The sea of grass danced in time to the wind, like the waves of the ocean that Anja's Sverfra born wife so often spoke of. The fading Syna cast a red and pink glow over the green and gold, igniting the plains in a flame of colors. Anja had watched Syna fall a thousand times and never tired of it. His grandmother had spoken of the fall of night and rise of day like the eternal death and rebirth of every soul’s venture. As such, nightfall always brought the Drykas a sense of peaceful melancholy, but not an unpleasant one. The man murmured a quiet prayer of acknowledgement to Dira, then, not wanting to be exclusive, added a quick one to Syna and Leth as well. “Just as the night falls and day rises, may you see every soul to their peaceful rebirth,” Anja signed solemnly.
Beneath his legs, Anja felt Rivian shift his weight. Anja knew his strider companion well enough to know that the poor horse was bored senseless; at least if his constant shifting weight and annoyed ears were any indication. Anja patted his companion’s shoulder affectionately, earning a half-annoyed ear tilt. 'What are we even doing here?’ Anja imagined those ears seemed to say.
“We come if we’re asked to,” Anja signed to his companion. “You know that.” Rivian dropped his head in a resigned sulk, ears flat. Anja chuckled, then turned his attention back to the matter at hand.
The group of horses and men making up the Watch Anja accompanied formed a half circle around a collection of wagons hosting traders from lands outside the Sea of Grass. The Rayvekh in charge of this group of the watch argued loudly in Common with a solitary caravanner, his hands occasionally punctuating his statements with instinctual Pavi. The men of the Watch chuckled among themselves, even making eye contact with Anja to add him to the joke. Smiling, Anja made the Pavi gesture for intensity. This caused a ripple of laughter to run through the men gathered.
After a moment, the Rayvekh stormed away from the circle of motionless horses and wagons and towards the group of mounted men making up the small group of Watch, as well as Anja. The drykas didn’t know Harim well, but it didn’t take an intimate knowledge of the man to tell he was a storm cloud threatening to burst.
“That horzpah is giving me the run around worse than any of the other walahk here! We will force our way into that wagon if we must!” Harrim snarled. The man’s pavi was short and clipped, both in gesture and word. Teeth shown in eager grins as the men anticipated the coming action, and Rivian’s ears flicked to attention. The group of men split and rejoined, surrounding the solitary caravanner, much to his spluttering indignation. His fellow caravanners looked on, clearly unhappy but unwilling to interfere. Anja stayed back, until Harim gestured for him to join them.
“Join us, Anja. If there are dead about then we will need you.”
Compliantly, Anja nudged Rivian into the circle of horsemen. The golden dun stallion bounced with anticipation. Anja could feel Rivian preparing to surge from underneath him.
“Not right now,” Anja murmured between his strider’s ears. “Perhaps later.”
Rivian’s ears went back in annoyed protest, but the horse didn’t offer any argument as Anja swung off his back. The drykas patted his companion’s neck, earning an annoyed snort, then walked the rest of the distance to the wagon.
The wagon was covered in a thick brown canvas, but even with it Anja could smell the stink of decay emanating from within. When the scent reached the members of the Watch, they recoiled in horror. Most dead things in the Sea of Grass didn’t have the time to rot to this point before they were consumed by something or another. The scent was unfamiliar and sickening to them. Even as a spiritist, Anja was not well versed in corpses and found even himself repulsed. Steeling himself, he breathed out of his mouth on approach.
“This is an outrage!” shrieked the caravanner in common. “I am transporting these bodies to Riverfall for burial! Your people have no rules against that!”
Harim and his men curled their lips in disgust. Unspoken among them was the unnaturalness of such a practice. They couldn’t police other people’s policies, but they didn’t have to like it either.
“If you haven’t done anything wrong, then there is no problem, correct?” Harim replied in common. His voice chirped in an almost friendly way that tried and failed to hide his pleasure at going against this man’s will. The caravanner continued to sputter his protests. Ignoring him, Harim turned to Anja.
“If there is a corpse, there could be a ghost, yes?”
“If they died with regrets, there is always a chance,” Anja replied.
“Then you can lead the way if you don’t mind,” Harim said seriously. “I am good at making things dead, but when that’s done it is out of my hands.”
Anja chuckled good-naturedly, then removed both his bastard sword from his back and a vial strapped to his waist. Anja was doubtful that this caravan contained a ghost, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
The drykas uncorked the vial with his teeth, and shook the gel-like soulmist into his hand. The viscous substance chilled Anja’s hand at the point of contact, and with a slight smile the man smeared it on his blade.
Anja met eyes with Harim, who gave a clipped gesture to continue forward. With a shrug, Anja threw open the canvas. The stink hit the man like a glassbeak, and he saw the Watch behind him stagger back from the force of the stench. In spite of the horrible smell, Anja did not feel the telltale cold tickle of a ghost’s presence. Anja was half ready to call an all clear, but something made the man hesitate. Cautiously he prodded his sword into a layer of filthy blankets lining the bottom of the wagon. A moment later, Anja sprang from the wagon, face pale.
“Harim, there are no bodies in there.” Anja spoke the words in common, and watched as the blood drained from the caravaneer's face.
Harim hesitated only a beat. “Nuits,“ he spat. “Leechers. No wonder the web has been so wrong in this area the past tenday.”
Harrim made a quick gesture with his hands, and his group fanned out to hold the caravan in place, much to the screeching protest of the men and women travelers.
“Harrim, we must find those nuits,” Anja said. He could barely suppress the terrible premonition growing in his chest. “That stink… their bodies are very decayed. I fear they might be looking for new ones.”
Harrim nodded. “Leeching does no favors to their bodies. Fine then. Where would they go? Where are the nearest bodies, if not here?”
Anja could feel his heart tight in his chest. “My pavilion. A hard two hour ride from here.”
Anja watched Harrim’s eyes go blank; the man tapped into the web as only a master could. Effortless and serene. A moment later he came back to himself, frowning.
“The web around your pavilion is damaged.”
Anja swung onto Rivian unthinkingly. His body felt numb. “I must go. My wife and son are there. My family.”
“We will ride together,” Harrim said with a nod. He gestured for half his group to follow, and the seven of them turned as one into a hard gallop towards Anja’s home.
The ride crawled, and the Syna vanished, giving way to the eerie silver light of Leth. Still they rode, their striders pulling at the weaves of the web and sending their gallops at blinding speed. Anja could barely feel his mind holding together, such was his panic. But underneath him Rivian raced like the most single minded of arrows. Whatever anxiety Anja felt, Rivian would have no part in it, and powered onwards.
Smoke marked the approach to the Pavilion, not a gentle white trail that whisked off a cookfire, but heavy, black and ugly. Bright red spots danced in the darkness where the grass had taken and carried the flames. As Anja and his companions galloped closer, the Pavilion came into view. It was a tower of blackened ash, the fire having long burned out, and moved elsewhere. Underneath him, Rivian screamed with rage, an echo of Anja’s own screaming heart that caught somewhere in the back of his throat.
Harrim barked out orders to his men, but Anja didn’t see or hear them. A figure rose from near the pavilion, staggering away from a withered body on the ground. Slack jawed, he looked towards the riders charging towards him. It had been Anja’s cousin, once. The once-Yurik’s face was now decorated in horrible runes, and a look of horror spread across the now undead man’s face. Harrim cried out another order and a volley of arrows buried themselves into Anja’s former cousin, just as his hands exploded with fire.
Horses screamed and men were blown backwards off their horses and slammed into the ground. Anja and Rivian, trailing the charge, did not fall but they both staggered from the slam of force and the heat. Shouts echoed through the smoke and fire. Orders, shouts for injuries. Anja heard none of it. At the edge of the husk of a pavilion, the man swung off Rivian’s back and charged towards a solitary tent nearby. The man knew the location intimately. Even in the smoke, fire and chaos he needed no guide. He ran on foot, Rivian hard breath at his ear a companion in his blind panic.
Anja found a break in the smoke, and spotted the tent through the haze. With shaking hands, he threw open the entrance flap. Clothes, tapestries lay scattered on the ground, the inside of the tent a tattered mess. A cluster of arrows lay sunk into the ground, covered in a strange white substance. The tent reeked of decay. And a pair of bodies lay on the ground. One of them was a rotten and decayed corpse, unmoving. Arrows protruded out of the back of its shoulder and for a brief moment, Anja was filled with hope. The second body stirred and stared him in the eyes and that hope fled to somewhere very far away.
Syla’s once sea blue eyes had a milky white film to them. Unnatural red runes patterned her near-naked body. But most sickeningly, a purple-red bruise blazed on her neck, bearing the shape and pattern of the silver necklace Anja had given her on their wedding day. A necklace she still wore, flecked with blood.
“Oh no,” the creature whispered in common. It held up its hands placatingly. Its face was terrified. Desperate. It seemed not even strong enough to stagger to its feet. “She was dear to you wasn’t she?” the creature murmured with Syla’s voice. “Yes, I can see it in your face. W-well this is just our nature! You wouldn’t fault a glassbeak for hunting, would you? We would have died had we not!”
Anja’s bastard sword was in his hand. He didn’t remember drawing it. “And what difference does that make to me?” said Anja with an unnatural calm. “You killed my wife.”
“She may be dead!” the nuit said desperately. “But her body can live on with me! I’ll take care of what is left of her!”
“You don’t know the Drykas very well,” said Anja. “But you especially don’t know me. Dira can take you.” Anja’s arm moved with speed, and the undead shrieked and fell, as white poured from its wound and finally it fell still.
Anja stepped from the tent, unfeeling, numb. There was something inside him struggling to escape, but it wasn’t quite there yet. Anja looked at Rivian and placed a hand on the horse’s neck. Rivian’s entire body was tense. Before Anja could question his companion, the horse surged forward with a scream.
“Petcher!” screamed a familiar voice. “You killed her!”
A spike of ice flew from the darkness, impaling the still charging Rivian. The horse screamed and thrashed, and Anja slammed to the ground from Rivian’s kick. Gasping on the ground, a second shard of ice buried itself into Anja’s body. In the light of the flickering fire, Anja saw a familiar face, rage filling his now dead eyes. Anja’s son. Lok. Anja tried to speak, but no words came.
A moment later, battle cries filled the air. Anja saw his once-son turn away and flee into the darkness to the sound of the Watch’s pursuit, as slowly the world turned grey and dark.
Time moved strangely in Anja’s unconscious state. Grief must have found him somewhere because several times he half awoke to his own screams, only to be soothed back into unconsciousness by unfamiliar voices. When he finally awakened fully, he found himself tucked into a strange bed, with Leth’s light gently illuminating a dark figure through the open flap of the tent.
Even if she hadn’t been flanked by a black and a white jackal, Anja would have known who she was. “Has my time come, lady?” he asked calmly.
The goddess of death smiled faintly and shook her head. “Not yet Anja,” she said. Her voice, although naturally pragmatic, had a kind and almost affectionate lilt to it. “Truth told, you did me a favor today. Those nuits have been causing me trouble for a good while. The men you brought to the pavilion with your sharp thinking killed all but one of them. And I’m not so self-centered as to not recognize your sacrifice.”
The two of them were quiet for a long moment. Only the quiet breaths of Before and After filled the space. Anja drifted.
“Could I ask a favor?” Dira said finally. “That nuit who took your son is still out there. And there are others like him. I do my best works through others you know. All gods do. Could I rely on you to go after him, and to hunt others like him? You are a good spiritist, and even faced by such a trial, you didn’t falter. I need your aid beyond the Sea of Grass. There are many restless undead, and they need to move on.”
“My pavilion?” Anja asked after a long, painful pause.
“All gone, I’m afraid.”
“Then there's nothing else left for me here. I will go.”
Dira spanned the space between them in three graceful, elegant steps and kneeled down beside where Anja lay. She delicately took the Drykas’ hand in hers and brought his palm to her lips. There was a flash of ethereal light, and Anja’s vision blurred and twisted before finally settling. A sense of peace settled on the man like a shroud. It was difficult, in that moment, for Anja to explain precisely why. In part, it was a sense of purpose that had materialized, filling that empty gaping hole that had appeared the instant he knew Syla and Lok were dead. Secondly, it was the emergence of a strange awareness that now filled his senses. There in that tent, and further, beyond the Sea of Grass and through Cyphrus and further still stretching to the ends of Mizahar and to the bottoms of the deepest and darkest ocean, there was no place that Dira’s touch couldn’t reach. She was omnipresent. Everywhere. It was a dark kind of companionship perhaps, but something Anja found comfort in.
Anja looked at his hand. There in the dim light an image of a scythe stretched across his right palm.“There is no greater honor than to be able to serve you,” Anja told her.
Dira smiled again, and straightened from her spot beside him.
“I have another gift for you,” she said. “Although I rather think that she would have found you even without my intervention.”
Anja gave the goddess a questioning look, which she answered by nodding at the entrance to the tent. Following Dira’s gaze, he heard a nicker of greeting. In the shadow of Leth’s light, Anja saw a beautiful strider mare, a pale white that shone in the moonlight, accented by dark legs, mane, and tail.
“I would not expect you to be alone in this,” Dira said lightly. “Especially considering the bonds you Drykas share with your striders.”
The mare crossed through into the tent and put her head forward into Anja’s hands. He knew his grandmother at once, even in her new horse skin. She was the woman who had taught him about death, about spiritism. There was nothing more fitting.
“I’m counting on you Anja. Do me proud.” With that, the goddess and her two jackals vanished into the darkness.
Anja was quiet as himself and his new companion reaquainted themselves. A sharing of scents and touch.
“Jackals I think, for the windmark,” Anja signed to her. “Two, on each shoulder. And then we go. Yes Maisa?”
Maisa blew her agreement. Around them, the Sea of Grass swarmed with death. But now, for Anja, there was nothing left to fear. Death could take him when it would. Until then, there was work to be done. And the first task would be finding the monster who took his son.
![[Verified by Regime]](./images/checkmark.png "[Verified by Regime]")
