The Eaters

Story so far

The Eaters are exiled, mad Obsidians—castouts banished from the clans of the pole—who haunt the polar wastes in the season of winter when the tribes shelter behind their walls. Clad in matted bearpelt helms and breastplates of human bone, greased against the cold, they hunt with iron blades, axes, bows, and aurochs mounts. When Cassius's ship crashes near the Valkyrie Spires, a pack of them swarms the wreck, skinning trapped Golds alive and eating them—for to eat the flesh of a 'god,' they believe, is to rise immortal and Golden.

Darrow, Mustang, and Ragnar cut through five of them in the dark hull; a slit-nosed girl-warrior begs to be killed so she may 'rise Golden.' They harry Aja and Cassius's fleeing party across the mountains, springing a failed ambush that costs dozens of their own, and drag off wounded Golds to their high camps. Distinct from the Society's collared Obsidians, the Eaters are the pole's living proof of the fear Gold engineered to justify its rule.

Appearance

Towering Obsidians in grim, blood-clumped white bearpelts and bone breastplates, faces painted white with ritual scars and slit nostrils, teeth filed black, wielding crooked iron blades; pale muscled arms slick with seal grease.

Role

A recurring predatory menace of the polar ice; cannibal Obsidian castouts embodying the savagery Gold bred into their engineered Antarctic.

Relationships