Hunger is a living thing. That's what people who've never really been truly hungry never really know. Shaitaan knew it now. It grows inside you like a monstrous child, like an infection, like a demonic possession. It claws at your insides and screams in your head, never letting you forget that it rules your life.

There was a time Shaitaan scarcely felt something as inconsequential as hunger. She had been a champion, born and bred for violence, for battle. Her mother commanded that she be kept lean and vigorous. She was fed by servants that watched her diet as if she were a prized horse. She ate two meals daily, with cooked barley and steamed vegetables in the morning and lean, spicy meats of birds and fish in the evening. She drank watered wines of the finest vintages, and she nibbled at fresh fruits and spiced breads when she felt the whim to indulge herself. Soft custards and candied fruits were a special treat, only allowed her at celebrations. It would not do, after all, for the daughter and anointed blade of the empress to not be seen enjoying wealth and status. The imperial family would not be known for austerity.

But the world was different for her now. She'd not eaten in days. Hunger was no longer something that commanded Shaitaan's tongue, but her stomach, her head, and now her hands and feet as well. She felt as though the very air around her was made of viscous honey. Her hands shook, and her vision swayed drunkenly as she stumbled down the road past vendors who wanted nothing to do with her. Those thin women in dirty head shawls and gray men bent over by age guarded their withered apples and fly-ridden root vegetables with their arms and poisonous stares as she walked past. This, it seemed, would be sufficient security to prevent her from easing her hunger with their wares.

Her stomach cramped into a knot of sick pain. She'd been stabbed in the stomach when she was young, a memory of anguish she thought she'd never be able to forget, but feeling the twisting in her empty guts, she found herself unable to recall that injury being any worse.

She caught the scent of meat somewhere, a ghost of cooking fat on coals carried by the sour breeze, but even if she could find it, she couldn't pay for it. The last meal she could afford was scattered across the dirty wooden boards of that tavern where she'd lifted the one-eyed man by his belly fat. That effort cost her the last energy she had, it seemed. If his friends were to find her now, and she suspected they might now the shock of her violence had a few hours to wear off, they would find her much more humble than she was that morning.

Her feet stumbled, and then stopped. Shaitaan looked around her and discovered she was no longer surrounded by low, shabby buildings and angry stall owners. Now she was on a dirt road, a small herd of goats bumping against her legs. She'd walked all the way out of town and along a path that led into the low hills to the north of Ditch. When had that happened? Her feet no longer answered entirely to her will, and her mind was too tired to fight for its supremacy.

Her nose was the only sense that seemed to still be doing its job. The phantom smell of cooking meat was there again, stronger than it was before. Somewhere in Shaitaan's confusion and despair, reason stirred.

That was the smell of not meat on a vendor's spit, but of wild game over a campfire. And it wasn't far away.

Reserves of strength Shaitaan did not know she had suddenly leaped into her limbs. She felt herself becoming nearly feral, a dog on the scent of irresistible prey. She left the dusty path, crouching among the scrub brush and boulders like a rodent, scurrying towards the smell of relief, of salvation, of life itself. With the training that had allowed her to track men and women through the wilds in the name of the Xoactalli empire, she hunted a new quarry now, a piece of smoking gristled meat.

She found it with astonishing ease. It wasn't hidden or guarded, and it sat not far from the road in a shallow gorge, sheltered from both the wind and from the view of travelers by broken stones the size of large cattle. There was a campfire, and above it, suspended on green branches charred black at the edges, were two roasting rabbits. Drops rolled off browned meat and sizzled in the white coals below, giving off an aroma sent by the gods.

Shaitaan barely acknowledged the neat campsite surrounding that fire or the padding of leather soles on stone. Her hand was fully stretched towards the meat when she heard someone behind her.

"I do not tolerate thieves in my camp," said a voice. A woman's voice.

Shaitaan turned and caught the gleam of sunlight on steel directly into her eyes.

"I'm not a thief!" Shaitaan hissed back. She realized then that she'd spoken in Xoactalli again, a tongue she new many of the paleblood locals found harsh and threatening. She repeated herself in common, trying this time a softer tone. She also realized she'd instinctively reached for the wrapped sword on her back, but now she pulled her hand away and stood all the way to her feet, trying to shed the impression of the skulking bandit she must have given. "I happened upon your camp by chance. I am not here to steal from you.

Shaitaan realized just how big of a lie that had been. She'd had every intention of eating the food she'd found there without a thought of payment or even of asking. She winced at that. How far had she fallen if she was now stealing food from travelers like a common footpad.

The woman in the armor did not seem convinced, and who would be?

"You have two choices," the woman spoke in a flat, stony voice. "You may run, and I will not chase you. Or you can stay, and I can bring you to repentance."

Shaitaan now saw the steel mace in the woman's hand. She was sure it had not been there before. This armored woman, perhaps too well armored to be a caravan guard, had drawn her weapon so smoothly and so subtly that Shaitaan had no doubt she was facing an experienced fighter. In that case, it was an unnecessary risk to face an armed opponent, especially one of unknown skill, over nothing more than a couple of stringy hares on a stick. While Shaitaan was no stranger to challenges and risk, she was not used to fights to the death over so little reward, her ravenous hunger notwithstanding.

But there was something that niggled at her, something older, harder, and sharper than the hunger that had weakened her over the past few days. It was something that lived in the dark, something that didn't shout or beg or whine for satisfaction. It hissed and twined and sighed sweet nothings to her, promises of something far sweeter than cooked meet, something that slaked thirst more than cool water. It was a beautiful thing, a thing with teeth, and it tickled at her fingertips and told her to fill her fists with metal.

"I do not run," purred Shaitaan, a smile spreading, pulling her lips away from gold-capped fangs the color of molten sunlight.

She didn't reach for her sword, not yet. Part of her didn't want to. Part of knew that she'd just lied. Was she not here in the land of the palebloods because she had run? But there was that part of her, the dark, beautiful woman with teeth inside that would never admit to it, that would never let anyone or anything come between her and her desires.

The armored woman nodded appreciatively. "Admirable. Whenever you are ready." Still, the mace did not move.

Shaitaan stood half a head taller than she. Her eyes took in her conical helm, A ridge of steel protecting the nose and chain mail hanging from the cheek plates to her neck. Her breastplate seemed solid and thick, with mail at the joints.

Like an oyster in its shell, the voice inside hissed. One only need slip a blade into the right seam to expose the prize inside!

Her fingertips brushed the cool bronze of her sword's pommel, and her eyes went wide.

When did I reach for it?

There was a clatter of stones and a harsh whisper of profanity. Someone just out of sight was trying and failing to approach the camp with stealth.

Shaitaan felt control once again over her own hand, and she wrenched it away from the grip of her weapon.

Was I about to fight to the death over a few mouthfuls of wild game?

The woman's mace was now in the air, and with the same swift grace she had pulled a steel shield from her back.

"I should have known you'd have friends nearby," she scoffed, her voice still as flat and cool as bare rock. "You bandits have no honor. But it matters not. I'll be praying over all your corpses in moments."

"I'm not a bandit, and I didn't bring any friends!" Shaitaan hissed, holding up her palm to the woman and lowering herself into a crouch. She'd very nearly said, "and I don't have any friends," but this was no time to have that discussion with this woman...or herself.

Shaitaan shuffled to the boulder, behind which she'd heard the others. She allowed herself the smallest glimpse around its edge, just enough to see without being seen. She was aware that the woman's mace was still raised in the air behind her, and that if she made the wrong move or if this woman simply felt like it, her brains would be painting the boulder a different shade of gray.

Beyond her stone cover, Shaitaan could see men were coming. There were six of them, all of them dressed in commoner's clothes, all of them armed with knives or short swords. Some of the blades even looked sharp. The last of them, the slowest and the most clumsy, was a heavy man with a cleaver in his fist and a patch over one eye. He was gingerly walking between the scrubby bushes as though he were nursing some hidden injury that caused him pain when he moved. It was of course Ugly, the one-eyed fool she'd kneaded like dough in the tavern.

"There are six of them I can see," she whispered. "They're not here for you. They're here for me."

The woman sucked her teeth. "I don't even know who you are!" she hissed back. But whatever distrust she had of Shaitaan, she finally lowered her weapon and got her own look around the opposite edge of the boulder.

"If they are here for you, then I should leave you to them. I don't want any part of your trouble."

Shaitaan looked at her, perhaps for the first time past the steel of her weapons and armor. There was a woman inside that armor, one whose blue eyes were burning with frustration and indignation to find herself all of a sudden in someone else's troubles. Her hair, strikingly beautiful curls of gold that caught the sun nearly as much as her helmet, hung from under the chain mail of her helm. A person. Not an enemy, not an obstacle, but a human being, and a fighter, more likely to understand her than most.

"Please." The word came out thick and strange from her mouth, and it would have been even if she had spoken it in her native tongue. "Please help me fight them. I am too weak to fight this many on my own. Then, if you wish, we can fight, settle our differences."

I don't have any friends. All I have is you.

The woman stared at her, the strangest look on her face. Shaitaan could not tell if it were loathing or pity, or perhaps a little of both.

"There's six of them?" she said, breaking what felt like an eternity of strangled silence. "That's three for each of us. Don't make me save your life. I probably won't"

Shaitaan nodded and grinned. This time, it wasn't the thing inside her that smiled using her lips, but herself, her real self. Her gold fangs caught the sun and turned her grin to fire.

She grabbed a stone the size of a human skull and stepped around the edge of the rock.

"There she is! Grab that frigging cow and bring her here!"

She could see three of them now, Ugly and two others. The other three had tried circling them and disappeared among the stones. Ugly, still behind the others, pointed his cleaver at her like a general's sword and sneered with his swamp-water teeth.

Shaitaan said nothing. She spread her feet into a fighting crouch and hefted the stone in her hand. It felt good to have something.

One of them, hardly older than a boy and with a downy patch of beard on his face, lunged at her with a boning knife. The point of it caught nothing as she sidestepped the clumsy thrust. She brought up the rock as though to toss it into the air and cracked it into the point of his chin. Her knee caught his groin, bending him over at the waist. She caught a handful of his dirty hair, ready to bring the rock down on his tilted cheek, but another one was coming forward with a short sword. This one had arms as thick as hams and a head as bald as the stone she held.

Instead of braining the younger one with the rock as she'd planned, she hauled him so he stood between her and the one with the sword. Then she planted a kick into the center of his chest, sending him stumbling backwards. She was sorry to see the bald one moved his sword at the last moment to avoid impaling his younger companion, but they got tangled with each other. The young one had lost his knife, probably when she'd kneed him in the fruits.

She was about to charge them, off balance and confused as they were, but she was hit by something from her right. Another man had slipped around the stones and surprised her, slashing at her with a farmer's sickle.

"Gyaaah!" she cried as the point gouged her arm and drew a line of fire nearly to her elbow. She really was losing her wits. She would never have normally let them catch her so unaware.

She butted him in the face once, twice, three times. When he stumbled back against a boulder, she threw the stone in her hand. There was a wet crunch where it smashed his knee. The man collapsed sideways onto the stony ground, his moans more full of surprise than pain, but that would soon change.

The bald one with the sword had come untangled from the adolescent, and he came at her with an overhand swing. She could tell right away he'd no training as a soldier or swordsman of any kind, but that swing could end her all the same. Her balance was all wrong to dodge, her back nearly turned to him, so she did the only thing she could. She curled into a crouch.

"Wut?" he coughed as the short sword rebounded of the rag-wrapped bundle on her back with a CLANG!

She stood and grabbed at his sword arm, twisting it round until the sword point found his gut with a snikt!

"Muh," he mumbled, seeing the steel half buried in his paunch. "Muh, mmuh!" He collapsed, his eyes wide and staring while he coughed wetly onto the gravel beside his slack mouth.

"Where do you think you're going?" Ugly shouted at the young man, who seemed to take the impalement of his comrade as the signal to leave. Forgetting his knife lost among the scrub, he took off towards the lip of the gorge, his knees high to help him clear the brush and rocks between him and safety.

Realizing words were not nearly enough to command his underling to stay, Ugly's hand holding the cleaver wavered and drooped to his side. He stared at Shaitaan, who found herself free to spend her focus on him alone.

There was a scream, suddenly cut off, from elsewhere in that maze of stones. The armored woman appeared again, both her shield and her mace now lightly spattered with red.

Shaitaan jabbed a finger at her bleeding arm. "What happened to three apiece?" she demanded. "You let one get past you to ambush me!" She then noticed that she was also bleeding from a deep cut in the palm of her hand. She must have sliced herself open grabbing the bald one's short sword.

The woman shrugged and pointed her mace, a gesture that made Ugly shake as though blasted by a chilling wind.

"There's my third. See? Three apiece."

Shaitaan shook her head incredulously. Her eyes fell on Ugly again, who no longer wished to stay to see what happened next. He turned to run, but he tripped over a grasping scrub and fell forward.

"Yeeaah!"

Shaitaan could see as he turned onto his back that he'd fallen on the blade of his own cleaver. He'd given himself a deep gash on his arm. He'd begun to pant a wheeze with panic until a savage kick to his side—precisely to a patch of fresh bruises from that morning—brought his attention to the two women suddenly standing above him. Shaitaan crouched over him and gave him a very close view of her teeth.

"Why did you want to kill me?" she growled.

The man babbled and sputtered incoherently, at least incoherently to Shaitaan, who was still struggling to master the common language of the palebloods. She slapped him hard on the side of his face, and then again in the opposite direction. The force of it was so hard he'd not had the senses to cry out.

"Why are you trying to kill me?" she repeated, her teeth bared.

"Cuh, cuh, Chapriotti! He said to!" Ugly stammered. "He told Vicar, and Vicar told me!"

She blinked. These names, if they were names, meant nothing to her. She'd made many enemies in her life, and she'd hunted and been hunted by many dangerous enemies, so she'd expected the answers to her question to be more revelatory, but they made no sense. Who was Chapriotti, or Vicar. Were they even people? She could have questioned him more, but what good would that do? What if he simply said more things she didn't understand, or if he simply didn't know? What was she supposed to do with that information? And what was she supposed to do with a prisoner who would speak but could say nothing helpful?

A pain stabbed through her guts as her hunger found her again, and a wave of dizziness bowed her head. She had not the energy to learn more. He was a thug, one who'd targeted her in a tavern for sport, nothing more. She'd wounded him and his pride, and so he'd come to settle the score. No plot. No grand conspiracy.

You're not in the empire anymore, she reminded herself. You're a nobody now. When you find a nameless commoner with a knife in their throat, do you search for a conspiracy, a plot to explain it?

Of course there was no plot against her. She'd wanted there to be one, because that would mean she was still important, that she still mattered, that someone out here in this backwater forgotten by the gods, someone knew her, and she wouldn't be alone.

A savage punch across his jaw silenced him, and he sagged against the stones.

I don't have friends, nor do I have enemies. All I have...

She looked at the armored woman whose golden tresses from beneath her helmet stirred in the breeze. She looked down and saw her own blood dripping from her hand and her other arm, the drops making a tapping sound as they dotted the stones by her feet.

All I have is you.

"May I share your food, and—," she tried to say, but the world turned sideways before she could finish, and she felt her body tumble away from her legs.

Strong arms caught her, and she felt her face press against cool metal.

"Aye, warrior. We can share my food. And then, I'd like you to consider an offer. I could use someone with your skills."

Shaitaan could feel her heels scraping along gravel. Someone was moving her, but she couldn't figure out who or why. Her lips seemed to move on their own, as though moved by the breath of something that lie deep and dreaming inside her.

"Name thy price. Silver and gold have I none, but show me thine enemies, and I will lay them broken and purified and beautiful at thy feet. Death is my coin, the treasure hoard of kings and empresses, and thou mayest have all thou desireth for some meat and bread." Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she was mumbling all this in Xoactalli.

"I'll take that as a yes. But before we talk about all that, lets get you food and a healer."