When the rains came, they bit at the skin of the Hanakh hunters, and even the hardiest snake had to seek shelter.
But in the Great Canyon, a shelter was a temporary refuge at best. One knew not which caves carved into the walls were the dwellings of a Stalker or some fiercer beast that sought respite from the burning storm.
It was said that the rains were the tears of the Earth weeping for its lost children, for the misguided Old Ones that were its progeny – they who had burned the world in fire and lightning and bathed in the blood of their evil civilizations. Sometimes Rain-Born heard the stories of their "cities" of cold, unfeeling steel – monuments to sin and iniquity that climbed towards the skies and pierced the clouds. The Old Ones hated this world; even their homes were designed to strike against it. The rain was a product of their own making – just as all the evil spirits who wandered in The Deadlands were.
But there was no place to hide from the burning rain on the plains. It beat against the sands and chewed on stone and skin, peeling away all the pure souls who fought for the glory of their tribe.
In the early days of the Deadlands, two such peoples inhabited the environment of the Great Canyon: The Hanakh and Guthra. Two tribes, proud and stubborn, saw the darkness of the Old Ones in the other and took up spears, arrows, and blades from the first instant they witnessed the difference in their tribal markings and beliefs. No one could remember who cast the first stone, drew the first drop of blood, or uttered the meaningless pejorative that spurned the other side into war. In truth, the warriors of both tribes did not let such matters possess their minds. As Father-Mother said: "A mind open to doubt is as a fortress unguarded and without protection."
And there was one girl whose faith in such words propelled her forwards through even the acid rain wept from above. One girl weathered even the cries of the poor, dying Earth and flew at her enemies like a cat in a dovecote. This girl's name was Rain-Born.
In the months since her Harrowing – the bloodying of her blade with the twisted entrails of her first Stalker – she had won her place as a true Huntress of the Hanakh. And, as a Huntress, she was permitted to attend a raid on the desert plains that stretched out for eternity above the Great Canyon. Here and there, dotted across its burned surface, the dwellings of the Guthra people stretched forth. They were always building, constantly fortifying, raising towers and spikes and sneaky traps resembling the ways of the Old Ones. They had been builders, too - conquerors and expanders - and the fruits of their labor had been devastation. The Guthra, Father-Mother said, had not learned this lesson from the past.
Rain-Born took it upon herself to be their teacher.
In her first raid, she followed Elder Ragged-Brow and his team of elite hunters into the Guthra territory of Antakram – a border town whose dwellings had illegally encroached on Hanakh lands. Under cover of the biting rainfall, a team of ten warriors was gathered under Elder Ragged-Brow to strike a blow against the Guthra infidels that they would not soon forget. So Ragged-Brow was commanded, and so did he act. He was the dutiful hawk of the tribe and chief amongst all hunters. If wise Father-Mother was the voice of the Hanakh, it was said that Ragged-Brow was the fist.
His hunting party had set up camp as the sun crept behind the ashen clouds of the Deadlands. Ragged-Brow's forward scouts then reported that the Guthra of Antakram were engaged in a prayer session – giving reverence to their patron deity, Okku the White Wolf. They bowed and intoned their sacred hymns before a great stone effigy of the divine canine within their walls, and Rain-Born brimmed with bloodlust as she heard the news.
"Let us strike them now, brethren!" she cried in their war camp.
But the claws of Ragged-Brow found her hair and yanked at her braids savagely, reprimanding her as they often did for speaking out of turn in the Elder's presence.
"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.
Amidst the cries of her battle brothers, she dropped into a low crouch like a panther, ready to spring at her prey. When the lad's blade lashed out, she ducked and grabbed him by his elbow, twisting his arm and thrusting her dagger into his armpit. She withdrew from him swiftly, growling like a tiger unsatisfied by its strike, as the boy's blood seeped from his arm and coated the sands beneath him. He clutched his punctured limb and bellowed, charging forwards still, ramming into Rain-Born, who was thrown away by the weight of muscle he had behind him. He struck at her with his open fist and did not stop beating the side of her face even when she brought up her knife to slice through his fingers. As she made the cut, his mouth found her hand, and she cried out as he sank his teeth deep into the soft flesh of her palm.
Both wrestled in the sands, the boy still bleeding, becoming ever more hazy, seeing nothing but the screaming girl who scratched at his eyes and hearing the sound of her brothers" and sisters" war drums and battle cries singing through the crimson-marred skies. The girl kicked out and dislodged him as his strength finally began to fail, and he tasted her blood and savored it as it ran down his parched throat. He had drunk the blood of the girl who killed his father. In death, at least, he could do his father that honor.
The thought came upon the young Guthra as the girl reached towards her blood-drenched blade and rose it above his twitching body. His life ran beneath him – the red fluid of his earth-self seeping into the dark sands beneath that he had always known as his home. It was fitting that he should end in battle, defending the honor of his father. He had died a proper death. His earthly body was returning to the crimson sands of The Deadlands, and as the girl's knife came down, the boy smiled.
When it was over Rain-Born rose and screamed till her lungs were emptied. She raised her blade in the air, and her brothers and sisters did the same, crying with her, lost in the moment"s ecstasy. The last Guthra was dead. The girl had won her first honor duel against the prince of this little outpost. And almost immediately, she set to decapitate the boy – his still bleeding head would prove her worth to the tribe. The only tribe that deserved to walk in the waste.
Only one did not cheer as she set to her grisly task, brimming with pride as her brothers and sisters in arms set to burying the dead and slitting the throats of those who still made feeble grasps at life. Instead of joining in the celebratory cheers, this tribesman of the Hanakh watched and waited.
Rain-Born's eyes were wild and zealous. In the glee of her first bloodening as a huntress, she turned her attention to debasing the only sign of the Guthra that now remained in the village: the great statue of Okku in the middle of their marketplace. She stepped forward and drew her blade across it once – marking the brow of the wolf with a gash that dripped with the blood of the spirit's people.
Now, her brethren did not cheer.
Instead, she felt the hand of Ragged-Brow grip her arm and pull her to her knees.
"Are your ears drowned in the blood of your slain foe?" he spat at her, and she turned her face to see his eyes – streaked with fire – baring into her very soul, so much so that she let the knife drop from her hand and bury itself in the desert sands.
"Disgraceful," Ragged-Brow continued. "A Harrowed-Huntress dares to mock the Gods that rule these lands – those who command the elements themselves! Do you think yourself above them, child? Speak!"
But Rain-Born could not. She dared not.
Ragged-Brow scoffed and threw her to the ground, where she prostrated herself before him immediately. His hunters watched in silence, heads bowed.
"Hanakh!" he yelled. "What you see before you today is not a victory. It is a slaughter. It matters not that these Guthra are our foes. Is the butcher proud of his work? Is he vain enough to think himself on par with the Gods who watch over us all? You know the answer to these things I ask within your hearts."
The Warriors did. They bowed in unison, intoning a prayer to the Great Spirit that they, and their errant sister, be forgiven.
"Let us bury these poor souls together and offer a prayer to them and Okku."
As the party made preparations for such a ritual, and Ragged-Brow wiped the statue clean, Rain-Born's spirit suddenly broke free from its shackle of fear:
"Elder Ragged-Brow!" she shouted, still smeared with the blood of her kill. "Is it not Father-Mother who says that the Gods of the Guthra are weaker than ours? And that the strong must eat the weak to survive in the wastes? Why should we do these infidels a service they would never grant us? We would be better –"
She never finished her statement, for the staff of Ragged-Brow found her cheek and threw her back into the sand. Before she could rise, the heel of the Elder pinned her to the crimson-soaked ground. She struggled feebly against him, and the brothers and sisters of the hunting team saw how Ragged-Brow's smile only grew.
"How dare you," he said above her – not a question, she marked, but an accusation. "You proudly blaspheme even as we do our sacred duty in this place. Worse still, you muddy Father-Mother's name by coating your bloodlust in their words. Have the standards of our hunters fallen so low?"
She stifled her rage and screamed into the sands beneath her, tasting the dust-caked blood of her dead foes while the claws of Ragged-Brow pushed her further into the dirt.
"You carry yourself with the pride of the lion, and yet there is no honor within your heart. You are a snake. You shall crawl like one."
As the rest of the hunting party prayed dutifully, Ragged-Brow ordered Rain-Born to be pinned to the ground and then set the effigy of Okku upon her back. She groaned under the stone statue"s weight, the grey paws of the wolf bearing down on her, crushing her spine. She could raise herself from the ground only through the sheer strength of her will and fury.
She stayed like that as the others prayed, and once the hunters gathered their tools of war, Rain-Born was given her sentence for disobedience by a smiling Ragged-Brow:
"Go on, little red snake," he said. "Crawl."
For the whole journey home, Rain-Born bore the statue of Okku on her back, groaning in pain as she crawled through the sands, her bare, still bloodied legs being struck by Ragged-Brow whenever she stopped for respite.
"Well, little snake?" He would ask her after delivering his punishment. "You said the Gods of the Guthra were weak. Why do you require rest as you carry one on your back?"
She bore the punishment even as the hunting party saw how Ragged-Brow enjoyed torturing her. It was retribution. Of course it was. He would not stand for insubordination – even if the girl was a prodigy. She had committed an insult to the spirits, but even to her brethren, the price she paid was harsh.
When she finally made it home, she was thrown into her tent, and the statue of Okku was taken as a spoil of war. She rolled in her tent for a half-week, crying out in pain and torment, cursing the Elder who hated her, praying that the Great Spirit forgive her for her transgression against its brother God. She called out in her tent during the night, promising that she was good, and supplicant. She would be a warrior who respected the Gods. She would not be humiliated again. She would not let Ragged-Brow look upon her with such a smirk of satisfaction ever again.
If he did, she would wipe the smirk from his face. She swore it by the oldest spirits that walked in the wastes.
When dreams finally came upon her, they did not quiet the storm of her mind. The rains that cried outside burrowed themselves into her head, and she saw herself crawling through the sands with Okku on her back again – this time for eternity. She threw the white wolf off her, yet he returned to rest upon her spine and break her spirit. She watched herself crawl, feeling only pain and sorrow. Yet something else was picking at her spirit within the dream-realm: the wolf had a smile that brimmed at her under the heat of the Deadland's uncaring sun. He grinned at her and chuckled as she crawled. He told her secrets that she did not wish to know, and she told him so, but it did not stop him. He laughed more than any God Rain-Born had ever heard.
And it was his laughter she woke up to every morning, feeling the uncaring sands beneath her and rubbing the scars on her back. She thought it strange – she expected to be tormented by the sneer of Ragged-Brow, who hated her. But as she trained and threw herself into the worship of the Great Spirit tenfold, Okku's laughter rang in her ears, not that of her Elder.
But the greatest abomination was something she would reveal to none of her brothers and sisters under the watchful sun of the Deadlands. Her great dream-secret that not even those of the House of Ash would ever hear of – her vision she would hold with her till she was returned to the sands as bone and ash:
Not only did the Great Wolf laugh as she carried him.
Sometimes, she laughed right back.