The steppe stretched, a sea of cracked earth, dust swirling in eddies that caught the Firewall’s glow, painting the air in hues of blood and gold. Predators lurked, hulking shapes with bone-plated hides, their roars a low rumble that shook her ribs even through the suit’s dampeners. She’d flicked on the ultrasonic repellent yesterday, a faint whine only Argentum’s sensors caught, watching a pack of spine-weasels scatter, hissing as they retreated into the thorn-thickets.

“Soft lot,” he’d muttered. “I’d have stomped ‘em flat.”

“Keep dreaming, tin-can,” she’d grinned, patting his flank, his sass was her anchor, a shield against the wild’s teeth. Now, the repellent hummed low, a silent ward as they cut south, the canyon’s shadowed gash looming ahead, a wound in the earth where the air grew thick with the stench of death.

She reined Argentum at the canyon’s lip, visor sweeping the sprawl below, bones gleamed white amid scrub, vultures circling tight, their cries threading through the wind’s howl like a butcher’s chorus. The Firewall pulsed, its light a hellish sheen over the dust, warping the horizon into mirages of flame and shadow.

A memory jabbed, Barbuda’s growl over a flickering console: “You’ll find nothing but dust and ghosts, waste of a good suit.” She’d laughed then, sharp and quick, “Ghosts don’t bleed, old man.”

Now, the canyon’s rot proved her right, something had bled here, and plenty.

“Picking up carrion vibes, Mistress,” Argentum said, sensors pinging her HUD. “Fresh kill, two days, maybe three. Smells like a brawl gone sour.”

“Eyes sharp, then,” she replied, guiding him down the slope, hooves crunching bone shards underfoot. The canyon walls towered, jagged stone pocked with claw-marks, shadows pooling where thorn-scrub clawed upward, its barbs glistening wet with sap. The air thickened, humid, sharp with the musk of beasts and the iron tang of blood, a predator’s breath that clung to her suit like damp rot. She’d seen the Northland’s crows pick at refuse, here, immense vultures gorged, their beaks tearing sinew from a wild corpse, its hide split wide, entrails steaming in the heat.

A flicker caught her eye, a glint in the dust, half-buried. She swung down, boots sinking into the parched earth, dust puffing rust-red around her knees.

Argentum snorted, “Mind the muck, don’t fancy scraping you clean.”

She ignored him, crouching, her gauntlet brushed aside grit, revealing a notched blade, its leather hilt stained black with sweat and gore.

“Southland iron-work,” she muttered, scientific curiosity sparking, crude, non-industrial, forged by hand in a blacksmith fire’s gut. No circuits, no alloys, just raw iron, a tool of survival in a world that chewed and spat.

“Primitive buggers,” Argentum quipped. “Bet they’d trade their teeth for a servo.”

“Bet they’d gut you for scrap,” she fired back, pocketing the blade, data for Barbuda, proof the South wasn’t just ghosts. Her visor pinged, bio-signs faint, fading. “Something’s alive down here.”

“Or half-dead,” he grumbled, sensors whirring as he scanned. “Left flank, fifty yards. Smells like blood and bad luck.”

She remounted, guiding him through the canyon’s gut, thorn-scrub snagged her suit, barbs scraping like claws, the air a stew of rot and heat that fogged her visor’s edge. A shadow loomed, a caver corpse, a mountain of sinewed grey meat, its hide gashed, ichor pooling black and rancid, jaws slack with jagged fangs. Two corpses sprawled nearby, axes limp, hide armour torn, one’s chest caved in, ribs jutting like broken spears. “Fresh,” she said, voice low. “Looks like humans have managed to survive here.”

“Predators’ll be thick soon,” Argentum warned, tone sharp. “Let’s not be dinner.”

Her HUD flared, bio-sign, weak, pulsing. She swung left, Argentum’s stride kicking dust, there, sprawled against a rock roughly fifty yards away, a warrior lay, tall, sinewy, sun-darkened, his hide armour soaked red at the left leg, a shredded ruin of flesh and bone, blood pooling dark beneath. His thick mane matted with dust, a scarred face twisted in a faint, sardonic grin, teeth bared, moaning in delirium.

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