Salt for the Sand
From his high box above the arena, Jabir of the Waste sat still as a carving. The BlackSand Arena unfolded beneath him like a split skull. The crowd howled, the sun sat low, and the sand drank light as if in thirst.
Jabir rarely blinked. His body reclined in a chair made from fused vertebrae, his chin resting lightly on one knuckled finger. His other hand stirred something thick and violet inside a stone chalice, steam rising in lazy spirals.
He could see everything.
The crowd. The fighters. The stench of sweat and bronze. The sound of anticipation.
Two new names today. One of them would be scrubbed from the wall before dusk.
He did not remember how many he'd seen die. Forty-seven this cycle? Perhaps fifty. It no longer mattered. He only cared for the texture of their endings. The symmetry. The residue they left in the sand.
Beneath his seat, ancient runes carved into the floor hummed faintly, each one tethered to the stone with blood-mortar, laid centuries ago. They pulsed in rhythm with his breath.
They would feast tonight. As would he.
A servant in red rags appeared beside him and whispered a report. Jabir did not turn to look. “Speak louder.”
“Green-armored one is called Matthew Dismantler of the Realm,” the servant said. “Forest-born. Banded armor enchanted by Green Hat lineage. Carries a falcon that speaks in four tongues.”
“A shame,” Jabir said softly. “The crowd will love the bird.”
“And the woman?”
“Leveler of the Rune Raiders. No noble blood. Scarred. Weaponized trauma. She has no gods. Only debts.”
From behind him, armored steps approached. Verus, Eradicator of the Coliseum, emerged into the suite. Ceremonial glaive across his back. Voice like a faultline.
He stood without speaking. Watching. Jabir gave him a slow nod.
“I will enjoy this,” Jabir said. Verus said nothing. That was his role. He would speak only when it was time to call blood.
When the gate opened for Matthew, the crowd murmured first. Then warmed. Then rose. His walk was calm. Intentional. The scent of herbs bloomed even up here, layered behind sweat, dust, and blood.
His aura did not reach the stands, but the crowd felt it.
Soothing warriors never last here.
The arena required suffering, not serenity. Still, Jabir admired the knight’s poise.
A man who didn’t fear pain, only failure. A rare type.
And then came Bernadette.
She entered like a blade unsheathed in silence. Her chain scraped stone. Her eyes remained forward.
The crowd did not cheer at first. They watched. Something about her silence demanded reverence.
And then they howled.
“Old chains,” Jabir said aloud. “The best tools are made from pain.” His steward said nothing.
Matthew moved like a strategist. Measured steps. Staff light in his hands. A falcon preening above his shoulder. Absurd, but noble.
Bernadette didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Her eyes were on the ground ahead of her, or perhaps the past.
Beneath Jabir’s feet, the floor sigils dimmed slightly in reaction to proximity. Souls had to ripen before harvest. Fear, fury, loss. These were the flavors.
Jabir leaned forward.
This would not be a duel. This would be an undoing.
They met like dancers unsure of the music.
Matthew struck first. Bo staff flicked in quick arcs. Jabir admired the efficiency. He'd been trained, perhaps by elves or druids. Not for brutality, but balance.
Bernadette, by contrast, was all instinct.
The first strike landed. His staff to her shoulder. She did not block. She stepped into it.
A perfect rejection of his logic.
The counter-knee to his thigh was vicious. Beautiful. The kind of moment Jabir would remember.
The chain spun next. She wielded it not with elegance, but presence. It dragged fear across the sand behind her. Each swing was a question.
How long will you pretend this is a game?
Matthew dodged. Slipped. Returned fire. Landed a few shallow blows. But he was still trying to win cleanly.
Jabir sipped from his chalice and sighed.
“You cannot reason with the tide.”
Verus grunted quietly. Approval. He recognized patterns, especially the ones that led to mercy.
The moment of reversal came as expected.
Jabir had seen the pattern. The sweep behind Bernadette’s legs. The fall. The calm overtake. The young knight’s staff across her throat.
“Yield,” Matthew said.
Jabir scoffed.
“He offers mercy like it’s an answer.”
Bernadette did not speak. Her body was still. But her fingers moved.
Even from this height, Jabir could see the subtle twitch. The sand coiling with the hidden link.
Then came the snare. The pull. The collapse.
Matthew fell like a sack of wheat.
“Ah,” Jabir said, smiling faintly. “She’s smarter than him. And less sentimental.”
The staff was gone now. The chain was awake.
The crowd screamed. Blood began to steam on the black sand. The arena had shifted.
Now it was hers.
Beneath Jabir’s throne, the floor began to hum. The tremble of a soul pulling at its roots.
He set the chalice down. Put both palms flat against the armrests.
“Not yet,” he murmured.
Verus turned his head slightly. “Shall I ready the seal?”
“Not until the break,” Jabir replied. “Let it ripen.”
She stood over him. Matthew, dazed. Reaching.
The falcon overhead screamed, flying low, useless.
Jabir felt the floor begin to throb under his heels. Faint, like the last breath before a scream. The spellwork was pulling taut. Ready.
The chain arced once. Missed. Again. Landed. The third strike...
Crack.
The helm gave. Blood bloomed.
A slit in the veil appeared, not torn but unfolding, like eyelids parting after centuries.
A thread of soft green-white light rose from the sand, twisting like breath in cold air. It floated upward, seeking its source.
Jabir opened his palm. The soul-thread slipped into his hand like a lover’s sigh.
He inhaled. Slow.
His spine uncurled. His breath deepened. The wrinkles beneath his eyes faded just a fraction.
Spring, after winter.
He smiled.
Bernadette turned and left. She did not know what she had given him.
The falcon landed beside the body. It stared up at the box. Eyes bright. Knowing.
“He just wanted to build a shoppe,” the falcon said.
It flapped once and vanished into the horizon, a speck of defiance lost in golden light.
Jabir sat very still. He turned to Verus.
“Strip the body for runes,” he said. “But leave the bird.”
Verus nodded. “Shall I call the next blood?”
Jabir looked at the rune still glowing in his palm.
“Yes,” he said. “Let them come.”
And below his feet, the arena drank the last of the warmth from the sand.
Entered by: 0x6424…79B4
The Smell of Old Chains
BlackSand Warrior Gauntlet
The crowd smelled like sweat, smoke, and old fear. But beneath that, thinner than incense, more alive than flame, was the taste of it.
Life. Raw and burning in their throats. Poured out in cheer. Slipped from their lungs like offerings to a silent god.
Jabir of the Waste closed his eyes and drank in the weight of it.
The skull of Master Alhuan hovered beside him, suspended by a tether of green necrotic light. That flicker, once rare, now eternal, shifted with the breeze but never faded. He had bound his master well.
Not that the skull had stopped speaking.
“You never liked crowds,” Alhuan murmured, voice smooth and dry as powder.
“I like what they release,” Jabir said softly. “Unfiltered awe. The kind that forgets to guard its soul.”
Alhuan chuckled, or at least mimicked it.
Jabir did not speak again. He rarely did unless the moment required precision. Silence had served him in the tombs beneath the Scar. It served him now.
His voice, when needed, belonged to Verus. His right hand. His beast.
The old gladiator stood at the lip of the royal box, his thunder echoing.
“TAD ROGUE OF THE ARENA...”
“ANTONIA, ANTIHERO OF RATS...”
The crowd howled.
Jabir remained seated, posture unwrinkled, robes pristine, turban flawless, the blood-red gem at its center a reminder. Not of power. Of balance.
It had been years since he’d first stood in the canyon, binding Alhuan’s soul into the skull he now cradled like a scribe’s lamp. The Tome of Duskwater Binding had taught him how to harness legacy. To preserve will, memory, cruelty... all in bone.
And now, in the BlackSand Arena, he watched for those same elements in others.
Tad stepped forward. The red cloak fell. The shield shimmered.
The skull at Jabir’s side pulsed once. Not in warning. In curiosity.
The boy’s reflexes weren’t special. His posture wasn’t blessed. But the shield… that was another thing entirely.
Not a tool. A relic. An object with selection bias.
Jabir narrowed his gaze.
“It’s watching,” he whispered. “Not just protecting.”
The chainsaw’s scream sliced cleanly through the air. Showy. Wild. Perfectly timed.
Jabir didn’t flinch.
But the skull of Alhuan tilted toward her. The green flame pulsed low, like a breath inhaled and held.
The girl, Antonia, twirled, caught the spinning blade behind her back, flipped it in one hand, and surged forward again. No hesitation. No recoil. No pain.
He narrowed his eyes.
“She doesn’t feel it,” Jabir murmured. “Not properly.”
The skull’s glow brightened slightly. A signal. Resonance.
He whispered something in an older tongue. His sight shifted. The world dimmed, then realigned. This time to show aura, not flesh.
There it was.
Beneath her ribcage, a thread of darkness orbiting pale gold. Not active. Not awake. But present.
Saturn. The Rune’s influence. Rigid. Relentless. Buried so deep it likely touched her marrow.
“She’ll die slowly,” Jabir muttered. “If at all.”
He leaned forward slightly. Not in interest, in study.
His own body remembered how rune-marked warriors clung to life. He had killed a dozen before mastering the Duskwater technique. The method to dislodge stubborn souls from bone.
Antonia spun again. She should’ve lost her grip on the chainsaw mid-toss. She didn’t.
“She’s practiced her death so many times,” Jabir whispered, “she’s forgotten she’s alive.”
Alhuan said nothing, but the skull hummed in quiet agreement.
The chainsaw’s arc should’ve ended it. The crowd saw it as drama. Jabir saw it as mathematics.
The rhythm of blade, foot, breath. The ratio of risk to response.
Tad was late. His strike should’ve failed. His footing was off, one half-step too committed, one blink too arrogant. The girl’s chainsaw rose like a guillotine mid-spin, angled for the neck.
And then the shield.
It moved before Tad did. Not a reflex. Not a defense. A decision.
The sound was a sharp, biting clang. Not wood. Not metal. Ward. Magic compressed in a disc of shimmering intent. The chainsaw bounced. Tad didn’t even flinch. He hadn’t seen it coming. But the shield had.
Jabir’s eyes stayed still, but the skull beside him tilted, as if cocking an ear.
“She intervened,” he said aloud.
The green glow brightened around Alhuan’s floating bone.
Jabir had felt this before, in the hidden vaults beneath the Salt Crypts, when he found the first dagger of the Bone Wives, still humming with the rage of its last kill. Memory, bound in form. Objects that refused to forget. Some grew hungry. Some grew wise.
This shield was one of those. Not enchanted. Enchanted back.
Alhuan’s voice didn’t speak, but the skull vibrated faintly. An approval of classification.
“He doesn’t own it,” Jabir murmured. “He survives it.”
The crowd below had lost themselves. Their collective will bled outward in a kind of crude offering. It was intoxicating, the scent of bloodlust tinged with awe.
The green flame drank it in, slow and smooth.
Tad reset his stance. His eyes went, just for a moment, to the shield.
That look. That flicker of confusion, buried beneath discipline.
Jabir saw it and smiled, just barely.
“Even he wonders,” he whispered, “if the victories are his.”
Alhuan’s skull pulsed once, and behind them, the Onyx Wolf stirred, teeth briefly bared.
Below, the match continued, but Jabir no longer watched the fighters. He watched the shield.
She should have died instantly.
Tad’s final thrust was merciful, in a professional sort of way. No hesitation. No taunt. Just precision. The blade went in clean, straight through the ribs.
The girl exhaled. But not like someone dying. More like someone letting go of a performance.
Her body slumped. Her fingers twitched once.
Jabir narrowed his eyes. He hadn’t blinked since the kill.
“She’s not finished,” he said aloud.
Antonia’s hand shifted again, reaching out. Not toward Tad. Not toward safety. Toward the chainsaw, lying inches away in the blood-darkened sand.
The crowd was still cheering, deaf to the difference between a death and a conclusion.
But Jabir knew.
“She wants to die as herself,” he murmured.
The Rune of Saturn wasn’t obvious. It never was. But now he saw its full pattern. Not glowing. Not flaring. Just anchoring. Like her spirit had dug its nails into her spine and refused to be pulled out.
He didn’t move. He didn’t signal. He didn’t need to.
Somewhere deep beneath the arena, a scribe in Jabir’s employ would already be recording her name. Not a name of honor, nor of remembrance. But of value.
A faint pulse flickered beneath the jewel of his turban. Not magic cast. Merely acknowledged.
Antonia would be taken with ceremony, as all fallen warriors were. But later. Much later. When the bodies were prepared for burning and the pyres lit for show, hers would not be among them.
Jabir would see to it himself. Quietly. Precisely.
There was no need to extract anything here. Not in front of the crowd. Not yet.
The chainsaw sparked once.
“Still trying to fight,” he whispered. “Even now.”
That was the real value. Not power. Not strength. The refusal.
Behind him, the Onyx Wolf stirred.
Verus did not speak. He never spoke at moments like this. Only watched, his blade across his lap like a sermon.
Tad had already turned away, shield slung back over one arm. He didn’t look at her body. That was the shield’s job.
And still, her soul clung.
Jabir watched, but made no move. His stillness was the ritual. His silence, the tether.
Later, in the vaults below, he would retrieve what remained. Not for glory. Not for need. For understanding.
The match was over. But the work had only just begun.
He did not remain for the closing fanfare. The crowd's cheering rose behind him, but Jabir was already turning inward. Not in mood, but in direction.
The skull of Alhuan floated at his side in silence, its flame dimmed, as if out of respect. Or restraint.
The Onyx Wolf padded softly behind, casting no shadow even beneath the fire-lit arches of the upper corridors.
Verus awaited him just outside the lift tunnel. No words. A nod. Then a single phrase.
“Body secured.”
Jabir gave no reply, but the faintest tightening of his eyes was enough.
They descended into the private tunnels beneath the arena, far from the noise of the crowd or the burning pyres staged for spectacle.
When they reached the vault threshold, he spoke at last.
“Separate her weapon from the remains.”
Verus hesitated. “The chainsaw?”
“Yes,” Jabir said. “It is finished. But the soul is not.”
They entered the chamber.
Antonia’s body lay not on a slab, but suspended in a field of slow-moving salt threads. A stasis weave older than most ruins in the Waste. It did not preserve flesh. It preserved intent.
Jabir stepped to the edge of the field and regarded her.
No crown. No armor. But still, she had refused.
He did not extract anything yet. That came later. When the soul stopped clinging. When it knew it was no longer seen.
“She bled like someone looking for permission,” Jabir said softly. “But no one gave it to her.”
Alhuan’s voice stirred in the bone.
“You’ll need to unweave her carefully. Saturn binds tightly.”
“I know.”
He turned toward the second slab. Still empty.
“For the shield?” the skull asked.
“No,” Jabir said. “For the man.”
He was thinking of Tad now. Of the shield’s eerie precision. Its refusal to protect him from pain, yet obsession with keeping him alive. The way it moved.
Some relics grow hungry. Others grow wise.
But the rarest grow loyal.
He would need to watch the next match closely.
He let his gaze linger on Antonia for one more breath, then turned away, robes trailing clean lines behind him.
No ceremony. No prayer.
Jabir never needed ceremony. He simply waited until things were forgotten, and made sure they weren’t.
Entered by: 0x6424…79B4
