The necromancers huddled around the hearth of a dilapidated farmhouse twenty miles east of Barghast and Crowe. The storm they’d given birth to had torn a hole in the roof, spiraling around them, making the walls around them shudder and groan. It was a wonder the house didn’t cave around them.

He knew they were necromancers by the way the stench and the shadows moved around them like living things. They were dressed in black cloaks not unlike his own, their hoods drawn. The only difference marking him from them were the trinkets clasped at their throats: a five pointed star with half crescent moons resting at each tip. The symbol of Hamon, king of the night, anathema to everything Monad stood for. He watched them from the shadows, unable to move. He had no arms, no legs, no body with which to see. He had no idea how he came to be in this incorporeal state - if it was an innate ability or if something else was at work. He only knew he didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be back in his body where he belonged.

It was safe to say he didn’t like life as a wisp of smoke.

He could tell they were necromancers by their stench. It was not a sense he picked up with his nose but his…mind? his spirit? Petras never had the chance to teach him astral projection before the madness took him…Shapes moved in the darkness at their backs. The leathery flap of a wing here, the narrow point of a snout there. The gleam of a white eye like a dead star in a black void. He didn’t want to know what horrors hid in those shadows. He wanted to know about the necromancers even less. Their very aura sent slivers of dread through the core of his astral body.

Black static made the air crackle around them. Only the lower half of their faces showed. The white whiskers and grizzled jaw of the taller figure suggested an older male. Being a practitioner he would be ancient…around Petra’s or Cenya’s age if not older. Crowe didn’t want to guess the power he wielded. There was something about the smaller of the necromancers that drew his attention like a black magnet. The sensual curve of her lips suggested she was female.

Her grin disturbed him in a way he could not say. It took him a moment to see why. Her lips were red and sticky with blood. Theirs both were. Thunder clapped above their skies, setting the sky alight with blue fire. “We know you’re there, herald,” said the older necromancer. His voice sounded like paper scraping against stone. “We can smell the foulness of your creator running through your veins. Who was it you think summoned you here?”

“We did,” said the other. Her lips parted to reveal teeth that had been filed down to razor sharp points; they rivaled that of a lycan’s. If Crowe had a body to feel with he would have felt a cold chill crawl up his spine.

“We are your opposites in every regard,” croaked the man.

“The darkness to your light,” the woman sang happily.

“...the antithesis of change. We are chaos…”

“...just as Hamon is the flipside of Monad.”

They bounced back and forth, finishing one another’s thoughts.

“You should have stayed on the farm where you belong, boy. You meddle in matters you do not understand.” The man raised his head up enough to show the gleam of a milky white eye. Black veins twisted through icy tissue, pulling his mind back to the temple back in Timberford. There Barghast and he had discovered worshippers of Hamon, linked by blood to a lower demon who had lived beneath the temple. All servants of the same twisted being in one form or another.

He steeled himself against the necromancer’s words. They were nothing more than a mere distraction. I need to find a way to get back to my body. If he had eyes they would have been shut tight in concentration. He remembered the last time this had happened…it hadn’t been nearly as unpleasant of an experience. The feeling of flying. Of being weightless. Limitless and without constraint. Only to discover this lack of constraint had the worst limit of all: the lack of control. So he discovered again as he reached frantically for the trees, trying to reclaim that feeling of buoyancy.

“He’s trying to wiggle away, Pa, the worm,” the girl tittered. She held up a single severed human finger; the digit had been severed down to the last knuckle. The needlepoints of her teeth caught the moonlight. He could only watch as she raised the finger to her mouth before biting into it with an audible crunching sound. “It’s fun watching him squirm like a little bitch…”

“Careful now, Tara,” the man admonished without a shred of conviction in his voice. “That’s the herald you’re talking to. Although…” He frowned. “I will say this one looks younger than the other heralds. The others were always older. More weary of the world, more experienced. This one has only had a taste of what life will bring him.” The man shivered as if shaking a thought away. “It doesn’t matter.” The man sighed, almost giving him a look of sympathy. “It isn’t really your fault. You’re just a pawn in a game that’s bigger than you. And in the end you always lose. We all do. This time you’re just being knocked out of the game a little early.”

With that Pa held up his staff and pointed it at him.

In the blink of an eye he was surrounded. The cloud of pulsing black static spun around him. Even if he’d been capable of movement, there would be no way to escape; he was surrounded from all sides. Leathery wings billowed past his field of vision. Distorted faces snarled at him, hollow eyes pulling him into endless depths. They sliced into him with their claws.

Through the roar in his…ears? he didn’t have ears…he could hear Pa and Taras laughter.

They were enjoying this.

“Twin o’rre…”

A voice. A voice in the storm.

A compass in the dark.

He seized a hold of it with his mind. It repeated, growing louder and louder with each repetition, pulling at him. I’m coming.

There came a great tugging sensation and he crashed back into his body with such force he gasped for air. His thoughts raced, struggling to make sense of what was happening around him. The dead wind whipped at his face, smelling so strongly of dead flesh it made his gorge rise. A familiar shape hovered over him, amber eyes fixed on Crowe’s body. The practitioner’s eyes joined him on the open wound that marked his flesh. It stung but after all they’d endured in Timberford, he was getting used to pain.

“Crowe,” Barghast whined, his fur standing straight on end. His body vibrated with fear.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Crowe heard himself say. Not because he truly believed everything would be okay, but because he knew panicking wouldn’t help. We have to keep moving. We have to get ahead of the storm. “Help me, help me, I have to get up.”

He needn’t have worried about the lycan understanding him. Whatever they lost in the way of communication they were one in matters of survival. The Okanavian helped him on the horse before climbing up on the saddle behind him. Crowe tied a scarf around the front of his face and pulled up his head - anything to block out the fetid stench of Inferno. He passed a handkerchief over his shoulder so Barghast could do the same. With his pointed muzzle it took a precious minute to get it secure, but they managed.

Crowe steered the horse North back towards the Dominion Highway. He could feel the blood flowing freely now, soaking his robes. He would have to staunch the bleeding soon, but first they had to get out of this infernal draft. Gripping the reins with one hand, he held the Lion-Headed Serpent clasped to his throat, a prayer’s flutter on his lips. “May Monad’s light guide me through the dark…”

Barghast growled his own prayers under his breath. Crowe could tell not because he could hear him but because the solid muscle of his belly vibrated constantly against his lower back. Each jolt from the horse sent ripples of pain through the practitioner. He could feel his life leaking out of him one drop at a time…had to keep moving, but the damn horse couldn’t go any faster.

He wasn’t sure how long they rode on like this before he noticed the unnatural draft died down to the natural flutter of being on horseback; by this time he was clinging to the saddle to remain upright. He lifted his head at the sound of burbling water. At some point he must have nodded off and Barghast had steered them elsewhere because now they had stopped by a tributary. The water traveled downhill, cascading down jagged rocks. Crowe found himself searching the trees for the black glittering eyes of a bear.

“We have to go,” he heard himself say. “The cut’s not even that deep…it’s just worse than it looks.”

He didn’t have the energy to put up a fight when Barghast steered towards him towards the water like a mother coaxing a child into the bath. Barghast made the motion for him to lift his arms over his head. The moment the practitioner obeyed, he pulled the filthy garments over his arms. Crowe resisted the urge to hug himself against the cold.

Barghast froze, his eyes lingering on Crowe. They started at his face before sweeping over the bony ridges of his shoulders, his throat, down his torso to the wound and lower. He had the same feral look Crowe had seen on his face before…that moment by a stream very much like this one. It had been after they’d escaped the horrors in the temple outside of Timberford.

“Hello!” Crowe snapped his fingers impatiently. “I know…for whatever reason I can’t imagine…you can’t take your eyes off me, but I’m bleeding out and there’s a literal cloud of death chasing after us! Can we get a move on?”

Shaking his head, Barghast freed himself from his stupor. He rooted around the bag, muttering and whining under his breath in Okanavian. Even after having traveled together for two weeks, rarely leaving each other’s sight, it was still jarring to Crowe to see someone who looked so much like a wolf act so much like a man. A man who felt fear. A man who had insecurities. A man who’s way out of his depth, the sorcerer thought bitterly. It was a struggle to keep his eyes open but he knew he had to stay awake…had to stay alert.

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The smell of smoke brought him back around. Barghast held up a leather piece of hide for him to bite down on, his expression grave. You're not going to like this. Crowe took the hide without hesitation. Having grown up in the Northern wilds his whole life, he was no stranger to wounds. He'd yet to show them to the lycan, but he had a few scars of his own. Wincing, bruised and exhausted, he rolled over on his stomach. All too aware that he was presenting his bare ass to the lycan. I trust him. I do trust him.

Barghast worked diligently, using a claw to smear gunpowder on the wound. He was starting to present himself as a capable healer as well as a lethal predator. Biting obediently down on the hide, Crowe wondered what other surprises he'd yet to discover about the lycan. He told himself pointedly not to think too hard about the pleasant orb of warmth the thought filled him with.

“Twin o'rre,” Barghast said warningly. He gave the practitioner's rump a pat, making sure to take a transactional squeeze for himself - it still surprised Crowe to find he was eager for each touch.

The snap of a match being struck. A small bloom of fire in the dark.

He screamed against the sizzle of his own flesh. His fingers turned into claws, digging furrows into the earth. Tears of agony sheened his cheeks. I've cried more in the last two weeks than I have my whole life passed through his mind. He reminded himself life on the road was a hard life. A life battling demonic bears, necromancers, and religious zealots even harder.

The touch of Barghast's tongue against his smoking flesh made the practitioner yelp in surprise. Before Crowe could jerk away from him the Okanavian anchored him with an arm around his waist, baring the sorcerer's injured rump to his dripping muzzle. The way those eyes speared his flesh, the way he stood with his entire body rigid, his tail pointed straight up at the sky. It was moments like this that truly put Crowe's growing faith in the lycan to the test. When he looked like he wanted nothing more than to claim the practitioner as his next meal.

The voices in his mind reminded him Barghast was a beast - no matter how close they'd become. Voices that reminded him they were more different than not. Always there were voices. So many he didn't know where they came from. They'd been with him since the start of that very long Winter spent alone with Petras. The same Winter Bennett left for the rebellion.

Those voices immediately grew silent when Barghast's tongue pressed against his flesh once more, already cooling. “Barghast,” he moaned, his toes curling so tight it hurt. “We have to go…Damn you to the Void, you're going to get us killed…” At the moment he found he didn’t care so much at the sandy feel of the muscle grazing his flesh. Still, he tried to pull away.

There was no pulling away. Not when it came to Barghast getting what he wanted. Not when a massive arm spanning his belly held him place, surrounding him with fur and solid muscle. Not when Barghast’s hungry growls sent shivers up his spine and yet he was being so gentle, not hurting Crowe. He’d growled at him; once he’d snapped at him; but he’d yet to hurt him.

By the time Barghast pulled back, Crowe’s ass and the back of his thighs were thoroughly covered in the lycan’s hot saliva. The lycan stooped to do more but the practitioner shook his head. He held his hand up, putting his thumb and middle finger together. “Do I need to start flicking your nose to get you to listen? You need to learn boundaries.” He hated the lack of conviction in his voice. How could he preach about boundaries when he so willingly enabled the Okanavian’s advances?

The lycan’s shoulders slumped with a whine. Crowe ignored him, stumbling back towards Mammoth. There was no time for rest or cuddling, no matter how much he yearned to do so. The servants of Hamon were still right behind them.

…

“I really don't understand,” Pa said for the fourth time. “It’s not like Monad to change things up. He makes the same mistakes over and over again is in his nature...as I suppose is in ours. There's nothing wrong with the experiment, it's the scientist, the creator’s hands who are wrong.”

Tara paced back and forth. The cottage they’d taken refuge in shuddered around them, barely fit to take notice of them. Pa didn't notice. He was lost in thought as he often seemed to be more and more these days. She wasn't the only one. The darkness at her back was hungry as well. It wanted to break forth uncontained; to blacken the sky and block out the sun.

That would be fun, Tara thought. She imagined the havoc endless havoc would reach upon the world. Or turning the sky blood red…that would be something. But Pa doesn't want to have fun anymore. Tara knew she shouldn't pout (she was getting too old for it Pa was always telling her) but the practitioner and his lapdog were getting further away. She could feel them sinking further and further outside her and Pa’s influence.

“What does it matter?” she hissed, unable to contain her impatience a moment longer.

He raised his head to burn her with a glare of glittering impatience. “The herald isn't going anywhere. He’s injured and most of all he's inexperienced.”

Tara waved her hand dismissively. “So what's the big deal? I just want to kill something.”

“Even in this Iteration you are an impatient fool,” Pa hissed under his breath.

“Even in this one you are a boring one…as ever.”

“When your lives end in the same way over and over no matter how hard you try to change the outcome, it has the tendency to make one bitter,” Pa snapped indignantly.

Tara tried to hide a grin and failed. Drops of saliva fell from the ends of her incisors. It was always so much fun to get under Pa’s skin. It was always so easy to do. Something tugged uneasily at her. He didn’t always used to be this way. Perhaps the culmination of lives has been too much for him. The thought touched a fear in her she didn’t want to take notice of. Rather than face it head on she did what she always did which was hide behind a false smile of indifference. “I don’t care if this cycle is different from the last one. Whether this herald is more experienced or less experienced. All I know is I am tired of having my body broken and restitched back together cycle after cycle. When I get my hands on him, I’m going to kill him with my bare hands. I’ll strangle him until his eyes pop out of his skull.”

The thought made Tara titter with excitement. When Pa did not join her in her joy she gnashed her teeth together in frustration. She rounded on him, blood-stained lips peeling back from her teeth in a snarl. “Pull yourself together, Pa! Remember what our Black Father said. No more do-overs. If we fail this time, we won’t get to try again in the next cycle. We’ll burn for all eternity. Do you want that?”

Pa was silent for a long time. The silence clawed at her, made her want to crawl out of her skin. She wanted to strike him. It was an easy thing for her love to turn to hate and back again at the drop of a dime. She knew him better than she knew herself and vice versa. It had been this way for as long as her memory went back. She feared it, this dubious silence she sensed from him. She feared after a time it would affect her the way everything else about him, rubbing off her like dust from a chalkboard. She let her anger show through a little, but only a little. Multiple lives spent as a servant of Hamon had taught her it was safer to keep the best parts of yourself hidden from prying eyes. It was Pa who had taught her this so very long ago. Except from me, he’d told her. It was the first time anyone had regarded her with something close to warmth. You never have to hide yourself from me. Which is why you can call me Pa.

From the moment he’d said that to her, she’d loved him, though these days her love for him was a switch she wished she could shut off. Love was a hindrance. A weakness.

“Pull yourself together, Pa!” she hissed. Her dead eyes burned beneath the brim of her hood. “Whatever compunctions have taken root inside your head, you best put them to rest now. We are out of lives. This time if we fail there will be no relief to our suffering. You will not ruin our last chance.”

Pa’s shoulder sagged beneath the weight of a great and terrible burden whose origin only he knew. That he kept it from her hurt Tara more than words could say…which is why she would never tell him. “You’re right,” he conceded at last. “Of course you are. What shall we do then?”

Tara’s lips stretched from ear to ear. I love it when he lets me choose. “A storm. A really big one.”

Pa raised a snowy eyebrow. “Bigger than the one we’ve already made.”

The youngest of the two necromancers scowled. “Don’t be thick. You know the kind of storm I’m talking about.” She crossed the room to him until they stood in a cloud of black static’s center. Their pets circled around them, caressing them with their leathery wings.

Pa swallowed, visibly taken aback. “It’s a surprise you want me after all these years. All these lifetimes. My body only grows more and more scarred, reflecting the state of my soul. I die over and over again and yet I am never truly dead…”

“Stop your prattling, old man,” Tara whispered in her own affectionate way. She pulled back his cowl, forcing him out into the open. She ran her hands over the worn cracks forever molded into his skin from all the times he’d been ripped apart and reconstituted. He looked at her impassively, his face smooth as stone beneath the damaged flesh. Once he had looked at her with a fiery passion that had burned white-hot. The sins they had committed together. The debauchery. Raiding towns. Slaughtering the innocents. Dining on warm flesh. Once upon a time he had been the more ruthless of the two.

She would have none of it. She went to him, her heart pounding in her breast. Craving him as she had the first time, from the moment he’d told Tara she could be only herself in front of him. She pulled down his breeches before straddling him. “You used to love me once,” she gasped. “You used to be mad for me. We used to make love in the ashes of our destruction, in a river of blood and you would proclaim me your true goddess. Don’t you love me? Don’t you want me still?” She stood long enough to remove her robes before resuming her position on the saddle.

Pa rocked against her, getting into the rhythm. She looked down at him, shiny raven hair spilling down her tailbone. She arched her back, guiding his engorged cock into her. As she began to ride him the wind picked up around them, buffeting the walls of the cottage until it shook and groaned. Above the roof clouds gathered, forming a dark blemish in the sky. The sky opened up releasing a torrent of blood as their bodies rocked together. Tara no longer had to guide the motion of their hips, Pa was moving in a frenzy. His teeth grazed at the flesh of her neck.

Whorls of dust stirred in the wake of their passion. The smokescreen of black static fanned out, seeping through the walls. Droplets of blood plummeted through holes punched in the ceiling, soaking the frantic lovers below. The cottage could no longer stand under the pressure. The walls exploded outward, blown away by a tidal wave of air. Tara’s gasps rose in pitch. Only now, in this moment when her body was unified with Pa’s, did she let her mask slip completely. She cried out as they climaxed together, blood sluicing down their bodies. Scaly creatures with pointed heads and claws meant for tearing things apart circled around the cabin as the storm spread away from them like a shockwave cloud.

The cloud would spread until it engulfed all the North. No one would be safe from their wrath.

Tara was not done. This time she would throw everything she had at the new herald. She would leave no stone unturned; she would slaughter every innocent soul who stepped in their path for the mere fact it pleased her. Hamon is the true God, not the bastard Monad or the whore Elysia. I will do anything to make sure my master walks the world again.

She continued to bounce her hips with inexhaustible stamina. Her fingers dug scratches into Pa’s skin. Three pits opened up in the ground around them as their bodies thrummed with pleasure. Undead revenants, one from each pit, rose from the earth, haloed by the orange glow of molten fire. Already they knew their masters’ commands, unsheathing weapons from belts made of human intestine, their hollowed faces devoid of emotion. Once summoned they would not stop.

They ventured forth to hunt their prey.