The air was hot on Crow’s skin. Dry, too, and filled with light enough that he struggled for moments before his tightened lids let him pry them apart. He inhaled, then coughed as his throat was scraped raw by dust and hard breath.

Buildings protruded from the ground around him. Squared things the colour of sand and textured like soil, almost obscured by the particulates swirling in the winds. Hills rose far from them, red and yellow rather than green and brown, faces covered with great ripples like oceanic waves frozen in time.

I’m in a desert. Crow realised, glancing around in all directions. What little moisture remained in his mouth disappeared at the knowledge. How in the world could they have sent me to a desert?

He pushed the question down, setting off at a brisk walk and tearing his eyes from the alien structures surrounding him. Awe was a luxury he could indulge in later.

The ground was solid underfoot, a road of stone that seemed of the same sort used in the buildings. Scarred by the elements, face broken frequently by cracks and craters. It appeared to stretch on forever.

Staring ahead to try and glimpse some end to it, Crow felt a sudden stupefaction at the shimmering hot air and sun-blasted terrain ahead.

I’m in a desert!

Somehow, repeating the fact to himself made it no easier to accept. Nor did it serve to fight back the vines of fear and uncertainty already snaking their way deep into his mind, ensnaring thoughts and leaving them hooked and frozen by icy thorns.

He soon began to perspire, but it did little. The heat seeped in from all sides, like water soaking fabric. Making his flesh itch and parching his tongue.

Udrebam’s cold had almost made Crow forget just how much he hated the heat.

He picked up his pace heedless of how it might boil him faster, tightening his jaw against the familiar, wretching discomfort.

By the time Crow noticed the humming of the slate at his wrist, he had already reached the road’s end. He glanced around, finding himself in an open square walled by more sandy houses.

The area was too exposed for his liking, one where attack could come from any direction. Yet his slate urged him into checking it all the same.

Crow was surprised to see text had appeared on the surface, letters thimble-small and closer to silver than white.

Current points: Zero.

A simple message, but a hard one to receive. Being reminded he’d made no progress in the entirety of his trudging walk sent a jet of panic into Crow’s heart, speeding its beat and energising his muscles.

Suddenly not even feeling the heat, he took off into a jog.

He moved no more than a dozen paces before his body was jerked still by a sound equal parts unexpected and chilling. Human speech.

“You know, after a week freezing half to death in this city, I must say it’s oddly cathartic to see a Unixian tormented by heat.”

Crow spun so fast the world became mere lines of colour. His eyes came to rest upon a boy slightly older than himself.

Average height, for his age, yet with a litheness that made him seem taller. His skin was darker even than Karma Alabaster’s, seeming to war with the pale brightness of his hair.

Grass-green eyes met Crow’s, adding luminescence to a smiling face that reminded him very much of the blacksmith’s son in Selsis. A boy half the girls in town had seemed obsessed with.

Touching his magic, Crow felt desperation claw at his mind. It would take seconds before the power filled him enough to be woven into shape.

The pressure he felt from his enemy made it clear the boy’s own magic was already dancing in his fingertips, yet the crippling blow Crow awaited never came.

Instead he simply smiled. Humouring. Patient. Playful.

Crow gasped as Cutaris and Utalis struck his vessel like a cannonball. Filling his blood, strenghening his muscles and hastening every impulse running through his nerves.

He kicked off the ground with a dozen men’s strength, feeling fragile sandstone quiver underfoot as he accelerated to a sprint.

The boy’s eyes widened, mouth gaping as he stepped back seemingly on reflex. Clearly surprised at the speed with which Crow had brought his magic to bear.

A small advantage, and one which would only appear once.

Five paces separated them, Crow cleared them in a heartbeat. He attacked with abandon, letting the magic clear his thoughts of hesitation and feeling himself taken by the frenzy of Cutaris.

The boy parried and blocked, breaking a retreat without pause. One blow after another was guarded, slapped away or left to whistle through empty air by a sudden dodge, but Crow could recognise the exertion in his enemy’s movements.

Moments into the fight his knuckles met the boy’s jaw, rocking his head to one side as they grazed the flesh. Another blow caught his shoulder- then Crow hurled him back with a kick to the gut.

He didn’t let up as his enemy stumbled, charging to close the gap once more and exploit the opening.

Crow’s hands fell upon the boy like hailstones. Knuckles meeting flesh twice or thrice a second, racking his own arms to their joints. That his enemy still stood was testament to a great resilience.

Like striking iron. He thought.

But even iron could bend, and Crow’s enemy proved no tougher. He gave more ground by the moment, body surrendering to the assault even as his will refused to.

Hope sparked in Crow. Pure and energising at the sight of victory so close at hand.

He attacked from a distance with jabs and low kicks, testing blows to hurt and tire. They drew grimaces of exertion from his foe as he tried and failed to turn them away, agitating him with pain and exhaustion.

In moments he reached breaking point, rushing forwards and abandoning his failed defence.

Crow caught a strike against his forearm, gasping as he felt flesh bruise. The blow shunted him backwards a half-dozen feet, coarse ground scraping and tearing the bottoms of his shoes in its grip.

Before he’d even stopped sliding, the pale-haired boy was attacking again.

It was Crow’s turn to defend, and he found doing so a worthy test. His enemy was slower than him, certainly weaker, yet there was a skill behind his motions that Crow had seen beaten by few others.

One expert punch followed another; body, head and legs all finding themselves the target in an order so shifting and irregular that it was all but impossible to track. Bruises welled in a dozen points across Crow’s body, like puddles of burning oil spilled across his skin. He ignored them as he fought.

It’s only pain. Only pain.

He kept his eyes on the boy’s attacks, studying them. Memorising them.

It took only moments for him to spot an opening- the lowering of a guard and slackening of an arm as his enemy inhaled sharply between strikes. Crow watched for it again to be sure, then lunged.

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For the second time he saw green eyes stretched wide by shock.

They tightened back, shrinking with pain as his hands closed firm around the boy’s arms. Crow’s headbutt sent stars dancing in his own vision as it threw the other boy back into a stumbled retreat, blood cascading from burst lips.

A curse lit the air as Crow hurried forwards, but he’d taken barely a step before something shifted at the bottom of his vision. It made his heart lurch, instinct rather than thought compelling him to leap back.

He saw the great mass of sand protrude upwards an instant later. Tentacular in form, coiling like a viper. Simulating muscle and sinew in its tension, thrashing with a great kinetic power.

It contorted as it arched upwards, turning its foot-wide body around and darting for Crow tip-first like a thrusting spear. He threw himself to one side, barely avoiding it and flattening himself against the ground.

Sand sprayed in all directions as the stone split behind him, loud enough for Crow to feel through his feet. He rolled, stood and leapt backwards again as a second tendril shot for him, this time arching like a whip at his legs.

Crow’s dodge was a moment too late, the attack catching him across the ankles and sending him spinning like a pinwheel.

His vision blurred, then a thousand stars danced before his eyes as a sharp pain assailed him.

For a moment he couldn’t move, could barely even think. Agony washed over the back of his skull, striking his nerves dead and useless. A high-pitched ringing filled his ears, smothering all other sounds and compounding his unfocused eyes to leave the world lost on him.

It took moments for the oblivion to fade.

“Are you alright there, friend?”

Crow didn’t recognise the voice for what it was at first, mind too addled by the pain and disorientation to register speech.

When his boiled thoughts condensed once more, he found recognition buried beneath the urgency of his position. Wordless, he scrambled to his feet.

“Easy there.” Came the boy’s voice again.

Crow found himself staring blearily at his face, blurred eyes still making it a mess as they tried in vain to refocus. His ears were little better, barely catching the tone in his enemy’s strangely accented words.

Is he worried for me?

He didn’t answer, even when the boy’s face finally cleared enough to reveal the concern etched across it. The moment he gave confirmation, that worry could vanish. Their fight would resume.

After seeing his enemy’s magic, Crow intended to claim every moment of rest he could.

Sneaky, of me. And clever. And necessary. Just as it was for Ethi.

“Strong silent type, eh?” The boy asked, an easy smile flowing over his features. White teeth seemed to flash in the sunlight as he eyed Crow. “Or are you just simple?”

Are you so at ease with me, your enemy?

Anger drove Crow to reach for his magic, calling on two more currents and weaving them into Neramis and Manamis even as he eyed the shifting sand below.

His enemy’s hands were by his sides, palms open and fingers twitching slightly as he stood careless. Being taken so lightly struck a match behind Crow’s eyes and filled him with newfound fire.

“I’m not simple, nor do I have anything to discuss with an enemy.”

He caught his tongue a second late, sure it would spur his enemy into action and paralysed with fear in anticipation.

The boy’s smile faltered no more than the shifting tides of sand lapping at his ankles.

“Ah, well I’m terribly sorry then.”

A heartbeat passed without sound or action between them, then Crow felt the ecstatic rush of yet more magic filling him. Almost as soon as his vessel was saturated by Neramis, he Glimpsed a tendril of sand casting his body back.

Crow jumped, wind hitting him like the Goddess’ breath as sand rushed beneath him. He landed a moment later, then cursed as a second sandy whip darted after the first.

With no time to dodge, he guarded it. Feeling the blow like a cudgel against mundane flesh, his feet left the ground. The air at his back feeling almost solid as he tore through it.

He landed with a roll, and it took every ounce of Crow’s focus and speed to end the motion on his feet. There wasn’t a moment’s reprieve before Neramis revealed another attack.

Both tendrils lunged for Crow as one, twisting and coiling around each other like mating vipers.

Leaping back and stumbling from one side to another, he barely managed to remain ahead of the assault.

Sand broke in sprays and masses as they clipped him, threatening to steal his balance and leave him open to more blows. Once or twice he tripped on his own feet, almost caught before throwing himself free just shy of the closing trap’s jaws.

The tendrils were slower than him, but not by much. And they outnumbered him twice over. The pale haired boy seemed skilled in how best to use them, too. One would always attack in the wake of another, leaving Crow no time to breathe or recover. They struck from different directions, beating out their own tempos against his blocking arms and forming a chaotic rhythm between them.

Crow would block ninety-nine blows; yet it was the hundredth which slipped beneath his guard and sent him sliding back anew.

He scrambled up; jerked aside, then cursed as bludgeoning silica nearly spun him by crunching against his shoulder. Forced himself straight, breaking into a sprint for the boy as he saw his defences lull.

Two paces were all Crow managed before the tendril he’d avoided twisted around. He Glimpsed sand exploding outwards like splinters from a jousting lance, arenose limb breaking against his back and pushing him to his knees.

There was nowhere to dodge but down, and for surely the dozenth time that day Crow felt the ground’s hard embrace.

His foot was snagged by the boy’s remaining tendril, then he was yanked up by the leg.

Crow thrashed and flailed, helping himself no more than a hooked and spasming fish. For a few moments he fought off encroaching sand as it worked to coil around his body, then the volume and strength redoubled as the second limb joined its twin in grabbing him.

In an instant his arms were pinned by his sides, held in a vice of flowing stone too rigid for him to shift an inch.

Crow’s stomach lurched as he was dragged through the air before stopping just four yards from his enemy. The boy met his gaze, emeralds clashing with grass as their eyes locked. Once more, he smiled.

“You’re quite fast.” He grinned. Crow felt his face burn, fear running through him like magma. Matched only by the utter humiliation of being taken so lightly.

“If you’re going to finish me off, then do it!” He spat, words shocking even him. “Don’t waste my time with talk.”

The boy eyed him, face half amused and half chastising. No more serious than if he were lending his ears to a child.

“Don’t be so hasty in asking for defeat.”

Crow wanted to hit him. Bite him, even. Anything to wipe the unflappable condescension from his enemy’s face. To have himself looked at as threat, rather than a screaming babe. But more than anything to dismiss his own creeping sense of dread at the ease with which he was beaten.

I’m not even a threat to him. Another contestant- a boy barely older than me- and he’s treating me like a toy.

Something washed over him, sending an icy wind into his veins and threatening to halt the very beating of his heart. The boy’s eyes widened almost as soon as Crow felt it, and in an instant the sand around him parted.

He fell hard, barely noticing. Looking up, feeling his gaze guided by the ephemeral horror filling him, his eyes came to rest on a new, approaching figure.

Taller than most by an inch, broader at the shoulders by three. Crow’s eyes met an approaching man, or something in the shape of one. Instinct made him doubt his eyes.

The black of his attire was ocean deep, staining robes that covered him from head to toe and billowed as a flag might. Steel masked his hands and feet like crustacious shells, clicking and clapping with every step and glaring severely under the fiery sun.

But it was the mask that truly grabbed Crow’s focus.

Bone white and china-smooth, it was a ceramic thing moulded poorly to the face beneath it. Hard and angular, far too stiff and flat to mirror the creases of human flesh. Tinted glass lenses capped the eyeholes, seeming to burn like pooling fire.

“By Her hand did the revelers cease, turning their gift no more to the works of gluttony and indulgence. Inspired by divine direction, they moved the winds of magic to greater ends.”

The mantra was a prayer. Recited with a low voice, growling and deep as from the throat of a wolf. Crow stared as the speaker drew near, every trudging, metallic step seeming to raise his gnawing fear to new heights.

It was then that the crest atop the man’s shoulder caught his eye. Etched with a white as pure as the black around it, so bright as to almost hurt.

A glance was enough for Crow’s memory to pull from its depths the first time he’d seen the symbol. An eye, streaming with tears and engulfed in flame. Printed in a greasy newspaper borrowed months prior.

“Do you know this man?” Asked the dark boy, pulling Crow from his remembrance.

“I know of him.” He answered, not letting the black-shrouded mystic leave his eye. “He’s a killer. Scum.”

“I am an exterminator.” Came the man’s growling tone, solemn and humming with a deep intensity. “A killer of insects. Erring only in my failure to kill more.”

“You’re a madman.” Crow snarled, his vision blurring and fists convulsively tight with a sudden anger.

Even as rage compelled him to speak, fear tried to press him into silence. Crow could feel the power radiating from the man; causing his skin to ache like a frigid cold, his muscles to tremble like a shaking fright.

“What’s your name?” He heard the green-eyed boy ask. Crow answered without looking at him.

“Alright then, Crow. What do you say we call a temporary truce while we deal with this one?”