Deep in the remains of a fresh battlefield, among the still cooling corpses of humans and the mutilated limbs of inhuman things laid what appeared to be a woman’s head. Parts of her long white hair dyed red, dirtied, and unkempt from rolling in the dirt and mud. She twitched.

A pain of such magnitude shook her core and overflowed from her in a scream. She had to scream. If she did not, it felt as though the pain might build within her until she was torn asunder from within.

Tears flowed from her eyes. All other thoughts and sensibilities were pushed out. All that existed was grief. Her blue eyes were blind and ears were deaf to all else. If she had been standing she might have fallen to her knees.

She was not alone in her suffering, others broken and scattered across the battlefield raised their voices in a chorus of sorrow, weeping and wailing in unison, the red moon silently wept with them muted by distance. But they were too consumed in their own misery to recognize the company they had in each other.

She sought thoughts, any thoughts. Anything at all. Anything, even despair would reduce the pain for nothing could stoke it further. It was already so overwhelming.

She retraced her memories, remembering what brought her there. She along with many others had moved to intercept an army that intended to interfere with what she now knew was the final battle.

She assisted the one that served as bait, acting as the main leaders for their enemies to see so the humans might overextend their reach to try to eliminate her comrade. The one she worked with, Ad Scy, was the perfect choice to serve as a lure but the decisions needed to seem as if led by their rel. That meant she needed to be near Ad Scy to coordinate the fellow Dyte and both caught the attention of the humans only for the true force led by her rel to rout them.

They may have won that battle but their defeat was complete and utter. It ultimately had been meaningless. She calculated from the many leagues they were from the Arcos, the approaching army would not have arrived in time to contribute to the Arcos’s downfall.

The enemy fled and her kin pursued, leaving her there. Not that she minded, they thought her core to be destroyed but would eventually return for her body. It had been her plan, this much had been anticipated if not her utter destruction. Her rel normally did not accept ideas that involved casting aside her own forces for a simple advantage but the Arcos would be imperiled if they failed. If Ad Scy had been unavailable, she would have recommended herself to play the role of leader.

She “played dead” as a being familiar with such an idea might say. But now that it was all over, there was little point just as there had been little purpose in letting her enemy know she was still conscience so they might crush her head.

The rest of her body laid nearby, numerous stab wounds in her torso came together to seemingly make a cavernous maw in her chest.

No bones crept out of the mutilated mass as she certainly had no marrow to break or mend. What served as a framework for her body were structures of flesh more tightly packed and rigid than the rest of her form. They would be difficult to identify by eye alone even if she was dissected. One would likely need to touch her pseudo-skeleton to be sure.

In spite of that, her outer appearance mirrored her foes’, that troubled her sometimes even if she did not confess to such things even to herself. She checked for herself, her skin's texture and the points of articulation for her joints perfectly matched. A key difference was that she did not have a heartbeat.

The rest of her body laid nearby, numerous stab wounds in her torso came together to seemingly make a cavernous maw in her chest. Her tunic was dirtied with ichor and mud. Her body still wore what most of her kind that resembled their enemy did, armor meant little to them so they dressed like civilians might usually like a full length tunic called a peplos.

As was the norm among humans, they dismembered their enemies then stabbed into the chest repeatedly until their foe stopped moving. To her kind, a heart and brain were one and the same, a single vital organ. Until their core was damaged they continued to persist.

Even if their cores were destroyed, it was not as though her kind could die so easily. As long as a piece of them was recovered and returned to the origin, they could be restored though stripped of memories and experience if heavily damaged.

To avoid such resurrections the humans might have disposed of her body entirely if they had the time. Her kind were slow to burn, like a healthy tree trunk but fire was a popular answer or burial and entombment to hide the remains. They also sometimes forcefed her kind’s flesh to beasts. The more extreme humans devoured her kind themselves but freshly slain spawn were poisonous and needed to be stored away from the sun to be edible and there were enough uniquely toxic samples of her kind to warrant hesitation even with such measures.

Fire remained the most common choice. Humans invented alchemical fire that could reliably burn them. The wretched substance stuck to the surface of what it immolated, usually burning until there was little or nothing left.

She cried until tears ceased to come. Then she sobbed dryly.

After many hours, she finally ceased to mourn. She was the first to stop. The others might continue for what might be once be considered days if not given direction or even months if left alone in their misery.

The pain remained though, pulsating as if every moment reopened the mental wound. However, she turned the suffering into something cold as she contemplated over her familiarity with it.

It threatened to throw her every thought into disorder. It took almost all her concentration to even begin to assess the reality around her. It ate at her notion of time, convincing the deepest part of her that this time it might last forever, that the stars would die before it subsided. The knowledge that this all happened before served as her greatest salve, repeating to herself that it would end, that she would have purpose again.

What greater agony was there for her than to endure when the very reason she existed was no more, stolen once again?  It was worse than nothingness or emptiness, it was complete invalidation, to be without purpose.

Somewhere nearby what sounded like multiple wolves let out their endless bowls of woe. A crow came to pick at her eye. In that moment, she welcomed the distraction. It must have thought she was a human. The wound that used to be her neck had ceased to hurt so the fresh sensation of the creature’s beak gave her something to focus away from her failure.

It squawked in surprise as it tasted her flesh. It flew away, leaving her with both eyes where they belonged. Likely scared away by the familiar flavor.

Eventually came what looked like a deer with a, at the time, camouflage pattern, blending with its surroundings. It possessed four eyes and two pairs of antlers but lacked a discernible mouth.

“Ad Eu,” she addressed.

Ad Eu had been accompanying their rel. It normally served as messenger and scout.

Its hues shifted in acknowledgment. Ad Eu could not speak, it communicated by relaying messages through color patterns. The dyte could spell out words on its hide for those that were unaware of its code. It explained how it thought her to be lost from the state of her body. It then declared the rel’s orders were that all capable spawn were to retrieve pieces of their lost comrades. Once gathered, they were to go to the Arcos’s side and make their way to the origin to be restored.

The thought to suggest Ad Eu to use its antlers to roll her head back into place with the stump of her neck cane to mind. But it would be efficient for Ad Eu to use that time to recoordinate those that were not lost and have another perform the task of putting her back together.

“Ad Scy was with me, she should be intact.” The howls from earlier continued, testifying to the dyte’s continued activity.

Ad Scy was an unique spawn with self-healing. True regeneration such as regrowing completely destroyed limbs was a particularly rare ability. Anything removed can be reattached without aid but the utter destruction or loss of mass could not be recovered from by most. The severely wounded were expected to return to the origin or Arcos. Such instances allowed the opportunity to commune with their progenitor. To not have to return to origin suggested a lack of connection with the one that birthed them. Stranger was that Ad Scy also possessed multiple cores.

Ad Scy had seven cores. When severely damaged, one of those remaining cores melted into her body to restore her.

Ad Eu, Ad Scy, and the disembodied one were the same place in the hierarchy, answering directly to their rels. Their rel possessed a disturbing habit of giving her subordinates names.

She had been fortunate enough not to be granted a permanent name in spite of having her rel’s attention. Her rel played with names, sometimes randomly referring to her by some mangled words but then claiming it did not suit the dyte.

A name suggested individuality. To be one might lead to straying from being a piece of a greater purpose.

Having a name should not have an impact on a spawn’s mindset but her own rel’s abnormal behavior was evidence enough possessing one had a potentially detrimental effect.

Tiriz’s hypothesis was that once one gained a sense a sense of “I”, one might think less in terms of “we.” Tiriz’s model of conduct was the Arcos. The Arcos was the Arcos, a title, a role. The Arcos was a perfect being, anything it saw fit to be without was unnecessary.

Ad Eu left but the next being to come for her was not just any spawn. “It is good to see you are not lost to us,” a voice rang out joyfully. The rel, Grafin Herst, stepped into view.

The rel appeared more like a member of the glorious dead than the living person she was modeled to look like. She was covered in broken arrows, spears, and numerous other wounds. The pattern of aiming for the center of the chest remained apparent. Most of the arrows were along the front of her body while several spears sprouted from her back. A gash ran between her mismatched eyes, from the top of her head to her chin, speaking of how her head might have been split in half. A mostly intact arrow stuck from her left hip.

The rel’s own tunic was short sleeved on her left side and sleeveless on her right to accommodate her arms and her slitted skirt ran short for lack of hindrance. Her right eye was noticeably larger than the other, yellow and catlike. Her left eye was a bluish gray like an owl in contrast to her short, chestnut brown hair.

This was one of the rare times the dyte had to look up at her rel The difference in ages made their difference in height quite noteworthy but in the opposite way one might expect. One might expect the older one to be the taller but evolution dictated otherwise. The one separated from her body would have stood well over a head taller than her ancient superior.

Grafin Herst’s left arm was covered in brass chitan that concealed almost tarlike flesh that could extend or contract. It ordinarily ended with scissor-like pincers those had been broken off, leaving a pair of jagged knobs.

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Grafin Herst’s other arm was too large for her own body, belonging more to a massive ogre than one of her slight frame, its fingers touched the ground if she let it rest. Its was thick and swollen with muscular fibers seemingly ready to burst from under skin like blackened leather, it’s fingers ending in straight claws as if the digits had been sharpened into spikes. Several broken arrows and a spear shaft nestled in her forearm without any sign of encumbering it.

In olden days, the bow had been the pinnacle of human ingenuity. When fighting each other, all they cared about was killing their opponent from as far away as possible. There was little need for defense if one’s foes were no more.

But arrows had little chance to hinder her kind. They still found use if only to reduce the spawns’ numbers even a little before the inevitable melee. A random arrow among many in a volley might still pierce their core or stab out an eye but otherwise the projectiles caused little harm.

Her kind would not be undone by the pulling of a string. To repel them required warfare in its most primal form. Close quarters combat was a slow, cruel, and gruesome affair. Their enemies had to witness the light leave their foes’ eyes to be sure they did not see that spawn rise to resume the fight. By the end of a long engagement, the battle should be a land of fire and blood.

“Our rel,” the dyte acknowledged dutifully.

The rel reached out with her enormous hand. “So, you are like me,” she observed with a smile as she grabbed a handful her subordinate’s hair and lifted the dyte so they were facing eye-to-eye. ”You have your core in a strange place as well.”

Grafin Herst laughed weakly to nothing. There was little about her rel that Tiriz wished to understand but she had heard Grafin Herst laugh many times. Laughing was an odd thing, an expression unique to the princesses and the unorthodox. The fact the Arcos had never been heard laughing cemented in the thought in dyte’s mind that it was a vulgar act.

Her rel’s regular hearty laugh was filled with bravado. This time, her rel had to laugh. If she did not laugh, she would cry.

The one without a body gritted her teeth as she grasped onto the aberrant thoughts she normally discarded. The irritation her rel's mannerisms inspired within her was better than the ceaseless sense of loss.

“How may we serve you, our rel?” the dyte asked, eager for purpose.

“You have done enough, my dyte. We are to return to the Arcos once everyone has been collected.”

Her rel’s left arm stretched and the handless wrist dug under the dyte’s body before pushing its upper half up so it was sitting in an upright position. Her rel then planted the head back in place.

It took several moments for her awareness to extend across her body. Her neck tingled as it reconnected with her body and the sting of closing wounds reached her core. She noticed how her vision was tilted slightly to the side. She pressed her wrist against the side of her head and pushed it so it sat evenly between her shoulders.

Besides the veritable hole in her chest that ached with activity as it tried to close, her body felt numb and proved difficult to move. When she was just a head, she had little reason to notice but she lost quite a volume of ichor from the slashes and stab wounds.

“Everything well?” her rel asked.

The dyte moved her arms slowly, not by choice but because they could not move any swifter. Her limbs were still connected to her torso but her right hand consisted only of her unharmed thumb and four jointless stumps. She tried to block the strike that took her head and lost her fingers for her effort.

“We appear to be of suboptimal condition,” she assessed. “We recommend having our head removed and carried back rather than risk slowing our return to the Arcos with our pace.”

What she had to serve as muscles and veins were combined together like the structure of a flower that pulled and circulated water from the roots without the need of something temperamental as a heart. However, if one stabbed a tree deeply, it poured sap.

Her rel frowned in consideration. “You are not the only one that is injured.” The leader stepped around so the two were facing each other. “If you prove to be the slowest one then I will consider your suggestion further. However, we could have someone carry you.”

“Understood, however, if we are to be carried,” she reasoned. “We would be less of a burden if only my core was brought.”

“I will decide that when I must,” her rel declared, closing the topic.

“Understood.”

The dyte felt her heir unevenly brushing against her neck and pulled it back to examine it. Part of her hair had been shorn off as her head was hewed from its body, leaving her hair lopsided.

Grafin Herst pointed at the hair. “I can fix that for you.”

It meant nothing to the dyte but she remained seated as the rel stepped behind her. From the corner of her eye, she could see her rel look at her broken pincers as if just remembering they were gone.

The rel took a short sword from the ground and gripped the hilt between her oversized fingers. The light of the sun filtered through the glass blade.

Their world was plentiful with iron but all things wrought from it or metal akin to iron readily bent to the authority of a princess and equally so to the Arcos. What good would weapons be if the one they wanted above all others to bring low could be harmed by such weapons?

"It is still day," Tiriz noted as her gaze drifted skyward.

"They fought the Arcos beneath the sun…" Grafin Herst concluded with her.

"They must have used some trick," Tiriz decided.

"Or they might not have."

It would be a long time before night fell. The humans knew this Purge was ill timed for them. That would explain their odd behavior. This would have been the second time in history where they captured a rel alive.

Rather than hunt the Acros, they expended many resources to reach the now captured rel. No rescue attempts were made. The dyte expected her own rel to be prepared to execute some maneuver to save the captured one but her rel, with apparent, disturbingly humanlike reluctance, chose not to. Then, humans sent an army out to aid the warriors that reached the Arcos.

“If you must, you can use our hand,” volunteered Tiriz. Her rel had yet to begin cutting her hair.

Tiriz reached back and pressed the sword against her left wrist. In one clean motion she severed her hand.

The rel dropped the short sword and grabbed onto the useless knobs that remained on her left appendage. “Thank you, Tiriz.” With a crunch, she tore the broken claws off along with a part of her wrist.

“Tiriz?” the dyte inquired.

“That is your name now,” the rel declared before kneeling. “I just decided. Your name is Tiriz. Tiriz Eben.” She attached the hand onto herself.

“What does it mean?” Tiriz asked.

Grafin Herst flexed her new fingers. She must have had more ichor to spare as the extremities bent for her better than they did for Tiriz. “It does not mean anything, I just think it sounds nice. Do you like it?”

Tiriz tightened her lips to keep her mouth shut. To tell the truth was to show ingratitude, to lie was to be disobedient.

The name seemed to both validate and degrade her. She had been placed into the role called “Tiriz Eben” but it seperated her from all others.

Hopefully, her rel would soon find that name to be as ill suited as previous attempts. Normally, her rel settled for her first choice but seemed particularly enamored with something proper for the one now called Tiriz.

But it was too late, she already knew what it meant to be set apart. Tiriz remembered when her every thought was plural, when she only ever referred to her rel even in her innermost thoughts as “our rel.” She had never once called her rel “Grafin Herst.” The first time Tiriz felt singularity was when she doubted her rel.

With a hand capable of holding such a weapon, Grafin Herst found little difficulty in wielding the short sword she discarded. Soon enough, Tiriz’s hair was brought to an equal length. Though it was longer, Tiriz recognized the style to be similar to her rel’s.

“You can have this back now,” the rel offered the hand.

“We recommend that you keep it until it is no longer required,” Tiriz replied. “We do not need it but you are a rel.”

“Thank you, Tiriz.”

Tiriz blinked as her rel used such a human expression twice in such short time. There was no reason to thank a subordinate. If her rel told her to stab out her own core, she would do so, immediately.

The rel left her subordinate to collect her lost pieces. She had to pick up her first two fingers with her mouth. She located all her pieces but her ring finger. It could have been carried away by some carrion bird that mistook it for a human’s.

With that matter resolved, she began eating. Spawn did not need to eat, they did not even have stomachs. However, they could still eat if only to derive sustenance during the long nights. Feeding also helped speed recovery,

Her jaws were ill suited to crushing bones so she needed to pick through the enemy’s armor and reach the softer tissues, namely organs.

For armor, the enemy wore a type of plaster, flexible yet hard as stone. Pottery was a skill seemingly inherent within humanity, granting them insight into the matter of shaping such substances. Perhaps it was written in that simple alchemical puzzle that was their essence.

Among the humans’ belongings were clumps of wax and cloaks. So, they truly were resolved to fight the Arcos. Some of the bodies even showed damage to their eardrums, signs that they might have shoved the needles in themselves.

Tiriz ripped out a man’s liver and brought it to her mouth. She took a bite and the metallic flavor of blood tickled her tongue, making her wonder why she possessed something as unnecessary as a sense of taste. A vacuole formed in the back of her throat and enwrapped the nourishment. It travelled down to the center of her being where it began to constrict and dissolve what was within.

In a previous cycle, the warriors that sought to defeat the Arcos brought a physician with them to treat their injuries. In a feud with a certain princess, the healer was infected by her. The physician's companions failed to kill their comrade before the transformation was complete.

That spawn granted insight to the human body or what the humans thought was insight. Apparently, they did not understand their own physiology. They attributed emotions to humors generated by the body, the liver being one of those organs. Tiriz might have feared being influenced by those humors if she did not know that to be false.

She was not alone in feeding. Her injured kin ate well. They did not touch the horses that were used to pull the chariots though, there was plenty of human flesh to spare.

They had been born to fight humans, nothing else. The Arcos required nothing else. It, like them, did not need food or shelter, only an army. There was an instinctual drive within them, to fight humans. They would leave the birds in the sky and the beasts in the fields at peace but humans were their enemies. There was no malice, just purpose. That was what she believed.