They moved toward her.

  They thought her easy prey.

  They had never faced an Astrastar.

  Illara whispered a rune as her fingers traced the crescent blade.

  The runes upon the blade glowed.

  The runes upon the hilt flared.

  The first lunged.

  She turned.

  The blade left her hand in a silver arc and struck home, punching through scale and bone, burying itself in his chest before his weapon cleared its sheath

  Illara stepped once.

  Mist folded.

  She was already there.

  Her hand closed around the hilt.

  The shotgun thundered.

  The second screamed as the blast tore his arm away in a spray of flesh and shattered scale.

  The impaled lizardman thrashed.

  Illara ripped the blade free.

  Blood fanned the air.

  She spun and let the momentum carry the strike, the crescent whistling through the mist and taking the third’s head cleanly from his shoulders.

  Matthias emerged from shadow as the body fell.

  The Nightblade struck low, driving both daggers into the fourth from behind, riding him down into the mud.

  “Illara.”

  She fired without looking.

  The blast caved the lizardman’s chest inward.

  Matthias was already moving

  He appeared above the falling body, reversed his grip, and drove steel into the thick neck, severing artery and breath in one clean motion.

  Illara’s blade sang past him.

  The final Pale Coil staggered, throat opening in a red line as the crescent blade sliced his throat.

  The runes flared.

  Illara was behind him.

  Her hand closed around the hilt.

  The shotgun spoke once more.

  The last fell where he stood, a hollow burned through his heart.

  Silence returned.

  Matthias emerged from the shadows.

  “Well fought.” He commended.

  Illara sheathed her blade.

  The mist lingered after the killing.

  It simply rested where it had always been.

  Low, coiled, patient.

  Threading itself between fallen bodies and broken weapons.

  Illara strode to the nearest of the dead lizardmen.

  She lowered herself to one knee beside the corpse.

  The Pale Coil lay sprawled where it had fallen, limbs splayed at awkward angles, gold-threaded cloak soaked dark with blood.

  Illara looked out of the main hovel, to the settlement beyond.

  It was far larger and more muscular than any of the other bodies scattered through the settlement beyond.

  Broader across the chest, thicker through the neck and shoulders.

  Even in death, its presence and weight were unmistakable.

  She looked it up and down.

  “Found anything?” Matthias said.

  “Quite a few,” Illara muttered.

  The scales were the first thing she noticed.

  They were not the cracked, flaking plates she had seen on the Broken.

  These were intact, layered neatly over dense muscle.

  Their hue a deep umber veined faintly with green.

  Oiled. Maintained.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Some bore faint polishing marks where cloth had passed over them again and again.

  Illara pressed her thumb against one and scraped lightly with the edge of her knife.

  The scale rang softly.

  Hard.

  Dense.

  “These weren’t starving,” she said quietly. “They ate well.”

  Matthias stood over the corpse, his blades loose in his hands.

  He assumed a relaxed pose but no Nightblade was truly ever relaxed.

  His attention was divided now, no longer searching only for threats.

  “Yes,” he replied. “a breed, sundered from their lineage.”

  “They are kin,” Illara murmured, eyeing the ornate pin that the creature had holding the clasp of his cloak.

  The insignia depicted a white coiled fang over a sea of black.

  “Pale Coil,” Illara said, “this one stood eight or nine feet tall. Muscular and broad-chested. Unlike the starving creatures outside.”

  “The Broken,” the Nightblade said, eyeing the shrine and the settlement.

  “As though they had forgotten the way of their highborne kin,” Ilara said.

  She stood up.

  Then a thought came to her.

  “These ones,” Illara said, gesturing to the five they had slain, “they were slaying the ones here.”

  “How certain are you?” the Nightblade asked.

  Illara held up the knife she found earlier.

  “This knife bore the mark of the Pale Coil.”

  Matthias regarded the weapon.

  “Fine craftsmanship,” he said upon inspection, “nothing this settlement can produce.”

  “What happened here?” Illara whispered.

  “Nothing,” Matthias said, “natural selection - only the strong.”

  “They are eating their own,” she whispered.

  The thought abhorred her.

  “I do not think these,” Matthias said, gesturing to the Pale Coil, “regarded the Broken as their own.”

  “Broken.” Illara murmured, “how apt.”

  Illara leaned closer then, examining the creature’s face.

  The snout was longer, the jaw more pronounced.

  The eyes, though glassy now, were set with intelligence rather than frenzy.

  Illara use the knife to lift the corner of the lizardman’s lips.

  Even the molars told a story.

  Not jagged, not uneven, but filed and cared for, several capped with dull metal.

  Adornment.

  Not necessity.

  She moved to the next body, rolling it slightly to inspect the armor.

  Plates of worked metal had been fitted to the chest and shoulders.

  Artisan-craft.

  The armor was articulated to allow full movement.

  The joints were reinforced with leather and chain.

  Whoever had forged this knew anatomy. Knew warfare.

  She studied the contour and shape of the plates and mail.

  Their fit.

  The helms lay nearby, cast aside or knocked free in the brief violence. Illara picked one up and turned it in her hands. It was tall, crested with a plume of stiffened hair dyed a deep, dried-blood red. The interior was padded. Balanced.

  Not ceremonial.

  Functional.

  “Well-fitted,” she said. “And well-used.”

  “Denotes rank,” Matthias added. “hierarchy and order.”

  She fell silent for a moment.

  “These aren’t scavenged,” she murmured. “This was commissioned.”

  Matthias nodded once. “A standing force.”

  She looked up at him. “Soldiers?”

  “Enforcers,” he corrected.

  Illara frowned. “What’s the difference?”

  “Intent,” Matthias said. “Soldiers fight when told. Enforcers oppress.”

  Illara moved on.

  She rose and circled the small shrine.

  She went to the threshold and her eyes took in the scene.

  “They came in to kill them,” she said. “No caution. No hesitation.”

  “There was nothing the Broken can do.”

  “The Pale Coil did not expect resistance,” Matthias replied.

  Illara glanced toward the settlement beyond the trees.

  The sagging huts, the butchered bodies, the silence that had followed slaughter.

  “They weren’t hunting us,” she said. “They were finished before we arrived.”

  “Yes,” Matthias said. “We merely interrupted the aftermath.”

  She stopped near the body of one of the Broken and knelt again, this time to examine the weapon clutched in its hand.

  It was a blade of obsidian, chipped and hacked off at the edges.

  Stone.

  Bone.

  Scrap.

  The crudely bound hide around the hilt bore etched markings.

  She placed the finely-wrought one next to it.

  Recurring symbols, cleanly inscribed, crude in design.

  As though the Broken had forgotten how to inscribe it.

  Illara compared it to the crude weapons she had seen among the Broken.

  “This is the same mark,” she said slowly, comparing it to the icon scratched obsessively into the fine blade. “But… less refined.”

  Matthias crouched beside her.

  “The Broken remember the shape,” he said. “The Pale Coil remember the meaning.”

  She looked at him. “You’re certain they’re related.”

  “They are of the same blood,” he replied. “although, their lineage may have sundered.”

  Illara straightened, eyes narrowing.

  The Broken.

  She saw them now.

  Smaller. Leaner.

  Their scales dull and cracked, some sloughing away entirely.

  Their weapons crude and mismatched.

  Their movements erratic, driven by hunger and instinct rather than discipline.

  They were remnants.

  “They were diminished,” she said.

  “Indeed,” Matthias replied. “The Pale Coil must have raided this settlement frequently.”

  She followed his gaze.

  Shallow furrows scarred the ground, leading away from the settlement.

  Repeated paths where bodies or supplies had been hauled without care.

  Bone masks lay shattered nearby, their carvings frantic, uneven.

  One fire pit bore scorch marks spiraling inward, tight and deliberate.

  “They fought back,” Illara said.

  “They attempted,” Matthias agreed.

  She returned to the largest hovel, stepping carefully around the fallen Pale Coil.

  The structure sagged under its own weight.

  Stretched hide and woven bone, reinforced at the seams.

  It had once been a gathering place.

  Inside, the shrine awaited.

  Illara knelt before it again.

  Bones ringed the pit, piled and woven together with sinew and moss.

  Some were old and yellowed. Others were white and clean.

  The forest had begun to reclaim them, roots curling through gaps, leaves nesting in hollows.

  At the center sat the mask.

  Split wood. Smoothed by countless hands.

  No eyes. No mouth.

  Just a pallid oval wrapped in yellow-dyed reeds.

  Its surface worn thin by devotion.

  Illara felt it tug at her consciousness.

  Subtle.

  Persistent.

  Words.

  Whispering.

  Urging.

  She reached out for the mask.

  “I told you not to touch it,” Matthias said softly.

  She stopped inches from the stone.

  The slate above the mask radiated warmth.

  She shook her head.

  “Forgive me,” Illara withdrew her hand.

  “No matter,” Matthias said.

  A moment of silence lingered.

  “it is this place,” the Nightblade said.

  “They worshipped this,” she said slowly.

  “Yes,” Matthias replied. “but what is it, they worshipped?”

  She glanced back toward the bodies of the Pale Coil.

  “The Enforcers were not here to convert,” she said. “They were here to enforce.”

  “Yes.”

  “For what?” she pressed. “Belief? Tribute?”

  Matthias was silent for a moment.

  “Dominion,” he said at last. “The Broken remember enough to be dangerous. The Pale Coil cannot allow that.”

  Illara exhaled. “So they cull them.”

  “They remind them,” Matthias corrected. “Of their place.”

  She stood slowly.

  “This isn’t survival,” she said. “It is kinslaying.”

  “Yes.”

  Illara turned back to the shrine, studying the crooked sign scratched again and again into the stone.

  “What kind of god inspires this?” she asked quietly.

  Matthias stepped beside her, gaze fixed not on the symbol but on the space around it.

  “I think they are not praying,” he said, “but not to a god.”

  She looked at him.

  “Gods do not show themselves.” Matthias said.

  He nodded to the mask.

  “This one did.”

  “They have seen him.” Illara realized.

  “I think they’re calling,” he continued. “And whatever they believe in does not answer prayers.”

  Illara straightened.

  “We should not linger,” she said finally.

  Matthias nodded.

  Behind them, the Pale Coil lay where they had fallen.

  They left the shrine untouched.

  They left the settlement undisturbed.

  They left the dead unburied.

  The mist closed behind them.