Chapter Four // Old Dogs, New Tricks

Perhaps, Arha thought to herself, she should simply die here. Perhaps that would be a worthy punishment for blundering so blindingly stupid into such an obvious trap. This was as much wry amusement as it was genuine self-flagellation, because this was all so absurd and banal that the former Third Eltok couldn't help but laugh.

There were at least a dozen ambushers, from what she could make out, all of them draped in patchwork furs and heavy black cloaks. More interesting, however, were the small twin horns curling from the tops of their heads, as well as their eyes - oddly shaped, oblong black pupils. The eyes of goats.

The Winnowers called them Rakatna, Aberrants - people mutated or altered in some way by the passing of a Colossus, their strange physical features often stemming from ancestors long deceased. Some were quite rational of mind and largely indistinguishable from normal humans in (almost) every way. But there were just as many whose minds had been touched by the maddened fingers of the Colossi as well, and at this particular moment in time Arha simply had no way of knowing which of the two she was looking at. People, or beasts?

At least their leader seemed stable enough. He was a tall man of sharp build, his expression stern and serious and his dark hair hanging down to his shoulders not unlike the hoods worn by several of his fellows. There was a horizontal streak of charcoal-paint across his eyes, making the whites seem especially stark and vibrant. And he was young - right around the twenty-five year mark, the same as her.

Arha took one look at these people and was certain, in a rather callous and casual way, that her exiles would easily slaughter them in a fight. She was equally certain that her exiles would be riddled with arrows long before they could ever make it across that damnable clearing.

Violence was out of the question, then, which made for an unwelcome prospect indeed. Arha was about as far as one could get from any sort of diplomat; de-escalation was all but a foreign concept to a people who routinely killed one another over minor disputes. But she was no longer a Winnower. No longer a discipline of the Great Worm. She was just Arha, a starving and destitute woman who had just found herself in a poor position indeed. Thus, a diplomat she would be.

She could all but feel the tension and the eagerness radiating from her companions as she stepped forward. Makran was all but bouncing on her heels, and Grakke was shooting her a what's the play, boss look as she stepped past. They weren't just excited to fight, weren't just beholden to that sudden surge of adrenaline - they were also angry that they had been snuck up on and humiliated in such a fashion. As was said previously, there was nothing a Winnower understood better than an insult, and there was no Winnower who did not favor a swift and violent response.

Arha glanced back over her shoulder - gave a look and a gesture both that hopefully conveyed a clear message of just hold the fuck on for one second, okay - then turned back to the waiting goat-man, who had moved not a muscle.

"You speak for these people?" the goat-man asked. His voice was calm and level, that of a man simultaneously in full control of the situation and wary of how that situation might yet develop. He had correctly identified Arha and her companions as a threat.

"I do," Arha said, at once relieved that he spoke the New Tongue and painfully aware of how thickly accented her own speech was. The Old Tongue was the traditional language of the Winnowers, a vocabulary of sharp and guttural sounds as old as the foundation of the great city. The New, by contrast, had been introduced to the Winnowers and Providence both by what few merchants were granted entry to the city. Though there was nothing even resembling a broader community across the Seven Wastes - for one thing, the Winnowers tended to slaughter and pillage any civilization they came across - the New Tongue had nevertheless gradually emerged as the de facto lingua franca of that apocalyptic wasteland, and thus it was the language that the vast majority of Neophytes already spoke.

"Speak plainly, then," the goat-man said. If he took note of her accent - if he realized what she was - neither his speech nor posture gave any indication. "Who are you people?"

Arha glanced back at her fellows, her lifelong companions. Her closest friends. And she saw that every single one of them, even Zekval, wanted nothing more than to kill these Aberrants here and now. And, in truth, she felt that same impulse - in the squaring of her shoulders, in the straightening of her back, in the bead of sweat trickling slow down the side of her cheek. A lifetime's instinct was whispering in her ear.

Nevertheless she turned back to the goat-man once more and, with some difficulty, said words the like of which she had never uttered in her entire life.

"We surrender," she said, letting her newfound blade drop carelessly to the forest floor.

Surprise and indignation both rippled through the exiles, and not one of them moved to follow suit. The goat-man's reaction, however, was only to arch an eyebrow at this sudden concession.

"That's nice," he said, flatly. "And sensible, too, given that we have you at arrow-point. But I didn't ask if you wanted to surrender - I asked who you are."

"I am called Arha," she replied, matching his dry tone in kind. "These are my companions."

"And they are?"

"Grakke, Nageth, Zekval, and Makran."

"Should those names mean something to me?" the man asked, arching his eyebrow a second time.

"I should think not," Arha replied, trying with all her might to tamp her bloodlust down beneath a veil of cool indifference. "We're nobodies, after all. Wanderers without a home."

"Really, now," the man said. "You look like killers to me. Dangerous ones at that."

"We are," Makran sneered, fiddling impatiently with a scavenged hatchet.

"We're survivors," Arha clarified, before Makran could bury them any deeper. "And we've been through a great deal of hardship recently."

"Is that so?"

"It is so," Arha nodded, and then without thinking she reached up to touch gingerly at the mottled tissue where once had sat her right eye. The goat-man's gaze followed to that same object of past mutilation.

"That recent?" he asked, without concern.

"Just a few days," Arha confirmed.

"You seem pretty calm, considering your circumstances."

"I think this situation calls for calm," Arha said. "Don't you?" The goat-man clicked his tongue.

"For you? Definitely," he agreed. "For us? I'm not so sure. We've got you in a pretty compromising position here, and I'm not particularly fond of that look you've all got in your eyes. Hell, I'm not entirely opposed to just putting you all down and calling it a day."

At that, Grakke's temper reached a boil, and he stormed forward, his newfound boots all but obliterating the dead leaves beneath as he growled, "Try it. See what-"

"One more step and I'll put an arrow right through your neck," a woman - no, a teenager - said, and Grakke would have received that arrow gladly had Arha not held up a hand for her former Shadow to halt.

"What are you doing here, then?" the leader asked, ignoring Grakke's outburst entirely. "Just 'wandering' about the Dead Zone?"

The Dead Zone - an appropriate moniker for the Blackwoods, to be sure.

"Exactly that," Arha said, after failing to come up with any better reply. "As I said, we've been through a great deal of hardship recently."

There was a tense bit of silence - then, one of the men broke ranks to whisper something in the leader's ear. He nodded, then tightened his grip on his sword, and it became imperative to Arha then that she do something to salvage this sad facsimile of a negotiation.

"Please - we're seeking shelter," Arha blurted out, which elicited stares of blatant shock from her fellow exiles. From the goat-man, however, it brought forth only a short, humorless laugh.

"You must be joking," he said, his expression growing stern at once. "I'm on the fence as to whether or not I should let you live at all - and you actually think I'd allow a pack of mongrel raiders like you into my home?"

Careful and controlled as he was, there now was quite clearly a blunder - admitting that there was, in fact, a home from which these goat-people had come. Her hopes confirmed, Arha was quick to press the advantage, heedless of the fact that every single thing she was saying and doing was in direct contrast to the Great Worm's dictate.

"We are not raiders," Arha insisted.

"You look the part," the goat-man scoffed, unmoved.

"Please," Arha pressed - well aware of the four bewildered and unhappy stares pressing into her back. She could only imagine what they thought, seeing their former Eltok beg rather than fight. "We've...come from a place of terrible conflict. We've been walking for a long, long time. And we're hungry - so hungry I can feel my stomach twisting up like a knot inside me. Please. We're surrendering ourselves to you now because without your help I am certain that we will die. We-" and then she cut herself off, realizing that her heartfelt plea was dragging on into starved and delirious babbling.

What magnificent hypocrisy! A Winnower, a creature who had never shown an outsider even a shred of compassion, was now calling upon the compassion of an outsider to save her. The irony of it all was not lost on Arha, and for maybe the first time in her life she felt an acute pang of what she was not yet equipped to understand as guilt.

The goat-man looked at them a long, long time, his steady countenance a cipher for thoughts Arha could not possibly hope to discern.

"Food and shelter, huh," he mused, after some period of silent calculation. "That's what you're begging me for?"

"That's right," Arha nodded quickly. "Nothing more and nothing less. You have my word."

"And what do I want from you?" the goat-man asked, coldly. "What can you people offer in return?"

Arha's one eye darted from face to face, one after another, scanning for something, anything. And then realization came to her forebrain like a lightning bolt from the heavens. These people weren't warriors - these were teenagers with bows and arrows! No killers but hunters and scavengers, themselves the only vanguard of a people who most assuredly could not properly defend themselves. Well. In that case, Arha thought, the answer to the goat-man's question was obvious.

"I offer you five peerless warriors," she declared, spreading her arms wide. "For you, killing is a rare, unfortunate, painful necessity. But for us?" She gestured to her peers, and for once their naked bloodlust was actually somewhat conducive to this stilted negotiation. "It's just what we do."

"Really, now," the goat-man said dryly, eyeing these filthy vagrants with vicious eyes in corpse-stolen garb.

"Really," Arha replied, and that final word was infused with such clear and icy certainty that even the laconic goat-man was given pause. For just a moment, Arha fully embodied the terrifying confidence and certainty of a true Bloodied One, and her ragged appearance was all but irrelevant before the sound of her voice and the look in the one steel-grey eye that yet remained within her skull.

The goat-man gave her a long, long stare. More silent calculus, more thoughts of risks and rewards. Weighing the scales. And then, finally, he sighed and turned his back - then gestured for her to follow. The bows were lowered at once.

"Come on, then," he called over his shoulder, as his fellows began to recede back into the shadows. "My name is Olta. Try anything and I'll cut you down myself."

And so, reluctantly, the ex-Winnowers began to follow. As Arha bent down to scoop up her discarded weapon, she caught Grakke's eye - saw the question in his stare - and merely shook her head.

None of them were Winnowers anymore. They were ordinary people, now, and they were going to have to get used to living as such.

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Draven pushed open the double-doors to find his honor guard were drunk in the war-room.

He had selected the three of them to serve as his lieutenants with immense and urgent care, for it was essential to his odds of surviving even the next week that he surround himself with allies both deeply loyal and eminently competent. In Winnower culture, where ambition was prized above all, such things were often at odds with one other - but still Draven felt he had done as best a job he could have in assembling his would-be faithful.

There was Torra, a brown-haired woman known to be level-headed and careful. She was also known to be unusually skilled as a tracker and scout - work usually reserved for Neophytes and Outriders. She would be the calm counterbalance to any untoward aggression or impulsiveness from the other members.

Then, there was Effos, a broad-shouldered and blonde-haired man whom Draven knew to be of both simple mind and strong heart. He was also known to be fiercly passionate in defense of both himself and his fellows, and he was often the loudest voice in any given argument. From him would stem passion and loyalty both, his steadfast nature keeping the other members committed to the cause.

And then there was Illoc - most dangerous yet most essential of them all. He was a raptor of a man with a close-shaved skull and a perpetual scowl twisting his lips, and Draven knew him as a Winnower both viciously cruel and terrifyingly quick to anger. But he was also quite cunningly intelligent, and above all else a well-respected fighter who killed with a sword in one hand and a brutal spike-studded mace in the other. He was, in other words, the complete package - so long as Draven could rein him in.

Confident in these choices as he was; nevertheless, the first thing Draven saw when he walked into that room was that his plans were in utter disarray.

For starters, Torra was the angriest one there, red-faced and practically spitting as she denounced the mongrels of the Second Host who dared call themselves Winnowers. And it was Effos who was encouraging her, his booming voice putting to open air suggestions of raids, of retaliation, of perhaps even open war. And most worrying of all, there sat Illoc in silence - just quietly nodding along, drink in hand but untouched. Whatever he was thinking, he had elected to keep it to himself, and that was what had Draven truly concerned.

They startled at the old man's presence, Torra and Effos snapping off quick and clumsy salutes while Illoc belatedly did the same, his scowl only deepening all the while.

They did not respect him. They did not even like him. Their beloved Arha was gone - and in her place was the outdated old relic who had been too cowardly to follow her into the wasteland. A blade to the gut was the most common solution to an unpopular Eltok, and Draven was painfully aware that one of his chosen few might very well strike him down that very night if he happened to say the wrong thing. There would certainly be no objection from the others.

They might not have wanted him - but they would respect him, Draven decided, as he surveyed the drunk and disorderly. He had trained all three of these damned oafs from when they were but neophytes, and he knew well how to command their attention now as he stepped silently into the room, then pulled up a chair and made to join them.

An uncomfortable silence followed - one that Draven made to dispel at once.

"Have you ever considered," he asked, his voice deceptively casual, "why it is that Arha was not of the Second Host?"

It was an abrupt greeting to say the least, one carefully calculated to be at once puzzling and inflammatory - the mere mention of their idol and their hated enemy in the same sentence, Draven knew, would set the Honor Guard on edge. And so it did, for now all three were looking at him with a mixture of confusion and plain irritation.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"What are you talking about, old man?" Illoc snarled, from behind his mug. Were Draven's position secure, the appropriate response would have been to beat the impudent young man bloody for speaking to his Eltok thus. Alas, these were difficult circumstances, and compromises were all but necessitated. It was not with violence that Draven would win their hearts.

"Well," Draven said, amicably enough, "think about it. We all know that the Second Host always get first pick of the incoming neophytes, stealing away the strongest and smartest and leaving us with whatever remains - though of course I do not mean to disparage our own warriors." That last part was no mere platitude - Draven had trained most of those warriors, and he firmly believed that within every wayward neophyte was the spark of a ferocious and indomitable Winnower. All it took was patience and a keen eye; two things in which the elders of the Second Host were deciding lacking.

"So ask yourselves, then," Draven continued. "Why was Arha not plucked from our ranks the day she came of age? After all, she was known as a prodigy from the very start. A ferociously skilled warrior trained by Tekarn himself! She was an overwhelmingly obvious first choice, a prize that the Second should have been eager to claim. So, why didn't they? Or, rather...who stopped them?"

They were already biting on the hook he had set - Draven could see it in their eyes, in the way all but Illoc were leaned forward to hear more. All he had to do now was reel them in.

"Do you know of a man called Ekane?" Draven asked. Heads shook in the negative. "He was Eltok of the Third, once, some twenty-odd years ago. More, perhaps."

"He must have been a nobody," Illoc scoffed, always eager to play the contrarian. "I've never even heard of him."

"Few have, nowadays," Draven smiled. "But he was far from a nobody. Ekane, Eltok of the Third. Eighty-seventh to hold the title, if our records are to be believed. He wielded an unusual weapon - a long, twin-bladed spear - and when he fought he was nothing short of spectacular to behold. Beyond his blade he was a loud, arrogant, clever man. Unpleasant, oftentimes, but riotously funny as well. And just about everyone liked him, no matter their Host. In no time at all he had ascended to the veteran ranks of the First, and when his Eltok - a man called Zazst - was killed in The Scouring War, many called for young Ekane to serve as his replacement. But Ekane had always held a soft spot for the Third. He admired their fire, you see, admired the passion and ambition that drove them. And so he was the only Winnower in history to lower himself down to the Third, killing their Eltok - an unpopular warrior whose name is now lost to time - and assuming leadership of their Host."

"And the position of First Eltok?" Torra asked, though Draven could tell all three of them had already surmised the answer.

"At Ekane's recommendation, it went to his closet friend," Draven answered. "A man with whom he was closer than any brother - a warrior by name of Tekarn."

"Oh," Effos said.

"They made for quite a pair," Draven chuckled, and he was surprised to hear sadness creeping into the edges of his words. "Tekarn, who hardly ever spoke a word, and Ekane, who quite literally never shut his mouth. Tekarn was different, then, you know. So quiet, so withdrawn - but in battle, he was fearless. Awe-inspiring. Together, the two of them fought as though they were immortal, and the bond between their Hosts was as strong as I have ever seen. These were good years for the Third - perhaps even the best."

"So..." Torra trailed off. She, too, had noticed Draven's speech shifting from wistful to somber. "What happened to him?"

"Come now, Torra," Draven chided, meeting her searching gaze. "What do you think happened? We are Winnowers, after all, and one way or another we all meet with the same end. Sevos ah shas vek-keh, savash ah nen corzat. Fire in our bellies and swords in our hearts."

"But who killed him?" Illoc blurted out, and Draven couldn't help but smile at the young cynic's sudden and vehement interest. Illoc had been like that as a neophyte, too - aloof and disinterested until, of course, he wasn't. "And how is it that I've never heard of a man whom the great Tekarn considered a peer?"

Draven's smile faded.

"One day," he said, quietly, "Ekane decided to challenge Bartok for the title of Grand Lord."

A pained hush descended over the table. The implications were all but obvious - but they had to hear the story in full. They had to understand.

"We all wanted Ekane over Bartok, of course," Draven continued, steepling his fingers as he drank deep of memories long past. "Even then Bartok was seen as past his prime, and Ekane was overwhelmingly popular. So believe me when I tell you that just about every Winnower alive was there to see him strike the fat old gve'ka down. And believe me when I tell you that Ekane fought like a demon that day. He fought like a man possessed by the spirit of the Great Worm Himself. By the Wastes, he was dancing around Bartok with ease, making the Grand Lord look like a fool - like a child throwing a tantrum, swinging that massive hammer around and howling like a wounded boar every time Ekane carved another chunk from his body. Ekane's plan, you see, was to wear Bartok down bit by bit before finally swooping in to deliver one perfect, final blow."

None dared interrupt. They could all but envision the duel unfolding before them.

"But Bartok, outmatched as he was, never did tire," Draven said bitterly. He saw that Effos's knuckles were white. "The Grand Lord never slowed. And all the while, magnificent as he was, Ekane was starting to lag. His breathing grew shallow. His movements grew predictable. And then, finally, he made a mistake - and then the Grand Lord caught him."

"No," Torra whispered, seized with grief for a man she had never known - easily and unconsciously translating her grief for Arha to this long-dead iconoclast. And Draven, who had known him, allowed himself a moment's respite before continuing.

"Bartok broke him," Draven said, finally. Effos' head hung low. "Shattered every bone in his body with just one blow. I saw Ekane on the ground, there, crawling across the sands like a puppet with cut strings, and I saw Bartok raise his hammer again - then bring it down on Ekane once more. His stomach burst like overripe fruit and his insides flew in every direction and yet still Ekane was crawling, dragging himself forward on shaking and trembling limbs. He was nothing but a wretched torso, then. And he was saying something through bloodied lips, some gurgling or choking sound that none of us could ever hope to parse into words. Bartok paraded triumphantly as Ekane crawled and crawled, pounding his fist against his chest and bellowing boasts and creeds. Then, he raised his hammer one final time, and just before he brought it down upon Ekane's skull he looked at us - looked at every one of us - and he told us to remember this day. And then..." Draven's voice broke, and he threw up his hands in resignation. "That was that."

"But what of Tekarn?" Illoc demanded, all but pounding his fist against the table. "Surely he-"

"Therein lies the point of this particular anecdote," Draven growled, his voice suddenly growing hard. There was no time to dwell in the past, not when the future yet loomed. "Tekarn didn't do a damn thing - he just stood there, still as a statue, as though frozen in place, and he watched. We were waiting, every single one of us, for Tekarn to unsheathe his sword and slaughter the Grand Lord with the same silent fearlessness he had displayed countless times before. We waited for Tekarn to save his closest friend - then, we waited for Tekarn avenge him, instead. But vengeance never came. Even as the decades passed, Bartok remained Grand Lord, and Tekarn remained his First Eltok. A humble servant to the very end. And, in time, Ekane was all but forgotten."

Nobody spoke for a long, long time. And then, finally, Effos - sounding as defeated as Draven had ever heard him.

"It's always going to be like this, isn't it?" The young man swallowed, glanced around. "For the Third Host."

"History is cyclical," Draven agreed somberly. "The history of the Third Host doubly so. But there is a lesson to be learned, here, from this particular bit of history."

"To fear Bartok?" Torra suggested, but Draven shook his head.

"The lesson is this," the old man declared, leaning forward in his seat. The torchlight cast his face in long and vivid shadow. "When you run with wolves, you must keep their true nature close in your mind at all times. You must not forget those vicious yellow fangs. You must not forget those long, wicked claws."

They looked puzzled.

"Bartok took more than just Ekane's life that day," Draven explained. Here, finally, was the central thrust of it all. "He took Tekarn's spirit - his very soul itself. He ripped that man's heart from his chest and threw it carelessly to the dogs below. And Tekarn, the single most dangerous man I've ever known in my sixty-two years of life, allowed it all to pass without complaint. Now, decades later, Bartok has taken yet another Third Eltok from him - and again, he has simply allowed it to be so. Facilitated it, even. The well of that man's patience must run unfathomably deep," Draven paused, letting the words sink in, "but it can not be bottomless. Mark my words, all of you. There is an upheaval coming. A great, violent cataclysm - one that will start, I believe, the moment that Tekarn's patience has finally run out. And when that day comes we must all be ready."

Before anyone could reply, Draven rose sharply to his feet, and now he was no reminiscing old man but a stern and commanding Eltok.

"My goal is simple," Draven declared. "To preserve as many of our lives as possible. To preserve our Host, and to weather the ferocity of these coming storms. I know that you see me as a weak, aging ruler; a member of the old guard long past his prime. I am certain that every one of you has contemplated taking from me both my position and my head. But I ask you now: help me. Support me. And in return, I promise that upon the day of my death the Third Host will stand the strongest it has ever stood, and when the boot-heel comes for our necks as it has time and time again this time we will not be victims. This time...this time we will not be helpless."

It didn't take long for Effos to rise and thump fist to chest in impassioned salute, nor was it much later than Torra did the same. Illoc dragged it out, of course, as Draven knew he would - but eventually he, too, submitted himself to his new Eltok, and Draven felt a surge of satisfaction and certainty both.

Perhaps, he thought to himself, he could actually do this.

He was quick to take his leave afterwards, not wanting to spoil the effect of his speech with meaningless small talk, and soon he was striding quite confidently down the moonlit halls of the Third barracks, his mind whirling with plans for the future. It was a product of that busy, preoccupied mind that Draven didn't see him at first.

But then, of course, he did see him. And of course he froze right there on the spot.

Leaning against a railing overlooking the sparring pits was none other than Gekto, Tekarn's dark-eyed attack dog, standing as casual as could be in a place he could not possibly be. And yet, he was.

"Draven!" the Shadow called, gesturing with two fingers. He didn't so much rise from the railing as he did uncoil, long and lanky, all black eyes and white teeth. "It's good to see you, my friend."

Draven saw this at once for what it was: an intimidation tactic, plain and simple. No doubt Tekarn was testing him, prodding at him for any vulnerability or weakness. And it was for that reason that Draven stormed forward, eyes wide with indignation, and dared to jab a finger against the First Shadow's chest.

"You tread upon forbidden grounds," Draven growled. Gekto did not even blink. "Explain yourself now, or I will have your head struck from your neck. How in the Seven Wastes did you get here?"

"The way I usually do," Gekto smirked. "Light steps and broken bones."

"Did you-" Draven's eyes went even wider, and this time his outrage was far from performative. The thought of this wretched creature laying hand or blade upon his people all but brought his blood to boil.

"No, no," Gekto drawled, rolling his eyes. "I didn't kill anybody, Draven - for which the three warriors who tried to stop me should be grateful, hmm?"

"Grateful?" Draven practically spat. "You disgraceful little-"

"Draven," Gekto cautioned, his smile unwavering. "Think about who you're talking to. Think about the tone you're choosing to take."

Even here, where he should very well have been untouchable, Draven had no choice but to heed that thinly-veiled warning. Immediately, he reigned in his indignity, forcing upon himself a mask of calm disapproval. Gekto's presence here was an affront, yes, but it was not one that he could afford to punish. Not yet, anyway.

But he didn't have to put up with it, either. And so Draven merely turned sharply on his heel and strode away, hands clasped behind his back. He would not spare the First Shadow another glance.

"Draven!" Gekto called, again. And then, in a voice very different from the genial and friendly tone in which he had thus far been speaking: "Don't you walk away from me, old man."

Draven turned back - and fixed the First Shadow with an even stare. The look he got in return spoke of great and terrible violence.

"If Tekarn wants to speak with me," Draven declared, swallowing his unease, "he can do so at the War Council tomorrow, himself, rather than ordering his lackey to violate the sanctity of my barracks with his presence. Tell me, lackey, would Tekarn have insulted Arha thus?"

Gekto's smile grew - but there was naked irritation in his eyes. "I wouldn't have to sneak in if Arha was in charge."

"I wouldn't be so certain," Draven scoffed. "She was no more fond of you than I, Gekto, and besides - you people are the very reason that I am Eltok and she is not. I see little point in whining about that particular fact to me."

A tense silence followed, and for a split second Draven was certain he had overplayed his hand. And then:

"Heh," Gekto chuckled wryly, starting forward and dusting his hands off on his leather gambeson. "Fair enough, I guess." He stopped just beside Draven, then, and slowly his hand drifted back - drifted to the unusual curved dagger sheathed on the back of his belt. Draven tensed - his own hand shot to the sword on his hip - and then Gekto barked out a ferocious, genuine laugh.

"Gotcha," he bragged, patting the Third Eltok on the shoulder, and before Draven could reply the First Shadow had stepped away and out of sight.

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"[It's cowardice, plain and simple,]" Makran declared. "[That's the only explanation for what she's doing here.]"

The combined party had been marching for nearly an hour now, with the exiles congregated in the middle and the goat-people dispersed in a loose, wide ring around them, all of them distant enough to let their arrows fly long before any of the exiles could reach them. While Arha and Olta discussed quietly at the front and Grakke drifted alone somewhere in the middle, the three remaining now huddled together, speaking in the Old Tongue so as not to be understood.

While Arha had fretted over her accent, here her companions were speaking openly in a language that any who had ever encountered a Winnower might very well recognize and associate with the bone-armored terrors. They would make for poor diplomats indeed.

"[You want my opinion?]" Makran continued, eyes darting between the two brothers. "[I think we should kill these dumb fucks right now and take all their shit for ourselves. We're Winnowers, damnit - we take what we please!]"

"[That is the last thing we should do,]" Nageth shot back. "[Makran, come on.]"

"[I mean, I'm not opposed to a bit of cowardice here and there,]" Zekval interjected helpfully. "[Though I usually prefer to call it pragmatism. But yeah, Nageth, you do have to admit that this all feels pretty weird.]"

"[It's bizarre is what it is,]" Makran agreed fervently. "[Did Arha go soft or something? Maybe Tekarn beat the spirit out of her, too.]" No sooner had the words left her mouth than she shot Arha a quick, guilt-ridden glance. Among the Honor Guard, Makran was both the fastest to insult and fastest to apologize, the two halves of her nature at perpetual odds with one another.

"[You people aren't thinking straight,]" Nageth chided, shaking his head like a disappointed parent. "[Come on, use your brains. We're starving, poorly equipped, and essentially lost in what might as well be the Worm's own ass-hole. We need outside help - which is why Arha has tricked these people into guiding us to their village. Once we're there, we'll slaughter whatever poor bastards are trying to stand guard and take every one of their resources for ourselves. We could even live there for a time, if we so choose.]"

To that, both Makran and Zekval nodded vigorously - having been well convinced by Nageth's reasonable and level-headed words. But before Makran could reply - and express regret that she had doubted her former Eltok - there came from far ahead a series of three shrill whistles, and the order came at once for the group to halt.

Ahead, Arha was watching with folded arms and quiet concern as a scout emerged from the shadows to whisper something in Olta's ear. The goat-man nodded - nodded again - them grimaced, dismissing the scout with a pat on the back. The goat-man turned back and Arha cocked her head, confused.

"There's an ambush ahead," Olta explained, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. "Bordon the Eater's crew, by the look of it."

"Bordon the Eater?" Arha raised an eyebrow. It was a concise moniker if nothing else.

"A cannibal marauder who roams these woods with a gang of about two-dozen," Olta said, his words laden heavy with disgust. "The whole reason we took this roundabout path back to the village was to avoid that scum. Now we've gone and walked right into them." He sighed, pinching the brow of his nose and shaking his head. "We'll have to move fast."

Arha knew an opportunity when she saw one.

"Well, yes," she agreed, "we could do that. Or..." The smile that crept up her face was almost entirely involuntary, "...maybe I could go and have a word with him?"

Olta gave her an uncharitable look. "There are two dozen of them."

"You'll have to take me at my word when I say that won't make one bit of difference," Arha grinned in reply. Her one eye was all but gleaming with a hunger she had not felt in days - the hunger to fight, and to kill, and most of all to win. "So how about it, Olta - you want these people dead?"

Seconds later she and Grakke were striding up to the trio of huddled exiles.

"We got killing to do, up ahead," Arha said, jabbing her thumb just as Olta had done a minute prior. "Everyone good?"

"Damn right," Makran chuckled, turning her head and spitting. And Nageth leaned forward, elbowing Zekval surreptitiously in the side.

"[What'd I tell you, huh?]" he cajoled. "[She even found us some entertainment.]"

----------------------------------------

They were waiting in the clearing just as Olta's scout had said they would be - two dozen of them lounging around a dilapidated old wagon, one laden almost to the point of breaking by bloated and rotting corpses. Fat black flies buzzed noisily about men and women in rusted plate and stained tunics, all of them armed with a motley assortment of cleavers and mallets. Their skin had an odd, pallid grey tint, and their eyes were a dull yellow. The reek of death was such that Olta and the other goat-people were forced to tie scarves around their mouths and noses, while Arha and her exiles remained entirely unaffected.

Olta's people maintained a distant semi-circle, hanging back for now, while Arha and the goat-man strode side-by-side into the center of the clearing with the four ex-Winnowers following close behind.

The audience was seated. The stage was set. And now Arha was eager to perform.

From among the cannibals there came a broad-shouldered man with wide eyes and a beard knotted in seven places, a cleaver hefted over his shoulder and a necklace of rotting fingers dangling from around his neck.

"Hello, meat," Bordon said, which Arha found a little presumptuous.

"Bordon the Eater," Olta called in reply, spreading his arms wide. "If I'd known it was you, old friend, I'd have come by to say hello sooner!" Bartok barked out a sharp, pointed laugh.

"You're funny, Olta, always have been," he said, still chuckling to himself. "Now listen, boy, while I tell you how it's gonna be."

While Olta's men were tense, bows drawn taut and knives in hand, Arha's exiles were not just calm but bored. Makran twirled her hatchets idly, running her fingers through thoroughly knotted and matted hair, while Nageth rolled his shoulders and yawned. Zekval was picking dirt from his nails and Grakke was scratching at the back of his neck and even Arha was passing her rusted machete from right hand to left, feeling the difference. Left, she decided. She'd fight with her left today.

"These are our lands - as you well know," Bordon continued. "And still you trespass, sneaking around like the thieves that you are. But I'm a generous man, after all, another thing that you know very well. And so, Olta, I'm willing to forgive you and grant you safe passage back to your little village." His mouth split into a hideous, gap-toothed sneer. "All you gotta do is give us something to eat."

Bordon raised his arm - then leveled a finger at Arha and the exiles.

"Those five," he declared. "The humans. No offense, Olta, but I've never cared much for goat-flesh."

"By the Wastes, are we just gonna stand here and talk?!" Makran demanded suddenly, smashing her hatchets together in an explosive shower of sparks. "I wanna fucking kill something already!"

At that, every weapon came out, and every cannibal was starting forwards as Bordon let out another laugh.

"Such arrogant food!" he bellowed, as his fellows thundered forward in a combined charge.

And just before the enemy was upon them, Arha turned to Olta and gave the goat-man an impish, arrogant little grin.

"Hey, Olta," she said, calm as could be even as a cleaver was racing towards the side of her skull. "Watch this."

She parried the blow, twisted, opened her opponent's throat by a mere centimeter - and then she was but a blur of grey and red that killed whatever it touched.

The feeling was nothing short of magnificent.