“In the earth. It does not matter where. There will be those who come later, who will uncover it. Everything in the earth is revealed in time. People feed off the earth so ravenously it cannot be helped. There will always be those who come later, and they will uncover our stories, and that is how we will remain. Our time of living is short now. Only a small band of Storytellers still mark the stone. Your people will finish what they began.”

“You’re not gone yet.”

“No. That is why I sit here carving this knife.”

“Why a knife?”

Yacatek shrugs. “Knives are useful things. People will keep a knife.”

Evie would laugh if the implications behind what she’s watching weren’t so dire and horrific.

“We are, all of us here, dying in the same way. You know that? It doesn’t matter whether we’re Crachian or Sicclunan or B’ors, not to those hunting us.”

“That is true,” Yacatek concedes.

“So… we can die or we can fight.”

“Fighting and dying walk hand in hand.”

“True enough. So you’ll keep fighting?”

“My band are warriors,” the Storyteller says simply.

“Would more of you fight with us? Do you know where the other bands are?”

For the first time, Yacatek looks up from her recording to regard Evie.

Evie expects to find suspicion in the Storyteller’s eyes, but the aspect there is more akin to surprise.

“You say ‘with us’ and not ‘for us.’ ”

Evie nods. “You’re not mine to command. But we have common enemies, common goals. Your warriors are the best fighters I’ve ever seen. Savages have proved to be a powerful weapon when they’re aimed correctly. The Sicclunans have taught themselves to be brutal stealth assassins. The death knell for all of us is numbers. The Skrain and their forces overwhelm us. If we formed… a new band, all of us together, and fought together… they wouldn’t be ready.”

“You speak beyond the few warriors here and now.”

“Far beyond,” Evie confirms. “I’m speaking of whatever’s left of the Sicclunan armies, every band of B’ors we can find, and turning every damn Savage they’ve conscripted against them if we can.”

Yacatek’s eyes bore into her intensely. “Who are you to bridge these worlds and make such a fight?”

Evie looks down at her hands. She remembers the first morning she awoke to find runes staining their flesh. Twice as many runes cover her fingers and palms now, and she can feel them upon her face and the rest of her body. She finds she has trouble recalling what her flesh looked like before she swallowed the blood coin.

Evie stares back at the Storyteller without wavering. “My name is Savage. That’s what they’ve made me, and I plan to use it.”