In the shadows of the great Karal Nef, an imposing and craggy ridge of many fingered spires and sheer sided hills, a dying man dragged himself across the desert. Near useless legs trailed behind him, blood seeping from the wounds upon them, blood that dripped and mingled and become lost in the furrows he left behind in the deep red sands, a trail that stretched out far behind him, to mark his passage.
Above, in the many columned peaks of the hills, splashed with a vivid array of colours, where spires grasped towards the pallid sky to claw at the crimson sun, carrion feeders perched. There they watched with eager eyes, waiting until the struggle of the man ceased and they could swoop down with razored teeth and feathered talons, to commence their frenzied feeding.
Across the coarse sands the man pulled himself. Hands scrabbled at shifting sands and broken rocks, seeking scant purchase, hauling himself forward with a laboured breath. The relentless blaze of the sun had gone, hidden behind the Karal Nef, and with it the worst of the crimson sting yet still the heat of the day smouldered in the air, stifling in its intensity. Swirls of wind picked up fine sands and lashed at him, scouring exposed flesh. Clothes that had been torn gave little protection from their relentless lashing strikes.
A boulder lay in his path, a much cracked thing of pale greys. There Enkisir came to rest. He dragged himself up to sit against it, resting his back and head against the blessed cool of the stone, to gaze back upon where he had come from, towards distant Khadif Ser of the Shining Domes and Scented Gardens and the crystal Pools of Hemnesh with their life-giving waters. Over Khadif Ser settled a haze, of shifting sands and shimmering heat.
A leg twitched as Enkisir sat there, staring towards the horizon, towards Khadif Ser and beyond. Gashes scoured his legs, leaving them too weak to use. Blood seeped still from the whisper-vine wounds that marred them, the venomous sap still coursing through him. He coughed and rested his head back against the stone. Pain there was, and would be until the moment of his death, a slow creep that flowed through his veins, spreading ever onward. Not yet would he relinquish his life. Still he clung to it, feeble as it was, not until the price was paid and reward received.
From among the haze that marred Khadif Ser, a figured swam into view and form, moving slow and methodical yet unerring headed his way. He could not run, could barely crawl; all he could do was but sit and wait for them to arrive. Enkisir feared not death, not while the promises that had been made were still fresh in his mind, but even so his blood ran cold as the figure grew more distinct with each looming step, growing ever nearer.
Tall she was, like the fabled Sons of the Skies, pale and dark, with death in her hands and stalking at her shoulder, an ever-present companion. Around her swirled a shadowed cloak, one that seemed to defy the very nature of the winds, moving as it willed and not as nature intended. It caught not the light but drew it into its endless depths.
At her arrival, she squatted down to face him, with hair as dark as the night and eyes as pale as the washed-out skies. In one hand she bore a long sword, white as bleached bone, cold as death, upon which flowed eldritch silver letters. Her gaze was hard, eyes like shards of diamonds; no remorse was evident in her face, only a resolve as unbreakable as the desert winds. She wore not the coloured robes of the Sons of the Skies as was their nature, but instead a shirt of mailed silver despite the heat, over which lay a cloak that flowed like the shadows themselves, in part real yet insubstantial too.
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“Enkisir,” she spoke, and in her voice were the echoes of death itself, “Long has this day been coming. As far as you ran, it could never be enough.”
Enkisir coughed and on his lips was blood and on his breath was the heady scent of the whisper-vine. “Ishkinil. Dirgesinger,” he replied weakly yet still with a smile, one that spoke of a hidden triumph.
Ishkinil raised up the bone-white sword and the air was chill about it. It hummed as it moved, a sound but barely perceptible at the edge of hearing yet one that plucked discordant chords across the soul. “The skeins of fate have been woven into the tapestry, the dirge has been sung,” she responded. “The words have been whispered of your deeds and those who went on ahead now wait upon your arrival.”
Enkisir began to laugh, a sound that turned to coughing as he did. “Mayhap they do, but they will wait a while longer yet,” he pronounced, certain of it, yet in his eyes was a madness, one put there by fear and agony. “Pain has been given, as is the price, aye, and blood and death. Think you that I would succumb so easily, to fall into your grasp so? Fool,” he spat, “Thrice fool. Let your master chase longer yet for I shall not fall into his grasp this day.”
Ishkinil rose slowly to her full height, towering above the seated man, her cloak rippling about her, in part shrouding her from view so that it appeared a dark and brooding cloud had descended upon her, a look matched in her face and eyes. The sword sung louder still as she raised it on high, as if to strike Enkisir down where he sat yet her hand was stayed.
“What madness have you engaged in?” she demanded, speaking low and cold.
“Madness,” swore Enkisir, “Madness you call it? Nay, not madness but need drove me here, a desire that you could not fathom.” He rested a hand on the wound upon his leg and touched it. Raising a hand, he showed her the blood upon it. “Whisper-vine venom,” he said. “How much blood has been offered up, freely? How much pain has been offered up, freely? Aye, you know what I speak of; I can see it in your eyes.”
A whisper came upon the winds, the echo of far off voices. Ishkinil lifted her head to listen and her pale eyes clouded over. The voices that carried to her had a cutting edge to them, mocking in their words even if they could not truly be made out. The intent was within them though.
The winds picked up, swirling sands before them, vortexes curling the grains within them, three then four, moving against the winds. They danced erratically yet unerringly towards where Ishkinil stood.
“He has drunk his fill, and more,” Enkisir called out. “Behold the coming of the Children of the Sands, the Children of Sunura of Khadif Ser!”
The last words he shouted aloud, as if in summons, and as he did the vortexes of swirling sands collapsed inwards and coalesced and from them figures stepped forth. Man shaped they were, yet not men, for they were cloaked in the sands of the deserts as their flesh and within them smouldered dull flames while smoke curled about them.
The Children of the Sands, the Children of Khadif Ser, sung forth by the tyrant of the city himself, Sunura the Thrice-Lived, fuelled by pain and blood. Torturous forms they were that had once lived yet had now been given new shape by their master. Pain was all that they knew and pain they sought to give in return.
Ishkinil span about to face them, dancing as lightly upon the sands as the desert fox, as shadows closed in around her, darkness that shrouded and obscured. Dirgesinger whined in her hands as she prepared to face the creatures of sand and smoke, white-blue flames rippling along the sword’s length.
Around her spread the Children of the Sands, in their hands appearing swords much as they were, blades of smoke and sand, the dreaded Akuan of Khedmesh whose touch no armour could resist.
Enkisir laughed from where he sat, watching as the Children closed in upon Ishkinil. “Now you die and the bargain stuck shall be sealed.”
“Think you that this is the end?” Ishkinil said as a fey mood settled upon her, and within her eyes smouldered dark shadows, for death was hers and she was its, the appointed and awaited for handmaiden. Dirgesinger crooned and sung as she spun it in her hands and she exalted in it, laughing as she sprung forth like a wild beast to attack.