The gallop of hooves thundered across the tundra, two sets of four as the wind; without pause as the pair of horses crossed the vastness of the frozen expanse. In the distance growing ever nearer, loomed shadowy peaks of deep grays covered in a soft caps of white. Clouds obscuring the highest of the peaks of the towering mountains ahead loomed ominously – a foreboding warning that to come closer would invite only ruin. And yet despite the warnings, despite the inhospitality offered by those jagged and twisted peaks, the hooves pushed on harder.

As if driven by demons unseen the two horses made lightning-fast pace across the immense expanse. The riders clung tightly to their mounts, bracing against the wind as it tore at them, ripped into them, their cloaks of fur and heavy winter cloth billowing in the wind behind them – desperate to catch up. Abruptly, suddenly, one of the horses came to a rearing halt, throwing up frozen tundra as it bayed and protested in earnest. The rider threw back their hood, looking about as if to search for unending tundra for pursuit. If there was any, they remained concealed on the horizon line. Satisfied, the rider, a woman, shook loose her hair letting cascades of jet black hair fly free in the buffeting winds of the Northern Lands. Though the air was frigid the Sun shown down through the gray clouds, glinting off her deep gray eyes, as mirror of the sky above. They seemed to shimmer, in the trackless wastes, with a tenacity that resisted such places. The lands and the weather unable to diminish the fire within her.

These were not kind lands nor lands any often crossed with abandon or capricious whim. These were the dead lands. This was the barrenness between the lands of civilization and the Storm Front Mountains that knew neither kindness nor life. Slave traders, black market thieves, privateers made their ways through these mountain passes, but only in great numbers, large enough to protect themselves from the myths and the legends of the lands. It was said that more than simply freezing death and endless deserts of ice hunted men to their graves here… The woman turned her focus to the other horse, an undisguised frustration written there for all the world to see. The other rider slowed their horse, turning about and galloping back. The woman, slowed and turned about, as if to taunt the other rider to bare near to here.

The second rider approached, their features still hidden by thick pelts and cloaks; holding the tundra’s deep cold at bay. The rider considered the woman for a moment, as if to weigh her deeds against a feather; at last giving acknowledgement to her thoughts. “We must not stop, we must press on” the voice called out. A man’s voice. A deep voice that carried across the tundra to the woman as if from across the vastness of the plains itself; with such strength that surely any on the horizon would have heard it with no less difficulty. It ran within her, carrying with it an unshakeable resolve – an undiminished and singular authority. Despite the man’s insistence the woman only turned those eyes, steeped in storm clouds of anger on the man; the focus of her enmity.
“We must?” she issued back, her words laced with undisguised fury. Her voice had a softness to it – a voice that one would never suspect bitterness nor anger to hold sway within, and yet... A voice that spoke volumes of compassion, turned dour. The woman shook her head, black hair dancing in the day light. “No… No we’ve run quite far enough. And I won’t tread another step without answers first. We have run without stopping for nearly two days! The horses are weary and to push them any further would be the death of them!” She growled.

As if to speak without words, the man shook his head. He sat swathed in white cloth, so aged and worn by travel that it was now gray. A solemn stair that spoke words unto her mind alone, ringing in perfect clarity. “Many have already died – for such a cause. Would you see their death’s named without reason?” he said, chiding the woman with a reflection of the hubris that she had spat at him. Hidden eyes found her, searched her and provoked her from beneath the veil of once white fabric. All at once the woman grew to rage and fury, dismounting from her horse and storming towards the man shouting as she came “Enough! You heartless old dog. So high and mighty and without reasons to share the veil of secrets you keep from others. I knew well what you spoke to my parents! You think I don’t realize it was to save your own self, while countless thousands of my people die?!” she growled, her gray eyes unable to restrain the furry within, as tears poured down her cheeks unbidden.

But even her matte wet face and burred eyes did not impede her from accosting the figure of her ire. “Why? Why is it so many must die when I must live? I would be there, now! With them! Fighting with them! For them..” she said, expelling the guilt, the shame and the doubt all at once in her tirade of self-conscience; all the while the figure atop the horse watching in stoic, mute resolve. “So that I might live, to rule? Over a grave yard?” she whispered, the fight having fled from her eyes and her voice with such a forceful venting of wrath. The agony of having left everything she had ever known behind to die swiftly or be crushed slowly was a deep and personal grief that hung over the young woman like a pall.

“Lady Dema…” the man began, raising a hand, a measure to try and console the inconsolable. Like a whip cord crack, the split of the air came as a growling hiss as she bared down on him, stalking him. “No! Don’t you start again! Not with me! You, always there to advise and foretell and foreshadow. Where were you then?! Was this Fated to be? Was this your doing?” she growled to the man, all the doubts and the dissension finding refuge in her words. The horse before her let out a startled cry, the wolf bearing down on her and her rider. Despite her outburst of natural rage, the man seemed unmoved; taking it all in stride. “How… how could you let so many go? So many die… My mother and my father trusted you…” she pleaded, looking for answers where none existed.

The figure let out a silent breath – a deep unremitting sorrow that had been held within; hidden from view for what seemed like days. “There are few things in life or otherwise, that are fixed. That must occur in such a way. What happened, to Anatolia, would not have happened any other way. It ha-“ his somber, deep voice interrupted by Dema, the girl now a woman cut the man off, her voice still a weak sob from the shocking revelation that all she had known and loved was ash. “Fated? You really think, I would believe… such a terrible thing? Why did such a thing have to happen? Why couldn’t you stop it this time…You. You always stopped such things in the past, didn’t you?” she whispered clinging to some hidden, desperate hope.

The man on the horse said nothing for a long moment, holding the defiant woman in a raptor like gaze. He regarded her carefully, seemingly now unsure of how wise it was to reproach her. There was a strength there that now brought itself to the fore. At last, despite the tears and the rasp in her voice. Something indomitable was growing from the embers of the memories of the fallen.

Beneath the layers of heavy wool cloth, the man smiled a genuine smile. It was not ever day after all that he found himself surprised, especially if it were so pleasant a surprise. She was a curious one, sure as sure. Finally, after considering the woman for a brief eternity, the man reached up and undid the bindings around his head; letting the protective layers of insulating graying fabric fall away to reveal pristine white fur, unmarred and untouched by the harsh biting winds and fridge sharp air. Long white hair fell down from the tucked head wrap as he unmasked his features to the daylight. Not unlike Dema, the man’s deep gray eyes sat framed by his white fur. There lurked beneath something more, however, something ineffable and ephemeral. Dancing and twisting with the bitter wind, some unseen current playing tricks at the light in his eyes.

“Dema, I am sorry. I am so very sorry..” he said quietly as he crossed towards her, his feet not moving but a step or so before he was there next to her. Moving without stepping. “I know, what you’ve had to endure is more than any could ever ask of you. Had I the power, to stop what came, I would have. But there are things that are not within my strength to do” He said quietly, seemingly self-consciously as he plied her with an empathetic reasoning, a plea for sorrows’ sake. He extended out a single hand, slow with ponderous gait and weight. Dema flinched a moment fearing the strike, or perhaps the anathema of the touch itself; but settled once he had placed a large white furred paw on her shoulder.

Her gray eyes found his, infinite in their depth, the yawning abyss threatening to swallow her – and yet she stared on all the while, never once wavering in the face of such oblivion. “K..Kayin. I’ve lost everyone I love. Everything I love. Apologies and placations will not stop the anguish. I fear nothing will…” she whispered, tears from her eyes streaming once more, though she spoke, desperately holding onto any semblance of strength to keep her voice from quivering. Kayin was there, putting a second immensely heavy paw on her other shoulder, as if to brace her against the storm of her doubt. “Lady Dema, if there is one thing that your parents knew, as I know, is that nothing is ever lost complete. So long as hope exists. You mother and your father had me spirit you away, and I agreed with them that if Anatolia is to find a way out from beneath the this time of darkness cast over it, you will be the one to kindle such a flame.” He said, his voice deep, commanding – a sagacious quality to it that always seemed so subtly present now bringing itself to the fore. Not all was as it seemed.

Dema wide eyed, could only listen, something within her resonating with the timbre of Kayin’s voice, seeming lost in the sea of her mind. What was it her father had said, before he had kissed her on the head? Before he had sent her away. Before he had gone to face death. “You are my spark.” Tears of memory marked her, matting the fur in long wet lines yet no sound came. “With but a single spark of courage, the fires of Hope may yet be ignited once more“ Kayin whispered, wordlessly. As if to evoke her father’s own voice.

Her eye sight cleared, as did her mind. She knew within her heart of hearts, what it was she had to do. Not for her sake, but for her people’s. Her mother’s. Her father’s. A nation of people depended upon her. If she was ever to return to liberate them; to overthrow the Empire, then she must live. Live for them and the memories of those whose sacrifice had come before. As if to read her thoughts, to answer all her questions in a single stroke Kayin nodded “That is why you must endure. Why you will endure.” With that, and with unexpected resurgence of strength, she swept past Kayin immense grip, her arms coming around his sides to embrace him with a renewed strength, seeking shelter and strength. He stood as an indomitable pillar, and in that, she took great strength – reassurance of her purpose. She had lost so much and yet within that lost there came a new purpose. A drive beyond all others. She was scared. Terrified. Unsure of if she truly could do all that was needed. But more than any of that, she had hope. “Thank you…” she wordlessly murmured, all but muffled into the thick gray robes he wore. All the same, Kayin smiled and nodded, the moment sweeping him up as he instilled all he could within her. The embers of hope rekindled.

As the two stood, never did they realize in their catharsis that their pursuers were upon them, having tracked them with unnatural speed. Without respite or mercy. Without restraint nor understanding of failure. Cloaked in shadows and in the guise of winds, the men had made speed that no normal mortal could hope to challenge. A speed bourn of hatred and haste, of the winds of magic. They had trailed and waited. Waited for their moment to strike, with their prey’s guard was down. When their security was ‘assured’. When they would be most vulnerable. And so they had waited and watched, cloaked in silence and in purpose. Hidden from magics, even the magics of the White Wolf. The magi had seen to that. There could be no mistakes. No failure. They’re prey was of the wyrd: trickery and guile, as supple as cloth yet strong as steel. By no means prey to be taken lightly. And so they had come prepared, their axes freshly ground, the fetishes adorned. They came to take lives. They came to cut threads and wyrd alike.

The men came on silent as death, the faces painted with gray ash, the thick paste mingled into their mangy beards and smeared across their pallid skin. They crouched low and moved fast, as if a blur across the frost bitten ground. They were all towering brutes in the guise of hunchbacks, the thick layers of leather shielding their bodies from the bitter frost. Each, though human, wore a great many pelts and trophies tied to their crude leather wrapped belts – ears, teeth, even the remains of a skull for the vain glorious tracker. Each of them wore grim expressions of murder, their masks protecting them from their whatever remained of their humanity. Many of them had long unkempt hair, stringy and slicked with fatty oils or tied back in a crude tail. Some wore charms woven into the thick braids grown into their long stalks of unkempt hair.

Each wore thick patchwork leather armor; effective if not crude. Versatile. Light. A Hunter’s armor. Inscribed with coarse lines and poor-artisanship were scratched designs of a hand, crudely etched into the vambraces and the cuirasses of leather. It was painfully depicted, ugly in all its forms – the scared leather almost an anathema to beauty itself. Other such marks littered their bodies, both in the flesh of their exposed skin as well as the flesh of their leathers: similarly cut diamond eyes, symbols of power and worship. Such vestments were not meant for beauty nor style. They were not icons of the chivalrous nor depictions of great former awards or accolades. No, these mute symbols were much more. Power. Wards and marks of aversion. Look away. See past me. Silence. Blindness. They were the marks of potent ritual. Of potent belief. Magic. They carried them so their quarry would not feel them, nor see them coming until it was too late. Until the smile of their axes had bit into the flesh and the lives of the prey. For these men were not men at all. They were hunters.

No loose ends could be left. No threads let uncut. The pack master, the lead tracker motioned with but a flick. The quarry within sight at last, at long last. They made their advance, a full maniple of trackers. For a single unarmed man and a girl. No chances were taken, no quarter or mercy considered. They made no sign nor show of their existence, Not until the first bows were knocked, their arrows nested and quivering for release. The lead man with casual ease flicked his wrist as if by a whim. Arrows flew into the air, bow strings twanging with released tension.

With the flight of the arrows, so too did the rest of the hunters bolt from the cover of their prone position; like stalkers, approaching their prey belly down. But with the release of their arrows, their yokes had been thrown off, and with silent prayers eschewing from their twisted, painted mouths they came on in utter silence, running like those possessed. Their blade’s luster was dulled, like their faces covered across the flats of their faces with a thick gray paste. Anonymity. Warding against those who would seek to find them. All save the smiles of their crescent axes and the biting edges of their swords were dulled so, leaving the weapon’s edges bare to task. Like the fangs of a predator twisted in a feral snarl. Though Kayin and Dema stood, several hundred meters off, they came quickly, too quickly for hope of escape before they closed. With unnatural strides the men came, the arrows outpacing them quickly as they raced to deliver quick death. The hunters pack, would not be so easily robbed of their prey.

Kayin looked to Dema, smiling. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, though he found no words there as he whirled in a heartbeat, turning to face the coming arrows with only horror upon his lips – what words he had had for her now lost. He was instantly galvanized into action, watching as the arrows came on, tipped in black ichor. All death was certain, but never more so than with such potent weapons. Kayin reflexively threw Dema to the ground with but a push, he himself holding out a hand as if to ward off the other arrows that streaked towards him. Some fell short, others, overshot them by a ways, but there were many yet still that fell to task. His hand extended outwards, the arrows seemed to change their trajectory, streaking around an invisible wall, avoiding both Kayin and Dema. Streaking to ground all too close, yet as sure as they had meant to strike each dead, they had been forced from their killing mark. Unseen forces plying themselves by the white wolf’s hands, keeping the pair safe.

But not all were so fortunate as the arrows whistled close by; leaving small wet smacking sounds as they found their mark on the ground, and into the flanks of the horses startled and baying in primal fear. Though the two figures were spared, the horses felt the lethality of the arrows’ maker’s mark, the poisons quickly overcoming their stilted and panicked forms – their bodies working against them as the toxin spread fast as fear. With a pleading whale, the first horse collapsed to its side, blood frothing from its nose and mouth; its eyes wide in understanding and futile recognition, only realizing after the fact that it was long dead. The other horse was spared from such a momentary realization and precipitous plea for life as one of the arrows shot through the horse’ throat, another lancing through the horses skull, death coming in the blink of an eye. A small mercy.

Kayin was a blur of motion, as he saw the oncoming hunters, yet more behind them, two packs of four at the very least . Two quads. Enough to bring them both down twice over. The glint from the pale sunlight across the edges of axes and blades revealed them as they sped across the frozen plane. Kayin was there, by Dema’s side lifting her as he sped his thoughts to her, willing her to move with speed bourn of desperation “Dema, Run!” he said without so much as stopping for breath as he broke into a run with her. Dema moved, her body fueled by adrenaline born of the need for survival. She ran and ran, her body moving faster than she had ever run before. The mountains, though looming over them ominously were miles away. It might as well have been across the other side of the world. She was under no false pretenses, with a hunting quad this close, no less two of them, there was little hope that they would ever reach the base of the mountain range. To say anything of crossing through its treacherous passage.

Kayin was a swift wind, but even he was not sure they would be able to escape so many. As she sped before him, he dared a glance over his shoulder, confirming as he felt. The others further back, knocking fresh arrows. Once the Black Hand was on the murder-make, it was no longer a question of if, but when there would be red snow.

The running prey was fast. True. They were sped on by the wyrd, forces about them moving and displacing them from harm time and again. But the hunters were of the wyrd, too. And what was more, they were faster. The first two men, each wielding too slender axes sprinted with all their might, phlegm and spittle flying from their agape mouths as they ran to catch up, a brutal cry on their lips with the force of their effort – straining their bodies beyond the scope of mortal men. The berserks closed quickly, and as they did so they each swept from either side of Kayin, moving to butcher him and cut his thread before easily dealing with the girl. It was not that they underestimated the girl by any means. Such notoriously effective hunters never did. But the large wolf was first and foremost a larger threat. And in the way.

Primal rage flowed through the two men as they bellowed in a penultimate display of lethal aggression, each swinging with killing strokes baring down upon the back of the gray robed figure. With supernatural celerity, Kayin stopped mid run for but a moment, turning bout, hands warded against each of the men midair-midstrike. Palms open wide; he narrowed those raptor gray eyes, focusing on both of the men intent on his dismemberment. All seemed to slow, the men caught in the air like insects in amber, frozen still with such clarity that Kayin could have taken the time to examine the fresh beard growth on their warn faces, watches as their pupils dilated with the heady surge of adrenaline, counted the ritualistic scars worn proudly as badges across their arms and brows; markers of all the kills they had taken in the name of some forgotten God or Goddess. Time was his. As if to flex a muscle, Kayin focused inwardly, and from his palms outward reality rippled, as if repelled by great force; bending and wavering in echoing ripples of force as time once more began to turn. Men met pure wave lengths of etheric intent, slamming into them as though they were leaves on the wind. The sheer force inflicted upon sent them flying backwards – their bodies broken, their weapons rent apart.

Though unmoving, the men were not dead – as if by miracle or intent. Unbeknownst to their fellow hunters, all the events of their comrade’s fall taking not but a second, the others of the quads grew weary and distant. They came on, though grouping together for force and strength in numbers; muttering prayers of protection and curses. Magic was something dangerous and unknown – feared and respected in equal measure. Though many were ignorant of what it was, those who controlled such power and knowledge were often lead down a darker path, abusing that knowledge and understanding, taking control of the minds and the fears of so many for their own gain. Magic after all, was dangerous.

The hunters though cautious spat bitter words “Witch. Warlock. Hexed” each more disdainful than the last. They were afraid, afraid of the power they had seen, or rather hadn’t seen – but it would not be enough to dissuade them. They were warded against such magics – or so they hoped. Only their faith would see them through such tests, and to fail… well then it was surely a sign of one’s lacking in their belief. On again them came, their weapons held low as they grouped up once more to run at the pair. Kayin already having caught up with Dema, the two running as fast as their legs would carry them, urged her onward, voiceless whispers in the back of her mind “We are close. Do not turn. Do not stop.” He said - willed her as they moved with speed that sapped the endurance from them quickly. It was a slow death, running in such a way only to prolong the inevitable. But certainly one preferable to what the hunting quads offered them as they trailed behind.

Again they came, four this this time, sweeping in from the sides and from the back, determined to slow them down enough for the others to bring them down with blade or arrow. Kayin turned once more, reacting faster than thought, dancing between the four hunters. He was already drained, the strain of running, to say nothing of the shielding himself and Dema from the arrows – to repelling the others. It was a war of attrition that he had no means of winning. As the first blade edge of a sword came slashing down at him, Kayin danced aside – preternatural grace keeping the blades thirsty teeth from finding purchase within him. He cast a hand out, a palm strike to the leather wrapped mongrel of a man. The blow was a feather’s touch to the chest, but the man bereft of any means to defend himself against such arcana was hurled back as if by the force of a giant, his body like a rag doll spinning through the air as he was laid flat against the frozen earth.

No sooner had the first blade and its wielder fallen, the second its twin struck at his exposed shoulder. Once more like quick silver, faster than the mind could register and the eye could track, Kayin was there, within the man’s guard – a feral snarl of bestial frustration meeting the white wolf as he pressed both palms to the man. Concerted will drained him, taxed him tenaciously as he pressed himself to the very edge of control, the very limit of his endurance – once more hurling their attackers back and away; disabling them without somehow spilling red snow.

Try as he might, Kayin was hardly afforded the same courtesy. Last two hunters, having seen the opening made by their fallen brethren struck out – each with sword and axe, searching the wolf for a means to cleave flesh from bone. Silent curses on their lips they too swung, each simultaneously – leaving no escape for the wolf to simply slip through. Exhausted, unable to run any further, Kayin was slowly but surely reduced in options. Blood was to be spilled. Blood would be spilled. All other choices had been robbed of him; the only question was… whose blood would paint the earth. Gritting his teeth, he moved with supine grace, his hands flowing like the receding tide as he danced in time and rhythm of the fight. There was no way to avoid the blades, no. Each arching towards him in such a way that dancing out of reach of either would simply lead him to the teeth of the other. An effective trap. His hands a blur, he reached out and met each blade in mid stride – the outside blade of his flat palms meeting the metal edges, the smiles, of the hunter’s weapons. Rather than cleave through him entirely, they stopped, an inch into his flesh, biting and spilling red blood across his white fur, across the mouth of the blade and the ground.

They had found blood. The blade’s hunger rather than sated, simply yearned for more. There would be no more blood to be tasted, as the blade’s momentum and force dissipated, Kayin growled, narrowing his eyes as they shimmered, effulgent. The white light built around him, shimmering and growing to expand and encapsulate them men. Where their furious charge had been fueled by vigor and adrenaline, they’re eyes now only held a deep rooted fear. A fear of magic. And there was every reason to be afraid. The light building to a crescendo of white; drowning out all sight and sense of reality, Dema froze for a moment, turning and looking eyes squinting in the face of such a harsh light, all the more in awe for it.

As the world faded away, harsh white light filling the tundra from horizon to horizon. Dema could only look at where Kayin and the hunters had been for so long as she too turned away, the light slowly but surely enveloping her as well. And as it did, it began to fade; as quickly as it had come – a bright sunrise that existed in the space of a heart beat. She held her breath, afraid of the end; though when it did not come she tentatively opened her eyes – the white light gone. There had been no heat, no backwash. Nothing. And similarly, where the two attacking hunters had been midstrike, there now was nothing – only Kayin on his knees, weak and rasping.

Eyes wide Dema ran towards the man, seemingly without the strength of his own to carry on. But she was too late, far too late.

Kayin opened his eyes, the world resolving once more as reality asserted itself again. The agony of his body protesting even that smallest of motions. With his world aflame, his body vainly pleading with his mind, he turned to find Dema returning, running with concern and desperation written across her face. No. No No. Run. Why didn’t she run? The very same burning soul within her, that made her so vital constantly put her at such risk. Where bravery and foolishness seemed to irrevocable overlap one another. Each step towards him, in the flurry of concern, brought her closer to danger. Closer to death.

Like an animal seeking to help the other wounded animal – stricken and bloodied, the hunters wet their arrow heads in poison once more. Despite the loss of many of the hunters, they had drawn their prey closer to them. Close enough for their bows and their arrows to reach out and pluck their lives. As the remaining hunters drew their blades and rushed forward, those with bows drew once more. This time, however, the White wolf was far too exhausted to resist their aim. This time there would be no trickery. No witchery. With a silent command, their arrows loosed, easily outpacing the mad scramble of the remaining and unblooded hunters. Like so those ancient predators of the deep frozen oceans, they smelled that solitary drop of blood in the water and were driven to frenzy.

Kayin tried his best to form words. He felt the arrows loose. He saw how they would flow, the currents of wind the rose and the paths through the sky they tread; like reading a book – only to skip forward several pages and cheat at the answer. Only Death waited. As often as he had cheated death, this time there would be no avoiding that consuming toll. With weary body he shook his head. He looked towards Dema as she ran, paced to reach him. She never would. Her Fate was sealed, and for it, he was deeply saddened. All other choices removed. He did not notice the hunters, gaining, their feet carrying them precariously over the ice packed earth. Time was still his.

As Dema ran, her eyes wide, she saw the hunters, who had remained – concealed by the afterimages that followed in the wake of the bright flash of light. She wanted to turn and run but she froze, knowing that she had made a vital and terrible mistake. In her desire to rush to Kayin, to haul him to his feet, to ask him a myrid thousand questions, to continue to run with him, she had forgotten that she was to flee. She always seemed to leap before she lept. Now finally, into the jaws of death. Somewhere in the distant part of her mind, fear took root. Recognition leapt to the forefront of her thoughts as she saw the pinpricks of arrow head streaking towards her – little pinheads in against the graying backdrop of the storm ridden sky.

Arrows. A rain of arrows, that she could never turn away with magic she did not have nor outrun with the strength that did not exist in her legs. She looked to Kayin and found… nothing. No one save the killers bearing down on her. Desperation draining her of rationale. No one truly ever wanted to die. And faced with death, all became certain. A remorse of things left undone. Her running had stopped as she slumped to her knees to await the last few precious moments of her life, pinpricks in the cold sky growing larger, with linear grace. In those last moments regrets poured from within. Tasks left undone. Words left unsaid. Was this the way it had always been? Even after all that Kayin had said? Where was Kayin..? He had vanished like the wind.

In the distance she could hear cries and shouts, battle cries of fury and rage – the drunken bloodlust of the hunter’s murder make. They were miles away, thousands of leagues as the world grew distant. Life was fleeting. Death was consuming. She looked up, eyes wide open; at least in this she would face death with a degree of dignity, head held high. She would at least die free. As the arrows began to fall, arcing down towards her, gravity exerting its ubiquitous force, a shadow grew over her. In those last moments, a figure appeared before her, shielding her – as if from nowhere.

Kayin had given it all. The last of his strength to move. To change the course of fate. With what little strength he had left, he had imposed himself before them. His thread lay in tatters, his wyrd all but extinguished. His body as a shield before Dema, the arrows finding their course true to the heart of him. His life for hers. Fair trade. The arrows cared not for which they struck. He looked down to her, and smiled; even as she looked up to him in realization. A sudden sickening horror panning across her face as her mind caught up with the realization of what he had just set in motion. Not a moment later, he felt the arrows pierce his being. The perforated him. He felt the blades penetrate past fur, skin and bone. Pricking organs. Rupturing the delicate weave of his being. Felt the poison seep into the vital arête of his body, polluting it, staining it irrevocably. Staining his white fur red… The arrow head punctured through his chest, blood spattering down his front as he grunted, blood spilling from his lips as he staggered forward under the impact of the cluster of blows.

It was impossible to tell how many had found their mark. How many had scored deep furrows in his marrow and through his vital organs. Three menacing steel toothed head protruded from his chest in grisly wounds, the front of his robes shredded from his body. Arrows rained down around them, striking the frozen earth with soft thuds, though none striking Dema, protected in Kayin’s shadow. He could feel the thread of his life begin to fray as the world grew darker. Blood ran from his mouth, down his muzzle, from his chest, from his back. Mortally wounded, where any other being would have been struck dead one hundred times over, he persisted. He moved his mouth as if to form words, but none would come.

Dema stared up at him in horror, in sheer shock. “No… oh please… dear spirits no” she whispered, as she reached out to touch him, as if to dispel the terrible illusion. A drop of blood fell from his muzzle, staining the fur of her cheek a deep crimson. Her hands found his now bare chest, clinging to him as if to curl tightly to him, to make the nightmare end. “Not you.. not you too. Pease… Please Kayin please. Don’t. Don’t go..” she whispered, knowing that he was well beyond her words. He shook his head after an unbearably long moment, drawing strength enough to speak, for her.

“Time, is not important. Live… life…” he whispered, choking the words past the bloody froth that threatened to choke him. Tears streamed down his face, though he could only smile. He reached out, a hand shaking violently as the poisons worked at him, dissolving his resolve. He put two fingers to her forehead and whispered something.

It sounded like ‘Goodbye’.

With that, Dema blinked from existence, disappearing to the winds as Kayin fell to his knees. The world had slowed, and grown darker. A storm was coming, just on the horizon. She would be safe. With the last of his life’s magic, his wyrd to which he had imparted upon her, she had been taken to the other side of the pass. Out of one danger’s way, thrust into a multitude of others. She would survive. He knew so. He had seen so. She had to. All depended on her life and the lives she would touch. Like a pebble in the pond, so very small, yet casting ripples that would touch all.

As his blood poured from him, dying, he sat there, defeated on his haunches, the sound of running foot steps ever closer, with each labored heartbeat. They were there. They would soon cut his thread and spill red snow. They were there next to him. Their harsh smell and language unmistakeble. But their true quarry had escaped. They had failed. Kayin looked up, storm gray eyes reflecting the high domed sky of winter’s breath. He smiled. He always smiled. Whatever happened now, the fate of all was passed on. Hope’s ember stilled burned. The world growing dark, he slowly closed his eyes, a grin across his face.

---

A wonderful, emotional piece by  satsukii. Its still coming along, but its turning out better than I could have ever imagined. She is such an amazing, inspirational artist. Her work always is so breath taking and full of powerful feelings and moving emotions.

Kayin ©  WanderingPariah
Dema ©  svarta-perlan
Artwork ©  satsukii

Please do not repost without written permission.