Heart pounding, I bolt onto my feet, shrugging on my equipment belts and ramming a brand new knife into my sheathe. Glancing down quickly, I flexed my sewn up bicep. It stung like a lash-snake bite but it didn't bleed. I grabbed the fang-tooth skull and strapped it to my belt. My father nods to me and my mother hugs me. No matter what happens tonight, I will never see them again. Tradition states that the hopefuls will go and wait by Black Rock for the emissaries to come. That is were I am going.

Running out of the tent, I dodge through the encampment, trading goodbye waves with friends until I get to Rema's tent. I've killed men without thought and yet, she made my heart pound and my hands sweat. I got tongue-tied every time I talked to her. She smiled at me and I thought my heart was going to burst. Her smile could stop the sun in its path.

"Are you going so soon?" she said softly, taking one of my hands in hers. I thought I had died and went to join our ancestors in the sky.

Swallowing, I managed to nod and mumble a yes. I think it was a yes, at least.

Rema stepped forward, kissing me fiercely, before drawing away, looking at her feet. "I guess you'll want to be going, unless you want to stay here with me." She said demurely, rubbing my hand.

Swallowing again, I pull my hand away and set off towards Black Rock, trying very hard not to think about the very beautiful, and pouting, girl behind me. Joining the God-Emperors army meant more to me than anything else in this world, including women. Thinking of Rema again, I bite my tongue until I taste blood. Damn that girl for messing with my head.

My long strides quickly took me out of the encampment and I set off towards Black Rock, supposedly one-thousand strides in the distance. The monstrous skull begins to weigh me down very quickly and the broken terrain did not help. Coming over one jagged rise, I spy a large group, twenty or more, standing in the shadow of Black Rock. Running now, thinking I was late, I stumble up just as darkness falls. Borsque, the tribe's headsman's son, lights torches and sets them up around up. It got cold, like it always does in the desert and I pull out my long poncho and drape it around my shoulders.

Borsque glares at me and steps up to me, snarling, "Did your father give that fang-tooth head to you?" I grit my teeth in wordless anger, Borsque had everything given to him, and never worked an honest day in his life. Hand on my new knife, I spit back at him, "I killed it, Borsque. What's it to you?" Then, I notice he doesn't have a totem. He'll be after the fang-tooth head then.

"I want it." It was not a question, but a command. The spoiled bastard. Glancing around to see what the odds against me were, I saw that every other boy was on my side, ready to pull us apart if necessary, but stances saying that they would not interfere. I wipe the knife out of the sheathe and slam it into his solar plexus. He did not even move to defend himself. He did not deserve to join the God-Emperors army. He was dead before he hit the ground. Bastard.

Two other boys, Lomas and Hemas, twin brothers, drag his corpse away into the inky blackness. I grew up sparring with them. Neither are my equal, but together, can best any man.

Squatting down to rub the blood off my knife, a fireball rips through the sky, roaring like a sandstorm. Instantly, everyone has turned, to place their backs to the wash of grit the fireball kicks up. I am the first to look up, jaw dropping in awe at what it was. A giant craft, green and red armor glowing hot. It was larger than a sand dune, with long wings, like a sand raptor. Strange pods hung from the wings and from what I took to be the front of the craft.

A hissing, spitting ramp lowered from the rear of the craft and from the smoky, red lit interior, came six huge, bulky, armored figures.

The emissaries of the God-Emperor had come.