Callisto

Crimson Sands

When the rains came, they bit at the skin of the Hanakh hunters, and even the hardiest snake had to seek shelter.

But in the Great Canyon, a shelter was a temporary refuge at best. One knew not which caves carved into the walls were the dwellings of a Stalker or some fiercer beast that sought respite from the burning storm.

It was said that the rains were the tears of the Earth weeping for its lost children, for the misguided Old Ones that were its progeny – they who had burned the world in fire and lightning and bathed in the blood of their evil civilizations. Sometimes Rain-Born heard the stories of their "cities" of cold, unfeeling steel – monuments to sin and iniquity that climbed towards the skies and pierced the clouds. The Old Ones hated this world; even their homes were designed to strike against it. The rain was a product of their own making – just as all the evil spirits who wandered in The Deadlands were.

But there was no place to hide from the burning rain on the plains. It beat against the sands and chewed on stone and skin, peeling away all the pure souls who fought for the glory of their tribe.

In the early days of the Deadlands, two such peoples inhabited the environment of the Great Canyon: The Hanakh and Guthra. Two tribes, proud and stubborn, saw the darkness of the Old Ones in the other and took up spears, arrows, and blades from the first instant they witnessed the difference in their tribal markings and beliefs. No one could remember who cast the first stone, drew the first drop of blood, or uttered the meaningless pejorative that spurned the other side into war. In truth, the warriors of both tribes did not let such matters possess their minds. As Father-Mother said: "A mind open to doubt is as a fortress unguarded and without protection."

And there was one girl whose faith in such words propelled her forwards through even the acid rain wept from above. One girl weathered even the cries of the poor, dying Earth and flew at her enemies like a cat in a dovecote. This girl's name was Rain-Born.

In the months since her Harrowing – the bloodying of her blade with the twisted entrails of her first Stalker – she had won her place as a true Huntress of the Hanakh. And, as a Huntress, she was permitted to attend a raid on the desert plains that stretched out for eternity above the Great Canyon. Here and there, dotted across its burned surface, the dwellings of the Guthra people stretched forth. They were always building, constantly fortifying, raising towers and spikes and sneaky traps resembling the ways of the Old Ones. They had been builders, too - conquerors and expanders - and the fruits of their labor had been devastation. The Guthra, Father-Mother said, had not learned this lesson from the past.

Rain-Born took it upon herself to be their teacher.

In her first raid, she followed Elder Ragged-Brow and his team of elite hunters into the Guthra territory of Antakram – a border town whose dwellings had illegally encroached on Hanakh lands. Under cover of the biting rainfall, a team of ten warriors was gathered under Elder Ragged-Brow to strike a blow against the Guthra infidels that they would not soon forget. So Ragged-Brow was commanded, and so did he act. He was the dutiful hawk of the tribe and chief amongst all hunters. If wise Father-Mother was the voice of the Hanakh, it was said that Ragged-Brow was the fist.

His hunting party had set up camp as the sun crept behind the ashen clouds of the Deadlands. Ragged-Brow's forward scouts then reported that the Guthra of Antakram were engaged in a prayer session – giving reverence to their patron deity, Okku the White Wolf. They bowed and intoned their sacred hymns before a great stone effigy of the divine canine within their walls, and Rain-Born brimmed with bloodlust as she heard the news.

"Let us strike them now, brethren!" she cried in their war camp.

But the claws of Ragged-Brow found her hair and yanked at her braids savagely, reprimanding her as they often did for speaking out of turn in the Elder's presence.