“No matter where we go, it’s always wolves.”
Felwinter glides after Timur, and the burning sand eats the few bootprints he leaves behind. He watches the lone animal - dusky, the grey-gold of desert stone - as it watches them, silhouetted atop the crest of a dune.
They have spent the day clearing Fallen from the desert. The creatures have an obvious interest in the area, which has convinced Felwinter that Timur has brought him somewhere worthwhile.
“Not a wolf. Asiatic jackal. An ancient species - a survivor, just like us.” Timur’s impatience has faded along with the sunlight, and the burning sun crimsons the dunes and casts deep shadows through their troughs.
“I thought Skorri was the poet. It has no pack?
“They hunt alone. Old legends call them desert tricksters. Dream-eaters, even. A kindred spirit for you, Lord Felwinter.”
Felwinter pauses and stares at the sand.
“Same title, different meaning now. I find it…suitable.”
“Radegast can be persuasive when he chooses.”
“And so I am lost in a desert, following an obsessed warlock.”
“Not lost, my friend. Together we’re strong - even the two of us. I think we proved that today. Just imagine what our order will accomplish-”
The two Lords stop to watch as the sun frames the jackal, and in the bloody light the animal rears back on its hind legs and howls.
Timur’s voice, once more a whisper, reaches through the bone-dry air:
“I saw the mountains of the darkness of winter and the place whence all the waters of the deep flow. I saw the mouths of all the rivers of the earth and the mouth of the deep.”
Felwinter laughs. “Enoch? You have a long memory, Lord Timur.”
“Useless in most cases, but I couldn’t help myself given the scenery. And sometimes the old texts, as full of traps and nonsense as they are, can cast light on what brought us -” he gestures at the buried domes of the city they have discovered “- Here.”
“Enough sideways talking. Tell me about your Seraphim,” says Felwinter. “You’re no more a believer than I am.”
“Seven Seraphs, seven watchers, who looked into the deep and saw chaos there. I’m no believer, but I do seek to understand. There are cycles, Lord Felwinter, and there are cycles. Something compelled Clovis Bray to build here, in this place of dead myth and legend - and genesis. Who were the Watchers? What were they watching for?”
The dune beneath them trembles, and a Fallen Skiff roars overhead.
Timur seems not to hear it. “I wonder what secrets are buried here. Seven is a portentous number, don’t you think?”
Felwinter grins as the Captains and Servitors drop, stirring dust-devils, tiny whirlwinds in the twilight. His shotgun is ready in his hands. Timur may have his own war in mind, but this is a battle he understands.
“I’ve always preferred Nines, myself.”
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