Hunger.

  That is all it remembers. All it has ever known.

  Hunger.

  It looks to its feet where many rodents scrabble and flee. Some are made of bones like it, hunger like it. Some however are made of flesh and for those it reaches out one bony hand.

  Hunger.

  Three rodents gathered scramble away, fleeing to a pile of sticks and dry grass. It catches them before they reach safety. It lifts them up, up, up to its massive maw.

  Hunger.

  A fsh of something in one of the rodents hands. If it could feel, it knows it might feel pain where the metal strikes its bone. It does not.

  Hunger.

  It drops them between its open teeth. It closes its jaws around them and feels their flesh strip away. It feels something warm for a moment, opening its mouth in satisfaction.

  Satiated.

  Its mind clears, at least for a few moments. It knows soon the Hunger will return. It looks around. Seeking things to feed upon. Seeking something to gorge its endless hunger.

  Hunger?

  Yes, hunger, it is the first thing it remembers, and the st thing it remembers from before. Before, it doesn’t remember anything, it sees shadows, hunched and starved. Then those shadows change.

  Hunger.

  It returned slowly this time, one of its prey had been more. It had seen the prey glowing, and in the distance it saw two bright lights. Beyond the edge of the dark which crawls with it and its hungering kin.

  Hunger.

  Two figures stood beyond the dark, upon a hill, glowing to its eyes. The glow called to its hunger. The glow promised it fullness. Hunger grew. It began to dig.

  Ashton stood on the hill looking down at the vilge and the dead swarming it. He bent slightly forward as he watched the hell unfold before him. He spun his thumbs slowly around each other while csping his hands behind his back. His long white vestments extended down to just above his feet, where boots of thick bck leather adorned with bone ptes jutted out. He let out a soft hum of uncertainty, though his face never changed from the slight smile he always wore. After all, as father said, you’re never fully dressed without a smile!

  A snort of notice from behind broke his focus, “Assessment?” The question shattered it and Ashton sighed.

  “Sweet, if I had an assessment I would have told you. Bah, my [Power] is broken now, I’ll have to start fresh.” Ashton turned to look at his companion, giving them a rueful smile. She was not smiling back as she two witnessed the sughter below them. The woman next to him was only a couple years his junior, but her face was long hardened with experience. She was beautiful even without a smile.

  “You’re beautiful today by the way.” He decided to tell her, he always spoke his heart.

  “You always say that.” She just stared at him, but brought one hand up to push down a patch of fur which began to stand on end.

  “It’s always true!” Ashton smiled broader, eyes closed and unblinking, as they always were. He did not see as others did, [See Beyond], a useful [Power] which let him perceive so much more. More than what he could see before his eyes were taken from him.

  It’s how he could see the beauty of the girl beside him, beyond her physical appearance. The brightness and love in her soul for the living. It did not match her rough exterior, or the thick, coarse brown fur which covered her body. The lithe, rippling muscles of her form, the white tusks jutting from her small cute snout.

  Most humans call orcs many rude things, things he refused to repeat in his own mind. They were wrong. Granted orcs did the same for humans and were just as wrong, it didn’t really matter. He loved the tall orc woman standing next to him, and he could see her feelings written on her essence.

  “Shut up.” That was that, Hukre had spoken and while having her push him down and ‘punish’ him might be fun. Now was not the time. “What did you learn.” She asked.

  Ashton leaned back and replied, “Not much honestly.” He waved his hand back towards the vilge the small army of dead were destroying. “The darkness created by those clouds isn’t natural, it’s simir to the magics that animate the dead in the first pce, making it hard for [See Beyond] and [Essence Assess] to get a good grasp.”

  Hukre snorted, to any other person it might have come off as rude, but Ashton knew better. An orcs snort was very specific, and could say nearly as many things as their words, more really. Though In this case it was just a rude derisive snort, but one directed at the circumstance, not Ashton.

  “Honestly, you’ve probably got a better grasp on the situation then I do, tell me what your [Far Eyes] see and I’ll colte and send it.” Ashton smiled his best smile at Hukre. She still did not smile back, but she did finally turn to him before replying.

  “500 small, less than 1/5th marchers. 7 rge. They appear to be Feeding dead. How they’re being made so consistently or quickly I can’t be certain, that was your job.” Hukre grunted the words, hands crossed in front of her soft studded leather.

  Ashton ughed, “Hah! True, I’m ashamed I can’t tell as much as I should, makes me a poor Necromancer doesn’t it?”

  She growled, “Not true, you’re the best Necromancer in the city.”

  “Hmm, a small border city far away from most real danger. Doesn’t say much.” Ashton shrugged and Hukre snorted, an angry, frustrated snort that said ‘stop that’.

  “Stop doing that to yourself. You’re good and you know it, L-” she paused, looking down at a small simple silver ring on her finger. A soft blue gem caught the sunlight and she looked back to Ashton. “-Lord Are wouldn’t have hired you or I if we weren’t the best. He doesn’t have time for waste.”

  Ashton couldn’t help the soft ugh that slowly became a bellow. She was right, she was always right. Always had a way of doing that, smashing his stupid self-loathing. She snorted, a happy but embarrassed snort, and at the same time a snort which said ‘good.’

  “Hmmm, well I can’t sense them at all in the shadows, let alone take control. They’re definitely natural dead though, so I should be able to but-” He looked down as he thought and froze. “Hukre!”

  He shouted too te, she hadn’t sensed it, of course she hadn’t that’s why he was here. To sense the dead, but he hadn’t sensed it either. Because he was distracted. Like he always was! Damn i-

  The ground fell away and Ashton fell with it. Hukre fell too, and they both looked down at the empty, open skull of a massive skeleton. Ashton grimaced and reached out [Dead Arrest] grasped the creature. He asserted his control and forced it to backhand them both back out of the pit.

  They flew back onto the hill, Hukre rolled a dozen feet away, rolling up onto her feet. She stumbled and fell, fought to stand. Ashton couldn’t, his bones were broken, his body was… He looked down at his twisted body, he could see his back, but he was looking at the sky.

  The sky was growing dark, dark clouds fell over them and he felt his control of the giant skeleton fade. Something grabbed his feet and dragged him, painlessly for he could feel nothing, across the ground and into the pit. The st thing he saw above was Hukre falling as she attempted to stand and rolling out of sight.

  He hung by the feet, his head lolling around as he looked down into the grinning face of the behemoth of bone beneath him. He grinned back, even now he couldn’t stop himself, he never could. His robe fell around his face, forcing everything but that skull out of sight. Now, all that there was, were two grinning faces staring at each other.

  The face began to grow closer.

  Closer.

  He was falling, released by the goliath. Eventually he could not see the face, just the teeth. Then not even that. He did not feel his body severed. He did hear the teeth ctter as they smmed closed. He felt nothing now, except something deep gurgling in his stomach. It was the st thing he felt, and the first thing it remembered.

  Hunger.