The battles had raged for days. Mountains of the dead lay cloistered around El Dorado, the City of Gold. Men, women, creatures of many nations had come to claim this city and its treasures and most had died.  Only one nation remained after the maelstrom of battle finally died down.

Shade looked out from the tower next to the front gates of the city. He stood just over six foot tall. His hair was fiery red and matted into a Mohawk with gore from several kills. Hide armor dyed green and black covered his shoulders and arms. Tattered black cloth with green trim seemed to barely warm him. He leaned on a bow and had several daggers attached to his waist. His quiver lay flat across his back. He'd long since run out of arrows to defend himself with. Three petitioners were all that remained of the warriors he'd been left with to defend the city. Several had fallen to the hordes of plague victims that constantly attacked the walls. Shade had broken three weapons on the diseased skulls of the attackers. He'd been waiting for reinforcements for days. The last caravan, burdened with gold had left for home a week ago.

"Ridiculous.” He grumbled. "A disease we didn't have a hand in spreading animating even our own dead and sending them at us."  Shade heard the front gate open and looked down from his turret. Brohl, a loyal petitioner, stepped out from the gate.

"What the hell are you doing boy? We have no idea when the next wave will attack."

"Well sir. It seems you've run out of arrows and I need a better spear. Figger the best way to get them is to pull them outta the bodies of the slain" Shade, nodded, the logic sound.

"Where are the other two?"

"Well, sir. Karma's searching through the ruins for anyone left over by the temple and I believe he took Mange with him." Brohl walked back into the gate and closed it, a bundle of arrows dripping pus, residual from the plague-ridden, finally dead bodies, in his hands. His footsteps could be heard moving through the tower, the wet squish of rotten bodies and half congealed blood under his feet informing Shade of his proximity.

"Did you see anything moving out there?” Shade gestured towards the piles of bodies outside.

"Nah, not even a crow or a maggot."

"The same always with this cursed place. Nothing even rots here. There should be bloat everywhere, the stench of corruption rising to the sky in homage of Grandfather Ner-Gal..."

A scream of agony and hatred ripped through the air from the direction of the temple. Even without his preternatural hearing, Shade would have picked it up. 

"That sounds like one of ours. Quickly, we need to get there now!" Shade snarled through wicked teeth. He leapt off the wall the twenty feet to the ground inside the wall and rolled, popping back up to his feet and sprinting for the temple. A loud crash behind him sounded out as Brohl followed, the chain shirt he wore giving volume to his landing.

Shade knocked an arrow to his string as he ran, promising vengeance on any who would dare to bring a scream like what he had heard from the throats of one of his battle brothers. As he got closer to the temple, he slowed down enough to quiet his tread as not to alert whatever had attacked his brothers. Quietly he peered around the last corner.

A large jaguar stood snarling and clawing at Karma who stood to its left, bearing Florentine sword and dagger with a buckler across each arm. Both bucklers bore the cat's claw marks and blood trickled from Karma's left leg. Mange stood to the beast's left, sword and shield in hand. He too bled from new wounds. Several blue garbed natives lay slain near it, their bodies bearing the marks only caused by steel. Shade took a second look at the cat. It seemed larger than the others he'd seen in this godforsaken land and if he concentrated ever so much it had a miasma of blue around it.  The events played out in his head as the evidence mounted.

"It’s a summoned beast," he muttered under his breath. "Brohl, circle around that next building. I want it alive." A crooked smile turned up the corner of his mouth. "I have plans for this creature..." Shade reached into a pouch and took out a vial marked ~SNPp~. Carefully he applied it to two of his arrows.

When Brohl gave him the signal that he was in place, Shade stepped out from behind the corner and simultaneously sent an arrow into the jaguar's forepaw. The twang of his bowstring releasing alerted both Karma and Mange to his presence. His second shot hit the beast in its other forepaw. It froze in place, saliva dripping from its 3 inch fangs.

With the crooked smile in full force, Shade approached the erstwhile battleground.

"Hello boys, was wondering where you'd gotten off too. " he chuckled.

"Hey boss man, we were poking around, ya know outta boredom and well... “Mange started to speak.

"Well we, heh, saw some of the Blues and..." Karma interjected. Shade silenced them both with a cutting gesture of his hand.

"You decided not to share in the kill. Come on now, you both know better than that. Always call for backup. I'll just pretend the scream I heard was from the cat and not either of you. Now grab that beast and carry it to the top of the temple. Don't worry, there's plenty of time before the paralysis poison wears off." As they picked up the beast, Shade searched the bodies. His intuition served him well again. A necklace of teeth, bones, gold, and turquoise marked one of the priests of at least decent rank. In his robes was a dagger, curved and sharp on one side with a wicked saw blade on the other. "Perfect."

Shade directed his warriors to lay the cat across the altar on top of the temple. The smile had yet to leave his face.

"Give to the gods what is theirs... and all pay homage to Grandfather NUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRGGG GGGGGGGGGGGGLLLL LLLLEEEEEE!!!!!! This last delivered at the top of his lungs, Shade stabbed down into the cat, ripping it’s still beating heart from its chest and biting into it. With blood still streaming down his face and part of its heart sliding down his throat he handed the heart to Brohl who followed his example, and from there to both Mange and Karma. When what was left of the heart was placed back in his hands, Shade completed the circle by consuming what was left.

Something small and black landed on his hand, a fly; the first one he'd seen in days even with the bodies everywhere. The stench of corruption reached his nostrils seemingly for the first time since he'd come into this godforsaken land. Shade looked to his brother's smiling faces as they too saw the flies coming from everywhere now. Crows landed and began to peck at the bodies of the dead, along with vultures and other scavengers.

The sheer humor of it, standing on top of a fallen god's temple, with its avatar dead in front of him and the glory of his god all around he couldn't help but laugh out loud. His brothers looked at him with curiosity on their faces. Grinning, between chuckles he said but two words.

"Who's House?"

El Dorado