MILES STRETCHED ON miles of black, lifeless sands. Here they piled in dunes, and there in low, knee high rivulets as if in the memory of some vast and forgotten riverbank. The shifting, uncertain footing quickly wore on me, and my legs were aching before long.

I stopped, hiding the pain, and knelt in the sand. I let a handful run through my fingers. There was no breeze here, no wind to carry it away. It simply fell, as if drawn straight back to where I’d lifted it.

“You tarry at our peril,” said Param sharply. As far as I could tell, she was untrammeled by the sands. I gathered she’d crossed them many times—how else could she have fetched wood for her fire, but from the edge of the forest that lay beyond the sands?

“I’ve never seen sands like this,” I said, masking the ache in my legs. My stiff fingers kneaded the dead flesh, trying to work some semblance of life back into them.

“No living man has seen the likes of Hell before,” Param answered. “What does it matter?”

My last living memory was of sand. Of a bloody beach, and the cold gray surf tearing away the last of my possessions: a silver chain. It meant something. Something important. Why else would I cling so firmly to that fading, dying sight? But I knew not what the chain was, or the nature of the battle on that blasted, vulture-choked strand by the sea.

Perhaps I could remember. The silver tear still lay cradled in my makeshift sack, the stolen tunic I wore folded over my shoulder like a pouch. If I were to break it open…

“What do you remember?” I asked.

“Of what?”

“Who you were. Before all this.”

Param cast her gaze around at the distant cavern walls, giving me a reprieve from her silent accusations. Dull, ruddy light from the cascading magma was all the light we could see by. It splashed red high up the cavern walls, and the gloom filtered through the vast void at the cavern’s heart. It was enough to see by, but little more. Orange-tipped stalactites retreated into shadow high above us, though of their lower counterparts, I saw no sign.

“Flashes. The shreds of a tapestry. I was a wife, I think. Or perhaps a mother. I remember pain, and toil. And a song.” She caught herself at that, and held a clutched hand to her throat. After a moment, she pulled her black veil up to cover her face. Her eyes shone at me in the dark, though not with the inner radiance I’d seen in others. “Come, Cinderborn. Unless you are too weak.”

Pride is a mask. The answer came from the sword, from its aloof mind, but I did not voice it. Instead, suppressing a groan, I forced myself back to my feet. “Lead the way.”

Param walked like a hunter, her shoulders low and head on a swivel. She was expecting something, though I could not imagine what. Any Faded staggering out here through the dark would be obvious from a ways off, surely.

The sands spread round us, and like two wanderers crossing an infinite gulf of bitter dark, we made imperceptible progress through the infinitude. I was nearly in need of another respite when Param stopped and thrust out her dagger.

“There,” she said. “Do you see it?”

I scanned the dark, trying to pick out details. There were rude humps of sand ahead, but nothing stood out about them. We’d passed hundreds of dunes. I glanced at her to see if she was having a laugh, but found only deadly seriousness in her eyes. I looked again.

Maybe, I thought, there was a regularity to those dunes. Yes, that was it. There was a pattern. No hump was higher than the others, and as I looked closer yet, what first I mistook for jutting bluffs resolved into the hard, right angles of a structure.

“What is it?”

“I do not know its name. But it is a way station, of sorts. Harald left caches of supplies in the old houses there.”

“Will there be Faded?” I asked, rubbing a finger along Bloodfang’s hilt. I wanted to know if I was she was about to lead me into an ambush.

Before she could answer, a piercing cry split the dark. It was no screaming man; it was the death-cry of a raptor from far above us.

Param threw a fearful look up, and then scrambled forward. “Run, fool!” she shouted, kicking up black puffs of sand with every step. It is not so easy to walk on sand. Even harder to run.

I followed as best I could. Stumbling, half-blind, and more weary than I’d ever been before, she quickly pulled ahead. I heard a stomach-seizing whuff and threw myself to the ground. Something passed overhead with a snarl, slicing through the air on bladed wings.

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No time for terror. I kicked myself back up to a run, nearly dragging Bloodfang behind me. It was too large to run with properly.

Stand! the sword’s voice commanded. It wanted to fight. I wanted to run.

In the confusion, something heavy slammed into me, throwing me to the ground. Talons tore at my exposed back, and I screamed.

A silver dart shot through the air. It struck the thing that was tearing at me, driving it back in a mad rush of flapping wings. I rolled to the side and brought Bloodfang up like a shield.

“Fool!” Param hollered, charging back toward me with her head held low. She threw another knife, but this one missed, hissing off into the dark.

I caught sight of the bird-thing as it leaped into the air to pounce on me again. It was nearly a crow, but with a long, rope-like neck. Its oily black feathers were missing in patches, bearing scabbrous red skin bubbled with yellow pustules. Its wings were easily twice my height, and the long feathers there were edged like blades.

It jumped towards me, leading with huge bladed talons, each as long as one of my fingers.

I jammed upward with Bloodfang even as the thing hurled toward me. The sword rammed up into its chest, and the bird-demon squawked horribly, lashing with its head, writhing and flapping to get away. But the damage was done. Stinking blood poured out of the wound in ropes, and it fell to the sand beside me, kicking and thrashing in death throes.

As if sensing the murder, the dark above us suddenly exploded with outraged cries.

Param was hauling at me now, shrieking something I didn’t understand. She dragged me to my feet even as a thread of radiance rose from the killed bird, and I got the idea: run for our bloody lives.

Dark forms swept low, circling and swooping, trying to knock us to the ground. I laid about me with Bloodfang when they got too close, but it was a near thing. By the time we made it to the sand-heaped structures Param steered us toward, I was bleeding from half a dozen bad gashed, leaving a glowing trail on the black sands behind me. Param was panting, running nearly doubled-over. I could see she was injured, too, leaking radiance even as we cut between two of the dunes and broke into the heart of the little place.

Even still, the birds circled, diving and screaming.

“Where?” I demanded, cutting at one as it flashed past. I heard a satisfying scream of outrage, and a whole foot flopped dead to the sand beside me. The bird crashed into the top of a dune and hurled off into the dark.

Another slammed into the sand beside me. The impact made me stagger back a few steps.

“Woeful knave!” the bird screamed. I looked up, and saw it had the head and face of a fat, pale man. The flesh of the face writhed, as if maggots wriggled beneath the surface. It wore a tall black hat of feathers that rose to a peak. “Kneel before the deacon of talons!”

I do not kneel. Bloodfang’s snarl escaped my own lips this time, guttural and fanged. My own eyes widened as I spoke the words aloud, and some part of me relished the shock on the monster’s face.

“Wolf!” it crowed, throwing its ugly head back. “A wolf caged in iron!” The crow became the laughter of the mad, explosive and venomous. Bloodfang shivered in my grasp, its fury an almost tangible heat rising in the iron.

“Param!” I cried. “Where?”

She was spinning. “There!” She lurched forward toward one of the dunes. It looked no different than the others, I thought, with the corners of the roof sticking out under tons of sand. She’d need to dig to gain access to whatever lay beneath.

“Do you know why the wolf howls at the moon?” asked the decon-bird. It hopped toward me. For such a small movement, it made my stomach lurch with terror. This thing had no fear of me, or my blade, at all.

I answered with a high cut, driving it back. Distracting it so Param could dig.

“Because,” answered the deacon, “the wolf can never taste the sky. But we winged few can rise all the way to the moon’s dear bosom. That is a truth you can never break, little wolf.” Its triumphant little speech was a ruse. As it spit its final insult, the deacon lurched at me with a flap of its huge wings, raking with talons and striking with its beak.

I wasn’t so easily fooled. Bloodfang might be furious beyond words, its anger a white-hot haze at the edge of my mind, but I was still in control. And I was no wolf. I rolled to the side, out of the bird’s grasp, ignoring the pain in my torn back and sides. For a brief second, the thing was exposed. I slashed at its flank, spilling radiant blood all over the sand.

“Insolent pup!” it screamed, rearing back with wings fully extended. More of the birds hit the ground behind me. I whirled, driving them back, giving myself space.

“I am no wolf,” I said, turning to face the deacon. The fear was a little thing now. The anger was driving me now, but it was a cold rage. The fury of revulsion, of righteousness. “I am Cinderborn.”

“Lies!” the deacon-bird yowled, and threw itself into the air again. This time I rolled, coming up with Bloodfang in a strong guard. The deacon slammed into me, heedless of the defense, and so fast I was unable to effect much damage. Worse, I felt the ground tremble below us. Its great bulk pressed me down into the black sands, one taloned foot clasped around my sword arm, pinning it down.

The ground shivered again. Black sand shot up in puffs, as if the the bones of the earth had made a great exhalation. Another deep, threatening tremble. Sand began to slide.. Perhaps that is what saved me, in the end. The deacon’s swollen, pale face pulled back, and a look of fear passed across his piggish eyes.

Without a word, he surged into the air as the ground began to fall away.

My last sight of the deacon was his great raven’s wings unfurled like a fallen, twisted angel, rising into the air… as I fell.

Fell into darkness beyond death.