Arca proved true both in loyalty and combat prowess. The chieftain and his son's lifeless bodies hit the ruddy dirt before any of their followers could do more than gape in shock.

With the Libwe's leadership literally and metaphorically decapitated, Arca quickly delivered Inro's speech and, with their Limn faded and Arca's tribe scattered in their midst, the remainder of the Libwe followed in shocked compliance. Arca now stood at the head of two tribes.

In the days after, a few Libwe challenges, assassination attempts, and protests they put down quickly and brutally with sword and spear, leaving no uncertainty as to who was in charge. Their messengers raced to the other six tribes with offers of amnesty and peace should they join Arca's "One Tribe".

Inro breathed deep, relieved he didn't have to care about any of it anymore. Soon, the inconsequential squabbles of this verse would fall behind him and allow him return to what actually mattered. That all assuming, of course, that the Libwe's liberal application of Limn leading up to the "Eight Tribes' Battle" left enough of the preciously rare clay for him to use.

Pain shot up Inro's leg with each step as he followed a gang of young Libwe warriors up the steep switchbacks towards promised overlooks above the Limn bed. Given the meager, rapidly-depleted proportions of the few, rare Limn beds he'd ever heard of, he expected anticlimax, but humored the savages a while longer. No point in making things unnecessarily harder right before he made his escape.

Arca marched up the rocky trail behind Inro, adjusting the crude eye patch Inro made him. "When clay get, Inro leave?"

"Yes, Inro leave. Get a pot of Limn, find a cave, and enter the Subterrane like the Saga. From there, make my way to Ziggurat, mobilize every Legion even if I have to kill Baka to do so, track down Aj, and destroy it. Whatever's left, Arca can use with his new One Tribe and conquer this entire verse." Conquer this desolate wasteland and all its backwards peoples more like.

The youths whooped and hollered as they scrambled a last bit of scree and crested a rise.

"What of promises?" Arca didn't try to hide the bitterness in his tone. "Arca told Libwe Inro lead to other world. World beyond count. What happen Inro leave?"

As they reached the top, Inro leaned against a weathered rock formation to catch his breath. Until his wounded knee regenerated, every step was pain and effort.

"Tell them I-"

His breath caught as he looked over the vast river canyon stretching out before them. His escorts laughed and joked among themselves at his reaction, but at the moment he couldn't care less.

The river barely deserved the name: a narrow channel cut through the vast clay bed surrounding it. Limn clay, stretching as far as the eye could see, gleaming faintly with its own inner light. More than he'd ever seen. More than he ever imagined. More than Ebon herself likely dreamed.

"Not what expect?" Arca raised his hand to shield his eye from the sun.

"No." Inro's mind reeled. This changed everything. "Very much not."

"Not enough? Inro not leave?"

"Not enough?" Inro surprised Arca by laughing and clapping him on the shoulder. "There's more here than every other verse in the Book combined. A hundred times that. A thousand. More. Enough to enter the Subterrane ten-thousand times. To armor a hundred tribes for a hundred battles. To..."

Arca looked over the radiant canyon with newfound appreciation. "To...?"

"To rout every Legion, crush every Mancer they send at us, conquer Ziggurat, break the Black Court, reopen the Gates, and confront Aj directly." He turned and looked the other direction, eyes tracing the horizon. "How many tribes live in this desolate verse?"

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"How know?" Arca shrugged. "Stone Walkers in colds far away from sun, Cave Dwellers under stone like lizards, Shore Striders toward sun in wet lands, Green People low places where plants thick, more Lizard Hunters-" he thumped his chest "-all about."

Inro lowered himself painfully to dangle his legs over the cliff edge, staring unseeing at the stark beauty before him. After a moment, Arca joined him.

The Libwe youths grew bored, joking and jostling one another as they moved on to scale a rocky bluff.

"I didn't lie to the Libwe," Inro said after a timeless span soaking warm sunlight touched by a cool breeze, his mind soaring with the view and what it contained.

Arca stirred from his own reverie. "No?"

"We will lead them to another verse, a dozen, a hundred. I swear it will be done. But not yet."

"Not go?"

Inro groaned and pushed back to his feet, leaning heavily on his good leg. "If we go now, we lead warriors in the dozens, perhaps hundreds. That's not enough, not nearly enough."

Arca grinned. "Inro breed more warriors? Maybe life-lay with sister Cairin? Much time need."

Inro smiled back. "Not breed. Conquer."

No fool, Arca understood immediately. His expression grew solemn, thoughtful.

Inro turned his back on the Limn and slung his arm over Arca's shoulder. "We will travel through the Subterrane, bring the Dynasty to its senses, and destroy Aj as planned. But not yet. First we shall make Arca Warchief of all the Lizard Hunters, Shore Striders, Stone Walkers, Green People, and Cave Dwellers."

Arca shook his head. "Lizard Hunters fewest of peoples. Green People breed beyond counting, fat on fruits. Shore Striders walk into great waters and eat things from there to fill. Stone Walkers not many, but fierce and climb like Lizards."

A look out across the vast wealth of Limn gave Inro pause. "Do they have this?"

Arca frowned, shook his head. "Not that Arca know, except Cave Dwellers. They use to keep from caves but only they. Shaman like Izbali come from them: they wear and make sure no other do. Forbidden until the Return."

Inro hobbled closer to the cliff, squinting to the far horizons. A distant pinnacle of rock seemed to move. Belatedly, he realized it was no rock, but some crustacean-like god wearing a cliff-tall shell slowly trundling across the far horizon. Arca spotted it too and prostrated himself in the dirt, mumbling some sort of chant and rubbing gravel through his hair. Inro turned away before rolling his eyes.

"What is this "Return" you speak of?"

It took a frustratingly-long time for Arca to finish and blood trickled down his neck and forehead from the vigor of his ablutions. "Long ago, great warrior arise and conquer all Tribes, like Inro say. She take much Limn and lead most away to Holy Caves where Stone Dwellers live. All us who stay behind she say 'guard and preserve holy clay until my Kin return'. Shaman make keep word all this time."

The hair rose on Inro's neck. "She? It can't be. Was her name..."

He and Arca said the name at the same time. "Ebon."

They stared at one another for a long moment, their silence interrupted only by whistling wind and a carried shout from one of the lads.

"This is Origin, the First Verse..." Inro looked around at the wastes with newfound appreciation and wonder. "From here and with this Limn, Ebon made the great Cities Below and from them found the way into the Subterrane. This is where it began, Arca, this is the first page of The Book, birthplace of the Dynasty."

Where he'd once held this place and its people with impatience, disgust, and annoyance, he now felt the closest he'd ever felt to reverence. He fell to his knees and kissed the rock face then touched Arca's painted leg. "I apologize for I did not know. Here I am, child of Ebon with her blood churning within and you all are her brothers and sisters. Forgive me."

Arca pulled him up, laughing and shaking his head. "No special, Lizard Walkers. No special, Arca. Same is people, all brother and sister."

Tears ran down Inro's face and he hugged the lanky chieftain tightly until Arca laughed and pushed him away again. "Arca like Inro, but not allowed man to man or woman to woman like Shaman do. They holy, Arca just man."

"And here you just said 'same is people'," Inro said without the usual harsh bite he would normally have put into his words. Wonder and elation, those feelings he'd only heard of and never experienced, lightened the whole world in color and weight both. For the first time since Aj came at the end of the Kiss all those centuries ago, Inro felt hope.

"Come, people wait to hear Inro and Arca words," Arca said, tugging Inro back towards the trail. "Many change for One Tribe. Much to tell."

"Much indeed," Inro muttered, placing an arm across Arca's shoulder for support and companionship both.

Turning a few switchbacks revealed their camp's rough sprawl below but in Inro's mind's-eye, he saw it overflowing with many-colored dwellings teeming with hardy, Limn-swirled warriors. They marched into a broad cave mouth and from there into the Book, striking without warning to cut out the Black Court's corrupt, blackened heart, rallying the bickering Dynasts under one banner and dispatching the Aj once and for all.

He swept his hand broadly in front of them, as though pushing aside the veil blocking their view of the future. "I said Arca and Lizard Walkers would enter the Book, but when Arca's name is writ in it's pages it will be at the head of warriors not in the dozens, but the thousands and tens-of-thousands. And together, my friend, we'll rewrite the rest."