The warrior dropped to one knee and spun, the tips of his crystalline daggers releasing the entrails of the spawn of Ehsan on either side of him. Planting her foot on his shoulder, his sister leapt forward as he stood up, propelling her into a savage kick that snapped the neck of another creature before them. She landed in a roll, slicing through the leg of the next and then moving on past as her brother, following close behind her, dispatched it before it had time to fall.
Cries of fear and anguish rent the frigid night air as the two hacked and sliced their way toward the center of the encampment. Together the most deadly warriors of their nae, the siblings’ had secured permission from their chieftain some time ago to allow them to periodically take an elite group of their most experienced peers and go hunting for more dangerous spawn than the average herd. Most spawn were like animals, their viciousness only a matter of instinct; but some, like these, possessed an intelligence that compounded their cunning savagery. Herds like these took great pleasure in raiding encampments at every opportunity. The siblings’ small troop of warriors had set out from their nae some half a moon ago in pursuit of this herd, and only now, as it had found a small nae whose hunters were mostly out on skirmishing missions, had they caught up with it.
As the rest of the troop had rushed to the aid of the naenfolk and their children, the siblings had charged directly into the heart of the attacking force where they would be the most useful. The wake of death they left behind them fractured the herd, leaving only scattered individuals for their warriors to surround and pick off at leisure. Once all the creatures were dead, they regrouped at the center of the camp and surveyed the destruction. The bodies of spawn and naenfolk alike were strewn about the area, tangled within shredded tents or lying already partially buried by the sand. Too many of the naenfolk as had lost their lives in the attack, and it was unlikely the tribe would be able to carry on with so few numbers. The siblings and their warriors would stay with the tribe until the following day, waiting for the rest of the skirmishers to return, and then lead the group back to the community of their own nae to either integrate or move on as they chose.
Moving among the survivors, the brother and sister came upon a boy of perhaps thirteen years kneeling beside two bodies. A man and a woman of middle age. He had positioned them respectfully beside each other, one hand each across their chests holding a dagger, the others intertwined between them. The boy held their other two daggers at his side, his head lowered. He looked up as the two approached, red eyes clouded by grief and rage.
“I want to kill them all.”
The brother looked into the boy’s eyes and saw himself at his parents’ cremations. He saw his fury at the waste of their lives. He saw his thirst for revenge and his hatred of the spawn. He’d always wished, as had the man who’d sacrificed his life for his, that the past could be changed. Looking at the boy before him now, seeing the cycle of death and loss starting anew, the sense of purpose he had found on his very first hunt returned to him. He understood it now—this path the Dreamer had laid before him. He shared a look with his sister. She understood it too. Perhaps she always had, having started down it at a younger age than he. She turned to the boy and spoke.
“Follow us, and we will teach you how.”
In the early morning dawn, a girl stood with her companions on a jagged stone outcropping, jostling with one another for a better view of the line of warriors stretched across the red sands, returning home. Despite the pride and excitement the children always felt on such mornings while their parents and siblings returned victorious from the previous night’s hunts or skirmishes, they were also filled with trepidation, ever aware that none who had left the evening before were certain to return.
Today was such a day. The keenest of eye reported that the returning party was two fewer than it had been the night before, and the mood of the onlookers turned from one of youthful excitement to somber silence, each child wondering if they would be one of the two who’s mother or father had followed Endrek Mær to the stars to await rebirth. The jostling stopped as those in front knelt to allow those behind to seek out the faces of their loved ones in the line as it drew near to the camp. The girl looked about the warriors, recognizing the faces of her fellow naenfolk, but unable to locate her mother and father. Her companions relaxed one by one around her as they counted off their relatives. Certainly, hers must be hidden behind a group, walking with their heads low or their faces shrouded against the blowing sand.
She turned reluctantly to the front of the line, where the naen chief had stopped before the children. His bright yellow eyes lay upon her like two heavy lumps of topaz. She wanted to look away, but forced herself to meet his gaze, straightened her shoulders and stood tall. Her companions drew back to her sides as she stepped forward and dropped off the rock, landing smoothly on the sands two paces below and striding resolutely towards her chief. Standing a full five spans taller than her, he looked down at the fierce, stoic girl with grief painted across his features. He reached into his sash and withdrew two daggers that had once glittered in the hands of her mother and father. Her chief knelt and held them out to her, and with neither a word nor a tear, she took them from him. Her arms could barely rise from her sides, the daggers were so heavy. But she held them tight and focused on her burning muscles as she walked alone back to the tent that had once been her family’s.
The girl was taken in by another daughter’s family, but she made no attempt to integrate. Nor did she return to play with her companions in the coming weeks. While her peers wrestled and played seeker in blindfolds, she sat and watched the older children train with their daggers. She studied the way they moved, low and sleek against the burning sand and sharp rock, and alone in the evenings, she would remember and imitate them, hacking and slashing at the air with her parents’ daggers until her hands were raw and her arms too worn to lift from her sides. When they learned to spin their daggers, switching them between forehand and backhand in a split-second flash, she taught herself the same motions, leaving countless slices across her forearms over the subsequent months.
In time, her body grew harder, her muscles knotting into solid cords that wielded the heavy crystal blades with ease. What had begun as ten minute sessions that left her beat and broken lengthened into hours as she danced alone to the song of death in the desolate expanse. She thought of her parents often, sometimes in sadness, but mostly in anger, using her grief to fuel the fire inside of her. Soon, the time would come to exact her revenge.
For she had heard of a man. A powerful warrior—an orphan like her, who took in the lost, the abandoned, the forgotten, and turned them into great warriors like him. She had never met him, yet she somehow knew: though her family was dead and gone, a new family waited for her with this man and his band of warriors. A family of blood and fire. And so she danced, though her peers had only just begun to pick up the smaller training daggers for children their age. Someday, she would meet this man. And when that day came, she intended to be ready.
Featured Image by Jehyun Sung on Unsplash
The Literary Diversions of K.T. Lazarus 
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