The Black Tent. Same Night.
Kazik was bored.
He had been bored for a very long time.
Centuries, probably. He'd lost count somewhere around the third hundred years. Time moved differently when you weren't fully real—slower, thinner, like honey instead of water. Days blurred into years, years into decades, decades into the kind of endless stretch that made lesser beings go mad.
Kazik wasn't a lesser being.
He was a hunter. One of the first through the door. One of the lucky ones who'd gotten a body—thin, translucent, barely anchored to this world—but a body nonetheless. He could touch things. Taste things. Kill things.
When there was anything worth killing.
Which there wasn't. Usually.
He lounged in the corner of the black tent, watching the other two with half-closed eyes. Veth was pacing—she always paced, couldn't sit still, the mark of a younger spirit. Only two centuries through the door. Still had energy to burn. Still thought something interesting might happen.
Morath sat in the center, meditating. Or sleeping. With Morath, it was hard to tell. Oldest of the three. Came through in the first wave, back when the door had barely cracked. His body was almost solid now—more real than Kazik's, more real than Veth's. He'd been waiting longest.
They were all waiting.
Always waiting.
---
"The humans attacked today," Veth said, not for the first time.
Kazik sighed. "I was there."
"Did you see the big one? The one with the sword?" Veth's pacing quickened. "He's different. I felt something when he got close. Old. Angry."
Kazik had felt it too. The berserker blood. Rare, even in the old days. Almost extinct now.
"Doesn't matter," he said. "He's just meat. They're all just meat."
"The boy was with him." Veth stopped pacing. "The vessel."
At this, Morath opened his eyes.
They were red. All hunters had red eyes—it was the mark of their kind, the thing that set them apart from the solid races. But Morath's were different. Deeper. Older. They held centuries of patience, centuries of hunger.
"The vessel grows," Morath said. His voice was slow, like rocks grinding together. "I can feel him. His fear. His doubt. His love for the others."
Veth nodded eagerly. "Soon?"
"Soon." Morath closed his eyes again. "When he's ready. When the moment is right. Vorlag will call, and he will answer."
Kazik shifted in his corner.
He'd heard this before. So many times. Soon. When he's ready. When the moment is right. Centuries of waiting, and always the same answer.
"I'm bored," he said.
Veth glared at him. "We're serving Vorlag. There's no boredom in service."
"There's boredom everywhere." Kazik stood, stretching his translucent limbs. "Service. Waiting. Watching. It's all the same after a while."
Morath's eyes opened again.
"You've been restless for decades," he said. "It clouds your judgment."
"My judgment is fine." Kazik moved toward the tent entrance. "I'm going to watch the humans. Their camp is interesting tonight. So much fear. So much anger. It's almost entertaining."
Morath said nothing. Veth looked troubled.
Kazik stepped through the tent wall—one advantage of a not-fully-real body—and disappeared into the night.
---
The human camp was a mess.
Kazik drifted above it, invisible, intangible, watching. Soldiers moved between tents with the dazed look of those who'd survived a battle and didn't know why. Medics treated wounds. Officers argued. Fires burned low.
Amusing.
He found the big one first—the berserker. Sitting alone at the edge of camp, staring at the valley. His sword was across his knees, that dark blade that drank light. It pulsed faintly, aware of Kazik's presence.
You can't see me, Kazik thought. No one can.
The berserker's head turned.
Looked directly at where Kazik floated.
Kazik froze.
Impossible.
The berserker stared for a long moment. Then, slowly, he raised one hand.
And waved.
---
Kazik retreated.
Not in panic—hunters didn't panic. But in confusion. In curiosity. The berserker had seen him. Somehow, impossibly, seen him.
He drifted back to the black tent.
Veth was still pacing. Morath was still meditating.
"The berserker," Kazik said. "He saw me."
Veth stopped pacing. Morath opened his eyes.
"Explain."
Kazik did.
When he finished, Morath was quiet for a long time.
"The old blood awakens," he said finally. "It remembers us. From before."
Veth frowned. "Before the door?"
"Before everything." Morath's red eyes gleamed. "The berserkers were our enemies in the old world. Before Vorlag trapped us in the void. They could see us. Fight us. Kill us."
Kazik felt something he hadn't felt in centuries.
Interest.
"This one," he said. "He's strong. Stronger than the others."
Morath nodded slowly.
"Good," he said. "Strength makes the breaking sweeter."
---
They watched the human camp through the night.
Not together—each alone, drifting, observing. Veth focused on the vessel, the boy with darkness in his blood. She could feel him even in sleep, dreaming, turning, calling out for people he loved.
Morath watched the mage. The clever one. The one with the books and the questions and the hunger for knowledge. She was dangerous in her own way—not physically, but intellectually. If anyone pieced together the truth about Vorlag, about the door, about what was really waiting—
But she wouldn't. Not in time.
Kazik watched the berserker.
The big one sat motionless for hours, staring at the valley. At the black tent. At them.
He knew they were there.
He couldn't see them now—Kazik had checked—but he knew. Felt them. Waited for them.
Interesting, Kazik thought. Very interesting.
---
Dawn came.
The human camp stirred to life. Soldiers preparing for another day. Fires being stoked. Arguments and laughter and the ordinary sounds of people who didn't know they were being watched.
Kazik drifted back to the black tent.
Veth was already there, practically vibrating with excitement.
"The vessel," she said. "He's close to breaking. I could feel it. His fear is—" She made a gesture. "Delicious."
Morath nodded slowly. "Soon. Not yet. But soon."
Kazik leaned against the tent wall.
"And in the meantime?"
Morath almost smiled.
"In the meantime, we watch. We wait. We enjoy the show." He looked toward the human camp. "They fight. They struggle. They hope. It's almost beautiful, in its way."
Veth frowned. "Beautiful?"
"Entertaining." Morath's red eyes gleamed. "Centuries of waiting, and finally—finally—something interesting happens."
Kazik felt the same.
Boredom, for now, was gone.
The game was beginning.