Soup. For the old man. 'Kind of you.' Taking the pot by its handle, Tusk gave the "soup" a sniff, nose rankling as he gave the mixture a stir. 'Mystery meat,' he hummed. 'My favourite!' There had been little in the way of game during the trek here, but Tusk had spotted a few vultures the day prior. Big things riding dark wings. Bringing them down had been poetic justice at its finest.

Supping, sipping, the orkin's brow rose at Daniyah's offer.

'Is that your idea of flirting?' He asked. 'And here I thought Askel was the unfortunate one. More fool I.' The heel of bread found its way into his hands regardless. Made the meal go further. Better to die on a full belly, he mused, knowing they had enough provisions between them to last another four days. Longer, if they stretched it out.

'Figure this place used to be a refinery of sorts,' said the ork as he chowed down. 'Main cavern goes down nigh two hundred feet. Cranes, winch systems, lifts. Most beyond repair.' Had even tested a few. No dice. 'Middle levels appear to house forges and storage rooms. Armouries. No wonder those adventures broke in. Probably thought they had struck paydirt.'

The Cinderlord had put paid to that idea. Burnt the poor bastards right up.

'Might be something down there we can use.' Tusk chimed in, mulling the risks over in his mind. 'Don't get me wrong, I like the Scorpio idea. But we'll only get one, maybe two shots in before it becomes unviable.' And then it would be down to blades, bolts, and worst of all...

Luck.
 
Daniyah leaned back against the stome, arms crossed, a lazy smirk tugging at her lips as she watched him poke and sniff at the soup. Mystery meat. "Keeps a man sharp...” Grinning, she tilted her head. Her legs stretched out toward the low-burning fire. She scoffed at his 'Is that your idea of flirting?' A teasing smirk curled at the corner of her lips. “Don’t act like you’re offended! Askel told me you were into that sort of thing.”

Her gaze drifted to the shadows curling along the cavern walls, listening as he outlined the place, the ruined lifts, the half-dead forges, the skeletons of some long-forgotten industry. She whistled low through her teeth. “Two hundred feet down? Cranes and winches...” she murmured.

“Don’t go rolling your eyes at 'Clarence'!* She jabbed a finger toward the Scorpio. *You wanted Icebite, didn’t you?! Big fucking arrows, enough to punch a hole in the mountain!" she said, voice dry, teasing, and just a touch smug. She kicked a small pebble toward the shadowy walls, the clatter echoing faintly. “We only get one or two shots before it’s useless? Fine. I hear you. We set can set 'Clarence' up here. Cover our exit if things get… spicy.” Her pale blue eyes flicked back to Tusk.
 
'Spicy?' Tusk huffed a laugh that sounded more like a grunt. 'How cute.' Nodding, he continued to devour his soup in silence, picking chunks of something from the broth as he went. Might've been vulture meat. Not charred enough to be corpse meat, he grinned, fangs wide and yellow-white in the firelight.

'Clarence. Oscar. You sure have a way with names.' Wiping up the last dregs of soup with a bit of bread, the orkin popped the morsel into his mouth, soft enough to chew after its soaking.

Distant noises faded in and out as he placed the pot aside. Crumbling mortar. Explosions deep beneath the earth. A howl that might have been their Cinderlord - didn't sound like it, though. Too... fearful. 'Whoever lived here dug too deep, found something they weren't supposed to.'

A hidden chamber or the like. Something from before - an echo of the civilisation upon whose bones this place had been built, and abandoned.

'You ever seen what happens when a Cinderlord falls from a great height?' Tusk asked, casually. His lips twitched a smile. 'Would you like to?'
 
Daniyah gave him a look. The kind of look one gives a man who’s just insulted her mule, her siege weapon, and her creativity all in one breath. "They’re perfectly named...” She snorted softly, shaking her head as she poked at the fire with a scorched stick, sending up a small cloud of embers.

She wiped her hands on her leathers and watched him as he picked through the soup. She nodded at his blades. “You telling me you haven’t named those?” Daniyah leaned forward, elbows on knees, resting her chin on the backs of her hands.

Whoever lived here dug too deep.

“Shit,” she muttered. “They always do, don’t they? Think they’ll find riches, find power. ” She glanced toward the yawning black of the tunnel ahead, where the air shimmered with heat and old malice. “No light in the deep, no song, no breath. Just the burn.”

Then her eyes cut back to him at his last question, a blonde brow raised, pale blue eyes gleaming with something that might’ve been amusement ... or madness. “I haven’t,” she said slowly and tilted her head thoughtfully. "But I’d sure as shit like to." Daniyah smiled.
 
'Nope!' Tusk answered, steepling his fingers against his chest as he sank down onto his arse besides the smouldering fire. 'Sword One and Two don't need names. They don't talk, only sing.' An old man's joke, easily disregarded. The keen interest in Daniyah's gaze was impossible to ignore, though.

Nodding, Tusk matched her smile, an idea forming behind his scarred and scary faceplate.

'Like I said before, place is as old as bone-dust. As for the Cinderlord. Well. Shouldn't be too hard to lure. Big on brawn, but not on brainpower.' His eyes met hers, amused, accusing. 'Don't even think it,' he grinned briefly, before the expression faded back to passivity, whatever sense of humour the orkin nurtured withering in the dry heat sucking the moisture from their skins.

'You're a bright girl. Hawk-eyed and haughty,' he smirked, this time for real. 'Take a look upon the morrow. Tell me what you think.' Further reconnaissance and planning could wait until they were both fresh, in mind and body.
 
Daniyah watched him sink down beside the fire like a sack of old grudges, arms folded and jokes drier than the air down here. The fire cast long shadows across his face, making the scars seem deeper, the eyes darker. “Sword One and Two,” she echoed, shaking her head as she stood. She strode over to where she’d dumped the bedrolls earlier. "Better than Heartseeker or Ironwrath"

"Big on brawn, but not on brainpower... Don't even think it.. "

She tilted her head a touch, smirk creeping slow across her lips “I will say… it’s impressive how self-aware you’re getting in your old age.” Daniyah said, deadpan.

When he called her bright, hawk-eyed, haughty, she made a show of thinking it over, then clicked her tongue. “You forgot stubborn. And funny. And irrefutably good-looking.” She turned towards him with a smirk. She grabbed his bedroll, tossed it lazily to him over the low fire. “So,” she said over her shoulder, casual as a knife in the dark, “little spoon or big, Keeper?” Daniyah did not wait for an answer. They’d end up back-to-back anyway, standard Cazadore habit. Good for warmth. Better for ambushes.

She didn’t like the way the shadows moved in this place. The air felt… wrong. Not just hot. Aware. She could feel eyes. The kind of gaze that didn’t blink and did not need to. Just the sense that something was behind the stone and watching.

Something sees us.
She turned her head slowly, scanning the cavern. Nothing moved. But the feeling didn’t go away.

“Gonna set some wards...” she muttered. The last thing she wanted was to wake up with some half-rotted bastard gnawing on her ankle while Tusk snored through it. Wards didn’t hold the restless for long. Nothing really did. The susurrous drifted from the deeper tunnels. Not close, not yet. But audible, the soft, shifting hush, barely more than breath on cold stone. Voices, maybe, but the ones of things that had long forgotten how to be still.

She crouched near the edge of the chamber, pulling a small pouch from her belt. Her fingers moved quick and sure, drawing a chalky circle around a jagged bit of stone, then three more on three different walls or stones. One for flesh. One for spirit. One for anything that slithered in-between. The chalky dust shimmered faintly, like frost climbing over the rock. She whispered in a quiet, half-sung tone meant more for the shroud than for any living ear. A cold hum tickled the back of her neck as the wards flared to life.

When she returned to the fire, she dusted her hands off and gave him a sideways glance. “There,” she said. "We’ll know if something moves too close tonight."
 
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The orkin studied the huntress as she replied, listing qualities and characteristics he happened to agree with. For the most part. 'No, I didn't.' Had he been a decade or two younger, he might've made an effort. Indeed, even now Daniyah was not difficult to gaze upon, though the older Cazadore had learnt his lesson a long time since.

Some women were worth pursuing, and some would land you neck deep in shit. As was quite often the case, there was never any differentiating between the two. And getting caught with your pants down was only funny the first time around.

'Hmm.' Directing his thoughts elsewhere, Tusk sat up straight, the muscles in his back needling him in protest as he rolled to his feet. 'You do that,' he said, crossing to where his saddlebags lay heaped at the foot of a collapsed building block near as wide as the scorpion he'd helped haul inside.

Wards were all well and good while they lasted, but you could never go wrong with bone chimes.

Unravelling the bundle buried within his bags, Tusk paused as his fingers brushed cold, scar-crossed silver. 'Aye, Askel, I know.' Hands like ham hocks settled about the urn, easing it free of its confines. The bone chimes chattered and shook as he set it down next to the campfire, sharing thoughts and opinions no-one could hear but him.

'Yes, yes, I know.' Gazing off into the darkness, Tusk's expression grew sombre as he listened to the silence of eons gather close. 'It's too bad she won't live. Then again, who does?'

Turning back to the urn, the orkin rose from his crouch, certain that his time would come, too, someday.

As it did for you, he sighed, slinking off into the shadows to set wards of his own.

When he returned, it was to the sound of Daniyah's feet finding their way closer. 'Yes,' he said, unfurling their sleeping rolls, before placing them side by side. 'Funny how the dead have a way of creeping up on you,' he spoke softly, less of the usual rumble. 'Askel. Vamond. Paloma...'
 
“Tusk's choir of bones...” she said dryly. Pale blue eyes flicked toward the chattering bone chimes. She knelt by the fire, brushing the chalk dust from her hands as she let her gaze roam over the darkness. Her gaze flicked to the urn, and then back to Tusk. The names hung between them like smoke. Thin, gray, and impossible to ignore. Askel. Vamond. Paloma. She wasn’t good with grief. Never had been. So instead, she shifted closer and reached out. Her hand found his and she gave it a small squeeze.

“So,” she said, low and steady, “what are they telling you?” She gave a soft huff, more amused than annoyed, and dropped back onto her sleeping roll with a sigh, letting her crossbow rest against her side. "Just the usual regrets?”

Imagine if everyone could see how tightly regret could bind a soul to this world. Even in the grave, all is not lost. Some lingered for love left unspoken, letters never sent, embraces denied. Others prowled for vengeance, fixed on debts that would never be repaid. Some simply haunted places that had meant something to them: a hearth, a garden, a tower they had built with their own hands, or a battlefield where they fell too soon. Memory held them fast. Their attachments could be trivial or terrible, a lost coin, a burned promise, a name that had gone unspoken. It was the weight of it, that was enough to hold them between the living and the dead.

Daniyah eased herself down onto the rough bedroll, the leather of her armor creaking as she shifted to find something that might pass for comfort. She didn’t bother to take it off, there was no point. Comfort was a luxury for safer places, and this was not one of them. Best to sleep with a blade close and her boots still on. Somewhere deeper in the ruin, something groaned, maybe the settling of rock.
 
'Aye, and more.' Death was a big part of the trade. Sometimes you caught your quarry; sometimes it caught you. A grisly end was guaranteed the moment you signed on the dotted line. The kind of beasts Tusk had taken to hunting, well, they knew neither pity nor mercy.

Askel had died bloody, but that wasn't what angered his spirit. Bade it linger awhile longer.

'You fuck up, you take responsibility. Someone shirks their watch, it's every other fucker what pays for it.' Tusk never talked much. Easier to listen, and observe those around you when you weren't flapping your gums. But sometimes even he was incapable of holding his tongue, especially when it would be a disservice to those honoured dead whose ashes he carried into battle with him.

'I talked to the survivors, after. Everyone said the same thing, bar one particular fuckhead who shall remain anonymous.' Grinding his teeth, the Soulkeeper swept Daniyah with his gaze, angry, and bitter on behalf of a man he'd not known all that well.

'We all slip up, eventually,' he continued, placing the urn amidst the glowing coals, as he had done countless times before. 'Laziness, though... Even the greenhorns know laziness kills.'

Shaking his head, Tusk settled down on his bedroll, unsure what the point of his story was, or why he was sharing it with Daniyah of all people. No doubt she wanted nothing more than to just close her eyes and drift off to the land of dreams. Tusk couldn't blame her. Not when their waking hours were filled with nightmares.

'Never mind. Ignore this old man and his ramblings. Get some sleep.' Askel could take the first watch. But even then the orkin would sleep with one eye open, cutter held close like a lover, all bite.

Beyond the smouldering fire, the gloom thickened, taking shape. Mute shuffling. The scuff of worn soles on stone. Undead sentries making the rounds. Until they weren't.

The first ward triggered at dawn. Tusk hadn't slept a wink.
 
Her eyes tracked the play of firelight over his face. She didn’t say sorry. Would’ve sounded hollow anyway. Instead, she drew in a slow breath through her nose, rubbing at a smooth rock with her thumb. “You’re right,” she said finally, smirking. “Laziness kills. So does pride. And mercy. And blind trust. And bad luck. Hunger kills, thirst kills, frost kills...” A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth, tired but genuine. There was no shortage of ways to die, only a few to live.

“Every road leads the same place.” The urn glowed faintly in the coals, metal whispering under the heat.

She stretched out, almost without thinking. She closed her eyes. Daniyah murmured softly, "Good night, Tusk” She shifted closer, her back pressing lightly against Tusk, not for warmth but for the comfort of not being alone in the gloom of this oppressive stone tomb.

Hours passed. The dark weight of the mountain pressed around them, silent but for the occasional drip of water or the groan of stressed stone. She dreamed in fragments, half-awake, half in a haze of fire and smoke. Then dawn came, bringing with it a sharp snap, a hiss, and a sudden flare as the first ward, a cluster of undead set ablaze. Their shrieks choking on flame. The acrid stink of charred flesh and burning bone filled the chamber.

Daniyah’s eyes snapped open, a grim smile tugging at her lips. She rolled to her feet, grabbing the crossbow in one fluid motion.

“I love the smell of burning undead in the morning,” A wicked grin spread across her face. "Would like to see a bone chime do that!"
 
'Don't get smart with me, young lady.' Wagging his finger, Tusk continued with his task, the sound and smell of sizzling bacon a delight for the senses. Three of them, at least. 'They've been stumbling around over there for most of the night,' he told Daniyah, ears pricked up, a small smile creasing his chops as a second ward detonated.

'Didn't want to wake you,' he spoke softly, turning the rashers with his dagger. 'You looked... Hmm. Peaceful, almost.'

She was young, and young hunters slept better than their elders. At least in Tusk's experience. The nightmares will come, in time. Usually when you least expected them. Some Cazadores turned to drink to keep them at bay. Others got by on smoke or spice. Chasing oblivion, so as to avoid reliving the past.

'I counted a dozen pairs of footsteps. Fewer, now that your weavework has borne fruit.' Shamblers and ragged cadavers. Not much iron on them, if his hearing hadn't deceived him. Laypersons, then. Refinery workers who'd gotten lost far beneath the ground. Perhaps all they wanted was to see sunlight again. Shame. Tusk could hear the rains pouring down outside, cold and sharp, like the blade laid across his knees.

'How many quarrels you got on you?' The old hunter asked. 'Bet a fistful of coppers you can't snag three headshots in a row.'

His smile said otherwise.
 
Daniyah snorted, letting the edge of a smirk curl over her lips. “Young lady, huh?” she echoed and swatted at his finger, like it were some irritating fly. "Say ‘young lady’ again and I'll start calling you ‘Daddy’" Her gaze flicked to the sizzling bacon, smoke curling around Tusk, and then back to him.

Her lips twitched at the corner, peaceful? Her nights were usually stolen by shadows, nightmares clawing at the edges of her sleep. She wasn’t about to admit it outright, not even to herself, but Tusk’s presence, solid and watchful, eased some of the tension coiled tight in her chest.

“You know,” she said, her voice low, edged with that wicked sort of humor she’d perfected over years in grim places, “it’s… creepy. Sitting there, staring at someone asleep like you’re a damn wraith yourself." Her smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth as she adjusted her footing. “Makes me wonder what other weird hobbies you’ve got." Her short laugh echoed faintly against the cavern walls.

“Plenty,” Daniyah said, lips quirking. She patted the leather tube at her hip where quarrels rested. The leather of her armor groaned with the movement as she drew a bolt from her quiver. She spared a glance at Tusk, sitting there with his grin glowing in the amber light. “Three headshots in a row? Child’s play." Daniyah let the bolt click home with a final snap, the crossbow heavy and familiar in her hands.

This wasn’t some wooden cross with a string. It would punch through iron, and undead skulls were pleasantly brittle in comparison. Two shamblers shuffled in the far mouth of the corridor, hairless things, nodding toward the light like idiots. She braced her shoulder, one eye closing to line the groove, the other tracking both heads. There’s an ugly kind of geometry to killing: angle, distance, torque. It was a rhythm she found rather quickly.

The hard string sang. The bolt left with a hard, clean crack. It struck the first skull high, splintering bone and sending a smear of ash-dry brain against the cavern floor. Momentum carried the shaft on, clear, merciless physics, and it landed like a kiss on the second skull. All in the same slick, elegant line. They hit the stone with a dull thump, two heads and one bolt.

“That still counts as two.”
 
'Oh?' Tusk's grin said it all. 'Prove it!' Tending to the fire, the orkin watched Daniyah as she readied her thrum, the huntress's weapon of choice. Not his, though. Never was much one for range, he thought, looking back on his youth through golden lenses, as if life back then had been different. Better. No fear or hunger gnawing at his guts like a ravenous boar.

He recalled the first time his mentors had placed a bow in his hands. A mistake, that.

Damn near took out Jenkyl's eye, he smiled, remembering how he'd swung the stave about, having flubbed one flight too many for his childish ego to handle. A swift backhand had corrected his outburst. Pain was a powerful motivator.

Whoever had taught Daniyah to shoot had done a bang-up job. The rest came from experience, Tusk figured.

'Does it?' Looking up from the fire, Tusk narrowed his eyes, features scrunched, screwed up in mock doubt. 'So it does!' He nodded. 'Still leaves one more. Fortunately for you, they're getting closer.' Depending on how far gone they were, undead could be pretty fucking gormless. Alone, they weren't worth worrying about. But together? That's when things started getting dicey.

'As for weird hobbies, I'll have you know I limit myself to talking to the fallen. Our own, mostly. Watching folk sleep was more Askel's thing.' The orkin swallowed a grin as he rummaged through his pack for more provisions. 'He tells me you talk in your sleep. Did you know that?'
 
“Oh, don't blame Askel” Daniyah muttered, lips curling as she slid another quarrel into the crossbow's groove. The pulling lever rasped like grinding teeth as she drew it back. Muscles in her shoulders flexed, leather creaking in rhythm to the slow, mechanical click-click-click until the catch locked into place. The sound was harsh, like the winding of a torture rack. "Sleeptalkin'? What did I say?"

She slid a bolt from her belt pouch, this one different from the first. The bolt’s tip was no mere iron, but a needle of glass filled with fluid that shimmered golden almost when it caught the firelight. A slow swirl of vapor leaked from its seams. “Let’s see how you like this one,” she said, narrowing one eye down the sight. Out in the dark, the shuffle of dead feet came closer, dragging over gravel and stone. The stink of the corpses hit the air like wet coins.

She breathed in, steady, lined up the shot. It struck the first corpse in the temple, and the bolt bursted on impact. Thin jets of fire-spit and acid fanned out as the pressurized glass shattered. It sprayed the two beside it, setting flesh to bubble and hiss, bone cracking in a chorus of chemical fury. In seconds, the three were nothing but black shapes writhing in their own fumes, smoke coiling upward.

Daniyah exhaled, the smell of burning solvent and cooked sinew clinging to her tongue. She lowered the grossbow with a crooked smirk. “Three” she said. "You owe me money, Keeper." She slung the crossbow over her shoulder, knowing it’d take too long to reload before the next wave hit.

The groans drew closer. Wet, gurgling sounds that used to belong to people. Instinct dragging her hand toward her hip, only to find empty air. Her fingers brushed leather, no hilt. No black steel. “Fuck.” Garrod still had her sword. The bastard. He could choke on it for all she cared. She’d sooner gut herself than see his face again.

“Well,” she said, "You wanna earn your copper back, Tusk?" She pointed at the nearest pack. “Three heads. One swing each. Think you’ve still got the wrists for it, Keeper? Or has the rust eaten through your armour?”
 
The cadavers blew apart, and Tusk grunted approvingly, having expected no less from the sharpshooter. 'Good thing we didn't shake on it,' he replied, ignoring the chemical stench as best he could. However, when he noticed Daniyah's momentary hesitation, he did not turn a blind eye to her plight. As powerful as her crossbow was, it took time to reload, and therein lay its greatest weakness.

A sword on the other hand...

Standing, stretching, the orkin swept up the still-sheathed blade, and passed it to Daniyah. 'Always pays to carry a backup,' he told her, shrugging, as was his wont. 'What happened? Misplace your cutter somewhere?' There wasn't much Tusk didn't know about his flock, but he tried not to pry into their personal lives, if it could be helped.

Limbering up, the old Cazadore chuckled lightly to himself, pleased by Daniyah's challenge. 'Do you believe me soft, Wraith?' This wasn't the first time his fellows had cast aspersions on him. Garrod had done so, too, albeit jokingly.

Still. Enough was enough.

Going forth, the Keeper brought his weapon up in a two-handed grip, blade poised as the encroaching undead were drawn to him like moths to flame. The one in the lead was more skeleton than anything, greying skin adhering to its bones like rotting parchment. It groaned pitifully as it lunged at him, arms outstretched, eye sockets dark and empty.

Its head jumped free of its neck with ease, aged bone no match for razor-sharp steel, the muscle driving it. Following through, Tusk wheeled, striking off another head. Right to left, left to right.

Already, he could feel the battle rhythm calling to him, the rush of blood through veins yet to dry up. He bit down on the urge to cut loose. Striking off the last head, he forced himself to breathe, the rage in his soul simmering. For now. 'Well,' he said, retracing his steps through the dust and debris, 'would you look at that!'
 
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