Chapter Fifty Seven

For a second, the darkness was all-encompassing, and it was difficult to tell where he was coming from. Another spark of fear - had she attracted one of the Scabrous, travelling without that strange red light? Or had she attracted something else, maybe a raider eager for some easy prey. She raised her gun quietly, and her horse snorted uneasily - it remembered the scent of gunpowder, and it knew what it could mean. Loud noises. She'd get one shot before her horse started to move - if she missed, then she'd be doomed. No way she'd hit if her horse was rearing and bucking and making a nuisance of itself. Still morally content with eating this thing, maybe once this was all done. A little reward if she survived. The infinity between one and two had been surmounted - she was no longer a unique specimen, she was a species, she was something that could easily move to three, four, five... no, better not be too optimistic. This was... ah. There he was. Definitely not a raider, she could vaguely see his skin gleaming in the moonlight. His black eyes burning with a combination of uncertainty and determination. He felt it too, then. No shame about rushing out to save his sister, no worrying about taboos... he was exiled. She wasn't sure exactly what that meant here, what connotations it had, but he had nothing to lose.

Nor did she. She was living a charmed life, born from absolute random chance. She'd have died on that steppe if the family hadn't found her, after all. All of this had happened out of luck. So why not push it a little further? By all rights, she should be dead. So... why not? Why the hell not?

In a mad place, why not go a little mad herself?

The brother came out of the dark, and slowed to a halt, eyes fixed on her gun. He knew what it was, what it could do... Carza carefully stowed it back in her coat, but her hand remained locked around it. Not willing to let it go, not until she'd found Kani. The brother looked her up and down, and she did the same. Corks, he was tall... and every piece of armour, every weapon, all of them looked well-used. The horse had a lean, rangy look to it which contrasted to the slightly heavyset steeds she'd seen around here. Like it had sweated off most of the extra weight, reduced down to the bare essentials. His armour was brown and dull, his sash was black and fresh - never before worn. His sabre's sheath glinted in the moonlight. On the ground, he'd loom. On his horse, he towered over her... and the one thing that stopped her feeling utterly nervous was the fact that his eyes were brimming with worry, his mouth kept twisting, and he looked...

...looked a bit like he was about to cry.

Just a little.

"You saw her go?"

His voice was shaking a little. Oh, Founder, he was about to cry...

"Yes, yes, I did. And I'm going out to get her back. You're coming?"

He nodded firmly.

"Definitely. They were moving so fast because of me. Need to make up for that."

"...don't treat it as your fault. Everyone had some involvement."

He sniffed.

"Not really. Not really. So..."

A second passed, and he jumped down from his horse. Even on the ground he was tall enough to be intimidating, and she could see precisely how well-worn his equipment was, how fluent he was with its usage. Even without using his sword, she could see that he was an expert with it - the hilt was sculpted for his hand, slowly shaped that way over hours of usage, and it was adjusted perfectly to sit comfortably while he walked or rode. He smoothly operated around it - was truly familiar with its usage, probably hadn't taken it off except to sleep for a long, long while. For someone who looked so... battle-worn, it was uncanny to see him looking so utterly sad. On the verge of crying. He crouched low to the ground, checking over the dirt... looking for tracks. Not much point looking there, they... oh. Wow. They had. They'd been following them for a while, remaining utterly silent, striking when the time was right and the group was divided. Toying with them - the torn-up earth was testament to that, tracks which bore only the faintest resemblance to an actual horse. Too heavy, and too many claws.

Her own horse despised them, and refused to go near the tracks. Carza stared uncomfortably as the brother peered over the tracks, brushing dirt aside... and a second later, she felt compelled to ask something rather important.

"My name's Carza. What's yours?"

"Ayat."

His voice was quiet. Distracted. Right, then, that was... good. Ayat and Kani. Idly, she wondered if there were any others. Any more children that had maybe died... after all, no-one would talk about them. Taboo to name the dead. Kept the world feeling a little safer, a little less precarious. The world was a rickety bridge across a deep ravine, and this culture had learned to keep their eyes forward and level. Because if they looked down, they'd see the masses of bodies in various states of decay lining the bottom. How many had come before. How many had failed. And if they didn't look, they might think the world was safe, might just see the appealing other side of the ravine, ignoring the occasional flights of vertigo, the swaying of the bridge, the creaking of the planks and the straining of rope... a few mistakes, and the family had been torn apart. Like that. Gone from successful and hopeful to... despairing and resigned. Retreating into themselves. She pitied them, really, she did, but...

"...exiled, huh?"

Ayat looked up, his face suddenly stony.

"Yes. Exiled. Now, these tracks..."

He turned around quickly, saddling in a single smooth motion that made her feel woefully inadequate as a rider (she'd make up for that by eating her horse one of these days. Horse flesh was very nutritious, after all, and she was helping it work off any unpleasant fat). He rode quickly, and her horse struggled to keep up - she was working with an exhausted work-horse, kept around for meat and trade, regularly changed out in the event of being ridden. His horse was larger and significantly more fit - a war-horse, and one devoted to the strategy she'd heard described, that is, running away at every opportunity and continuing to run while exhausting the enemy. It was strong, dark, lean... she actually felt a little hopeful. Ayat trotted along, checking the tracks, following them up into the hills, where the red light had once bloomed. Getting his bearings but staying quiet. He was tough, he was capable, and yes, he was about to cry, but so was she, and that didn't affect her ability to do her damn job, right?

"We are definitely going to die."

He said this in the blandest possible tone, and sniffled a little at the end.

Oh Founder.

"...we might not."

"The Scabrous cannot be beaten. Not in a group. What I want to do is make sure my sister is put out of her misery quickly. I'm already exiled, they can't exile me again for killing my sister."

Carza glared at him.

"No, we're saving her. Or we'll try to."

Ayat glanced over, his eyes watering. Another sniff.

"You think so?"

"I think we can try. I make no guarantees of success."

"...oh."

He tilted his head to one side.

"...sorry, who are you?"

"I'm Carza, I-"

"Are you a black-headed one?"

"No, I was a guest."

"...oh."

He hummed.

"Are you one of my father's wives?"

"What?"

"You are young, you are..."

He squinted.

"Female. It feels like an obvious conclusion. All I'm saying."

Carza hissed like an angry cat.

"I am not your father's wife. I was a guest, and now I'm going to help the person who saved my life. That's it. I'm not married to anyone, I'm not a slave, I'm nothing but a guest. And... well, they might've rescinded this, but I'm an honorary member of the family."

He blinked.

"Oh."

He looked at his horse. Back at her. Up at the sky. Hummed.

"I'm not going to call you mother. I'm sorry, it would be too uncomfortable."

Carza growled.

"I am not your mother. The term we agreed on was cousin."

"...but I don't have an uncle or an aunt."

"Are you stupid? I'm not your actual cousin, I'm your symbolic cousin. Just... just forget it."

Ayat shrugged uncomfortably. Oh, splendid, now she was dealing with an idiot. Maybe she was being a bit harsh there, but... she was very tense right now. She had an excuse to be something of a cow. They rode onwards into the night, and her detector's hum declined into silence. Any contamination had dissipated into the air, and the constant wind had blown it far and wide. Dispersed until there was damn near nothing to detect. Ayat was a confident rider, and he led the way, eyes locked on the ground and following the tracks of the Scabrous. Carza started going over plans in her head. Three of them, at minimum. Most likely more, if they'd managed to reach a camp. Zero was ideal but unlikely, one was the best they could hope for, two would be very difficult, and three... she'd seen how tall they were. And they had tools she didn't know about, weapons she didn't understand. One person, two people, they might be able to predict and anticipate, keep the fight going for long enough to tease out their secrets. But three would divide their attention too much. One shot had killed Kani's horse, after all. One shot would kill either of them, and if their attention was divided, it wouldn't take much for one of them to get a lucky shot off, or to incapacitate them with one of those tongue-things. And the best they could do was attack suddenly, kill one with the element of surprise, then reduce it to a two-on-two. In short, their best bet was going from 'impossible' to 'incredibly difficult but vaguely manageable'.

And that was being generous.

Guns? One. And she was the only one who could use it, she thought. Couldn't see a rifle slung over Ayat's back, but he clearly knew what her revolver was capable of. Maybe he could use it, or... no, her revolver was all that made her useful. If she didn't have it, she was basically pointless - couldn't swing a sword, draw a bow, do anything with a spear but ineffectually swat at people. A knife, she could work with, but it was all undermined by how gangly and feeble she was. So... two people, with limited weapons, going against three people (at minimum) with unknown and high-quality weapons. They were walking into the belly of the beast, and they didn't even have something to give it indigestion in the process. No red lights. The Scabrous weren't here, or they weren't announcing themselves... but the tracks were leading this way. They were fast things... very fast indeed. Sometimes she thought that she ought to turn back. Stupid idea, no point dying over this.

...but then she thought about Lirana being mutated slowly. Losing her memories, senses sharpening as mental faculties declined. By the end she'd just roared, like she couldn't even speak. Mutation was a slow, insidious thing. And if these creatures were mutants - and she believed they were - then Kani was at risk of changing too. Maybe. Hard to say. It seemed like her species was vulnerable to mutation, maybe just a little more resistant... contamination could hurt them, yes, but pure contamination, no adulterants, could be used to advance them to adulthood. But only when they reached the right age. So... unlikely to turn into a giant ancestor and massacre her captors with righteous fury. They rode into the dark, and she thought furiously, turning clues over and over in her mind.

The Scabrous: supposedly a people changed by the arrival of a red star, or the murder of their god. A metaphor. But they were definitely mutated, but in an intelligent way, one that left them capable of working with one another. Capable of enjoying a little sport, to hunt things that weren't mutants themselves. So... maybe something close to the things which had almost destroyed the continent fifteen years ago, during the Great War. Intelligent mutants, capable of controlling mutation. Terrifying in concept, terrifying in execution. This group seemed to be derived from nomads who'd attempted to pierce into their territory. Looked the part, riding horses, and...

A memory. A set of clean, shining stones in the night, lying in complex arrangements on the ground. Geoglyphs. The raider leader had said that this lot were coming by to visit them again. He wasn't serious, obviously. Couldn't be. But... maybe there was a connection. She started asking questions, in a quiet tone, barely audible over the pounding of hooves.

"What do you know about geoglyphs?"

Ayat glanced over, blinking like a startled ox.

"Uh. I... maybe? Yes, yes, there's... those are the rocks, right?"

"The rocks. Yes. Do you know anything about them?"

"...bad spots. Very bad. Unlucky. Scabrous made them, years and years ago. Well, they made them when they were still normal. And if they turned out the way they did, those things must've been really unpleasant sources of bad luck, right?"

He spoke quickly and nervously, even as his entire demeanour remained unfalteringly professional, at least while he was in the saddle

"Is that all? How confident are you?"

"...well, it's a story."

"Confident, not confident..."

"...it's a story."

Right. So, no evidence, purely a hunch. He hummed slightly to himself, thinking deeply... and a second later, he came to a conclusion.

"No, no, I remember something. Man I met during the... anyway. He said he saw Scabrous praying to the stones. Kneeling, bowing, chanting. Putting a real stink in the air."

"How did he see them without getting killed?"

"...I didn't ask that."

So, unreliable. Then again, she'd seen the Scabrous and had gotten away... but that was still very up in the air. She was heading to fight them, after all. And the family might be attacked later once the Scabrous had had their fun with Kani. So... anyway. Right. An unreliable account, a folk tale. That was all. No solid evidence that the Scabrous were truly connected with those stones, just conjecture. But that being said... hm. She might have an idea.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"How far are they?"

"Tracks are fresh. But they're fast, so... don't know. Not too far, I think."

He glanced over nervously.

"Your horse is about to fall over."

Oh, crumbs. It was. That was... well, that wasn't good. Her horse was wheezing, and she got the feeling that it might well crumple... she eased it to a halt with a feeling of dread, and Ayat slowed down beside her, his horse snorting out clouds of steam into the frosty night air. She thought she might check it over, see if... no, it was sagging to the ground. Dammit. Should've changed her horse before she left, but... in her defence, she'd been leaving on a definitive note, she couldn't just go 'I'm out of here, shame on you for not coming. Also, please may I have another one of your valuable horses'. Even so, she should've. Nuts, nuts... damn thing was completely passed out, wheezing slightly, chewing at the grass with weary determination even as its huge eyes glazed over. Sides were heaving with exertion. Taken a lot to get her here, and now there wasn't much left. She glanced up at Ayat, and fixed her face into a defiant scowl even as her voice became unfailingly polite.

"May I please ride on your horse."

"...he's not really meant for two people."

"But-"

"If we double up, we will be slower, my horse will be tired sooner, and we will lose the power to manoeuvre. If my horse is shot, then it will die and we will be stranded. If we have two horses, we have a last-ditch reserve. Furthermore, my horse needs to rest and relax, as does yours."

...wasn't he meant to be an idiot? That was completely lucid and intelligent, and flavoured with years of practical experience. The man was used to this sort of thing, clearly. Well... fine. She climbed easily from her horse - so low to the ground that she didn't really need to clamber down at all, just stepped sideways. Her legs were weary, her entire body ached from too much riding... she took a step, hesitated, and fell down onto her rear end with a grunt of irritation. Her legs were completely gone at the moment. Just... obliterated. Nothing but dead meat which she needed to massage some feeling into. A brief nightmare vision flashed before her eyes - a climactic battle, her horse was knocked from beneath her by a shot, and she tumbled to the ground. With easy grace she sprang to her feet, revolver at the ready... then fell flat on her perky behind, lost her grip on her gun, and shot herself in the head.

Or just cried.

The point was, it'd be humiliating. At least she'd give Kani a good laugh. Ayat, too... no, she didn't know about his sense of humour. He might find it embarrassing or simply unfunny.

Might as well just... rest for a moment. And develop a plan. Ayat descended beside her, twiddling his thumbs and pacing from spot to spot. Carza couldn't just watch him, so... right. Bullets. She had a good number of them, had generally been good with managing her ammunition. Hadn't really gone crazy, and hadn't been in enough situations which warranted its usage. More accurately, the situations in question hadn't really allowed for any reloading, which tended to help with conservation of ammunition. She had enough to try out something, though. Well, repeat something. Slowly, carefully, with fingers made numb by cold, she started to unscrew the first bullet she found. A glass bottle... huh. She actually didn't have one. Been lightening her pack, and... well, glass was heavy. Surprise of all surprises, she didn't carry many glass bottles.

"Ayat, do you have any kind of container? A bottle, or a flask, or-"

He dropped a sturdy metal flask at her feet. Empty, based on the sound. Water, alcohol... a quick sniff confirmed it'd once stored alcohol, long-since drained away. Ayat settled down in front of her while his own horse wandered away to chew some grass for itself, recover its strength - not that it really needed to, the thing looked ready to ride off at a moment's notice even after everything. And as Carza started her work, unscrewing bullets, pouring the gunpowder into the flask, checking the interior to make sure it wasn't too damp, slowly packing things together... weariness washed over her. Founder, she'd been riding for hours. For days, really. And the appointed rest had been interrupted by the discovery of Ayat... Founder, she needed to sleep. Badly. Wanted to eat something, drink something... sleep. But Kani was still out there, the Scabrous could be anywhere, and... no, couldn't afford to rest for too long. If she was told that becoming utterly exhausted and possibly wounded would've saved Hull - she'd have done it. Kani was no different here. She was going to save her, and damn the consequences. A prickling feeling on the back of her neck - someone watching her. She glanced sharply, wondering if... no, just Ayat. Staring at her forehead.

He was sitting cross-legged, and she could pick out his features fairly clearly in the moonlight... fading moonlight, really. The sun would come up, soon enough. Then they'd be able to move faster, could see the tracks easier, fight more effectively... be visible from miles away, too. Couldn't quite decide how she thought about that... but in the end, the decision was out of her hands. Either she worked with daylight, or she waited until tomorrow night. She was finding it uncomfortable sitting for a few minutes, sitting for hours and hours would probably drive her insane with worry. Ayat was... young, she thought. Odd to think that he was a soldier of some sort, fighting in the deserts way off to the west. Raiding, plundering, and doing something so awful that he was exiled. His eyes were jet-black, and fixed unblinking on her tattooed forehead, and...

"What?"

"...looking at your tattoo. It's nice."

She blinked. Uh. That was... alright.

"Thanks. It's religious. From my home."

"Hm?"

"...brings good luck."

"Ah."

'Religion' was a culturally specific term. Hard to translate over. Ayat was eerie. Sure, he was big, he was strong, he was clearly experienced with fighting... but then his eyes had a guilelessness to them which surprised her, set her off-balance. He stared innocently, and seemed genuinely distraught about losing his sister. Why had he been following the family if he was exiled? Did he just think they'd take him back anyway, put him in a dark tent and hide him from the rest of the world?

"Why did you come here? Where is your home? Are you from the west?"

"The east. From a place called ALD IOM. Over the mountains."

Her responses were clipped to the point of curtness, and no matter what she tried, that seemed to be how her voice was operating at present.

"...ah. I see. Why did you come?"

"Study. Your family helped me out."

She turned and faced him, curious.

"How did you get exiled?"

Ayat's lips thinned.

"I don't want to talk about it."

Carza felt a small flash of guilt. Right. Great thing to ask. Had to self-sabotage at the first opportunity like a blithering idiot. Just... be nice. He was offering to die beside her, that was very decent of him, and without him the horse would be dead soon enough, or Carza would've just starved to death in the steppe because she couldn't catch anything, and nothing but grass grew here. Be nice. He was Kani's brother. He deserved a modicum of decency, right? Regardless of how tense she was? Regardless of how annoying she found his relaxation right now? She knew he was stressed, he just expressed it differently and knew how to wind down, how to stretch before battle. Ought to take lessons from him. But... it'd be nice if he was panicking as well. Would make her feel less weak. She spoke quietly.

"...it's very good of you. Helping me. Thanks."

He sighed slightly.

"I can't let my parents go on with both of us gone. That's just unfair. I can't bring them gold, or treasure, or black-headed ones... they deserve to have one of us live. To support them when they grow old, to keep the family going, to perform the proper rites. To join them in the mountains one day, even if I can't."

"Why were you following us? Being exiled and all, I just... sorry to ask, but why?"

She shrugged helplessly, trying to soften the question.

"...wanted to say goodbye. Knew it was bad luck, but... I thought, if I waited until they were safe, I could approach and tell them. That way, any bad luck wouldn't have much to work with. Like... uh, I throw a murderer into the middle of a camp, but the murderer has no arms, no legs, no teeth, and no weapons. So... you know. Yes, there's a murderer, but how's he going to murder anyone. You see?"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it."

"You're making a grenade, yes?"

Carza paused.

"...you know what this is?"

"We used them. I don't have any on me... sorry."

"You used them?"

"Gunpowder. Metal. Easy to make, easy to throw. Like skipping stones over a lake, right? Easy. And good at what they do. Very chaotic. Very good. I made a lot of them when we were resting... throw them, people go insane. Very convenient."

He leant back a little, resting on his palms.

"We use all sorts of things, when we want to win."

He seemed to slip away a bit, barely aware of his own audience.

"There's no honour in dying. In losing. Only in winning. So we do whatever we must. Like now, huh?"

"...yeah, I suppose."

"We did this all the time back west. Never fight honest when you can fight and win. Poison arrows by dipping them in latrines. Steal the clothes from officials and sneak into courts to open gates from the inside. Use fire, use it a lot. Burn the fields, destroy villages. Makes people flee from them, into the cities. Strains them, makes them easier to take when we reach them. Easy enough. Always easy to do that, but the enemy never expects it. Sometimes, we just dug ditches, covered them with branches... let the enemy ride right into them. A wave of humans and animals. And when they get close, the ones behind them push them in, don't know anything's wrong. My commander, he... had a necklace. A pearl. He ripped it from the lip of a prince who fell into one of those ditches. Once, we..."

He trailed off. Uncomfortable. Carza simply worked on her bomb. If he wanted to say something, he'd say it. She wasn't going to tell him to shut up. It was odd, how quickly he'd accepted her, how much he was opening up. Carza had... no, she'd met people like this, but there'd always been differences. Sometimes, people were just childish. Sometimes that childishness was a mental impairment - what the Court of Ivory called 'pathologic cognitive underdevelopment', resulting from birth defects, or major head injuries... a whole suite of reasons why. Ayat didn't seem... impaired, but he was very open, a little childish, and startlingly innocent despite everything. He blinked a few times, shivered...

"...once, we surrounded a town. Big walls. Old. Hard to attack. And stone, too... so fire wouldn't be very good. We'd tried, but they put it out too quickly. So... so the commander said that we'd leave. We were done. But only if the town gave us all their pets. Dogs and cats. Horses, too. We gathered more from the countryside - the town was green, no desert for a while in every direction. And then... then we attached branches to their tails, and lit them all on fire. Terrified. Ran away from us... back to the town. Burned half of it to the ground. We walked in and captured the ashes."

Ayat stared flatly ahead for a moment... then reached into his armour, and brought out something. A tiny bundle of cloth, wrapped around... oh. A kitten. A very small kitten, blinking a little with huge golden eyes. Mewling for a moment, wondering if it was going to get something. Ayat started bringing out small pieces of meat from his bags - raw meat, kept preserved by the cold. He chewed tiny strips of the stuff, and fed the remains to the kitten once he'd softened them properly. It was a tiny grey thing, wiry and keen, lanky in a way that implied great heat, fur clinging tightly to its body. Carza's activities slowed as Ayat fed his cat, and... oh. That was another reason for why he'd come back to his family. To say goodbye, and... to maybe give them his cat. Make sure they took care of it. That scene he'd described, she could imagine the scent of roasting meat, the smoke, the bellows and screams and yowls of burning animals charging while soldiers watched impassively... the screams of civilians mixing in once they reached the town...

And then Ayat was here, cradling a kitten wrapped up in stuff that looked like it was ripped from a tapestry, and a fairly fine one. Carza tried to keep going with the grenade, ignoring his antics, but... oh, come on, he had a kitten? How on earth did he get exiled? What did he do? Who did he hurt? Did he just disobey orders or something? If he did, then why was he so reluctant to talk about it?

"...are you sure you're alright bringing that?"

He blinked.

"...oh. Yes. My family. I... intended to give him to them. But..."

He shrugged. The kitten nibbled at one of his fingers, eager for a little more food. It mewled very rarely, mostly spending its time staring silently up at Ayat's face. Seemed so... small in his hands. Delicate. He was a weird sort, that was for sure, and she found herself wondering how he could've been a soldier in the first place, why his family would've thought of him as their great hope - the one who would bring piles of gold back home. To her, he seemed... harmless. Harmless to the point of wondering why she'd brought him along in the first place. The tracks were obvious in the soil, there was little chance of rain to wash them away... her horse was a little calmer now, a little more relaxed. Convinced that it was going to be left alone for a little while. Suddenly, Ayat stood up, and tucked his kitten back underneath his armour. It went silently, golden eyes gleaming faintly as it retreated into the warm darkness. He strode forwards... and starting rubbing down the sides of her horse, pouring a little water over its side while murmuring slightly to it.

Carza blinked.

"What are you-"

"It needs to be rubbed down after such a long ride. Cools it down."

"It's freezing."

"Not to the thing that's been hauling you around for hours it's not. Poor thing, he's exhausted... needs some time to rest."

Right, she... thought she'd seen something like that. These were hardy horses, very good at what they did, but... well, she got the feeling that for all the time she'd spent in the saddle, she was seriously benefiting from having good-natured horses, companions expert in their handling, plentiful backups, and a culture which seemed to spend half its time in the saddle. If she'd been on her own... any doubts in Ayat vanished. He knew how to care for horses and stop them collapsing. That alone made him worth his weight in gold. He rubbed the horse down, making sure to cool it off, before giving it some water at the end to soothe its thirst. Its? Was it a he or a she? She'd never really thought about it, but... uh... hm. No, she didn't much feel like checking. Point was, Ayat knew this place, even if he was technically exiled from it. She spoke quietly to him, watching the horizon for any sign of red light.

"What else do you know about the Scabrous?"

"...stories?"

"How do they fight. What do they do to people."

He shivered.

"Scabrous fight because they like to fight. Dying, living... as long as there's a fight involved, they're happy. Territory is just an excuse. They retreat, which makes us move in. It's good grass, good land. Good grazing, and no-one there to bother us. Then they come back, and there's a lot of people around who were too slow, or who are struggling to get out, or who came thinking the land was still safe."

That checked out. The laughter didn't exactly signal a bored border patrol, it signalled something more decadent. Which didn't bode well for Kani... at the same time, though, it did. Yes, she could be tortured by people who wanted to have some form of sick fun. But she'd live for a while longer. A patrol would've just killed her on sight, killed the rest of them too. They had human desires, then. Another thing to distinguish them from mutants.

"...alright. And... what about their weapons?"

Ayat hummed for a moment, furrowing his brows in thought while he moved to brush down his own horse, who snorted in relief as he got to work cooling it down, relaxing it, making it ready for another ride in the near, near future.

"...uh... not sure."

Carza narrowed her eyes.

"I've seen whips. And something like a projectile weapon. Like my gun, but firing something else. What kind of armour do they use, if any?"

A helpless shrug. Great. Going in blind, then. But she had an idea, and it... well, it wasn't an awful one.

"Do you know this place?"

"...a little."

"Do you know if there's a geoglyph nearby?"

"A few. We steer clear of them when we can, and we need to know where they are to do that. Think there's... one west of here, maybe a bit north... hard to miss, though."

"Right, right. And do you think the Scabrous would stop?"

"Oh, yes. They stop. Not sure where, but... they aren't always riding. I hear stories about Scabrous camps, and... that probably means they stop, right?"

"Right. Right."

He crouched down beside her, voice tinged with curiosity and a hint of eagerness. He had no plan for himself, he was just going to chase them and see if things worked out for the best. No long-term strategy, nothing but a desperation to help out his sister. Make sure she didn't suffer too much. Carza was much the same, and it was why she couldn't sleep, but... she knew their chances were slim. Maybe this was all pointless to begin with - they'd die anyway - but that wasn't an excuse for bad planning. Might make the difference between a pointless, miserable, painful death that accomplished nothing... and maybe, maybe, in an ideal world, actually surviving.

"What's your plan?"

She hummed, screwing the top onto the grenade.

"I might need more flasks. But my plan's to find one of those geoglyphs, the nearest one to the Scabrous. We find it, then we attach these grenades, blow them up using a long string, should delay it. Then we run. Either the explosion distracts them, or desecrating one of their holy sites makes them very angry. Either way, we do that, and then we go to their camp while they're distracted. Worst case, barely any leave, and in that case we'll throw the rest of the grenades, and attack anyway. Best case, we find a barely-defended camp and can... do something. I suppose."

She paused.

"You're going to want to avoid their guns. One shot killed Kani's horse, so... avoid that. And those whips they use are very, very strong."

Ayat nodded, his eyes narrowed with concentration.

"Alright. I can understand that."

"The ideal is to attack them while they're on the ground. That way we can move faster than them, and they'll be rooted in place."

A sudden idea came to her.

"...maybe we charge at them, and-"

"No. Your horse isn't right for it. My horse too."

She blinked. That was... firm.

"...oh?"

Ayat looked at her like she was an idiot - and she could see the kitten shuffling slightly under his armour, nestling into his clothes. A kitten-liking exile who was faintly childish was calling her an idiot. Well, his eyes were, and that was bad enough.

"A horse runs at something. Something is in its way. It stops running. Because it doesn't want to crash."

"...oh."

"Horses are not stupid."

"No, no, I... understand that."

"I've seen horses that charge, they're crazy things. Crazy. Need to raise them from the start to charge."

"...fine, fine, no charging, I get it. I get it."

"Good. If I catch you treating your horse badly, I will smack you. I don't care if smacking a woman brings bad luck, I'm an exile, I have enough bad luck already"

Carza shuffled away from him very slightly.

"Just give me those flasks. I need to make more. Can you help?"

As he sat down heavily, removing his hard leather gloves, she glanced at the pair of near-luminous golden eyes buried in his armour.

"What's his name?"

"Hm?"

"His name. What is it?"

She needed something to distract herself right now. They needed to rest and prepare. The preparation justified the resting. The resting allowed for preparation. It was currently in equilibrium, but the moment things shifted, she'd move. But for the time being... she was enjoying not being on a horse. Realising how much she was bottling up, actually. It was weird, she just felt this... pulse in her. This urge to scream at something, cry a little, maybe just fall over and not move for a long time. She was this close to having a mental breakdown, the sort which lasted for days and days and days, maybe forever. The sort that made her an invalid, which out here was a death sentence. All that kept it down was necessity. Her entire self was... stretched. Her inner thoughts were mad, utterly despairing, completely panicked, and fully aware of how badly this was all going to end. And her outer thoughts were smeared over the top, scraped thin as a membrane, covering it all up, feigning normality while she seethed beneath it all. And that was why she needed to know about that damn cat.

Because Carza would ask about that if Carza was in a normal mood.

And if she wasn't in a normal mood, she would be useless.

She couldn't be useless. So she was normal. So she asked about that bloody cat.

"Well?"

Ayat blinked.

"His name is Khalazarakamnes, Protector of the East, Duke of the Stars, Swallower of Suns, and Supreme Patriarch of the Lugalin."

He paused.

"I call him Little Friend."

He reached into his armour, tickling the kitten slightly. It narrowed its large eyes in annoyance, but otherwise didn't react. Little Friend was... well... it was descriptive. But still. Carza sighed. This county and its humour were ridiculous, done entirely deadpan, seemingly to provide a cover if the other person didn't find it funny. Made sense, good for conflict avoidance, but... so awkward for anyone outside of the culture. Like her. The Supreme Patriarch, Little Friend, nestled into Ayat's chest, and he got to work on the other flasks. And before their eyes, the sun began to come up, creeping over the horizon. A red sun, flecked by saffron-coloured clouds and a sky that shade of cornflowers. Beautiful, sure. But Carza couldn't appreciate it. When Kani was safe, she'd admire all the sunrises in the world. For now, she had a holy site to desecrate and someone to rescue.

The world out here was precarious. And it was making her precarious, too. A few seconds, and Kani was gone. And now... now if Kani died, Carza could just... cease. She'd cease to be herself. She'd become something alone, something cold, something that no longer craved attachment or belonging, and just wanted to be left to her own devices. No more ambitions. No more longings. Just... solitude. Because in solitude she wouldn't lose any more friends or colleagues. She'd be safe. That was, assuming she didn't give up on the rest - ambitions of scholarship and respect. And if she abandoned all of that, every last scrap, Carza vo Anka would die out here. Someone else might walk away - might. And that meant that Carza's survival was wrapped up with Kani's, whether she liked it or not. And looking at Ayat, towering over her even while sitting, scratching his cat with gunpowder-flecked fingers...

She realised he thought the same thing.

He was devoid of purpose, and he needed an anchor, someone to hold onto, to give his life some sort of meaning after everything else had faded in his exile.

And that meant his sister.

They worked in silence. No more words needed to be spoken.

And somewhere over the horizon, the Scabrous lurked. Did what they pleased. Maybe three. Maybe five. Maybe a hundred. Maybe thousands and thousands, a swarm to cover the land and drown the sky... but they needed to be fought, regardless of numbers, regardless of power.

The gnawing in her gut insisted on it. Her flasks were sealed, one by one. The sun continued to rise, red and unambiguous. Kani's last sounds still echoed in Carza's ears... and she imagined that her last words to Ayat, whatever they were, were echoing in his. Both of them were lost, in a way. Both had lost... a lot. She'd lost her expedition, her best friend, any remaining sense of innocence... and he'd lost his family, his people, his entire cultural existence to being exiled. And both of them were fixated on the same axis, the same point around which the world could revolve, at least for now. To Carza, Kani represented the idea that she could get better. That she could make new friends, new connections, and continue as an older, wiser person. That what she'd gone through hadn't broken her. To Ayat, she was his last kinsman, his last family member, the last remaining connection to his old life which he'd lost for reasons he refused to explain. Carza watched the sun come up.

And realised that the redness in the east, from the direction of the awful mountains and her beautiful home... it was the same shade as the light which accompanied the Scabrous. The dim emanations of their dead red star.

A harbinger of things to come, maybe.

A squeak.

The final flask was sealed.

Time to go.