Curiosity driving him, he reached out and put a paw on the stone, sending flows of Earth and Divine into it. What he discovered made his tail twitch. The stone was igneous, hardened lava, and as Tarrin followed its root down into the ground, he realized that it had come pouring out when someone or something punched a hole in the ground, a hole that went all the way down to the vast sea of magma upon which the land floated.

All these dark rock spires were probably the same, the result of a breach into the magma.

They are the scars left behind by the Blood War, kitten, the Goddess told him, her choral voice echoing in his mind. The rock spires are what's left of magic that the Demons used to pull lava from the ground and kill the defenders. Five thousand years ago, this was a lush grassland. But then the Demons came, punching holes into the mantle and causing the lava to erupt. That covered large areas of this verdant belt with pools of lava. The heat and the fumes killed the grass, changed the weather itself, turning this place into a desert. At one time, this was a hellish wasteland covered with thousands of small hill-sized volcanic cones. But the winds this area is famous for wore them down, eroded them into a sand that still rests in the northeast sections of the desert, where the sand and dunes are black instead of white. The normal rock beneath too was worn away, which made the light sand and dust you find everywhere else here. The rock spires were the cores of those volcanic cones. If there is a testament to the destruction of the Blood War, my kitten, this is it. The Desert of Swirling Sands is the last great scar left behind by a war that raged five thousand years ago.

That sobered him, left him with a grim resolve. The Blood War had been so long ago, but even now ripples of it flowed through the present, showed themselves here in the wound left behind by its raging, echoed in the songs and tales of the valiant Dwarves, who sacrificed everything to save the rest of the world. So much destruction and pain, and all of it had been caused by the Firestaff. Val had used the Firestaff to become a god, then raised an army of Demons to conquer the world. They turned on him, and Val was forced to help the very ones who had been his enemies, as the entire world was forced to unite to fight off the Demonic invasion. It was the Blood War that caused the gods to take the position they had now, where the next who used it would be destroyed. They couldn't allow a god that was not bound by the laws of the pantheon to exist. Even if it meant another catastrophe on level with the Blood War or the Breaking, they couldn't allow it, because Val had proved that such a one could destroy the delicate Balance which the gods strove mightily to maintain.

After all, a world destroyed by their own hands could be rebuilt. The price in the lives of those who lived on that world would be staggering, maybe even insurmountable, but the world would survive. And that was all that mattered to them. The Elder Gods cared only for the world as a whole. The civilizations that lived on it and their accomplishments did not matter in the grand plan of things which was the Balance. The Elder Gods would grieve for their act, but they would still go through with it, because it was what had to be done.

You must be able to do what must be done. He had heard that so many times, and for the first time, he realized that he wasn't the only one in this mad game that had to live with that heavy rule.

He was shaken out of his sober reverie by a series of low growls coming over the howling wind outside, their pitch and timbre causing him to pick them out from the shrill whistle of the wind. Tarrin's instincts warned him immediately when he realized that it was an inu, and he rose up to block the fissure to protect Allia and Sarraya, who were chatting behind him. The owner of those growls stepped around a bend in the narrow, constricting cave, and Tarrin saw with some surprise that it was the inu he had healed. It had followed them! If that wasn't impressive enough, the fact that it could keep up with them was itself quite astonishing.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded irritably of the animal.

"What is it?" Allia asked, then she rose up and looked under his shoulder. "It followed us?" she asked in confusion.

"I guess it likes you, Tarrin," Sarraya laughed.

"What is it with you and these big animals, brother?" Allia asked lightly. "First Sapphire, and now an inu. What is about you that attracts them?"

"I think we'll have to leave him behind when he brings a kajat into camp, trailing along behind him like an energetic puppy," Sarraya sniggered.

The inu looked slightly embarassed, but didn't look away, its reptillian, amber eyes unwavering as they looked up at Tarrin.

"It lost its pack. I guess it thinks we're its new one," Allia mused.

"She," Tarrin corrected absently. "This one is female."

"Ah, now I see what it is," Sarraya said in a wicked manner. "First Sapphire, now this one. I never knew Were-cats were sexy to these warm-blooded reptiles."

"Don't ever let Sapphire hear you say that, bug," Tarrin warned in a flat tone. It wouldn't do to send her back out into the sandstorm. Tarrin blew out his breath. "Alright, but keep out of trouble," he told her imperiously.

Having a little trouble turning around in the very tight space, the inu turned and laid down in the fissure with her head facing outside, keeping watch on the entrance to their refuge.

"What are we going to do with her now?" Allia asked, looking at the inu.

"Nothing," he shrugged. "If she wants to follow, let her follow. We can't do anything about that."

The inu remained even after the sandstorm was over, and that irritated Tarrin just a little bit. He didn't want to be nasty to her, but he didn't like the idea of her following along behind him either. Not that it bothered him or he feared her, but if she followed them, she wouldn't hunt, and she was going to get weak. If she followed too long, she was going to get too weak to hunt once she did break off. Tarrin felt kind of responsible for her, but he knew the instant he fed her, he'd never get rid of her. And taking an adult inu home with him would cause Jesmind to absolutely explode. He went to sleep worrying over that, understanding that he'd have to run her off in the morning, for both the good of both of them.

It turned out that Allia totally destroyed any chance that they would ever get rid of the inu. When Tarrin woke up the next morning, he came out of the fissure to see his Selani sister feeding the inu a rather large umuni. She had a strange, bright look in her eyes, and she was stroking the animal's sand-colored flank gently, almost affectionately. The inu seemed to enjoy the attention, even sidled up against the Selani and growled in a playful manner, nuzzling at her side with her wickedly toothed snout.

Tarrin groaned. "Allia!" he admonished in expasperation. "Now she's going to follow us around all the time!"

"Let her," she said with a strange kind of enthusiasm. "Sarraya may have joked about it, but now the idea of taming inu intrigues me. They would be excellent hunting partners. Inu are swift and intelligent, and we respect their ability."

"What about the domestic flocks?"

"Some of those sheep-herding men use dogs to control their flocks," she shrugged. "Dogs are predators. It would just take some training on both sides to keep them from fighting."

"It's a bad idea," he warned.

"I'll find out in time, won't I?" she asked pointedly.

Tarrin blew out his breath. "Alright, have it your way," he said shortly.

"Naturally."

"Before you get too attached to idea, you should consider what we're going to do with her when we go up to the Cloud Spire."

"Take her with us, of course."

"Are you out of your mind?" he said hotly. "If I take an inu up there, they may throw us off!"