Inro lost himself in smears of pain, hallucination, and thrashing, nightmare-plagued sleep. Snatches of wakefulness came and went, their contents as blurred and seemingly-unreal as his dreams or waking visions. Aj stalked him, Rega mocked him, and a Legion of the dead followed him wherever he went, staring at him mutely with blame-filled eyes.

When his senses finally returned, he was surprised at how clearly he knew he was awake. During the timeless loop of nightmares, hallucinations and confused wakefulness he'd been trapped in, he never quite knew whether what was happening was real since everything and everyone skewed vague, figmentary, and unreal. With Cairin stroking his hair as he lay half-covered by a fur inside a straw hut, however, he knew instantly he was back from the edge of death and conscious in ways he couldn't explain even to himself.

"Where..." his voice cracked. She poured water onto his cracked lips. A trickle ran down his throat. That he needed water at all hit Inro hard. Dynasts were generally sustained by the Blood. If he was dehydrated, he'd come closer to dying than he ever had in all the centuries since his Partaking.

"Your hand," he muttered, reaching up to grasp her fingers.

She smiled sadly and lifted the sheared-off stump of her left hand. Clearly shadow-blade work by the straightness of the cut and the blackened, necrotic flesh capping it.

"Arca used Inro blade of nothing to remove or Cairin would not be here." She brushed his cheek with her fingers. "Could not do same for Inro as would have had to cut off head."

"Remind me to thank Arca for not trying to save me that way," he said dryly as he stiffly pushed himself to sitting. The hide blanket fell away and he traced a dozen puncture wounds with his fingers on his neck, face, hands, feet.

"Bites Inro took would have killed ten men."

"Feel like it. Speaking of men, do we still have ten left? Last thing I remember before everything becomes blurry is us losing to a swarm of people who smelled of copper, venom, and fruit."

"Shh, talk later," she said, pressing him back down. As he came completely to his senses, he realized that she too was naked. "Been waiting too long."

A much more pleasurable but equally-unknown length of time later, they emerged from the hut. Inro winced and raised his hand to shield himself from the blinding sun. Within moments, calls went out informing everyone he was awake and within minutes he found himself buffeted on all sides by a grinning gathering of friends clapping him on the back, cheering, and dancing around him. It spontaneously turned into a celebration, complete with drums, whistles, baskets of food, and jars full of fermented who-knew-what.

He startled to see Green People mixed among them, as well as a scattering of new tribes people with exotic shells gauged into their ears, ribbons of some sort of kelp braided into their hair, wearing skirts woven from the same, and bearing distinctive ritual scarification decorating their cheeks. Not only them, but also a cluster of shorter, broader people who were the only ones wrapped in something resembling full clothing: long, cape-like hides of some white-gray-furred beast bound at the waist with thick belts of braided hair.

"Shore Striders," Cairin said, gesturing towards the first group. Then she pointed at the second. "Stone Walkers."

Before he could inquire further, a cheer when up and Arca arrived, looking every bit the warlord with his sword, war paint, a new string of exotic, polished shells about his neck, a brilliant feathered cape like the Green People elders had worn, small snail shells gauged into his ears, and a thick hair-belt enwrapping his waist. Flanking him walked not only Izbali, but the young shaman that had stood beside the Green People elders. He stood facing Inro sternly and, for the span of a few breaths, Inro wondered if Arca had grown powerful enough to kick him aside and take sole charge of the One Tribe.

Then Arca grinned and hugged him ferociously. When the one-eyed chieftain pulled back to look him over at arm's length, tears ran from his eyes. "Welcome back from trip to spirit world, friend."

Inro rubbed at the pairs of marring the flesh of his face and neck. "Glad to have come home. I have the feeling I missed a bit."

"Indeed. But Arca and Cairin will tell it over fire and feast. It grows dark soon. Arca will make happen, Inro rest until ready." Arca clapped him on the back, then turned and began to issue orders. At first, Inro felt annoyed that Arca was taking charge, but then it felt as though his perspective on the entire world shifted subtly and he relaxed back against Cairin, relieved that he didn't have to handle everything. It would work out.

As a spontaneous feast came together, Cairin led Inro out of the sprawling camp. They scrambled up a rocky bluff and, in the light of the setting sun, he saw what Arca and Cairin had accomplished while he was indisposed.

The camp spread at the base of a series of ancient, rounded rocky mountains. Caves pocked every face ranging from small holes to great, jagged tears ripping across the half a mountain face. Between a craggy range of bluffs and the mountains' base, their camp spread: a rough collection of huts, lean-tos, hides thrown down around fire rings, cave dwellings, and a few stone silos here and there implying some degree of permanence.

"How long was I out?" Inro said, marveling. "There have to be at least ten-thousand people here."

Cairin pulled him down beside her atop a low, flat boulder to watch the sunset over the camp's bustle. "Long enough for Izbali to bring help to defeat Green People after Cairin and Inro fall to snakes. Close thing. All Green People after battle respect strength and join One Tribe. Few didn't flee deep into jungle where not worth follow. Then on to Shore Striders."

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

Inro realized he was holding his breath and slowly released it. "I missed an entire campaign?"

Her smile stirred a warmth inside him the likes of which he'd never felt. Or never allowed himself to feel. "No campaign. Peoples hear of strength. Not warlike, the Shore Striders, so simply gave fish and clam. Sent warriors to join. Stone Walkers arrive in all numbers soon later, ready for great war Inro and Arca promise."

"And now we're at the doorstep of the Cave Dwellers," Inro breathed. "Have they given us any trouble?"

He loved the way Cairin's hair glowed in the setting sunlight when she shook her head. "Izbali spend days convince Cave Dwellers Inro child of Ebon return after all time since Ebon leave. They wait to meet. Feast tonight, Inro meet tomorrow."

"My armor!" he half-shouted and rose to his feet, chiding himself for not noticing its absence in the hut earlier. Even if he'd nearly died, it was no excuse for a career soldier not keeping track of his kit.

"Calm, love," Cairin said, pulling him back down beside her. "Inro swell up like corpse in sun as venom pump through blood. Had to cut armor off and not know how to fix. Arca keep no-blade safe."

"No Blade," Inro said, smiling. "You've named my sword."

Cairin's smile and the way she ran her hands through his hair made him want to run off with her to the mountains and make a new life with here off in a hut somewhere. After the blurred, transitory half-existence he'd just survived, the Aj, the Book, Rega, all of it felt like just another bad dream.

She brought him back to reality by straddling his lap. "No dream while wake. Inro had enough for five lifetimes last weeks."

"I've lived more than ten lifetimes, if you measure by the age most menials live to," Inro murmured. He wasn't sure if it was his near-death experience, all this time forcibly separated from his identity in the Book, or the hard contrast with the way Cairin and Arca managed to live so in-the-moment and with so much peace and joy in spite of hardship, but everything looked different now than it had before the Aj had shattered his world. Literally and metaphorically.

Cairin wiggled and then grinned wickedly. "Inro drift away again. Cairin feel Inro getting back to here, now again though."

Inro smiled back, the effort easier than it used to be. The muscles required to do so had atrophied to almost-nothing over his centuries of endless training, mulling, and planning in Sunset, but now it almost felt natural. He pulled her tight against him and kissed her neck. The growl of feral pleasure she made in reply drove a spike of excitement deep into the armored shell he'd wrapped around his soul.

The evening passed pleasurably, both up on the cliff with Cairin, then at the feast with his people that night. Warriors rose to tell of battles fought, companions lost, or made good-hearted mock of one another. Respected grandmothers rose to tell of hardships endured, times of famine and lack survived, and boasted of babies birthed with as much ferocious pride as the warriors spoke of kills. Peoples of the various tribes and clans argued with one another over superstitions and taboos in a way that at another time could have led to bloodshed, but with the greater purpose unifying the One Tribe were instead spectated, cheered, or booed like some sort of gladiatorial match in the arenas of Berujat.

At the peak of the night, with much fermented juice having been drunk and many young couples already drifting giggling out into the warm night to find some privacy - or dispensing with privacy and enjoying each other right there by the fires while others cheered, whistled, and hooted - Arca rose. He stood at the heart of the ancient, long-abandoned amphitheater from the time of Ebon and raised his hands. In moments, all fell into expectant silence.

He began the tale of the One Tribe from his first skirmish against Inro and his Feral to the ferocious fighting at the Battle of the Bluffs. Those who had been present on any side of the battle listened solemnly and raised their half-melon cups as he saluted the ferocious strength and bravery the combatants on both sides had exhibited.

With great embellishment, he carried the rapt audience through jungle ambushes by the Green People and the desperate Three Elder's Battle, the tale managing to swell the chests of Green People warriors present and earn them respectful nods from others around them at their cunningly effective tactics even as it praised the courage of the One Tribe warriors fighting desperately against them. Next, his masterful telling focused the rapt audience on the generosity of the Shore Striders helping tend the sick and wounded from the campaign in the Green People's jungles, described the marvel of their long canoes, and exalted the wisdom of their decision to join their strength to the One Tribes without bloodshed.

In hushed tones, he spoke of the One Tribes' worries leading to the lands of the Stone Walkers. The broad-chested warriors of the mountain vales were renowned for their raw strength, their willingness to attack groups ten times their number and he embellished their trepidation as they came to the foothills of their domain to contrast the relief and joy they'd felt when the mountain tribes met them at the mouth of a pass with all their families, beasts, and possessions in tow, ready to join their strength to the One Tribes.

He finished by speaking of their combined purpose, retelling Inro's stories of the Book's rich fields and packed cities, the strange technologies of Ink and the formidable discipline of the Legions. With wonder, dreams of glory, and not a little greed reflecting back at him from thousands of bonfire-lit eyes, Arca turned the stage over to Inro.

After surprising the chieftain with a fierce hug, Inro found the spot Arca indicated where some sort of ancient acoustical engineering projected his voice to the ears even of those seemingly too impossibly far away to hear. He noticed Izbali squatting with a dozen more stern men and women wearing similar decorations and swirls of Limn paint, studying him with dark eyes and half-bowed to them.

"Cave Dwellers," Arca murmured in Inro's ear. "Here to lay final judgment if Inro truly returns as Ebon's child. If they decide yes, the City Below belongs to you."

"And with it, a gateway to Terminus. And from there, to any verse old enough to have an arch once we paint them back to life with Limn," Inro said softly, half to himself.

As Arca took a seat beside Cairin, Inro looked out among the One Tribe, feeling a fierce swell of pride as deep as any he'd felt reviewing the finest of his Sunset Legions. Deeper perhaps. Those were fine troops, volunteers and conscripts from a hundred verses thrown into ranks by the Centurions' harsh discipline and made hard through endless drill, march, and training. These were his people. They'd welcomed him as one of their own, fought with or against him fearlessly to protect their lands, out of loyalty and love for him and Arca, and out of the vision Inro had brought them of a greater world they could claim for their children. A dream far better than their endless struggle for survival in this lean, harsh verse.