The eyes can only see so much, and were meant to look at things other than what is shown. So too it is with the ears. There are many sounds, too many sounds, and they can drive one mad. True hearing is the power to discover silence, and true sight is to blind oneself to the shroud, to perceive the shadow moving behind the veil and to hear its whispered cries. Nashvatuk knew these things, but Nishta was a child, born from the entrails of the coming descension. Anubi, now the Black Ohm, made her his Den Mother, in honour of the creator she once was, but Nistha had to learn again what she once knew. Now her ears heard only noise, and her eyes saw only light.

But she was learning quickly, for every step she took through the Nethergreen was a rebirth, aided by Nashvatuk's gift. A true infant would only remember the given things; the three dances of death and the music that went with them, or the ripples of the first tide that all thoughts hearkened back to. Names of leaves and nettles and stones were for all, but the names that Nashvatuk knew were being given as well. So long as she did not remember Nashvatuk's end, she would be safe. But she knew it was coming. She knew Nashvatuk's gift came with pain. All Nishta could do for now was stretch out the days before her dark star rose.

We all have one, Adaki said. He spoke with his nose more than his teeth. Nishta remembered trusting a man who spoke with his nose, so she listened to Adaki.

Mine is darker than most, she said back. Nishta spoke mostly with her ears.

Don't run from it, Adaki replied. You run from a precious thing. I know it hurts, but it's precious. You are a strong and beautiful creature, strong enough to survive.

Nistha stuck her nose in the dirt and snorted up a cloud of dust. The warm air spoke of rain at the top, blood in the middle, and new tears and old urine at the bottom. They'd been on the prowl for three days, following the willow archers who killed Sandobrak and his entire hunting party. The Black Ohm went mad when his father died. He ordered all their dandelion captives slain and their hill towns burned, then sent every scout and tracker he had after the willow archers, or the elves, as they called themselves. Elf was one of Nashvatuk's words. She first heard it when she came to the home shores.

They ran with orders to dance every dance of death upon them, and when those dances were done, to make new dances to new songs to give new torture to them even after their return to the earth. The willows cut the leash, Adaki said when they were one day away from the great pack. Now the dog is free to spread his rabies.

Dog? she said back. Would you call a dandelion an ape?

If they behaved like Ohm, yes.

Adaki only spoke with his nose to her, so she listened to all he said. To everyone else he spoke with his eyes and lips. His voice was softer now than she'd ever seen before, as he spoke of Nashvatuk's gift, Nishta's dark star, and the madness of their new Alpha.

They were laying in the tall grass near the edge of the dead city. Promise, they once called it, the beacon of return. Now they called it Lie, the trap of deceit. The willows had not returned here. Their smell was close, but it was hidden. The willows were blowing in the wind. Nashvatuk gave her no gifts of the willows other than the ones from faerie; the deep dreams that all packs shared. The waking willows were new, they were Nishta's own.

Willows are deadly, she said to Adaki.

Not so deadly as stars, Adaki said to her.

I don't want to speak of stars today. Let me run for now. She rolled onto her belly and dug her chin into the dirt.

For now. But I won't let you run for longer than you should.

Why? She shifted back onto her side.

Because you're my dark star.

I don't understand. She looked at Adaki. The bright blue lightning painted into his pale grey fur made him look like a comet, and when the wind blew through it he looked like he was on fire.

You will. I promise. Our stars will rise as one, and that's how we'll face them.

My star is too dark for you. She knew she was not only lying, but lying pathetically. Adaki was a centaur master. His breed sniffed a different wind than the others, and hunted under a different moon. The lies and truths told by the common gnoll were the growling of puppies to them. Nishta felt ashamed the moment the lie left her face.

Why are you ashamed, Adaki asked. Is it because you lied, or because you lied badly?

She snorted again. Because I lied to you. You see the invisible. You deserve my respect.

I feel no disrespect from you, child.

She laughed, quietly. Adaki was of an age with her, but he knew the wintry state of her heart. He gave her an oak branch when he came to meet her, the symbol rebirth. Whether his sight was keen, or her wound so gaping, he wouldn't say, but he knew of her rebirth before he'd even seen her. Had she never died, she might have seen him as a mate, but he was her older brother now, helping her up when she fell, and licking the wounds her tongue couldn't reach.

If you didn't respect me, you wouldn't be ashamed of your lie. So, I forgive you. No harm done. His silver eyes whispered calming thoughts of love and hope.

Hund stomped his feet and moaned. Nishta winced at the sound of his viscous saliva plopping into the soil behind them. Adaki clicked his tongue, and the centaur bent its legs and sat still.

Nashvatuk admired the tortured beasts, but Nishta hated them. Fellworms, she called them, though she didn't know why. Hund was less disturbing to her than others, most likely because he was one of Adaki's. But even his other fellworms bothered her more than Hund did. Somehow, there seemed to be splinters of thought in his half-dead eyes. She wondered if she made it up so she could feel more comfortable around him. He was Adaki's best, after all. Master was seldom without servant, in Hund's case. A scraping sound distracted her thoughts. She looked back over her shoulder and saw the centaur scratching at one of his six horns with one of his three inch claws. He was Adaki's first umbra, and one of the deadliest fellworms in the Great Pack.

Bringing him on their hunt was Adaki's way of showing his fealty to Ohm, a thing that was more or less assumed before Sandobrak's death. Things were different now. The old Alpha kept the new one in line, gave him wise counsel, and helped the Great Pack understand the anger that drove his son to bring all the packs together ot fight when they wanted to break and retreat.

They had argued that they came back to the home shores too soon, that the Great Year was still a long ways off. But Ohm pointed to the sky and said the sign they followed was the red fire burning in the heavens, not the dead coals smouldering in the hearts of the traitor kins. His eyes glowed redder and hotter than the Harbinger Sun; the name the philosophers gave the vagabond star, and the packs all felt his heart beating in their breasts, so they swore themselves to him. Even his father showed his throat, a thing none expected to see. For the elder Alpha to follow his own pup while he still had his strength was unheard of. But it was done, and Ohm was Alpha, and as Adaki said, the dog had been unleashed.

"Can we trust the ironwoods?" Adaki asked outwardly.

Nishta sniffed the air and looked around. The smell of elf had gone, and only the wind was moving. She rose and stretched. Hund rose protectively behind her. She felt his putrid breath on her back as he roared.

She first thought it cruel of Adaki to have his fellworm stand in view as bait, but then she saw him fight. Dandelions came upon them their second day. They masked their smells by hiding among piles of their dead, and sprang upon the hunting party when they entered a clearing in the Nethergreen. Hund swallowed three of them before the gnolls even knew they were being ambushed. When the battle was done, Hund had killed so many dandelions that half their party went unblooded.

Now they were far more wary. They lay prone at the edge of cover while Hund trotted around and sat in plain view, speaking voicelessly while they waited on their first tracker to determine when they were safe to move on. Whenever they did, Hund would trumpet his ghastly call. Nishta couldn't tell if he meant it in triumph, to sound out protectively, or to express his lust for the feeling of life extinguishing within his putrefying innards. Yet somehow, she could tell he meant something. He showed more signs of redeeming thought than most centaurs, and the faintest shadow of a personality.

"We can trust Neri," Nishta said, her voice almost drowned by the cacophonous rumpus Hund made of standing back up. He thumped his front foot into the ground like it was a ram against a gate. Adaki danced slowly in front of him and chirped like a mother bird. The centaur reared and groaned, then lowered his horn crested head. Adaki reached into the heavy saltpurse hanging from his belt and sprinkled a pinch over the back of Hund's neck. The centaur let out a piercing screech, then stood calmly. Adaki patted him on his gummy grey hide.

"That's one ironwood," said Dunwind, Ohm's broodcousin. The two shared a grandfather, and nothing more.

"They listen to him," Nishta said.

"All of them?" asked Kaliyuka. She was littermate to Ohm, the smallest and meanest of his sisters. Nishta was careful with her. She looked to Ohm as more than an Alpha. To her, he was the mind and heart of all the packs, and the gnoll she wished she could be.

Nishta shrugged. "All who I've seen him with. There was a leader among them, when I helped them hunt the lostenines from Nash... the Sundance pack. The leader listened to him."

"Was he a king?" Kaliyuka asked. Her black fur ruffled softly in the cool wind that flowed downward from the distant mountains.

Nishta shook her head. "I don't know. He was a warrior. I think kings are warriors. But he answered to another, still in the mountain. I think he's their king. Maybe he was a prince. But Neri was the best warrior there, save for the deathcap king. He fought like a hurricane. His people died to save him."

"I've never met a hurricane that needed saving," Kaliyuka said through bared teeth.

She is jealous of me. She wished to be Den Mother to Ohm, Nishta thought. The Black Ohm kept to the oldest ways, and would not choose his Den Mother from among his mates, neither breeding nor litter. Nistha remembered another Alpha who did the same. He was old and small, but clever in peace and mean in a fight. He made her Den Mother instead of one of his mates, and they all hated her, so he ousted them from the pack and chose new mates, but not her. He was like a father to her, and left it to her to choose mates for herself. She enjoyed his company very much, and learned all her best lessons from him. She felt pain in her belly, and stopped the memory before it became either a face or a name.

Hund heaved and lurched forward. Putrid fluid spewed out of his mouth and formed a steaming pile in the grass. He wailed in pain, then wheezed as he stood back up. He seemed past the episode, but then more rotwater poured out. He panted and coughed, then looked pitifully at Adaki. His master chirped and whistled, did the first three steps of the ocean dance, then waved his hands around in the shape of the sun. He lifted his spear from the ground and pointed it towards the Harbinger Sun. The ring of bones tied beneath its tip clattered brightly, drawing Hund's attention to the sky. He stepped a few paces backwards, then lowered his man-body so that his head was level with Adaki's as they gazed at the vagabond star together.

"Sandhyas," Adaki said soothingly while scratching the back of Hund's massive neck, unconcerned with the closeness of his erratically curved horns. "Soon come autumn leaves and healing wind. Sandhyas, broken wing, sandhyas. Great Year, no more pain. Sandhyas."

They all stood silently around Adaki and Hund. Nishta wondered at the strange bond between the centaur masters and their monstrous children. It was the oldest and greatest mystery of their people. The masters said nothing to others of the bond or its forming, and revealed very little of the nature of the the centaurs. In time, other gnolls could develop a sense of familiarity with certain fellworms, especially the calmer ones. But their masters felt a deep love for them, and showed them pity even during their most hideous moments. It was clear they knew much about their children, but they were very quiet with their knowledge. Only their actions toward the fellworms gave any clue to the sad, hidden truths of the beasts, and what had changed them long ago.

They'd all begun to show more signs of meaningful awareness since arriving on the home shore. Nishta heard how some centaurs were left from behind from excursions over the years. She wondered if they were they had grown even more aware than the ones they brought. She couldn't imagine any being as alive as Hund, though. He was especially beloved as fellworms went. He showed a clear gentleness towards all gnolls, even when his killing fits took him. When those times struck, he sought either enemies or animals to thrust into his formless bowels, going so far as to flee into the trees until his hunger pangs were sated.

Dunwind stood close to Hund as he heaved in pain, and would have reached out to pet the beast had he the stomach to touch his maligned flesh. Nishta knew of no warrior more stalwart than Dunwind, and even he refrained from touching a centaur. Nishta saw him kill two orcs, though, in a fight near a dandelion town east of the hollow hills. That was their first hunt together. They followed an elf pack that learned where the centaurs' weak point was, and could not be allowed to survive. They pursued them without rest until the elves finally turned to fight. They were still weary from that battle when the elk grass attacked.

Why the elk grass came after them, they could not say. Their kin had been especially aggressive towards the gnolls since they first arrived. It seemed to Nishta that there was some old grudge the orcs bore that her people had no memory of. Maybe, if they could subdue one without killing it, they could ask. The old winds spoke of friendship with the beastkin, but not long ago two of their packs came to Noth and instantly went wild with rage, attacking every gnoll that approached them. Eventually they had to drive them back to the northern shores and off the isle. They'd hoped for a rescue, not an attack, and it was with sad eyes they herded the elk grass away from their lands. Many blamed the Fog for their unprovoked violence, but the Fog dispersed when it followed them to the home shores, and the elk grass assailed them there as well. Nishta hoped with all her hearts that the vagabond star was truly the Harbinger Sun. All the winds and tides spoke the same hope, that when the Great Year turned, the Fog would be gone from the world, leaving peace between all kins in its wake.

Even Hund and his strange ilk longed for the turning of the age. It was said that their bodies grew more poisoned with the rising of the plague moon, and that the Harbinger Sun would bring about its end, freeing the centaurs from their epoch long sickness. Nistha looked at Hund as he stood there, silent and morose, swaying his great rack of horns back and forth as stringy droplets of rotwater trickled out of his skeletal mouth. The centaurs of her day were a far cry from the ones on the old paintings on the Erubus.

Those paintings were Nishta's favorite part of Nashvatuk's Gift. None ever learned why, but that great cauldron of cliffs carved out of Noth's southernmost shore were the one place the Fog never went. She marvelled at the skill of the ancient painters, and wondered with awe how they managed to make their massive murals on the faces of those gargantuan bluffs, buffeted ceaselessly by ocean gales and towering waves. "The past is important," her mother told her, when she asked why people would risk their lives to make paintings on such inaccessible places.

Her favorite paintings were the ones of the Noontide; the time of rebirth after the end of the Waking Flame, when the Age of Tides would truly begin. In those great murals were paintings of centaurs with bright and beautiful fur, properly shaped arms and legs, the same number of fingers and toes on each hand and foot, and the same number of eyes in the same places on all their heads.

Those centaurs looked like living creatures, not languishing mutations. She tried to picture Hund as his kind were painted on Erubus, and began to feel pity for the beast as she looked at him. She tried to picture his six horns being of even length and shape, and his horse-body fit for riding, covered in billowing fur instead of stiffened mucus. As her pity grew, she felt the urge to stand closer to the poor creature, as Dunwind was doing. But as the pity grew, and she found herself moving closer to him, she saw in her mind his jaw unhinging and his maw opening towards her. Her stomach churned and she dropped to the ground shuddering. She felt a panicked need to be far away from Hund, then her vision was taken by the image of a darkened sun spreading rays of shadow through the daylit sky.

"Dark star," Kaliyuka said in a surprisingly gentle tone.

Hund ignored her, fortunately. He swayed slowly back and forth, calming his innards from his vomiting fit. She sat there panting until her heart calmed down and she and the centaur were both fit to move. After a time they made their way furtively into the dead city. Hund strode ahead boldly, invigorated by the smell of warm blood that hung faintly in the air.

"Lie reeks of ironwood," said Hakela, one of the older hunters of their party. He was a big male with a long snout and bushy mane of graying fur. The rest of his pelt was a crimson so dark it seemed black except for when the sun shone directly on him.

Nistha sniffed hard and sensed it too. The smell was old, though, and came from under the ground. "Were there lands under Promise?"

"Probably," said Dunwind.

They spent several hours exploring Promise. Nishta refused to call it Lie. Nashvatuk may call it that, as she was born in the Fog to a promise of a better world. Nishta was born in Konistra, to darkness and loss, and to her the dead city was still a promise, but of what she had yet to discover. Signs of Neri's kin passing through were abundant, for one with the nose and ears to look for them. The sound of drumming beneath the earth told of a great host, thousands strong, making their way downward in a spiral. In the empty houses and market stalls of the city, the smells of sleeping bodies could still faintly be made out. A large number of them had evidently slept in the city's central plaza, in the shadow of its largest building.

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"Tower of six," Hakela said scornfully. He was reading the old runes carved into the stone arch above the tower door. "They think to keep us out of everything, even the past!"

"Look," Adaki said, pointing his spear towards the other towers surrounding the plaza. Hund watched the tip of his spear, captivated by the clattering of its ring of bones.

"Tower of Three," Adaki said as he pointed to one of the three towers. "And tower of Nine," he pointed to the other.

Hakela was skeptical, and went to each tower's arch to make sure. Kaliyuka followed, along with a pair of smaller girls who looked to her the way she looked to Ohm.

"It's hard to read," Hakela announced.

Nishta went to each tower herself, curious to see what their arches said. They were difficult to read, worn away by wind and time. She stepped back and looked up at the towers from the center of the plaza. They were very tall, and narrow, with wide bases the size of large houses. They were all built in the shape of several round towers welded together, and that's when she saw how Adaki knew what each was called. The tower she stood closest to was made of nine narrow pillars, the next of three, much wider than the nine, and the tower who's arch was still readable was made of six.

"Adaki's too smart," said Dunwind, patting the centaur master on the head. Hund repeated the gesture, cupping Adaki's skull in his hideously overlong fingers with each pat. Dunwind smiled gleefully. "Hund is waking! See! He grins!"

It was true. Nishta had seen it faintly day by day, with this fellworm more than any other. And as Dunwind said, Hund was unmistakably smiling. The thin, wrinkly skin that covered his skull like dried parchment was raised at the corners, and his eyes glowed within their skeletal sockets. He let out a stupid sounding groan and stamped his hind legs while bobbing his head like a dog when given praise.

"This is a holy place," said Kaliyuka. "No matter what the other six think, Promise belongs to us all."

Nishta felt a sense of calm in her heart then. It came from everywhere; from the tops of the three towers surrounding the plaza, from the the many houses of faded marble, from the vines overgrowing them, from the smoothly paved streets, from the arched roads that connected the taller buildings above, and from the mysterious tower that rose high from the spur of the lonely mountain that overlooked all of Promise. She even felt the calming vibrations coming up from below, where Neri's kin was hiding from the world.

"Maybe the dwarves need healing," she said. They couldn't be Neri's own people, as they fled north from the death-cap and queen-of-the-night armies, but they likely had cause of their own to seek solace somewhere.

"This land bleeds, as does our own," Adaki said. Hund tapped his head with one of his fingers. He was smiling even more widely, till he happened to look at his finger and its misshapen claw. He lifted his finger, then stretched out his entire hand. He examined it closely, his smile fading into a look of confusion, then disgust. Hund bit at his wrist, then yelped in pain.

"Easy!" Adaki scolded. He gently put his hand on Hund's wrist and shook his spear with the other. Hund's eyes followed the rattling bones. "Precious. Falling snow. Cherry blossoms. Autumn leaves. Precious."

Hund moaned angrily and shook his head. Adaki moved closer to him, artfully dodging his horns. "Sandhyas, beautiful boy. Soon. Ferenrar retreats, and Emvolo will be king."

Hund looked to the sky, turning his sad head eastward and looking at the Harbinger Sun. He moaned pitifully and reached toward the star with his hands, clawing feebly as if he hoped to pull it closer to him.

Adaki put his hand on Hund's shoulder. Hund's grey flesh jiggled sickeningly at the touch, making Nishta feel a little queasy. She would never understand how the masters could stand the feel of fellworm hide.

"Precious thing, fragile thing" Adaki said consolingly. "Sandhyas."

Hund lowered his hands, looking down on them hatefully. It may have been a trick of the sunlight, but there seemed to be moisture welling up in the craters of the beast's eyes. All the hunting party stood around him, looking on with wonder. Dunwind was closest to her, and she sensed from him the same twinge of fear she felt. They had both seen the devastation fellworms could cause when the masters were slain. Both their old packs had been decimated by such a tragedy, had seen the beasts go mad, and run wild, killing even when they felt no hunger. It was as if the shred of conscious thought the masters gave them vanished, and they revelled in their raw power, becoming the monsters their masters alone prevented them from being. Seeing Hund come more alive was a happy thing, but frightening at the same time. The tenuous control Adaki had over the beast was the only thing keeping them alive while he was in their midst, and Hund's new awareness might affect their bond. Hopefully, she said to Dunwind with a few twitches of her ears, the bond strengthens.

Yes. I feel for the beast. Dunwind replied with a snort and a twitch of his upper lip.

Nishta felt for Hund too, seeing him look with shame at his malformed hands, as if for the first time realizing how grotesque they were. Back on Noth, the centaurs were the only reason the gnolls had survived. The ancient link that formed between them and the precious few masters staved off attacks from the many other monstrous beings that thrived in the Foglands. The places where the Fog was thin were often assailed by tombhounds, rockworms, spiders, manticores, and mammoth flies, not to mention the new abominations that emerged from the motherdark every ninth moonfall. The centaurs were the most fearsome creatures on Noth, other than the Fog itself, and their unbeatable and terrifying savagery was the wall between the gnolls and extinction. She hoped, deep down, that all the tales of the Great Year were true.

They found no signs of the elves, and the smell of ironwood faded to nill. The dwarves had gone deep, taking even the sounds of their drumming feet beyond the gnolls' range of knowing. Nishta ordered the party to make camp in the eaves of the Nethergreen and rest until moonrise. Hund did another surprising thing. He dug a large hole in the dirt to rest inside. He then groaned softly for a few moments to Adaki, who covered him with leaves and branches. It was laughable to see, the awakening fellworm wanting to hide his bulk from spying eyes, to absolutely no avail. The branches and leaves fell off him the first time he moved, so he tried to remain as still as he could, half hidden in the twilight. Adaki patted the crown of the horned beast's head before laying down to sleep.

Nishta gave Kaliyuka the first watch, then lay peacefully on the ground. The calming wind from Promise still surrounded her, helping to quiet her mind. Lampwhisps floated overhead, dancing in the air and glowing in the moonlight. The moon was waxing and pale white. It's pure light owned most of the night, with the red shimmer from the Harbinger Sun warring with it to the east. Flecks of dust rose in the air about Nishta. She pondered them, pieces of earth lifted by the forces that moved the world, glinting in the red light of a vagabond star. A hail of falling stars filled the sky for a moment, followed by a shifting in the boughs of the trees. Her eyes began to close as the beauty of the night caressed her heart. Only a nagging feeling of wakefulness kept her from drifting off entirely. The moon glowed brightly in her fading sight, and from amidst the stars and lampwhisps and flecks of dust, an arrow shot downward from the sky, aimed directly at her breast.

Her eyes shot open and she rolled to the side. The arrow hit so hard it disappeared into the ground, fletching and all. Nishta picked up her buckler and spear and snarled for the party to disperse into the woods. Hund rose angrily and instantly took to the trees, scaling the trunks in seconds with his long arms. His four horse-legs gripped trunks and branches like worm fingered hands, and he shot clumps of his viscous saliva into the upper branches. One clump hit its mark, and a screaming elf dangled in the air, glued to a branch by Hund's spit. In mere seconds, Hund climbed his way to the elf and wrapped his jaw around her torso. Arrows flew from the surrounding trees and turned Hund into a porcupine. He ignored them as he passed the elf through his innards. The enemy archer landed by Nishta with a thud, covered in the bizarre chrysalis of mucus and bile fellworm bodies produced.

Nishta then took to the trees, heading to the east as one of the elves tried to flank Hund. Adaki beat her to the foe, leaping downward from the thin branches above. He looked like a lightning bolt from heaven as he came down on the elf, his painted fur shining like white fire in the glow of the moon. He put his spear through both elf and tree, then perched atop it as if it were a branch. Nishta watched admiringly as he took his blowgun from his belt and slew another elf.

Another arrow came towards her. She dodged it, then two more that were aimed at the next two places she had left to dodge. She realised the elf was leading her, so she let go of the tree and let herself fall where she may. The enemy was clever enough to see what branches she could grab to stop herself from falling, and indeed arrows sang passed her as she flew by those branches. What this elf did not know, was that gnolls moved like water and were hard as steel. Nishta loosened her muscles and joints as she neared the ground, then rolled belly down and readied herself to land.

She darted to the side as soon as her claws dug into the earth. Three arrows filled the space she left, and another six trailed her as she climbed the trunk of the nearest tree. She chanced a look towards the arrows and saw Hund charging through the boughs at her assailant. There were screams as he clutched an elf in one hand and impaled another on his horns. Neither of them were the archer, though. That elf was too good. More arrows came at Nishta. She dodged and climbed to the opposite side of the trunk, only to be grazed by a spear. She felt a trickle of blood leave her side as she scampered upward. The owner of the spear was close behind her. She looked down and saw a flash of crimson in the moonlight. She kicked downward at the elf. The elf dodged her kick and took hold of her ankle, pulling her down. Nishta dug her claws into the branch to stop her descent, then kicked savagely at the elf. One of her kicks connected and she heard a woman's voice grunting angrily.

I know her, Nistha thought. It was the warrior who fought alongside Neri and the others. That was Nishta's earliest memory. "Wait!" she shouted, hoping the she-elf would recognise her voice and halt. She didn't. She dropped from the trunk and caught the haft of her spear, then wrapped her legs around a branch and pulled the spear loose. It was a different kind of spear than Nishta used, with a much longer point that curved like a sword. Nishta unslung her own spear from her back and gripped a branch tightly with her free hand. Her buckler had slid down her forearm to her wrist and was hanging uselessly. She would have to look at its strap after the fight.

The two women danced around the trunk of the tree, stabbing at each other with their spears and shouting quiet warcries. Nishta felt the elf's spear graze her several times, but managed to evade being pierced. She managed to stick hers into the elf's armor, and pulled off a handful of bronze scales. The elf growled and rushed up the trunk towards her, dodging all her thrusts and returning with her own even as she climbed. This one's also good, Nishta thought, remembering how easy the earliest battles with the elves had gone. Ohm had also thought them too easy, and suspected they'd sent weaker troops to test them. That was before Sandobrak died, and the elves showed their true strength.

She must have been the one to kill him, Nishta thought. Though in the back of her mind she remembered there was an archer like no other in this band of willows. it may have been him who killed the Ohm's father.

Nishta finally saw a chance to close with her foe. She swatted the efl's spear aside with hers, then pulled it in, striking the back of her enemy's neck and stunning her. Nishta pressed the elf into her with her spear, hugged the trunk with her legs, then drew her dagger with her free hand and pressed it against the elf's back.

"I know you," she snarled into her foe's ear. "I haalp you keel laahst saantur." She hated the speech of the other six kins. Their words were not meant to pass through gnoll lips and teeth, and she felt like a lackwit fool whenever she tried to grunt them out.

The elf looked at her through eyes as fierce as flame. For an instant, Nishta thought she would yield, but instead she wrenched backward, loosening Nishta's grip with her spear, then dropped downwards, leaving a trail of bronze scales to fall clattering to the ground. Nishta dropped down after her, spear in both hands, and landed gently. The air hummed and she barely dodged a flurry of spear thrusts from the shadows in the Nethergreen's undergrowth. The elf warrior had landed, found a place to hide, and readied herself for an ambush in the brief time it took Nishta to fall and land. She's so good! Nishta was enjoying the fight. She snarled happily and let saliva flow from her jaw as she traded swift blows with the elf. Once she managed to trip her, and used the moment to grip her buckler with her hand. She was glad she did, as she needed it to ward off the elf's next flurry of strikes. Back and forth they danced across the forest floor, using the trunks of trees as shields.

A thrust caught Nishta along the cheek, spraying blood onto a nearby bush. She kicked dirt into the elves eyes and stabbed downward towards her feet. The elf dodged, then was lifted into the air by a massive clawed hand.

"No!" Nishta heard herself shout. Hund stopped and looked at her. The moonlight reflecting off his eyes glimmered with confusion.

"Not her," Nishta said.

Hund tightened his grip around the elf as she struggled to free herself. She was horrified, wild with fear, to the point of going blind and dumb with it.

"Adaki," Nishta growled in their own tongue, "tell him to put her down."

An arrow passed by her and she realised the fight was not yet won. "Not her!" she shouted again. She gripped Hund's hand and tried in vain to pry his fingers loose. he looked at her with increasing dismay, groaning and grunting incredulously.

"Siandus!" the elf shouted.

The name sounded enough like Adaki's calming word that Hund loosened his grip and the elf sprung free. Several arrows then plunked into Hund's chest, so tightly grouped they almost split each other's shafts. Hund pulled them out and roared, then ran in the direction they came from.

Nistha turned and saw the infernal archer that had been plaguing them so. He and several others had left the trees and were making their way swiftly towards the dead city. They wore leaves and vines on their cloaks and hoods, and their faces were painted brown and green. They were visible only for an instant, then disappeared into the ground. Nishta remembered the dwarves and wondered if they'd struck some deal with the elves to defeat their hunting party. Not Neri's dwarves, she thought.

Many of the elves had run to the city after the archers, vanishing into towers and houses. The she-elf paused for a moment to look at Nishta. her crimson hair sprouted from her bronze crown helm and burned in the light of the Harbinger Sun. The rest of the elves were moving like wraiths around her, though a small group left them and ran further north into the Nethergreen. Fools, Nishta thought, stay with your mother.

The she-elf then disappeared into the ground with the others. The group that broke off then came running madly back, shouting loudly and pointing towards the sky. Hund was near her, along with Hakela and Dunwind and a few others. They'd lost fewer fighters than the elves, though their bands was noticeably smaller. They were coming out of the woods and into the clearing of the city, then they looked upwards and howled. Hund winced and doubled over. His mouth was open to wail, but only a choking rattle came from his cavernous throat. He began to beat his head into the ground so hard one of his horns broke in half. Adaki came running to him, crying every calming word he knew. Nistha looked upward to see what was happening in the sky, and what she saw melted her bones.

Her four small hearts all pounded in unison as she gazed at the black serpent worming its way through the sky. It was as if the sky itself were made of fabric, and the tentacle of some great abomination was tearing through. Then a terrible wind rose from the north and poured downward in all directions. Hund was writhing on the ground and fountaining rotwater. Adaki was clinging to his neck and weeping.

Nishta was about to go to them and try to help calm the poor beast, when a sound like the rending of the world came from the sky. She looked back up and saw black lines splintering across the dome, like the lines of a broken vase as they spread across its surface. The Harbinger Sun then sent purple fire towards the black serpent, but the cracks in the dome grew wide and the sky roared again, sending a blast of wind that threw everyone to the ground. All went dark, and Hund screamed, then all was quiet.

They lay there for a moment, elf, centaur and gnoll, all dazed by what they just saw.

"Plague moon!" Adaki shouted. He was struggling to his feet and reaching for his spear.

An nearby elf had risen to her knees, and was holding her bow in quaking hands. "Don't!" Nishta howled, raising her hand to stay the elf. It was too late. Centaur Masters had the best training of any gnoll, and with their sight of the unseen and hearing of the unheard it was well nigh impossible to kill them. But even Adaki, skilled among the skilled, could not evade an arrow after being shaken by what they all had seen. His eyes were on Hund, not the elf to his back. The arrow took him between the shoulders and punched through his chest. He coughed up black blood and dropped to his knees. Hund went deadly quiet, and Adaki looked up at him with his hands raised.

"Sandh..." another arrow came through his mouth, and he dropped forward before finishing his word.

Hund roared louder than the sky and rose with a rage that Nishta had never seen. She ran instantly towards the trees, but the centaur caught her by the ankle and was holding her over his head.

No, she thought, I'm not ready. Something reeled within her mind, a memory too evil to be revived.

She felt Hund's grip loosen and she dropped to the ground. Dunwind had thrown himself into Hund's jaws to save her. He made no cry of pain as he was sucked into Hund's bowels. Nistha watched in horror as he came out, hoping to see him move and try to break free of the chrysalis. He did! She saw his torso twisting, and an elbow emerged, but then Hund lifted him and swallowed him again.

She howled in grief, but there was no one to hear her. The others had all fled, gnoll and elf alike. Her half-mind took over then, moving her feet faster than the wind to the city and down the hidden doors the elves were hiding beneath. She struggled to keep completely silent, her hearts hammering at her ribs as Hund's feet thundered above her.

She stood there frozen with blind horror until the morning, then rose slowly through to the surface. The elves were long gone, having left no trace of their scent in the air. Her kin were as well, those that made it at least. There were two other crushed gnolls besides Dunwind. She inspected them, though it terrified her to look on their mashed bodies. Their faces were crushed into pulp, but she knew them by their fur. Hakela was not among them, nor was Kaliyuka.

She went over to Adaki's corpse and sat next to him, mindlessly swatting away the flock of crows pecking at his eyes. He stank of death, and flies had already laid eggs in the hollows of his eyes. She cradled his rotting head on her lap and wept quietly for a time, then she went to work making a fire to burn the bodies of her kin. The elves she left to feed the crows.

When she was done, she gathered her buckler and spear, and started back for the hollow hills. The Black Ohm had made his den under the dandelion castle the ironwoods had destroyed. She would go back to him and tell what had happened, though they surely saw as well. Then she'd come back out with a new hunting party, and she'd be seeking her own vengeance as well as Ohm's. She was an hour into her return march when a strange feeling took her. She stopped walking as the feeling spread through her hearts and outward into her fingers and toes. Every inch of her tingled, and she found herself turning north and west, towards the Grave of Light, the great mountain Neri came from.

She walked towards it slowly at first, as her vision began to blur and she saw through a dark haze images from eyes that weren't her own. She felt things too, when she saw through those eyes. The feelings were not hers, but she was remotely aware of them, though not affected. They were of a hunger so gnawing and consuming it could drive a person mad enough to eat their own flesh. She felt sadness as well, grief beyond knowing, and a terrible shame that was driving whoever felt it beyond the brink. There was something else, too, a feeling of growing. It was oddly familiar to Nishta. She'd not yet had pups, being one of the youngest of Den Mothers, but she felt a stirring of motherly instincts when the sensation made itself known. Then she became aware of a surrendering to darkness. The pain of hunger and shame were more than any could bear, and in their place was a consuming anger.

The feelings grew so strong Nishta began to feel them herself, and was soon unable to walk. Then she woke where she had been walking, half covered in dirt. A tree cat was looking at her through hungry eyes. She leapt to her feet and snarled, sending the panther away in fear.

Her head was reeling. The feelings were gone now, but the memory of them was clear. She looked north and west to Ohm, then north and east to Neri's mountain. Something was calling her that way, something she couldn't resist. She fixed the strap on her buckler, hooked it to her belt, then picked up her spear and started to walk towards the Grave of Light.