Below, six caver juveniles prowled. At five foot they were small by the standard of their kind, lean shadows, faces smeared with ash, their talons glinting. They’d claimed the canyon spring, a muddy thread in the cracked gut, and now three Poan survivors of the ambush, ragged, blood-streaked, faced them down, axes low. Denmark’s tongue clicked against his teeth; he’d not let kin bleed alone. He slid down the rise, boots kicking dust in a haze, and charged, a roar tearing from his throat like a war horn across the wastes.

His sword met flesh, a caver’s limb parted, blood spraying the parched earth in a crimson arc, splattering his hide like war-paint. The beast shrieked, stumbling as Denmark pivoted, blade arcing to cleave another’s neck; bone crunched, a wet gurgle fading as it dropped, eyes staring blankly at the emberlit sky. His kin rallied, axes hacked through ash and sinew, a guttural chant rising, but the cavers fought like cornered dogs. A third lunged, claws aimed for Denmark’s gut; he parried, iron sparking like flint on stone, and smashed his fist into the creature's jaw, snapping it crooked. The caver reeled, spitting teeth; Denmark’s sword plunged, gutting it, navel to chest; entrails spilled, a steaming coil on the dust, the stench of bile sharp in the heat.

Three down, three to go. His breath rasped, chest heaving beneath the armour's creak, the air thick with blood’s copper reek and the sour rot of the canyon’s carrion breath. His men pressed one caver, axes sinking deep, flesh parted, a scream cut to gargles, but two circled Denmark, eyes glinting feral beneath ash-streaked brows. He grinned, teeth bared like a wolf’s, let them come. One darted, claws flashing low; Denmark sidestepped, slashing its thigh; blood jetted, a hot spurt painting his boots as the beast collapsed, howling. The last screamed a guttural cry, leaping, claws aimed at his heart; Denmark twisted, the tips grazing his side, a stinging kiss of talon. His blade drove up through ribs, a wet shunk piercing lung; the young caver gurgled, crumpling, its last breath a hiss swallowed by the wind.

Victory pulsed a savage hymn in his veins, but then the earth shuddered. A roar split the air, deep and guttural, shaking dust from the canyon’s walls like a god’s bellow. Denmark spun, sword raised, as an adult caver burst from a crevice, ten feet of sinewed grey fury, hide rippling over muscle, jaws gaping with jagged fangs that gleamed wet in the emberlight. Its eyes burned yellow, slits of hunger drawn by the slaughter’s reek, a swarming scout, bold with the season’s call.

Denmark's Poan kin froze, axes trembling; the last juvee caver bolted; claws snagged it mid-flight, rending it apart in a spray of gore, limbs scattering like broken twigs, the stench of ripped guts flooding the air. Cavers, it seemed, did not care for their young.

“Move!” Denmark bellowed, shoving a man aside as the beast lunged, its bulk a storm of claw and fang.

He swung, blade biting its flank; black ichor oozed, a rancid flood that stung his nose, but it barely flinched, maw snapping inches from his arm. A claw raked his left leg; leather tore, flesh split from thigh to shin, a white-hot blaze searing through sinew. He roared, staggering as blood soaked the dust in dark rivulets, his footing slick; his sword thrust again, aiming for its throat. The blade sank deep, crunching bone; the caver thrashed, hurling him back like a rag in a gale. He crashed hard, skull cracking stone, vision swimming as its bulk loomed, fangs bared, a drooling maw of death.

A memory slashed through the haze, his twin’s laugh, sharp and wild, the night they’d hunted a boar far too big for their years.

“Back me, fool,” his brother grinned, blade flashing. Denmark had, taking the tusks to his arm, blood hot as they’d laughed over the kill. The old man’s bellow had followed: “Reckless shits, stick together or die!”

Now, separate, that bond gnawed, a void where his twin should’ve stood, blade at his side.

His men charged, axes and swords hacked the beast’s hide, a desperate chorus of grunts and iron. It snarled, swatting one aside; ribs snapped, a scream cut short as he crumpled, a broken heap in the dust. Seeing this, the two remaining Poan rangers dropped their weapons and fled. They would not get far.

Denmark clawed upright, leg a ruin of torn meat and pulsing red, blood pooling beneath; the canyon’s parched earth drank it deep, a greedy slurping beneath the Skyforge’s glow. His sword lay yards off, glinting mockingly in the emberlight; he lunged, fingers scraping dirt, but the beast turned, surging forward, claws raking; Denmark rolled, agony a red haze as dust ground into his wound. He snatched his dagger from his belt, rusted, curved, slick with gore, and as fangs descended, drove it up, piercing through its open jaw straight into what passed for a brain. A howl shattered the canyon, ichor gushing hot over his hands, thick and vile; the beast slumped over him and stilled, a twitching mound of meat and malice, its last snarl fading to a gurgle.

Denmark gasped, his breath a ragged wheeze through gritted teeth; crushed under the weight of the caver's massive corpse. With some difficulty he extracted himself. His leg was a shredded wreck; flesh hung in flaps, blood seeping steadily, the bone beneath a splintered gleam.

“That bastard’d laugh,” he rasped, forcing a grin, sardonic and raw. “Me, gutted by a beast, where’s he at?”

The twin pang hit, sharp as a dagger; his brother’s absence a howl in his chest, louder than the Skyforge’s distant roar. A brief flash of vision overcame him. His brother's hands raised to fight, poised to strike. The vision faded. The canyon’s dust swirled, a gritty shroud under the emberlight’s hellish cast; vultures circled high, their cries a thin wail over the steppe’s hum, predators lurking in the scrub, drawn by the screams of the dying and the stench of battle.

Out here on the sun-scorched plains, survival was a cruel gamble, even without a shredded leg painting the ground red. The Southland scavengers, vultures and other heartless fiends, didn’t care if their supper still twitched. They’d feast all the same.

Denmark sucked in a shuddering breath, forcing his mind to focus. His knapsack lay crumpled twenty yards off, flung free when the beast had rag dolled him like a straw-stuffed puppet. Inside it, a vial of opium tincture gleamed in his memory, a bittersweet promise to dull the fire licking up his thigh.

He squinted at his leg. The leather britches hung in tatters, a shredded banner of defeat. Three jagged gashes raked from groin to knee, raw and glistening. Blood pulsed in sync with his hammering heart, a relentless drumbeat counting down his time. He’d patched up worse on others, comrades screaming under his blade as he cauterized their wounds, but staring at his own ruin, dread clawed at his chest. Two deep breaths shoved the panic back into its cage.

The knapsack taunted him from its dusty throne. Crawling it was, then. With a snarl, he yanked his sword free from the beast’s corpse, its tip scraping bone, and began his agonizing pilgrimage. The ground bucked beneath him, a cruel mirage borne of blood loss and vertigo. Nausea coiled in his gut like a serpent. His arms trembled, sinew screaming, as shock sank its icy fangs deeper.

Twenty yards. Twenty endless, cursed yards.

At last, he reached the bag, collapsing beside it in a heap of bloody sweat and dust. His skin gleamed clammy and pale, tinged blue as life ebbed away. Fumbling fingers tore open the knapsack, seizing the stoppered vial of poppies milk. He rolled onto his back, chest heaving, and wrestled the cork free with a grunt. The bitter liquid slid down his throat, a dark mercy.

Relief unfurled with a sigh. His pulse slowed, the pain, a shrieking banshee moments ago, drifting off into a hazy twilight. He pictured it slinking away, a skeletal wraith with ember eyes, its grip on him unravelling.

Then, a cackle sliced through the stillness, high and jagged, carried on the wind. The scavengers were closing in. Denmark’s lips curled into a wolfish smirk. “You’ll find my flesh tough as old leather,” he muttered. “Choke on my bones, you bastards.”

Something grazed his cheek, a fleeting sting. He swatted it, and a tiny ember flared before his eyes, a fleeting star that melted into the dusk. Blinking, he tilted his gaze skyward. The heavens were ablaze with a cascade of sparks, a shimmering rain of fire tumbling earthward. His breath caught. The Firefall. From cradle to battlefield, he’d devoured the old tales: the Skyforge aflame, the Gods pounding out blades and breastplates on the Scorched Earth’s anvil, their sparks a baptism of destiny. To be touched by them was to be marked, crowned with wisdom, marked for greatness.

A searing pain lanced his left eye as an ember struck true, burrowing into the soft orb with a hiss. He gasped, vision erupting in white-hot brilliance.

“Forgefather’s piss,” he muttered, defiant; then agony blazed as it flared suddenly, scorching, a brand melting into his skull.

He screamed, clawing his face, the spark’s heat a live coal burrowing deep; his body bucked, dust choking his throat as the world spun red. A vision slashed through; flames parted, a steel horse thundered, its rider a shadow cloaked in lightning, her voice a whip: “You’re mine now.”

Beyond, a vast hall gleamed, machines humming under a sky of ash, his twin’s grin flashing, alive yet distant, a thread stretched taut across a wall of fire. The Hearthland faded, the vision snapped; his eye burned gold, whispering alien, as a shadow loomed on the cliff’s edge: metal gleamed, a steed’s bulk, a rider’s gaze piercing the haze.

Denmark’s grin bared teeth, sardonic to the last; his leg bled rivers and as his eye pulsed fire the world teetered to black.

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