They were in position. Waiting. Always waiting. Sharps took a close spot, his glittering gemstone knives hidden in uncountable makeshift sheaths across his tattered clothes and scarred body. Ghost sat high and far away on a black stone outcropping. His Curse always kept him removed from their group. A field of utter silence thirty strides across kept anyone from being able to hear even their own voice if they found themselves inside it. Made him deadly as The Titan itself as a stealther. Sharps glanced up to Shadowblade and Drowse taking flanking positions around the woods surrounding the black glistening egg. The Titan consistently shat huge oily eggs containing Freshies, those just brought into this nightmare world. They were all Freshies once, Sharps, Shadowblade, Ghost, and Drowse each. They came out of the same egg even, siblings in the desolate plains and woodlands that they called home. Not Ghost though, he came later.
Now, under the ever dark sky, they were watching a new egg, waiting for what would happen next. Sharps had seen a lot of Freshy eggs hatch, some of them, like their own little band, survived together, communicated with each other, others killed each other in mindless fury, and sometimes the eggs weren’t filled with people at all. On more than one occasion they had to make a hasty retreat or a brutal stand, as scores of rotten skelatals or bone hounds came pouring out of a hatched egg. But they always tried, for the chance of allies, the chance of power. Sharps grimaced, preparing himself for anything.
As if responding to his thoughts, the egg began to crack, and Sharps started to ready his knives. He flexed his will and five glittering gemstone knives slipped out of their sheaths and hovered in front of him. For good measure he sharpened a fist sized stone on the ground and it hovered at the top of the deadly formation of blades. He grinned in the wildness of his Boon and his fingers flexed and cracked, scarred scabs bending painfully, as the egg broke and he could see the first of the hulking skeletals pull themselves from the black fluid inside the egg. He saw Shadowblade summoning his flickering midnight sword ready to wade in to assist him. Sharps took a step forward and launched the formation of sharpened missiles at the first two skeletals that flopped out onto the dirt and were pulling themselves to their rotten feet, bones exposed under rotten flesh. The biggest blade connected with one of their skulls sending rotten black brain matter spattering against the still cracking and pulsing egg. The other skeletal was shredded by the rest of the barrage of blades, but more were coming.
Sharps was about ready to pull more knives from their sheaths when the egg exploded in a violent spray of bone shards and black boiling liquid. He dove to the ground, covering his head with scarred hands. His ears were ringing and he felt hot blood dripping down his arms and scalp where tiny shards of bones and egg fragments sliced him. Even in his rattled state he checked his body over for any serious cuts. His Curse made his skin as thin as a leaf and it took him three times as long to heal from cuts and slashes and breaks. Made it miserable to have a nasty one. He had almost died more times than he could count from infection and too much blood loss. Luckily Ghost was something of an expert when it came to foraging for healing herbs and stitching up Sharps’ various injuries. Ghost's Curse made him a loner survivalist, he had to be in order to survive before he had the band.
Sharps blinked bleary eyes at the wreckage. He saw Drowse bent over the huge form of a motionless Shadowblade. Sharps wasn’t worried about old Shadow, he was one tough bastard and would survive this. Sharps saw Ghost coming down from his position to check out Shadow and the wreckage of the egg. Sharps staggered over towards where Drowse and Ghost were furiously signing back and forth, their fingers a blur, in between tending to Shadow. The salty metal taste of blood dribbled down into his mouth. In a wash of realization, he noticed something. In the wreckage of the inexplicably exploded egg was a limp pale body. He staggered over to it and gazed stupidly inside. The ashen body of the smallest woman Sharps had ever seen was strewn on her back, covered in rotten skeletal bits and black ichor, but she looked remarkably unharmed. Sharps got in closer, stepping a bare scarred foot over the broken edge of the egg and into the muck and bones. He was entranced by the sheer brightness of her. He leaned in closer and saw her chest was heaving up and down, slow life pulsing inside. She must be tough if she survived whatever that blast was, come to think of it, maybe she caused the explosion herself. Sharps’ brow narrowed and he took a tentative step back, all too aware of the potential danger of an unidentified Boon.
Ghost walked up, the aura of his Curse a familiar blanket of silence that enveloped Sharps. Ghost signed to Sharps in a blur. In his bleary state Sharps focused for a second before he caught his friend's meaning. Shadow will live, what's in egg?
Sharps moved his scarred fingers like a frantic running figure, ghostsign for Freshy, and left it at that. Ghost approached the ruins of the egg and glanced in, a look of moderate surprise overcoming his usually stoic and gaunt face. He walked back over and crouched by Sharps, his cloak fluttering, and stared right into Sharps’ eyes.
Want me out, his fingers communicated, to talk with others. Sharps nodded. His old friend got up and dashed over to the closest cliff face, scaling it like someone might walk a small incline, no effort at all. Ghost was only gone a moment before Sharps and the others were outside of the range of his Curse. Immediately, Sharps heard loud booming swearing.
“Titan damn this fucking damnit..!” Shadow screamed.
Sharps climbed up to where the brute was slumped over, Drowse examining him closely.
“His eye’s out, Sharps,” Drowse said quietly
And Sharps could see what she meant, his friend's normally dark brown eye was replaced with a fuming black pool of smoke. It roiled ceaselessly making an odd pairing with his unharmed other eye.
Shadowblade was covered in blisters, cuts, and holes in his clothing. A patch of his thick beard was smoldering with black flame. He struggled as Drowse tried to inspect him.
“Titan’s cock! Shadow, your eye really is out,” Sharps said, squinting and leaning in.
“No shit Sharps, Ah! This stings like a bonehound’s bite!” Shadow wailed as he held his hand up to his face.
Sharps frowned, and pointed a scarred finger, “Uh, Shadow”
Shadowblade looked down at his hand and shrieked again, his pointer finger was nothing more than a flickering black flame, exuding the same smoke coming out of his eye.
“What is this?!” Shadow wailed.
“Must be your Curse, right?” Drowse said, turning her red rimmed eyes towards Sharps, “Haven’t seen it yet. It’s been way too many cycles.”
“My Curse?” Shadowblade asked in between rubbing his smoldering eye socket and covering one hand with the other.
It was odd to Sharps to see Shadow in a state like this, he was normally the fearless one, chopping down any and all threats. They had heard of and seen Curses making a creeping appearance later in someone’s life and had been expecting this, but it was always hard to grapple with the reality of a permanent hindrance.
Some Curse’s were nothing less than death sentences, like one of their old bandmates, Blister. He could flame anyone into smoldering ash but every time he used his Boon he burned himself a little more and more, even if the blue flame never touched him. Soon, he was all burned up, couldn’t even recognize his face. And the funny thing is they were grateful for him, he killed and killed so they could live, and that mad bastard was burning and laughing to save them till the very end. Now, Sharps had the creeping sensation that Shadow’s curse was along the same lines as old Blisters’.
“There’s a Freshy in that egg. She’s alive,” Sharps said.
Shadow stopped his struggling and Drowse stopped her prying and they both looked at him. Sharps walked away towards the egg beckoning the others to follow. They approached slowly, the woman was sitting up, her short hair clinging to her scalp with wet black ichor. Sharps and Shadow stayed back as Drowse slowly approached her. Drowse grinned and ran a long nailed hand through her mane of dark hair.
“Hey there friend,” She said quietly, holding her hands out slowly.
The Freshy stared at her with huge unblinking eyes, “H...he..llo,” she uttered mechanically.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
It was odd, if not convenient, that all Freshies could speak if you gave them some words to bounce off of and some time. And this one was no exception, she seemed to be warming up to Drowse quickly, as she offered the Freshy drinks from her waterskin and wrapped her jacket around her naked shoulders.
“She’s harmless,” Drowse said, standing up as the Freshy gripped her waist and pushed into her.
“Harmless?!” Sharps laughed, “Drowsy she blew the whole egg with her Boon. Unless you forgot?”
“You don't know that, we don’t have proof of her Boon or Curse yet, just that she's here and she’s alive. An egg going boom is probably the least strange thing I've seen out here in the last cycle,” Drowse said, turning her stern ringed eyes to Sharps.
Sharps had to agree with her there. He thought back to the last cycle of insanity, when the Titan birthed giant hives near one of the central watering holes that local bands used to drink. They had to fight their way through countless horrors and desperate folk for just a simple drink of murky water. The hives were still there, preventing anyone from accessing the largest resource of water they needed to survive. Even though the Titan had left over the wall, beginning the next cycle, its inhuman creations remained, and they weren’t like bone hounds, they had long insectile claws and many legs and were bigger than three men. After a few too close calls they decided to run from the watering hole and their hideout and make a new hideout wallward. Which, thanks to long practice of nomadic travel, they were all adept at.
“You're right. But just be careful with her until then. You can bring her but I want you watching her at all times,” Sharps said sternly.
“Righty then, Captain Cuts,” Drowse said with a sleepy grin, “Won’t be sleepin’ on the job then will I?”
Sharps grimaced and considered again, like he often did, what it would be like to exist without rest. As Drowse existed. Her Curse was one of the most brutal and difficult to cope with that Sharps had ever seen. No sleep. None. Sharps had heard of people dying from drug fueled sleeplessness but Drowse was very much alive. Her cloudy mad eyes glinted and Sharps glanced away, clearing his throat.
“You alright then, Shadow,” Sharps said, turning to the big man.
“I’ll live if that’s what you mean,” Shadow said with a slight grin, his eye pulsing smoke.
“We’ll deal with your Curse,” Sharps grinned, “We always do,”
“Is it stupid,” Shadow whispered, “That I thought I might not have a Curse?”
“Yes,” Drowse interjected as she absently wiped black ichor from the Freshy’s face with her torn tunic.
“No,” Sharps said, “By the Titan, even I thought you were Curseless. Its not stupid to have hope. But we ought to know now that the Curseless are a legend, nothing more. And sometimes, the worst Curses hide until they eat you up all at once.”
“Not helping, chief,” Said Shadowblade shortly.
Drowse giggled absently, playing with the Freshy’s short hair. Sharps cringed at his not so soft wording and offered Shadow a defeated grin.
“We’ll make it work chief,” Shadow said, smiling his huge toothy grin back despite his pulsing burning eye.
“Right then, back to the hideout?” Sharps asked.
“Hideout! Hideout! Hideout!” The Freshy suddenly shouted out, before burying her head into Drowse’s belly.
“Seems like the Freshy is excited to see our home, tell ya the truth I am too, Ghost caught us a blackscale at that stream he found and I set it to slow roast when we left!” Shadow said excitedly, slapping Sharps on the back with his good hand.
“So we keep her?” Drowse asked, tilting her head slightly and looking deeply at Sharps.
“Of course,” Sharps said with a wicked grin, “She seems to like you and besides, did you feel that power? I want that on our side if it was her.”
The newly expanded band made their way back to the hideout, buried deep in a thick ravine of thorns, Shadowblade had carved a pathway through the razor sharp brush and dug his way into the hillside with his impossibly hot blade. His Boon was perhaps the only reason they managed to stay alive as long as they had, His and Ghost’s, who even now was invisibly stalking a hundred paces ahead of them, observing for any potential threats. The two of them offered a sort of package of survival that Sharps and Drowse didn’t match. Ghost could silently take a six eyed stag in the night without it even knowing he was near, and Shadow could have a roaring black flame going in moments, his sword pulsing with unending heat. He could discard the sword and resummon it at will, making it a sort of all encompassing tool that the big man could rely on. He carved the entirety of their living space in the hillside in one evening, his corded muscles pulsing as he hacked away at raw earth like the Titan mid creation.
Sharps grinned and he was thankful that his band was full of such power and comradery as to allow their meager pleasures and sanctuary. They filtered into the cave mouth entrance, Shadow lighting black fire torches along the walls. Drowse helped the Freshy walk, still stumbling and new. They filtered in while Ghost was securing a perimeter. Drowse took the Freshy to the most comfortable corner in the dark dreary cave, where their rothawk feather mattresses fused together into one massive sleeping area. The Freshy curled up with Drowse’s jacket and fell into soft breathing sleep.
Sharps strode over to the clay pot slow cooking rig where Shadow was crouched, huge shoulders narrowed, as he pulled out the steamed fish. The scent of cooked fish filled the cave as Shadowblade opened the steaming lid.
“Who’s hungry?” Shadow said with a grin
“Starving. But you really should be seeing Ghost about those wounds,” Sharps said as he accepted a dark leaf wrapping around a filet of steaming white fish meat.
“Honestly the heat is dissipating,” Shadow said, “Maybe I am Curseless,” He crouched over handing portions of fish to everyone and set one portion thirty paces outside the cave entrance of their hovel for Ghost.
Sharps grinned at his friend's optimism and walked excitedly towards the cooling rack where his newest set of weaponry was ready to test. Bladed ringlets that were effectively razor sharp claws custom sized to Drowse’s fingers. The claws extended a half a hand's length and had an ingenious mechanism that allowed Drowse’s Boon granted toxin to cling to the blades up to the very edge.
Sharps thought fondly to the toiling he and Shadow had put into this particular design. They worked well as a team in the art of smithing weapons. Even though they had only been in this new hovel a few weeks they had set up a forge quickly. Over the cycles, Shadow had gotten very good at carving into the huge cliff sides and mountains that populated the Dying Wood. He slashed deep into the cave and found abundant coal veins for his custom made stone furnace.
At this point in Sharp’s life he was a master craftsman of innumerable tools. Knives of all sizes and shapes, eating tools like the small wooden or bone rods he called “spolks” with a wide slightly indented head that made eating stews all the better, and he made Shadow’s brutal hammers he used to bend hot iron to his will. For the finer work like making bowls and round tools he used his own set of lathes and coarse thin bark that rubbed things smooth with enough friction. He had made Ghost's long twin daggers, and Shadow’s battle armor that was long buried back at their last hovel, and of course he made his gemstone throwing knives, for which there was a chest full of dozens that Shadow lugged here to this new cave home.
Sharps held the claw ringlets right up to his eye as he analyzed the true edge of the blades. No one knew a blade like Sharps and these were perfect. They were so sharp any more use of his Boon would be negligible at best.
“Drowsey! Dear Sister!” He called for her, “They are finally finished.”
Drowse was finishing her morsel of fish and stroking the snoozing Freshy’s mop of short dark hair with a pale hand.
“She’s really done?” Drowse asked, as she languidly lurched to her feet over towards Sharps.
“She?” He asked, giving her a questioning glance.
“Yes, BrightClaw is a she,” Drowse said gleefully.
“Fitting, but I would think of them as a they, each blade is perfectly…” Sharps began before a blur of a pale arm snatched the weapon from his hands.
In a moment, she was wearing them, each finger an extended dagger of hardened metal. The thin linework meant that Drowse’s toxin could easily make its way from her palms to the blade's edge. They dripped with dark liquid and glinted in the soft forge and torchlight.
“Oh she’s perfect,” Drowse said with a wide splitting grin.
“Glad you like her,” Sharps said, matching her smile and leaning forward to admire the edges of his creation.
From his peripheral vision Sharps noticed the Freshy sitting up abruptly from slumber and staring at the cave entrance. Her black eyes went wide with fear and she pointed a trembling finger. Sharps twisted his head and he scrambled back, and he saw Shadow drawing his black flaming blade from behind the giant silhouette at the entrance of the cave.
“Bug!” Shadow roared from behind the beast as he leapt onto its huge thorax and tried to drive his blade into it.
In front of them a creature as long as three men and twelve legged crawled into the cave entrance. It had a dense black carapace body and twin sets of extending mandible jaws, each slobbering acid saliva. This was the new horror the Titan decided to drop in their already dreary world. There were thousands of these monsters at the watering hole hive cluster, a place only the mad would dare go near now. This must be a scout of some kind, far away from the swarm. As the beast flicked its body trying to shake Shadow off and Drowse closed in with a low dash, Sharps looked at the Freshy’s face. Her eyes were glassy with rage and Sharps reeled as she dashed forward and gripped two bone eating utensils that they had been using to pull apart the fish meat. She grasped them in her tiny hands and they glowed bright with a sudden power. Sharps knew what would happen next and he quickly delved into his Boon and targeted the charged bone cutlery, he sharpened them in a grinding spray of bone dust and launched them at the insectile invader. They detonated its mountain head in a spray of ichor and white brain matter, the Freshy whooping with glee and laughing maniacally. Shadow rode the beast to the cave floor, driving his pulsing blade into the giant insect's thorax, assuring it was dead.
“What was that?!” Drowse said with a laugh as she ran and embraced the Freshy, careful not to knick her with her new deadly claws.
“It’s bones…” Sharps said with a cool realization, “She can charge bones to blow!” He screamed.
“That’s her name, isn't it? Bones!” Shadow roared as he stepped off the ruined corpse of the Bug and unsummoned his blade.
“You like that then, girly? You're called Bones.” Drowse said, kneeling and looking right into her eyes.
“I…I’m Bones” Bones said with a shockingly innocent looking grin.
“Our names are what we are! Our names are the Titan’s trial!” Sharps recited.
Shadow laughed and pulled Drowse and Bones and Sharps into an embrace, his pointer finger a smoldering nub. Drowse held her hands out, careful not to knick anyone with BrightClaw. They all laughed and Sharps could tell that Bones would make a good addition to their band by the wide grin on her small face.
The familiar silence of Ghost’s Curse drifted over the embracing group and Sharps turned to the cave entrance.
Atop the titanic corpse of the monster, Ghost stood, holding three massive severed Bug heads by the antennae with two strong arms. He dropped them on the wet cave floor with a thud and leapt back out into the dense thorned ravine, the aura of silence lifting.
In that moment, Sharps had a pang of sympathy for Ghost. He would always protect them, despite his inability to really socialize with the group. They had a grasp of ghostsign, especially Sharps, who had invented it with Ghost, but he was always slightly cold, distant. Sharps had a soft smile and admiration for his friend. Ghost had killed at least three of those beasts in pitch dark to protect the group, and he had done that and more in the past. Gripping his brother and sisters even tighter, he knew Ghost would protect them.