1

That night, the Arena was a cauldron boiling with an infernal blend of noise and smell. The tangle of a thousand roaring voices and pungent odours of sweat and grease mingled with that of old blood to form a symphony of sensory terror. Over the racket of weapons being pounded on shields, their wielders chanting phrases like release the beast! and open the gates!, Raquan Razaturos strained to hear the words of his friend beside him.

“Don’t do it!” called Kastar. He cupped his hands around his mouth as he shouted up at Raquan who sat astride his Therodon mount. “It’s not worth the risk!”

Raquan scoffed. “You call yourself a proud man of the Razaturos clan?” he rallied. “We’ve suffered humiliation under the usurper king and his kin long enough, Kastar. I will win the Night Hunt, restore honour to our clan. I will slay the beast, bring it back and feast on its flesh in the Great Hall of the palace.”

The traditional banquet in the palace in Saibon that followed the Night Hunt was known to be a feast of splendour and lavishness. The honour that befalls those allowed to attend, is dwarfed only by the honour to make the first cut and take the first bite. Although the act in itself is insignificant enough, it bears the weight of a victory as grand as slaying the king himself. Would that I could. Raquan craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of King Rochdros in the crowd of participants. Beside him, his friend stood fretting.

“Raquan, please listen to yourself,” Kastar pleaded. “You are barely of age. Even the Requisition has never managed to dethrone the Ghorkoros clan. What chance do you think you have?”

“The Requisistion are useless, mindless murderers, Kastar!” Raquan rebuked. “They do not want to reclaim the clan’s honour, but I do. And tonight, I will.”

Beneath him, Raquan’s mount strained in its reins, scraping clawed feet over the arena’s stone floor. The crowd was growing more and more raucous as the start of the annual hunters’ showdown drew near. Kastar threw his hands up in an empty, desperate gesture.

“Never mind honour, mind yourself! Just look at these guys!” he shouted, throwing a hapless hand around the packed stadium. “They are warriors, Raquan. Veterans! Fighters! You wear a night gown compared to their steel and leather raiment.” Raquan dropped his gaze for a glance across his attire.

It was unsuitable for the occasion to say the least. He wore metal pauldrons fastened by chains crossing his bare chest. The fabric wrapped around his waist was threadbare and held in place by peeling leather straps, which were only marginally better off than the rusting iron leg guards that hugged his lower legs. His head, aside from his ridged and ringed horns, was unprotected.

Raquan crumpled his brow and gripped the haft of his axe. Of his equipment, the axe was the most impressive. It had belonged to his father, who had used it to hunt in the Night Hunt many a year and had tended to it until the day of his death. “It is enough to protect me from whatever beast they unleash for us to hunt down. This, and the Razaturos’ honour,” said Raquan. Tattered as that may be, he added in thought.

Behind them, a single deep horn blow sounded. The throng parted before them. Across the arena they saw a large tunnel, blocked by strong steel bars. Behind it, a titan strained in its chains. A hush fell over the crowd. For a moment, only the beast’s deafening roars and the tinkling and snapping of iron chains echoed through the stadium. Then, the portcullis was lifted.

What sprang out from behind it, tied Raquan’s innards into a knot. He had heard of the Ghorkoros clan’s breeding of horrible monstrosities to spice up the battles held in the Arena of Saibon. He had also heard that the most terrible of these were selected for the Night Hunt. What stood before them now, looked most an amalgamation of some of the country’s fiercest beasts. Raquan’s first impression was the giant to be the result of an unholy union between a Therodon and a Torbax, hexed to grow to an impossible height. Through its skin made of stone, shone a pulsating red, lighting up beneath the cracks like a volcano bursting with infernal magma. In its cavernous maw sat teeth like sabres. Standing on four boulder sized, clawed feet, it pulled large furrows through the stone floor as if it was but dirt. His own mount, scarcely a third of its size and significantly less temperamental, shuddered like a leaf. The skittish Therodon writhed in its harness, eyes wide with terror.

“Easy, Duragh, easy,” Raquan told it while staring at the monster ahead. He spoke to himself as much as to his mount. Around him, the other participants seemed to share none of Raquan’s concerns. Their cheers and jeers picked up again and rose to rival the beast’s booming howls. Under loud cries and clangour, the prey was driven to the arena’s exit from where it took it but three, four great strides to reach the city’s gates. The guardsmen could only just keep the Night Hunters from dashing after it before the prey had had its customary head start. Kastar grabbed the Therodon’s reins and motioned Raquan to come closer.

“This is madness,” he breathed. “That thing will kill you, if you aren’t trampled by these savages first.” Raquan shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. “It’s big, yes, but I expected nothing less. This is the Night Hunt, Kas. If I win-” he ventured. Kastar cut him off.

“If you live, there will be another day for you to prove your worth.”

“My worth?” Raquan bristled. “This is not about me, this is for my father. He died, Kastar. He died fighting off the Empyrean Forces, for which the Ghorkoros claimed the honour. Honour that rightfully belongs to him, to our clan**. I will restore the honour of the name Razaturos where my father died trying. I must.”

Another deep horn blow reverberated through the arena. The Night Hunters poured through the gates in a torrent of shouts and steel. The hunt was on. Raquan spurred Duragh into a trot.

“Wait for me, Kas!” he shouted back over his shoulder. “I will return!” He kicked the mount into a canter and Raquan rushed after the host of hunters into the black of night.

2

The vast desert lands of Northal unfolded before his eyes and a whole new emotion beset him. The bastard child of fear and excitement. A fear of failure, of pain and of death, and the rush of a primal exhilaration. Raquan felt his heart swell in his chest as he urged his mount across the vast, boundless sea of sand that was black as coal. The imposing empty openness, that threatening endlessness laid out like heaven’s sheet on a moonless night; the skies above, alive with static as a storm brewed in the distance, filling the air with a burning scent and leaving a metallic taste in your mouth; the hollow roars of thunder and war cries in the blackness ahead, that mixed with the clattering footfalls of his mount and his own jaunty bawling at the top of his lungs; all this, with the axe flying high over his head and Duragh’s claws whipping up the black sand into veils of dust, all of this was enthralling. This was the Night Hunt.

He was the hunter.

The world was his prey.

No Ghorkoros filth could stand against him now. He rode with a fury that could spur an army into the fray and on towards the victory that had been denied his clan on so many turns. Raquan felt his face burn under the constant lashing of blowing sand and edged shards. He imagined them blades of the enemy and clenched his jaws. His father had felt this when he rode to meet the approaching enemy. His father had shouted the same words when he rode to face the Empyrean Forces, to protect their country and its people.

The Ghorkoros troops rode to protect themselves.

It was the forty-second year of the Fifth Era, the Age of War. The Empyrean Forces came down onto Ceon in the biggest, most destructive raid ever undertaken in an event known as The Downpour. Like a cleansing storm, the Irin under general Scadras Dar Alquen’s command descended and wiped out any and all that obstructed their divine right to rule. Like many other races, the Ceratan could not unite their forces in time to prevent disaster. Every clan and tribe fought valiantly, but the Ghorkoros clan, the largest and best supplied of all, did not come to anyone’s aid. Instead, the Ghorkoros marched down Falauron’s Fangs at their leisure after various other troops had already fought the Irin crusaders back. Using the Sargazca’s and Razaturos’ efforts to their advantage, the Ghorkoros had only to walk up behind the Irin army and clear up what general Kyormoran, Raquan’s father, had not managed to defeat.

He had not returned.

Raquan had been seven years old.

He had not cried.

The survival of the fittest, albeit unwritten, had always been the first law of Ceratan society. To repay any injustice done in kind, was the second. Neither had their origin in cruelty or stoicism. The Ceratan laws reflected the Ceratan nature. It was their way. It had been general Kyormoran’s way as it had been his great-grandfather’s general Rhylzar, over a hundred years prior. The fierceness and fury in Rhylzar Razaturos’ heart had been legendary. Chanting his War Cry, entire armies had rallied to fight with ardour. Being of his blood meant to be a warrior, endowed with fearsome strength in both body and mind. Rhylzar’s fire had burnt bright in Kyormoran as well. Brighter still in Raquan, his youngest son, but much to the boy’s frustration, not so in his brothers.

In the aftermath of The Downpour, King Rochdros Ghorkoros had offered a treaty; a ceasefire between the clans in return for supplies and soldiers. Kolroc, decimated as it was, had little choice but to accept their overlord’s terms. The peace between them and the Ghorkoros cost them many of their best men to serve in the king’s army and seasonal shipments of resources they could dearly use themselves, but the treaty was signed nonetheless. Growing up in poverty, feeding on little sustenance and off the peoples’ bitterness, Kyormoran’s sons matured with hearts filled with hate. Of the four brothers, the youngest had suffered most from the loss of their father. He had shown the fiercest ambition for revenge, also. While his brothers found their anguish gradually buried beneath the layers of time, hope and honest labour, Raquan’s passion to even the score had only grown. He had shouted at the men, even in the presence of their women and children. Shouted his dissatisfaction with their “meek obedience” and “absurd conformation” to the wills and whims of their overlords, first the Ghorkoros clan and now the lawmakers of the Convocation. The fire in their hearts, once roaring for freedom and revenge, now seemed to be doused by dutiful labour as miners, merchants and fathers.

The day Raquan had lifted his father’s axe from its casing had been the the day he had last seen his family. Now, on the morrow, he would return bearing the axe, the monster’s carcass and eternal glory.

If you live, there will be another day for you to prove your worth.

The echo of Kastar’s words came as sudden as a lightning strike, derailing Raquan’s train of thoughts to leave the wreck burning out in the back of his head. The young Ceratan grimaced. “This is not for personal gain”, he hissed through his teeth. This was about his father’s honour, his family, his clan. This was to set right the Faustian bargain the Razaturos had made, trading away their freedom for the pretence of peace. Trading away their pride. He rode tonight to win back that pride of his people, to restore their faith in their power, to rekindle the flame of resistance. To take what is rightfully ours.

When the start of the annual Night Hunt had dawned, he had seized the opportunity to dust off the Razaturos banner that had lain buried beneath years of submission and scorn.

“This is not for me!” he shouted over the rolling thunder. This is for the clan. The clan that thought me a fool for signing up for the Hunt. The clan that choose the safety of submission over the right for revenge. The clan that then choose to let the new global government dictate their lives through laws that are not our own, he thought.

This is the night I will prove them wrong. Tonight, I will restore some of that pride they gave up in return for oppression. I will make them eat their words, as I eat the flesh and bones of the beast in the palace’s Great Hall!

A bright flash split the sky above. A booming thunder followed forthwith, a dire sound that mixed with the deep roar of the titanic prey which silhouette loomed not a hundred feet ahead.

3

Duragh skidded to a halt. Raquan tightened the reins to keep his mount from turning, while his other hand clenched around the haft of his axe. A tidal wave of emotions washed over him as he beheld the monstrosity ahead. Mortal fear was about to win the battle for dominance when spirit and exhilaration took over.

It was alone.

There was no sign of King Rochdros or any of the other Night Hunters. The keen goads of gaining the triumph that would be spoken of for generations to come, stirred the embers of his passion into a roaring fire. He pressed his heels into Duragh’s flanks. The Therodon scraped his two clawed feet, hesitating, baulking. Raquan sensed its fear. It was not a fear to become prey; the titan did not roar for hunger. It would not kill to feed. It would simply kill. Over that yawning maw sat its eyes; four incandescent orbs alight with the ruby shine of the possessed. Through its stone skin showed a churning mass of liquid hot lava. From cracks and cavities it flowed down past its tree-tall legs to pool around its feet. The razor sharp claws that protruded from them were as long as its fangs, serrated and savage. Another deafening roar dragged Raquan back from his ecstasy-fuelled fantasies.

For a moment, he tested the weight of his axe in his hand. The chance of it piercing the rock solid skin of the titan was next to none. But then again, it was clearly wounded by the other hunters’ weapons. It had managed to break away from the Hunters, but not before it had felt their ferocity and deadly weapons. In its weakened state, Raquan could get within range of the beast and throw the axe into the gap at its side, thus exploiting the Night Hunters’ earlier efforts. Lightning flashed, briefly outlining the monstrous features against a sheet of white. The young warrior steeled his resolve and kicked Duragh into a trot. The chimeric giant leaned in and started in their direction. With each slow stride that belied the true speed it was capable of, it dripped a nauseating blend of burning sulphur, slime and saliva from its cavernous maw. The beast reeked of rotten eggs and raw sewage. Raquan gagged and buried the lower half of his face in the crook of his elbow, all the while keeping his eyes peeled on the mutant monster.

It grew with each step.

It had been a towering abomination when he first laid eyes upon it back in the Arena, the blasphemous fruit of endless experimenting, torture practises and starvation; now, here in the darkness of night, it had become an unspeakable horror. It grew and grew until it blotted out the streaks of lightning that dashed through the sky like incandescent snakes slithering away into the cover of the clouds. It filled Raquan’s vision completely when he was close enough to strike.

His own battle cries drowned in the cacophony of thunder, bellowing roars and shattering rock. A torrent of hot saliva rained down upon him as Raquan urged Duragh around the giants’ towering legs. A storm of dust and sweat swirled in his wake as he rode like a man possessed. A fire raged in his chest. Nothing existed besides him, his primordial fury and the beast. His prey. A terrible, wicked cry burst from his lips. The axe in his hand was not a weapon, it was his thirst for glory, recognition and blood solidified. Another flash. The edge of the axe lit up with the same ghostly white. Raquan looked up, squinting as an acidic goo came seeping from the monster’s wounds. The liquids dissolved the leather, biting through fabric and searing his flesh beneath. He felt nothing.

He screamed.

He charged.

He took aim.

His father’s axe flew free of his hand, soaring through the sky toward the gaping hole in the giant’s side. It buried itself deep into the bare innards of the beast. The turmoil that ensued was fantastic. Each of Raquan’s senses faltered under the din of the death struggle. For a moment he saw nothing, but when the beast’s thrashing tail came into view it was too late. With the power of an unstoppable avalanche did the monster swing its spiked tail around, sweeping the mount beneath him clean off its feet. Raquan connected with the ground in a bone-breaking crash that drove the air from his lungs. Beside him, Duragh struggled to stand up. It had lifted itself halfway when the lethal tail came swinging back. Raquan felt the spray of liquid hot fire before he saw it; the Therodon’s head was nearly completely lobbed off, bleeding lava in a steady gush. In the single scream it screamed, was the pain of a soul being ripped from the body. The thrashing tail swung. Frozen in horror, Raquan failed to anticipate. When he would regain consciousness, the blood-covered titan’s tail connecting with the back of his head would be the last thing he remembered of his fight in a bid for glory.

4

He lay as he woke, still, on his back, on a mat of straw. The throbbing in his head faded with time. Minutes. Or hours. Maybe days. Raquan Razaturos had no sense of time. He could not have, here within this endless black and complete silence. He contemplated the possibilities.

He could have dreamt it all. He might have gone to sleep back home in Kolroc, dreaming of a faraway chance to prove his worth. Wait, no. A chance to prove the clan’s worth, his father’s worth. Not his.

He would be a hero.

He could also be dead. He did not know what death was like. He had never been dead before. He guessed it would be cold and dark, much like this. But he would not be breathing, which he was.

The conclusive answer to his ponderings came in the form of a slender Ceratan woman who entered the featureless room through a door. She stood outlined against a soft light that shone on the other side of the doorway. She smelled faintly of fresh herbs and sulphur.

“You have woken.” She smiled. “You have been out for most of four days. What is your name?”

Raquan tried his voice. After a few squeaks and creaks it would obey him to the extent of bringing forth a sensible sound. “Raquan,” he managed. “Raquan Razaturos.” The girl shook her head. The full mop of black, half-long keratin strands waved along around her strong shoulders.

“It’s just Raquan now,” she said. “We found you more dead than alive in the Anthargos Desert a little north of here. Alone. Stripped of any armour, weapons or luggage. Discarded.” She turned and started out the door again. Before she left, she added: “Anyone discarded, exiled, outlawed or abandoned ends up here if not dead out there. This is the city of Tuorn. Here we have no past. No name. No alliance but with ourselves. It’s liberating in a way. You’ll see.”

Raquan pursed his lips. Discarded. Fallen warriors who had proven themselves in battle were retrieved, their bodies ritually returned to the fire and their memories honoured. The third law of Ceratan society dictated that the disgraced be cast aside, left behind and forgotten by king and kin.

“Wait!” Raquan called. She turned and locked eyes with him. Hers were a deep ruby red. “The city of Tuorn, you say?”

“The city of discards.” The woman smiled warmly. “Here, you have nothing to prove and no one who’d care if you did. A blank slate of sorts. It’s yours now to fill in.” Raquan let the silence endure for a moment.

“Then I’d like to start by filling a tankard with some fine ale, and make a toast to new beginnings,” he decided. “New opportunities, new chances.” He rose and started after her. “Perhaps to some new friendships. What do you say?”

The woman winked. Raquan already felt some of the bitterness of defeat and abandonment melt from his mind.

“I’ll have you know the tab’s on you,” she grinned. “Welcome to Tuorn, Raquan.”