It was rage that burned in her, that tore through her. A killing rage that had a film of red shimmering over her vision and a snarl twisting the mouth meant for smiles.


Wasteful, ignorant, twisted abominations in human guise. The echoes of the whore's dying shrieks still shivered in the air, her blood still warm and pooling around her ruined, cooling flesh. And still, like rabid hyenas, they tormented her corpse.


Rolling in blood and viscera like feral dogs in offal. Giggling and squealing like demented children on holiday, nine of ten cavorted in some obscene parody of an already unholy act.


This group of carrion crawlers, gutter feeders represented the core of one of the many fast rising street gangs that fed off those trying to live in the Slums. A pack of killers and abusers who grew fat and strong off the hopeless and helpless who'd birthed them. And tonight, they'd decided they wanted more. Decided they'd take more.


So they'd bought a whore. Some nameless member of the city's vast population of faceless street trash. As eager for their next fix as their next breath. Desperately chasing anything that promised an easy escape. With the promise of this, and easy money for a few hours partying, they'd brought her, here.


To a place even the rats and worse avoided, where the air itself seemed cautious and wary. Even after five years, not a blade of grass grew here.


They'd laughed quietly, high on anticipation when she'd shivered. Hungrily swallowed her whimpers and moans. Worked her, toyed with her until she'd been as ready and hot as any high dollar escort on silk sheets and feather ticks.


And when they'd had their fill of her, they'd started the long, deliberately cruel process of slicing her to pieces. Mocking her pleas for mercy, mimicking her cries for help.


All the while, the only one who hadn't used her body murmured the words of an incantation he'd paid some necromancer for.

The promise, even fleeting and faint at it was of true power, pushed him on. Power beyond scrabbling for gold and coin in some rundown forgotten sector of the city. The sort of power and reach that had people looking away in respect and fear. The sort of influence that had street rats and gutter thugs whispering your name in awe.


So he'd followed the instructions he'd been given to the letter. Had even let the mage off the hook for this week's protection money.


No one really new, not exactly, what'd turned a building, and a lot of city around it, into a crater. But everyone agreed that it'd taken a lot of power to do it.


And Saulter meant to have it. Meant to have as much of that power as he could get for himself.


What he hadn't counted on was facing some bitch with hand-talons, and enough skill to force himself, and his lieutenant to fight side-by-side.


One moment they'd been celebrating, drunk on sex and blood and the kill. The next chaos had erupted.


She hadn't thought, hadn't stopped to consider, simply reacted and let the rage rule. Sent her charging in, the hand-flowers so many mistook for decoration shifting, transforming into hand talons, sharp and lethal.


With the boneless grace that marked her particular style, she'd danced her way past three before they'd recovered enough to act. Dipped and turned and flowed and slid. And ripped them to shreds.


Steel sang its killing song, the sharp cries and abrupt screams of the dying added their own unique notes.


In the crush, the frenzied confusion while the remaining were actually capable of fighting back, Saulter and his second worked together to give the woman pain.


Thier blades nipped and darted. Saulter's bit deep into her back, reaching up for her heart.


He'd heard her snarl in pain before something took hold of him. Yanked him up and back. Held him suspended. And forced him to watch while she cut his men to ribbons.


Then she'd turned her attention solely on him. Cocked her head as though considering some new life form and how best to dissect it.


"You gave her nothing but pain. Nothing but cruelty at the end."


His blood ran cold when she smiled. Blood washed cheeks dimpling, amethyst eyes burning with an alien humor and the Power he'd been reaching for.


"Have some of it back."


With a whiplash of power she stripped the bone away from his spine. Degloved the tangle of nerves and pathways. Broken vertebrae loose from tissue and bone.


He spent the last thirty seconds of his existence, trying to draw in the air he needed to shriek.


And the wash of their blood, the flash and flare of her rage mingled with the pitiful remains and wasted blood of another of Rhy'din's lost and broken ones.


And land too long nearly lifeless convulsed, trembled and shook as it sopped up this heady mix.


When Thorn reached the fragile, strengthening tendrils of Life reached back. took hold of the offered hand and stretched.


Where eleven ended, a thicket of blackberries, honeysuckle, and wild roses began.