Aj knelt in the ruins.

Deep in sorrow

and sorely taxed.

They'd been far more prepared

this time,

and came within a breath

of killing this awakening.

Necessity

required it push on.

So it rose.

Turning away

from the sad carnage

they had forced it to create,

Aj sought out

the end of the verse.

Inro sweated in a rocky waste, he and his lone Feral surrounded by half-a-dozen naked tribals armed with flint spears. Layers of chalky paint plastered in swirls over their coal-black skin. Helmet-sized lizard or snake skulls covered their heads, the creatures' tattered hides hanging down their backs like barbaric capes. Beyond their twine necklaces studded with bones or shells and their rope belts from which gourds, roots, and crude obsidian knives hung, they stood naked.

"In the name of the 100th Dynasty, I order you to take me to the nearest city," he tried again, frustration mounting. "Do you understand me?"

Their scrunched faces and perplexed looks gave him all the answer he needed. Menials were menials, whether packing a city's squalid underbelly or roaming a blasted wasteland in the furthest verse of the Book. That these proved darker-skinned than most Dynasts he knew disconcerted him somewhat, but he shook it off.

Raising hands to show he meant no harm, Inro leaned towards his Feral and whispered, "when I go."

The Feral nodded slightly and stepped away from him with a bow. A step that just happened to take him a bit closer to the nearest tribal.

With one hand still raised, Inro slowly slipped the longer, shark-skin-hilted sword from his girdle. The wooden scabbard scraped faintly on his armor's precious, still blood-spattered steel. Encased in interlocking metal plate and chain, he had to look half the Ascendant to these naked primitives.

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Inro stepped carefully towards the largest and most riotously patterned tribal who he figured for the leader. Knelt. Extended his sword in both hands as if a gift. Everything emptied from him in a long breath as he shifted into the calm, intentional, focused state he'd spent centuries cultivating.

A brief exchange in some base tongue. Inro understood not a word, but followed what transpired close enough: the leader's main challenger in the group warned him. Taking it as an attack on his authority and overcome by greed for this magical stranger's gift, the leader overrode his challenger's arguments. He stepped forward, reached for said 'gift,' and died.

Sharpened steel sliced through paint and flesh with minimal resistance. The Feral tackled the spearman closest to him and went down in a tangle. Inro shoved the dying leader into his nearest man while he wheeled and rushed the closest foe on his other flank. This tribal possessed the wits to thrust his spear forward but Inro deflected it and hurtled himself towards the now-backpedaling primitive.

Spooked by Inro's ferocious assault, the menial dropped his spear and bolted. Inro let him, turning to meet the onrush of two more. His Feral faced down two others with a stolen spear. Inro waited, then sidestepped suddenly, aligning his two assailants so the nearer blocked the farther for a moment. He stepped straight into his attacker's thrust, the tip of the flint spear scraping harmlessly off Inro's breastplate as he cut the man down.

On pure instinct, he flicked his blade up. A spear aimed at his unarmored head scraped across his blade. Cursing the loss of his helm in the scrambled flight from Sunset and wary of giving the older, more canny warrior he now faced time to think, Inro charged forward. The man, whom he recognized as the now-dead leader's challenger, sprang away, staying well out of reach of Inro's blade. The warrior waved his hands and shook his head, signaling for Inro to stop.

Warily, Inro complied, searching quickly for his Feral only to find him bleeding out in the red dirt. To his credit, the Feral took out one tribal and wounded the other before they got him. The injured survivor slumped against a boulder, hands pressed down to staunch the dark blood welling between his fingers. With a soresearer or skilled surgon, the wound might not be fatal. In this desolate verse, the young warrior was doomed.

When Inro turned back to the man he'd faced, the fellow bowed, gestured at his wounded companion, and showed his empty hands again. Inro nodded and stepped back.

The Feral reached clawed hands towards Inro as Inro looked the pale Damned over. The Feral's eyes brimmed with pain. Inro bent over the man to loot a few worn coins and a several-day supply of tiny, gold watter flasks from a pouch on the Feral's belt. Batting the man's reaching arms away and ignoring his grunts of pain, Inro walked away to clean his sword and armor. A Feral could be replaced easily enough once Inro found his way back into the heart of the Book but his steel was irreplaceable.

The two tribals sang some warrior death-song, tears streaming. The older warrior spoke reassuring words, assuaging the younger savage's dying fears. All in the tribe would hear of his bravery, of the strange, bone-faced warrior he'd slain. His valor would fill his family with pride, he would live on in their tales, and all the other heroic nonsense that led young soldiers to die for their commanders. Inro couldn't understand a word of their language, but knew such rituals with unfortunate intimacy.

When the dying man's sobs finally ceased, the last surviving tribal sat his dead fellows' backs against boulders so they could face the sunset. Inro followed his example with the now-dead Feral not out of any sense of feeling for the already-stiffening corpse, but hoping this savage would see his own version of 'civilized' writ in Inro's actions. He propped the Feral up with feigned reverence. As he did so, he silently cursed the man for failing him and leaving him alone in this unknown verse.

After gathering necklaces from the fallen and tying them about his forearm, the last savage began to bundle the unbroken spears.

A plaintive voice called from the gathering shadows and Inro stood to see what the barbarians would do. The survivor tucked the spear bundle under his arm, turning as the tribal who'd fled crept back. Shame writ large across his features.

Tall and proud, the savage upbraided his cowardly fellow and banished him into the wastes. The coward's pitiful rejoinder met hard silence. When his tentative approach provoked a brandished spear, the outcast young coward turned, hunched down, and slunk into the gathering dark.

The older savage turned to Inro and sketched another bow. Inro bowed back, stood tall, and approached. He had to trust this man to lead him forward for lack of any alternative. The propped bodies stirred thoughts of his own Legions lying butchered in the fields and streets of Sunset, killed even more swiftly and mercilessly than these men by a foe even more dominant and inhuman than Inro.

Though normally an excellent judge of character, Inro couldn't be sure this man wouldn't leading him into an ambush. Inro hoped not. He already liked this tribal and didn't want to have to kill him too. Inro's other choice meant wandering the unknown wastes alone so best to follow and find some other way free from this verse. Somehow, he would prevail.

He had to.

The Aj had almost destroyed the Dynasty single-handedly six-and-some centuries ago and quite possibly no one else alive knew it had reawakened. Inro would be damned if he'd let it finish what it started.