunter had a determination to destroy them all, which she had not counted on. He was like a demon of vengeance, come to gather all the damned in for their time in Hell, and nothing was stopping him.

Each of her children, and those she had freed from Tamiko, had died at his hands. Now, she could see the burning, impaled bodies of the remaining Blood Drinkers in town blazing between the distant shore and the south wall of the town. She could hear others dying here, as the hunter either stumbled upon them by accident or tracked them to their hiding spots. Screams of rage and hate, pain and misery, as he destroyed them to ensure they would not rise as their lovers and mistresses had as damned undead blood sucking demons.

Katlayna had begun to worry she had indeed become a demon, and thus able to banished to hell for eternity. never to return to the world to feast on blood again. Slowly weakening as other demons and devils tortured her. She had scoffed at her upbringing until now. But this moment changed everything, for it might be her last. Now the Pangaluang were real again to her, creatures powered by her ancestors, carp dragons come to slay those who should stain the family honor. To avenge a family destroyed, and lift back up a family broken and scattered when needed.

When the final ones died, she walked to the great central pond the many canals led to in the necropolis, thinking she should wait there for her slayer to come. She never noticed when the hunter stood at the edge of the trees, and fired a shot from his bow to her heart with an arrow of tipped with a saint's blessed medal from behind. All her vision was filled with the ethereal dragon that had come to avenge the family she had betrayed. A family wronged from within.

Scorpio watched as a shadowy beast tore the vampire queen apart, not sure what he was seeing until the spirit wolf, eagle, otter and beaver appeared between him and the beast. It was only then that the cat slits in his eyes opened to round circles, in realization that as his gods were real, so too were those of this place. Surely the lion fore-bodied beast with the tail of a carp was the dreaded Pangaluang, spirit guardian of some family.

The beast gathered the pieces of the vampire, and drew a circle in the dirt around them with a mighty claw. Within that boundary fires so bright and hot suddenly leapt up that the hunter threw an arm before his face to keep the heat from searing his face. When the glow died down, in the light of the moon there was only the beast, fully formed, green in color, with the mark of Itazaki's house upon its forehead.

**You must finish the last of them, hunter. I may not leave the graves, but you must end the last damned one for me. His daughter took him during his mourning for his wife, and turned him into another damned soul.** The voice was louder than the one of the goddess of the glade, full of rage not regret. **They impugn the honor of the clan by staying after death, and not returning to the realm of souls. It will hurt what I ask, but you must do this, for the town as well as me.**

Scorpio nodded, wishing he this night dearly that he was still just Tagrun of the Kenrai, not Scorpio who hunted bounties and the damned.

One last person to slay. Or at least he hoped it was a person, and not what Katlayna had claimed, that he came to face. And get some answers from before it was over, he hoped.

*****

The chimes over the mat hanging over the entrance chimed as he walked into the shop of the merchant in foreign goods and scrolls. Inside was a new thing, a maze of hanging rugs and drapes designed to keep out the sun. An ill omen for what was to come, and omens were deeply in the mind of the no longer young hunter. The Kenrai clansman was worn and battered, only the healing he had gained a few hours ago by the mercy of one of the healing gods had kept him alive so far. He trusted very little in magics now, having seen how twisted things associated with magic had become in this town of late.

Scorpio parted the drapes, but did not rearrange them. If his friend was truly now a vampire, he would no longer be his friend. He drew the chablys saber one more time, ready to use it on his friend.

"There is no need, Scorpio. Just open the drapes, and let the sun do me in. It would be a kindness." Itazaki's voice was soft, not seductive as the other vampires had been, but mournful.

"How did it happen, Itazaki?" The hunter had to know, even if he would regret it forever after.

"Simple, I was a Blood Drinker in my youth. I gave the Leech Witch the books she needed to ascend to glory. I was the keeper of all things damned. In my heart, I knew what I did was evil, but I cared not." The shopkeeper paused. "I twisted the child, I had a sick place in my soul, that never truly healed. I took advantage of her charms. And when she left the inn, she gave them to me again, as she had so many times in past. In our disgrace, I gave her my blood, while she gave me something else."

Rage and anger at the betrayal roiled in the heart of the Kenrai clansman. "The necromancer, you helped him flee town. Yet put me on his trail. Why?"

Itazaki laughed. "There are beings beyond your comprehension, my simple hunter friend. Now open the drapes, and let me burn in the dawn. Do not stain your blade on me. The only thing I ever regretted, was betraying you so many times."

With a move as sudden as the sting of his namesake, the drapes were cut down, and then the bamboo shades to the outer world. The shopkeeper had already opened the doors that barred the eastern arches by night. With the sun rising over the city wall pouring in, the rays of pure light destroyed his best friend. Tears trickled down Scorpio's face, as a gust of wind scattered the ashes around the room, never to be a man or vampire again.

*****

She was hidden in the hard box wagon, draped inside in such a way to prevent the sun from entering the shelter she hid in. Still Tamara, who had lived as Tamiko for so long now, felt unsafe, sure the burning rays would enter, and turn her to dust. Every jolt made her anxiety rise, worrying the top heavy wagon would tip over. She had fled the night the hunter had returned, covered in so much blood and dust that few could stand to be near him. The scent had nearly broke her centuries of control, and driven her over the edge into the same frenzy her wild children had succumbed to.

So she had fled the town of her birth and unbirthing, to find another place for a time, until Cosarali proved safe for her to return. Time was on her side. Being immortal, even if the undead kind, gave her that advantage. But the town would have changed by the time she returned, which would be measured in tens of years, not months this time. She hoped it would not have changed so much she could not re-establish herself as a Mistress of the nightlife, and raise new children to aid her control of the town.

She was jarred mightily as the wagon came to a sudden stop. Outside she heard the sounds of struggle as her few remaining living servants were attacked by something. Panic ruled her, if they opened the door, she would be ended, utterly. The sounds ended, then the wagon moved a short distance, only to stop. A rap on the side, down by the bed, let her know someone knew there was someone who knew she was inside.

Then came the voice, the one she knew would come for her someday. "Sorry, Tamara, but the boy is right, we cannot let your kind continue to live in the town. Even if you were gone a century, it would not be fair to those to come afterwards. But as your friend of old, I take this upon myself. Know this in whatever hell you go to. It was a friend who set the wagon afire."

She screamed in fear and rage. To her this was not an act of friendship, but betrayal. She wished it had been night, but knew that her slayer had chosen day to prevent her escape. A nice, bright, sunny one. She heard the oil being splashed on her mobile tomb, and began to sob tearlessly. The sudden burst of flames and heat that came with the ignition did not startle her, she was already beyond knowing anything but the horror of where she was headed. The flames consumed the wagon, and her long dead flesh, giving her the first taste of the tortures she had earned in the hells.

Jinatozu stood watching the wagon burn to the ground. Tears streaked the face of the Grand Master of the Allegiance of Blades' face. He had warned Tamara when she submitted to the bite of that bastard blood sucker lover of hers. Warned her that some day he would have to take up the blade with the glyph for her on it. But she had never heeded the warnings of any before, so why should she have done that then. Or now.

The Dyermo sighed, feeling his own years of life. But he knew there was one trained now to take his place, not as the leader of the guild, but its conscience. He only hoped the young clansman lived up to the promise he had shown until know, and did not let his hate of the undead and necromancy destroy him. When the wind picked up, and the ashes and dust from the wagon began to stir and scatter, the grey skinned dwarf moved to his pack pony, and led it up hill from the dying embers of a friendship that was not really a friendship, just an walking together for a while.

The knife maker in Cosarali never was seen again in the artisans' ward. Some said he had died at the hands of the vampires, others said he had moved to distant Rahab. Only the hunter and the Mage of Shadows knew the truth, and the latter stayed silent when asked. The former walked back out to the edge of the prairies beyond the Iron Spur, and spread his wings over the grass, as an eagle should. Carrying a wealth of gold coins to his people, of which, for a change, he kept none.

*****

In the stormy seas of the Great Water, the captain sat in his cabin, staring at the three coffins he had taken aboard from a Blood Drinker in the night after leaving the port of Cosarali. He knew what was in them, three beautiful vampire girls, all sixteen winters in age. Ready to rise with the setting of the sun. He picked up the bottles he had been given by the magus who had sent him to that place originally. From each, he filled a chalice with the blood in the bottles, and waited for the Mistresses to Rise, dreaming of the wealth the magus had waiting for him in the Domorushtuun city of Dhibt. And of the blood the Mistresses would let him share with them. His, theirs, and that of many other cattle to the slaughter.

Renegade from the Crimson Inn {chap 6 in a complete Hunt of Scorpio Kenrai}

Scorpio reached the edge of the necropolis as the sun set, and in the twilight, he did something he had rarely done since Hiathuna's death, and prayed to the Totems to give him the power and skill to end this abomination. He was not sure if they could truly hear him here, even after seeing their presence in the glade of the unknown goddess. But that visitation had reminded him of the obligations of a clansman, to honor the Totem of the clan, to respect the Totems of the other clans, and to cherish nature, the source of all that lived. So he said a simple prayer, asking for the strength to deal with the vampires, and the fortune to carry him back to the prairies he loved to die.

It was right after his simple askance of the gods, that Scorpio realized that the gods were here, and listening. As the hunter moved towards the canal again, he came upon the tracks of an otter. Definitely not a native species, for in all his years wandering the forests and swamps around Cosarali, he had never seen them, nor any of their signs. Deep within him, the primal hunter that had been Tagrun thrilled at the totems taking a hand in his life again. But the Scorpion was not so sure. The scorpion knew that night was for the hunters, and traps were not always for prey.

With the stillness learned hunting the beasts across the mountains, he waited, patiently, his eyes tracing out every possible trap, and finding them disarmed or missing. There was something that just did not feel right about the area. He studied the canal, and then caught the head of the otter, looking towards a tomb a few spear throws into the abode of the damned. Following that creature's gaze, he saw a motion of the grass, just a twitch, as if another hunter had felt him out here, and shifted slightly, just as Scorpio's eyes had glanced there.

More patience showed him things as the least moon raced up the sky, fading into a crescent as it chased the sun again. Each movement of the foe told him more. This one was dead, for no mosquitoes clouded over him, and he had a long sword, the kind only the nobles and great warriors of the land held by law, leaning against the mausoleum's wall. A sword he knew.

He sighed, knowing from the first day he had entered the town, this day would come. The day the samurai who had scoffed at his weapons on entering the town would challenge him. But he had never dreamed that warrior would stain his family's honor by submitting to the embrace of the undead to gain more power. But the fool had already been known to believe his destiny was to be the next Daimyo of the prefecture. Pride was driving him to force this fight. Scorpio only hoped he could indeed hold out against the creature he would face once crossing the log.

A movement on the broken roof of the tomb took his attention next. Golden eyes, and the shape he knew so well. Kenrathi, an eagle, the totem of his clan, looking down upon the foe. Down, as it would from the blue when soaring, to find the small creatures of the field or the dead corpses the eagles sometimes scavenged.

He sighed, and adjusted his gear. Making sure of one piece in particular. He had long dreaded this fight, not because of fear, but sorrow. The once-a-man he now would face had the skills he admired, the weapons he lusted for himself from time to time, and class and skill with women the hunter could never gain. Despite their conflict, and the arrogance of Noro Ishi, he had a small case of hero worship for his exploits, which in many ways surpassed his own.

Once satisfied, the hunter moved, silently, stalking his way to the point nearest the fallen tree. He would trust the old ways again, and no longer deny his full heritage. If the Totems guided him to this fight, he would enter it, and hope they were not taking him to his end before the job was done. It took several minutes, and the samurai did not seem to notice the movement he cautiously made. But with one skilled in the arts of war, one could never really tell. Surprise was one of a true soldier's tools, not something one gained by just luck. You had to know how to use it, develop the touch in knowing when to pay close attention, while pretending to ignore what was coming. How to lull an enemy into something rash or thinking they had the element of surprise on their side.

And one had to learn to wait for things to come to them. Had it not been for the presence of the Totem avatars, the Kenrai clansman would have turned back into the woods, and waited to choose another crossing. Ishi had chosen this ground, for some reason, that the hunter could not fathom yet. The samurai wanted this battle here, at this time. Yet so did the gods of the man from the grasses. The man once known as Tagrun could only do what he could do. No more, no less.

But he would not go into the ground without one last look to see what it was that had made the samurai choose this ground and this moment. His eyes strained to see in the pale and waning light of the fast moving moon. The greater moon would not rise for another hand across the sky in the dance of the stars, so only it, the stars and the faint glow of late summer twilight to the northwest still lit the sky to illuminate the ground. It took several moments before he saw the reason. To the south, just right of the trees upturned roots on the necropolis shore, the earth was moving as if alive. And that earth was tinted blue, not by just the twilight, but what moved there.

Kaliangars, the great blue centipedes of the land. A swarm of them, big enough to strip the flesh off a man within minutes of his falling, before he was truly dead. The beasts were of many hues of blue, ranging in size from fingers up to a forearm. They were common in the marshes and various graveyards and cities of the dead of this land, feeding on the corpses given to them in those places. A single sting of even the smallest of them was enough to paralyze a full grown man in a couple hundred heartbeats. And once paralyzed, their feast would begin.

If this was the reason, then the hunter could cross, just trying to keep in mind where that deadly spot was. And attempt to make the foe forget it was there in rage or pain. Scorpio parted the brush in time with a gust of wind from some distant storm, not even visible on the horizon now. He was into the long dead and now brittle branches in short order. Then came the challenge of working his way to the trunk, without making more noise. He was rewarded by a deer dashing along into the brush he had come from, spooked by what creature, the hunter had no clue, but many thanks for.

He could go no further without noise, and was still several steps shy of the trunk. It came to him then, that perhaps this way of silent fighting without words he had seen Ishi use so many times before could be done with words. Scorpio's experiences with his prey in the past had taught him that people often either spoke with some conviction before a fight, or attempted to bluster their way out of a situation. Speaking with conviction, that might work now, but he was not sure. Until the eagle suddenly screeched, and danced on the roof of the mausoleum, as if some creature had come too near it.

The bounty hunter knew this was his moment. He broke through the twigs and branches of dead wood, leapt to the main body of the uprooted tree, and danced across it quickly. Once across the canal and clear of the mud around it, he stepped down to the left, and moved towards the still distracted samurai. It was only once he reached a point two spears lengths from the tomb, that the eagle settled down, and Noro Ishi returned his focus to the crossing, only to find it blocked by the hunter.

"Is it truly a good day to die, Ishi? This argument is one sided, only your false honor has kept it going." Scorpio's voice was a whisper among the singing of crickets, and the faint clicking that reminded the hunter of the danger behind him.

The samurai stood slowly, his features no longer the soft golden brown they had been, but now a pale white. It marked his new status as undead. That and the lack of the mosquitoes that started to rise from the little pools in the weeds and ivy ground cover around the clansman. The sword from the wall was in his hand and drawn in a single, easy movement, and took up the same position Scorpio had held his short sword on the thug in town.

The hunter's answer baffled him, as the barbarian boy stuck his spear in the ground, then removed his belt, balancing it on the upended butt of the spear. The hunter then did something unexpected to the vampire warrior. He reached over his shoulder, and produced another sword. This one was as long as his, also with a slight curve in its length, but thinner, and with a reddish green sheen to the blade. The hiss of the disdain from the undead samurai told Scorpio he had scored. He would fight this battle with his uncle's sword, the elven made blade of a metal blend called by that folk chablys. A metal with no iron, and thus the samurai's disgust.

"Yes, it is the day you will die, boy" The voice was no longer as rough, it had the sibilant tones of seduction built into it. "And my honor is not false, for you and your kind understand nothing of honor." He did not move, as he spoke, but stood like a rock, ready for combat.

The hunter merely shrugged. "Very well, I will have to defend the honor of Kenrai. But this will end eventually."

The samurai spat at the young clansman. "Yes, assassin, it is known, and has been, that you are of the damned group of honor forsaken killers. But here you are alone, there are no others to stab me in the back."

The hunter gave no words back, instead assuming the middle, defensive position with his sword, holding it with both hands, lightly. Neither man moved for a long time afterwards. This was the contest of wills, and the loser would make the first blow, or sheath his weapon. The culture of the tiny empire of Ankhgor was based on the samurai's ways, and their strange codes. To Ishi, this was something he had lived, breathed and ate for all his fifty years on the earth. While that was still four hands of years more than the clansman had, Scorpio had been raised a hunter, drilled in the importance of patience, and waiting until the right moment to strike one's prey. In his past the still living man had faced off for hours with the great sloths of the plains, fang cats, and once, a long-nosed tusk beast.

And the young hunter still stalked his prey. But only twice had he thus faced an undead beast like the vampire before him now. And those fights he had won by luck and the arrogance of his foe. This time he vowed to himself, he would be the victor, by his skill and determination. Occasionally his muscles would twitch at the bite of some insect, but other than that the hunter was still. The samurai turned vampire was utterly motionless. for no such thing plagued him.

Yet it was that very nature that made him immune to the insects that was breaking his will. The feast of the girl had not been enough, nor of the three others afterwards. The blood lust was rising in him now. The desire for blood, and soon. His attempts to reach into the hunter's mind had failed, as he was still learning to project his will onto others. Those seeking the thrill of the draughts of spilled blood when he had feasted were weak minded fools, he was discovering, easily swayed. This half human, half elf was something else. He was neither a peasant to be beaten down, or a coward to be scared off.

A smile touched Scopio's face, tugging at his lips. He sensed the change, even before the movement came. He had one the first engagement. Now all that was left was to survive the trial of metals and skills. Noro Ishi's blade dipped into a feint, followed by the real attack from the recovery. His blade shot to the left, and swung in violently towards the hunter's chest. And met only air, as the young man at last put to use skills he had never had to use, ones taught to him by the elf who had left him the blade.

A fight is as much a dance as a contest of strength, and the hunter had the blood of elves running in his veins as well as that of humans. To him the moves came naturally, and his body was more limber, for without a feast of blood on a regular basis, a vampire lost its youth and vigor. Priming a dying human also took more than he had fed upon afterwards. His reflexes were not what they were only hours before, when he had made the decision that sealed his fate now. But his gods had infused the hunter with fullness of rest and health, as had the unknown goddess.

Scorpio began to move his feet in the steps he had learned from his mother's brother, in that short time they had been together, hunting a necromancer, after the youth had left his tribe to find the foul mage. With each step he took, the memories of those drills with Galen came back to him. The pace quickened and soon the hunter was pressing the samurai in ways the vampire had not faced before. Metal rang on metal, and the slap of feet on the ground as well as limbs on bodies filled the air.

The samurai got the first good cut on his opponent a hand of the least moons race across the sky, which was less than a finger's motion of the stars. A simple slice on the upper arm, barely breaking the skin, but still enough to draw blood. But it cost him to get the touch, as with a spin away followed by a step in, the chablys blade cut him in the same spot. But deeper, and with something else. Fire raced through the arm of the blood thirsty fiend with that cut, the fires of hell summoning him home. Chablys, Ishi discovered, was made with silver in the mix, and metal seared his undead flesh like a torch. The skin on his exposed arm turned black around the wound, and smoke wafted away. Only the fact that chablys was an alloy, not pure silver, saved the arm from burning away.

He took two great steps back from the hunter to his north, as Scorpio danced out to a stop, several paces away, and towards the canal to the west. The hunter took deep breaths, but was not winded yet, merely finding the right amount of air to sustain the pace of the fight. Eyes met again, this time not in a contest of wills, but a gauging of the others condition. The red fires of hell were dimmed a bit in the vampire, while the bronze, cat's eyes of the hunter seemed to glow to his foe, with something that he could not understand, and never would. It was the power of gods, not the anger of man, and that strength was letting the hunter stand against his own undead might.

The two stood again in silent stillness, waiting again for the moment to attack. This time it was Scorpio who moved first, his coppery skin slick with the sweat of his exertions in the damp air, his face calm, the smile gone, for now he had to slay someone he had once admired, for his skills if not his personality. The beads on his leathers rattled lightly in the motions, like the buzz of the snakes of the distant grey sanded desert. The sound the soles of his boots made on the overgrown cobbles was that of the skittering of his namesake over rocks and barren ground, hunting for its prey.

Ishi blocked the first six blows, two over hands, three slashes and an undercut from a feint so excellent that the samurai smiled in appreciation. He could feel it, he had lost, but at least his final fight would be against an opponent worthy of his skills. The vampire tried his own cut, only to get another agonizing rip on his left thigh. The destroyed flesh would not heal until he had drunk blood, he knew. And there was no others around for him to race off to drain, even if the barbarian let him. He had recognized the style at once, and no admired the skill with which it was executed. The boy was a blade dancer.

In all the years he had known the boy, since that meeting at the gates of Cosarali, he had never dreamed the hunter had learned the ways of the elven fighting techniques. Even in the initial fight, which the boy had lost, no hints of this had come. The samurai was certain he had learned in in the last few months away from town. He was now crippled that in order to win, he would have to resort back to the trick he had set up initially to capture what he had thought was a fool. He made a move to attack, leaving himself open to a rushing thrust, to lure the boy to his doom.

The boy stepped up and lunged, but twisted around to his left, turning it to a flying spin, aimed at the vampire's neck. Ishi back pedaled three steps. Three very damning steps. The vampire felt the surprise he had planned for the crawling up his legs, stinging as they went. The kaliangars swarmed over his body. Being undead the stings were not a problem. But his flesh was already dead, so they began their feast. The bites were horrid, something he had never thought before came over the samurai as he tried to move, finding his body not responding. He knew fear. Fear so great, it forced him to use the only power he had truly mastered, that of turning to the misty ash of the other form. It got him away from the pain, as the centipedes fell to the ground, his substance no longer cohesive enough to support their weight. But they took parts of him with them. And with each missing bite, more of his energy was gone.

The winds were kind, moving the fog he had become to the north, right at the hunter, who had lowered his guard. Ishi concentrated hard, to reform with the sword extended. But in his return to the fullness of the solid world, he heard the sound of steel entering dirt, and knew the fight was over. The out stretched hand was empty, and the assassin had moved to the side as he coalesced.

The chablys blade chopped off the reaching arm, and returned to lop off his head. Then the vampire discovered the disadvantage to his new state of being. He felt each blow, even though his head was no longer physically connected to his body, as the elven blade burned through his distant flesh, cauterizing the wounds it made, to prevent his reassembly. He cursed the half elf with every blow, until his eyes where filled with the face, and a hand shoved a clove of garlic into his mouth to sear his tongue silent.

Scorpio did not laugh or taunt his foe, but moved the body parts to a spot where a game trail crossed the overgrown road into the heart of the necropolis, and slowly drove branches into each, to hold them there, for the rising of the morning sun. As he moved on into the darkening night, he prayed aloud that the spirits of the families of the town would forgive his desecration of their graves, and grant him some aid in stopping their town from being destroyed.

Behind him, the canals and pools boiled, as those prayers were answered, and the lesser gods of the various families awoke from their long slumbers.

Renegade from the Crimson Inn {chap 5 of a complete Hunt of Scorpio Kenrai}

The two Blood Drinkers had followed the one hunting them down until a bend in the road. They were irritated, he had known or suspected being followed. When he got a chance, he took it to lose his pursuit. Neither of the cultists were even slightly comfortable outside the town, and had none of the tracking skills they had heard of. So the men cussed each other for a bit at the bend their foe had disappeared at. They felt like fools here, certain the barbarian had not gone far, and his skills would be no challenge to the abilities of their queen.

"You stay here, I will report back." the older one said, finally.

"Yes, you go back and get the glory, I will stay here to be slain when he returns. I am not a fool, old man." The anger of the youth was deep, as if the young man resented the elder for some time before.

"Do as I say, boy, I am in no mood for your rebellions now. I brought you and your sister into the glory of the Blood Drinkers, and unlike you, I have been chosen before to give my own blood to a master." The old man did not wait. for the youth to reply, but turned away, and walked back slowly, checking the edges of the trees around the trail they had followed the hunter along. It had not taken the words of his son to make the man think the hunter had turned to ambush them.

He knew the barbarian had been severely wounded, perhaps enough to die of his wounds, but he had listened many times to the stories told in the tavern of the dwarves in their enclave across the Kasatur stream. There the warriors had spoken harshly of the dangers of hunting various prey, and all had listened the three times that the Kensori Wildman had spoken, once upon the dangers of auroch gone feral and once on hunting the great red furred long nosed tusk beasts of his homeland. But the room went silent when he stated the most dangerous of them all was man, he had gotten everyone's attention. He had told them that when a man was wounded, he was as dangerous as any beast. It was all the hunter had said, but it told them all he was a hunter of men, not beasts now.

And as a man, even one who had drank of the blood in his Mistress' veins, he was scared. Thirty of the cult, about a quarter of the membership, had died in the fire bombings, as had three mistresses, and five recently risen masters and mistresses. The man scratched the spot on his arm, where the nail of silver had entered during the explosiions, as he tried to duck away from the catapult shot.

No, they were hunting a man, a wounded man. And all the hunters had said that the wounded prey was more deadly than a predator. He was just glad it was not a woman they hunted. The hunters said that made it worse.

The hunter was dreaming, but not like his normal dreams. This dream was of the hunt he was on until that morning, he dreamed of the fight in town, how the thug had tried to slay him first, of the vampires on the necropolis, and their foolish attempts at capturing him to feed, of slaying Jenro, and several other guards he knew because they had the long fangs, blood on their jaws, and red eyes of the fiends. Of seeing a child killed by one of the vampires, dragged from its home, screaming for her mother. And how he had slain the little one out of mercy, when he realized the whore from the Inn of the Crimson Tide had indeed done the worst thing he could think of in her last moments, and poured the blood of her wounds into the child's mouth.

He started to struggle to awaken, not wanting to remember, but something forced him to continue on. The nine shot with holly bolts, the six blood drinkers he had found over a pregnant woman, and how in a rage he had flown in like the samurai of the land he lived in now, decapitating them all before they could finish her, only to discover she too was a Blood Drinker, and they were acting out some foul necromancy. The creature in her belly had clawed its way out, half baby, half demon, all evil incarnate on earth. That dance of death, with a beast that was not truly of earth, was horrid, had cost him wounds he had to cauterize briefly to stop the bleeding.

He relived them all, even the joy he had felt when he entered the tomb of the long dead engineer, whose catapult and sapping mines he had used with such luck. A joy not from himself, but that seemed to the hunter to have come from the very walls of that mausoleum. He remembered the young boy, turned vampire, never to grow any further, who he had thought at first was human and a victim, until as he picked the child up to hurry him to a hiding place, the brat had bit at his neck, only to find the thick leather of the arsiniotherium protecting it as a collar.

He relived his walking away, not to surrender in defeat, but to find a place to rest and regroup. How after many hunts in the area, this place had stuck in his mind as safe, pure, and perhaps even blessed. Scorpio was nearly awake, becoming aware his dreams were not at his own mind's bidding, and worried deeply. He began to twist, turn and try to get away from the dreams, and find reality again, his body pressing against unfamiliar things as he did. His mind was in a panic, the vampires had come, and were sucking out his soul to use in some foul necromancy, and would take his heart, thus denying him the walk of the spirit world after death, binding him to the place he died, to haunt it as Hiathuna, his partner and boyhood friend, had been bound to the spot the mage of the dark arts had tied him too until the hunter called Tagrun then and Scorpio now, had returned that heart to his body, freeing him.

He awoke with a start, no longer under the bench, but in the cradling arms of the idol. His first thoughts were the idol was not as safe and peaceful as he thought, until he looked into its face, and saw the once closed eyelids were open, made of rich sapphires worth enough to fire the coin lust of any merchant's soul, but streaming tears of clear moisture onto her white marble cheeks. The expression was no longer one of peace but sorrow. Yet there was some hint, a remembered thing from when his mother was with him, both as a child, and when he faced his cousin in the Dunes and met her again. They were tears of regret and sorrow, not anger or hate.

*peace, be at ease*

The words filled Scorpio's head but did not tickle his ears. He had learned from others of the mind speaking, his uncle had tried to see if the youngster had the talent, but had died before they could determine how much of his maternal line's gifts he had received from her. Strangely, he was alright with hearing this voice, it was calming, soothing the raw edges of his spirit this hunt had created. The Kenrai clansman stopped struggling, and let the solace behind those words wash over him.

It was then he noticed his wounds were healed, as if they had never been there in the first place. He did not know what to think, but looked around himself slowly, taking in the seemingly changed ruined shrine. The ruins were still there, but the vegetation that had grown over the columns was gone, leaving the pitted but still beautiful grey blue granite of their substance shining in the afternoon sun.

*There is no need to worry. The damned may not enter my glade.*

Again the voice in his head. But the phrasing, the healing, it made him realize he had been right all along, this was a place of worship once, and this was the idol of some forgotten goddess. He slowly sat up, noting even the rents in his clothing had been repaired, missing beads replaced, and no sign of battle remained on him. But the pouch hanging from his neck had changed, With the other marks the Uliqua of the Yarocha had set there when he hunted the Leech Witch, there was another mark, one he did not recognize. And it seemed heavier, as if something had been added to the pouch.

*Child of many peoples, you have far to travel yet, before understanding yourself and your true purpose. Let not this part of your life make you bitter and hateful. Learn and grow. But know this, you have chosen the path towards light, and darkness will always assail you along it. Go and end the terrible night these wicked folk bring, and return to me when your journeys say you must.*

The wave of wellness and love that washed over him brought tears to his eyes as Scorpio got to his feet, looking around with the instincts honed by the many hunts, for man and beast both.

There on the column nearest the overgrown trail to this place was an eagle. Not one of the sea eagles common here, but a great golden headed one of his land, staring down at him. At the foot of the column was a wolf, and by a tree nearby was a beaver. An otter came up from the pool between that pillar and the temple's ruins, to dance upon the grass. None of these creatures lived in this land, they did in his home on the prairies east of here, and only a few wolves came across the mountains from time to time, never staying. These were not the real creatures, but aspects of the totems. He had only once seen the eagle, and a few times the otter. But not being of any clan save the Kenrai, he wondered why all these were here.

A skittering on the ground grabbed his attention, and he noted a black scorpion, hunting other bugs on the buckled flagged stones of the floor of the temple. That creature was of this land, and he knew what that totem was telling him. The time to hunt again was upon him. He left not even noticing the eyes of the idol slowly shutting again, as the goddess who was bound in stone returned to sleep, until needed again.

At his belt was his red knife, the badge of his profession, cleaned and ready for use again. He turned to bow to the idol, and then to the totems of his father's peoples. Knowing there would be nothing left to do save the final night of hunting, and the clean up afterwards.

The only problem was, as he saw it, Scorpio was not good at cleaning up messes he made. He tended to leave them for others, to remind them of the price to be paid when a knife was purchased to take a life. Or to end something that no longer lived. The bounty hunter turned assassin gathered his belongings, settled into a gentle pace, and started back to the war he would long have to fight, to let the day come with each rising of the sun.

Tanji Bakin stood on the trail, still waiting for the hunter to come take his life. It had not taken the young boy long to realize he and his sister were mere pawns in their parents' bid for immortality, but still he obeyed, more out of love of his Mistress than filial duty. He was the bait in this trap. More than enough time had passed for his father to reach the necropolis, and gather others not yet dead and risen to the glory of being a nosferatu for the ambush that was to be here. Bakin had no doubts he was meant to die to bring out the hunter, so the other Blood Drinkers could capture him for their Queen to feast on. He only wished his own mistress had survived the night before to drain his blood, refill him with her own blessed ichors, stop his heart and let him rise as a vampire to server her and the queen. But that was not to be, she had burned away to nothingness in the impact of that catapult shot. He cursed the hunter silently, and vowed revenge, hoping as his Mistress' last surviving pawn, the queen would let him destroy the body of the hunter, sealing his soul to her bidding for eternity and beyond.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts, he never noticed the parting of the brush behind him, until the red knife of the assassin was in his throat, giving him a taste of the pain his heroines had done to so many over the last few moons. Unlike the vampires and cultists though, this predator just let his blood flow into the ground he collapsed to, as he tried in vain to stop the gushing flow of his life juice from his nearly severed neck. His last thought was that there was a strong smell, then taste of garlic, as a clove was dropped into his open mouth, as a precaution against his rising as undead.

The Scorpion rose from his kill, and like his namesake, skittered away, to find more prey. It was a good day to die, if you were a vampire or Blood Drinker, he thought. A very good day indeed.

===

Scorpio moved on another trail back to the necropolis, one that paralleled the one he had taken only hours before to the ruined temple of the unknown goddess. He had never been overly religious, despite his upbringing, until today. The sight of the many Totems and the goddess' idol had stirred something in him he had not thought of before, that the gods were real, and personal. He had much to think about when this hunt was over, but until it was, he had the job to do.

Halfway back to the necropolis, he heard voices on the main road his trail echoed. He stopped and listened, smiling when he heard a wagon, and talk of the feast of blood to come once he was dead and all could return to hunting in the town. Those Blood Drinkers thought that the power of a person could be absorbed by all who drank the life giving fluid. It was time to show them a trick he had learned a long time ago. With a silent swiftness, he turned back towards the lowering sun, and found the trees he remembered several li ahead of the fools. The hatchet he had let him finish the job on the westernmost one started by rot and insects quickly. It fell across the road with a loud crash, making the place impassable. Five wagon lengths east was a similar tree, already broken at the base, held up by ropes attached by some concerned caravan master.

He waited ever so patiently for his prey to come to the trap, hatchet in hand to cut the ropes, and his lantern filled with oil and lit, sitting in a low pit he had dug for it. He had the tools of his trade readied, including the old recurve bow he had thought to never use again after getting the hand crossbow the hunter had left behind in the city of the dead that morning. Sure enough the cultists brazenly came down the road, until they encountered the fallen tree. They even obliged him by leaving the wagon placed for something he had never hoped for, lest luck betray the thought. He heard them curse and call for axes and ropes to make a path for the Mistress' chariot.

As most of them were at the forward tree, he rapidly cut the ropes holding up the other dead monster, the thunks blending in with those from the workers at the decayed bulk, until the suspended colossus began its fall. They all stopped, and the hatchet slammed into the skull of the Blood Drinker closest to him after Scorpio cut the last rope. The massive trunk fell across the covered wagon crushing it, and tearing apart the closed over canopy of the still living trees to let in the bright rays of the afternoon sun.

The Kenrai clansman grabbed the lantern and tossed it into the mess of the broken wagon, hearing the glass oil bulb shatter, and the flames grab hold. After that for a few moments he was too busy with the bow, sending arrows into the cultists until they realized where he was and the four remaining charged towards him, swinging their own axes wildly.

Scorpio smiled grimly, drew his short sword, and stepped into the road quickly, intercepting one of the cultists from the side. The fool had been placed off balance and fallen from one of the wild swings, as he got up, his neck was exposed, and a quick thrust severed all his arteries and veins, while the spin the hunter turned out of him in tore out his windpipe. The next one was a simple woman, who had no clue how to use an axe, but was doing so at her Mistress' command. She was lured into exposing her chest with a simple feint, and another stab between the ribs this time ended her life.

The last two were more wary, They knew they faced their death, and did not approach it lightly. These cultists were trained in swordplay, not in axes, and the subtleties of the hew versus stab and slash were lost on them. One fell to the ground after overextending, only to have his hamstrings cut, and the arm with the axe lopped off. The other gave Scorpio no trouble at all, and chopped off his own foot. As he lay screaming on the ground, the hunter walked up slowly, and drew his gutting knife, the wicked hook of it glinting in the sun.

"Today is a good day to die. Be glad, the gods and spirits will grant you mercy, if you die like a man." Scorpio's words were cold, like the wind that brought the snows in the most bitter of winters. This one he knew, and the person had long said the hunter was a drain on the community, who polluted its auras with his cowardice at avoiding fights. So the hunter took time, as he checked to see if the man actually had any guts of his own. And taking the liver and heart out of the chest, to prevent him from rising, as his neck had the tell-tale scars of feeding a vampire before, and thus being infected with their taint.

When he was done with his simple revenge, he stood and looked over at the three still fighting to free the screaming vampire in the ruined wagon. Those fools were so absorbed in saving the former human lady, they never noticed the fight, of the knives stabbing into their backs to end them. Scorpio Kenrai shook off the blood from his sword, and then glanced at the ruined farm wagon, now fully ablaze, igniting slowly the tree that had crippled it. Inside the mess he could hear the whimpers and pleas of the vampire, a voice once loaded with sex appeal and seduction to her ways, now filled with fear and hate. One last scream came, as the wagon sides broke in blaze he had started, allowing the tree to drop into the bed. And silhouetted in the flames was the chest of the vampire, being speared by a burning stub of a branch.

He had only a few more to go. He knew not how many Blood Drinkers, but these fools had spoken of the numbers in terms he could guess. Two of the undead fiends left, and maybe a few dozen cult followers. Already, the hunter had a plan to avoid cleaning the mess he would make up. One the great lady in the castle might not like, but she should have known his reputation. The hunter recovered all his weapons, tossed the bodies and parts into the pyre, and moved on. He had an appointment with death to meet. If not theirs, then his own. That was the code of the Allegiance of the Blades. You take the job, you finish it or die trying.

===

Noro Ishi stepped out from the safety of the tomb as the sun at last went below the horizon. He could see the pall of smoke from a forest fire in the west spreading its orange glow to the sky, and taste the ash of human and vampires both mixed with the soot of burnt vegetation in the air. The samurai had fallen a long time before to the charms of Katlayna, and knew she was his Queen, even before she broke free of the bitch who ran that den of perversions she had been enslaved in. When his lover had left, he had gone to Daimyo Gomi and offered his services to find the rogue vampire. He had never said to the lord he had sworn to that he would slay her, so his honor was still unstained, in his view.

She had been easy to find, only three days after leaving. She had tossed aside all subterfuge, to call the Blood Drinkers to her service. The choice of the necropolis had been obvious, it was where they all seemed to go, the vampires and Blood Drinkers, the Leech Witch and the others over the years. The damned and the undead felt most at home surrounded by the rotting bodies and monuments to those already in hell. They came here like moths to an open flame to die. So he had shown them how to survive dancing with the flames.

When he had come to the archipelago, she had been waiting for him, the lust for his soul in her eyes, which only blazed brighter when he had asked her to make him her servant, so he could protect her from the likes of that which now ravaged their unholy community. Had she known it was not just her will in him, she would never have let him rise from the soil on the third night, to stand by her side and set up her downfall. Always before, save one time, the vampires here had a queen. If they had an emperor, like himself, the whole of the land would be theirs to take. He had been the one to capture the guards, and feed them to the whores, letting them slack their uncontrolled thirsts, while being careful in his own feasts, taking only a few each night, and never raising any servants for himself. He wanted warriors, and one such was coming.

Over the years, Ishi had come to hate the hunter from the prairies, who did the things honor had bound him not to do, or had been unable to achieve by his own skills. Now at last they would get the fight he had wanted all along. The fight of samurai against gaijin, one that could only end, in his opinion, in victory for the more cultured warrior, and the death of the barbarian who could not even read or write his own death poem. But that was fine by Ishi, he would write one for the boy, in his own blood.

The fallen noble of Cosarali settled his swords, thinking not of the fight to come, but of the glories that would be, when he slew that weak willed fool Gomi, and took his women and children as feast or servants. After letting his mind wander, he grabbed a young girl of the Blood Drinkers, and pulled her close to him. She would be his insurance of victory.

"All of you, to the west side, slow him down, while I and this one do the ritual of the sharing of bloods, but do not slay him. He is the queen's to slay, or mine at her bidding." The assembled cultists, their numbers thinned by both the hunter and a daylight raid from the town guard, moved off, hefting weapons like the peasants they were. Fodder for the fight to come, to whet the appetites of the real contestants.

He turned to the girl, and told her to disrobe, and then rutted upon her as he drank her blood, and then as she was dying pierced his own chest with a talon to give the real blood of life, still sating his carnal desires in her dying body.