I’d though the creatures of this forest would be like the small fuzzy thing whose body had nourished me; they are not.

  Lakal’s glaive slices through spindly legs and bites into a hard carapace. The spiders come from the treetops; they descend the trunks with eight narrow legs and a fat body that is armoured in the same red as the leaves.

  I backpedal with my claw held in shaking hands. I thought I’d be braver now that I am Heightened, but the feeling of being surrounded by my people and a horde of monsters takes me back to who I was before. If I was a coward back then, I am not going to be one now.

  The other Heightened form a close circle with the youngest, perhaps ten children, in the center. I’m shouldered into the wall with the others and I see that the tribe doesn’t have three Marked. They have five.

  Lakal and his glaive cleave through beasts with abandon and his shining skin deflects claws. Scara’s hammer is even more devastating; every swing is oblivion that blasts through legs and sends bodies flying. She is only stymied by the closeness of the trees forcing her to pull her blows short.

  One of the others, a short woman, stamps and spikes of rock flip the spiders from underneath. Another, a tall and gangly woman with shockingly red hair, shimmers as the creatures close in and for a moment I lose sight of her. She reappears an instant later and two spiders are limbless, rolling bodies in her wake.

  The last is a stone faced man shorter than me and slimmer in the shoulders too. His hands glow with a sickly green that casts an unhealthy light up at his face. Two of the spiders that were killed by Lakal twitch and flex before rolling back to their feet and leaping at their former companions.

  I am not idle while the Marked go about their dreadful business; my shoulders are squeezed against my companions, I hold my claw in my right hand and lash out at any leg or carapace that comes within my reach. I score a blow on a large spider that has evaded the Marked and my claw catches. I don’t let go.

  The spider pulls me away from the other Heightened and I let out a cry. Its motions are violent but my new strength lets me hang on; first to my claw and then I wrap my arm around its stubby neck, behind its mandibles, to ride out its bucking.

  “Sun take you!” I shout into the creature’s back and pull my claw free with a crunch. I don’t hesitate. I learned that young. To hesitate is to die. Even when I am terrified, I still act. I bury my claw in its head. Again. Again. Again and again until it rolls over and I fall onto the soft leaf litter and roll away. Its legs curl up into itself and it dies in silence.

  I stand as mute as my kill. My hands shake and I am barely able to hold onto my claw.

  A cry breaks through my stupor and I raise my claw; ready to defend myself. Instead of more monsters falling onto me, I am engulfed by Heightened. Hands clap my shoulders and laughing faces surround me until I am sure that I’ll be smothered.

  “Step back. Come on all of you, step back.” Scara bullies her way through the happy crowd until she stands, hammer resting on one shoulder, in a pool of calm amidst the milling Heightened. “You’ve got some sunlight in you, Pik.” She nods towards the dead creature. “Well done.”

  I clasp my hands to hide their shaking and look over her shoulder. The forest is littered with the remains of spiders that she and the other Marked have destroyed to protect us. “My contribution is small; thank you for your compliment.” I bow my head and offer her a tiny smile. Inside I am beaming. A Marked. Thanking me? Well…I preen internally. I did kill a monster all on my own.

  Scara nods, then raises her voice. “Pack your things, leaf. We’re leaving.” She looks back at me with a frown. “You want to come with us for now? Until you find your tribe.”

  “I would… appreciate that. Thank you, honoured Marked.”

  She smiles. “Good. Follow along.”

  Leaving is not such a quick thing with a tribe of a hundred people. We take take turns milling by the feeding tubes until we are all sated and ready for a journey. I grimace before I place it into my mouth; knowing that my guts will be squirming.

  We march for hours away from the site and further from the frozen segment into which I’d awoken. The tribe are friendly but wary. My escapade with the spider has earned me enough respect that I am greeted with a semblance of warmth, but Garl has a cadre of hard eyed people who glare at me. They aren’t subtle.

  We settle in a depression surrounded by trees with trunks so close together that we have to squeeze between them. I look up to the treetops.

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  “Those trunks won’t help much if the spiders come from up there.” I point up and nudge the person next to me.

  “Scara knows what she’s doing. The Marked will probably scout up there before we sleep.”

  I whistle. “Wow. Must be nice having all those powers. I couldn’t make it up if I had all day.”

  “It's hard fighting as they do. I am content to be as I am.” I turn to the woman; my mouth open.

  It takes a moment for me to find my words. “But everyone wants to be Marked. They’re so strong and you can ascend.”

  “Some people. Not me. I am content.” The woman leans down and plucks at a small flower that has grown in the shade of the trees. It’s red, like the leaves above, with a center of purple. She sniffs it, smiles, and holds it out for me.

  I breathe in. It smells like a flower. “You don’t want to reach heaven?”

  She chuckles. “Heaven? How many of us will ascend through all those levels to rise to heaven? No. I’ll live and die in the Undercroft and be content with it. I like the walking. The fighting is exciting when we have Marked to blunt the assault, and there is life here that I cannot imagine walking away from.”

  “Not me.” I shake my head. Others lean in to listen to our conversation and I’m surprised at how many nod along with her words. “I’m going to get my mark, then my band and whatever comes next. I’m going to ascend all the way to heaven and see the sun.”

  I’m nudged with a hard pole in my shoulder. I turn to Lakal towering above me. “Heaven is it, wanderer? Now isn’t that a grand thought. You did good today, so maybe it’s not an idle one.”

  “You honour me, Marked Lakal.”

  “You honour yourself, Heightened Pik. Come. We want to hear more of your tribe and your scattering. We’ve not had a wanderer in four dozen cycles.” He slaps me on the shoulder, this time with his hand. “Come entertain us, Pik.”

  Lakal drags me, part metaphorically but the greater part is by the force of a strong hand on my back. I surprise myself again by not stumbling under his touch. Days before I would have fallen flat; it is hard for Marked to know their strength, especially with Unenlightened.

  The tribe is gathering slowly. It takes time for a hundred people to come to a halt. A feeding obelisk rises near the center of the depression beside another for water and my stomach aches at the thought of having more nutrition from the architects. My body craves the other thing, the monster meat. I need to find a way to make fire. The tribe have blazes going in a few places so they must have the tools. I’ll see if there is something I can trade; we relied too strongly on Oran for our fires and the small number of flints and steels held by a lucky few that were gleaned from the ruins of dungeons.

  They are settling into routines; some are beating plants to extract the fibres, some crush and grind minerals and herbs into items of healing, others dig into the dirt a little away from the camp for ablutions, and there are a thousand other small tasks of setting up camp and living a life on the move.

  Still, for all the bustle, the Marked are gathered together close to the children. It is here that I am brought and seated.

  “Scattered.” The tall woman I’d seen flashing in and out of reality during the fight inspects the blade of a dark knife that shimmers with rainbow light in its depth. “I haven’t seen it myself, but I’ve heard other tribes finding some who have been scattered. Dead. Usually.”

  “Well. I was left alone.” I say, pushing my chin out even as I try not to shake. Being so close to so many Marked jitters my nerves. My half vision is a constant reminder of what one could do, especially if they knew that the architects would not intervene.

  “Right. The ice segment. We traveled through that way ten cycles ago, rough terrain, came close to losing someone to the cold.”

  Lakal chuckles. “The beasts were a fine sight though, I have commissioned a great coat.” He points to one side where a small group of Heightened are hunched over a fur that could have been twinned to the creature I killed in the cave. The one I ate and become more than I was.

  I hold up my stolen claw in a moment of camaraderie but feel silly the moment I do. “I took this from one of the creatures.”

  “So you did, wanderer, so you did.” Lakal claps me on my shoulder. “Well done, I say.”

  The red haired woman stops inspecting her knife and places it back into an equally dark holder strapped to a leather belt about her waist and looks at me with green eyes swirled with orange. “Your Marked died. How?”

  “The trials.” I swallow. “There was a Banded and… sorry. They were made to do two trials, one after the other, and they weren’t normal. I mean, it usually takes a few days or a week but they are fair. These ones were brutal.” Death. Flame. The crunch of falling bodies. I shake off the memories.

  “The trials only take those who are ready to ascend and leave those who must become more enlightened. Why did they die? It makes no sense to me.” She spits to one side and glares at me now.

  Scara leans in. “Peace, Mishi, peace. The man comes with tidings. He did not cause this. Even if—” She looks at me from the side of her eye. “— it is an outlandish claim.”

  Lakal rumbles. “If it is true. Even if it is not fully. Times are changing. The coming of a wanderer. A scattered wanderer. This bodes ill. We should form more Marked to be strong.”

  “How many of our Heightened are ready?” Scara leans back and surveys the tribe. “Two. Perhaps three. They cultivate their powers but they are not yet formed fully and wholly for the mark to find a home in them. I’d not see them husks for our fear.”

  Their talk of marking, of helping someone gain their mark is a revelation to me. There is nothing but secrecy within the thirty seven living tribes, or scattered tribes, I suppose. Lucil and Oran worked together but they went into a dungeon and emerged marked a week later. They never spoke of it. Before them the Marked came and went and ascended or died without word. Perhaps they spoke of techniques and training to the Heightened, but I was never privy to their tutelage as a nobody.

  I cling to the words of the Marked as though they are the rays of the sun itself.

  “We should take them back to the dungeon. Let them choose.” Says Lakal.

  Scara considers for a long while. The other marked defer to her, not rushing her decision even as Lakal’s heel taps an impatient rhythm.

  “Fine. We’ll head to the dungeon, but we don’t force anyone. This is their own choice.”