The first rays of the sun's light found their way into the old man's hut. The darkness within quickly retreated at its touch, and the hut was soon filled with bright of day. The light quickly spread to the rest of the sleeping village as he awakened; Sala was always the first to rise after the hunting parties had gone in search of the day sustenance. He reached for his wrap on the wall, its emblazoned pattern interlaced with spiraling blues and whites signifying his rank as village elder. He donned it with a practiced motion, gripping his walking staff in his free hand. He stepped from the hut and was immediately seized from behind, a lash constricting around his throat in a caustic, viselike grip. Instinctively, he reached up to pry the offending coil from his neck, but his frantic efforts were to no avail. It moved and twisted like a snake beneath his fingers; For each coil he removed, another would take its place, only tighter than the last.

"Good morning." came a hissing growl from somewhere above him. A shadow moved across the roof of the hut, then a tall man in a raggedy long coat dropped to the ground next to him, the ornate handle of the whip nestled tightly in his right hand. His gaze burned with a feverish ferocity as he settled it upon the old islander, a terrible grin spreading across his features. He shifted in the sand, twisting the whip around his back and shoulders to pull the old man to his knees, then tightening the hold upon his windpipe.

"Before we begin, I wish to be clear. What I am doing now, I am not doing in order to get what I want from you. This -" He shifted in the sand, twisting the whip around his back to pull the old man to his knees, then tightening the hold upon his windpipe.

"I do for amusement." he said, leaning so close that his face was within a few inches of the old man's. "Now...you will tell me where the Redbeard went with my ship,or I will begin to get angry-and I can be appalling when I am angry." he finished, giving a final twist before releasing. The old man dropped to the sand, heaving through his bruised windpipe. He spat blood on the sand, giving the stranger no reply. Sala stood and leveled his gaze with the stranger, making no move to wipe the blood away or otherwise acknowledge his wound. He stared defiantly into the fearsome eyes of his tormentor with the obvious resolve to say nothing. A wide grin spread across the feral face as the whip was once again in motion. It looped around Sala's neck once more, the burning grip searing his flesh and mind once again.

"Ah, pride and martyrdom. What better ways to waste your life? Since you are in such a hurry to throw yours away, let's make an occasion of it!"

With this last, the stranger began to drag the Elder across the sand towards the beach. The last thing Sala heard was vicious laughter cutting through the calm air as blackness mercifully took him.

Sala was jerked rudely awake by a sharp slap across his face. Vision returned slowly, in shapes and colors that only gained definition after a few shakes of his head. The grizzled form of the stranger stood a few paces away. He had bound the Elder to one of the few trees that dotted the white sand of the beach. The sun shone directly in his face, making it impossible to completely open his already swollen eyes, and his split and bleeding lips had become dry and cracked from the heat. His throat burned, and his while his consciousness seemed ready to give way at any moment, the pain would return and force him back to himself. The stranger took a few steps toward Sala once more and looked him straight in the eyes.

"It seems the only thing you savages respect is pain." he opined, punctuating the statement with a glancing blow on Sala's ribcage. The air left the old man's lungs in a great heave, followed closely by a torrent of bloody vomit that left him wheezing, drained, and drooling into the reddening sand below him. Through the hellish haze, he realized that the stranger was not talking to him. The village had been gathered to witness the awful event. They stood, dumbfounded and cowed by the violence in the haggard stranger's manner.

"You have all seen me once. I KNOW YOU!" he punctuated each phrase with a sharp blow to the old man's ribs, ending the last with a fantastic kick to the jaw that sent teeth tumbling to the sand. The assembled villagers flinched at each attack, the crunches of bone drawing cries from a few.

"Some of you understand me. All of you remember me. You know me. You know who I came with. You know who left with us. Now I want to know where they WENT!" he screamed with unbridled ire. His gaze bore through them with a venomous chill, rooting the crowd where it stood. Hardly a breath was drawn in the lengthy pause as he stared them down. None dared speak.

The whip was suddenly in his hand; it slashed through the air and caught the elder's face, scoring a deep gash into the flesh and before it withdrew its withering touch; Sala could not keep a cry from escaping his damaged throat. Several of the younger men leaped forward in rage to attack, but swift motions of the haggard man's wrist sent the whip their way. It moved like a living thing, intercepting them and dropping them to the sand before they reached him. He withdrew the whip and hung it at his belt as he crossed the distance between them in a few lengthy strides. He drew a short knife as he reached the first and slashed his throat in a fluid motion, never breaking his stride.

"Filthy little Savages..." he growled, gripping the second youth by his hair and shoving the blade brutally into his neck. As he dropped the twitching body, he reached into his belt and removed a small, glass ball from a protected pocket and palmed it, readying himself to deal with the last.

The last of the brave ones had found his feet, and was turning in the direction of his quarry when he was hit, full force, by the stranger's booted foot. As he reeled from the blow, the stranger swept around behind him and struck. Hands like iron gripped the youth's arm, and there was a snap followed by a hollow pop as it bent backwards. The howl of anguish that erupted from the islander's throat made the entire crowd take a step back, small gasps and cries emanating from some of them. The youth's howling was cut off as the stranger's hand clamped on his lower jaw.

"Know your place."

He forced the glass ball between the youth's lips, shoved him back, then drove the heel of his boot directly into his chin. The ball shattered, shredding the man's lips and tongue while simultaneously releasing the sickly green substance within. The crowd watched, transfixed by shock and horror as the vile fluid took effect; the toxin was not swift in its work. The skin sloughed off the young man's face, black lines eating their way through and into his flesh. Pieces of flesh dropped here and there as he convulsed, the smell of vomit, blood, and shite suddenly fouling the air. His darting eyes, no longer mercifully hidden behind eyelids, still managed to plead for help as his body was wracked by the spasms.; the cry from his throat no longer resembled anything human. The crowd wailed in place, shrieking and crying without moving from the group they kept. Many were sick at the horrible sight, but fear of reprisal or infection kept them at bay. There was a sharp crack as a particularly violent spasm bent the youth at an impossible angle, then he fell to sand in silence.

The savage eyes of the stranger turned towards the crowd with bloodlust roiling in their depths. His expression dared them to move as he bent to retrieve his knife from its gory resting place. None did. He cleaned the blade on the corpse's garment, then returned it to its sheathe as he stood. He turned back toward the hanging man, pulling his whip from his belt and letting it uncoil, the serpentine motion of the tendril sketching disturbing patterns in the sand.

Sala hardly looked human anymore; Blood covered his swollen and distended face in a mask of red, his eyes could barely open, and his body was a mass of cuts, bruises, and abrasions. He was still breathing, though it was shallow and labored. The whip sailed through the air and snaked around the misshapen neck once more. The stranger began to twist in the sand, wrapping the whip in and intricate pattern around himself; the caustic grip tightened and rippled as he did so, the unmistakeable sound of bone grinding on bone filling the still air. Sala began to scream, his throat barely able to accommodate the volume it was achieving. The scream was cut short as the end of the whip shoved itself down the elder's throat, effectively silencing the harsh noise. Sala jerked and twitched to no avail; A piercing crack signified the end of his life, his head rolling limply to sag on his deflated chest. The Dark Stranger turned to address the stricken crowd once more, letting the whip fall around him as he straightened once more to his full six feet.

"I say once more...and once more only. Make no mistake. I will take your lives, burn this village, and find them with or without you. The fact that you are the most convenient means to my end is the only thing that has kept you alive – so tell me what I wish to know, or I will erase you from existence. Now, where...did...they...go?"

He punctuated each word in his final question with a step closer to the crowd, close enough that they could smell the blood on his breath.

A young girl edged her way forward, speaking frantically in her native tongue. Her tear-streaked face twisted with emotion as she spoke, hysterics threatening to overtake her, but she forced herself to continue. The haggard man listened intently as she spoke, then turned to the nearest of them.

"Translate." he said.

The man he had spoken to looked at him uncomprehendingly. After a moment's pause, the dagger flashed into view again and blood spattered across several faces as the bewildered man fell like a stone to the ground. Turning to the next person, he spoke again, gesturing with the blade.

"Translate."

The elder man behind him stepped forward and spoke in a thready voice. The stranger turned, but the blade retained its position.

"She say they follow the Traders. They look for gold. They come here once, but no more. Never come again. You find traders, you find them."

A wry smile worked its way across his face.

"Out of the mouths of babes. Savage, dirty, little babes." he said, with a chuckle. "How do you know they won't return?"

"They tell us. They say too much danger. Not want us to be hurt."

A dangerous glint colored the feral eyes as the terrible whip uncoiled again. He stared into the eyes of the terrified islanders as he began to grow. His skin stretched and darkened, becoming leathery and black. His eyes took on a greenish cast and his hair grew long, dark, and sharp in places. He had doubled in size, sinking into the sand with the sudden weight. His face flattened and splayed, his last words becoming a guttural snarl.

"He always was a marvelous failure in his work."

The creature that he had become was as black as night, covered in bristling black fur. The sun's light seemed unable to penetrate it; the mass was shapeless until it moved. It was thickly muscled, yet still retained the lean, hungry look that the stranger himself wore. His jaws slavered, dripping a bilious foam that hissed on contact with the sand, and his eyes burned a translucent, poisonous green. There was a collective gasp of horror, then the beast sprang for them.

The screams began. They went on for hours, another rising to fill the void when one was cut short. They echoed for miles around, disturbed animals taking up the cry of alarm themselves. Many hours passed before the island became quiet again.

Weathers-All-Storms sat in a little rowboat, his clothing and face stained with blood and various other bodily fluids. He sang to himself as he rowed, the small boat having nearly reached the larger vessel that was anchored off the coast of the small village. The hunting parties would not return until he and his boat were long gone – and he had made certain that there was little enough for them to return to. He snorted, dropping the oar for a moment to scratch his face and wipe some blood from his cheek. He searched around the tiny boat until he discovered what he was looking for. He reached under the slat that served as a seat and rummaged until he felt his fingers clasp on the neck of a jug. Retrieving it from the seat, he popped the cork out with his teeth and spat it into the bottom of the boat. He took a few hearty swallows, then returned the bottle to its proper place. Soon enough, he would find the ship he sought. Then, there would be a reckoning. There would be vengeance.

There would be blood.

Oh yes, he thought, a fierce joy running through him like electricity.

There would be blood.