(Author's Note: This is part 3 of a series, starting with the Book of Amonkari)

***

I miss not those days, the endless empty years of war and slaughter, when We had no greater purpose than to invade the creches of Dynara's other abandoned children, and they had no greater purpose than to invade us. Looking back, I wish I had reached out sooner, to call out to the strange folk whose lands We breached and who breached Ours. Had I called out to the strange, smooth-faced man among His Bearded brothers sooner, I might have found My friend, My rival, My love well before the Golden Age of Peace, when I would join Agnomenon among the Fifth Circle. But as it was in those days, We all were warriors.

Some of Us were merely worse warriors than others.

***

"Worthless! Absolutely worthless!" Orlachmar bellowed as Chirurji tugged My broken body painfully back into a star shape. We had suffered our third straight defeat in the mountains of Dogmos, to the Red Eyes, this time, and while the golden-haired giant had fought His way through the ambush to emerge relatively unscathed, the rest of Us were in terrible shape. "None of You have a shred of skill, of fury, of the will We need to show these weaklings who Dynara made strongest!"

He glared at Chirurji at that. Our sister scowled, but kept Her eyes focused on Me as She worked. The last time Orlachmar had made this speech, after Our last battle, She had dared to ask Him why we needed to prove Our strength to the other creches. For once, I was the one to pull Her back into shape.

"Calm Yourself, brother," Strom said in His deep voice, weary as He laid out on the snow and waited to recover.

"I shall not calm Myself!" Orlachmar snarled. "We are shamed before the others. And the fault lies with You!" He levelled a finger at Chesh, before he pointed next to Chirurji, then to Strom, then Wassali, and then finally Me. "And You! And You! And You! And especially You, You worthless coward. You ran!"

"I didn't run!" I snapped irritably. "The big ugly female and Their twins came around a corner and grabbed Me!" It was rather clever, on reflection. I could do something similar if...

"You failed!" Orlachmar bellowed. "You failed and shamed Us!"

...if Orlachmar wasn't in charge. He would never be anything more than a brute. A big, beautiful brute, but a brute nonetheless.

"Brother," Strom said in a firmer tone, "this display of Yours serves no purpose."

"No purpose?" Orlachmar snapped, stomping up to Strom and glaring down at Him. "The purpose is that You need to shut up, get good with those fancy sharp little things Gobilogra made for you, worthless as they are, and actually help Me prove Ourselves stronger than these outsider worms!"

"Brother," Strom said, calm despite the stomping I was certain that Orlachmar was going to give him, "the outsiders are not stronger."

"They are not. We are the strongest," Orlachmar said firmly, proudly. He paused a moment, before growling again. "So We should be doing better than this!"

"We would, if it were just strength against strength, brother," Strom said reassuringly, "but the Red Eyes turned to tricks, as did the Crystals. And the Silvers had numbers on Their side. These battles are more than mere strength, My brother. You know this, as do I."

"We have what We have," Orlachmar grumbled, in a softer tone. "We are strong. We are mighty."

"We are incomplete," Strom said, and a pang of worry shot through Me, shot through all of Us. Orlachmar's face fell completely at that, as He stared up at the slate-grey sky.

"We should go back to the Runners' land," He said dully. "They couldn't have done anything bad to Her, could They?"

"We should never have left Her in the first place," Chirurji said grimly, and the others grumbled Their assent. Orlachmar rounded, looking for a brief moment ready to punish Her again, before He just sighed.

"Hurry up with the runt," Orlachmar growled. "I want better weapons out of Her before We go back to the Runners' land."

***

I had seen the lands of the outsiders, the fiery wastes of the Bearded, the strange, space-warped Continuum that the Crystals called home, the endless darkened woods of the Creepers and the endless and frankly dull flatlands of the Runners. I knew Our land to be harsh, cold, full of ice and rocks. In the beginning, We only called it 'home,' as many of the other Elders did to Their creches, but as We discovered more and more lands to explore and test Ourselves against (as Orlachmar insisted We do,) We found the need to distinguish our home from the others. Orlachmar insisted upon calling it Strongland. Later on, to My immense relief, it would be named Savaj.

What made Savaj unique among the hundreds of creches was the presence of the cave hounds which Dynara and the Son had left to Us, thousands of the little yapping quadrapeds roaming the crags and forests of Our home. They were worthless, for the most part. Akennic had taken a set aside and formed them into a formidable attack pack over the course of many years, but His plans fell apart immediately upon entering the land of the Silvers, where every last one of His hounds had popped like bubbles of spit. So it was that I used them for their parts, though I was painfully aware how weak My creations were against Bearded steel and the strange silks of the Fish.

I was harvesting a pack of the mindless beasts for their bones, when I heard a welcome cry from the skies.

"I return triumphant, My brothers and sisters!" Loboshi's voice howled across the land, and all thought of design left My head as I darted to the source.

When I arrived, many of the others were already there, and My grievances against Orlachmar were momentarily forgotten as I watched Him seize Our sister in a fond hug.

"You should not have left Us like that, sister," Orlachmar gruffed in His stern voice, though it was easy enough for Us all to sense His relief.

"We were all worried about You," Strom said, smiling.

"It's not that," Orlachmar grumbled, straightening up. "It's bad form to leave Us behind on a foreign world."

"Don't leave like that again, sister," Gruenella said, a hint of a smile on Her face. "Orlachmar makes for a terrible alpha."

"We did just fine," Orlachmar said stiffly. Behind His back, I caught Chirurji's flat stare, and turned My head to bite back a chuckle. It was then that I noticed something new.

"Sister, what is that?" I asked. Perhaps My tone was a bit sharp, because I turned the heads of each of My brothers and sisters towards the crumpled pile hovering behind Loboshi.

"Ah, this," Loboshi said proudly. "This is My prize, claimed from the world of the Runners and Their trickery."

"Yes! See? Our strength is greater than even the Runners' trickery!" Orlachmar boomed in pride.

"That's a Runner," Akennic said, as though He hadn't heard Orlachmar, which judging by how His face had gone completely white, He might have not. "That's THAT Runner. Loboshi, is that safe?"

"He's not one of Your hounds, Akennic," Loboshi snorted. "See, He's just fine. A little banged up, but fine. He hasn't popped at all. Chirurji, see to Him."

"Sister, I'm not sure about this," Chirurji said, as She caught the heap that was the Runner. "He might be fine now."

"I'm not fine," the Runner protested.

"No, no you're not. You didn't need to get so frustrated with Him, sister," Chirurji said absently, before finding a toe and starting to pull. "How long were you planning on keeping Him?"

"Did You not hear the part about Him being My prize, sister?" Loboshi said, frowning around at Us. Only Orlachmar looked completely certain about the matter. The rest of Us seemed dubious at best, utterly terrified at worst. Akennic stared at the Runner in absolute terror... the poor boy never really recovered from the loss of His pets. Loboshi growled sharply, bringing attention back to Herself. "I intend to keep Him forever. Or until one of You sees fit to challenge Me for Him. Let Me know which of You dares."

Out of Our creche, only Orlachmar stood a chance against Loboshi one-on-one, and from the shrug He gave, He wasn't interested.

"That's what I thought. Chirurji, get Him prettied up," Loboshi said, and that was that.

***

Volkh was the most interesting thing to happen to Our creche in an Age, and We all knew this to be true, despite Our misgivings. Even Wassali, the weakest of Us, could handle the Runner in a contest of strength, a discovery which brought Him exceptional joy. Soon enough though, Volkh regained His speed, and evaded all of Us save for Loboshi, who had mastered His strange wind-running trick. From then on, when one of Us wanted to play with Him, it would take Loboshi to hunt Him down, and then We would have to wrangle Him out of Her clutches, for She could spend hours just holding Him close and crooning about Her prize.

This simply wouldn't do.

So it was that, after burning one of My very best excuses to skip out on a raid, I crept into the black forests of Our homeland to hunt down Volkh. Thankfully, I was a much better sneak than a warrior.

When I came upon Volkh, He was among the hounds, idly scratching at one's head as He stared up at the grey skies above. The hounds sensed Me before He did, whimpering in fear and darting off to the caves. As He watched them leave in confusion, I pounced from the trees, tackling Him to the snow.

"Leave Me be!" He cried, as He struggled in My arms. "Quit trying to fight Me!"

"Calm down! Just want to talk!" I snapped as I held onto Him. "Magnora's teat, definitely don't want a fight."

Finally, He ceased struggling. "What be You wanting, Savage?" He snorted.

"I want to know the secret of Your wind-running," I said.

Volkh snorted. "Have Loboshi teach You," He said, starting to struggle again.

I rolled My eyes. "She won't teach Us. She wants You and all Your secrets to Herself." And if Orlachmar heard Me asking, He would beat Me for weakness, not that I told Volkh that.

"You can learn as She did. She be working it out all by Herself, You know," the little Runner said, and I found Myself growling at Him. To My surprise, there was an answering growl, not from the Runner but from the cave hounds, who stalked towards Me. There was something odd about the beasts that I didn't recognize until they got closer.

"What did You do to the hounds?" I asked, letting go of the Runner to reach for the beast, seizing it by the neck. It snapped at Me angrily, but a quick glare cowed it so that I could look it over. "You changed it. You made it... thinner." I dropped the hound, and it skittered quickly back off to the cover of the trees. "Faster, too. That's very interesting."

When I turned around, Volkh was halfway across the clearing, but He yet remained. "They be interesting. And they don't be always trying to fight with Me," the Runner said, frowning in disapproval. "What be these creatures? We have nothing like this in Our home."

"They're toys Dynara and the Son left here for Us. Mindless things. Nuisances, mostly," I said, frowning. "You must have something like this. Birds or fish or flying rocks. You probably don't even think about them."

"We be having nothing like these at all," He said. The hounds gathered around Him once again, though they eyed Me warily. He'd made them leaner, but more intelligent as well, somehow. As He watched Me stare, He shuffled uncomfortably. "I'm sorry for breaking them."

"No. No, no, no, this is excellent. This is perfect," I said, My eyes alight with the possibilities. If He could improve the bodies and minds of these stupid hounds, what else was possible? Could We become faster too? Stronger? Could We maybe insert some forethought and compassion into that brute Orlachmar? "You must tell Me how You did this."

Volkh was reluctant at first, but after some arm-twisting (a phrase that wouldn't become figurative for centuries after,) He told Me of the pathways that lie in living things, a trick He had learned from His sister. The hounds were different from We, the Star Gods. They were lesser, but enough of the same principles applied. As He spoke, the Runner's eyes brightened with delight, and so did Mine.

***

Loboshi returned eventually to reclaim Volkh from Me, but in the days that followed, I would sneak Him aside for talk of things besides strength and war and the true favor of Our Creator. Eventually, He would warm to Chirurji as well, and once assured there would be no fighting, to Wassali, and We spent many long hours dwelling on greater things, before Loboshi took Him for Her comforts.

...and though it pained Me to see it, His comforts as well. In retrospect, He could have run at any time between raids.

***

As time passed, though, I noticed Him growing weaker and weaker, becoming thinner and slow enough for even Me to catch. Loboshi must have noticed too, for She became reluctant to leave the creche, even as Orlachmar spoke eagerly of new challengers, hairy Giants from a land of stinging frost.

"Come, sister," Orlachmar said. "We need Your strength, Your fury to prove Ourselves greatest among the creches. We're winning once more, as is right."

"Go, brother. You can lead," Loboshi said, making Our brothers and sisters cringe behind Orlachmar's back. "I'll stay behind to watch the creche this once."

Orlachmar sighed. "Sister, please. Bring Your weakling trophy if You must, but don't rob Us of Your strength." He frowned. "I've half a mind to take Him from You."

Loboshi rose, snarling, Her knives levelled at Orlachmar's neck. "You would dare?"

"Sister, please," Chirurji said as She rose. "You know well what is wrong with Him. It's the sickness that comes from being too long in foreign creches."

"It's a nuisance. Nothing more," Loboshi grunted, knives turning towards Chirurji. "I suffered far worse in winning Him."

"He's not as strong as You," I said firmly, and though Her knives turned to Me, I saw that She knew I was right.

"No," Loboshi said, all the same.

I don't know what may have happened from there if the skies of Savaj hadn't started to ring, a deep gonging sound that spread across the creche and drew the worried howls of the hounds.

"I haven't heard that noise since Auseklis," Strom said, frowning.

"It's a raid. It's a raid!" Orlachmar actually sounded delighted. "Akennic! You actually get to be useful!"

"It's a raid by idiots. Do They not know where the portal is?" Chesh said.

"No," I said. "Because They're new..."

The portal shattered open, as five figures descended from the skies. Their bodies were hairless and tanned, lean like the hounds Volkh had shaped. I recognized only the one at the front, the lone Runner who had dared to face Us in all Our visits to Their homeland, Her face a vision of fury.

"I be Amonkari the Wind!" She called, as She and Her siblings descended upon Savaj. "You be returning Our Volkh to Us now!"