The carrion birds were circling greedily above the the green-hazed sky, perhaps hoping for a meal from the two figures below. They were not nearly foolish enough to dare approach the Skal'ai, let alone scavenge from the kills. Instead, they followed their prey with a hunter's patience, fleeing south with desperation as soon came behind them.
They were fleeing south, for she had spoken of warning the king. She wished to warn him of the Skal, as if he weld some great power to stop it. It was utterly foolish, this much was truth. He was some man in a hall of stone, wearing a wreath of gold upon his head, yet she spoke of him as someone with power. It was madness. He was a mortal man, without true strength. All he had were words, and words would not sway the Skal'ai.
Still, she wished to go to him, and he supposed that he would follow, as he was without a true destination. He wished only to flee, to run as far from the Skal as he could, and perhaps this king could help him. If nothing else, this king and his men could serve as useful fodder while they fled. The Skal'ai seemed to need to pause for a while, at the very least, while they consumed their prey. The time that an army could bring might be enough to flee from this land. She had spoken of other lands across the seas, and perhaps they would be free of living shadows.
He could still feel a chill in his forehead whenever he thought of the Skal, for it always made him think of the corpse upon that shadowed throne. It made him remember the mark that he bore from that corpse's touch—the mark of a prey to a hunter. While it no longer sent lancing pain through his mind, he had no doubts that it still was there. He had no doubts that the corpse could see him.
And so they ran south, both with different hopes. She hoped to kill that which had no life, and he hoped to flee from inescapable eyes. Fools, the both of them, and they ran in foolish company. He still had yet to question her about the black stone in her pouch, yet he realized now in his panic that he had left it behind. She had not brought up the matter, but he resolved to ask her in any case. Perhaps it had been a foolhardy move to leave them behind, but he had been frightened by the Skal'ai. They had been hardly an arm's length away, yet he had no regrets for leaving that company of shadows as quickly as possible. Had his movement been with any hesitation, then they both would have joined the verin upon the plains.
They had ran for the entire day, following the river that she called the Hope. Perhaps its name was apt: a lingering hope for life in these parched lands. Stopping only briefly for a halfday meal, they had covered a great deal of distance by foot. When she grew tired and was unable to continue, he had carried her on his back, for his body still had more that it could do. Every moment spent in pause was time for Skal'ai to close in. They would be moments of regret for their weakness and respite when shadows closed in on the flesh.
Still, they needed to rest at some point, and so when they finally stopped at night, it was on the muddy banks by the river. Gathering some dry grasses from nearby, he started a fire with his claws and stone. There was a fleeting temptation to set the plains afire, for he doubted that the Skal'ai could cross hungry flame, but he decided against it. After all, the winds were capricious, and there was no certainty that the fire would not instead travel in their direction and burn them alive first. It could be a final act of desperation, but it carried too much risk to be any more. Instead, as they sat and ate bits of plant roots and some scavenged berries, he turned to ask her a question.
"Your pack." he started, the words grating in his throat. The tongue of man proved a nuisance to perform, requiring a frustrating degree of finesse that he had never bothered to invest before. They were beginning to be easier to form with practice, yet it still was a challenge to shape his tongue in the needed way. The noises were harsh and low, causing her to flinch when he starting talking. "Inside it."
She raised her head suddenly, her face a stark white against the campfire. "What about my pack?" she asked with surprise, not quite masking the nervousness in her voice. There was guilt there, behind her eyes. He could see it flickering, betraying her mouth.
"Was stone." he growled, raising his right arm so that she could see. "Black. Like this." It was not a question; it was a statement. He knew to it be true; he had seen it fall out onto the grasses from inside her pack. He had seen the billowing smoke, all too familiar from his vision with the corpse. A visible tremor ran down her back, yet she seemed not to have noticed it. Instead, her attention was devoted to the flesh on his wrist.
"H-how…" she started, her expression stricken. All of the blood drained from her face as she seemed to realize something. "I-I had seen it before, but…" She took in a deep breath, licking her dry lips with a quick motion. "I never realized…"
She was lost in thought, not even noticing as a single tear rolled down her cheek and dripped onto the grass below her. She did not make a motion to wipe it, but the heat from the fire dried her skin quickly enough. "My—I had one ju—" she stammered, apparently too shaken to gather her thoughts. The shock and surprise had thrown her off, had send her thoughts flying in bedlam. If he wanted any answers, now would be the best time to press her, before she could decide what to say.
"You know. What this is." he snarled with effort, but he needed her to understand him. He needed to know.
She shook her head violently, more tears flying into the air around her. "I-I got mine from k-killing my teacher. He was, was in my dreams from earlier. I never—never thought—I thought that he would b-be gone."
He growled in irritation. She was hard enough to understand when her words were whole, but now she was limping like a lame pup. He pressed her harder, continuing, "Where you get. How."
She blinked furiously, wiping tears from her eyes as she hiccuped. "I was d-dreaming. When I was still in Telavir. I was d-dreaming, but I was walking. And I, I could see h-him as I dreamed. I killed him." She let a little shuddering gasp as she said that last sentence, the tension draining from her back as let out a short huff. "I killed him." she repeated, as if confirming that statement. He snorted, as if she had never killed before. She was acting like a whelp that had never been blooded.
"When I—when I killed him, I woke up. And I saw him, in his eye there was a stone. I-I took it out; I have no idea why. But I clawed it out, and he—he spoke to me. Even though his throat was cut." She hiccuped, a little laugh slipping out of her mouth like she was filled with madness. Perhaps she was, but he needed her answers nevertheless. She had been dreaming? She had killed him while dreaming?
Yet as he waited for her to continue, she spoke no more. She was only laughing, in between her sobbing hiccups, and slowly, she crawled onto her side in the grass. Madness was draped around her like a cloak, and he could tell his words would not pierce through that fog. It seemed that he could press her no more, and as the crackling of the fire wore on, she drifted off into to sleep. And so he was left alone, eating his damnable berries with only the dead for company.
Yet the dead of his were not nearly as quiet as most were. They writhed in his mind with much to say, it seemed.
She speaks the truth. They were a thousand voices, their wrath palpable in their words. The blackstones were forged by Oa'kul to further Sin's grasp. They were hidden in the mind, within dreams. That was where you found us, scion of Andahiel: within your dreams.
He realized now the import of their words, scratching the blackstone in his flesh with a claw. This small gem, what power did it hold? To be able to imprison so many dead, and to hold them for so many years, what was its true strength?
She has been bent by Sin. Already he has claimed her dreams, has claimed her flesh while she dreamt. Her mind will be next, and then she will be his thrall in full. They spoke of this with a certainty that his breathing pause. Sin held thousands under his thrall. What is one more?
But then, why was she made to kill a man? What use could that have?
The blackstones hold the spirits of the dead. They will be pulled closer in scenes of death. For you it was your own. For her it was her master's. Eons now, Sin has slept. Now he wakes, seeking to gather the stones of his power once more. With them, the world will weep.
The dead waited, perhaps for a response of his own, but he knew not what to think. His mind was a mess, his body tired and worn. Perhaps sleep would serve to sort everything out, and so he slumped onto his back with a weary single-mindedness. Yet as sleep rose to claim him, he could not help but wonder what this Sin looked like. And the dead, as if in mockery, spoke laughingly. You have seen him already. And his forehead burned with cold fire as he drifted off once more, a brand like a pair of eyes that loomed over him.
When he woke, it was before she had. The sun had just crawled over the horizon, and she was still resting with the deep sleep of a pup. Her flesh truly was weak; it was irritating. Unable to run far, and yet needing more rest than his own—if it was not for her magic her kind surely would have died off ages ago.
She mumbled as he roused her, yet her eyes snapped open fast enough when he snapped his teeth next to her ears. "Five and three curses, you demon." she swore as she sat up. "Haven't you ever been told to leave a sleeping woman alone? I suppose not, eh…" she muttered, dusting the grass off her sleepily.
"Go." he replied as he jostled her, pulling her to her feet with a casual strength. "How far." She wanted to go south, but he knew not where their destination lay. They were just following the Hope, and the mountains that lay just beyond it.
"Not f-far" she yawned, brushing her short hair out of her face. "If we keep following the Pikes south, we'll run into the Twisting Spires soon enough. Through them, we can get to the Capital by carriage in a matter of days." Startled, she turned to see that he was already loping off into the distance. Hurriedly, she started after him, muttering under her breath about ungentlemanly behavior and waiting for a lady.
"Through them." he grumbled as they walked. As if stone was so simple. Even with his claws, it could take weeks to carve through a mountain, and he doubted that these Twisting Spires were merely one mountain. It would be plenty of time for the Skal'ai to catch them, and he worried that she underestimated their strength. She placed too much value in her magic, as the fool places too much strength on his claws. He forgets the thing in his skull, and his claws break when they meet stronger scales. They could not hope to fight the Skal'ai; they were innumerable and unkillable.
"Worry not." she continued, panting as she ran alongside his strides. Not nearly an hour since they began, and already she was beginning to show signs of wearing down. Her flesh was pathetic, and he believed that it struck a new low every day. Soon she would begin heaving, and then not long after she would need to be carried.
He only wished that she would at least be able to make it past halfday this time.
"The king's got diggers to mine these mountains. The Twisting Spires are full of silver and iron, and the old man in Telavir said that there's a war right now. They'll be needing the steel, so there's bound to be some mines that we can use to get through." she explained, in between short puffs and gasps for air. It was difficult to discern her words, but he managed to make most of them out.
"Mines." he asked, not knowing what she meant.
"C-carved stone." she elaborated, sweat soaking her clothes as the sun wore down. "They tunnel through the, the mountains. To find metal."
"Tunnels." he mused, imagining something much like his old cave. "What like?" he asked as they ran.
"Well," she panted. "Something like that." Her finger pointed off to the distance, where the walls of stone to their left began to curve in front of them. Great pillars rose out of the earth, towering and piercing the sky. Their moniker of Twisting Spires truly was apt.
And as they drew closer, he could see holes in the stone, framed by what seemed to be the same material used in her daggers. Steel.
There were hundreds of those holes in the mountains, reminding him of anthills and their burrows. These even had ants, milling about as they worked the mountain.
Only these ants, he realized slowly, were men.