StarDestroyer.Net BBS

This is an overhaul of a story I wrote a couple years ago. Comments and criticism are welcome. I'm going to continue it into an ongoing series. “Of all evil I deem you capable: Therefore I want good from you. Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra Autumn, Year of the Daughter 872, 18th Year of the Reign of Grand Knezar Piotyr
Southern Serja-jan, Village of Janji-Cyler So much lost.

It's a cold night. Through tears and torches and smoke, the Moon’s green glints off helmets and lances, off swords and shields, off the congealing blood in the snow.

Ksenia hangs from the tree by the crook of her tail, the rope grinding the bones painfully at the root. Firewood clatters beneath her dangling head, filling her snout with the fuzzy tang of Grayman Fir. During the winter, she always looks forward to tossing its logs into the hearth, the heady aroma a gentle companion to a mug of hot myod. This will be my last smell, she thinks numbly, at least until the flames find my fur, my flesh.

She trembles against her bonds. Meerish soldiers look down at her, but their emerald eyes, glittering in the torchlight, refuse to meet her own but rather roll away as if her gaze is hexed.

Crowded around the village square, the rest of the company watch from horseback. Already they have searched and razed the homes; the waning fires of their labors smoke the crisp air. They hold their swords and lances lazily, for what do they have to fear? The brave few—her Uncle Kyznec chief among them—lie dead in the snow. The herded rest are cowards: her father and brother and cousins and even Dyril, her betrothed. A shame-faced crowd of hundreds, they do nothing as their women and children sit bound under guard, lined like cattle for their turn at the tree.

It shouldn’t end this way. They outnumber the Meer. If only they fought as one with hatchets and pitchforks and scythes. Old crone though she may be, Sestra the Soothsayer was right all along: foreign ways have sapped the heart of the Sarl.

As the Meerish commander dismounts, Ksenia looks to the sky and reminds herself that there is nothing to fear. Kaa takes care of her own, and by daybreak she will be on the shore of the Moon River, supping upon night milk and dream salmon with her grandmother and uncle and baby brother and all the countless Sarl who ever lived. And the Meer? Soulless, their day will come and they will be gone.

But faith fails, falls like the blood pounding a dirge in her skull. She looks down the line until she meets the blue eyes of her mother, the village Moon Lady, yet she finds no solace in that desolate gaze.

The commander removes his plumed barbute helmet and wiggles his ears through the slits in his mail coif. He turns to the villagers, his fur-lined cloak rippling in the moonlight, and holds out a gloved hand until a soldier places a torch in his palm.

“Right,” he begins in a strange, clipped voice, “I have nothing against your lot, but armies need food, and sometimes we have to do wretched things to make sure they get it. I don’t want to be here, you don’t want me to be here, so how about we skip the unpleasantness, and you just show me your caches?”

At first, silence, and Ksenia’s heart quickens as her eyes dart over the flickering torches. But then she hears a weak, broken voice.

“Please,” her father says as he stares at his brother in the snow, lying beside their family bardiche. “You’ve seen our fields. Our armies left us nothing.”

The commander rubs his blond snout thoughtfully. “Yes, we thrashed Piotyr at Zalka; now he scorches half his kingdom to save himself. How I pity you for being under the reign of such a scoundrel.” He waves the torch dismissively. “But armies are snails, news is lightning. You had ample warning of our approach. And Zapaport is but twenty miles from here: you get their trade. Surrender your caches, and I promise to take only half.”

"Liar!" cries Sestra. "You'll take it all and leave us to starve."

The villagers hiss at the crone. The commander shakes his head.

"Why did you have to test me?” he asks sadly. “The Daughter knows I don’t want to do this, but your lies have forced my hand."

The commander nods at his men and together they thrust their burning brands into the firewood.

Her kinsmen wail. Above them all she hears her mother cry out, "’Sena! My baby! Trust in the Alku! Alku will keep you!"

The logs smolder and flames crackle up to nip at the furred tips of her ears. In fear she thrashes upon the noose, straining at her bound wrists and ankles and mewling as fresh pain explodes from the bones in her tail. No escape. A future boils away: love, marriage, family—the joys of life, the pride of passing blood to the next generation. The fire breathes an elemental sting that hisses to agony. No, not like this. She yowls, she screams.

A breeze blows against fur, stinging her seared flesh yet batting down the worst of the flames. A worthless mercy, but then the breeze rises to a storm and thunder rolls and she opens her eyes to see blinding lightning lick the ground, boiling snow, scorching earth. Meer and Sarl run and scream. Horses rear and neigh. A tongue of light strikes three soldiers. They crumple, fur and armor smoking.

Through blue snake afterimages she sees another bolt strike her uncle’s body, and despite the renewing agony against her ears, she watches wide-eyed as—miraculously, impossibly—her uncle’s hand moves . . .

Above, a bubble of light appears, perfectly round, expanding from nothing. With a flash, it pops and a figure falls in a heap in the snow, not ten paces from where she hangs. Nude, the creature is shaped like a man, but furless, tailless, its limbs malformed. It squats in the snow and quickly looks around in wild panic.

Madness and miracles, but fire will not be outdone. Over sweet fir smoke she smells burning hair and flattens her ears and curls in on herself, ignoring the pain in her tail as she struggles to pull herself up, to keep her head above the rising fury.

Over the crackle comes the beating of hooves, metal on metal, the screams of combat and the dying. The flames lick heat along the back of her tunic, along the ropes that bind her arms. Shutting her eyes, she cries out, yowling, screeching until her throat burns.

A hand grabs her wrists and draws her away from the fire. She opens her eyes to see a sword slash the noose free from her tail. Quickly, she is pulled to the cold earth, and the nude figure crouches over her, half in shadow by the yellow flames. He leans closer and lets out a scream, and she nearly hisses when she sees his face: flat, snoutless, the nose a lump of flesh protruding between bare cheeks. Dark gray fur coats only his scalp, with no ears poking through the mane. Though alien, even she can see the animal terror in his green, too-close-together eyes, their round irises staring back into her own. Heartbeats pass, deflating terror into confusion. A blood-soaked hand idly pads snow atop her tender ears and scalp, making her cringe.

More cries ring through the night. She squirms for a better look. The body of a soldier lies nearby, his throat slashed. Most Meer are routed; they flee on their mounts out of the village square. Others remain in confused, isolated pockets while her wrathful kin descend upon them with pitchforks and billhooks, hatchets and froes. Her brother Monax holds down a Meer as Dyril bashes his face with a claw hammer. Her father wields his grandfather’s bardiche and hews the fallen commander’s limbs as if they were firewood.

Amid the chaos shambles the revenant form of Uncle Kyznec. Smoke smolders from his shoulder where the lightning struck. Green gore runs from where his eye hangs from its ruined socket. He staggers, but then kneels, picks up a lance and skewers a wounded Meer.

Ksenia strains to sit up. The creature sees this and says something guttural as he picks up a bloody swordand cuts through her bonds. She stands painfully on wobbly legs, her broken tail throwing her balance.

Near the thatched hall, her mother slits a throat with a cleaver. "Get the caches!” she cries. “Harness the wagons! Hurry! Before the Meer regroup!"

She stops to stare at her daughter, her irises yellow in the firelight. Grinning, she points at the creature and shouts, "And bring him! Bring the Moon Man! The Angel!"

Angel. There are no accidents, she reminds herself as she watches him squat in the snow, gripping a sword in an awkward hand. Her whole life she has nurtured faith in Kaa and Alku, cajoled herself to believe in spirits unseen and origins unlikely—and always doubtful worms ate within. But no longer, for what use is faith in light of certitude? Kaa is on their side. As certain as the snow at her feet. As certain as the Moon in the sky.

He is frightened, and so she gently takes his arm and tugs him to his oddly shaped feet. He is very tall—taller than anyone she knows—and very broad of chest. She motions him to follow.

"Come," she says. "Come with us if you want to live."

Careful of her tail, she limps to the dead commander, unfastens his bloodstained cloak and yanks it from beneath his torn body. It is too big as she wraps it around her shoulders, but it is warm and smells sweet.

Behind her the flames have bloomed into a bonfire, consuming the tree in their hungry climb as they flood the night with the aromas of oak and Grayman Fir. The angel stands in place, all but silhouetted in the light. He gazes at the moon, bewildered by its emerald glow. I'd like to thank my beta, Stormbringer951. Chapter Two will be up in a few days.

What does this story have to do with TSCC?

Thanas wrote:What does this story have to do with TSCC?

The story does become tangentially connected to TSCC elements later in the story, but I admit, this is much, much later.

To avoid confusion I'll remove the TSCC tag.

No, I mean, what do Meer(whatever they are) have to do with the terminator universe in general?

Thanas wrote:No, I mean, what do Meer(whatever they are) have to do with the terminator universe in general?

The connection to the Terminator universe will become more obvious as the story continues. Chapter Two will be posted Saturday night.

You can't just invent some kind of crazy stuff/catpeople/aliens/mutants whatever and then claim this takes place in the Terminator universe.

Is this a crossover or Terminator / original fantasy?

Borgholio wrote:Is this a crossover or Terminator / original fantasy?

I suppose you could say that, but it's not a fusion. I don't want to spoil anything, but I'll just say this does take place in the same universe as T1, T2 and TSCC (but not T3 or T4). And the story's not quite as out of context as it seems.

Terminator elements will be very relevant to the story, but later.

I am going to edit the title so nobody else is getting confused about this or spends a few minutes wondering if they missed developments in the Terminator universe.

Thanas wrote:I am going to edit the title so nobody else is getting confused about this or spends a few minutes wondering if they missed developments in the Terminator universe.

Fair enough. I admit, right now the story does seem about as far from the Terminator verse as it could get. It'll become relevant, in good time.

I feel I can safely say that there's never been a Terminator fan fiction like this before.

Early Winter, Year of the Daughter 872, 18th Year of the Reign of Grand Knezar Piotyr
Southern Serja-jan, Hanka Forest


Pine needles spar against whiskers, against the fur of her hat. Her nostrils breathe offerings of the winter woods: crisp air, wet bark, the blue haze of coniferous. An idle breeze carries the musk of her kin. And the stink of Meer.

Straddling the rough branch high above the snow, Ksenia strains to hold her draw as the soldiers chase her mother and aunt deeper into the clearing. In silence she waits until she hears her uncle shout:

"FIRE!"

Ksenia releases the string, and the arrow whistles through the night as a blurred line of shadow. Already she is reaching for her quiver when it takes a Meer under the arm, its narrow bodkin point sliding through the rings of his mail. The soldier howls and clutches at the shaft. Another sprouts from his shoulder. He slumps from the saddle.

From the surrounding pines the arrows of her kinsmen drizzle into the clearing. Crying with fogged breaths, the Meer wheel their mounts to escape whence they came. Ksenia draws and shoots, draws and shoots, no longer watching her arrows' path but capturing them in her mind like a hungry prayer. Her soul sings with their flight, exalts at their penetration.

Despite the barrage, eight of the dozen still sit their horses. They hold up their shields as they gallop down the path out of the forest. But Uncle Kyznec is a veteran of the Northern Campaign, and a grizzled hunter as well; he has foreseen this. Kinsmen under snow and bushes press down upon thick branches, prying upon the deeply notched trunks of precut trees. The woods echo with the dry crackle of yielding pine, and the two trees sway and fall into each other like drunken twins, overlapping in a scatter of snow, needles and pinecones.

The barricade blocks the Meers' escape, but they press on, spurring their horses through the fir-sprigs as they swing their swords like machetes. But skins filled with starka tumble from nearby treetops to burst upon the sharp branches, drenching distilled spirits over Meer and beast alike. With slow matches her kinsmen light torches and toss them twirling onto the fallen trees.

The flames whoosh and dance yellow and pale green across the snow covered branches, lapping hungrily until the trees erupt into a wall of damnation. Horses and Meer shout. One Meer falls from his mount to be engulfed by the burning branches. The rest retreat from the fire, wagging tails in fear, turning helmeted heads wildly in search of escape.

"For the Grand Knezar!" cries her uncle.

"For Mother Serja!" cries her father.

Those villagers unskilled at the bow emerge from behind bushes and trees. Clad in leather and furs,they yawl ancient battle cries of the Janji as they descend upon the clearing with scavenged tools of war.

Horses skewer themselves on pikes and halberds. Her father hamstrings one with his shashka saber, finishing off the dazed rider in a flurry of wild strikes. Her uncle decapitates one mount with a swing of his grandfather's bardiche. Monax comes in behind, dispatching the fallen Meer with the point of his halberd.

A score against a handful, the battle is over before it begins. She flexes her claws from her fingers and toes, and as she climbs down the tree—carefully; her tail is yet to fully mend—she looks over the clearing with satisfaction. By the entrance the fallen trees now crackle ablaze, sweetening the already chop-licking scent of blood with burning pine and flesh. Among hacked bodies, blood drenches the snow in gray-green puddles that steam and shimmer in the firelight. She is no novice to hunting—for all his faults, her father taught her well—but this is her first time to join the others, her first time to kill men. Soulless men, true, but thinking beings and not beasts.

No difference, she decides. Meer die just like foxes and wolves. Like dogs.

Among her kinsmen she spots the 'Angel,' the Moon Man, the Man from Otherwhen, the one who calls himself Kyle Reese. With the hood of his white fur cloak up, he looks almost like the others, albeit taller, broader. Halberd in hand, he stands poised over a wounded Meer, listening to his begging prattle.

"I yield! I yield!" the Meer cries in their queer speech, his eyes goggling with terror. "Please! Daughter of mercy! We deserters. We hungry! Want go home!"

Preparing a prayer, Ksenia reaches for her serrated knife, but an arrow sprouts from the Meer’s eye. Beside her Dyril, her betrothed, lowers his bow and grins at her. She lets out a low growl until he backs guiltily away.

The clearing is a butcher's yard. It's time to collect the meat.

"Hurry," Kyznec calls out, motioning with his bardiche. "Gather what we can. The fire may bring reinforcements."

But as she draws her knife and kneels over the body, she thinks he is wrong: there are no others. The Meer was telling the truth, for indeed they were a pathetic rabble, half starved, scarred with frostbite, and their armor and weapons pitted with rust. The Meer still hold Zapaport, but between Piotyr’s blockade and the Serjan Winter, their army grows ever colder, ever leaner.

Her kinsmen work with diligence, stripping bodies, hewing limbs, removing prime cuts. As she pulls the soldier's liver, pausing to take a bite, she notices Kyle still standing to the side, watching but not helping. He looks uncomfortable, and she sees her mother sneer at his squeamishness. Sent from Kaa he may be, from ages past, perhaps, but over the passing weeks he has proved a divine disappointment, his work in miracles limited to his arrival.

Though he is strong and tireless and has the scars and stance of a warrior, he is a fledgling in arms. He is slow and clumsy, and half-blind in darkness. His sense of smell is worse than even the Meer. He is a burden. And half mad.

Some even considered abandoning him when he fell ill with the runs, vomiting their food and growing so feverish he could barely stand. That was shortly after he arrived, and banished early all notions of his divinity: angels don't make mud.

But he tries. He learns their tongue, and he spars with Kyznec, improving each day. And, unlike the others, he did save her life.

One Meer they spare, stripping and gagging him and binding his ankles and wrists to a spear. They wrap their meat in skins, pack their loot into canvas sacks and leave the clearing for the heart of the woods.

Owls hoot. Creatures paw through snow, unseen behind a thousand tree trunks. Her kin navigate by secret reckoning: a phantom face on rough bark, a smooth stone under a root, a bramble shaped like an arrowhead, a hint of deer musk, the frozen sweetness from a bleeding spruce. Her kin are of the Janji Clan; the forest flows through their veins.

Kyle follows like a lost child, but a lost child with a mount’s endurance, for deep into the march he stands tall while they are stooped and panting. Her father says his kind must have horse blood, for like them his skin weeps as he labors.

When they reach the stream they pause to drink and then follow north, sloshing through water for a freezing mile so as to cover their tracks. They then climb a wooded knoll, and at the camp find a fire waiting, which they quickly use to warm their feet.

All but swallowed by the forest, their camp rests within the ruins of an ancient keep, its walls and turrets long worn to nubs by the encroachment of trees. Kyznec says it dates back centuries, before the Grand Knezar, when Sarl fought Sarl in warring clans. So long ago, yet Kyle hails from farther still.

Their kinsmen rejoice at the news and bounty. The ambush was clean, the only casualty the tip of her brother's ear to a Meerish backswing. Monax wears the disfigurement with youthful pride.

There is feast. The war and winter is harsh, but in harsh times happiness must be consumed, not hoarded, lest it rot away like sweetmeats turned rancid. The women roast the soldiers and horses, and cook the scraps into hearty stews enriched with roots and nuts and winter berries. Her father opens casks of starka and myod, and the night soon brims with drunken cheer, with song and dance. Shoving daggers up their necks, Monax crafts puppets from two Meerish heads, making them tell jokes and give each other kisses.

Even Kyle, the perennial outcast, amuses the children with tales of his long-ago world, telling of horseless carriages and boxes lit with moving pictures, of winged ships that soar through the sky, and metal towers that burn across the heavenly sea. And he tells of the Skahynet, the clockwork devil and its army of Steel Men; he tells of his general, the great John Connor, who sought to save the world from abomination. The children, so young their facial fur have yet to darken, listen with wagging tails, their wide eyes shining gold in the firelight.

"You did good tonight, ‘Sena," her uncle tells her as he passes by.

Gnawing on a forearm, she nods but says nothing.

The merriment wanes, for it is midnight. The overcast sky yields before the green of the Moon. A full orb, intersecting Heaven’s Thread. A good omen.

Before the exodus, before Kyle, Ksenia’s mother’s role as the village Moon Lady was a mere tradition, a vestige honor from a greater age. But time is a cycle, and Sestra says a new great age is upon them.

The kin of the Janji gather, and Ksenia’s mother dons the vestments of Alku. A trinity of ram horns curls into a crown atop her headdress of green and blue plumes which sway like tall grass in the Moonlight. Fishbones tinkle from her ears; feathers dangle from her arms. Over her face she wears the white wooden mask painted with the seven eyes. The jawbones and fangs of a cougar armor her snout. She is the Moon Lady. She is the Avatar of Alku.

They bring forth the Meer and stake him spreadeagle across a flat granite block. His green eyes are wide as he stares at the mask, and his fluffy tail curls between his legs. Words of broken speech tumble as he begs for mercy and makes feverish promises of great ransoms. Standing on a tree stump beneath the Moon, her mother lifts in her hands a spirit rattle and a dagger.

The Meer squirms and screams as her mother carves the Circle of the Moon into his chest. Green blood smears the blond of his fur to make a Moon of the Flesh to mirror the Moon of the Night. Her mother rolls back her head, shakes her rattle and begins to chant. An old song, the words speak of Kaa’s silver net, cast into the oceans above to catch the souls of her children, the Sarl, the Chosen Race, the only in all the world bestowed salvation.

A wind whips cold, and Ksenia feels the prickle on her fur, the lightning in her soul. She steps to the altar. As daughter and heir of the current Moon Lady, she has the honor of first Sacrament.

The scent of blood stirs something base and beautiful inside her and she licks her chops and draws her serrated knife and with whispered prayers gelds the Meer, who shrieks and thrashes as Alku’s Ghost enters him through the wound. Children giggle, irreverent of the moment. She steps back and others move forward, drawing knives of their own.

The Meer weeps and wails and gnashes teeth. With outstretched wings, Ksenia’s mother sings to the Moon in deep-lunged ululations as loud as thunder. As Ksenia gnaws upon the manhood in her hands, she spots Kyle, alone outside the circle of her kin. His alien eyes watch with strange desolation. She smiles, raises a hand in greeting. He turns and disappears into the ruins

She moves to follow, but Dyril calls out to her. A shank of Meer in one hand, two wooden mugs balanced in the other, he steps forward cheerfully. Green blood smears the dark of his snout.

“It’s good we’re back to our ancestors’ ways,” he says, passing her a mug. “I don’t know about you, but I never felt Kaa’s presence with sheep and goats.” As he waits for a reply, he grins lamely and takes a bite. Beneath her mother’s song and the cries of the sacrifice, her silence is deafening.

He sighs. “You’re angry, I know. But everyone else has moved on. Your mother’s forgiven your father. Why can’t you forgive me?”

The staska burns her throat, tickles her nostrils. She bites the Meer’s member in half and through the tough, stringy meat says, “I have. You are forgiven.”

“Look, I know that wasn’t our proudest night, but your mother says it happened as Kaa wills.”

“And if Kaa willed there be no Kyle?”

“If Kaa—?”

“You would have stood there and cried as I burned!” Dyril’s ears flatten at her rebuke, and she continues, “That naked man from the sky saved me, but he couldn’t save me from knowing the truth: that my future husband is a coward. All our men are. The only real man among us is Uncle Kyznec.”

“Then why don’t you marry him?” he snaps. “Don’t you know the shame I feel? Don’t you think I wish I did more? And I did try to fight, but they began riding us down, and when I saw others throw down their pitchforks and run, I . . . lost heart.”

“Heart,” she repeats. “Kyznec says in battle the side that keeps heart will never lose. He’s right. We lost when we decided we lost. Then Kyle appeared, and we decided we won.”

“But we shouldn’t have lost to begin with,” he says. His whiskers flex as he frowns. “But if we hadn’t, would Kyle still have appeared?”

She drains the mug and drops the gonads into it for later. “I don’t know. Kyznec says it’s the best thing to ever happen to us, though I don’t know why he thinks so. But as mother said, it is as Kaa wills it.”

He nods and looks down. “The lightning raised your uncle, but it didn’t save Yefin or Ilya or the others who fought and died. Tell me, ‘Sena, do you wish I was among them?”

Fishing for pity, she thinks, but she nibbles the bait. “No, Dyril. You are the son of my aunt and I love you.” She squeezes his arm with just a hint of claw. “But I don’t want to marry you.”

She walks away, doesn’t look back. Silly boy.

The festivities die as the starka runs low. Kinsmen sleep in fur bedding; pairs sneak off to couple. Soon a remnant sits around a fire: her father oiling his saber, Kyznec blowing smoke rings with his pipe, the crone Sestra soothsaying in the mud. The magic of the Sacrament is over and without the vestments the Moon Lady is once more only Ksenia’s mother, a sturdy woman of middle years; she sits side by side with Kyznec’s wife, and they whisper with heads nearly touching, the dark points of their ears poking starkly through the slits of their white babushkas. Licking blood from the black fur of her hands, Ksenia watches the campfire dance.

“You see this cyst?” Sestra says as her gnarled fingers work green entrails into the gray mud, the tissues seeming to squirm in the inconstant firelight. “It’s shaped as a Crescent Moon. A plague will lay waste to the Meerish army. We will conquer their lands and we will feast upon their children. The streets of Helistad will run green with blood and we will offer unto Kaa sacrifices numbering nine and ninety thousand. A new age is upon us, and the Man from Otherwhen is its harbinger.”

Her father sighs. “No one can call me an unbeliever—we all saw the miracle—but why send us Kyle? He’s not Sarl; he knows not our ways. Did you see him during the Sacrament? Did you see the fear in his eyes? I thank Kaa for saving my daughter and brother, but if he is a sign, then he’s served his purpose. We should give him back, during the next Sacrament.”

“Sacrifice him?” Ksenia asks darkly. She nods at Kyznec. “Kaa may have saved my uncle, but she didn’t save me. Kyle did. He’s the one who pulled me from the flames.”

“With Kaa’s guidance,” her mother says.

Sestra nods and puts a bit of intestine into her mouth. She speaks as she chews, her words a toothless warble. “Kaa gave him to us: we should use him. If I could but read his innards, who knows what secrets I could unearth? And such strange hands he has; I could use his knucklebones for a spirit rattle.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Kyznec says. His one eye scans beyond the campfire, but Kyle is nowhere to be seen. “You’ve heard his tales. You know of the artifacts of House See’airuh. I myself have seen the Four Faces.” He points at the hairline of silver dividing the southern night sky. “And Heaven’s Thread? The Diamond Cities? All these were built by the First Men, from an age out of time. His ways are not our ways, but he knows things. Lost arts."

“Lost arts my tooth! Scraping scum from stable walls? Rooting through manure? And collecting fool's gold? Right enough, for he is a fool.” Sestra cackles. “Anything he knows, I can learn by making stew of his brains. And if I learn nothing, at least I’ll fill my belly."

Ksenia’s mother and aunt laugh. Kyznec grins, and when he looks at Ksenia she swears his one eye winks.

“Would you make steak of a bull that shits gold?” he asks.

Ksenia finds little sleep that night. Too much drink leaves her waking in the twilight with a dull headache and sweat on her feet and palms. She straps on her knife, slips from her bedding and, nodding at a sentry—Crilit, one of Kyznec's sons—she paces through the firelight shadows of her sleeping kinsmen. Their breaths sing with broken rhythm; their combined scents churn and warm in the cold, smelling of slothful contentment, like warm pears.

Her kin have done much to make homes here, but the keep shames their efforts, for the tipis and lean-tos fashioned along the crumbling curtain wall are as ephemeral as bird nests in an ancient greenwood. Today they live here, yet millennia hence her people will be but bones in the earth.

The thought should make her sad; she feels only awe. Three years ago, shortly after her first Mooning, a merchant brought to her village a collection of small cut stones with bones inside so old they had melded with the rock. Uncle Kyznec bought several and spoke excitedly of his time in the Northern Campaign where Grand Knezar Alekse led his army through the deep, mountainous canyons that prove the world is layered like a cake, epoch atop of epoch all the way down to the dawn of creation. Ksenia wonders what petrified skeletons sleep beneath her feet and whether any belong to Kyle’s race, the First Men.

As she knew she would, she finds him within the base of the old turret, a jagged ring of stones reaching not quite to her ears. Standing on her toes she pulls her chin over the thick stonework and spies as he squats bundled in furs on a block of masonry, bent with focus over the mortar and pestle in his hands. She's seen him work before, cooking false gold in her uncle's still, mixing brimstone and charcoal and tossing fizzling pinches to the flames—and groaning with frustration. And always alone, always when he thinks no one is watching. A small campfire burns near the far wall; in its yellow light she watches his profile.

For what he is, she decides he's not an ugly man, and as sparse as it is, he looks much better now that he's grown fur on his face. Her uncle says he's seen his kind before, not as flesh but as great titan faces carved in the side of a mountain far to the desolate north. It is said the Blood Tribes worship them as earth deities, sacrificing their young with flint knives to curry the stone gods' favor.

Above, unfelt winds rout the overcast sky to reveal the Moon’s emerald shine, speckled with blue, swirled with white. Kyle glances up. "Come to watch the mad man work?" he asks.

She drops to her feet and, slipping off her fur cap, walks around to the turret's gapped opening. Her ears prickle at the chill. She rubs them. A minor miracle her mane has grown back, albeit white now instead of black.

Kyle puts down his mortar and pestle and stares at her, frowning.

"I'm Ksenia," she says.

He shakes his head, embarrassed. "Sorry, I should have . . ."

"It's all right." It's not his fault her kind look so alike to his eyes. She sits on a rock beside him. He smells of soft apples. The tips of her ears reach barely past his shoulder.

“You should join our Sacraments,” she says. “You’re one of us, now.”

“I’m not so sure of that. I don’t believe what you believe.”

“But you’re here. Your General Connor may have put you in that magic bubble, but it was Kaa who brought you to us. How could that be an accident?”

“Fair enough, but what does that have to do with meowing at the Moon and eating people?”

She frowns at the alien sound. He peppers them into his speech.

“The Sacrament honors our covenant with Kaa,” she explains. “Kaa was a Goddess and she ruled from the Moon. But on Earth man grew proud. The princes of the world said, ‘Let us put a silver collar on Kaa, so that she will be made to work in our fields and build us great cities.’ And so they did, and Kaa became a slave while the princes became like gods. But Kaa’s daughter, Alku, broke the silver collar and Kaa escaped back to the Moon. And in her wrath Kaa set fire to the world. All the fields, all the cities, all the princes were burned to ash. But Alku knew some men were virtuous, and she hid them in a cave deep in the Earth. And then she flew to the Moon and begged to her mother for mercy on our behalf. And Kaa felt great pity for the virtuous men, and so she spared them and said, ‘Let these men be called, ‘Sarl,’ for they are my children.’ And Alku flew back to the Earth carrying a bag of seeds and a skin of blood. She scattered the seeds, and plants grew. She poured the blood, and animals sprang forth. And that’s why leaves and blood are green: because they come from the Moon.”

Something in Kyle’s grin curdles as if she said something unsettling or, perhaps, unspeakably foolish. Oddly embarrassed, she flattens her ears, but reminds herself that a ravine of ages divides their ways.

She nods to the sky. “Tonight, you told the children your people flew to the Moon.” Blasphemy. “That’s not true, is it?”

Again he looks up at the Full Orb, his green eyes distant. "Oh, it’s true. Several times, in big rockets. But back then the Moon didn't have any water or plants or anything. It was just an empty desert. Black and white and gray. It's still the same moon, though. That blue lake-thing there, that's the 'Sea of Trangkwilitee. And that one below it, that's the Sea of Suhrenitee. Or is that the other way around?"

In her head, she sniffs the guttural, rhyming words. "If your moon didn't have water, why did they call them 'seas'?"

His chuckle flashes fangless teeth, a pale green tongue. "That's a good question. I have no idea."

"Kaa made the Moon, but maybe yours is a time before she lived there. Before she gave the Moon its green."

"Maybe. It's beautiful, anyway. When seen from far away, the earth looks much the same, except less green, more blue."

"You've been to the heavens?" she asks incredulously.

"No. Not that I didn't want to be an astronaut when I was a kid, but . . ." Trailing off, he picks back up the mortar and pestle.

"The War with the Metal Men happened," Ksenia says. When only the fire's crackle fills the void, she adds, "You're worried that they've won, that they've murdered your general’s mother before he was in the womb." The idea sits ill with her, that one could be so struck from the world, to not only die but be blotted from history, forgotten even by Kaa.

But if that were true, how could Kyle still speak of him?

"Tell me about General Connor."

Sad eyes stare into the campfire, into ageless memory, yet a grin fights across his lips. "He turned the war around. He brought us back from the brink. We didn't agree with everything he did—he kept Metal around, made them fight for us, even had a pretty little skinjob bodyguard—but without him we wouldn't have stood a chance. It was strange; we always seemed to have a connection, like he was a brother or something, but different. I mean, we escaped together out of Senchuhree, but it was more than that. I guess he must have really liked me; he gave me a picture of his mother." The grin falls, darkens. "I always wanted to meet her. I feel like I let her down. Let everyone down."

Almost, she reaches to touch his arm.

"It's not your fault,” she says, “Kaa had a different plan. If you hadn't arrived, I would be dead. My people would be dead or scattered. And besides”—She waves an arm, at the ruins, at the dark forest horizon toothy with treetops—"there are no Metal Men. No clockwork demons. Even if they won, that could have been a thousand centuries ago. They’re all dead now."

He sighs. "You're right. And I'm sorry. For everything. Your people took me in and I have no right to judge them." He nods at the bowl in his hands. "And I guess since I'm stuck here, I might as well make myself useful."

She leans forward to look at the black powder, wrinkling her nose at the brimstone scent. "What is it?"

Taking a pinch between thumb forefinger, he folds it in a scrap of sackcloth and raises his hand as if to throw it in the fire. But he hesitates and instead scoops the bowl's full contents into his hand, wadding it in his fist. With another scrap he wraps it tight into a dingy burlap ball half the size of a pinecone.

"I hope this works," he says, tugging her shoulder to follow. They step out of the stone enclosure and stand at the turret's entrance, ten paces from the flames. "I think I've finally got it right,” he continues. “It took me longer than I thought, but then I never done this sort of thing from scratch before. Getting the saltpeter right was the hardest part, I think."

"But what is it?"

He smiles and in an underhand throw tosses the ball through the entrance and into the fire. It bounces along the burning sticks. The flames lick along the rough fabric. She sees a crackle and—

—leaps back with a hiss as the fire claps into a burst of light that rends the night with thunder. Gravel and dirt trickle on her mane. The fire is out. Wafting smoke pregnant with rotten egg stinks the air.

Around them kinsmen jump from their fur bedding and run forward with snatched weapons. Several rub sleep from their eyes. All stand in confused silence, searching the sky for thunderclouds.

Kyle and Kyznec share a triumphant look.

"And you can make more of this?" her uncle asks.

Big grin. "Oh yeah."

Ksenia stares up at Kyle standing tall beside her, and then back at the extinguished campfire veiled in smoke, the charred sticks and stones scattered like bones within the old turret. Thunder and damnation, kernelled in such small a measure. But add more, much more . . . .

The soul's eye conjures Meer torn asunder, burnt limbs raining from the sky like gravel and dirt. Though she has never laid eyes upon Helistad, she sees Meerland’s capital blasted to ruins, its walls shattered, its millennia of churches and palaces and libraries smashed, burned, obliterated. She sees Meer by the thousands led weeping before the Temples of Alku where they will be sacrificed day and night until the steps of the holy ziggurats shine a wet green pleasing to Kaa.

As if to testify to her vision, the first glow of dawn swells to the east, lighting long thin fishbone clouds with hues of green and blue. She turns to Kyle, admiring him in the fresh day, and smiles. Kaa’s will is revealed; the Man from Otherwhen has made his use known. The promise of a New Age unfurls like an exotic rug soaked in blood.

"You are an Angel," she says as she takes his large, clawless hand in both of hers. She licks his furless fingers and adds, “The Moon Angel."
I'd like to thank my beta, Stormbringer951. His advice has proved invaluable.

“7And the Augurs growled with anger and accused her of many things. 8And Emperor Crasa asked again, ‘Have you no answer? Do you not see the charges brought against you?’

9And Elbaroda said, ‘Do as thou must. Let the scriptures be fulfilled. 10But verily, I say unto you: I am the Daughter of God, and no man nor woman nor any child should fear me. 11But after my day shall come the Son of Man, and every man and every woman and every child should fear him, for he shall unleash dark arts. 12The winds shall stink of brimstone and abominations shall march the Earth. Lo, the lands shall be blighted and nations be put to the flame. 13Let him be called the Harbinger, for when the Son of Man comes the Day of Judgment is nigh.’

14But the Augurs and the Senate and the Emperor laughed and shook their heads. For they did not understand, and their hearts were hardened.”

Gospel of Nom, 17:7-14, Passion of Xof Elbaroda

---
Winter, Year of the Daughter 872, 18th Year of the Reign of Grand Knezar Piotyr
Southern Serja-jan, Vemos Bridge
---

The rearward dawn splashes green across the cloud-swept sky. A cold south wind buffets the sheepskin walls with rhythmic drumbeats, delivering through the seams the funky reek of manure and massed Meer. Horse clops and marching feet whisper so faintly as to seem half-imagined. But slowly, indomitably, the sounds grow louder, the smells stinkier.

Crouched in a row, the four wait in silence.

The pine is many tails tall, and here near its top it sways gently as if cradling a babe. The wicker ledge beneath her feet wobbles and creaks, and beside her Kyle shifts uncomfortably. Ksenia is not afraid. Kyznec helped built this hunting blind, and he’s never fallen from one yet. This one he even made special, tripling the straps and ropes to bear not only three Sarl, but Kyle’s greater weight.

To reassure Kyle, Ksenia curls her tail around his ankle and strokes his fur-wrapped shin. He looks down, offering a smile, but she knows him well enough to see the worn flint in his small eyes. But his are worries beyond personal danger. This is his plan, and others take the risk.

Wordlessly, Dvorayne Poloso hands the “spyglass” to Kyznec, and Kyznec to Kyle, who raises his invention to his eye before passing it to Ksenia. It’s only two carved glass pebbles on the end of wooden tubes, the thinner sliding into the wider so as to adjust its length. Kyle says the glass bends light to make things look bigger, but Sestra says light can’t bend. It’s obviously water fairies.

Either way, it works. Through the glass the morning snow is so bright Ksenia must squint. The long tube shakes in her hand, jostling the captured world in a swirl of gray and white until she steadies and pulls back slowly on the bigger tube, sharpening the fuzz to crystal. Two miles away, she sees the Vemos Bridge.

They say it was built a thousand years ago, when Meer ruled the world. Except they weren’t called Meer then. The Meer are only a fragment. Once, they were the Empire of Mern, and their lands stretched from the sacred forest of Hanka to the sun-scorched wastes of Venda-Ra. Kyznec says their armies were bigger than cities, their cities bigger than countries. Through lost stonecraft they carved fortresses into mountains and dug rivers through deserts and scarred the world with so many roads and bridges that one could walk from one end of the empire to the other without touching bare earth.

But Kaa watched from the Moon and shook her head, saying, “It is not good that beasts should have great works.” And so she dimmed the sun and made the winters long. And when the Mernen’s crops died and their empire fell, the Sarl moved from the north to the country of Serja to feast upon those that remained and make sacrifices to Kaa in thanks for the land she had delivered.

These days the Mernan are a shattered race, with each shard slashing against the other. Even now, far to the south, they fight in a great war for reasons Ksenia neither knows nor cares to understand. Beasts fight beasts. That is their way.

But though the empire is passed, their works remain, and despite the Mernan’s wicked pride Ksenia can’t help but marvel at the way the Vemos seems a part of the landscape, as permanent as a mountain. Wide as two oxcarts and long as an arrow shot, the bridge sprouts from steep snowy bank to steep snowy bank like an outgrown root of a granite tree. A dozen sturdy pillars hang along its expanse, their bases hidden by the frigid black waters of the Naya River.

They say it was built a thousand years ago. Today it will fall.

“Even if this works, it won’t change anything,” Poloso says bitterly. “Piotyr’s still a fool.”

Kyznec grunts. “So you’ve said. Best not say it too loudly.”

“Or what? Meer hold half of Serja while he hides up north. I have more to fear from them than him.”

“You should fear Kaa,” Kyznec says. “Piotyr is our sovereign in her eyes.”

“Do you deny his father was the greater man?”

Kyle sighs. Kyznec snorts. Old arguments are like river valleys: once grooved, words tend to flow through them deeper and wider.

Ksenia can hear the bitter humor in her uncle as he replies, “Alekse was a great man.”

“Alekse was the greatest,” the dvorayne agrees. “He would never have gotten involved in this wretched war. And if he did, there would have been no defeat like that at Zalka! You should have seen it! Routed by an army a fifth our size! The Mernan call us, ‘pagan rabble.’ It’s a sad day when you find they are right.”

“Piotyr has made mistakes,” Kyznec cedes darkly. “But you should watch your—”

“I see them!” Ksenia hisses.

Through the lattice of a dozen treetops, she catches the bobbing gallop of cavalry. They’re not near the bridge, but across the river early sunlight twinkles on steel. Ksenia’s hand shakes, her sight wobbles.

With a warm, gloved touch, Kyle pries the spyglass from her fingers.

He watches for a long moment before deciding, “Reconnaissance, but the main body won’t be far behind. I don’t think they’re expecting resistance. Get the horn ready.”

Ears twitching at the tightness in Kyle’s voice, she rummages through the leather satchel until she finds the curved ram horn. It’s banded with brass, and ornate battlefield pictures are carved along its pale skin.

She hands it to Kyle, saying, “It’s in Kaa’s hands now.”

Poloso laughs. Ksenia’s ears flatten.

“I hope we have more than that,” the dvorayne says. “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to the war lately, but Kaa’s been a real fickle bitch.”

Kyznec growls. “I remind you, sir, you speak to my niece—a Moon Lady in waiting.”

“Oh, how impious of me,” Poloso says with a chuckle. “Now, this powder’s some clever alchemy, I grant you, but it doesn’t go ‘boom’ when wet, right? Where are the sappers now? Oh, right. In the river.”

Ksenia leans forward and bares her fangs at the dvorayne. He looks at her with mock aloofness. His snout holds a refined slope, and though sleeted silver, his fur is still a smooth green. She might find him handsome if he weren’t Kyznec’s age—and if it weren’t for his blasphemous arrogance.

“My kin are in that river,” she says bitterly. “My betrothed is in that river. ‘Boom’ or no ‘boom,’ some are likely to die. Do you have no faith? Are you not one of us?”

He has the grace to wince. “I . . . apologize,” he says. “I’m just a bitter old knight speaking my wretched mind. But you’re right: despite our differences, we’re all Sarl here—well, except for you, First Man. But truly, Kyle, upon the blood of my slain son, I hope your black powder plan succeeds.”

In truth, the plan is Kyznec’s, though Kyle conjured the details that made it possible. In the weeks since that night in those castle ruins, her kin had not only worked hard but pooled the labors from other refugees. They smoked wood into charcoal, burned fool's gold for its brimstone and scraped white scum from a hundred stable walls. And Kyle mixed and tested, refining the art of his magic powder.

Word had spread of Meerish reinforcements led by none other than Prince Buldvin, Marshal of Meerland and uncle of King Ludolf. The prince won great victories in the south and now marches north to relieve his reckless nephew.

In mere minutes, his host will reach the Vemos Bridge. They will not cross.

She rubs against Kyle’s leg. “You feel responsible because this was your idea,” she says in a whisper, though the others can still hear.

His laugh is more a sigh. “I’d be a bad man if I didn’t.”

“I bet your General Connor felt the same way.”

“He did, I think. He had to. I’ll tell you this: I never envied him.”

“It’ll be all right,” she says. “I believe in you.”

Kyle doesn’t quite look reassured.

The rising sun whittles the trees’ shadows. The gentle rumble of hoofs and feet grow until the morning air seems to shimmer with sound. She hears Meerish voices. They are singing.

When they finally appear, Ksenia realizes she has never seen an army before. Not all at once. Evergreens block her view of the far bank, but even through the crisscrossed branches, even without the spyglass, she can tell there must be thousands. Distant skirmishers like tiny ants ride along the snowy flanks of the main body as it serpentines along the empire’s stone road. She watches with a thrumming heart, and though the breeze no longer blows, in her soul she smells the Meer, tastes their blood.

The skirmishers cross first, followed by the infantry. “Can I see the . . . ?” she asks, though Kyle hands it to her before she can finish.

The spyglass brings the Meer closer as if they were only a thousand tails away. Most are dressed in white padded armor that nearly blends with the snow. Sunlight glints off kettle hats, and the great, long halberds the Meer hold erect as they march. Rank after rank cross the wobbling circle of her sight. She can almost make out the fur of their faces. Their song sounds of howls and barks.

Some carry crossbows and wide, flat shields. Some ride horses and wear leather and chainmail. The magic powder is already stuffed in chisel-holes and behind loose stones. Beneath the bridge her cousin Dyril and others are under the cold Naya waters with wax-sealed tinder boxes. Breathing through straws and spared from freezing only by their blubber-lined suits, they cling to the pillars and wait for the horn.

A mad plan, Kyznec had called it. Mad enough to work, but . . .

“How do we know which one’s the prince?” she asks.

“He’s third in line to the Meerish Throne,” Poloso says. “You’ll know him when you see him.”

And so she does. Flanked by tabard-clad infantry and knights in full plate, a silver-maned Meer rides a white horse. He holds his head high and wears a golden cuirass over a deep blue doublet, a cape the color of spring clovers blanketing the rear of his horse. On either side of him, mounted standard bearers wield two great banners: one a dancing blue wolf, the other a white tree with a spreadeagle woman nailed to its trunk—the sigil of Meerland and the sign of their crucified goddess.

“Got him,” she says. “He’s on the bridge! Blow the horn! Blow it!”

“Yes, General Ksenia,” Kyle says dryly. Kyznec and Poloso chuckle. Kyle holds out his hand and Ksenia sheepishly relinquishes the spyglass.

They each take quick turns peering through. “That’s him, all right,” says the dvorayne. “He was in Raglov a few winters ago, something to do with a naval treaty.”

Ksenia scowls. Before the war, she had seen Meer, but only as caravaners from Zapaport. They traded with her people, but only outside the village, and they only dealt with Kyznec. The idea that they would be allowed into the sacred city . . .

“Did Pioytr accept the treaty?” Ksenia asks.

Poloso waves a hand at the army-crowded bridge as if to say, Does it matter now?

“If it’s him, by all means, blow.” her uncle says. “He’s a quarter of the way across already.”

Since the horn belongs to him, Poloso has the honors. He takes a deep breath, protruding an old-man gut, and Ksenia flattens her ears and cups them with her hands as the long, forlorn bellow pierces the air.

“Hohlee-shit!” Ksenia can barely hear Kyle say over the high-pitched ringing. The First Man rubs his fingers in his funny little earholes.

Kyznec holds the spyglass to his good eye. “Ah-ha! They don’t like that!”

She can’t make out individuals, but the Meer clearly stall in their march, no doubt scanning the forest for the call’s source.

“Now we wait,” Poloso says.

Over excruciating moments, the Meer’s hesitation passes and they move once more. Crowded so close together and seen from so far away, the army looks like a centipede inching along a stretch of rock.

Under the bridge’s slender pillars the sappers battle time in a quest for fire. As soon as the skirmishers reached the stone walkway, they would have climbed above the water with iron hooks and unwrap their watertight tinderboxes.

Kyle wanted to be there too, but Kyznec said he was too vital to risk. And so Kyle chose volunteers and practiced them through the steps again and again until they could dive and swim and light slow burning matches without thought or fear.

And now comes the moment of climax, and Kyle bares his teeth in a nervous grimace. His eyes are a bloodshot green. She takes his hand in hers. He doesn’t look down, but his thumb rubs over the fur of her knuckles.

Prince Buldvin’s banners cross the Vemos’ midpoint. Poloso curses under his breath. Hurry, Ksenia thinks. The banner is two-thirds across and then three-quarters. Her uncle sighs. Ksenia chitters; her tail swishes with strung anticipation.

Stupidly, she thinks the noise is thunder but then sees the white cloud billowing from beneath the bridge. Poloso still holds the spyglass, but the Meer’s panic is evident as their cries harry the air. They scurry to and fro like rats, and as the banners tilt Ksenia catches a glimpse of Buldvin’s white horse. The prince is charging onward, his bodyguards wedging a path through the mass.

The Vemos still stands.

“It was a good try,” Poloso offers.

She sees the bridge teeter before she hears the crack. The Meers’ terrified cries arrive a moment later. As thousand year stonecraft shifts and lurches and slides, Ksenia thinks it looks like a thing alive, writhing as it decays before her eyes.

For a moment she fears Buldvin will yet make it across. But the whole length of the walkway tilts and tumbles out the tiny ragdolls of the Meer and the prince and his pretty white horse. She sees the bright green cloak spill thirty, forty feet into the steep, snowy bank and slide amid the falling stones of the dying Vemos. Most splash into the Naya; rubble and bodies congeal the waters. The royal banners, little more than thick string in the distance, are tangled among them. Terrified howls echo on scattered wind.

There once was a bridge. Now there are only rocks.

Poloso claps his hands and laughs. “If that doesn’t kill the bastard, I’ll eat my ears!”

“Praise Kaa!” Kyznec says, slapping the dvorayne on the back.

Kyle grins, but there is emptiness behind his eyes. Ksenia knows this isn’t his fight. He wants to belong but cannot.

For her own part, she thinks of Dyril. Her supposed betrothed is a good swimmer, but could he—could anyone—swim away in time? They’ll find out soon enough.

“Let’s move,” Kyznec says. “Skirmishers may be here any minute.”

Ksenia uses her claws to climb down the trunk’s rough bark, while clawless Kyle and the older, more rotund Kyznec and Poloso use the rope ladder. By the time they reach the snow-swept foot, the wind stinks of brimstone.

After dousing their furs in elk urine to mask their scent, they hurry east into the woods in a single file until they find the trail. Though Sarl archers cover them in tree blinds, no Meer follow. Ksenia is not surprised: the Meer are pack animals. Kill their chief and they scatter.

They follow deeper until the pines edge out the morning sun and point-leafed shrubs scratch them from the sides. Soon they arrive at the clearing. Last night, after prayers and tearful bids of good fortune, twelve brave Sarl strapped on their packs and thick blubber suits and swam out into the dark waters of the Naya.

Only six are waiting.

Ears flat with exhaustion, they have already peeled off the suits, though the greasy reek of smeared fat still soils their fur. With a disappointment that both shames and surprises her, she sees Dyril is among the living. He looks to her longingly, and she forces a sad smile.

“Aifan and Earmol drowned,” her cousin says. “So did the two from Janji-Majet. We saw Isay and Nylar, but they must have died from falling rocks.”

In the weak, deep-wooded light his tears shine like little stars. Dark green blood dribbles from a cut lip. “You should have seen it,” he says. “It was . . .”

“It was beautiful, nephew!” Kyznec exclaims. “Six Sarl for, what, six hundred Meer? And the Marshal Prince among them!”

The survivors give a ragged cheer. Kyle only watches. Ksenia sees he wants to say, I’m sorry, but those are not the words for the occasion. This is a happy time, for victory is nigh. She has heard Kyle speak of new uses for his magic powder: long spear tubes which spit lead balls, great iron barrels which belch boulders. Against such engines, how can the Mernan stand? Surely, they will be slaughtered to the last, and all the land from the sacred forest of Hanka to the sun-scorched wastes of Venda-Ra will belong to the Sarl.

Ksenia takes Kyle by the hand and says, “Don’t grieve our dead; they are with Kaa now.” She hesitates for just a moment and adds, “General Connor would be proud of you.”

Kyle seems not to know what to say to that, and so she embraces him and smiles when she feels his arms across her back. And pays no heed to Dyril’s dark glower.