All day the lemur had followed the shadow of his enemy across the sand of the wastes. His scythe-finger was sharp. His eyes were keen. His heart was full of joy.

He saw the Goddess everywhere in the desert. She was in the vastness of orange-red sands, the sun burning gold atop the crests of the dunes. She was in the scattered runs, and the bones of leviathans that towered up towards the sky, their empty eyes filled in with sand.

Now they found the enemy’s heart. The hyena pack’s trail ended in a plateau of ochre split down the middle by some ancient force, creating a shadowy canyon within. The walls were high and towering, full of chances for ambush.

He was ready. The voice of the Goddess sung in his mind and pushed him forward but…

You have discovered the Locus, Redmouth Canyon

Claimed by - Dustbriar Colony [ Silver ]

To his frustration he couldn’t understand what she was saying. Earlier today he had been a prey animal, full of jumpy, frightened thoughts. They were still there buried in the base of his mind muddling his new thoughts, his sharp, terrible thoughts, full of obedience to his Goddess and the desire to prove himself in battle.

His brothers pushed past him, eager. They slid into the rubble-lined crevasse, hunting, their foe near - they could hear the laughing exclamations of the hyena pack echoing in the canyon.

The space between the cliff walls widened ahead, splitting into a broad path where towers of red stone jutted up, forming pillars striped with white outcroppings of flint. Pools of tar bubbled, heated by the sun until the oily dark pitch within seethed up and made the air stink. The canyon sides were carved with little trails where small creatures had moved so often their paws had smooth the stone. Open cavern mouths waited in the heights, staring down.

The laughing hyena-called echoed and echoed and echoed, losing all sense of direction.

He hung back. The words of his Goddess had urged him forward, on and on, through the wind-tracked expanse. They had spoken to him of a Quest. Of a goal.

Now the message was confused and spoke of-

Danger?

He broke into a run, chasing his brothers as they moved deeper and deeper.

They were being lured into a trap.

The thing slithered from a cave above. It was made of dry, dust-colored strands of plant fibre tangled together around a dessicated human skeleton. Like a tumbleweed, but stretched into the shape of a crude man with stump-legs and club-fists. Every single loop of vine in that tangle was covered in thick, red colored thorns.

It dove, and the lemur slammed into its brother, tossing them both down and away.

The thorn-man slammed into the earth and stood there, hunched over, seemingly confused there was no prey thrashing in its grip. There were no eyes, but as they rolled onto their hands, it sensed them. A vine whipped free and swatted towards them-

The lemur’s hand was quicker. Its single sharp claw flicked through the air, and the tendril was cut off. It thrashed in the dust like a dying snake.

Now the third brother lunged forward, on the other side of the thorn-man. Its claw cut once, twice, ripping a limb open. The frayed ends of the cut vines twisted, trying to grab hold of the main mass and reattach themselves. The bones within rattled like drums.

The lemur dived in, brother at his side, and they laid waste to the thing, so much faster, so much quicker. Their long limbs pushed, sending their bodies leaping and hopping in ways the slow thing could barely follow. Their lanky arms trailed the flickering black blades that turned into blurs of midnight when they cut so quickly through the air.

Each motion made his heart sing with joy, extending his body in a blur and letting it land, coiled up again, ready for the next leap. The slash of his claw made music as it cut the wind and ripped into the briar-man.

Already he was slowing, slowing, coming apart. A mass of broken threads trying to knot up tight.

This thing was weak. Foolish to think it could ever challenge them.

But it wasn’t alone.

The lemur saw the shadow stretch over him, falling from somewhere above. His head turned, bright eyes taking in the giggling hyena pack as they dove down, jaws open, yellow teeth flashing and casting off ribbons of drool.

He swung. His backfoot took his weight as his whole body twisted atop that single column of muscle, feeding into his arm as it sliced into the air. The very point scraped along a pillar of red stone, spraying sparks as it turned into a crescent of blurring midnight.

The single claw met the creature in the hinge of its open mouth, and sawed through, the impact ringing down his arm as the blow lifted the top half of the beast’s skull from the lower in a spray of gore.

The body hit the ground already limp, a bundle of limbs.

The second hyena grasped his still outstretched arm and broke the limb, not just with the strength of its teeth but with the impact of its falling body. It took him to the ground, twisting brutally at the shattered bone, making him cry out. His body was half shoved into a pool of tar, the clinging black pitch staining his fur and muzzle.

His brothers turned. The third hyena skipped down the stones, heading to finish the job as its mate held on, her teeth dragging through his flesh, her paw managing to push into his back and hold him as she wrenched and pulled at the broken limb.

His brothers shot forward, abandoning the briar-man as a pile of ruined tangles.

A claw flicked through the air and the lemur cried with relief as the hyena atop him was forced to release his arm, darting back - too slow. His brother opened a brutal tear across her flanks.

The ghosts began to howl. Everywhere, black mist filled the canyon, pouring off the beast’s bodies. Now it began to writhe and take shape as spectral hyenas, screeching so loud it made his ear hurt, braying and gibbering and making lunatic barks of sound.

He’d lost track of his third brother, who’d ran off to intercept the last hyena.

In front, the second brother guarded him. The hyena was prowling, looking for a chance to dart in and finish one of them, but as she walked, his brother shifted, keeping in front of him. Lips drawing back, his brother bared his teeth and hissed.

On the ground, in the depths of pain, the lemur clung to the sight of his brother defending him. His own sword-arm was broken - but his brothers stood strong.

There was a kind of fierce love in that he’d never known as prey.

He remembered dimly, the memories belong to his before-life, the sight of a hawk taking his mother in its claws and the whole tribe fleeing in terror. That was no way to live. The heart grew small and cold living in fear.

Something hissed across the ground and made him jolt awake from his stupor. At first he thought it was a snake.

Instead it was a tangled segment of the dust-briar, writhing along. A worm struggling to live. He was prepared to bite it and finish the pathetic thing with his jaws - but it ignored him and slithered past him, towards the corpse of the hyena.

On his other side, the stand-off broke. His brother rushed forward, arm sweeping back and forth to fill the air with blurring strokes. Wide, wild cuts, meant to sweep the beast back rather than land a true strike. The hyena bared her teeth and turned tail, running.

The dust-briar unfurled over the body of the hyena and began to engulf it. Dozens of thin feelers wound around each limb, digging in their thorns, bringing up bubbles of red blood to stain the earth below.

The lemur only realized what was happening when the vines began to turn bright green again, swelling out, sating their thirst with the taste of blood. As they grew in strength the headless hyena corpse began to twitch and fight its way back to its legs, crudely animated by the cage of thorns latched onto its flesh.

His brothers were returning, loping back. They saw the beast prowling after as the lemur kicked along the ground to escape, holding his broken sword-arm against his chest.

It was stronger now. A sense of strength oozed from the revived vines, which pulsed like veins, the red thorns shivering with hunger.

One of his brothers leapt forward and the vine-beast flung itself off the ground in a wild leap. His brother’s blade cleaved off a foreleg, cutting through meat and vine alike with ease, but the beast could feel no pain.

It tackled him and took him to the ground. Parasitic vines lashed and leapt, striking his brother, turning the warcry to a pathetic scream of pain as thorn after thorn pierced flesh. The hyena’s corpse and his brother were joined together, fused by the parasite-vines that drank from both.

His third brother rushed forward, screaming in fury, blade cutting constantly. Trying to free the one trapped inside.

The lemur knew his brother was already dead. And the second one, and he himself, would be soon.

The main body was still out there. He could hear the dry bones of its last host clack as the thorn-man tumbled towards the fight. Hearing motion. Knowing motion meant blood to drink.

He groaned and pulled himself up, fighting free of the sticky, odorous tar. It clung to his body, dripping off his good arm. The sword-arm was past useless, every motion bringing him pain, but he swung it against the pillar and brought forth sparks.

Good. He was strong enough.

He opened his mouth and called to the beast, stomped his foot, let it know him. Behind his brother was still struggling to kill off the portion that had grown strong on blood, cutting vine after vine apart to try and rescue the one trapped below.

The main body stepped forward. It moved so clumsily, barely able to control its own motion without a living body to infect. Its arms reached out to embrace him and take his life.

He struck against the pillar again, made the sparks fly, bright cinders of orange in the air.

His tar-covered fist swung through, the fireflies landing and turning his slathered fur, the flesh below, into a brilliant blaze of flame. The pain-

The pain was unbearable and the lemur screamed as he dove forward, curling his burning hand into a fist and slamming it into the briar-man’s head. Thorns cut across his knuckles. The skull trapped within exploded, the grinning face caving in as the whole stumbling colony of dried vines staggered back.

But it couldn’t grab hold. It couldn’t drink from him. The fire clinging to his arm made its thorns useless, the vines burning up as they tried to close over him. He struck down again and again, driving his fist into its shoulder, its gut, its head. His blows drove it to the ground and pummeled it down further, until it no longer had even the rough shape of a man. The vines climbed around his legs as he sank with his foe, furiously striking and striking and striking-

Until he came to a stop, exhausted. Flames licked inside its body. Flames caught on those dry, dry coils of thorn and raced upwards, turning each vine into a glowing curl of cinders. Everywhere it was on fire, and the blaze ate holes in its being. It let out a scream, desperately clutching at him wherever it could, trying to claim enough blood to save itself.

He screamed back and drove a final punch into its ribcage.

The Goddess spoke through him as pain and triumph blinded him to the world.

This time he understood.

You have slain the Territory Lord, Dustbriar Colony

The Locus will bow to your might.