“Matriarch”, Bites-at-Air screamed, “where is the Matriarch?”

Her desperation and fury growing as all around her chaos, death, and destruction ensued as the people of her tribe fought in a desperate bid for survival against the mutated denizens of the underground.

She was torn between the urge to join them in their desperate struggle and continuing on in her search for vengeance, but she eventually chose the latter path as it was clear to anyone who could look that her people were already dead, they had merely yet to accept it, even now the battle raging like one of the grand storms, swirling around her as if she were somehow in the eye of it all. Separate, apart from it as if she was no longer one of the people. That final thought terrified her more than any of the beasts that swarmed.

As she stood there lost within her own mind, a young warrior wielding a short-spear ran past her, knocking her down in the process. As he did so, Bites-at-Air reached out, her intent to grab hold with her remaining arm. Not for the warrior himself, but for a weapon strung to the back of his crude leather belt.

A stone-hammer of some sort.

The one-handed weapon would prove unwieldy with her low strength, but with her main arm damaged finesse was out of the question, so her best bet was to rely on the blunt force that the hammer could inflict. Unfortunately, her loss of dexterity meant that her amateur attempt at thievery veered wildly off the mark. She was, however, able to pull loose a small, stone dagger from its resting place at the rushing fools hip, said fool not even sparing her a glance as he rushed off to join a small group of his fellow idiots in protecting a patch of worthless dirt that they had, for some reason, declared their own, laying down their lives to defend it against the horde of death that had surrounded them.

None of those fools were the ones she wanted though, and most of them would soon be dead anyway, she thought. Turning away, Bites-at-Air stared at the stolen weapon in her hand.

The dagger was made of crude stone, not the weapon she wanted, but it was what she got, and she WOULD use it, just not on the simple-minded beasts that were assailing them. It was much like the one that she had possessed before, but of much finer quality, the stone more solid and the edges shaped and sharpened with extreme care and skill with the maker even going so far as to carve a unique symbol upon the centre of the blade, the meaning of which eluded her. She could barely make out the finer details of the stone-dagger within the dim light shining from the floating orbs that someone had breathed into the air above, but obviously, the best had been reserved for the Matriarch’s lackeys.

Lucky them.

The lights! The realisation hit her like a rock to the head, she should have been following the lights! They would not drift far from the gifted that had given them breath and with the few remaining of her kind left, they would have led her to the Matriarch and that snot lipped female that had betrayed her and the old warriors.

She should have realised it sooner, but the pain of her body and the effect of her blood-rush was clouding her mind, smothering it in a haze of fury and determination.

Bites-at-air picked herself up, the numbing effect of her blood-rush waning as the pain in her leg flared up even further with the pressure now laid upon it, she then, slowly, began to walk to the nearest light source, which, coincidentally or not, was also the source of the loudest sounds of combat. She was certain it was where she would find the Matriarch and the rest of her group cowering.

After a few agonising seconds, Bites-at-Air crested a small rise in the terrain that had blocked her sight of whoever was battling below the glowing orbs that lit her path, the small obstacle annoying her already injured leg to no end, but it had been worth it, ahead of her was one of the people that she longed to see. Not the Matriarch, unfortunately, but someone just as deserving her hate.

Bathed-in-Mud!

The old female that had betrayed them was holding off several of the beasts by herself, no doubt the old female being betrayed herself by her new master now that she was no longer of any use. Or had she been the betrayer again, running off in an attempt to escape the overwhelming danger?

Whatever the case, Bathed-in-Mud had taken the high-ground on a small boulder, hardly a fortress, but it more than made up for the old female’s lack of physical prowess, allowing her to deal with multiple enemies within close-ranged combat. Something that was definitely not the strong point for the gifted.

Bites-at-Air hated to admit it, but the old one’s skill and ability were far greater than her own, the old female displaying her gifts in such a way that it was a testament to the years of battle experience the traitor had accrued in her long life.

Bathed-in-Mud had breathed out a noxious mist around her to hamper and poison the creatures below, followed by the old female spitting out a glob of acidic bile at any of the beasts that had managed to weather the mist and were still stupid enough to try and jump up the rock that she was atop of to attack her. Standard tactics for one of her capabilities, but the old gifted was far from being in control, the frequent Ring of Fire that she was breathing out in an attempt to keep back the beasts that had managed to crawl past the noxious mist was proof of that, but Bites-at-Air knew the old one could keep fighting for a long while yet, her use of skills both steady and controlled to conserve as much of her energies as possible, with little sign of the pressure that the old female was facing being exhibited. She would not cower before the beasts and, in fact, given enough time, the betrayer may very well prove to be the victor of the conflict.

…if she had not just fallen.

Bites-at-Air could not be certain whether it was due to the slipperiness of the boulder or poor coordination, but a moment later the traitor fell to the cavern floor below; the beasts assailing her former position needing a second to realise that the old female was no longer where she was before they started running around the large rock to assail her still prone body.

Torn between wanting to save the old female so that she could kill her herself and wanting to simply to step back and enjoy the show, Bites-at-Air hesitated in taking any action, a decision that saved her life as bathed-in-Mud resorted to a final breath that Bites-at-Air had only heard about in stories told by the history keepers.

As the beasts of the underground began assailing the old gifted, Bites-at-Air saw the old one’s body quickly swell and expand several times its original size, an immense pustule forming from skin, guts, and the energies provided by the breath of creation. The sight was as grotesque as it sounded, the only thing to admire about it being the sheer power involved with the skill.

A moment later, with one final shudder of the quivering mound of flesh, the old female’s body then exploded with all the force of a thunderbolt, ripping apart the several beasts that had set themselves upon her; The area was then showered in a cornucopia of blood, entrails, and body parts.

Shielding her eyes with her remaining arm, Bites-at-Air failed to see the incoming limb, a large foreleg of one of the hairless rabbits that slammed into her midsection with enough force to push the wind from her lungs and crack some of her ribs with its impact, once again sending her barrelling to the earthen flaw beneath her.

The world suddenly went dark as Bathed-in-Mud’s glowing orbs winked out of existence, their connection to the source lost with the old female’s death.

Suffering through her pain, Bites-at-Air pulled herself back up, but after doing so, she noticed something was wrong.

Bites-at-Air had thought her fall had been momentary, her haste to rise, to once again return to her search, had been made with all her effort, but she must have blacked out at some point. Too much time had passed.

It was not only the absolute darkness that bathed the area no matter where she looked that had caused her to come to such a conclusion, but also the absolute silence that accompanied it, the area now a void, invaded only by the beating of her small, fragile heart.

No sound of combat, no sound of the wounded and dying.

There should have been something, some echo of the life that had once been present, she thought, people and animals did not die instantly like in the stories of the historians, not unless a vital area had been struck. The beasts of the tunnels did not eat their kills and they only attacked a person until they no longer posed a threat. Fatal, yes, but the wounded would still take hours, possibly even days to die.

But still, there was no sound.

She thought about calling out, but the urge to do so becoming stuck in her throat as Bites-at-Air hesitated, not out of fear of alerting any monsters to her presence, but the more awful thought of receiving no reply.

Instead, she breathed out a glimmer of light; sending it up, it grew to the size of her head, the glow increasing to a blinding flare that bathed the area in a pale-blue light.

She knew the tribe was dead, the sight of the battle before was more than enough to let her realise that. Yet the sight of the bodies that surrounded her had now paralysed her in body and mind, the shock of it too much to bear. All around her were her people. Parts of them.

Bites-at-Air wanted to break down, to curl up into a little ball as she did when she was still a child and just cry her heart out, but her body would not move. So she just stood there, watching, waiting.

Eventually, a small thought surfaced from the back of her mind.

Again, something was not right, the number of beasts had clearly outnumbered the tribe, but every one of them, her people and monster alike, were dead.

Even when the old warriors grouped up, they could only take down three or four times their number, and only if they were properly organised and prepared beforehand, and she doubted the young warriors were capable of the same, especially not when they had been taken by surprise, but all around her lay still.

The beasts of the underground did not roar, nor were their movements that loud, but they did make some noise.

Bites-at-Air waited…for something.

…

Only…there was nothing.

…

She was the only one still alive…just as her damned visions had told her.

…

Why had she not taken them more seriously? Why had she not warned everyone?

…

…

Why was she the only one still alive?

…

…

…

Not for long though, she thought as she felt her gift wavering, the connection to her life essence flickering as the blood leaked from the various wounds on her body. She could probably still preserve herself by sealing the gashes along her destroyed arm, use the gift given to her by the source of creation to heal herself, but she would not. She would die with her people.

Though she hated what they had been reduced to under the brief rule of the Fool-Matriarch, they were still her people. Her only regret now, apart from not saving them, was that she, in failing to protect them, was no longer deserving of such an honour.

Any further lamentation was cut short as off in the distance, something had made a ‘thwuping’ sound, like a heavy, wet blanket being dropped on the ground.

She sighed.

She had no doubt that that was the looming doom that she had always seen at the end of her nightmares, the all-powerful shadow that had tormented her with the promise of her death.

Here and now, she would be the last to die.

A vision that had haunted her before, but here and now, the notion gave her an odd sense of relief, a promise of an end to all her misery.

Bites-at-Air could have run, well…hobbled, and she could have hidden herself, but she chose to meet her end with as much honour as she could muster in her final moments. She would face whatever had made that noise in the dark and she resolved herself to not only face it with her head held high, but also to place the dagger in her hand deep enough into whatever it was that was coming for her would never forget her and her kind.

Defying her earlier decision, she breathed out the last of what she could muster of her gift, a soothing wind passing through her lips and along her body, sealing up her wounds and soothing her tormented flesh. A small, temporary relief, but it would allow her to meet her end with dignity as she would not simply lay down to die, she would fight it, whatever it was.

And with that acceptance, Bites-at-Air strode forward, still in pain, still in shock, towards whatever lay beyond the light of the orb floating above.