Callisto

Crimson Sands

"Does the snake deign to speak for the hawk?" he asked her, spitting on the ground before her feet and savoring her confusion. "Do not forget your place amongst us, child."

She bowed unreservedly, shuddering as she heard the laughter of her brothers and sisters. At fourteen, she was the youngest huntress among them by at least five summers. And she felt it – deep within her bones, she felt it.

"The Guthra are our enemies, not the spirits of the Wastes," Ragged-Brow said. "The spirits are strong and clever and far beyond the ken of mortal minds. Okku is not our patron, but the teachings of the Great Spirit are filled with more wisdom than can be found in the skull of a baby serpent: "A people at worship are a people at peace with the land. Disturb such peace and suffer the wrath of the Gods.""

Humbled thus, Rain-Born did not dare to speak another word. Yet those who watched her as the hunters waited for the order to strike marked well how she stood out in the biting rain, letting it prick and eat at her skin, and stroked the blade of her dagger as she looked on at the condemned village. She was a dog, it was said, and Ragged-Brow was her reluctant handler.

When the attack finally did come, it came swiftly, without remorse. The team of ten moved quickly to dispatch the Guthra guards on their high towers – diabolical constructs from the age of technology. The arrows of the Hanakh severed the life of the men, and the fires of their torches consumed their vile constructs.

Ragged-Brow then gave word that the Guthra were to surrender and be allowed to reject the ways of their people. He let the command sing through the air so all assembled could hear, even those cowering behind the village walls. But the flow of battle is a curious thing. It seeps into the blood and ears – clogging even the best of listeners. Or perhaps the pride of youth – the desire to prove oneself capable enough to walk in the realm of adults – is greater even than the desire for a peaceful resolution to conflict. Whatever the reason for her actions, Rain-Born did not obey the commands of her Elder upon this day.

She charged through the village gate and loosed one well-aimed arrow into the neck of the machete-wielding Guthra who ran at her first. With little option and a heavy heart, Ragged-Brow led his hunters after her, and slowly the rest of Antakram was put to the torch. It was said by those who saw her on the day of Antakram's death that Rain-Born proved the strength of her teeth: she tore through Guthra warriors twice her size with nothing more than her bone dagger and spared none in her rage. She was a red haze of crimson against the burning desert sands, dancing past Guthra arrows and cutting into their skin like the butcher cleaves through a carrion carcass. She was rage. The storm itself – the very lightning which had spawned her flowed through her veins.

Those hunters who fought beside her recalled one exploit of the child in particular - how she raised her crimson-soaked dagger at one boy around her age in the middle of the Guthra market square. He was a big lad but shaken - he had just watched her cleave the veins from his father's neck. The body fell away from her, and she locked eyes with the child and licked his father's blood from her chin.

Rain-Born's blade glimmered in the dying sunlight of The Deadlands. Her hand was still. And the sounds of the massacre all around the pair suddenly settled into hushed silence – the huntress of the Hanakh was challenging this young Guthra to an honor duel.

The hunters let the dying cry. They let the screams of their fallen enemies fill the air. They beat their chests and sang their battle cry to support their vicious young sister. Against all this, the boy's legs shook like a newborn lamb. He looked upon his burning home and saw nothing, but his family debased all around him – nothing but food for the desert worms. Then, against the searing rain that tore at his naked flesh, he drew his machete and charged at Rain-Born.