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Morgana

Whether through destiny or circumstance, Morgana and her sister were born to a world in conflict. The cataclysmic Rune Wars had ripped through most of Valoran and Shurima, and seemed poised to engulf even the peaks of Targon. Morgana’s parents, Mihira and Kilam, knew the legends of the great mountain granting divine power—they saw no other choice than to attempt the long and perilous journey, if their tribe was to be saved.
Even when they learned Mihira was with child, they could not turn back. Finally, where Runeterra touches the stars, Kilam watched in wonder and fear as Mihira was chosen to embody the Aspect of Justice.
The couple returned not only with the salvation they sought, but twin daughters—Morgana and Kayle. However, the celestial power that claimed Mihira began to overshadow her mortal personality and affections. She would often push the girls into their father’s arms, abandoning them to answer battle’s call.
For many months, uncertainty gnawed at Kilam. The wars still raged on countless fronts, and his beloved wife was slipping away. Fearing for his daughters’ safety, he waited for Mihira to leave once more, then fled Targon with them both.
Though their destination did not yet have a name, it would become known as a haven from magic and persecution: the kingdom of Demacia.
There the twins grew different as day and night. While Kayle studied the settlement’s growing set of laws, dark-haired Morgana became troubled by their distrust of new arrivals. Knowing what it was to be a refugee, she wandered the wilds, talking to wayward mages and others cast out for the dangers they might bring. At home, she felt her father’s heartbreak at leaving Mihira behind, and grew bitter at her mother for causing such pain.
Morgana’s fears that she and Kayle might carry some remnant of the Aspect’s power were eventually confirmed, when a great blade wreathed in shadow and starfire fell from the heavens. As it pierced the ground, splitting in two, feathered wings burst from the girls’ shoulders. Their father wept at the sight of them each taking up half of the weapon, and turned away even as Morgana reached out to comfort him.
While Kayle embraced their new calling, rallying an order of judicators to enforce the laws, Morgana resented her gifts… until the night their settlement was raided. Kilam found himself surrounded as the fighting spread. In that moment, Morgana rushed to shield him, burning his attackers to ash. Together, the sisters saved countless lives, and were hailed as the Winged Protectors of Demacia.
But Kayle grew more extreme in her ideologies, and Morgana increasingly found herself pleading the case of those who wanted to atone for their crimes. An accord was struck between the sisters and their mortal devotees—though it was uneasy, and did not last. Kayle’s most ardent disciple, Ronas, came to arrest Morgana herself. Attempting to protect her penitent followers, she shackled him with dark flame until he fell to the floor, dead.
Divine fire lit the city from above as Kayle swore to bring Ronas’ killer to justice, and Morgana met her sister in the skies.
They raised their blades, each matching the other with arcs of blinding light and burning darkness that lashed down at the buildings beneath them. It seemed certain that one of them would win… but Morgana faltered when she heard their father’s anguished voice. Kilam lay in the rubble, mortally wounded. Howling with grief, Morgana hurled her half of their mother’s sword at Kayle, and plunged to the surface like a meteorite.
She cradled her father, cursing their inheritance for the destruction around them. Kayle landed, dumbstruck, and Morgana demanded to know if the smiting of wicked mortals included Kilam, whose crime was stealing them away from their mother. Kayle gave no answer, but soared into the heavens without looking back.
Morgana’s wings became an inescapable reminder of her pain. She tried to cut them from her flesh, but could find no blade strong enough. Instead, she bound them with iron chains, resolving instead to walk the world of mortals.
Over the centuries, her tale fell into myth, and the name Morgana was all but forgotten. To this day, the people of Demacia venerate “the Winged Protector,” but recall only the glory and truth of one sister, while Morgana’s dark outbursts and belief in personal redemption became the mysteries of “the Veiled One.”
Through all of this, she still refuses to abandon those who would seek her aid. Bitter, betrayed, she bides her time in the kingdom’s shadows, knowing with certainty that Kayle’s light will someday return to Runeterra, and all will face her judgment.
As magic begins to rise again, Morgana sees that dawn is nearly upon them.
Prayer to a Crumbling Shrine

Rayla Heide

Rin stubbed his toe on a root and stumbled, catching himself before he lost his balance. A few paces in front of him, his great aunt looked back.
“Need my old bones to slow down for you? Ho ha!” she chuckled.
“No,” he murmured to his shoes. His great aunt Peria was snow-haired and stooped with age, though she was still a few inches taller than Rin. He wished he could be as tall as his horrible brother—he would have towered over both of them if he was there.
Rin had never been in this part of the woods before. The pine trees grew closer together, so much that the light of the noonday sun had diminished to a glimmer amongst the shadows.
Aunt Peria stopped ahead. At first, he thought she stood in front of a mossy boulder, but as he caught up he saw the remains of a stone figure, eroded by time. Rin fiddled with the rocks in his pocket.
“Aha! Do you know who this is?” asked Aunt Peria.
“Uh, some old noble from the city?” said Rin.
“Oh no!” said Aunt Peria cheerfully. “To many, she was no more than shadow and myth. A figure known as the Veiled One.”
Aunt Peria lifted her lantern up toward the figure. The statue’s left arm was missing from the shoulder, but her right palm was open, as if inviting them forward. Upon her head was what must have once been a delicate stone shroud, now coated in vines. Feathered stubs rose from her shoulders, broken and weathered. Rin could see that part of her face had crumbled garishly, and he shivered. The unbroken half of her face was not much better—her remaining eye was marked with stains, and her expression was spiteful, as if she was about to spit out sour milk.
“Don’t like her?” Aunt Peria said, amused. “You are not the only one. She is not the most beloved. But she knows all about revenge.”
Rin’s eyes widened. He thought he’d been so careful.
“Yes, yes, I heard the rocks clacking around your pocket,” said Aunt Peria. “I know you’re planning to get back at your brother. He didn’t mean to hurt you, you know.”
“He hit me in the eye with the blunt of his axe!” Rin cried. “What do you think he meant to do? Shouldn’t he be the one who gets a lesson?”
“He was showing you where to chop wood. You know he would never hurt you on purpose,” said Aunt Peria.
“He deserves his own black eye!”
“And if you gave him one, what lesson do you think he would learn from that, hmm?”
Rin did not think Aunt Peria would much like his response, so he stayed silent.
“No answer? A story, then,” said Aunt Peria. “Now, listen!”
Rin sat himself down in front of the statue. With a sigh, he leaned his head against his hand.
“Long ago, in the deepest, darkest woods, where the trees grew together so tightly no sign of the sky or stars was visible, the Veiled One lived, far away from any settlement. Though few spoke with her, it was believed that she was older than dawn, sharper and wiser than any in the land. Those with disputes they could not solve themselves would come to her for final judgment, to seek wisdom, absolution—and occasionally, punishment. But they did so with caution, for it was also known that her lessons could be severe.
“One day, a Cleric and his Pupil entered the woods to find the Veiled One, for the Pupil had erred. The Pupil had acted in anger against his elder, striking him with a censer. Smouldering incense had scarred the Cleric’s face with a grotesque burn. The Pupil knew he done wrong and wanted to repent.
“The two had journeyed a day and a night before they found the Veiled One.
“They entered a cavern illuminated by candles. Water dripped from the ceiling, and strange potions lined the walls. It stank of gravesoil and moss. Dozens of raven-black feathers littered the floor.
“A figure silently emerged from the shadows to meet them—the Veiled One. A black shroud hid most of her features from sight, but her eerily violet eyes shone through. Her feet were bare on the cold stone floor. As the Pupil told his tale, she gazed at him with an unbroken stare.
“‘I see that your actions were no accident,’ spoke the Veiled One at last. Her voice, though rarely heard, was barbed like a thornbush. ‘You acted with purpose and certainty. And yet, now you feel much pain at having hurt your master.’
“‘Aye, I wish to atone for my sins so that I may rid myself of this guilt,’ he said.
“‘Guilt can teach many things to a heart humbled by intent. Why did you strike your master?’ she asked.
“‘It was an act of anger. I was wrong,’ said the Pupil.
“‘Perhaps. What caused your anger?’ asked the Veiled One.
“The Pupil looked to his Cleric, and cast his eyes down.
“‘In my foolishness, I sought to end his lesson to another student,’ said the Pupil.
“‘And what was that lesson?’
“Before the Pupil could answer, the Cleric interrupted.
“‘My students require instruction in myriad ways,’ he said. ‘I teach them manners, patience, and restraint. If I must, I will use the lash. I do not enjoy it—these lessons are my sacred duty.’
“The Veiled One peered at the Cleric. Behind the shroud, her eyes seemed to bore into him.
“‘But you do enjoy them,’ she said.
“‘I beg—’
“‘Tell me, scarred master, are your lessons truly for the good of your students? Or do you punish them to relish their suffering?’ said the Veiled One.
“‘No,’ the Pupil interrupted. ‘He can’t have, he cares about us—’
“The Cleric raised his hand and struck the boy.
“‘I don’t need your lying breath to defend me,’ spat the Cleric, his scarred face vivid with anger.
“The Veiled One opened her palm and chained the Cleric to her with dark fire. The bindings glimmered with immaterial violet light, but the Cleric could not break them as he struggled.
“‘You came to me for another’s punishment,’ she hissed. ‘But you ignore your own sins. Your sick pride swells as they come back to you, Cleric. Since you refuse to look yourself, I will make you feel the pain you caused.’
“Through the chains that bound them, the Veiled One forced him to endure all the shame, suffering, and loneliness he had inflicted on his pupils. For an instant, the Cleric’s heart stopped, as a great weight he had never known constricted his very soul. He fell to his knees, fixed in place by bitter torment, as shadowed flames licked his flesh.
“‘Stop, please stop!’ the student cried. ‘Please, punish me in his place. He has suffered enough!’
“‘You defend him, even now,’ said the Veiled One. ‘The wretch has much to learn ere death's mercy lays claim. He alone must feel the pain he caused so he may never hurt another. You came here seeking understanding—its burden is now yours to bear.’
“The Pupil did not show his face at his cloister for many days. But when hunger and fatigue overcame him, he finally forgot his fear of his master’s lash. Upon his return, he found the Cleric a different man. Where his elder had been cruel and uncaring, he was patient and gentle. For though the burn on his face had not yet healed, the Veiled One’s lesson had cut far deeper.”
Aunt Peria set her lantern at the base of the statue. Half her stone-gray face was lost to darkness, with flickering shadows running down her shroud like tears.
“Be careful, Rin, when wishing for punishment. Can you teach a lesson that will make your brother a better person? Even if he did hit you on purpose, there is no sense in you punishing him selfishly.”
Rin felt the rocks in his pocket.
“I guess my brother did say he was sorry. After I fell down from getting hit in the eye,” he said. He begrudgingly dropped the rocks to the forest floor.
“Wonderful! Let us give thanks to the Veiled One.”
Aunt Peria opened her lantern and blew the candle out.
“Remember—revenge is an act of pride, but teaching is selfless,” she said. “In case you forget, I’ll be watching you! Ha! And the Veiled One might be, too!”
Rin watched the smoke curl and unfold around the statue’s empty stone eye, shrouding the figure in shadow. When he looked back, Aunt Peria had set off through the trees, back toward the village. Rin hurried to catch up.
Singed

The twisted, unfathomable madman known across Runeterra as Singed began his life as an ordinary man in Piltover. As a child, he displayed a prodigious intellect and a boundless sense of curiosity. The principles and interactions of the natural world fascinated him, eventually leading him to pursue a scholarship at the prestigious University of Piltover.
It did not take long for his brilliance to be recognized.
Singed’s research into the natural sciences was impressive—groundbreaking even—but he found that Piltover’s attention had been stolen away ever since the discovery of hextech, and the opportunities the hybrid of magic and technology presented. Singed found himself on the outside looking in, seeing magic as a crutch leaned upon by those who were either incapable of understanding how the world worked, or simply didn’t care enough to find out. He became a vocal critic of what he saw as a new and ignorant fad within the university.
Singed instead delved into the chemical potential of alchemy, and despite the boon his intellect garnered for the field, his efforts earned him little more than the ridicule of his fellow academics. Before long, his funding had dried up, and he was forced out of the university, and out of Piltover. Singed had no choice but to begin a new life—in Zaun.
In the undercity, life was cheap, and the demand for innovation high. Singed was quickly able to find work in the emergent chemtech industries, lending his skills and relentless drive for a variety of increasingly unscrupulous clients. His experiments, often of questionable ethicality, cast a wide net: augmenting humans, animals, and even fusions of the two, among countless other endeavours. Nonetheless, he pushed his new field forward at an incredibly rapid pace, but often at the expense of his own health. Understanding better than anyone the chemical needs of a living body, he engineered stimulants that could keep him alert and working for weeks at a time, before he would collapse, shivering and feeble, and sleep for days on end.
Singed’s obsessive, tireless efforts as an alchymist meant he found no shortage of patrons and clients, eventually including even the warmasons of Noxus. The gossip was rampant across both Piltover and Zaun that the empire and their Grand General were on the verge of bankruptcy from paying Piltover’s extortionate tithes for military passage to the campaigns in northern Shurima, and soon they might be looking elsewhere for new, less expensive conquests. So long as they paid his fees, Singed didn’t care.
After years of smaller, off-and-on projects, Singed was approached by a Noxian military commander named Emystan, who contracted the alchymist to help her break the bitter stalemate of the war in Ionia. She needed a new kind of weapon from him, the like of which no one had ever seen before… and she could make him a wealthy man indeed.
Putting aside all other concerns, Singed poured all of his intellect, knowledge, and experience into the synthesis of this new weapon. The result of his efforts was an alchemical fire that was unstable, volatile, and utterly horrifying. When it was finally unleashed in Ionia against the enemies of Noxus, it burned hot enough to fracture stone, and tainted the earth around it with dense, metallic poisons so completely that almost nothing would grow there. Even Emystan’s own allies were appalled, though not quite enough to name her and Singed as war criminals.
Now, without any restraint for capital, materials, or even subjects to experiment upon, Singed nonetheless feels the weight of years upon him. His most recent work has taken a decidedly more biological angle, and of a far more dramatic scope. A recent exercise in the melding of animal, man, and machine left his laboratories in ruins, his face held together with filthy bandages, and his subject freely prowling the streets of Zaun, yet Singed remains undeterred.
He has already mastered the destruction of flesh, and thus now has turned to the preservation and transformation of it… and perhaps even the possibility that life need not end with an inescapable death.
Engineering the Nightmare

Procured a cutthroat hiding among the populace and feigning civility. Only a disciplined eye could recognize the beast within, yearning for release. How could I refuse? For what is my work if not an attempt to reveal life’s hidden truths through science? It required two doses to subdue him. Impressively resilient. A necessary quality to survive the grand catalyst of pain and provoke the transmutation. The metamorphosis will reshape the man into a chimeric predator, and all of Zaun will be its hunting grounds.
Prepared subject for implantation. Tested a surgical technique I observed during the Ionian Campaign to reach the scapulae. Required several minutes of drilling through bone to attach the alchemical chamber and pumps that will deliver the transmutative formula. Subject wailed and pleaded. Insisted he was no longer a monster, but a good man. Ignored the distractions and threaded lengths of delicate hoses throughout his extremities, splicing them with his veins and arteries. The subject remained conscious and screaming for six hours. Very encouraging as he endured significantly longer than earlier failures. Finished by integrating the mechanical augmentations with the neurolous fibers of the spine. Minimal stitching required. Subject stable and recovering. I must rest and replenish before tomorrow’s procedure.
Found subject despondent and shrinking at the slightest gesture. He struggled against his bonds as the delivery chamber filled with the transmutative formula and activated. The mechanism primed the alchemicals then initiated the next stage. The effects were instantaneous. The subject convulsed as his blood vessels constricted against those first drops. The plunger pushed the mixture through the obstruction, and the subject thrashed violently, nearly toppling the surgical table.
As hypothesized, pain proved the catalyst of change. It released the flood of chemistry required to transmute the subject’s base anatomy. A snapping of bone and sinew followed, reshaping the skeletal frame. And then a jagged shard ripped through the subject’s wrist. He wrenched against the bindings, pulling until the joint cracked sharply, and his severed hand fell to the floor. There was a piercing wail, and his entire body seized before suffering a full collapse. The transmutation had failed. I stanched the wound and stabilized the body’s vital tasks. Perhaps I’ve overestimated the subject’s tolerance for pain. I will recalibrate and begin anew tomorrow.
Returned to my laboratory and found the severed hand still on the floor. Surprisingly, it showed no signs of decay or rigor. Examined the subject’s mangled stump as he spat a litany of insults and threats. The rise in aggression is a promising aftereffect of the alchemicals. But the most striking change was hidden beneath the blood-soaked bandages. A protolimb. Embryonic and malformed, but beautiful in its predatorial function. Even now, hours after the aborted procedure, flesh continues to grow and outpace the formation of misshapen bone. Perhaps allowing more time for the serum to take effect may prove beneficial.
Images of the protolimb pervaded my sleep. Its beauty and singular purpose arrested in tragic failure. But what if it could be more? Awoke with the spark of inspiration. Metallurgy. It may lack the refinements of true chemistry, but last night, it served my purpose. Worked until first light forging steel, sharpening edges, and hammering a framework. It should provide the necessary structure, a scaffolding of sorts, for the new limb to grow into. Improving upon nature is simple when she’s already offered a design.
The constraints of the procedure forced me to benumb the subject and work swiftly. Discovered signs of new growth on the protolimb. The changes had slowed, but not settled. Grafted the malformed limb’s muscle tissue, blood vessels, and delicate nerve endings to the framework. Finished by integrating the augmentation with the alchemical chamber. Observed a slight twitch in the smallest digit. Moved subject, and reinforced his restraints. What other enhancements could be made? Perhaps I shall have a stroll and take in the Gray. There is much to consider.
Returned from the Boundary Markets and was greeted by an old familiar stench. Tributaries of blighted veins stretched across the subject’s back. The infection originated where bone and metal chamber adjoined. Made adjustment to the formula, and dispensed the new batch. The subject’s stupor broke in a piercing shriek as his skeletal structure fractured and reshaped. A beastial form began to emerge, the chimeric properties finally surfacing, but then, the transmutation slowly ebbed and stilled.
Increased the chamber’s outflow. It trembled violently, delivering twice the dosage for every beat of the heart. The body contorted in response as flesh split like poorly seamed fabric unable to contain the changes occurring underneath. The chamber rumbled as the mixture roiled within the sealed container. Pressure built until it released in a rupture of hoses, seals, and blood vessels. A series of snapping sounds followed, metallic and clanging, and the subject’s restraints gave way.
An instant later, he was tearing into my face, reopening the old wounds and feeding the old rage. We struggled briefly until he finally grew limp and collapsed. A single word escaped his throat. And then all the indicators of life faded, and the body finally settled. No heartbeat detected. Applied several drops of caustic solution to his left arm, and received no response. Subject deceased. Dragged the body outside, and disposed of the remains in the Sump. Once again, scientific progress is stifled by lesser creatures. The only consolation is that even failure adds to the vast reservoir of knowledge.
There was a disturbance last night. Arrived to discover the rear door to my laboratory was torn from its hinges. Its heavy wooden planks cleaved and splintered into kindling. Inside, my equipment and provisions suffered a similar fate. Nothing was spared. And everything bore the same deep, gouging slash of sharpened metal. Hours of examining and comparing the marks confirmed the truth—the subject had returned! I don’t know how, but there are a myriad of questions already forming in my mind. But first, a new laboratory must be secured before locating the beast and starting the next phase. What was the word the subject said before it collapsed? A name perhaps? I’ll start there, and see where the search leads me.
Camille

Clan Ferros understands sacrifice.
Most of the family’s wealth came through harvesting a rare crystal from the brackern, a creature native to Shurima. These hex-crystals—or “first crystals”—contained power normally only wielded by those born with innate magical ability. After Camille’s great-great aunt lost an arm during an early expedition, her sacrifice inspired the Ferros family motto: “For family, will I give.”
The brackern were a limited resource, and Camille's family had to augment the crystals they’d accumulated. Utilizing shadow investments in chemtech and runic alchemy, they developed less powerful, but easier to make, synthetic hex-crystals.
Yet there were consequences—synthetic crystal manufacturing has long been rumored to heavily contribute to the Zaun Gray. Furthermore, it was only through espionage, intimidation, and murder that Clan Ferros held its monopoly on this priceless commodity, and ensured its uninterrupted production in Zaun, maintaining the family’s place in Piltover’s illustrious Bluewind Court.
As the eldest surviving child of Clan Ferros’ masters, Camille received every educational advantage. She had exceptional tutors, learning to speak several foreign languages and play the cellovinna at a concert-master level. Camille also learned to read and write Ancient Shuriman while assisting her father on digs in the Odyn Valley.
Traditionally, one of the younger children would become their family's principal intelligencer, working with the clan master to secure their family’s success by any means necessary. However, Camille's younger brother, Stevan, had a weak constitution, and so Camille took his place. He jealously watched her embrace her additional training, and she became quite adept in combat, reconnaissance, and interrogation.
When Camille was twenty-five, augmented Zaunite thugs attacked her and her father, intent on stealing lucrative trade secrets. Camille’s father succumbed to his wounds, and in anguish, her mother died soon after. Stevan became clan master, and he doubled the clan’s research in human hextech augmentation, eager to prove himself as a strong leader.
After a year of mourning, Stevan oversaw the induction of Hakim Naderi—a promising young crystallographer from the Shuriman coastal city of Bel'zhun—as the family’s lead artificer.
Camille requested hextech augmentation from Hakim to push her beyond her human limitations. Hakim was instantly enamored with her, and they bonded over the preparations and late night stories of Shurima… and eventually, Camille returned Hakim's feelings. Their affair grew reckless, as they knew the surgery would conclude their time together. Hakim would move onto other projects, and Camille would once again be fully committed to the principal intelligencer’s duties. More than that, Hakim worried that in carving away Camille's heart, he might remove her humanity.
Days before Camille's operation, Hakim proposed marriage and begged her to run away with him. For the first time in her life, Camille was torn.
Stevan had no such conflict, as he needed Camille to execute his vision. When he learned of the secret proposal, he devised a plan—the next time Camille and Hakim were together, Stevan set himself up to be attacked. When she saw her brother bruised and bloodied, Camille recognized what could happen when her attention was divided.
Hakim pleaded with Camille, but she wouldn’t listen. For family, she would give. She ended her relationship with Hakim, insisting her surgery go forward.
He was the only one who could safely perform the operation, and so he excised Camille’s heart and replaced it with hextech—then resigned. When she awoke, the lab she and Hakim had shared was abandoned.
Camille focused on her work. She took on further refinements, including bladed legs, grapple-spindled hips, and other, minor hex-augmentations, leading some to wonder how much of the woman was left. And as Clan Ferros amassed more power and wealth, Camille’s missions became darker and more deadly.
Thanks to her hextech heart, she did not age—but the years were not so kind to her brother. Yet even as Stevan's body grew more frail, his iron grip on the clan remained.
Eventually, Camille uncovered the depth of Stevan's betrayal, and realized his machinations were no longer in the family’s best interests. In that moment, she discarded the last sentiment she felt toward her brother.
After installing her favorite grand-niece as clan master, Camille now runs the family's public affairs as well as its more shady operations. As a solver of… difficult problems, she embraces her more-than-human transformation and the cutting judgment it affords her—but a strange, mournful keening in her hextech heart may yet prove a troubling portent.
Regardless, Camille refuses to sit idle, and gains invigoration from well-executed industrial espionage, a fresh-brewed cup of tea, and long walks in the Gray.
Tea with the Gray Lady

The first sound I heard was the scrape of sharp metal against rock. My sight was blurred, my vision still swimming in murky darkness, but something in the back of my mind registered it, that knife-edge slide on wet stone. The rasp was the same as my mason when he marks out which rock to cut away from the cliff. It set my teeth on edge. The fog in my brain receded, but it left me with only one panicked thought as I strained at the ropes binding my hands:
I was a dead man.
In front of me, there was a grunt and a heavy wooden creak. If I squinted, I could make out the bulk of what I guessed was Gordon Ansel sitting across from me. So much for hired muscle. It looked like he was coming around as well.
“Oh good. You're both awake.” A woman's voice, refined, polished. “I was just about to put the tea on.”
I turned toward her. Half of my face felt fat and bruised. The corners of my mouth were stuck together. I tried to move my swollen jaw and a coppery taste pooled on my tongue. I should have been thankful I was still breathing. The air had a lingering chemical smell, like it would singe off your nose hair if you inhaled too deeply.
Just my luck. I was still in Zaun.
“One of you knows who is responsible for the explosion at the docks,” the woman continued. She had her back to us; a flickering bluish light illuminated her slim waist and inhumanly long legs. There was a faint slosh of water as she set a glass kettle above the near-invisible flame of a chem-burner.
“Go pound a sump, lady,” Ansel groaned.
Leave it to Ansel to make a bad situation worse.
“Baron Grime's men always have such a way with words.”
The woman turned to face us: It wasn't a lamp that lit her figure, but something within her that gave off an unsettling light. “You will tell me what I want to know as if your life depends on it.”
“I ain't saying nothing,” Ansel snarled.
Metal scraped the floor as she shifted her weight. She was deciding which of us to carve from the quarry first. The sound made no sense until she began walking toward Ansel, and then I understood. Her velvet shadow separated from the silhouette of the table. Mystifying blue light pulsed from her hips, leading my eye down her lithe form... to twin blades. She was a high-end chimeric, unlike any I'd seen in Piltover or Zaun.
“Do not insult my courtesy, Mr. Ansel. Others have. They are dead now.”
“You think them legs of yours scare me?”
The woman stood in front of my thick-headed acquaintance. I could hear the water in the kettle start to boil. I blinked and there was a flash of silver and blue. The rope that bound Ansel's hands fell to the floor.
A hoarse laugh escaped my bodyguard. “You missed, darling.” Our captor seemed to be waiting patiently. Ansel leaned forward a few inches, an arrogant smirk plastered across his weather-beaten face.
“You can lick my—”
The woman spun around. This time, the razor-sharp blade of her leg sliced cleanly through Ansel's neck.
The severed head rolled to a stop in front of me just as the kettle whistle blew. Ansel always had a big mouth. Now it lolled open, silenced at last.
I kept telling myself Ansel was dead, but his eyes still stared at me in horrified surprise. The fear in my brain climbed down my spine, stopping to throttle my gut until I was convinced whatever was left inside was going to end up on the floor.
“Now, Mr. Turek, we are going to have a cup of tea, and you will tell me what I wish to know,” she said, her words unhurried.
The woman sat down at her table and smiled. A whisper of steam escaped as she poured the boiling water into her porcelain teapot. She looked at me with an imperious pity, like I was a schoolboy too slow at his figures. It was that smile that I couldn't look away from. Deadly. Knowing. It scared the piss out of me.
“Tea?” I nearly choked on the word.
“Oh, my boy,” she said. “There is always time for tea.”
Sion

Over a century past, the brutal warlord Sion rose to prominence, slaughtering all who dared stand in his way. Greatly feared by friend and foe alike, he was the last of a proud warrior culture that had been part of Noxus since its founding. Sion had sworn oaths to his ancestors to never take a backward step in battle, and to die a proud warrior’s death when his time came.
While not noted for his subtlety or strategic acumen, Sion’s methods were ruthlessly effective, and he won many vicious triumphs for Noxus. The empire’s might was at a peak not seen for hundreds of years, and so it took the generals of high command by surprise when a nation from the west first resisted, then began pushing back their steady advance. These Demacians drove the Noxian warbands eastward, harrying them back behind the walls of Hvardis. Sion, who had been campaigning in the Argent Mountains, now turned south, filled with fury.
He arrived at the city to find the Demacians on the horizon. They had no intention of besieging Hvardis—having driven the Noxians from the lands neighboring their own, they were preparing to return home. Sion readied his troops, determined to punish these upstarts for their impudence. The Noxian commander at Hvardis, however, had already suffered several defeats to the enemy, and was content to hide behind the city walls and let them leave unscathed.
It had been Sion and his warriors who had paid the claim to the land now lost in blood; outraged, he hurled the commander from the city walls, and ordered the attack.
Sion tore straight through the Demacian lines, seeking out their leader—King Jarvan the First. But while his own warband charged with him, fearless of death, those who had been cowering in Hvardis were weak. Their spirit broke, and they retreated back to the city, leaving Sion and his trusted few surrounded. One by one, they fell, but Sion ploughed on.
Alone, pierced by a dozen swords and a score of crossbow bolts, he finally reached Jarvan. The fight was brutal, and it was the Demacian who delivered the killing blow. Sion dropped his axe and, with a final burst of strength, tore the king’s crown from his head with one hand, clamping the other around his throat. Jarvan’s guards stabbed Sion again and again, but his grip did not loosen.
Only when the enemy king was slain did Sion allow death to claim him.
His body was recovered—along with the Demacian king’s crown, still in his grip—and borne back to the Immortal Bastion in honor. Noxus mourned Sion’s passing, and his corpse was interred within a towering monument constructed to honor him for all time.
Half a century passed before Sion’s tomb was reopened.
Noxian dominance had waned in the years since Sion’s death, and the ruling Grand General of the empire, Boram Darkwill, was willing to pay almost any price to restore its lost glory. Darkwill’s allies, a mysterious cabal known as the Black Rose, reanimated the long-dead hero using forbidden magics, and presented him to the Grand General.
He could not refuse this gift, and so Sion returned to life, driven by unnatural bloodlust and utterly inured to pain.
He hurled himself like a living battering ram against the enemies of Noxus, destroying all he faced. More so than before his death, the victories Sion brought were costly. He was uncontrollable, killing friend and foe without remorse, and those forced to fight alongside him began to desert. Finally, Darkwill ordered Sion reinterred.
Hundreds of warriors died trying to restrain him before he was finally bound in chains and dragged back to the Immortal Bastion. Without slaughter, the blood magic that sustained him quickly engulfed his mind in an all-consuming rage. His roars finally fell silent as he was sealed in beneath his giant statue.
There he languished for many years, neither alive nor truly dead. When his tomb opened once more, it was to a very different empire. Darkwill was gone, overthrown by the general Jericho Swain—but Sion cared little, roaring and pulling against his bindings in a frenzy that could only be sated in battle.
Chained within an iron cage, he returned to Hvardis, which had broken away from Noxian rule under Darkwill’s reign; Sion was the new Grand General’s punishment for their rebellion.
He butchered the defenders of Hvardis and leveled the city, laughing as he ripped its towers apart with his bare hands. Other regions that had abandoned Noxus soon bent the knee, fearing the undead juggernaut would be unleashed upon them next.
When harsh daylight floods his opening tomb, Sion now welcomes it… for with it comes the chance to shed his chains and sate his hunger for bloodshed, to briefly silence the screaming madness drowning out all thought of rest.
Sion remembers only fragments of his life, and less of the times since, but one truth has remained as stark as on the day of his death—now, as then, the world trembles before him.
In the Mind of Madness

BLOOD.

SMELL IT.

WANT. ACHING. NEED!

CLOSE NOW. THEY COME.

NO CHAINS? FREE! KILL!

IN REACH. YES! DIE! DIE!

Gone. Too quick. No fight. More. I want... more.

A voice? Unfamiliar. I see him. The Grand General. My general.

He leads. I follow. Marching. To where? I should know. I can't remember.

It all bleeds together. Does it matter? Noxus conquers. The rest? Trivial. So long... since I've tasted victory.

The war wagon rocks. Rattles. A cramped cage. Pointless ceremony. The waiting. Maddening. Faster, dogs!

There. Banners. Demacians and their walls. Cowards. Their gates will shatter. Thoughts of the massacre come easily.

Who gave the order to halt? The underlings don't answer. No familiar faces. If I do not remember, neither will history.

The cage is opened. Finally! No more waiting. WE CHARGE!

Slings and arrows? The weapons of children! Their walls will not save them!

I can taste their fear. They shrink at every blow as their barricades splinter. SOON!

Noxian drums. Demacian screams. Glory isn't accolades; glory is hot blood on your hands! This is life!

A thousand shattered corpses lie at my feet, and Demacian homes burn all around me. It's over too quickly! Just one more...

The men stare. There's fear in their eyes. If they're afraid to look upon victory, I should pluck those craven eyes out. There is no fear in the Grand General's eyes, only approval. He is pleased with this conquest.

Walking the field with the Grand General, surveying the carnage, I ache for another foe. He is hobbled, a leg wound from the battle? If it pains him, he does not show it. A true Noxian. I do not like his pet, though; it picks over the dead, having earned nothing. His war hounds were more fitting company.

Demacia will be within our grasp soon. I can feel it. I am ready to march. The Grand General insists that I rest. How can I rest when my enemies still live?

Why do we mill about? The waiting eats at me. I'm left to my own devices. The bird watches. It's unsettling. Were it anyone else's, I would crush it.

Fatigue sets in. I've never felt so... tired.

Boram? Is that you? What are you whispering?

Where am I?

Captured? Kenneled like some dog. How?

There was... the battle, the razing of the fortress, the quiet of the aftermath. Were we ambushed? I can't remember.

I was wounded. I can feel the ragged gash... but no pain. They thought me dead. Now, I am their prize. Fate is laughing. I will not be caged! They will regret sparing me.

Demacian worms! They parrot kind words, but they are ruthless all the same. This place is a dank pit. They bring no food. There is no torture. They do not make a show of me. I am left to rot.

I remember my finest hour. I held a king by his throat and felt the final beat of his heart through my tightening grasp. I don't remember letting go. Is this your vengeance, Jarvan?

I hear the triumphal march. Boots on stone. Faint, through the dungeon walls. The cadence of Noxian drums. I shall be free. Demacian blood will run in the streets!

No one came. I heard no struggle. No retreat. Did I imagine it?

There is no aching in this stump. I barely noticed the iron boot. It's caked in rust.

When did I lose my leg?

I still smell the blood. Battle. It brings comfort.

The hunger gnaws. I have not slept. Time crawls. So tired.

How long?

So dark. This pit. I remember. Grand General. His whispering. What was it?

Not who I think.

Fading. Mustn't forget.

Message. Cut. Remember.

''SION – Beware ravens.''

FREE ME!

BLOOD.
Sisterhood of War Part I: Old Wounds

Ian St. Martin

“Is anything you just heard unclear to you?”
Tifalenji knelt in darkness. She did not raise her head to the voice addressing her, because the voice was part of that darkness. It filled the chamber, swelling warm and sickly sweet, with a scent like rotting flowers. Such a thing was not particularly remarkable to one whose life was sworn to the weft and wane of runes—even a smith as young as Tifalenji did not question what surrounded her, now.
She knew when to accept that something was beyond her understanding.
“All is clear,” she answered.
“Excellent.”
The darkness rasped, as though drawing in breath. “Your mistress spoke highly of you. Resourceful,” it spoke the word in another voice, the voice of Tifalenji’s teacher, “and those who are resourceful can be of great use.”
Tifalenji swallowed. She felt the air displace, the temperature rise as though the chamber were now filled with people. Daring to look out the corner of her eye, she saw the hems of robed figures lining the walls, ringing her and the source of the voice.
“Watch the moon.” Suddenly there was a pulse of light, reflecting cold and silver against the floor. “See its course, how it turns.”
Her mind raced, considering what lay ahead, the moments available to her spilling away one by one, like grains of sand from an hourglass.
“Remember your task above all else.” A hand extended from the dark, cupping Tifalenji’s chin. “What we have entrusted you to find, to return to us, cannot be replaced.” The hand lifted Tifalenji’s head, and she looked up into a perfect reflection of her own face, grinning with another person’s smile.
“You, however, can be.”
Erath was a son of Noxus. From the first generation of his tribe to be born into the empire, his training had begun the day he took his first steps.
Fortitude. Discipline. Resolve.
He was raised among shepherds, tending flocks and beasts of burden, keeping them well until the time for harvest came. He learned to kill, quickly and cleanly, with the small knife he had been taught to never let leave his side. It was a lesson that would do him credit when the day came that Noxus would call upon him to serve.
He had been taught to kill his enemies, his empire’s enemies, but never to hate them. Because an enemy of the empire was never more than a ceremony away from being a wayward brother or sister, brought forth with honor and purpose into the arms of Noxus to stand beside Erath in the line. To make him stronger.
Kill them until they’re family, his father had once told him, when he showed Erath the dull purple trails of his old campaign scars. Erath had never hated his enemies, but here, looking around at the scope of what surrounded him, without even knowing who their enemy was, he pitied them.
The streets quaked with an endless procession, tens of thousands of soldiers passing down the boulevards and avenues of the Immortal Bastion. A dozen tongues overlapped in the primal shouted rhythm of battle chants, marching calls, and war song. The full unbridled might of the Noxian host was on display, with blades and the hands that wielded them from across the breadth of the empire. Tribal war parties sauntered down the roads, clad in skins and ceremonial dress, followed by tightly regimented cohorts of troops encased in blackened iron plate, and a contingent of brightly uniformed naval soldiers from Shurima.
And more after them, and on, and on.
Countless peoples, but a single empire. The spectacle, the sheer demonstration of strength, stilled Erath’s heart to see it.
Erath’s own tribe was in the midst of disembarking from the riverboat that had ferried them from the plains of Dalamor down south to the capital. He and his comrades had marveled over their oars at the sight of the Immortal Bastion, the towering central monolith of ancient stone visible two days out from their arrival. He looked up from watching his chieftain Yhavi squabble with a gaggle of quartermasters to behold it again, now within the boundaries of the city proper. The sun was trapped behind the trio of enormous towers at the center of the Bastion, locked away like a shining jewel.
The thought of their unknown enemy returned to Erath’s mind, and he smiled. What could stand before this?
Donnis, one of the spearmen, nudged Erath from his thoughts, nodding toward their chieftain who was beckoning Erath over. He quickly moved to stand before Yhavi, who had just been handed a ream of vellum inked with their orders.
“We move soon,” Yhavi began, speaking in their tribal tongue as he looked over their mandate.
“Have they said where the fighting will be, yet?” asked Erath, letting his excitement get the better of him.
“No,” Yhavi frowned, squinting at the Noxian script before looking at the boy. “But it won’t matter to you. You won’t be coming with us.”
“I don’t understand,” Erath adopted his chieftain’s frown. “I’m to be your blade squire.” Erath had won the honor in a blood trial before the tribe departed home. It was Erath’s right to bear Yhavi’s wargear on the battle train, to hone and oil his relic blade on the eve of battle, to arm his chieftain and bind his wounds, and should calamity pass, to see to Yhavi’s body if he fell. If not Erath, then who?
“You shall be a blade squire indeed,” said Yhavi. “Just not mine. You have been seconded elsewhere.” He sensed the confusion in Erath, and his tone hardened. “For Noxus.”
Erath straightened, pushing the questions from his thoughts, his features neutral and firm as he thudded a fist against his chest in salute. “For the empire.”
Yhavi returned the salute, and dipped his head in approval. “We all shall answer when called, blades sharp, minds ready.”
With a deep breath, Erath put his disappointment out of his mind. “I am ready.”
Yhavi’s grim facade cracked, and he offered the boy a warm grin. “I know you are, Erath. He would see you this day and feel pride, I know it.” Erath glanced down for a moment, and Yhavi handed him a small scroll, sealed and tightly rolled. “Proceed to the ninth gate of the Bastion, across the canal just ahead of us. The legionaries will stop you. Show them this.”
Even a mention of the Trifarian Legion made Erath stand straighter. He studied the scroll, brightly bleached paper compared to the rough vellum of his brethren’s mandate. He had never seen paper before. It felt delicate in his fingers.
“It seems fate has its own course for you to walk, enhasyi,” Yhavi favored Erath with the tribal expression for a warrior poised to make his mark on the warpath. He laid a scarred paw of a hand on Erath’s shoulder, before sending him on his way. “Walk it well.”
Erath navigated the bustling throng of a city readying itself for war. For a boy raised in a lonely shepherd’s village, the scale of everything was astounding. Towering monuments and buildings of stone, iron, and glass loomed over streets worn smooth by armies marching to the next campaign. Erath moved along the current of humanity, barely able to lift his arms within the crowd. He had never considered there could be so many peoples, so many languages. It was nearly overwhelming, but he kept his mind to his duty.
Few from the tribe were learned in Noxian, but Erath knew a passable amount of Va-Noxian, the unified spoken tongue, and a paltry understanding of the empire’s formal written language. He knew enough to guess at the signs and engravings to guide him along toward the ninth gate, just up ahead, where he was to report to his new commander.
Shouldering the sackcloth pack holding his kit, Erath reached into his jerkin, passing over the bone pendant he wore around his neck. He laid a reassuring hand on the pendant for a moment before touching his orders, inscribed on the tightly rolled sheet of bleached paper. The value of the tiny thing made his mind race as to who his new leader would be, and how important their mission. He was so lost in thought he didn’t notice falling under a pair of towering shadows cast over the courtyard of the gate.
“Khosis g’vyar!”
A sharp crash of iron froze Erath in place. He looked up from the ground, finding himself staring down the gleaming edges of twin halberds, each longer than he was tall and leveled at his heart. Wielding the spears were monsters of blackened iron plate, capes the hue of fresh blood billowing from their shoulders, glowering down at him from the impassive masks of spiked war helms.
Erath’s breath caught in his throat. Trifarian Legionaries. He noticed then that the gates weren’t barred. These two, of the Noxian warrior elite, they were the bars.
The challenge repeated, thundering from one of the legionaries, somehow deepened and projected to an inhuman degree by his mask. The words were unfamiliar, thick with a strange dialect.
Was it Va-Noxian? Erath squinted, remembering what he had learned. The warrior tilted his head, clearing his throat with a sound like rubble dislodging.
“Where go, little blade?” the legionary rumbled again, in more clipped tones.
Erath exhaled like a drowning man finally reaching the water’s surface, able to understand the words. Still his tongue defied him, thick and still behind teeth he desperately fought to keep from chattering. Slowly, he reached into his jerkin, wincing as he saw the legionaries tense, and produced the scroll.
The warriors exchanged a glance, and one of them, the one who had spoken, shouldered his halberd. He advanced on Erath with heavy, pounding bootsteps, stopping just a pace away from the boy. Erath looked up, barely reaching the man’s chest, and held out his orders.
The legionary plucked the scroll from Erath’s grasp, the paper looking ridiculous in his thick, gauntleted fingers. With a quick squeeze he crushed the seal in his fist, and the scroll unspooled in a small shower of broken bits of red wax. After studying it for a moment, the legionary spun on his heel and hammered the butt of his halberd three times against the polished stone floor, the boom of each impact ringing from the dark archway of the gate.
Within seconds, Erath heard the soft, echoing slaps of sandaled feet approaching. A robed figure emerged from the darkness of the gate, her features hidden in the shadow of a red cowl. She stopped before the legionary, completely unfazed by his menacing, armored bulk, and took the scroll from him.
“You will follow me,” she said to Erath without sparing him a glance, turning and setting off across the courtyard. Erath hurried after her, looking back over his shoulder to watch the legionary plod back to his place beside his fellow guard.
Erath followed the robed woman as they crossed over another canal and wound deeper into the bustling city. They kept to side streets, avoiding the larger boulevards packed with troop movements and hemmed by rows of barrack tents arrayed on either side.
Before long, Erath began to pick up strong scents on the air. Straw, cut grass, dung, smells that were familiar to any shepherd or beast herder. He heard the low baying of animals, some he recognized, many he did not.
The narrow alley they were walking ended, opening up into a wide open square filled with people tending animals. Massive pack beasts grazed on confined plots. Men and women checked pens of sheep and counted chickens in their coops. It seemed to Erath as though the area had served some other purpose, maybe as a park or public garden, but now had been requisitioned and was being used as part of the greater mobilization.
The comfort of familiarity washed over Erath, setting his mind at ease as they stopped before a tent at the periphery of the square. The robed woman returned the scroll to Erath and pulled the flap aside, gesturing for him to enter and disappearing as soon as he had.
Inside the tent the air was cold, and thick with the spicy tang of incense that made Erath’s eyes water. He wrinkled his nose as he stood at the entrance, squinting to try to study the interior. The only light came from a kneeling figure at the center of the tent, her arms weaving a strand of glowing green runes around a sword that hung suspended in the air above her.
Erath watched the magic, entranced by the elegant dance of the runes as they burned themselves into the blade of the sword and vanished one by one. He remembered watching the shamans of his tribe as a child, when they turned the air into fire for their rituals. He avoided staring directly at the symbols, as even out of the corner of his eye they made his teeth itch. The woman turned her head slightly as the last rune winked out, catching her blade as it fell and rising to her feet.
“Reporting for duty,” Erath snapped to attention and saluted. He extended the scroll to her. “My orders.”
The woman ignored him, moving as though in a trance to set her blade on an arming rack. She lit a lantern at the center of the tent, bathing them both in soft, amber light. She was tall, her dusky skin speaking of a home far from the chill northern reaches Erath hailed from. He saw the same green light from the runes flicker once in her eyes, as she glanced at him.
“Literate?”
Erath hesitated. Her Va-Noxian had a lilting, mellifluous accent, far different from the curt and guttural voices he had heard so far in the capital. The woman’s eyes narrowed.
“You are literate?” she asked again. She looked either fatigued or bored, and Erath couldn’t tell which.
Erath nodded. “I know some of the written word, mistress.”
“Did you read this?” she asked, holding up the scroll Erath realized was no longer in his hand.
“No, mistress,” Erath shook his head.
“Good,” she said sharply, tucking the roll of paper into her sleeve. “I am Tifalenji, and from this moment, my word is law to you. Read, think, and do what I say, when I say, and much unpleasantness will be avoided between us. Do you understand?”
Erath saluted again. “Yes, mistress.”
“Once we are clear of the capital, there will be no more saluting.” Tifalenji took up a ledger from a table, thumbing through its contents.
“May I ask a question, mistress?”
She looked up. “Do not make a habit of it.”
“How may I serve?” Erath asked. “What are to be my duties?”
Tifalenji snapped the ledger shut. “I needed someone versed in the care and upkeep of beasts, young and of hearty enough stock. You are from the plains of Dalamor, yes?”
“Yes, mistress,” he fought to keep anger from his voice. He had nearly had to kill his cousin to win his blood trial and become his chieftain’s second, and now he was back to tending beasts? “I was a shepherd there.”
She offered him a thin smile, and Erath could swear he could hear something snarling behind him, just within earshot. “The creatures under your care here may be more… exotic.”
The flap of the tent was thrown open in a snap of whipping canvas. Erath turned, his hand immediately on the grip of his knife.
“I wouldn’t,” said Tifalenji, as Erath discovered the source of the snarling.
Four drakehounds lined the entrance to the tent, sleek beasts of taut rippling muscle, bony carapace, and razor-sharp claws. Erath was told stories as a boy of when the tribes of the plains were brought into the Empire, that the chief of chiefs had been honored with a single drakehound pup, a gift worth more than three wagons of silver. He had never seen one up close, let alone a whole pack of them.
A woman in gleaming war-plate stood behind them, glowering from behind an armored mask. Her hair was a stunning, crimson red, bound at the top of her head and flowing like a crest down her back. The hounds parted as she stepped forward into the tent, a pair to either side.
“Arrel,” Tifalenji inclined her head. “You made good time, tracker.”
Erath beheld Arrel, still unable to imagine someone owning four drakehounds. “Are you of the nobility, mistress?”
Arrel flicked her eyes to Erath, as gray and cold as her armor, then back to Tifalenji.
“Our blade squire,” said Tifalenji to Arrel before looking at Erath. “We don’t send the nobility to Tokogol.”
“The western frontier,” said Erath. “How did you find Tokogol, mistress?”
“Cold,” Arrel grumbled. Her voice was low, her accent severe.
“I see,” Erath nodded. “And your journey here?”
“Long,” Arrel glanced back at Tifalenji. “Does it always talk this much?”
Erath started. “Have I displeased you, mistress?”
“Fourth,” Arrel called. One of the drakehounds snapped forward from Arrel’s side, placing itself between her and Erath. Barely restrained violence radiated from the beast’s muscled frame. Thin strands of saliva descended from its bony mask, pebbled with froth from a growling throat.
“If you had displeased me, blade squire,” said Arrel, “this hound would have made it known to you. And I am not your mistress.”
“Forgiveness,” Erath took a slow step back. “How would you have me address you, then?”
“Unless necessary, I would have that you not.” She tensed, as though speaking this much had made her throat sore. She flicked her wrist, signaling an end to the discussion.
“There is a quartermaster outside gathering our supplies,” said Tifalenji, handing Erath a requisitions order. “Go and find him.”
Erath exhaled, walking carefully around Arrel and her hounds to exit the tent. He heard Arrel ask a question as he left, the same one he still asked himself.
“Why am I here, runesmith?”
“Never seen a basilisk before, eh, boy?”
Erath barely heard the quartermaster, his attention consumed by the great, lumbering beast before him. A giant saurian, the basilisk’s green flesh was hard as iron, and bulging with bands of dense muscle from its tree-trunk limbs to its long, thick tail. It looked to Erath as though it could crush a man into a paste without ever realizing it had done so.
“What are you used to tending?” the quartermaster asked.
“Sheep,” Erath answered.
“Ah, don’t you fret,” the quartermaster clapped Erath on the back. “Just think of him like a big sheep, then. He’s still a baby so you’ll be fine with ’im. Time hasn’t made ’im mean, yet.”
“This,” Erath looked at the man, “is a baby?”
The quartermaster chuckled. “We use the bigguns to break down castle walls, son.”
Erath glanced at the requisitions order the runesmith had given him. Mercifully it was written in plain terms, mostly numbers, and the quartermaster had helped with anything he couldn’t understand. The basilisk would be carrying the better part of an entire campsite on its back, but it looked like they were carrying much more equipment than would be needed for three people, even with Arrel’s drakehounds.
“Everything in order?” Tifalenji appeared behind Erath. He noticed she was fully armored now, with her rune-etched sword on her back and a canvas rucksack at her feet.
“We’re getting him squared away,” replied the quartermaster. “Most everything but the waterskins are loaded, we’ll be takin’ care of that next and you’ll be on your way.”
“Good,” said the runesmith, checking the height of the sun. “We’ll link with the caravans leaving out the south entrance. We need to be on the road and clear of the city before sunfall.”
“The road?” Erath asked. Ever since he arrived at the capital, Erath had watched the armies and warbands of Noxus, including his own tribe, march to embark on great troop ships at the docks. “We won’t be traveling with the others across the sea?”
The runesmith shook her head. “No, we aren’t finished on the mainland, yet. There’s still someone we need to find first.”
They left the organized chaos of the capital behind. The towering silhouette of the Immortal Bastion lingered on the horizon as Erath, Arrel, and Tifalenji joined a massive procession of troops moving east across the southern steppe of Noxus. Like a gargantuan snake of red banners and dark iron they marched, traversing flat plains that reminded Erath of his home, back in Dalamor.
“There’s just too many of us,” a grizzled line sergeant had told Erath, waiting in the ration line as they camped one night. “The capital’s docks are huge and they could run them day and night—and they are—and it still wouldn’t be enough for the full mobilization.”
“That’s why we are going east?” Erath asked.
The sergeant grunted, smiling at his beaten tin cup as it was filled with stew and a hunk of hard brown bread. “While the rest of them get to share a damp boat’s innards with some rats for company, we get to stretch our legs a bit before we split off to berths across the coast.”
“And then where?” Erath nodded his thanks to the cook as he received his own portion. “Where are all of us going?”
“Nobody’s told you?” the line sergeant scoffed. “We’re going to Ionia, boy.”
Erath stumbled to a halt, his food nearly falling from numb fingers. He felt for his chest, finding the lump of the pendant he wore. Ionia.
“You’re holding up the line,” the sergeant frowned at him.
“The last time…” Erath said quietly. “The war. The empire, they levied half the men of my tribe to go fight.” He looked up at the sergeant. “None of them came back.”
“Sounds like you’re gonna get a chance to get some blood back.” The sergeant pulled the collar of his tunic down, revealing a wicked red scar that branched like lightning across his entire chest. “Magic. A lot of us got scores to settle over there, kid, and we’ve been patient. Now it’s time to collect.”
Erath offered the sergeant a thin smile he didn’t feel, and wandered back to his billet, suddenly not feeling hungry anymore.
The march continued on, brisk and uneventful. As the days went on, more segments of the battle train branched off, heading to ports they were assigned to deploy from. Erath continued to feel isolated from his companions, the runesmith Tifalenji aloof and Arrel hostile, so he focused instead on what he had been seconded from his tribe to do, and cared for the party’s hulking basilisk.
Despite the creature’s immense size and strength, the quartermaster back in the capital had been right. Erath found him docile and receptive to his care, something he hoped with time would extend to Arrel’s drakehounds, though he didn’t hang too much hope on that. The pack practically orbited the armored Noxian at all times, totally obedient to their alpha.
Erath had taken to calling the basilisk Talz, the name of his old herding dog when he had been a boy. The lumbering saurian responded to his new name as Erath led him to graze and kept him in line with the convoy.
A week into their journey, the runesmith gathered the party, announcing that while the main body was continuing east, they would be taking their own path down a southern branch.
“We make for the Bloodcliffs,” said Tifalenji, as Erath watched the convoy slowly shrink in the distance, still an unbroken column of Noxian warriors marching to the coast.
“What’s there?” he asked.
“Not what,” answered the runesmith, “but who.”
Erath nodded, remembering Tifalenji had mentioned someone else before. He looked back at the extra supplies loaded onto Talz’s back. “Who is it?”
“A haughty k’naad,” scoffed Arrel, pouring water from a flask into her palm to allow her hounds to drink. First’s ears perked up at the word, which Erath didn’t know but could guess as to its meaning. Arrel sneered at Tifalenji. “We are wasting our time, we don’t need her.”
“I’ll be the reckoner of that,” the runesmith replied flatly. She glanced at Erath, and sighed through her teeth. “Her name is Marit, blade squire.”
“Marit’s quite keen on reminding anyone within earshot that she was of the nobility before the revolution,” grumbled Arrel. “They stripped her family of their estate and power, though she hardly seems to realize that from talking to her.”
Arrel scanned the landscape. “She went on and on about these wondrous lands her family held.” She shook her head. “What a shithole.”
“She is an elite soldier,” countered Tifalenji. “Experienced and battle-tested. She will be an asset, and that is the end of this conversation.”
The road to the Bloodcliffs cut through arid plains and low, sunbaked hills. The heat was a new experience for Erath, far from the fog-blanketed chill of Dalamor. He took care to ration what water they had as they traveled beneath the glaring sun in a cloudless, blisteringly blue sky.
Arrel paused, and Erath patted Talz’s flank to bring him to a halt as he watched the tracker. She knelt, pressing a palm to the earth. “Something’s close.”
From atop Talz’s back, the runesmith drew a spyglass from her belt, extending the brass tube and looking through it. “Riders ahead,” she confirmed. “And they aren’t Noxian.”
Erath looked, seeing two tiny figures as they crested the top of a hill. He was just able to make out that they were on horseback. His pulse quickened, and his hand fell to the leather-wound haft of the short falchion at his hip. After so long on the road, day after day of monotony, the prospect of a skirmish was refreshingly welcome.
“Second, Third,” Arrel called, and the two drakehounds leapt forward.
“Wait,” said Tifalenji, now looking behind them. “There’s more.”
Erath turned, seeing more figures appear behind them, and then to either side. He barely heard the sharp note of a horn, as they descended the hills toward them.
“Raiders,” Tifalenji drew the runesword on her back. “Form a circle, now.”
The ground began to shake, soft at first but steadily climbing to thunder as the horsemen charged. Erath turned to Talz, trying to find some means to root him to the ground in case the basilisk panicked, and recoiled as Tifalenji struck him across the head.
“Focus!” she hissed.
Erath forgot Talz, pulling his falchion and gripping it tightly. He distanced himself from Arrel and the runesmith, trying to cover his third of the tiny perimeter they made. The raiders were in full view now, lightly armored with billowing cloaks and teal banners streaming from the tips of barbed lances.
The Noxians braced for the charge. Emerald fire lit the runes along Tifalenji’s blade. Arrel’s hounds howled.
At the last second, the horses peeled to either side, sprinting in a circle around them. The dust kicked up by their iron-shod hooves grew into a thick, whirling curtain, rising to cut them off from the world. Erath could just barely make out the silhouettes whipping around them.
The air whistled and Erath leapt to one side as a lance embedded itself where he’d just been standing. He heard Arrel bark a command and one of her hounds leapt into the dust. Tifalenji began chanting, the words hurting Erath’s ears as worms of green light shivered across her blade.
“Say-RAH-dech!” she roared, slashing with her blade and sending a wave of jade lightning through the wall.
Erath couldn’t tell if she hit anything. If Arrel’s hound was still alive. Everything was chaos. Noise. A keening wail split the air. The cyclone caging them shuddered. Erath heard something rip, and leapt back as a jet of dark blood burst from the wall of dust, coating his face and chest with hot crimson.
He stood there. Help them, you idiot.
The dust began to settle, and Erath summoned his courage. He focused on a shadow directly ahead of him and charged with falchion raised and the death cry of his tribe on his lips. He sprinted through the stinging grit, and as he opened his eyes he found what stood before him was no horse.
Whatever it was, its rider had a glaive at his throat in an instant.
“Now, now,” came a voice, smooth and cultured. “My dear steed feasted well today but she may yet have room for more.”
The speartip lifted Erath’s jaw, and he followed it up to the speaker. She was a tall, thin woman, her face hidden behind a mask of iron and black leather. A Noxian banner hung from her glaive, while a second tattered standard Erath didn’t recognize was gathered around her shoulders like a cloak.
She rode confidently upon a lithe, bipedal creature, all sleek muscle and lashing tail, somewhere between a lizard and a bird. Its vicious visage bared its blood-stained fangs in challenge. The dust had cleared now, revealing the dead raiders around them in various states of dismemberment.
Erath felt the penetrating gaze from behind the mask, studying him. Her eyes narrowed in amusement as she dipped her glaive to a dead raider, cutting his banner free with a flick of her wrist. Only then did he see the others dangling from her mount as Tifalenji and Arrel approached.
“Arrel, you icy k’naad!” the Noxian exclaimed, striding out confidently to meet the party. “Where did they dig you out of? Last I heard you were hunting bounties in that wretched stink-pit Zaun.” She shivered theatrically. “Like missing teeth, that city. Hideous!”
“Marit,” Arrel said flatly. Erath glanced at the tracker. Even for Arrel, the greeting seemed cold, and he saw something different in the steel grey of her eyes.
“And who are your friends here?” Marit regarded Erath and Tifalenji. “I find it hard to believe you would just happen to be passing through.”
“Hail,” said Tifalenji, dipping her head in greeting. “Your instincts are true enough. We come in the empire’s service. Our mandate.”
The runesmith handed Marit a scroll. The masked woman unfurled it, her dark eyes flicking up to regard Tifalenji several times as she read it.
“Under penalty of death,” Marit read dramatically, before handing the scroll back to Tifalenji. “Well this all seems to be in order. When do we leave?”
“Now,” answered Tifalenji.
“Fair enough,” Marit eyed Erath. “manservant, eh?”
He hesitated. “Uh, I’m a blade squi—”
“You may address me as ‘my lady,’ manservant,” Marit gestured to her mount. “And this is my glorious steed, the Lady Henrietta Eliza Vaspaysian IV of Orogonthis.” She looked at Erath, narrowing her eyes. “But you do appear quite stupid, so I suppose just Henrietta will suffice.”
Henrietta swung her long, muscled neck in Erath’s direction, breathing out a chittering hiss through her gleaming fangs.
“What does she eat?” asked Erath.
“People who get on my nerves,” said Marit as she turned away toward her pavilion. “Tend to her ends, little man, and speak when spoken to.”
Erath opened his mouth to reply, but Henrietta hissed again, and he bit down on his anger.
Together they worked quickly, striking Marit’s camp and loading it onto Talz. The basilisk bore the weight easily, as though he didn’t even notice the added burden. Erath was beginning to understand how a fully grown one could level fortifications.
“Is everything ready to move?” asked the runesmith.
Erath nodded, and she signaled for them to move. Marit leapt up into a polished leather saddle on Henrietta’s back, binding the Noxian banner to her glaive and the second standard around her neck like a cloak.
“Come on then, Talz!” Erath called, urging the basilisk from where it drank and munched on the soft grasses of the watering ground.
Marit cocked her head to one side. “Wait, he named our pack animal?”
“He did,” said Arrel.
Marit scoffed. “Well, I suppose we can use the idiot’s tears to season the meat when we have to eat it on the trail.”
“Those riders,” said Tifalenji, nodding in the direction where she had watched them vanish over the horizon.
“Yes?” Marit leaned down from her saddle. “What about them?”
“Aren’t you concerned they’ll simply go back to raiding in your absence?”
Marit waved her hand. “Nonsense. These are my ancestral lands. If they choose to be good stewards of them then fine, and if they don’t, I’ll just kill them all when I return. Worry gives you frown-lines.”
A few days’ ride took them from the Bloodcliffs. The runesmith kept their pace brisk, having the party sleep in shifts along the trail and only stopping when absolutely necessary. Erath saw her each night, either on the road or at camp, sitting apart from the others with her eyes intent upon the moon.
They skirted east across the base of low mountains before arriving at their port of call at the Drakkengate, at the first light of dawn. Erath found the docks there to be just as bustling as any other, mired in the same organized chaos of armed mobilization that seemed to be taking place over the entire eastern coast of Noxus. Thousands of warriors, and the countless armorers, cooks, builders, menders, priests, and forge-smiths that attended to them, filed into the holds of great troop ships, ready to unfurl immense crimson sails and dip their oars for the voyage across the sea.
Erath set about hunting down supplies as soon as they arrived. While the ships were already provisioned for soldiers and more common animals for the crossing, their party had accumulated a variety of exotic creatures he was now responsible for. Luckily for Erath, the mandate the runesmith carried granted them swift passage through the congested queues and overruled any of the more obstinate quartermasters. Before midday, they were ready to board.
“There,” Tifalenji pointed toward the docks. “That is our ship. The Atoniad.”
Erath’s eyes fell upon the vessel. The Atoniad was a troop carrier of unmistakably Noxian design, from its strong lines and dark iron plating to the tightly bound red sails, eager to be unleashed and carry the ship forward onto the waves. The largest boat he had ever embarked upon was the river skiff that had borne his tribe to the Immortal Bastion, and comparing that to the Atoniad was like comparing a toothpick to a battle axe.
Lines of men and women were already boarding, filing up gangplanks, while other wider ramps admitted animals and pallets of tools, stone, and lumber.
“I don’t see many soldiers,” said Erath.
“We’ll be traveling with mostly laborers and stonemasons,” said Tifalenji. “The Atoniad is bound for Fae’lor, not the main islands.”
“Fae’lor?” Erath glanced at the runesmith. “We go to the great fortress, then?”
“What’s left of it,” muttered Arrel.
Word had reached as far as Dalamor of the tragedy at Fae’lor. Erath had gathered with the tribe around a fire as the shamans relayed how a cowardly band of Ionians had assaulted the Noxian fortress there. In their desperation, they had unleashed magic that was beyond their power to control, wrecking horrific damage to the defenses, there.
A fortnight later, the tribe had received the call to carry their spears to the capital.
All of their spears.
“We embark,” said Tifalenji. She pointed to the wider access points. “Take the beasts and get them aboard, blade squire.”
Erath dipped his head, looking over at Arrel. “Shall I take the hounds as well?”
All four drakehounds glared at Erath. They somehow managed to snarl at him in the exact same pitch, at the exact same time. A chorus of angry jaws.
“They will remain with me,” Arrel snapped a finger and the pack fell silent.
Erath gathered up the reins for Talz. Marit handed over the reins to Henrietta, favoring her steed with a final caress down her jawline.
“Make sure the good lady has her own accommodations,” called Marit as Erath led the beasts toward the ship. “If you put anything else in with her, she’ll be alone soon enough.”
The open air was cold, and sharp with salt spray. Twelve other ships sailed beside the Atoniad in the squadron, their red sails full and taut with a generous wind that at least for now handled the duty of the oarsmen below decks. Gossip aboard amongst bored soldiers had spread the rumor that they had passed through pirate routes at some point the previous night, though few of them could imagine any corsair fool enough to try their luck against a dozen Imperial warships packed from bow to stern with war-edgy killers.
Erath turned from looking out across the squadron as Arrel approached, nearly saluting before remembering he had been told not to. Arrel ignored the awkwardness. She glanced down, noting how tightly the boy held on to the railing. “Your first passage?”
The blade squire nodded. “Three days at sea, and still another three, they say, until we get to Fae’lor.” He waved a hand at the endless span of churning grey waves stretching all the way to the horizon, broken only by the salt-shrouded shapes of the other warships. “I never thought there could be this much water.”
Arrel grunted, noncommittal.
“You were in the war before,” Erath said, uneasy with the subject. “Ionia, what is it like?”
Arrel did not answer him at once. The tracker stared out over the ocean, reaching down to scratch the sleek, leathery skin behind Second’s bony crestmask. She breathed slowly. “It is a place of beauty, and of death.”
“All of Ionia is just one giant jungle raptor with its head cut off,” Marit appeared from behind them, strutting forward to lounge against the railing. “We decapitated it last time, and now it’s just thrashing about, making a mess, too stupid to realize it’s already dead.”
“I’ve hunted raptors,” said Arrel. “And even headless they can still gut you.”
“So it is war, then?” asked Erath. “Another war with Ionia?”
Marit shrugged. “Damned if I know, but the Grand General sure shoved a lot of boots across the ocean just to rattle swords. Just hope he has enough backbone to let us finish what we start, this time.”
Arrel walked away, and Erath looked back at the fathomless expanse of gently crashing waves. “What is the name of this ocean?” he asked.
“Who cares what it’s called?” Marit leaned over Erath’s shoulder before she stalked off. “It’s ours.”
Erath had never been so grateful to see dry land.
The fortress of Fae’lor grew in size and definition on the horizon before them. The Atoniad had made speed in her voyage to the island, but Erath had discovered he was far from suited for a life on the seas. The heaving, rolling motion of their warship had stolen many meals from his stomach, offered to the ocean in the queasy tribute of abrupt sickness. Everything was soaked, coated in a crackling crust of salt that burned his skin.
He had kept below decks for the most part, ensuring that the creatures in his care endured the passage with as much comfort as he was able to offer. Talz seemed fine, eating regularly and spending the majority of the time in his pen, sleeping. Lady Henrietta, however, had required more diligent attention. A nimble and energetic beast, Marit’s steed was clearly unhappy with the confines of the ship. Erath took extra care during her feedings, to ensure he did not become the meal himself, and looked forward to getting Henrietta off the Atoniad where she could stretch her legs.
When the call for land had gone out from the scouts at the ship’s bow, Erath hurried above decks to see. The top deck was crowded with Noxians eager for their own view. At first it was little more than a smudge in the distance, faintly more defined than the hazy stripe where the water met the sky, but the closer they came, the more distinct it grew. Erath glimpsed what appeared to be banks of fog surrounding the island, tinted a ruddy brown that upon closer inspection became red.
Fae’lor was surrounded by Noxian ships.
There were concentric circles of vessels ringing the island, defense pickets that were constantly shifting. The Atoniad was halted by the outermost patrols, a pair of frigates that lashed themselves to the larger vessel with boarding hooks as squads of naval soldiers came aboard.
Erath noted their stern countenances as they inspected the troop ship, weapons in hand as they pored over the captain’s mandate and manifest. They scoured every deck, and the blade squire watched as a trio of robed blood mages studied every soldier onboard, softly chanting as they looked every man and woman in the eye.
“What are they looking for, mistress?” he asked Tifalenji.
“Signs of subterfuge,” replied the runesmith. “Deceptions. Wild magic.”
To Erath it all seemed strange. “But we are all Noxian soldiers, on an imperial ship. Does this not seem paranoid?”
“Patience, boy,” said Tifalenji. “When we dock at Fae’lor, you will understand.”
After they had been over every inch of the Atoniad, a contingent of the soldiery remained aboard while the others returned to their frigate, and the ship was cleared to advance to the next ring of the blockade. The inspections and checks repeated with each checkpoint, the guard detail rotating each time the Atoniad was stopped. Erath had been poked, prodded, and scrutinized so many times that when they finally had the harbor in sight, he questioned whether any of his own comrades trusted him, or anyone for that matter.
And then he got a better look at Fae’lor, and understood why.
The fortress had been gutted. He could make out only echoes of the great ramparts that had once stood at its heart, the formerly impregnable fortifications reduced to shattered remnants that rose from the ground like blackened, broken teeth. But the extent of the devastation went far beyond the walls and towers. The very land itself was broken open, torn apart and ripped out, bearing all the hallmarks of some incredible natural disaster.
The Atoniad drew up to her berth, and Noxians leapt to work both aboard and on the dock as soon as she came to a halt. Craftsmen rushed out to their assigned posts, while raw materials and supplies were offloaded and taken ashore. Erath went below decks, trying to put the shock of the island from his mind as he went about getting Talz and Henrietta off the Atoniad.
Standing out against the herds of livestock and more mundane pack animals, Erath led his beasts up a wide ramp leading from the ship’s hold. Waiting as those ahead of him were processed and allowed into Fae’lor, he stood transfixed as he watched crews descend over the wreckage of another warship like a swarm of furious ants.
Great winches and chains hauled the wreck up out of the water, a piece at a time. Teams scrambled down within, pulling out the pale, bloated shapes of the fallen in droves. She was more than twice the tonnage of the Atoniad, and her hull had been broken in two, like a stick over a man’s knee.
What kind of power could have possibly done such a thing?
Erath thought back to when he stood in the shadow of the Immortal Bastion. The certainty he felt there, seeing the empire marching to war, that there was nothing in creation that could possibly stand against them.
For the first time, seeing what had befallen Fae’lor with his own eyes, he felt doubt creep into his heart.
Finally he reached the end of the ramp, stepping from soaked wood onto cracked rock. The air was thick, humid, and dusty. It smelled of spice, things Erath couldn’t place as he realized, at long last, that he was there.
This was Ionia.
Erath lost track of how long he was standing there, or how the leather of Henrietta’s reins was sliding through his fingers. By the time he was aware of it, Marit’s mount was loping into the camp.
“Hey!” The blade squire started to pursue her, before looking back at Talz. “Stay,” he warned, drawing his knife and pinning the basilisk’s reins to the ground with it before sprinting after Henrietta.
“Whoa,” he called to the roving saurian as she stalked between a line of billet tents. She stopped, her long neck swiveling to regard Erath. Henrietta hissed at him through the gleaming metal of her chanfron, what Marit called “her jewelry.” Enclosing her face and skull, it was part protective helm, part weapon, accentuating her already vicious fangs with sharpened iron blades.
“Easy, my lady,” Erath coaxed, arms wide as he slowly closed the distance between them. “Easy, now.”
“Control that thing!” bellowed a voice from a group nearby. Both Henrietta and the blade squire shot them a hostile glare.
“She’s been cooped up on a ship for days,” Erath barked at the soldiers. He took advantage of Henrietta’s diverted attention and grabbed hold of her reins, wrapping the leather around his forearm. “She needs exercise, you want to be it? Then stay out of the way!”
Erath stared down the soldiers and watched them disperse, only registering after a time that the runesmith was calling for him. He went back to gather up Talz’s reins and guided his charges along, tugging the basilisk forward and holding Henrietta back as he headed toward where Tifalenji waited with Arrel and Marit. He saw new tension in the runesmith’s companions as he approached, a tightness in their postures that hadn’t been there before.
“Take your time,” Marit sneered, snatching Henrietta’s reins from Erath. Arrel squatted down, fingers brushing over the rubble strewn over the ground as her drakehounds orbited her.
“This was old magic,” muttered the tracker. “Something long-sleeping, now roused.”
“Where did you learn to sense magic?” Marit arced a skeptical eyebrow.
“Here,” Arrel answered, barely above a whisper.
“Oh joy,” replied Marit. She glanced at Tifalenji expectantly. “Well?”
“The last member of our expedition is here, at Fae’lor,” the runesmith replied. “We simply need to find her.”
“Just look for a dueling pit,” said Arrel. “She won’t be far from the scent of blood.”
Erath nodded, growing accustomed to gleaning what he could from inferences and cryptic words. “Does she have a beast that I am to care for as well?”
“Oh, manservant,” Marit shook her head. “Teneff? She is the beast.”
Arrel was right. While Fae’lor was in the midst of its reconstruction, it still remained a Noxian military camp. They followed the sound of ringing steel, sharper than the rhythm coming from the forges’ hammers, leading them to where the warriors on the island trained.
Past rows of billet tents were dug a series of shallow pits, each of them occupied by a pair of dueling soldiers. With blunted swords, wooden staves, or bare hands they sparred, but one in particular had attracted a crowd. The party had to muscle their way through the watching soldiers to catch a glimpse into the pit.
Two Noxians circled each other in full war-plate. One wielded a training sword and buckler, the other a heavy iron hook mounted on a length of chain. The soldiers watching cheered the pair as they measured distance and exchanged feints.
The swordsman sensed an opening. He lunged forward, flicking his buckler into his opponent’s face while slashing low with his sword. The other fighter leapt back, just shy of the blade, while throwing her hooked chain to ensnare the man’s shield arm. She whipped her arm down, wrenching the swordsman forward into a brutal headbutt. He dropped to the mire like a stone, blood spraying from a ruined nose.
“That’s first blood to me,” she crowed, and the onlookers erupted in cheers.
“That was dirty, Teneff,” the swordsman snarled, pawing blood from his mashed nose with a wicked laugh. “Let’s make it second blood. I’m not done with you yet.”
“First blood was the agreement,” Teneff repeated, with no compromise in her voice. “We need you in the line, Cestus.”
The swordsman barked out a swear and stood, trudging up out of the pit. Teneff wound her chain around her forearm, looking up to find Erath and the party staring down at her. Her eyes widened in confusion. “Marit? Arrel?”
Marit chuckled. “Still cracking skulls, eh, Ten?”
Teneff spat a gobbet of phlegm onto the ground. “Some of us never stopped,” she said with a grin, taking the hand Arrel offered her to pull her up out of the pit.
Erath backed out of her way as she climbed out. Teneff bore the hallmarks of a shield-breaker, a warrior of the line at home when her enemy was within arm’s reach. Scars crisscrossed any flesh not covered in leather and iron armor, tales of blood and honor etched into her over a lifetime of battle. He wondered how many of the scars she bore were earned here in Ionia.
“The last time I saw either of you,” said Teneff, “we were all—”
“Here,” said Marit. Quiet descended between the soldiers for a few moments. There was a bond between them, Erath could see that clearly. But there was a void there as well, something unspoken, or even missing. He had lived around soldiers long enough to know not to prod.
“Well,” said Teneff, breaking the silence. “If you’re all coming from Valoran, then you’ve been eating ship’s slop for days. Our cook’s no artist, but they’re a damn sight better than that. Come.”
The sun had begun to sink into the horizon, painting the sky in dappled bands of gold, orange, and scarlet, drifting down into indigo. They made their way through the mess tent and then found seats around a fire as the air started to chill. The women talked amongst themselves, of what they had done since last they served beside each other, and of the old wounds endured together. Erath remained silent, and listened.
“And you, boy,” said Teneff, her attention shifting to the blade squire. “You blooded? Fought your principal yet?”
Erath straightened. “I served my principal, yes.”
Her aspect became serious, analytical. “Where?”
“It was a border skirmish west of the Dalamor plains,” Erath answered. “A quick action, pretty light.” He looked to each of them, seeing that his answer had not been enough. This was not the ignorant voyeurism of the civilian, eager to satisfy some fanciful idea of what it was like to fight in a war they would never experience. These were veterans, warriors who may find themselves beside him in the line, needing to know what he had seen and how he had carried himself.
“It was a shallow expansion through a fertile valley,” he continued. “They were big boys, farming stock, but they were brought up to till the soil, not turn it red. Once we got within a rapid drumbeat, running charge, we closed, rolled up their right side double fast. Opened them up quite quickly.”
“Any of them left afterward,” asked Arrel, “to till that soil?”
Erath shook his head. “We tried. After their elders came around, we brought in others to help them take up the work. Harvest needed planting, no time to wait.”
Marit tilted her head. “And how many of those big farm boys did you make the soil red with, eh?”
“Leave it alone,” said Tifalenji.
“I was rearguard,” Erath shrugged. “By the time the lines rotated to me, they were already broken. We mostly just finished off those too wounded to save, and dug graves.”
The memory surfaced in Erath’s mind without asking. Trudging through the aftermath of a broken shield wall, feeling someone take hold of his ankle. Looking down, seeing a man who had taken a spear thrust to the belly, croaking at him in words he didn’t know, but a message he understood clear enough.
Putting his speartip to the man’s throat. The man tilting his head back to accept it.
“When was this?” asked Teneff.
“This past spring,” Erath answered.
“An infant!” exclaimed Marit.
“I said leave it alone,” the runesmith growled. “He’s here to tend beasts, nothing more.”
Marit chuckled, her eyes narrowed in amusement. Teneff eyed Tifalenji. “What of you then, rune-shaper? Where have you served?”
“Far from here,” she answered, and the odd light in her eyes convinced Erath that was as much as they would hear of her experiences.
Sleep was a glorious thing to a soldier. Any span of uninterrupted rest was precious, rivaling a full belly or a pair of well-made boots to a fighting man or woman. Erath had tried to adjust to the endless rolling and pitching of the Atoniad, but sleep had only come to him in fits and starts. Back on solid ground, with his cloak laid out on a flat, dry patch near the animal pens and his duties done, the blade squire rested his head against his pack and savored the prospect of sleeping through the next handful of hours before the early morning feedings came.
It felt as though he had no more than blinked before he heard the voice, sharp and cold as the edge of the knife he felt against his neck.
“Do as I say, in silence, or I will cut your throat.”
Erath opened his eyes. Dawn’s light was still hours away, the moon a thin silver sickle overhead as he was jerked to his feet. His knife had been taken. They walked, Erath careful to keep his movements slow and hands in view as he was led to the edge of the camp.
A huddle of figures stood ahead. He heard the low snarling of hounds as they approached, the silhouettes materializing into Arrel and Marit with the kneeling figure of the runesmith between them.
“What are you doing in Ionia, boy?” demanded the voice as Erath was shoved to his knees beside Tifalenji. He was alert enough to recognize the voice behind him as Teneff’s.
“I—”
“He knows nothing,” said Tifalenji calmly. Teneff lifted the knife from Erath’s throat and rounded upon the runesmith.
“And what do we know about you, eh?” Teneff looked to her fellow veterans. “Documents can be forged, mandates concocted.”
“My mandate is quite genuine,” said Tifalenji, her calm eerie to Erath, “as is the power you are flirting with opposing.”
Marit tilted her head. “Does the boy even know who you say you’re hunting? Who you would have us hunt?”
“He knows what has been necessary for him to know, and nothing more.”
“Then perhaps it’s time he knew,” Teneff looked down at Erath. “You seek a ghost. A warrior who died in honor as a hero to Noxus. Our comrade.” She gestured to Arrel and Marit. “Our sister!”
“She lives,” said the runesmith.
“Lies!” Teneff hissed. “Tell me why I should believe a word from your mouth and not kill you right here?”
“Because the powers to which I answer do not make those mistakes. If they say she lives, then she lives. You all served alongside her in service of the empire. Now the empire commands that we find her, and bring her back to them. My authority supersedes that of the garrisons here, they do not know of our task, nor shall they.”
“What proof do you have of any of this?” demanded Marit.
“Her blade,” Tifalenji sighed. The women stiffened.
“What of it?” hissed Teneff.
“Did you know she tried to destroy it?” asked the runesmith. She drew in a deep breath, and her eyes pulsed emerald. “She failed, and the magic that infused it cried out at the desecration. My masters heard it, and they saw who was responsible, as clearly as if they were standing in the room with her. That is how we know.”
“If she yet lives,” said Teneff, “then she is a deserter, the very crime you now ask us all to commit. The punishment for which is death.”
Tifalenji met Teneff’s withering gaze. “Succeed in this task, aid me in hunting her down and return her for judgment in Noxus, and no censure will befall you. Look into yourselves, all that you sacrificed in this place, and tell me that her treason does not wound you. Tell me you would turn your backs on seeing justice done, and the wayward answer for the life she has led these past years.”
A dark silence hung over the gathering. Tension radiated from Teneff, Marit, and Arrel, the threat of violence balanced on a knife’s edge. Erath fought his nerves, the simmering rage of secrets and the idea he may die here, on Fae’lor, with no inkling at all as to why.
“We will go with you.”
All eyes fell on Arrel, her first words since Erath had been brought to them. Marit rounded on the tracker. “You speak for all of us, now?”
“I do,” Arrel said flatly. She cleared her throat, the effort sounding almost pained to Erath. “Because we are soldiers, all of us. And a soldier does their duty. But more than that, she was a sister to us. And sisters deserve answers.”
Marit glared at Arrel, her dark eyes slits of intensity, but she relented. “Answers,” she repeated.
Teneff gritted her teeth, looking to the other veterans who gave her solemn nods. She hauled the runesmith to her feet by her collar, but did not release her. “At the first inkling that what you have told us here are lies, witch, I will take your head.”
“I speak only the truth,” answered Tifalenji. “And more now that we can tarry no longer than we already have. We must cross into the heart of the First Lands, and we must do so now.”
Tifalenji looked to Erath now for the first time. “What I have said to them bears the same truth to you, blade squire. Go with us along this path, attend and serve, and you will be rewarded.”
“I am a loyal warrior of Noxus,” Erath proclaimed. “I do my duty, and need not shadowy promises or the threat of a slit throat to do it. The empire bids I serve you, so I do. I only ask one question.”
Tifalenji regarded Erath soberly. “Ask it.”
“Who is it?” asked Erath. “Who are we hunting?”
The runesmith drew her sword. “She may call herself something different now, some adoptive name for her new life in the First Lands.”
The runes Erath had watched her etch along the blade leapt from the iron into the sky, like a trail leading off into the dark mystic land that loomed ahead of them.
“But in Noxus, her name was Riven.”
Sisterhood of War Part II: The Unquiet Dead

Ian St. Martin

She cannot breathe.
Her eyes are open, but there is nothing but a heavy, suffocating blackness. It crushes down on her. Her breath smothering. She draws in a slow, rasping breath. It fills her nose with the scents of blood and offal, a slaughterhouse stink. There is something else too, something thin, caustic, and sharp, coiling its way toward her lungs.
The weight around her shifts. She hears something heavy tumble away, the muffled sound of lifeless limbs slapping into mud. The darkness wanes in patches, giving texture to her prison. Bloodied rags. Shattered plate. Cold, abused flesh.
Bodies. She is buried under bodies.
The urge to fight, to escape and survive, rises all-consuming. Adrenaline rushes through exhausted veins. She struggles, wrenching from side to side to force a cavity between herself and the mass. She sees a hairline crack, the faintest trickle of light spilling in. Hope feeds her frenzy. She scratches and claws. Eyesight blurring, rasping breath as she tears the gap wider.
Her hand punches free. Cold air floods in, gulping it into her lungs, but that toxic, bitter something comes with it again. She gags as it coats her tongue, spilling down her throat. She pushes out an arm, beginning to haul herself out.
Her head and arm are free. Gasping for breath but her lungs are twin lanterns ablaze. She can see the ground churned to mire, patches of it burning azure and silver, strewn with the dead. A felled tree’s trunk reaches out for its lost branches, the leaves screaming in tongues. The battle is over.
She glimpses shapes wandering through pale, boiling fog. Creatures gather in the aftermath, wicked birds and gaunt dogs. The dead are carrion now. The vanquished, food.
There is a body just ahead of her, the one she had heard fall away from atop the mound. A boy sprawled out on the ground, his armor broken open, the protection it once offered him gone.
A dog feeds. The boy shudders like a marionette from the roving muzzle. She tries to shout, to drive the beast away, but razors line her throat. The fog covers everything in its acrid and corrosive touch. The boy’s head lolls to the side, the eyes meeting hers glazed over and lifeless.
Then he blinks.
Arrel sat up, placing her hands against the ground to stop her head from spinning. The smell of wet earth and grass asserted themselves over the blood and sour air of the dream. Rainwater trickled down through gaps in the tent over her head.
She looked to her side and found Second sitting there, watching Arrel intently with her helm in his jaws. She stared at the drakehound for a moment, blinking away the afterimages of a starving beast’s maw lined with gore. She gestured, and he padded closer, releasing the helmet into her hands as the flap to the tent was pulled open a fraction.
“Mistress,” came a familiar voice from outside. “It’s time.”
Arrel replaced the helm, taking a slow, rasping breath and ignoring the pain it stitched down into her lungs before standing up. The damp fabric of her bedroll squelched beneath her feet as she stooped to leave her tent and stepped out into the rain. First trailed behind the tracker, joining the other three of the pack that waited outside as they followed obediently in her wake.
Erath stepped back from the tent, eyeing Arrel carefully. Hers had not been a silent sleep, and they had been getting worse since they had left Fae’lor.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Strike the tent,” the tracker replied. Arrel looked out across a small clearing in the wooded hills they had chosen to make camp, shrouded in a gentle rain that glittered and shone with every color of the rainbow. Some of the drops struck the ground as rain should, others winked in the air like tiny stars, dissolving in a mote of light with the soft chime of a distant bell.
She hated Ionia, and it pursued Arrel even into her dreams. She could swear, grasping back at the images, that Riven’s body was among the dead. It would have been so much simpler, if that were true.
Arrel looked back over her shoulder at Erath. “Has she kept the scent?”
The blade squire nodded once. “The runesmith’s blade still sings to her.”
“Then I’ll range ahead,” said Arrel, already walking.
“No need,” said Erath. “Teneff and I found a village up nearby, we aim to stop there for supplies.”
Arrel grunted, fists clenching as she came to a halt. “We ought to avoid them. We are not welcome here.”
“Our provisions are growing scarce,” said Erath. “Teneff and I will go alone. She thinks Marit, Henrietta, and your hounds will attract attention we don’t desire. We shall return quickly and then be on our path again.”
After a few moments, Arrel gave a nod.
Erath did not know the name of the village. Like so much of Ionia, he simply assumed it would be something unknowably poetic, like a secret whispered between friends he could neither hear nor understand.
He had thought the rain would make it easier to conceal themselves. The group of them had discarded as much Noxian gear as possible when they left Fae’lor, to avoid notice of both the locals and the empire as they conducted their mission, but they were still strangers in a strange land. As he followed Teneff down the muddy thoroughfare of the village, Erath felt every pair of eyes on him, dissuading him of any pretense of camouflage.
“Stay close to me,” said Teneff, her gruff tones affecting a calm Erath attempted to adopt, though he didn’t feel it. Both of them were armed, but that was not unusual for anyone in Navori. Though Erath was beginning to come to the realization that not every weapon was one that he could see.
“Hold on,” whispered Teneff, and the pair faded back to lean against the wall of a tea house. There was a scuffle developing ahead, a handful of warriors edged in red surrounding an Ionian elder. A small crowd of onlookers was gathering.
“What are they doing here?” said Erath, his eyes locked to the Noxian soldiers.
“We have an outpost not far to the south,” said Teneff quietly. “This might just be a patrol, or a reprisal sweep if we got hit in the night by a Brotherhood raid.”
The pair moved closer, skirting around the periphery of the people who were watching the confrontation. Erath tugged his hood down further over his head, his fingers brushing against the bone pendant around his neck, then down to check the short blade at his belt. They stopped once they came close enough for the shouting to become words.
“I come from festival,” the old man was trying to explain, his lips fighting to pronounce the Va-Noxian. “In Weh’le.”
“Weh’le,” repeated the lead soldier. “That’s pretty far.” He eyed a paper-wrapped bundle the old man held.
“T-tea.” The Ionian clutched the parcel to his chest protectively. “This tea, this blossom tea.”
The soldier’s eyes narrowed. “All the way to Weh’le and back, for tea?”
“I’ve heard of that festival,” remarked another of the Noxians. “It’s their death feast.”
“Celebrating war heroes?” The lead Noxian took a step closer to the man. “Reminisce a little, dig up some old hurts—people can get crazy ideas in their heads doing that.”
“Like setting fire to a stockade last night,” offered another soldier.
“Nothing like that,” said the Ionian. Suddenly the packet he carried glimmered with a faint blue light. The Noxians sprang into combat postures, leveling their blades at the Ionian.
“That is magic,” barked the lead soldier. “That is a weapon!”
“No! This, this,” the old man struggled to find the words. “Ezari! Ezari, my… son. My wife, too old to go. I bring back for her, to see him.”
“More lies,” snarled a Noxian.
“Yeah, yeah, just like before,” another soldier hissed, her eyes glazed over with the scars of a hateful memory. “You all make nice, wait ’til our backs are turned before you whisper some curse and then boom! Boyod bursts into flame, Iddy’s legs gone, my friend Kron’s heart turned to salt in his chest! That’s what you do!”
“This is getting ugly,” murmured Erath. “What should we do?”
“Nothing,” answered Teneff, still brutally calm. “Not our fight.”
“Surrender the weapon,” snarled the lead Noxian, the haft of his axe creaking in his grip.
“Is no weapon,” the elder pleaded. He looked to the crowd, but their eyes were fixed on the blades carried by a dozen Noxian soldiers, and they did nothing to help him.
“You heard him,” barked another soldier. She advanced, snatching at the parcel. The two struggled over it, and Erath heard the sound of paper tearing.
The Ionian cried out, wordless anguish spilling from his lips as the tea scattered across the ground. He tried to save a measure of it, but the rain was already sweeping it from him.
“Ezari…” croaked the old man as he sank to his knees, watching the tea disintegrate into the mud. Every raindrop that struck the powdered leaves elicited a pulse of radiant blue, each successive one growing fainter and fainter until it finally washed away.
“Try something,” said the lead soldier to the crowd as the Noxians joined ranks and began to edge their way back. “Please. I’ll burn all this to ashes.”
“Xiir!” the Ionian shrieked, his face turned up into the rain. “Xiir!”
Erath felt a hand grip his shoulder.
“We are leaving,” said Teneff, not taking her eyes from the soldiers as they marched the opposite way.
“Do you see those Ionians?” said Erath. “Our comrades won’t make it out of this town alive.”
“Not our fight,” Teneff said again. “You can sympathize for them on an empty stomach, blade squire. Now we’ll have to make due on the trail.”
“That word he was screaming,” said Erath, looking back over his shoulder as he followed after Teneff. “What does it mean?”
“Xiir,” Teneff repeated. “It is a curse that they use for those of us that come from ‘the Captive Lands’. It means locust.”
Tifalenji was waiting for them just outside of the village. The runesmith’s sword was drawn, and faint traceries of emerald light ghosted across the surface of the blade.
“What was all that?” she asked.
“Our outpost near here got hit last night,” said Teneff. “Probably the Navori Brotherhood. Looks like the warleader there sent out troops to track down leads, or just cause trouble for the locals.”
The runesmith absorbed her words for a moment. “Were you seen?”
“No,” Teneff replied. “And from reading the town, it didn’t seem wise to linger and seek out barter.”
“There speaks wisdom,” Tifalenji nodded. “Let us be off then.”
Erath accepted the reins for Talz, the group’s hulking basilisk, from the runesmith. Patting the side of the creature, he glimpsed Arrel and her drakehounds. The tracker looked haggard to him, but he had learned better than to pry.
“Where is Marit?” asked Teneff.
“She said that waiting for you all was boring, so she rode ahead,” said Tifalenji.
For a while they walked in silence, trudging through the ankle-deep mud and shimmering rain. Erath thought back to the village and the sequence of events that had unfolded. The anger, hatred, and fear he had seen on the faces of the Noxian soldiers. His hand strayed to the bone pendant around his neck.
“Teneff?”
The veteran looked back at him. “What’s on your mind?”
“It’s just, those villagers, all the Ionians. How can we convince them to join the empire like that?”
Teneff’s aspect darkened. She stopped, allowing Erath to catch up to her. “Do not judge your fellow Noxians, boy, until you have endured what they have endured, and seen what they have seen.”
Erath looked at Teneff.
“Each of them came here to bring the promise of the empire to those who they would call brethren,” she continued, “just as we did across Valoran, and in Shurima. This land is… different. It lays a great challenge upon the soul of every soldier in service to Noxus. We all strive to enlighten these people, to draw them to us and enrich us all by doing so, but it is not always a simple thing. Ionia is very much not a simple thing.”
“So much is different here,” Erath agreed. “Do Ionians really turn into flowers when they die?”
Tifalenji grunted. “A spirit blossom. The souls of the dead inhabit them, and when they bloom they call out to the living, if what I have been told is true.”
“That holds with what I know,” said Teneff.
“Is it only Ionians who inhabit the blossoms?” Erath asked Teneff.
“I know not, why?”
Erath reached under his jerkin, and took his pendant off. “During the war, all the fighters in our tribe came here. For years we heard nothing, until one day a woman came with this.” He held out the sliver of bone in his hands, lifting it up to show Teneff. “This is all that she said is left of my father. I wonder, could he be in one of the blossoms? Is his spirit still here, and could I find him?”
“Even if there were,” Tifalenji interjected, “we have no time for such fancies. I need you focused now. Remember why you are here, blade squire. The purpose each of us is bound to carry out. Put all else from your mind.”
Erath lowered his head. Unlike Tifalenji and the huntresses, his own purpose here felt elusive, a hard thing to balance against something as absolute as desertion. He dragged a thumb over the surface of the pendant. “Yes, mistress.”
Teneff looked back over her shoulder. “If your father died here, then he died a hero for Noxus. That is all that matters.”
Erath nodded, slowly slipping the cord and the pendant back around his neck.
Does the rain here ever stop?
Erath hauled one foot out of the mud, fighting to keep the mire from sucking the boot off him and only partially succeeding. Bouncing on one foot, he reached down to tug his boot up, shivering and at complete odds with the world surrounding him.
The shimmering color of the rainfall made everything like a dream in a wavering, queasy way. He heard creatures make calls from the branches of trees the color of summer sunsets, sounds that didn’t seem like they could come from an animal. Maybe it was the trees themselves that were calling, as their leaves waxed and waned from orange to indigo.
It was all so unreal.
The only thing that felt truly real to Erath at that moment was the grumbling of an empty stomach. He wished they had managed to barter with the villagers before the soldiers had rendered their chance impossible. The whole scene had sat wrong with him, scattering his mind with jagged, uncomfortable thoughts. Is that how war was fought here? Was that how his father had fought it?
Erath’s boots struck hard ground, and he breathed out a moment’s relief at the prospect of being free of the mud. He stretched the muscles in his arms as he led Talz forward across the stretch of pale stone ahead of them.
As he walked, Erath took notice of the ground, seeing subtle shapes and lines that were somehow familiar to him. There was something intentional about the rock beneath his feet. An artfulness, even. His eyes grew wide.
They were walking across a pair of cupped hands rendered from stone, half buried in the earth. Much of them was hidden beneath the surface, but the palms alone were wide enough to span a courtyard. Erath wondered about the size of the person they would be connected to, and where they might have come from.
“I would like to know how anyone could make such a thing,” said Erath.
“I’m rather more keen to know who could have destroyed it,” replied Tifalenji, her face stern as her gaze drifted over the scars and fissures where immense fingers had once been. “Or what.”
“Hold,” Arrel warned, a low guttural chorus of snarls issuing from her hounds.
She pointed.
There was something lying in the center of the hands. It was a small shape, mewling softly in the rain. Erath pawed water from his eyes, squinting as he went nearer to it. Every time he blinked it was a different color.
“Careful,” said the runesmith. Her eyes were on their surroundings, wary as she slowly drew her sword in a low rasp of steel.
Curiosity pulled Erath forward. The creature was small, a little less than the length of his falchion’s blade. He glimpsed both feathers and scales, short coiling fronds that grasped feebly at the air and raised nubs that might one day sprout what appeared to be wings. The blade squire knelt, finding himself saying the same phrase he had repeated again and again ever since he had first set foot in Ionia.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” murmured Erath. He reached toward the creature. “Hey, little one. You hungry?”
“No, no, no,” breathed Teneff, her eyes darting to and fro like the runesmith’s. “No, no, no.”
Erath blinked. “But, what if it’s hurt? This is just a baby.”
“Exactly,” Teneff agreed. Erath heard the links of her chain unravel from her arm. “Where do you think the mother is, then?”
Something detached from the trees beside them. The already chilly air grew colder. Erath’s breath caught in his throat as a massive form revealed itself, and the rain began to fall upward.
Like the tiny, helpless thing they had found it was part bird, part beast, and part sea creature. Grown to its full size, though, every facet was heightened to a fully monstrous extent. The baby’s grasping fronds were, on the “mother”, tentacles thick as a man’s arm, the subtle bumps razored talons. Half its form seemed to ripple in and out of solidity, as though it existed only partially in the same reality that Erath did.
A deafening shriek slashed out from the forest of teeth and eyes that could have counted as the thing’s face. Erath cried out in pain, clamping his hands over his ears. The creature beat the rows of multicolored wings upon its back, buffeting Erath away from its progeny.
“Back!” Teneff roared, not to the creature but to Erath. “Keep Talz safe!”
Erath’s falchion was drawn but he did as she said, watching as Teneff spun her chain until it blurred into a blackened spiked arc. Arrel had ghosted behind the thing, her hounds slavering as they waited for her to unleash them. Tifalenji was chanting an uncanny litany that drew blood from her nose as her blade shuddered with emerald light.
The beast screamed again, and was attacked from three sides.
Arrel made a sharp series of hand gestures, and her hounds leapt upon the creature. Fangs and claws tore into its rippling hide. It writhed, twisting and undulating as it fought to shake them loose. The pack was hurled to the ground, but Third came away with a wing in his jaws.
“Fr-ah deh-AHK!” Tifalenji bellowed, her blade trailing a constellation of burning jade as she swung. A pair of tentacles came free in a welter of incandescent blue blood, blurring into smears of dirty light before vanishing with a snap of air pressure. The oozing stumps twitched for a moment before sprouting, each appendage lost replaced by three new ones that formed like the branching limbs of a tree.
Teneff charged. The beast wailed, lashing at her advance and raking the heavy pauldron on her left shoulder with its talons. She dipped her head behind the armor plating as a shower of sparks danced over her. She let loose her chain in a whirl of snapping links and it crashed against its flesh, but was quickly overwhelmed by slithering tentacles. The serpentine appendages pulled, seeking to yank Teneff off her feet, but she dug in her heels and held fast. She spun the short blade in her other hand, driving it into the creature’s flank again and again until the stone became slick with gore.
The beast beat its wings, sending Teneff flying back. Her chain, still embedded in the creature’s side, snapped taut, wrenching her shoulder at an unnatural angle. With a bellow of pain she released her hold on its barbed links, hurtling backward to crash against the stone.
Erath sprang toward Teneff, but was warded off by her outstretched hand. She glared back at him, her face a mask of blood from a gash across her forehead. Tifalenji launched herself at the monster, another incantation flowing from her lips, but she was smashed from the air by a clutch of tentacles.
Every fiber of Erath’s being screamed at him to move, to do something. He shot Talz a glance, and set his jaw. It was time to pull his weight.
Scrambling up the side of the basilisk, Erath took a tight hold of the reins and drove his heels into Talz’s flanks. The beast lumbered forward with a throaty grunt. Erath rode forward, placing himself between the creature and Teneff. A tentacle flicked at his face and he brought up his falchion in a blur of steel, slicing it away.
Blood pounded in Erath’s ears as he deflected another slashing limb, making ready to charge. He pushed forward, slicing into a swarm of tentacles assailing him.
“Stay clear of my manservant, beast!” came a voice from behind the creature.
The sleek, agile silhouette of Lady Henrietta appeared from between the trees. The reptilian steed dashed forward, eager to coat her jewelry in a fresh kill. Seated upon her back, the masked figure of Marit laughed in equal eagerness, the blade of her glaive singing as it cut the air.
With another piercing shriek the creature whirled around to face Marit in a disjointed, boneless spin.
“Yes, that’s the spirit!” She flung out her glaive until she gripped the very end of it. She leaned back, spinning the spear in a wide arc before swinging it in closer. The blade slashed upward alongside the beast, shearing away an entire shoal of tentacles and two wings. The creature recoiled, and Marit hopped up to stand in a crouch on Henrietta’s saddle. Using her weapon for balance, she leapt up into the air before landing on the monster’s back.
Clutching at a tentacle with her free hand, Marit scrambled up atop the beast as it bucked and rolled in a frenzied attempt to dislodge her. With a battle cry she plunged the tip of her glaive down into the base of the monster’s skull, and answered the steaming jets of glowing blood that splashed her with a sharp twist. The creature’s ear-splitting hiss was cut abruptly short as its limbs went slack and it toppled heavily to the ground. The rain fell normally again.
The Noxians collected themselves, joining together in a loose circle around the dead creature. Erath climbed down from Talz’s back, still wary of sheathing his blade as he imagined the beast rising once more.
Marit ripped her glaive loose with a grunt muffled by her leather mask. “I believe I am beginning to grow a touch weary of being your personal savior, runesmith.”
“That creature,” said Tifalenji. “It came from the other realm.”
“Indeed?” Marit raised an eyebrow. “Well, whatever part of it that is in this realm is dead.”
The runesmith looked up at the rider. “When all this is finished, I shall craft you a weapon as savage as your spirit.”
Marit matched her gaze. “I may just hold you to that.”
“Well met, Marit,” Teneff dipped her head.
“Yes,” Erath nodded hastily. “Thank you.”
Arrel said nothing.
“Of course,” Marit’s eyes smiled, and she gave a theatrical bow. “I’ll be damned if I have to endure any more of this adventure without the hired help.” She glanced back at the monster’s corpse. “Do you think this thing is good eating, or bursting with some ghastly poison?”
“You want to try it?” scoffed Arrel. “Be our guest. Only fair as it is your kill, after all.”
“I see,” Marit tilted her head. “What about the little one?”
The Noxians all turned their attention to the smaller creature. Raising its head, the tiny monster trilled. It shivered for a moment before bursting into a cloud of snowflakes, which each then became a sound, and then nothing.
Erath stared at the now empty space, releasing a breath slowly through his nose. “Someone tell me again, why do we want this place?”
“The veil is thin here,” said Tifalenji, cuffing the trickle of blood from her upper lip as she sheathed her sword. “This land teems with the bizarre. Ignore it.”
“This land is nothing but bizarre,” Erath muttered.
Marit stepped gingerly onto the skull of the dead creature, snapping her fingers to draw Henrietta close. Sinking her glaive into the earth, she pushed down on the end of the haft, using it like a vault to swing herself over onto the saddle once more.
“How long have you been up in that saddle, eh?” teased Teneff. “Why don’t you give Lady Henrietta a rest?”
Marit scoffed. “I’m not touching Ionia any more than is absolutely necessary, thank you.”
“Sounds like an awful long time to hold one’s piss,” Teneff grinned.
“Hmm, well I’ve some jars stashed away here somewhere, if you’re in need of a fresh batch?” Marit began to rummage through her saddle pouches. Erath’s shoulders shook as he stifled a laugh.
“Can we not?” asked Tifalenji, looking at both women in exasperation.
Teneff shook her head. “You are no fun, runesmith.”
“No fun at all,” echoed Marit. She looked to Erath, eyes narrowing into slits of cruel slyness.
“Now, manservant, I don’t completely hate you yet, so whilst we are on the subject, a word of warning as you care for Lady Henrietta. Her urine is highly acidic, so no matter how desperate and overcome with thirst you might find yourself on our travels, you must look elsewhere, understand?”
“Why?” Erath chuckled. “Is that what happened to your face?”
Marit visibly tensed. Her eyes flashed wide for an instant, fingers digging into the haft of her glaive. “No,” she said coldly, winding Henrietta’s reins around her free hand and riding off without another word.
The color drained from Erath’s face. “I—”
“Let it be,” Teneff shook her head. “Just bide back a distance from her for a while.”
Erath’s heart sank as he dragged himself back to Talz. After all this time, he had felt the faintest idea of being part of the group, of belonging. Now he felt it spill out between his fingers, like the elder Ionian’s tea.
He had been so close, and he ruined it.
The next week’s trek had been calm, or at least as calm as the wilds of Ionia could be to an outsider. The rains had ceased, and Erath savored marching over dry land for a change. The absence of bone-deep cold and the other miseries brought to a soldier by mud allowed him to truly see the natural splendour of Ionia in all its wondrous, breathtaking glory.
Everything was in subtle motion, from the dancing of the birds to the gentle sway of the multicolored trees. Even the chase between the predator and its prey, glimpsed for only an instant at a time in the spaces between the trees, unfolded in a sort of graceful harmony. It was as though they were all moving in concert to some silent melody that was just beyond Erath’s ability to experience, a wider world he inhabited, but couldn’t see.
They had been proceeding along the course of an immense river ever since they made landfall on Navori, never straying out of sight from its banks for too long. Not only had it served as a source of food and fresh water, but as a guide deeper into the interior, as the huntresses followed the eerie song that radiated from Tifalenji’s blade.
“Night soon,” said Teneff, glancing over at the runesmith.
Tifalenji’s eyes darted up at the swollen silver crescent of the moon, barely visible in the reddening sky. Erath thought he saw a moment of frustration flash across her features, before they become impassive and unreadable once more. “We’ll stop here, then.” She looked at Erath. “Make camp.”
“Second,” murmured Arrel. The hound presented himself. “Find Marit, bring her back.”
Second chuffed and turned, sprinting away into the deepening dusk. Marit had ridden ahead of the group since the incident after killing the creature, the thought sending a twist of regret in Erath’s gut.
“I’ll go get some wood for a fire,” said Erath, drawing a hatchet from where it hung off Talz’s back.
“Take care in how you do,” warned Teneff. “The trees here are alive.”
Erath frowned. “Aren’t all trees alive?”
“She means they’ll-kill-you alive,” said Arrel.
Erath’s frown deepened.
Night had fully descended, wrapping the world in a blanket of twinkling black velvet, by the time Erath had collected enough firewood. After the battle against the creature, he had opted to collect scattered branches from the ground rather than chop a fresh one loose and risk awakening some vicious animus within the tree that would seek one of his limbs to balance the scales.
He returned to the campsite and made a fire. Once he was satisfied the embers were growing into a healthy flame, he slung a cooking pot and weighted net over his shoulder and made for the river. After checking how light their provision sacks had become, he hoped to return to camp with a fish.
The minutes stretched by as he crouched on the river bank, staring into its glassy black surface. His pulse quickened as he saw motion in the water, and he flung out the net, cinching it tight and hauling it back onto land. The net wriggled and leapt with a captive carp.
Breathing out a sigh of relieved triumph, Erath filled the pot with clear river water and dropped the carp inside.
He walked back to camp, his step much lighter than when he had set off as he thanked the fish for its devoted service to the Noxian empire.
“It’s ready,” said Erath as he portioned the soup out in each warrior’s tin cup. He was careful to drag the ladle across the bottom of the pot every time. When he had handed out the last cup he poured what was left for himself, and took a seat near the fire.
For a while no one spoke, each of them content to enjoy the comforts of a hot meal and the crackling warmth of the fire. Erath was no exception, happy to fill his belly and give rest to sore feet and tired muscles.
For that brief span of time, nothing else mattered.
Each of the Noxians did their best to attempt some relaxation. Arrel was surrounded by her hounds, carefully inspecting their claws and teeth. Tifalenji had walked a short distance away, sitting cross legged beneath the light of the moon as she chanted and wrapped her levitating blade in magic. Teneff had taken out a battered pipe, slowly breathing out quivering rings of blue-grey smoke that crackled in the firelight.
“You still use that thing, Ten?” Marit looked down from where she lounged atop Lady Henrietta’s back. “You do know that stuff will kill you.”
Teneff shook her head. “This won’t be what kills me. Besides, I’m not allowing myself to die until this business is done.”
Erath felt everyone’s thoughts coalesce, and cleared his throat. Teneff looked at him.
“This person we’ve been sent to find,” said Erath.
“Riven,” said Arrel softly.
“You all knew her?”
Tifalenji allowed her sword to drop into her hands. “Only by reputation.”
“I shed blood alongside her, when first we came to these shores,” said Teneff, staring into the flames. “Tough little thing, you wouldn’t guess it by looking at her but she could haul a pair of legionaries down to her level, each by an ear. That sword of hers, took incredible strength to even lift it.”
“Let alone the dancing she could do,” added Marit.
Erath noticed the runesmith out of the corner of his eye, regarding Teneff carefully at the mention of the blade. The uncomfortable thought rose in his mind of how little he truly knew about Tifalenji, and how thoroughly his life depended on her now.
“She was quiet at first,” said Marit, “mostly kept to herself.”
“But stand together in the line with someone,” continued Teneff, “forge that bond with iron and blood…”
“You become sisters,” Arrel finished.
Silence descended, the three huntresses lost amidst their thoughts.
“Why did she stay here?” said Marit, a thin edge creeping into the words. “All these years, everything that’s happened. Why did she betray us?”
“We don’t know what happened,” said Teneff.
Marit snorted. “Don’t play the imbecile, Ten. It does not suit you.”
“You think I don’t seek to bring her to account?” Teneff stood and rounded on Marit. “Why else am I here?”
“Years, she’s been here,” Marit replied, unmoving. “Years. Every opportunity to report back, and she didn’t. She is a deserter, and theirs is a weakness we cannot abide. A treachery we cannot forgive. We are here to seek vengeance.”
“Don’t call it vengeance,” said Arrel. “This will be justice.”
“Call it whatever you wish,” Marit replied. “Riven made her choice, and we are the consequence.”
Erath tried to sleep, but despite his exhaustion it eluded him. He had seen the power the huntresses wielded when they worked together. Who was this person who was able to divide them without even being there? Who was Riven, who had left such a mark on each of them?
The questions swirled around his head, though they slowly began to sink down beneath a promise of rest, before it was shattered by a voice.
“Up!”
Erath stirred. It was Teneff, standing watch.
“Get up!” she bellowed again, clanging her short sword against her armor. “The river is flooding!”
The Noxians scrambled to their feet. Erath turned to look at the riverbank, and his blood ran cold.
Something had roiled the current, transforming it from a peaceful flow into a riot of churning rapids. Erath saw human faces take shape in the foaming walls of rushing water, boiling into being and mouthing silent, enraged curses before dissolving back. All the while it rose toward them, devouring the bank inch by inch.
The river wasn’t flooding. It was alive.
“Get to the treeline!” barked Tifalenji.
Teneff was already running. Marit had only to spin into a riding position on Lady Henrietta before they were darting for the trees. Erath’s first thought was Talz.
He hurried to the basilisk, taking hold of whatever he could from the camp as the ground beneath him turned to a marshy quagmire. Water rushed over his boots as he reached the massive reptile. He looked back just in time to see another great swell smash down over Arrel.
And it looked like it had hands.
Prying out the stakes rooting Talz in place, Erath started climbing onto his back before the basilisk charged. Erath clung to the straps and rigging on the beast’s flank for dear life as the water surged after them. He hauled himself up, his legs swinging free, head ducking as equipment, tools and what remained of their food supply tore loose.
They made it to the trees, and Erath climbed as the water battered them. Talz clawed himself up to his hind legs to keep his head above the surface, each fresh surge crashing higher up his back and neck. Erath looked back. Teneff and Marit were clear, but Arrel and her hounds were caught in the swamp their camp had become, slowly being sucked back into the river.
Erath braced as another swell struck him like a hail of stones. The tree next to him sagged, nearly snapping from its trunk. He looked from the tree to back at Arrel, and dropped down into water that reached his waist.
Grabbing the hatchet from Talz, he swung, chopping into the wet bark of the ailing tree. He swore he heard some mournful note rasp from its leaves as it finally broke, smashing down at an angle toward the river. Erath watched a cluster of shapes approach it.
Arrel’s hounds. They were paddling in a circle around her, dragging her up onto the tree. But there were only three of them.
The waters began to recede as the first light of day broke through the foliage in bars of copper and gold. They glittered across the water. A horrific sound, like a dirge being played by a drowning man, filled the air as the tide slid back into the river.
Marit galloped back, and Teneff climbed down, all of them converging on Arrel and the fallen tree. She had followed the bank, scanning the becalmed waters with her pack.
“Second!” she called, pausing. “Second…”
“He was carried beneath the water, Arrel,” said Teneff. She laid a tentative hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Arrel’s hand shook. She balled them into fists and set her jaw into a hard line.
“We’re wasting time here,” the tracker croaked, shrugging off Teneff’s hand. She stood, sharply gesturing to bring the other hounds from their somber watch on the riverbank. Fourth lingered a second longer than the others, but a glare from Arrel brought him trotting to her.
Erath flinched as the sunlight faded. He held out his hand, feeling heavy drops as they struck his palm. Their short reprieve from the rain was over.
Within minutes the sun was gone, hidden behind heavy black stormclouds. The rain was joined by howling gales, whipping the downpour into twisting sheets of freezing water. The cold sliced through Erath to the bone. He could barely see an arm’s length in front of his face. It even forced Marit to dismount from Lady Henrietta.
Tifalenji held her sword aloft. With a whisper, the blade burst with emerald flame, forcing back the storm’s blinding winds a fraction. Teneff retrieved a length of rope from Talz, looping it around each of their waists to bind them together.
Leaning into the wind and lashing rain, the Noxians wandered forward behind Tifalenji, a tiny capsule of green light in the maelstrom. Time blurred for Erath as he trudged on. He couldn’t tell if it had been minutes or hours before Tifalenji spoke up.
“We have to stop,” she roared over the wind.
“Look!” Marit pointed with her glaive. “There’s light up ahead!”
Erath could make out the faintest cluster of lights, like a constellation in the heavens.
“This is wild country,” warned Teneff. “It could be bandits, or a Brotherhood camp for all we know.”
“Then we kill them all,” hissed Marit. “The rune-witch is right. We have no supplies, and if we do not take shelter, this storm will end us.”
Teneff spat out a mouthful of rainwater, and nodded. Together they fought the storm, putting one foot ahead of the other, until they reached the lights.
The trees overhead formed an overhang, absorbing the worst of the storm. A village materialized before them, small and isolated amidst the woods. It looked like an extension of the forest itself, the tall, thin dwellings appearing woven and sculpted. They could just see them over a wall of intertwined branches barring their way, as though the land itself had formed a stockade. The branches shuddered, peeling apart enough to create a small passage.
A dozen men and women stepped through the opening. They wore hand-spun robes, faces hidden behind hoods raised against the storm. The huntresses noted the axes and swords in their hands, the broad slab-like blades chipped and worn. The battered remnants of armor plating they were clad in.
The huntresses formed a line, with Erath and Talz behind them.
“Those are Noxian weapons,” said Teneff.
“And those are Noxians carrying them,” added Arrel.
As one they sank into battle postures. Arrel’s hounds snarled.
“Lower your weapons,” said the lead villager in perfect Va-Noxian. He pulled back his hood to reveal a scarred face, his dark hair and beard shot through with streaks of silver. “We don’t want a fight.”
“Well, you are deserters,” sneered Marit. She spat upon the ground.
“Remember what’s behind us,” Teneff grumbled under her breath.
“Realize what’s in front of us!” Marit snapped.
“Stop!” Erath pushed his way between the huntresses. There was something about the man, hearing his voice. He stepped forth with trembling hands. He regarded the lead Noxian with wide eyes.
A single tear descended the curve of his cheek.
“Father?”
The man led Erath out of the storm into one of the huts, passing onlookers, Noxian and Ionian alike, their faces expressing a spectrum of shock and anger to fear. Erath followed him, as though in a trance, struggling to believe that this was Jobin, his father.
Alive.
“You look like you’ve missed a meal or two,” said Jobin. The two sat down around a fire pit. Jobin opened a steaming pot, scooping out a measure of rice into a pair of wooden bowls and handing Erath one. “My son, what are you doing here?”
They talked, of Erath’s journey, of home. He omitted much, careful as he spoke with a man he thought was dead.
When they were done, Jobin’s eyes gleamed in the firelight. “Look at you. You’re a man now. My little enhasyi.” He paused. “How is your mother?”
“Still mourning you,” Erath said, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. He removed the bone pendant from his neck. “Who even is this?”
“Me,” Jobin raised a hand, showing where one finger ended in a stump. “A sacrifice we all sent back, that we hoped might bring you peace.”
“Peace,” Erath exhaled the word.
After weeks traversing a realm of wild magic, of illusion and the uncanny, he had to ask the obvious question.
“Are you real?”
Jobin leaned forward. “What?”
“Are you real?” Erath said again. “Or a spell to make it appear my father is not truly dead? If it is deception I would thank you, I truly would, for all that the alternative would mean.”
For a few moments, neither spoke. The silence stretched.
“The world used to be so small,” said Jobin, finally. “You never knew it. We tended our herds, we traded with our neighbors, we raised families. We had simple lives and we were happy. Then the empire came, and our little world became so much bigger, and so much darker.”
He glanced out the door of the hut. “Being here, seeing this place, it brought me back to that.”
“And that was worth treachery?” asked Erath.
“Against what?” Jobin looked back at him. “Against some distant ruler I would never meet, pushing markers across maps? Those markers are people, Erath. Noxian people, Ionian people. We should have never begun this war.”
“But we are stronger together,” Erath insisted. “Noxus didn’t put us in chains, it set us free. No more herds growing thinner every year, no more raids from those same neighbors. And we can do the same here. You’ve been gone a long time, it isn’t the Noxus you remember. We’ve truly become part of something greater.”
“I don’t believe much has changed,” Jobin shook his head. “We came here believing what you believe, that this place needed Noxus. ’Rath, I don’t think they need our help, and they don’t need our rule, but we can coexist. I didn’t have to kill them, to become family. Once I understood that, I knew I couldn’t return.”
Erath processed his father’s words, and hung his head. “Everything you taught me was a lie.”
“I’m sorry, my son.” Jobin laid a hand on Erath’s shoulder. “I was deceived myself by it. But there is always time for something different. Something better. There is a place for you, here.”
“A lie,” Erath repeated. Slowly, he looked up. “So why should I believe you now?”
Jobin visibly sagged. “My son…”
“No,” Erath’s eyes were hard. “You don’t get to do that. You lost a finger, I lost you! And now you sit there and preach, as you hide in the woods? We had an excuse before we joined the empire, of being blind to the wider world. We don’t have that ignorance anymore. Now you are either working to unite the world, to make it better, or you’re running.”
Erath stood.
“I’m not running.”
Erath and Jobin emerged from the hut. The blade squire looked up, seeing the clouds thinning through the canopy of the trees. The rain had slackened as well.
“Think upon what I’ve said, my son,” said Jobin.
“I have,” Erath replied, stepping away to stand beside the huntresses.
Jobin swallowed, and cleared his throat. “We have offered you shelter. Now that the storm is passing, we will offer you a portion of our harvest. We ask in return only that you leave us in peace, and forget you ever found this place.”
Teneff eyed the runesmith. She tilted her head, and the huntresses stepped back to confer amongst themselves.
“The only question worth asking,” said Marit, “is if we kill them all.”
“His father is among them,” Teneff nodded toward Erath.
“His father is a traitor,” Marit replied.
“He isn’t the only one,” said Arrel. “Close to half of this village are Noxian… or were.”
“Scared of getting your hounds dirty?” Marit ran a finger down the edge of her glaive.
“Slaughtering cowards and villagers finds us Riven how?” the tracker retorted.
Erath looked to Tifalenji. The runesmith held the lives of these villagers—the life of his father—in her hands. For the life of him, Erath couldn’t decide what he wanted her to say, and that more than anything turned his heart to a lead weight in his chest. The huntresses studied her too, trying to parse her impassive features for her judgment.
Teneff rested a hand on her chain. “What’s it to be, then?”
“We move on,” Tifalenji stated. “Our task is to find one deserter, and these are not her.” She eyed Marit. “It is not a discussion.”
“As you wish,” she shrugged, walking back to her mount. Tifalenji looked sternly upon Erath.
“Were the circumstances different, I would not condone leaving them here alive.”
“I understand,” Erath replied.
“Now make haste,” ordered Tifalenji. “Time is against us, and you know what lies ahead.”
The huntresses gathered and began the march out of the village. Erath spared a final look back as they passed through the unfolding stockade, then touched Teneff’s arm. “What lies ahead?”
Her face turned grim, and her eyes distant. “The place where all this started.”
They marched in silence, though troubled thoughts made it feel as though Erath were pushing his way through a crowd. He couldn’t reconcile the man who raised him with the one he discovered living in that village. A son is raised in the image of his father, but does he end up the same person?
The bone pendant around his neck grated against his chest.
The landscape changed, growing more arid and dry, as did the dispositions of the huntresses. Postures stiffened, reflexes had them twitching at the slightest sound, and all three had their weapons drawn, clutched in white-knuckle grips. Erath could smell a faintly acrid tang in the air.
The Noxians crested a hill, and witnessed a dusty expanse of dessicated plains ahead. A marker was erected at the border to the plain, little more than a stone totem marked with Ionian script. He could not decipher it, but the meaning behind it was clear to Erath.
It was a warning, to stay away.
They found an old man sitting by the marker. Quietly he hummed to himself, flicking a necklace of chimes he wore looped around his shoulders. His eyes grew wide as the Noxians approached, and using a cane for support, he slowly pushed himself to his feet.
“Travelers,” he raised a hand. “I have no part in any quarrel, and serve no master. I keep vigil here, at the threshold of a terrible place, to ward off those who might seek to cross.”
The huntresses were silent. Erath had never seen such tension radiating from them. Tifalenji stepped forward.
“We wish no harm to you, gatekeeper,” she said. “But do not seek to bar our passage.”
“I beg you,” the Ionian clasped his tiny hands together, “go no further. You cannot imagine the pain that occurred here.”
“We don’t have to,” answered Teneff, as she walked past.
Erath followed, passing the dejected Ionian by. “I will sing for you,” said the gatekeeper. “For your pain.”
The first step onto the dusty plain, and Erath felt like he had been transported somewhere alien, even for Ionia. It was absolutely devoid of life. The ground had a sickly, greenish tint, and the air was sour, stinging his nose and throat. His eyes and lips tingled.
A profound sense of loss emanated from the earth like a haze, stabbing into Erath.
Teneff stopped, slowly taking in the landscape.
“This is where it happened.”
“It was here,” breathed Tifalenji, the runes along her blade pulsing. She blinked. “She was here.”
“We had been fighting for years,” said Teneff. “Everything ground to a stalemate. They said they had a way to break through, brought us some mad Zaunite and his concoction.”
“Chemical fire,” Arrel murmured.
“Something so caustic it would strip the life out of anything it touched,” said Marit. “We were safeguarding the payload, moving it up to the line, when it all went wrong.”
Erath looked from one huntress to the next as their words flowed over each other.
“We were ambushed…”
“…so many of them…”
“Riven called out for support…”
“They couldn’t have known where we were.”
“They fired—”
“—and the jars ignited.”
Marit reached behind her head, undoing the clasps that kept her mask in place. The straps slackened, came loose, and Erath swallowed.
Her entire face and skull was a mass of hairless, glossy red scar tissue. Erath had seen things killed by burns, the way the flesh looked afterward, but this was different. Black veins threaded the tissue like cobwebs. Erath could not fathom what pain she must endure, even now.
Only her eyes remained unscathed. She looked at Erath, holding his gaze in cold silence.
Arrel removed her own helm. Erath glimpsed wounds around her lips and neck. The tracker hacked and spat a gobbet of blood phlegm.
She must have breathed it in, Erath realized.
“It was chaos,” said Teneff. “Comrades, enemies, boiling away, screaming themselves dead. I never saw Riven again. I believed that she died here, like all the rest.” She looked at Erath. “Do you understand? If we can find her, the thought that we can make something good from all this—”
Then she stopped, her eyes on the horizon. Erath looked, seeing a group of figures appear on the hill. They were Ionian, clad in lightweight armor and festooned with blades of all kinds. Their faces were hidden behind masks and hoods the color of dark iron.
“Calm is the ocean before the storm,” shouted one of the Ionians. “Stand to account, xiir! If any are to control this land, it will be us.”
“Navori Brotherhood,” Teneff bared her teeth, speaking the words like a curse.
“Full warparty,” said Marit, her voice calm and level despite an edge for the violence sure to come.
“The village you stole from,” said the Brotherhood warrior, spreading his arms wide. “They were all so eager to speak of you. To help us fulfill our promise.”
Erath’s blood ran cold.
“We should have killed them,” Marit snarled, rage twisting the ruin of her face as she pulled her mask back on. A light rain began to fall from the iron-gray sky.
“This forsaken rain,” hissed Arrel.
The Brotherhood warrior took a step down the hill. “We promised to find you, the xiir, wherever you might be in the First Lands. We promised to hunt you, stalk you, to cleanse our homeland of those who have destroyed the balance between the twin realms.”
The Ionians roared, raising weapons, many of which coursed and shivered with magic.
“We make these promises to all those you have taken before their time, those whose limbs you have taken, whose peaceful dreams you have stolen and replaced with terror and broken memory. These promises we will keep, so long as our hearts beat life within us!”
A dozen warriors descended the hill, coming within a handful of paces of the Noxians with weapons ready.
“Tell me,” said the Ionian. “What will you promise?”
Teneff breathed, slowly shut her eyes and opened them. “I promise… to make this hurt.”
“You promise blood, then,” the warrior smiled beneath his hood. “We accept.”
Teneff roared, hurling her hooked chain. It struck one of the Brotherhood in the temple. The force of the blow smashed him to the ground. Teneff stomped on his chest, tearing the hook free in a spray of blood. More flecked from the hook as she spun it again.
Arrel flung out her hand and her hounds attacked. First tackled one of them, clamping down around the woman’s neck. The drakehound shook savagely, wrenching her body back and forth until she went limp, then moved on to another.
The two groups closed into melee. Tifalenji thrust her sword into an Ionian’s midsection. She spat a curse and the blade ignited, setting the man ablaze with screaming jade flame. Marit strafed through their midst. Her glaive was a blur, never ceasing as it cut, stabbed and slashed in tandem with Lady Henrietta’s snapping jaws.
Erath watched the opening strikes. This place had awakened something in them, unleashed a rage that they had crushed down deep within themselves for years. The runesmith had waded in, knowing the only way to achieve her goal was to eliminate the Ionians in her way. Talz’s reins slipped from his hand, replaced by his falchion.
Teneff locked blades with the Brotherhood leader, their faces inches apart.
“This ground pains you,” he taunted. “The xiir you lost, would you like to see them again?”
As if on command, a young Ionian who had remained halfway down the hill began to sing. It was a lilting, haunting melody, a tune that no living thing should be able to make. It stilled the Noxians for an instant, the absolute wrongness of it.
Erath’s footing slipped as the earth shook. Tiny things appeared up from the ground, like seedlings but pulsing with a sickly, intermittent unlight. Erath realized after a moment that they were fingers.
Soon hands emerged, arms bursting through the soil. Insubstantial silhouettes of ragged men and women clawed their way up from below, dressed in incorporeal rags of Noxian garb, all radiating the same cold spectral darkness.
“The dead here are not at peace,” hissed the Ionian, grappling with Teneff.
“Madness,” Teneff snarled.
The Brotherhood warrior leapt back, drawing a blade. “And you will join them!”
The youth continued to sing, and more pale phantoms clawed their way up from the earth. Erath found himself surrounded, and slashed out in a wide arc. The spirits boiled away at his blade’s touch, only to resolve like a sickened wind. He struck again, carving an opening to see the wider battle.
The Brotherhood numbers were thinning from the fury of the huntresses, but the dead were massing, dredged back into being by that hellish melody. Erath recoiled, sensing that even these Ionian’s kin would condemn the evil they were unleashing. They had but moments until they were overwhelmed, and it had to be stopped.
He made for the hill. A Brotherhood warrior leapt in his path, wielding a pair of long daggers. Shouting an Ionian curse, he lunged at Erath. The blade squire parried the first dagger going low for his gut, but saw the flash of the second seeking his throat. He backpedaled, losing his balance and falling to the ground.
The Ionian dived atop him. His mask slipped free, revealing a young determined face trying to drive one of the daggers into Erath’s chest. His falchion had slipped from his grasp in the fall. He fought the man, gripping his wrists as the dagger’s tip pierced his flesh. With a roar of pain and anger, Erath rolled, reversing the positions as he drew his knife.
Erath dropped his weight down, driving the knife into the Ionian’s gut. Grunting, he twisted it sharply, and felt the strength leave the Ionian’s grip. Tugging the blade free he collected his falchion and stepped over the dying man.
Rain and blood turned the ground to mire. Erath ran, weaving between clashes of blades and the moaning hordes of lost Noxians reaching for him. Their touch numbed his flesh, as though they were filling his veins with ice water. He gasped for breath as his side was raked by translucent claws.
The singer’s eyes were closed, the lids twitching as he wept blood. Trickles of ruby issued from his nose, ears, and lips as he stood transfixed and dirged. He didn’t see Erath coming. The blade squire surged forward, pushing against cold, grasping hands. He was bent double, crying out in agony as one climbed on top of him. He thrust himself upright, throwing the ghoul back. Breathless, his vision narrowing like a collapsing tunnel, he charged forward and with the last of his strength brought his blade down.
The Ionian’s song fell silent as he collapsed, his lifeblood emptying out from where Erath’s blade had split him from collar to sternum. The phantoms shrieked, their forms elongating as they were drawn violently back down into the earth. Within moments, all that remained of them was a pale, sickly fog, and the echoing cries of the unquiet dead.
Erath turned, stumbling like a drunkard as he returned to the fight still raging below. The Navori Brotherhood warparty was down to their final warriors. They had clearly chosen to die rather than flee, save for one. Arrel’s hounds ran him down, and tore him apart. Lady Henrietta feasted, her jewelry stained crimson. Blood sizzled and snapped where it touched the runes of Tifalenji’s blade.
Erath arrived in time to see Teneff with the leader of the warriors. She had encircled his neck with her chain and drove his face into the quagmire, a boot on his back as she watched him suffocate.
All of them bled from a dozen wounds. Teneff looked up at Erath as he approached. She stood up straight sharply, snapping the Ionian’s neck, and stumbled back. She sank to one knee, overcome by the bone-deep exhaustion of prolonged fighting hand to hand.
Erath looked down. The earth fizzed and fumed wherever blood had seeped into it. His skin burned from the dust, already reddened and peeling.
“Insanity,” snapped Marit, flinging blood from her glaive. “Ionians claim to revere the dead, and yet do this?”
“We aren’t their dead,” murmured Arrel. “Even still…”
“Insanity,” Marit repeated.
“We can’t stay here,” panted Tifalenji. “The toxin is still in the ground. And who knows what further ruin their necromancy has wrought.” She stood beside Teneff.
“I had almost hoped to see Riven among them,” she said, looking up at the runesmith. “I had wished that you were wrong.”
The runesmith offered her hand. “I am not.”
After a moment, Teneff took it.
For once the rain was a blessing. Cool and cleansing, it washed the blood and poisoned earth from their bodies as they left the site of the chemical attack behind. They could all see the runesmith’s sword was shining now, humming to her.
“She’s close,” Tifalenji whispered, eyes locked to the runes. “So very close.”
She nodded to Marit and Arrel, and the two began ranging ahead.
Erath felt his chest as they walked. Gingerly avoiding his dagger wound, he pulled his pendant out from under his jerkin, rubbing a thumb slowly over its surface. “He gave us up. My father gave us up.”
“He may have been coerced,” said Teneff. After a while she shook her head. “It doesn’t really matter.”
“I was only a child. They told me that he died, he’s gone, he’s never coming back, I’ll never see him again. Then I do see him, and everything I knew about him was a lie.” He looked at Teneff, taking a shaking breath. “What do I do with that?”
Teneff reflected for a moment. “You can let him go.”
Erath cuffed away a tear. “How does that help, after everything?
“It’s not about helping everything.” She gripped his shoulder. “Just you. So long as Noxus endures, you will always have a family, Erath.”
Erath paused. He let the words and memories of the past days wash over him. Exhaling, he pulled at the pendant until the cord around his neck snapped. He stared down at it, and slowly tilted his palm until the sliver of bone fell to the ground.
Without looking back he jogged off to catch up to the others, as the pendant quickly vanished beneath the earth.
Tahm Kench

The waterways of Valoran are old, but far older still is the demon Tahm Kench. From muddy gambling tents along the Serpentine River, through the salt-crusted dice halls of Bilgewater, to the gilded wagering tables of Piltover and Zaun—all those who have given a covetous glance to another’s wealth know the unending hunger that comes from an encounter with the River King.
The first tales of the creature were told by a traveling people who plied the Serpentine. They warned of a giant fish with a cavernous mouth, who would lure in the dissatisfied with the promise of more. One such story was that of a young man renowned for his honesty. Though born to the ways of a raftsman, he desired a life beyond the poor banks he knew so well, and the River King promised him an unforgettable experience if only he would tell one little lie. It seemed harmless enough, so the raftsman bent the truth in conversation with his own brother. That night the demon appeared, revealing a fork in the river the raftsman had never noticed before. He followed it to a camp of foreign folk who offered him food and drink, and fresh companionship. As dawn neared, and the raftsman was full and ready to return to his people, the demon appeared again, promising an even greater experience for another lie. His interested piqued, the man accepted the bargain, telling falsehoods to his hosts. The river parted again and he followed it to an evening of even greater luxury. This continued, night after night, until the once-honest raftsman’s deceits came as easily as breathing.
When the river finally emptied into the sea, he found himself alone and lost—there was no one left to lie to. So many dark choices, all of them his own, had left the raftsman with no way back home.
The brackish rivers of the mainland carried the tales of the River King to the Blue Flame Isles, where the creature gained a name as his legend grew—Tahm Kench. In Bilgewater, fortunes are boom or bust, with as much wealth going out with the tide as comes in. Many a tavern yarn tells of ol’ Tahm, a demon of the water with an unending appetite for games of chance, such that the loquacious beast became a symbol for many of the city’s gambling dens and houses of sin.
Once the Sun Gates opened easy trade from Bilgewater to Piltover, tales of Tahm Kench became more common in the City of Progress and its underbelly, Zaun. There, children know Tahm as “Two-Coats,” a fish so monstrously large that he wears two fine jackets stitched together. With a jaunty top hat and a smile wider than the Pilt itself, he drives the jealousies of young artificers. It is said he came one Progress Day to a struggling Piltovan inventor, and offered her an idea certain to make a wealthy clan take notice. All he asked in return was a single lock of her hair. The ambitious woman made the trade and, true enough, her work landed her a lucrative contract. But one invention would not satisfy, and Two-Coats wandered by, this time asking for all of her lovely braids. Not wishing to disappoint her new patrons, the inventor agreed—and Two-Coats ate them up on the spot. Still the woman was unable to find the one great innovation that would make her name. The demon came again, offering a deal that would take the tip of one finger. The following week it was an ear. A year passed, and by then there was little left of the woman to give. Finally she called Two-Coats herself, begging him to make it all stop.
He laughed as he opened his jaws wide, telling her he would protect her from herself, and promptly swallowed her whole.
The River King. The Great Waddler. Old Yawn-Belly. Two-Coats. The demon Tahm Kench is known by many names, but all who speak them have learned a singular truth: no matter how alluring his words may be, in his mouth you will be lost.
The Gambler’s Woe

Anthony Reynolds

My, that’s quite the haul ye have, there! Won at the tables, was it? Well, here’s to your very good health. Cheers.
Oh, no, I’ll not be rollin’ the dice with ye. Not a gamblin’ man no more, or so I tells me self. There were a time, though... What happened? The River King happened, that’s what. Aye, Two-Coats, that old devil Tahm Kench. He’s what happened.
I was bilge-poor, beg your pardon, and livin’ in a flophouse. Had nothin’ to me name, not ‘til a single gold Krakenaye, this one ‘erecome into my possession. I could tell you how, but you’d call me a liar, heh.
So, with this one coin, what I oughta done was pay me debts, and find a new crew to join. I was a harpooner, see. Shoulda put aside whatever was left for the future. Been responsible, like. Harpoonin’s a harsh life, even for a younger man.
But that’s when the River King found me. “Why work someone else’s ship,” he says, “slavin’ away, riskin’ your life for next t’ nothin’, when ye might ‘ave a ship o’ your own?” I just had to think bigger, like. O’ course, one Kraken won’t buy a ship, but ‘e had an answer to that, didn’t he.
Dice. One good throw o’ the bones, an’ I’d ‘ave enough to start me own little operation. Others could do the danger work, while I sits back, nice and plum, enjoyin’ the profits. An’ after a few more drinks, you understand, that crooked devil’s advice starts to make a lot o’ sense to my ears. So, blinded by greed and possibility, I went along wi’ it.
That night were a blur. I awoke well after noon the next day, me head fairly poundin’! Had no idea where I wassome fancy bawdy-house, as it turns outbut on the dresser were me previous night’s winnings... more than enough to purchase me self a ship! Ah, but the River King, ‘e’d given me a taste for somethin’ more. Why should young Lars content his self with a single ship, when he could ‘ave a fleet? Just needed to chance me hand a few more times...
That’s Bilgewater. There’s riches to be had, if you’re willin’ to risk everything, over and over.
With old Two-Coat’s arm around me, I was led from the dice tables to other halls of avaricefrom backroom card games to gamblin’ and bettin’ parlors, high and low. I spent a fortune, lost a fortune, then made it all back again. Around and around in that allurin’ spiral I went. I was feelin’ the hunger, the yearning, and it was pullin’ me down like a whirlpool.
Years passed, an’ somewhere along the way, I’m ashamed to say I forgot what I was doing all this for. I forgot who I was. I had it all, but it never were enough. I wanted more.
And then I started losin’ big. That made me double-down, go for broke, all-or-nothin’, looking for the big stakes to put me back on top. Pretty soon, I was in a worse state than I’d been to start with. Sleepin’ in the gutter, catching rats to eat if I were lucky. I begged, borrowed and stole from everyone who’d ever shown me any kindness. Lost all me mates, chasing the dream.
‘E feeds on misery, see, does Tahm Kench. As old as sin, ‘e is, and older than Bilgewater by far. Been ‘round from the start of things, gorgin’ his self on the desperation what comes with the greed and sorrow in men’s hearts. I mean, I’d done it to me self, but it were him what give me the means. Ye might say, ‘e took me to the cliff’s edge, but I were the numpty what threw me self off, beg your pardon, and that old glutton revelled in me despair.
Came to me once more, ‘e did, when I was at me very lowest, drinkin’ from puddles, havin’ sold me own leg to be used for chum. In the darkest night, whisperin’ an’ cajolin’, ‘e pressed this gold Kraken back into me hand, with a knowin’ wink.
‘Twere the same one I’d ‘ad back at the start! It were this damn coin what started me on that wretched path! Eh, ‘e opened his mouth up wide, and says, “It’s not too late, Lars. Never too late. Come with me, an’ we’ll find you a fortune again...”
Even after everythin’, I was tempted. ‘Course I was! But no. I resistedMother Serpent knows how. Two-Coats only laughed. Said he’d be there when I changed me mind.
And, sure enough, the temptation’s still there, now, every day.
So here I am. Friendless. Broke. All the best years of me life behind me, wasted in those lost decades. Can’t remember most of it, neither, so I’ve no idea if I even enjoyed me self.
Anyways. Enough o’ my ramblin’. There’s a lesson to be learned, ‘erekeep your purse strings tight, and never, ever make a deal wi’ the River King. Ye’ve always got more to lose...
The Lost Tales of Ornn

Matt Dunn

“I have never seen the forgotten god. My grandmother told me these tales, but she never saw the forgotten god either—nor did her grandmother before her, or hers before her, a thousand times over. His legends endure only around crackling fires and meals of roasted fish. The further back we trace our ancestors, the truer the tales become.”
The children’s weary faces lift a little higher. Firelight dances on their cheeks, but pain lives in their eyes.
“Gods dwell around us, in the sky, in between clumps of soil, and behind the veil of stars. We need only to seek their favor, to channel their being into our hearts and deeds. For instance, on the sea, it is so cold that your eyeballs might freeze solid in their sockets. No, it’s true! But when sailors rub blubber on their faces and think about the Seal Sister, whose true name is forgotten, they are protected from the icy ocean winds.
“Others, such as Volibear, refuse to allow their own legends to fade, and still stalk this world. He demands sacrifice and forces obedience, much like the Ursine…”
They have all heard tales of the half-bear abominations. Fear makes the children lean closer to the fire.
“Oh yes, little ones—we may speak later of the bearskinned storm-bearer, but the less said about him the better.”
Like grandmother used to say, once they lean closer to the fire, they’re yours.
“Instead, these stories concern the firstborn of the gods…”
Ornn was the firstborn of his brothers and sisters. He leapt into the world, itching for a fight. This was not so easy, however. Trees were weak adversaries, snapping far too easily. Icebergs melted at his touch, running away into the sea.
Frustrated, he punched a mountain. The mountain did not yield. Ornn was pleased by this, so he challenged the land itself to a good-natured brawl.
As Ornn wrestled with the land, he dented and bruised it, shaping all of the Freljord that we know today. He headbutted mountains from the planes, and pounded down deep valleys. When he was tired, Ornn thanked the land for the glorious match. The land responded by opening a fiery pit, showing him its very heart, and he was honored to see it was a reflection of him: a fiery ram. The land had deemed Ornn worthy, and bestowed its secrets to him, gifting him the strength of primordial flame, for fire is the true agent of change.
He looked at the landscape that was the result of his fight and nodded. It would do. After this, Ornn set himself to building tools and weapons.
My ancestors must be smiling, for at this moment, a light snow begins to fall. Gentle flakes settle on the children’s furred hoods, and they stick out their tongues.
“Did you know that there used to be no snow in the Freljord?” I ask them. The children look confused. “It’s true. Our lands have always been the coldest in the entire world, but in the early days there was only bitter, dry air, and no such things as stormclouds…”
It was during the early, cloudless and cold days that Ornn built a house. He made it of the finest lumber. The magnificent home spanned three valleys. Can you imagine that? After completing his majestic Horn Hall, Ornn appraised his work.
“Good,” he said. These were the days before language, so this was a compliment indeed.
Now, his sister Anivia was annoyed. Ornn had felled her favorite perching trees to build his home. So she decided to teach him a lesson.
While Ornn was sleeping, she flew in through his bedroom window. Then, she tickled his nose with one of her feathers, causing him to sneeze a gout of flame that set fire to the bedsheets! The bedsheets set the floor ablaze! Anivia panicked, and flapped her wings to fly away, but this only stoked the fire hotter with the dry Freljord air. Soon, all of Horn Hall was alight.
The fire raged for days, darkening the skies with ash. Of course, Ornn slept through the whole thing. He awoke atop a pile of ashes in a very bad mood, for he had not had a restful sleep. But he did not know what Anivia had done. And to this day, she has never told him the truth.
“I complimented my own handiwork, and look where it got me,” said Ornn, surveying the damage. “Never again will I pat myself on the back. I shall let the quality of the work speak for itself.”
Ornn had one goal in particular for his next home: he did not want it to be flammable. He fashioned himself a spade, a lever, and a fork. With these tools, he could dig for ore, move mighty pillars, and eat the delicious spiced cherries he so enjoyed.
He hammered and shaped chunks of ore until a black mountain stood. Inside was a great forge that channeled the primordial molten flame from deep within the earth. He was pleased with his Hearth-Home—but it was too hot inside to dwell comfortably, even for Ornn.
So he dug a trench from the sea, straight to the mountain. The Seal Sister allowed cold waters to rush through the trench and cool the Hearth-Home. Great plumes of steam rose up. It took three days for the mountain to cool enough for Ornn. In that time, the ocean that fed the river dipped several inches.
By then, so much steam had risen from the waters that the perpetual blue sky was mottled with darkening gray clouds. As these new puffy forms gathered and cooled, they grew heavier and heavier until they burst with snow.
It snowed for a hundred years. This is why the Freljord still has so much snow today.
One of the children frowns at me. “If Ornn did so much for the world, then why is it only you who knows the stories about him?” she asks. The girl is young, but has already seen so much hardship that her hair has several shocks of silver running through it.
“There is one tale that answers this very question,” I reply. “Would you like to hear it?”
The children’s eager faces say it all.
Once, there were Three Sisters who needed Ornn’s help in saving their world. Ornn, however, did not care to help anyone save any world, anywhere. It was for personal reasons, and he did not elaborate on the matter. But this did not stop the Three Sisters journeying many days and nights to ask.
“There are creatures of great and wicked magic that stalk our tribes,” the First Sister said. She had fierceness and war in her eyes. “They want to destroy all things and claim the world for themselves!”
“This sounds like a problem,” Ornn said. He did not look up from his forging.
“Then will you fight with us, and use your strength to slay the monsters?”
Ornn grunted. This grunt meant “no” in such a way as to halt any more discussion. This was understood by all. If you heard this grunt, you would have thought the First Sister wise for not pressing the matter further.
“These beings watch our every move,” the Second Sister said. There was hope and wisdom in her voice. “I would ask you to take the spade that once dug your mighty river, and use it to dig the deepest trench in all the world. Then we can lure the monsters into the pit ourselves, and solve our own problem.”
Ornn grunted. The sound of this grunt meant “I will dig that hole,” and that everyone should stop talking immediately. This was understood by all. If you heard this grunt, you would have thought the Second Sister wise for not pressing the matter further.
So Ornn dug them a trench, for a very deep hole can add much to a landscape. Also, he had planned on digging one anyway, and the proposed location was a fine spot. When Ornn was finished with the trench, he left the three sisters with nary a word, for he had already said far too much to them.
“That is one deep hole,” the Second Sister said. “I pray it is deep enough.”
Wind blew up from the freshly dug abyss with an otherworldly howl, as if to say that it was deep enough. If you had heard the abyss’ howl, you would have thought it wise that no one climbed down to measure its depth.
Several years later, the sisters returned. They looked as if the battles with their foes had taken a toll.
This time, the Third Sister spoke. Her icy breath reminded Ornn of the cold and dry days, long ago. “Ornn, Builder of All Things,” she began.
“I did not build all things,” Ornn grumbled. Again, he did not look up from his forging. “Just some of them.”
The Third Sister continued. “We come now to ask you one simple favor. The pit you dug is so deep and so wide that we cannot build even a single bridge across it. Teach me how to build a bridge that can never break, and I will do the work myself.”
Ornn raised an eyebrow. He studied the Third Sister’s eyes. He did not trust her, for she had a scent of magic about her, and magic always makes sturdy things weaker. “There are many able bridge builders. Go and bother them.”
“The other builders cannot make a bridge with the type of stone we have,” the Third Sister replied. “They claim it fell from the sky, and they cannot forge it for all their efforts.” She then presented a chunk of star metal.
If you had seen the star metal, you would think it wise that only Ornn could possibly ever shape this material, for it was almost as stubborn and unyielding as him. Ornn agreed, but he would do the work alone, and required the star metal itself as payment.
The Third Sister gave it to him, and he used it to forge a tool to help build the bridge.
With that tool, and only that tool, Ornn built the bridge. The Second Sister felt bad about the Third Sister’s lie—for they did not need a bridge at all. She asked Ornn what sort of tool it was.
“I used it to hammer,” Ornn said. “So I will call it ‘Hammer.’ I have said enough.”
When he was out of sight, the Third Sister walked the length of the bridge, reciting strange incantations across the entire span. This turned the bridge into a crossbar that sealed the beasts below within the abyss. However, Ornn had been right, and the addition of magic ruined the quality of his work. Had the Three Sisters left it well enough alone, it would have lasted forever. Instead, the enchantment would slowly eat away at the masonry. It would take ages, though, so nobody paid it much mind, and the Three Sisters vowed never to speak of Ornn again.
Ornn, meanwhile, realized he did not like people asking him favors, and threw his spade as far to the west as he could. Where it landed, no one knows, and its fate is lost to darkness.
Then he turned east and threw his favorite eating fork as far as he could. It landed in the Great Sea. Some say, later, a mer-king found a powerful trident at the sea-bottom, and still uses it to rule his kingdom.
Ornn was ready to throw his hammer into the night sky, but he could not bear to do it and decided to keep it. Were you to see Ornn and ask him if it is his favorite tool, he would scold you for thinking like a child. But in secret, he favors Hammer above all other things he has made.
“Dawn brings the plumpest berries and the meatiest fish,” I say to the children. “We need to be rested.”
They groan in unison and plead with me for one more story. Just one more story.
“There is only one more story about Ornn left,” I tell them. “We should save it for another night…”
Only when they pledge to do every chore and not complain about being too tired, do I relent.
Everyone knows that you never challenge a troll to a drinking contest, don’t they? Even you little ones know not to make a bet with a troll, for trolls are sneaky and will always win. Also, everyone in the Freljord knows that the uglier a troll is, the luckier and more cunning it can be.
Unfortunately, Ornn did not know any of these things.
Grubgrack the Hideous was the oldest troll-kin in the world. His chest hair was so long, it got tangled up in his gnarled toes. Ugh! He would often trip over it and break his nose, which was bulbous and misshapen from being broken so many times. He only had two good teeth, one bad eye, and one worse eye. Warts and pimples covered his rotund belly. I will not tell you how he smelled. If I did, you would never eat fermented fish stew again.
“Build me a door that will keep my treasure safe from thieves forever,” Grubgrack said to Ornn outside Hearth-Home, “and I will give you ten casks of my trollmead. It’s a family recipe.”
Ornn dismissed his guest, but Grubgrack stuck out his foot to stop the door from closing. Ornn did not want the troll’s bunion-covered toes ruining the paint, so he let the creature go on.
“Let us make a wager,” said the truly un-beautiful troll. “Whoever can finish a cask of trollmead first owes the other a debt.”
“If it will make you go away, okay.” Ornn had never been beaten in a drinking contest. Everyone knew this back then, and now you do, too.
“At least it will be good to have a drink,” Grubrack replied, and his smile warped one of the Hearth-Home’s pillars. While Ornn’s back was turned, the troll slipped a shard of True Ice into a cask and handed it to his challenger.
They toasted in the jovial manner of the Freljord and drank. Ornn found the trollmead watered down, and he did not like it. However, Grubgrack was halfway through his cask. With his own cask still almost at the brim, Ornn tipped his head back further and drank until he thought he would drown.
But Grubgrack slammed his empty cask down and belched, and the fire in the oven turned a sickly green! Ornn coughed and spluttered.
“What is wrong?” Grubgrack teased him. “Are you choking?”
Then Ornn noticed the True Ice in his drink. It was perpetually melting and watering down the trollmead. No matter how much he chugged, the True Ice had replaced it. He smashed the cask with one hand.
“You cheated,” Ornn said. His angry voice set off an earthquake that sunk a few islands.
“Of course! What other advantage would an ugly troll like me have against the mighty Ornn?” In truth, the ugliest trolls have almost all the advantages in the world, but Ornn did not spend much time with ugly trolls, so he wouldn’t know that, but now all of you little ones do. “A deal is a deal,” Grubgrack reminded him.
“My word is as good as Hammer,” Ornn grumbled. “Even if I was cheated.”
So Ornn labored for ten days and built the single best door anyone had ever built. He adorned it with a ram’s head, like his own, and the one at the heart of the Freljord. It was impervious to magic and lock-pickers alike. Grubgrack was so impressed with the quality of the door that he was speechless, which is very rare for a troll.
Ornn fastened the door in front of the troll’s cave, which was on top of the troll’s mountain, and where all the ugliest troll-kin in history had hid their treasure.
With a grunt, Ornn trundled off, leaving Grubgrack admiring his new door.
When he had regained his wits, Grubgrack realized it had been a day since he last counted his gold, and he was growing anxious. But he could find no way to open the door! None at all.
Grubgrack tried brute force. The ram-faced door did not budge. Then, he tried to strip the paint with his foul breath. Again, the door did not budge. Lastly, he tried to pry the hinges from the cave wall but, alas, the door was fixed to the mountain so firmly that the troll only hurt his shoulders trying to shake it loose. He was locked out.
Grubgrack stormed into Ornn’s forge. “What trickery is this?” he shouted. His breath was so bad, the forge fire nearly flickered out.
“There is no trickery,” Ornn replied, stoking the flames back to life. “You told me to build a door that would keep your treasure safe from thieves forever, and I did. This door will stand longer than the mountain it is on. No one can break it. I made it just as you asked.”
“But I cannot get inside!” Grubgrack cried. “And I stole nothing from you!”
“Time is more valuable than gold,” Ornn said. “So you are a thief, and my work is as good as my word.”
Grubgrack tried for years to get back inside for his treasure, but the door never opened for him, and he could not even find the keyhole. With each attempt, the ram-headed door stared back at him, an eternal reminder of the time he cheated Ornn.
And if you listen carefully, up in the mountains, you can hear greedy old Grubgrack’s wails of anguish before any avalanche, even to this day.
The children are fast asleep, snuggled into each other around the fire. I carry them one by one to the orphans’ tent. Our tribe hasn’t much to share, but we are not the Winter’s Claw.
The last child is still awake by the fire. He lies on his side.
“Those stories aren’t real,” he says with the tiniest voice.
It’s the legless boy. We found him half-dead after our own village had been raided. We couldn’t leave him—I couldn’t leave him—so I wrapped his wounds in bandages, and carried him on my shoulders.
“I think they are made up. Or… changed to help us go to sleep.”
“A story is as real as we believe it is,” I tell him, as I settle down next to him.
“There is a god who is good, but he doesn’t care about us.”
I nod slowly. “I can see why you would think that, but it is not true. There is one more story I can tell you. It was the last story my grandmother told me before I blossomed into womanhood. She wanted me to be ready, for it is not like the others. But I think you have seen enough to be ready. What do you think?”
The boy nods. I draw him close to my chest and begin.
Once, long before the splintering of the Freljord, Ornn had a legion of smiths who lived at the base of his mountain. They claimed to worship Ornn, but if you were to ask him, they were misguided, for he would say he had no followers. Still, it is true that they built themselves a little town and that it was filled with folk who wished to make the finest things in all the world.
There were thousands of them. They made tools. They made plows. They made carts and armor and saddles. They built furnaces and homes. They called themselves the Hearthblood, for they never felt the biting cold of the Freljord, and could tolerate the immense heat bubbling beneath their bare feet on the slopes of Hearth-Home. They became the finest craftspeople in the world, and their workmanship was surpassed in quality only by Ornn’s.
Occasionally, he would appraise their work. If he liked what one of the Hearthblood had wrought, he simply said “Passable.” This was a mighty compliment from Ornn, who had learned long ago to let good work speak for itself. Do you remember that tale?
Ornn never admitted that he admired the Hearthblood but, deep inside his chest, his volcanic heart churned with respect for the hardworking people. They did not kneel or offer him sacrificed flesh. They did not turn his words into scriptures and spread them across the land to people who did not want to hear them. Instead, they focused on their work in silence. They were imaginative, resourceful, and hardworking. These Hearthblood folks made Ornn smile, although nobody knew because they couldn’t see the smile underneath his beard.
One day, Volibear came to visit his brother Ornn.
This was no friendly stop, for Ornn and his brother were never friendly, nor had they ever visited one another before. The great bear was going to make war and needed weapons for his army. Ornn saw the army—fierce aberrations, men twisted into other shapes by their efforts to please Volibear. They were simple, and fierce, and quick to anger.
“Give them swords and axes,” Volibear demanded, with wicked intent. “Give them armor, and I will make it worth your while.”
“No,” said Ornn, for he wanted no part in Volibear’s warmongering.
“Fine,” said Volibear. “Have your followers do it instead. I do not care. Do this. I am your brother.”
This irked Ornn so much that his great horns flared with molten heat. “The people in the town below do not follow me. They build for themselves. They are quiet and work hard. That is all.”
But Volibear saw beneath his brother’s words to the fiery heart in his chest. For all his flaws, Volibear was very good at reading others.
“They are a reflection of your own image.”
Ornn’s horns grew red hot, and then white hot. “If I see you again, Volibear, I will beat you within an inch of your life,” he growled. If you had heard this threat, you would think it wise for Volibear to leave and never return.
But Volibear loved fighting, and he was not wise, so he took a piece of armor from the walls of Ornn’s forge.
“If you will not make me what I want, then I will take it.”

With that, Ornn charged at Volibear and smashed him with his horns. It was so powerful a blow, the summit of the mountain shook.
This was exactly what Volibear wanted. For centuries, he had grown jealous of the love the Hearthblood freely gave to his brother. It enraged the war-bear.
They fought for eight days. They fought so hard, the base of the mountain trembled. So fierce was their fighting that molten stone exploded from the peak of Hearth-Home. Lighting strikes barraged the mountainside, and geysers of flame gushed from the cliffs. The skies grew black and red. The blood of the world ran through the highlands as the ground shook. People all over the Freljord saw the results of the battle between Volibear and Ornn.
When the smoke cleared, the mountain had lost its peak. But worse, the Hearthblood were all dead, and their town was nothing but smoldering ruins and a fading memory.
For many centuries, the half-mountain once called Hearth-Home has stood silent. Every now and then, a plume of smoke rises from the crater where the peak once stood. Some say it is Ornn, lighting his furnace to keep the fires under the surface of the world from going out. Others say he is building a great weapon that he will one day unleash.
And there are others still, who believe Ornn was killed by Volibear, for he has not been seen in the Freljord since.
“And so, Ornn’s name and tales have been lost to time and written out of the histories. These few stories, passed on around our meals of roasted fish, are all that remain.”
“That is a sad tale, which means it is the truest,” the legless boy says, looking up at me. There is a tear in his eye. “What do you believe happened to Ornn?”
“I believe when the Great Builder returns,” I tell him, “it will be to remake the world.”
The boy laughs. “I would like to see that day.”
“Maybe you will. Do not weep for the Hearthblood. Weep instead for the stories lost to war and time, for once they were more numerous than the stars. Repeat these tales so our children’s children can still hear our ancestors’ voices, and stoke the fire of the forge in our hearts.”
In my own heart, I can feel my grandmother’s smile.
It warms me. I feel no cold beneath my bare feet.
Taliyah

Taliyah is a nomadic mage from Shurima who weaves stone with energetic enthusiasm and raw determination. Torn between teenage wonder and adult responsibility, she has crossed nearly all of Valoran on a journey to learn the true nature of her growing powers. Compelled by rumors of the rise of a long-dead emperor, she returns to protect her tribe from dangers uncovered by Shurima’s shifting sands. Some have mistaken her tender heart for weakness and paid the price for their error, for beneath Taliyah’s youthful demeanor is a will strong enough to move mountains, and a spirit fierce enough to make the earth tremble.
Born in the rocky foothills bordering Icathia’s corrupted shadow, Taliyah spent her childhood herding goats with her tribe of nomadic weavers. Where most outsiders see Shurima as a beige and barren waste, her family raised her to be a true daughter of the desert and to see beauty in the rich hues of the land. Taliyah was always fascinated by the stone beneath the dunes. When she was a toddler, she collected colorful rocks as her people followed the seasonal waters. As she grew older, the earth itself seemed drawn to her, arcing and twisting to follow her tracks through the sand.
After her sixth high summer, Taliyah wandered from the caravan in search of a lost goatling that had been placed in her charge. Determined not to disappoint her father—the master shepherd and headman of the tribe—she tracked the young animal into the night. She followed the hoofprints through a dry wash to a box canyon. The little beast had managed to get high up the rock wall, but could not get down.
The sandstone called to her, urging her to pull handholds from the sheer wall. Taliyah laid a tentative palm against the rock, determined to rescue the scared animal. The elemental power she felt was as urgent and overwhelming as a monsoon rain. As soon as she opened herself to the magic, it poured over her, the stone leaping to her fingertips, bringing both the canyon wall and the beast down on top of her.
The next morning, Taliyah’s panicked father tracked the skittish bleats of the goatling. He fell to his knees when he found his daughter unconscious, covered loosely in a blanket of woven stone. Grief-stricken, he returned to the tribe with Taliyah.
Two days later, the girl awoke from fevered dreams in the tent of Babajan, the tribe’s grandmother. Taliyah began to tell the wise woman and her concerned parents of her night in the canyon, of the rock that called to her. Babajan consoled the family, telling them that the patterns of rock were evidence the Great Weaver, the desert tribe’s mythical protector, watched over the girl. In that moment, Taliyah saw her parents’ deep worry and decided to conceal what really happened that night: that she—not the Great Weaver—had pulled at the desert stone.
When children in Taliyah’s tribe were old enough, they performed a dance under the face of the full moon, the manifestation of the Great Weaver herself. The dance celebrated the children’s innate talents and demonstrated the gifts they would bring to the tribe as adults. This was the start of their path to true learning, as those children then became apprenticed to their teachers.
Taliyah continued to hide her growing power, believing the secret she carried was a danger, not a blessing. She watched as her childhood playmates spun wool to keep the tribe warm on cold desert nights, demonstrated their skill with shears and dye, or wove patterns that told the stories of her people. On those nights, she would lie awake long after the coals had burned to ash, tormented by the power she felt stirring within.
The time finally came for Taliyah’s dance beneath the full moon. While she had talent enough to be a capable shepherd like her father, or a pattern mistress like her mother, the young girl dreaded what her dance would truly reveal. As Taliyah took her place on the sand, the tools of her people—the shepherd’s crook, the spindle, and the loom—surrounded her. She tried to concentrate on the task at hand, but it was the distant rocks, the layered colors of the land, that called to her. Taliyah closed her eyes and danced. Overwhelmed by the power flowing through her, she began to spin not thread, but the very earth beneath her feet.
Startled cries from Taliyah’s tribe broke her out of her spell. An imposing braid of sharp rock reached up to the light of the moon. Taliyah looked at the shocked faces of the people who surrounded her. Her will over the stone broken, the earthen tapestry crashed down. Taliyah’s mother ran to her only daughter, to protect her from the falling rock. When the dust finally settled, Taliyah saw the destruction she had woven, the alarm on the faces of her tribe. But it was the small cut across her mother’s face that justified Taliyah’s fear. Though the cut was minor, Taliyah knew in that moment that she was a threat to the people she loved most in this world. She ran into the night, so weighed down by despair that the ground trembled beneath her feet.
It was her father who found her again in the desert. As they sat in the light of the rising sun, Taliyah confessed her secret in choked sobs. In turn, he did the only thing a parent could do: He hugged his daughter tightly. He told her that she couldn’t run from her power, that she must complete her dance and see where her path would take her. Turning her back on the Great Weaver’s gift was the only danger that could truly break his and her mother’s heart.
Taliyah returned with her father to the tribe. She entered the dancer’s circle with her eyes open. This time, she wove a new ribbon of stone, each color and texture a memory of the people surrounding her.
When it was over, the tribe sat in awe. Taliyah waited nervously. It was time for one of her people to stand as her teacher and claim the student. What felt like eons stretched between Taliyah’s hammering heartbeats. She heard gravel shift as her father stood. Next to him, her mother stood. Babajan and the dye mistress and the master spinner stood. In a moment, the whole tribe was on its feet. All of them would stand with the girl who could weave stone.
Taliyah looked at each of them. She knew that a power like hers had not been seen in generations, perhaps longer. They stood with her now, their love and trust surrounding her, but their worry was palpable. None among them heard the earth call as she did. As much as she loved these people, she did not see the one who could show her how to control the elemental magic that coursed within her. She knew that to stay with her tribe was to risk their lives. Though it pained all of them, Taliyah said farewell to her parents and her people, and set off alone into the world.
She journeyed west toward the distant peak of Targon, her natural connection to rock drawing her toward the mountain that brushed the stars. However, at the northern edge of Shurima, it was those who marched beneath the banner of Noxus who discovered her power first. In Noxus, magic like hers was celebrated, they told her; revered, even. They promised her a teacher.
The land had raised Taliyah to be trusting, so she was unprepared for the smooth promises and practiced smiles of Noxian dignitaries. Soon, the desert girl found herself on an unbending path, passing under the many Noxtoraa, the great iron gates that marked the Empire’s claim over a conquered land.
The crush of people and the layers of politics within the capital city were claustrophobic to a girl from the open desert. Taliyah was paraded through the tiers of Noxian magical society. Many took an interest in her power, its potential, but it was a fallen captain who swore to take her to a wild place across the sea, a place where she could hone her abilities without fear, who made the most convincing case. She accepted the young officer’s offer and crossed the sea to Ionia. However, it was made clear as their ship dropped anchor that she was intended as a glorified weapon for a man desperate to regain his place at the highest ranks of the Noxian navy. At dawn, the captain gave her a choice: Bury a sleeping people in their homes, or be discarded in the surf.
Taliyah looked across the bay. The cooking smoke had not yet risen from the village’s sleeping hearths. This was not the lesson she had come so far to learn. Taliyah refused, and the captain threw her overboard to drown.
She escaped the tide and the fighting on the beach and found herself wandering, lost, in the wintry mountains of Ionia. It was there she finally discovered her teacher, a man whose blade harnessed the wind itself, someone who understood the elements and the need for balance. She trained with him for a time and began to find the control she had long sought.
While resting at an isolated inn, Taliyah heard that the Ascended Emperor of Shurima had returned to his desert kingdom. Rumor had it this emperor turned god sought to gather his people, the disparate tribes, back to him as slaves. Even with her training unfinished, there was no other choice; she knew she must return to her family to protect them. Sadly, she and her mentor parted ways.
Taliyah returned home to the sand-swept dunes of Shurima. As the punishing rays of the sun beat down on her, Taliyah pushed farther into the desert, determined to find her people. Hers was a will of stone, and she would do whatever was necessary to protect her family and her tribe from the danger that loomed on the horizon.
Echoes in the Stone

Taliyah was outrunning the sandstorm when she first noticed the water. In the beginning, it was faint, just a cool dampness she felt as she lifted the stones from deep beneath the sand. As she drew closer to old Shurima, wet streaks dripped from each new stone as if they were weeping. Taliyah knew the rock had stories to tell as she sped across the desert, but she didn’t have time to listen, to hear if they were tears of joy or sadness.
When she was close enough to be covered by the shadow of the great Sun Disc, water from underground aquifers began to pour off the stone she rode like little rivers. And when she finally arrived at the gates, Taliyah heard the deafening water rushing along the bedrock. The Oasis of the Dawn, the Mother of Life, roared beneath the sands.
The people of her tribe had followed the seasonal waters for hundreds of years. The best chance of finding her family was to follow the water, and to Taliyah’s dismay, the water in Shurima now flowed from a single source as it had in ages past. The tragic remains of the capital city had always been avoided, almost as much as the great Sai and deadly creatures that hunted there. Even thieves knew to keep their distance from the city. Until now.
Taliyah brought the rock she rode to a sudden halt, nearly stumbling from it as she pushed the stone quickly below the desert’s surface. She looked around. The woman from Vekaura had been right. This place was no longer a forgotten ruin, haunted by ghosts and sand; indeed, the makeshift camp just outside the walls scrambled with life, like an anthill before a flood. Not knowing who these people were, she decided it might be best to reveal no more than was necessary.
It seemed there was tribal representation from all four corners of her homeland, but as Taliyah searched their faces, she saw none that were familiar. The people here were torn. They argued about the merits of staying in their temporary camps versus seeking shelter within the city. Some worried that just as it rose, the city would fall again, burying any caught inside. Some saw the storm that bristled with unnatural lightning and thought their chances were better within the walls, even if the walls had once been lost to the sand for generations. All of them moved quickly, packing haphazardly and worriedly glancing at the sky. Taliyah herself had won the race with the tempest, but it wouldn’t be long before the sand lashed against the gates.
“Now’s the time to decide.” A woman called out to her, her voice almost lost to the noise of the churning oasis waters and the rising storm. “Are you going in or leaving, girl?”
Taliyah turned to face the woman. She was Shuriman, but other than that, unknown to her.
“I’m looking for my family.” Taliyah gestured to her tunic. “They’re weavers.”
“The Hawk-father has promised protection to all those within the walls,” the woman said.
“Hawk-father?”
The woman looked at Taliyah’s concerned face and smiled, taking her hand. “Azir has returned to us Ascended. The Oasis of the Dawn flows again. A new day has come for Shurima.”
Taliyah looked around at the people. It was true. They were hesitant to move far into the massive capital, but the fear that worried their faces was more for the unnatural storm than the city or its returned emperor.
The woman continued, “There were weavers here this morning. They decided to wait out the storm inside.” The woman pointed to the throngs of people pushing in toward the newly beating heart of Shurima. “We must hurry. They are closing the gates.”
Taliyah found herself being pulled toward one of the capital’s great gates by the woman, and driven from behind by a crowd of strangers who had decided at the last minute not to brave the sands by themselves. Still, there were a few groups clustered near their circled beasts, determined to face the storm as Shuriman caravans had for generations. In the distance, strange and threatening bolts of lightning crackled at the edge of the whirlwind. Old Shuriman traditions might not survive the storm’s passing.
Taliyah and the woman were pushed across the golden threshold that separated Shurima from the desert surrounding it. The heavy gates swung closed behind them with a resounding thud. The immensity of old Shurima’s glory stretched out before them. The crowd hugged the thick, protective walls, unsure where to go. It was as if they sensed the empty streets belonged to someone else.
“I’m sure your people are somewhere within the city. Most have kept close to the gates. Few are brave enough to go farther than that. I hope you find what you are looking for.” The woman let go of Taliyah’s hand and smiled. “Water and shade to you, sister.”
“Water and shade to you.” Taliyah’s voice dropped off as the woman disappeared into the milling crowd.
The city that had been quiet for millennia now pulsed with life. Silently watching over Shurima’s newest denizens were helmeted guards that wore desert cloaks in gold and crimson. Though there was no trouble, Taliyah continued to feel there was something not right about this place.
Taliyah reached out to the thick wall to steady herself. She gasped. The stone throbbed beneath the flat of her palm. Pain. A terrible, blinding pain overwhelmed her. Tens of thousands of voices were etched into the rock. The fear and torment of their last moments, before their lives were cut down and their shadows were seared into the stone, screamed in her mind. Taliyah tore her hand from the stone wall and stumbled. She had felt vibrations in stone before, reverberations of memories long since past, but never like this. The knowledge of what had come before felled her. Wild eyed, she stood and stared, seeing the city anew. Revulsion washed over her. This wasn’t a city reborn. It was an empty tomb risen from the sand. The last time Azir had made promises to the people of Shurima, it had cost them their lives.
“I must find my family,” she whispered.
Talon

Talon's earliest memories are the darkness of Noxus' underground passages and the reassuring steel of a blade. He remembers no family, warmth, or kindness. Instead, the clink of stolen gold and the security of a wall at his back are all the kinship he has ever craved. Kept alive only by his quick wits and deft thievery, Talon scraped out a living in the seedy underbelly of Noxus. His mastery of the blade quickly marked him as a threat, and Noxian guilds sent assassins to him with a demand: join their ranks or be killed. He left the bodies of his pursuers dumped in Noxus' moat as his response.
The assassination attempts grew increasingly frequent until one assailant met Talon blade-for-blade in a match of strength. To his surprise, Talon was disarmed and facing down his executioner's sword when the assassin revealed himself to be General Du Couteau. The General offered Talon the choice between death at his hand, or life as an agent of the Noxian High Command. Talon chose life, on the condition that his service was to Du Couteau alone, for the only type of orders he could respect were from one he could not defeat.
Talon remained in the shadows, carrying out secret missions on Du Couteau's orders that took him from the frigid lands of the Freljord to the inner sanctums of Demacia itself. When the general vanished, Talon considered claiming his freedom, but he had gained immense respect for Du Couteau after years in his service. He became obsessed with tracking down the general's whereabouts, and scours the land in search of those responsible for Du Couteau's disappearance.
Taric

For the noble defenders of Demacia, daily life is the very model of focused, selfless dedication to the ideals of king and country. Called upon to continue his family’s long tradition of military service, Taric never dreamed of shirking that responsibility—though he would not limit or define exactly whom and what he would protect.
The young warrior trained hard, and possessed great martial skill. Even so, in his scant hours of free time, he would find other ways to serve his homeland. He volunteered with the Illuminators, tending the sick or helping rebuild homes damaged by flooding. He lent his creative talents, such as they were, to the stonemasons and craftsmen who raised monuments to the glory of the Winged Protector and the lofty ideals it embodied.
A work of art. A stranger’s life. These were the things that made Demacia worth fighting for. Taric saw every one of them as beautiful, fragile, and worthy of saving.
Fortunately, his disarming manner and innate warmth allowed him to brush aside any criticism from his fellow soldiers or commanding officers. He rose modestly through the ranks, and even fought beside a young Garen Crownguard.
Ironically, it was Taric’s steady rise that would bring about his eventual downfall—at least as far as Demacia was concerned.
Elevated to the prestigious Dauntless Vanguard, he was suddenly held to a far higher standard of conduct. No more would he be allowed to roam the forests looking for glimpses of some rare animal, neglect combat drills to sit in a tavern and listen to a bard’s simple ballad, or skip line inspections to ride out and observe the silver cloak of night settling across the hinterlands. Taric began to feel at odds with himself, and soon attracted attention as an insubordinate.
Garen urged him to shape up and do his duty. He could see Taric had the potential to become one of Valoran’s greatest heroes—and yet he seemed to be thumbing his nose at destiny as well as his country.
To keep him from demotion, Taric was seconded to serve the Sword-Captain of the Vanguard, though neither of them was particularly happy about it. However, when the older man was slain in battle along with the rest of his personal retinue, Taric was found to have abandoned his post… and rumor had it that he had been spotted wandering the cloisters of some forgotten ruined temple nearby.
Nothing more could be said. A dozen warriors were dead, and Taric faced the executioner’s block for it.
However, seeking mercy for his friend, Garen intervened. As the Sword-Captain’s successor, he sentenced Taric to endure “the Crown of Stone”—in accordance with Demacia’s most ancient traditions, he would be sent to climb Mount Targon, a trial that few had ever survived.
Though the Crown of Stone usually allowed the dishonored to simply flee Demacia and start a new life in exile, Taric took the first ship heading south, and swore to actually atone for what he had done.
The climb nearly claimed him, body and soul, numerous times. But Taric pushed past the pain, the ghosts of his dead comrades, and other tests inflicted upon him by the mountain. As he approached the summit, he was beset by a wave of new visions of loss and destruction…
He witnessed the great Alabaster Library set aflame… and still he dashed into the inferno to retrieve the heavenly poetries of Tung. He screamed in anguish as the Frostguard ran the last dreamstag into the Howling Abyss… and then leapt over the precipice himself in a desperate attempt to save it. At the gates of the Immortal Bastion, Taric slumped to his knees when he saw Garen’s broken body swinging from a gibbet… before raising his shield, and charging headlong into the waiting hordes of Noxus.
When the visions finally faded, Taric found himself at the very pinnacle of the mountain, and he was not alone. Before him stood something wearing the shape of a man, though its almost crystalline features blazed with the light of the stars themselves, and its voice was a thousand whispers that cut through Taric like a blade.
It spoke truths he had somehow always known. It spoke of the mantle for which he had unwittingly been preparing his entire life, with every decision and deed that had brought him here, now, to Targon.
And he would stand as the Shield of Valoran in great wars yet to come.
Reborn as the Aspect of the Protector, gifted with power and purpose unimaginable to most mortals, Taric has gladly accepted this new calling—as the steadfast guardian of an entire world.
The Uninvited Guest

I look out across the once-verdant field, now scarred and ruined by the toil of battle.
The loss of life will be immense, but I cannot save those who seek their own destruction. All those sons, all those fathers, all those futures lost. Demacians and Noxians, ever at each other’s throats, magnetically drawn to one another by something lesser than both.
Plenty of defenders exist for their lofty ideals, and they all stand in my way, almost gleefully slaughtering themselves over a scrap of land, with no idea of its true importance. Two armies entwined, both committed to their ruinous dance.
I could try to reason with them, ask them to move their brawl elsewhere, but my former countrymen now see me as something between a traitor and a wrathful god, and the Noxians… well, the Noxians have always been short on patience.
My usual weapons—wit, charm, and warmth—are useless in this cauldron of desperation. So I push aside those who would slow me, and wade into those who would stop me. Every kind of horror one soul can inflict on another rages around me as I near my goal.
And there, dead center of the roiling fury of battle, the blaze of color calls to me—a delicate life about to be snuffed out amid the mud- and gore-covered boots. Standing bravely, unbowed by the thudding dullness of the armored brutes around it, its beauty rings out like a single crystal bell. It is the last flower of its kind. If it dies, no more shall bloom. I can not allow it to perish.
The two opposing commanders pause in their combat as I approach, an uninvited guest at their last moments. They turn to me, suddenly allied in their outrage at my intrusion.
I stand at the very eye of the two armies, seemingly inviting the cold embrace of death from all sides. But unlike all those who are now taking wary steps toward me, their sword hands trembling, I know why I fight.
Teemo

On my honor as a scout, I will strive:

To help every living thing thrive

To be a friend to all in need

To seek out every rock and tree

To be honest and kind and brave and true

To try my best in all I do

To meet every challenge with courage and wit

And to leave the world better than when I found it

So I pledge to uphold the Bandle Scout way

And serve yordlekind each and every day!

—The Bandle Scout Oath

Teemo has been a Bandle Scout for as long as he can remember—hopping through portals all across Runeterra in order to find people in need (badge 131: “Help a Stranger”), to befriend new creatures (badge 389: “Adopt a Pet”), or even to document strange new species of mushrooms (badge 248: “Fungology Expert”). For Teemo, there was no greater joy than spending his days seeking adventure and earning Bandle Scout badges, which was how he became the most decorated Bandle Scout the world had ever seen.

Bandle Scout rule #154: Never fear the unknown.

When other yordles saw everything Teemo had accomplished, his dedication and enthusiasm inspired them to become Bandle Scouts. What began as a single scout with a dream grew and grew until Teemo was handing out badges to intrepid young cadets and writing new copies of the Bandle Scout rules for their journeys across Runeterra (rules he’d luckily memorized, since his original handbook was lost somewhere in the waters south of the Serpent Isles while he was learning to tie sailing knots).

Bandle Scout rule #13: Every day is an adventure. Make sure you are prepared!

When one cadet surveyed yordles across Runeterra regarding Bandle Scout contributions (badge 567: “Market Research”), the feedback was unanimous—under Teemo’s fearless leadership, the Bandle Scouts were beloved the world over:

“Teemo is SO COOL. One time, I saw him stop a raging stampede of wild horses. It was awesome!”
—Ava, Bandle Scout

“The Bandle Scouts have grown a lot. They put on this great big festival a while ago—had floats and everything. It was pretty neat. They even let me set off some fireworks!”

—Tristana, the Bandle Gunner

“I love those rascals with their missions and badges and adventurer’s moxy. It brings a happy tear to this old pilot’s eye.”

—Corki, the Daring Bombardier

“What the @#$%*^ is a Bandle Scout?”

—Kled, High Major Commodore of the First Legion Third Multiplication Double Admiral Artillery Vanguard Company

Teemo even introduced the world to Bandle Scout biscuits, now carried by scouts all across Runeterra. Their inventory includes over a hundred exciting and unique flavors, such as:

- Poro-Snax

- Old Cheese

- Honeyfruit

- Meat!

- Limited Edition Spirit Blossom

- Bilge Rat

- Helian Puff-Pastry (permanently retired)

- Shuriman Sand

- And many more!

Nowadays, Teemo is focusing on completing Bandle Scout missions of his own design. His most recent achievements are propagating a near-extinct species of exploding mushroom, and freeing all the cute little basilisks in a Noxian war camp (who looked so very sad inside their stables). He’s also researching the origins of the Bandle Scouts—who founded it? Made the first badge? Penned the first rule? And could it have been Teemo himself in a time long lost to his memories? Eh, he can’t remember! But no matter the mission, one thing remains constant, which is Teemo’s dedication to live by the words of the Scout’s Oath: to uphold the Bandle Scout way, and serve yordlekind each and every day.
With Teeth

Graham McNeill

Firewood was precious in the desert, but the blackened ruins of Vekaura offered a plentiful supply of charred timbers to hurl on bonfires. The city had been a blasted ruin when the Sandthrashers rode through the ruins of its walls, its streets empty, its people vanished.
None of them knew for sure who had razed it, but the captives they’d taken on the Marrowmark road told lurid tales of ancient gods whose anger had burned the city to ash and glass.
Raz Bloodmane didn’t believe that, not really.
Stories in Shurima were the currency of the oasis, the payment of the campfire—living things that grew and twisted with every retelling. No tale could pass from lips to ears without each teller adding some grisly detail, some exaggeration to make it their own.
Gods do not walk the sands, only men and monsters.
The Sandthrashers were a little of both.
A reaver band of bloodthirsty warriors mounted on giant sauren lizards, they terrorized the dust roads of the Sai-Kahleek for coin, and hunted Shakkal marauders in the Valley of Song for amusement. With temperatures dropping in the south, their Preystalker, Sai-Surtha, had led the warband into the warmer north to raid the caravans in search of the newly risen capital in the heart of the great desert.
Such caravans were ripe with fat merchants and priests, the desperate, and the gullible. Those foolish enough to believe that an ancient emperor had arisen from his tomb to reclaim his lost empire rather than an earthquake had exposed a buried city.
Easy pickings.
The Sandthrashers were ambush predators, erupting from desert storms to raid in a frenzy of snapping jaws and stabbing spears. Any who fought back were hacked apart, and those that surrendered were fed to their hungry mounts.
Raz grinned as the tethered sauren snapped and growled at the edge of the firelight—giant, reptilian beasts with long, razor-toothed jaws and flanks armored in sun-baked scales. Their ridged bellies hung low to the ground, worn hard by the sand, tails thrashing the dust that lay thick in this cursed city.
Ghosts lurked everywhere in the ruins; echoes of the dying were freighted on the cold wind whistling through shattered stones, and silhouettes burned onto the walls like painted shadows.
Something had happened here, something bad.
Sai-Surtha tossed a splintered roof beam onto the main fire. Sparks flew into the night sky, coiling in firefly spirals before the reaver band’s leader. Raz was strong, but even he would have struggled to lift that beam. Yet the skull-masked vastaya hefted the heavy timber like it was a twig, its enormous weight nothing to his inhuman physique.
Raz watched the sparks flicker briefly in the darkness before fading, sensing a significance that hung just out of reach.
“Why do you look up?” asked Anukta, following his gaze.
The scaled plates of her heavy armor rasped together as she moved, and her shaven head, bare but for a crimson mohawk, glistened with sweat. Her facial tattoos gleamed like exposed bone in the firelight.
“The sparks,” he said. “They burn so bright, then fade to nothing in the blink of an eye.”
“So?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought it might be significant. Like it meant something.”
“You are a sage now? Like Ngozi?”
“No,” said Raz, “not like him. But the sparks, they live, burn, and then are gone. Like us, like life. We are the sparks.”
Anukta laughed, the ivory hoops punched through her ears shaking like drunken moons. “You are right, not like Ngozi at all. He was truly clever. You are just a loud fool.”
Anger turned Raz’s features ruddy, and Anukta’s expression showed she knew she’d gone too far. Her head dropped and she fell to one knee, arms crossed over her chest, thumbs snapping to her palms.
“Forgive me, Raz Bloodmane,” she said, knowing that as Sai-Surtha’s second-in-command, he could have her thrown into the long, tooth-filled mouths of the sauren pack.
Or worse, fed to Ma’kara, the apex mount of Sai-Surtha.
The sauren was a colossal beast, forty feet long and ridged with razored scales from its tail to its three enormous heads. Each elongated jaw was large enough to swallow a horse and teeming with hooked teeth stained rust-brown with blood.
“This is the night before a hunt,” said Raz. “On such a night, only road-meat dies. Don’t make me change that custom.”
Anukta nodded and rose, turning to where the latest captives huddled in the smashed remains of a grain store. They’d taken them on the northern dune roads from Kenethet, men and women claiming they were on a pilgrimage south to see the new emperor. Four had already been devoured by the sauren, and the five that remained were scrawny-looking things, hardly a morsel for the beasts. Well, four of them were—the fifth was an older man with a city dweller’s skin, a full set of teeth, and a girth that told Raz he’d never gone hungry.
“That one,” he said, and Anukta hauled the man to his feet. His face was pale with fear, and Raz saw none of the other captives seemed to mind him being taken.
“Please, don’t kill me,” said the man, with the boneless accent of the northern coasts. “I have money. I can get you much money. Please, gods, don’t feed me to the beasts!”
“You’re too well fed to be a pilgrim,” said Raz, poking the man’s ample belly.
“A pilgrim? No, no, I... I am...”
Anukta jabbed the tip of her spear into his back. “You’re what? Out with it, fool!”
“I am Ordan Stilava, Arch-Patriarch of the Melierax Temple of Bel’zhun,” said the man between heaving breaths. “I’ll get you anything you want. Just, please don’t kill me.”
“A priest, huh?” said Raz, leaning in close and relishing the smell of fear washing off the man in waves. “I heard priests were pious servants of the gods. People to admire. You do not look like a man to admire, Ordan Stilava.”
“Kill him,” said one of the remaining captives. “And make it slow.”
Raz shrugged. “It looks like your companions don’t much like you either.”
“He is a fat pig who took our money and said he would lead us south to Azir!” spat the woman. “He feasted while we went hungry. When we begged for food, his guards beat us. Another day and he would have left us to starve to death in the Sai.”
Raz knelt by the woman—wolf-lean with skin the color of dusk and fire in her eyes.
“And who are you?”
“I am Dalia, proud daughter of sand and sun.”
“Water and shade to you, Dalia,” said Raz. “Show me your palms.”
She held out her hands, bound at the wrist by rough ropes.
He ran his fingertips around hardened patches of skin on her palm and along the edges of her thumb.
“You’re no pilgrim either,” said Raz. “These are sword calluses.”
She pulled her hands back.
“What were you? Caravan guard, tomb-robber, mercenary?”
“All three in my time.”
Raz jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “You think I should feed him to the sauren?”
“Yes. Feet first.”
Raz laughed and drew his knife, a bone-bladed gutter he’d carved from one of Khesu’s splintered teeth. His sauren wasn’t nearly as big as Ma’kara and only had one head, but its teeth were just as long and just as sharp.
“I like this one,” he said to Anukta, sawing the serrated edge of his blade through Dalia’s bindings. “Come.”
She rose to her feet as Raz turned and dragged the protesting Ordan Stilava away.
“Do as he says and you might live,” said Anukta with a lopsided grin.

The sauren saw him coming, and the rumbling in their throats intensified as they saw he brought them more meat. They strained at their chain-leashes, inward-facing spikes driving into the softer skin at their throats the harder they pulled. Khesu watched him and opened its jaws wide in expectation of feeding.
“Soon, my friend,” said Raz. “Soon.”
The wood of Vekaura burned with the blood-red glow of a desert sunset, a good omen for tomorrow’s ride. Its light illuminated the rest of the Sandthrashers, twenty-three warriors lounging on stacked debris, blocks of stone, and benches dragged from the ruins to form a makeshift arena around the fire. Clad in a mix of light fabrics, furs, and boiled sauren-scale armor, they feasted on the last of the plunder from their most recent raid: salted skallashi meat and strong liquor made from fermented Eka’Sul milk.
Armed with curved tulwars and tooth-bladed spears, they were men and women whose names were a terror to caravans snaking across the dust roads of the Sai. Years of plunder and killing in the harshest of climes had made them tough and merciless, capricious and boastful, and none more so than Sai-Surtha.
The Preystalker sat atop a throne of stacked blocks burned to glass by some unimaginable heat. Half again as tall as Raz, their war-chief was a vastaya from the east, massively built with a boulder-like leonine head and a body swollen with muscle. He wore his thick mane long, each braid woven with steel cords and talismans he claimed were magic.
Sai-Surtha’s yellow-slitted eyes narrowed as he saw Raz approaching.
“What do you bring me, Raz Bloodmane?” said the Preystalker.
“Fresh meat,” cried Raz, taking Ordan Stilava from Anukta. “A soul rich with deceit and ripe with arrogance.”
“Ma’kara’s favorite,” said Sai-Surtha, reaching out and running a clawed hand across his mount’s nearest head. The sauren grumbled and hissed, its three jaws opening wide. Raz saw scraps of rotten meat between yellowed fangs, gullets pink and glistening in the firelight. Its many eyes, like pits of tar, flashed in hunger. The beast had devoured the lion’s share of the captives already, but its appetite was never-ending.
Ma’kara was an apex predator, and all other beasts must wait until its hunger was sated.
Raz pushed Ordan Stilava into the battle circle beside the bonfire. Its edges were marked with skulls, and the sand within was red and sticky. Ordan Stilava fell hard, scrambling to his knees before Sai-Surtha with his bloodied hands clasped before him as if in prayer.
“Please, mighty lord, don’t kill me!” he wailed.
The Sandthrashers laughed and Ma’kara pulled taut, eager to rip open this fulsome sweetmeat. Sai-Surtha pulled it back with a jerk of the chain-leash, but the beast’s hunger to feast on the patriarch was undimmed.
“Make sport of him, Raz Bloodmane!” ordered Sai-Surtha. “Entertain us!”
Ordan Stilava tried to rise, but Raz kicked him in the back. Raz lifted his arms high, slowly turning in a circle with a wide grin plastered across his face.
“Brothers and sisters!” he cried. “Our desert bounty is all but spent. The time is upon us to hunt!”
Cheers echoed from the blasted walls of the city. Fists and spears punched the air, accompanied by the bellows of the sauren.
“Caravans from the east and north ply the dust roads in search of water and shade!” he yelled, strutting around the circle. “But what shall they find?”
“Death!” roared the Sandthrashers.
Raz cupped a hand to his ear and leaned forward.
“What?”
“Death!”
“Again!” demanded Raz.
“Death! Death! Death!”
Raz grinned and held up a hand for quiet. A stillness fell across Vekaura, broken only by the heavy crackle of the bonfire and the heaving sobs of Ordan Stilava.
“Yes,” he said. “Death comes to them, as it comes to us all. But before the Jackal takes us into the Sunless Lands, we will spill the blood of our enemies and take what was once theirs. This world demands strength and punishes weakness, so I offer this blood to you all!”
They roared as Raz crossed to Ordan Stilava and cut the rope at his wrists.
The man sobbed in gratitude, but the smile fell from his face when Raz pressed the serrated knife into his hands.
“What? I don’t...”
“You are free to go,” said Raz.
“Free?” said Stilava, sudden hope in his eyes. “Really?”
“Upon my oath. All you have to do is step out of the circle and I will let you go.”
Raz grinned as he saw the understanding of what was on offer dawn on Stilava. He stepped away and spread his arms wide, turning his back on the trembling captive.
Knowing he would never get another chance, Stilava ran at Raz with the dagger upraised.
At the last instant, Raz swayed aside from the blade, spinning and thundering his fist into Stilava’s face. The man went down like a hamstrung beast, the dagger flying from his grip.
“Up,” said Raz, kicking it across the sand to him.
“Please,” said Stilava, ignoring the weapon. “You said I was free.” His face was wet with tears and snot, blood pouring over his lips from his broken nose.
Raz lifted Stilava to his feet and again pressed the knife into his hands. He leaned in and whispered in his ear. “These are your last moments in this world,” he hissed. “The gods are watching—is this how you want to meet them? Weeping and soiled? Give them a show and they might look kindly upon your soul!”
Hate hardened in Stilava’s eyes, and Raz leapt back as the priest stabbed the blade for his belly.
Another thrust, high for his throat. Raz batted the strike aside with his bare hands, spinning away as Stilava slashed wildly like a maniac. The man had no skill and had clearly never handled a knife beyond slicing fine cuts of meat on his plate.
“That’s it!” laughed Raz, easily dodging the clumsy attacks. “Come on, gut me!”
Behind Stilava, Raz saw Khesu’s head come up and heard the constant rumbling in the beast’s throat rise to something else entirely. He blocked an overhand cut with his armored forearm, and sent a pumping jab into Stilava’s belly.
The man hinged at the waist, winded, but he held on to the knife this time.
Raz risked a glance over at Sai-Surtha, and saw the Preystalker on his feet, looking back toward the city gates. Raz turned and saw something move in the shadows beyond the light of the bonfire. The sheen of gold glittered in the darkness, and though the shape moved like a man, it was surely too large for anything human.
Then something was arcing through the air.
Raz followed the object as it sailed overhead and landed at the edge of the fire.
The warriors around the circle shouted in alarm and reached for their weapons as the sauren pack scented blood and yanked at their chain-leashes in a frenzy.
Raz’s mouth fell open as he recognized the warrior he’d tasked with watching the city’s western gate. Uksem Heartsplitter.
Or, rather, half of him.
Uksem lay in a rapidly expanding pool of blood as catastrophic amounts pumped from where his body had been bitten in two. Impossibly, his eyes blinked and his fingers clawed the sand, as if he hadn’t accepted he was dead.
Raz took a step toward Uksem, then cried out as pain flared in his side.
Ordan Stilava!
Distracted, Raz had made for an easy target, but it was a poor strike, ill-aimed and with no strength behind it. Instead of penetrating a vital organ, it had sliced over the skin of his hip.
Raz spun to see the man stumble backward beyond the edges of the battle circle with a wild grin on his face and Raz’s knife held out before him.
“I’m free!” said Stilava. “I got out of the circle—you have to let me go! You said!”
Raz shook his head. He didn’t have time for this foolishness. Not now.
“Khesu. Kill.”
Ordan Stilava turned around in time to see the giant sauren surge forward with its fanged jaws spread wide. They snapped shut and the Arch-Patriarch was no more. Only his footprints in the sand and the mist of blood in the air remained to mark his presence.
Raz put the man from his mind as the shadow at the edge of the city advanced into the firelight. The breath caught in his throat.
Gods do not walk the sands, only men and monsters...
How wrong he had been—how fundamentally, entirely wrong.
It walked upright like a man, but there the similarities ended.
Hunched, yet still half a head taller than Sai-Surtha, with a thick tail dragging behind it.
Clad in dust-caked armor of dull gold and rusted bronze.
Eyes of jaundiced yellow, rugose flesh of green and ochre.
Blood drooling between dagger-like teeth in red ropes.
Its mighty head was bowed, the crocodilian snout sniffing for fresh meat.
Raz knew this creature. He’d seen his likeness carved into sunken temple walls, had etched it into the blade of his own spear.
He’d heard his name spoken in hushed whispers around the oases.
The eyeless makhru, the wandering true-speakers who were said to talk with the spirits of the ancients, told cautionary tales of this god’s exploits to warn against unchecked aggression.
“The herald of Azir...” said Anukta, her head held high in awed wonder.
“Renekton...” said Dalia.
The giant snapped his head toward her at the name, sliding a huge crescent blade from his back. Such a weapon could cleave a skallashi in two.
“Where. Is. He?” demanded the god.
His voice was rasping and dry, raw from an eternity of screaming.
Despite the sheer power of the god’s presence, Dalia remained unbowed, defiant in the face of his unimaginable power.
In contrast, the sauren pressed their bellies to the sand, eyes rolled back in submission and the low rumbling in their throats stilled. Even Ma’kara lowered its three-headed body to the ground, something Raz never dreamed he’d see.
He forgot the pain in his side as he resisted the urge to drop in awe alongside them. His lip curled in contempt as he saw the Sandthrashers gathered around the battle circle were kneeling.
Submission was for the weak; respect was only ever earned in blood.
The creature stalked forward as though oblivious to the warriors’ presence. Only when Sai-Surtha descended from his throne did he deign to look up and acknowledge them.
“I am Sai-Surtha, Preystalker of the Sandthrashers,” said the vastaya, unhooking his sauren-scale shield from Ma’kara’s saddle. “How is it you dare to enter my city and kill blood of my blood?”
Renekton looked around at the ruins, blinking, as if only now seeing its devastation.
“This is your city?” he said.
“For tonight it is,” said Sai-Surtha, drawing his falcata, a blade almost the equal of the god’s weapon, and stepping into the battle circle.
“Then you must know where he is,” said Renekton, joining Sai-Surtha in the circle as though this were some pre-ordained rite. “Rulers must know all, see all! All the whispering liars. Honeyed words and falsehoods. I heard them. No one listened. No one ever listens to Renekton...”
Raz backed away, joining Anukta and Dalia beyond the reach of the circling warriors. Renekton’s words made no sense, and he had no desire to be nearer to these giants than was necessary.
“Who is it you seek?” asked Sai-Surtha, the falcata spinning in his grip.
“The betrayer!” bellowed Renekton, the corded muscles at his neck spasming. “My faithless brother! Tell me where he is or you will know agony.”
Sai-Surtha laughed, a booming sound that echoed from the toppled walls of Vekaura. The Preystalker was a being of colossal appetites, and took his pleasures wherever he found them. Raz saw him eyeing Renekton’s physique, his hunter’s eye seeking out weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
“The Jackal?” said Sai-Surtha. “Nasus?”
Renekton flinched at the name of his legendary brother, as though the sound of it caused him great pain. His grip on his crescent blade slipped and he pressed a clawed hand to his brow at some unknowable madness.
“Do not speak his name,” warned Renekton, the dry rasp of his voice low and dangerous like the threat of an approaching sandstorm. “He was here, I know it. The magical spoor of the Ascended lies across this place, but goes no farther. They made war here, my brother and he who whispered in the darkness. The desert sands called to me, and the muttering winds told me of his coming. Now tell me where he is or die!”
“And if I had that knowledge, what would you offer in return?”
“Nothing at all, but maybe I won’t rip you apart.”
Sai-Surtha shook his head and made a quarter turn, drawing his falcata back over his right shoulder and extending his shield before him.
Renekton laughed, the sound terrible and melancholy all in one.
“You think you can stand against me? I am Ascended. A god to your kind!”
“I’ve always wanted to kill a god,” said the Preystalker, brandishing a blade engraved with runic sigils and hung with fetishes cut from the dead. “And if it must be a maddened, broken one, then so be it.” He hammered the blade against the vivid crimson of his breastplate and said, “I took this sword from a tomb in the Endless Plain and prised this armor from the skeleton of the ancient warrior who bore it. He was about your size. I will kill you with the craft of your own kind.”
Renekton roared in fury and launched himself at Sai-Surtha. He lashed his crescent blade into the Preystalker’s shield, drawing splintered scales.
Sai-Surtha’s return strike knocked the fury from his attack. Renekton stumbled and the Preystalker ripped his falcata into his ribs, drawing oil-black blood. Renekton struck back, but carved only shield again.
“You deny my vengeance while you squat in this ruin of his making!” he roared.
Another blow. Renekton staggered, then spun, head lowered. Keeping his distance.
Raz saw a newfound respect in the god’s eyes.
He’d struck expecting an easy kill, but Sai-Surtha was a fighter of incredible power and skill, with weapons and armor to match Renekton’s. The Sandthrashers were no longer on their knees, but punching the air with their weapons and chanting the name of their war-leader.
Sai-Surtha lunged, driving his toothed shield into Renekton’s shoulder and face. Renekton threw him off, and leapt aside, faster than ought to have been possible for a being his size. His tail lashed out, but Sai-Surtha ducked and pressed his advantage. He broke Renekton’s guard with his shield and body-slammed him across the battle circle.
Renekton fell into the fire and rolled. Flames licked his flesh black and sparks flew into the darkness. He shook his crocodilian head and spat, blood dripping from his fangs.
“You know where he is!” Renekton bellowed. “I see his liar’s face looking out through your eyes. Tell me!”
Sai-Surtha came at him again with another lunge, carving a chunk of golden armor from Renekton’s flank. Instead of retreating, Renekton surged and hammered a series of rapid slashes down on Sai-Surtha. The Preystalker blocked the first, but the second and third tore into his furred flesh. The fighters’ blades spun and swooped, a blur of silver and bronze ringing against each other in a lethal dance.
Renekton circled left. Sai-Surtha went right. Both were bloodied and winded.
The Preystalker struck first, a low, ankle-slicing blow—Renekton parried, then spun around to deliver a stinging cut that splintered the golden plates of his opponent’s shoulder guards.
“The legends speak of you as a mighty war-god,” said Sai-Surtha between heaving gulps of air. “They tell how you took that blade from a dead king of Icathia. How you broke its haft as you broke his army.” Sai-Surtha shook his head. “How low you have fallen, how lost you have become.”
Renekton growled and charged. Sai-Surtha met his first strike with his shield, and countered his second with his falcata. A third he parried, a fourth he turned aside in a squealing slide of ancient steel that threw off jade sparks.
A tearing bite ripped into Sai-Surtha’s shoulder, and the Preystalker threw back his head with a howl of pain. A tail lash drew blood from his chest. Both fighters backed off, bleeding from their many wounds.
Renekton grinned, his teeth red with Sai-Surtha’s blood. “All that keeps you alive are stolen magics. Without them, you would be dead already.”
“And yet still I stand,” said Sai-Surtha with a mocking bow.
Renekton spun his crescent blade from hand to hand, then seized it in a double-handed grip to hack down at Sai-Surtha. The Preystalker blocked the blade with his shield, driven to his knees by the force of the blow.
He rolled past Renekton and raked his falcata across his thigh.
The god stumbled away, blood pouring down his leg.
Watching from beyond the circle, Raz willed Sai-Surtha to finish the fight, to step in and deliver the killing blow.
The fighters closed again, blades ringing like funeral bells. Sai-Surtha’s shield broke apart and Renekton’s armor hung from him in tattered strips of gold. Renekton stomped in, and the tip of his ancient blade sliced deep into Sai-Surtha’s cheek.
The leader of the Sandthrashers spat teeth and fractured Renekton’s ribs with a two-handed hammerblow.
Renekton was staggered by its ferocity, by pain one of his kind had likely not known in centuries. His stance faltered and his yellowed eyes clouded as though reliving jagged memories and visions of triumphs and deaths long since consigned to the dust of history.
“Please!” bellowed Renekton. “Brother! He is too strong! It must be done!”
The words were meaningless, but, sensing an opening, Sai-Surtha swung for Renekton’s throat. The crescent blade lifted to parry, too late and too slow. The falcata tore Renekton’s face open from jaw to temple. He grunted in pain and swung wildly with his blade.
A clumsy blow, but it split armor and lacerated Sai-Surtha’s side.
Undaunted by the injury, the vastaya struck again, hacking his blade through Renekton’s wrist, leaving it hanging by a shred of sinew.
Renekton threw his head back and roared as Sai-Surtha pulled him in tight and drove the length of his blade through his foe’s heart.
The Sandthrashers cheered, and Raz threw his arms up in triumph.
The two fighters stood for a moment as though embracing, the tip of Sai-Surtha’s falcata jutting from Renekton’s spine. Dark blood streamed from the blade, hissing as it turned the sand beneath to glass.
Renekton rested his torn cheek on Sai-Surtha’s shoulder.
“All you had to do was tell me where my brother was,” he said. “But now it is too late.”
“Too late for what?” said Sai-Surtha, ripping his blade clear and stepping away.
“For you to live,” said Renekton.
A pale emerald glow built within the god, running through his flesh in forking lines of searing light. The sand lifted from the battle circle, surrounding Renekton in spinning loops of dust as he rose to his full height.
This was not the hunched figure who’d entered Vekaura, and Raz saw the true face of the ancient god as his form swelled with long-forgotten magic, his dimensions stretching with power harnessed from the sun itself. His wounds sealed, the skin reforming without scar and pulsing with radiant vitality. The blood spilling from his torn scales turned from black to vivid red before lifting from his body in floating ruby droplets. His clawed hand, twisting on its sinewed thread, re-fused to knitting bone as the gold and bronze of his torn armor flowed like lustrous wax to renew itself and regain its luster.
Eyes that were once jaundiced yellow now burned with the light of newborn stars, clear where before they had been clouded with madness. Every warrior around the battle dropped back to their knees in willing supplication. Even Raz, who knelt to no man, felt no shame in bowing before such a being.
He felt the power that had wrought this creature pulsing in searing waves.
This was a being that demanded awe, a god-warrior of such potency that no legend could ever hope to capture his true majesty.
The falcata fell from Sai-Surtha’s grip, useless against this towering monster.
Renekton’s restored hand reached out and hoisted Sai-Surtha from the ground, lifting him like a man holding the runt of the litter by the scruff of its neck.
“Little mortal,” said Renekton, his voice echoing from the shattered walls of the city. “I am an Ascended being. I have crushed armies, torn down cities, sealed the gates and set them to flame. I laid waste to the world uncounted ages ago, and you thought to stand against me?”
With a dismissive flick of his wrist, Renekton tossed the body of Sai-Surtha toward Ma’kara. The great sauren’s heads came up and their jaws snapped shut.
Raz winced at the sound of crunching bone and ripping flesh as the three heads tore their former master to scraps.
Renekton bent to retrieve the Preystalker’s falcata, its impressive size like a toy sword in his hands.
“Who claims this blade now?”
Raz felt every eye upon him, the Sandthrashers looking to him as Sai-Surtha’s second in command. The blood felt cold and sluggish in his body, like cooled fat clogging his veins. He let out a shuddering breath, knowing that to take the falcata would be death.
He rose to his feet and stepped forward, his dreams of one day leading the Sandthrashers now ashes in his mouth.
“Sai-Surtha is dead by your hands,” he said. “The blade is yours. You are now the Preystalker of the Sandthrashers.”
“My time of leading blade-hosts is long passed,” said Renekton, and Raz thought he saw a depthless well of melancholy flicker within the fire of his eyes. “I desire no army, nor crave followers as I will seek the scent of my brother beyond these walls. You would do well to be far from these lands when I find him.”
The god-warrior threw Sai-Surtha’s falcata toward Raz. It landed, point first, in the sand, quivering slightly.
“Your leader,” said Renekton, stepping from the circle towards him. “Did he know anything of my brother or did he die for nothing?”
“I know not what he knew,” said Raz, pulling the sword from the sand and holding it out before him in offered challenge.
“What are you doing?” asked Renekton.
“If you are going to kill me, then I will give a show you won’t soon forget,” said Raz. “I will make you work to claim my soul.”
Renekton laughed and shook his mighty head.
“You are less than nothing to me,” he said. “I seek the heart of a god. I merely pass this blade to you as a sign of your ascension to, what did you call it? Preystalker, yes, that was it. You are now the Preystalker.”
Raz lowered the sword, looking from its blade to the warriors gathered around him.
He could ask for no greater sign of favor than the word of this god.
“Lord Renekton,” said a voice, and Raz turned to see Dalia slowly rising to her feet beside Anukta. “On our journey south, the man who enslaved us spoke of an order of scribes who sought a sunken library. It is said to be hidden in the cliffs beyond Zirima. I do not know if there is any truth to this, but if the tales of your learned brother are true, then perhaps he too might seek out such a place...”
Renekton sighed, his eyes taking on the faraway look of a mind lost in bitter memories.
“Knowledge was ever his passion,” he said. “Once we almost shed blood over my thirst to destroy a great library of an enemy city...”
Renekton turned and strode back the way he had come, passing once again to shadow.
As darkness swallowed the ancient being, it seemed his form diminished from its towering, lustrous god-form, returning to the hunched and forlorn wanderer lost to madness who had first entered Vekaura.
With Renekton gone, Raz turned to Dalia and Anukta.
“You want to live?” he asked Dalia, bending to retrieve his tooth-bladed knife from the blood-drenched ground where Ordan Stilava had been devoured.
“I do,” she said.
Raz handed her the weapon and nodded toward the hissing, reptilian form of Khesu.
“I made this from one of its teeth,” he said. “If it lets you ride it, you’re one of us.”
She nodded, and Raz was pleased at the lack of fear he saw.
“So what are you going to ride?” said Anukta.
Raz sheathed Sai-Surtha’s falcata in a leather loop at his back.
He locked eyes with the middle head of Ma’kara and rolled his shoulders. Ragged scraps of flesh dangled from the creature’s barbed teeth, and it watched him approach with hostile eyes.
“Right,” said Raz, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way...”

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