Omsin trudged up the steep scree slope with slow, intentional steps. Her boots refused to grip the sharp stones—the leather soles having been worn down to flapping scraps of leather from her journey. Pausing to take a swig from her waterskin, Omsin smacked her cracked lips and scanned the hillcrest. No sign of anyone since the shipwreck at Mun River, which had filled the waters with a flotsam of the drowned. 

“Who’s that down there?” A shrill voice echoed. 

Omsin caught a shadow flicker by the knot of boulders to her right, creeping on the ridgeline. A pebble clicked by as she continued to climb. 

“I can’t let you get close!” They called with desperation.  

Omsin did not care why they needed the greedrock. Her tribe would die without it. The hyokaja had hunted the game to near extinction, and the waters were bone dry from the droughts. This would buy them one more day.

More pebbles drifted past, followed by large slabs of rocks that shattered into stinging shards as they tumbled. The shape kicked up dust clouds in their efforts to impede her, making their way to a man-sized boulder and trying to tip it over. They leaned against it, straining with their legs. A crack split the air before the boulder toppled from its ancient rest. 

Omsin fell to her hands and began to lope like the mountain cat of her native Ajohak Mesa. Lithe, she skirted the falling debris to bound over the boulder with little effort, finding purchase freely now.

Her senses opened; pupils widened to see the trembling, sunburnt man; nostrils flared to smell his rank sweat, sour with terror. She could hear his heart pounding and the disbelief in his voice, cursing the witch-beast savage. She scrambled up the ridgeline, clawing her fingers into the soil to pull herself over. 

Omsin growled in the back of her throat, stalking the coward as he fell over himself in his haste to get away.

“P-p-please, we can split the gold. I wasn’t trying to kill you, I swear,” he cried. “I need this. Please, my sister’s sick. I nee-”.

He was interrupted by the sharp drop-off opposite the crest Omsin had mounted. His surprised eyes met hers before he plummeted backward with no sound other than the clattering of the stones he took with him.

Omsin had no reason to peek over the side. He was done. 

She turned away and pulled the half-burned map piece from her pouch—retrieved two weeks ago from a charred corpse in the war-ruined city of Tirich. She unfolded it to study a detailed drawing of the towering rock formation before her, printed notes and drawings indicating the location of her prize. Her tribe’s prize.

She tucked away the paper to begin scaling the pillar, every muscle in her burning and weak. At the summit, Omsin sat to drain the last of her waterskin and survey the landscape. Nothing for miles but rolling, stone-scattered hills, shrub-covered and identical to the one she sat atop. 

Smacking her chapped lips, Omsin recorked the empty waterskin before bending forward and reaching inside a deep crevice between her feet. Her fingers caught ahold of a twisted strap, which she tugged to reveal a bulging cowhide satchel. Unbuckling the front and flipping it open, the sun reflected the lustrous shine of the gold bars into her craggy face, blinding her. 

“Greedrock,” Omsin spat, hating her need for it. She could not help but feel the hyokaja won.

She buckled the satchel and slung it across her back. Sliding down the slope, Omsin reached the dead man’s crumpled form and collected his water.

                                                           *

“Fine citizens,” their host, Lord Helden, proclaimed with a resonating clap, “This concludes our Chase!”  

A coterie of men and women in foppish, extravagant clothing raised goblets of rich Luneran wine to toast their victory. Meanwhile, the rest of the stiff crowd grumbled and shuffled away in disappointment. The victors encircled a scrypool, opened and sustained by an expressionless Diviner.  Margrave Coran remained silent at the silver-shimmering pool amongst the other winners as they celebrated fervently. The pool looked upon the old savage woman, halfway across the world and halfway falling down a desolate mountain. 

“The measure of competition was fierce, the journey unpredictable and the obstacles endless,” Lord Helden continued. “Beginning from the rugged coasts of Salan, our Chasers have trekked every corner of the world to find the hidden map pieces. They roamed the endless green plains of Delsorn, navigated the misty Botor jungle islands, braved the raging Mun river, and crossed the very Continent in their daunting quest for glory!” 

“And gold,” Coran added, receiving a few snorting laughs from the other guests.

“Witness our humble champion,” Lord Helden gestured to the pool with a flourish, ignoring the Margrave, “A wild, destitute Keloi from the far-flung Territories. Yet she embodies the true spirit of this contest. A living testament to endurance and the power of will!” Coran peeked over a shoulder into the scrypool to see their newly crowned champion relieving the runner-up’s corpse of his canteen. His nose wrinkled in distaste, feeling the sudden urge to bathe.

Sauntering from the pool for another refreshment, Coran bumped into Duke Pehrsons, who had invited him to this most unsavory exhibition. 

“Remarkable, eh? I told you she’d win,” Pehrsons slurred, staring off with a dumb drunken grin. “Stick with me, I know how to pick ’em. This is my third Chase.” 

“Mhm.” 

“Will you be coming back next year?” 

“Mmm,” Margrave Coran had his own misguided indulgences—like most of the nobility—but this was beyond even him. To see these citizens of the Continent’s elite enjoy such a depraved spectacle was sickening. Disgusting, really. 

Yet, he’d acquired quite a handsome sum of gold for his wagers. Much larger than the Keloi woman had just won. Observing the fates of the Chasers unfold had also been both stirring and appalling. 

Coran had to see more. “Yes. Next year, indeed.”

---

Ryan Knoth is a writer living in Arizona with his wife, young son, and old cat