Chapter Forty Two

The statue was... tremendous, even more so up close. Up close, Carza could see how much love and devotion had been lavished on the stone, how each rivet of her armour was carved with exquisite detail, how her sword had deliberate chips and imperfections, a very slight curve to the blade which would be hard to construct, and likely hard to even notice - only someone who knew the model might be able to pick out these details, and even then, only up close. Carza didn't seriously believe that she was looking at real, verifiable proof of some mythical figure - a warrior queen was a common image in some cultures, according to her reading. It was a standard blending of categories - traditionally, men fought, women didn't. Meaning, something that broke those categories was remarkable, and charged with the same liminal power as most rituals. Liminal states had potency to them, and danger. A ritual was important because it transferred someone from one state to another - uninitiated, initiated. Impure. pure. Lower, higher. Child, adult. Living, dead. The rituals took that ambiguity and solidified it, and by harnessing that ambiguity they became significant. The crescendo of process, the point where it could all go spectacularly wrong. Things which existed beyond categories had similar power.

Warrior queens, gods with the heads of animals, gods of doorways and boundaries... the demon Carza had been warned about as a child, the one which dwelled at the edge of forests and infected people with its madness, that too was a personification of the power of boundaries, and boundary-crossing. The Court of the Axe had its sacred Kingeater, a stone axe stained with the blood of sacrificial monarchs, which was said to be the one true queen of the Court of the Axe, and was sometimes personified as a warrior woman... similar theme. Even her own beloved Founder mixed in the unnatural with the natural to highlight his pseudo-divine nature. A man, but with rather too many eyes. A scientist, and a mystic. A dabbler in the abstract, and a master of the practical. Swimming in oceans of madness and sanity, learning from both, and emerging as something which was neither one, nor quite the other. So... this statue was part of an anthropological framework. It marked the boundary from one world to another - the midpoint of the mountains, or at least, the point where some old territorial marker had been needed.

She had a rationale. She had logic.

And yet, it just... failed when compared to this thing's size. Yes, territorial markers existed. Yes, boundary keepers existed. Yes, those who crossed between categories were usually imbued with unique cultural significance. Yes, she knew all this. But... why would they make it so large? Why place it here? Why be so detailed? Why lavish all this effort on something which usually existed as... unspoken laws, or little rites, or iconography? Why go to all this trouble, for something that was, honestly, not all that important? And what culture would make something like this so important? The lifelike nature, this had to have been modelled on someone. Some random model? Some figure in the artist's mad head? A queen, a noblewoman, a great general? Who? And why would they warrant a statue that must've taken years to build, huge amounts of labour, and in a place where labour would only be possible during part of the year when the snows weren't falling?

Gah!

No, wait... she could use this. This statue alone could make up dozens of short articles, a whole series of lectures! Speculations, evidence... she could take her observations here, and then add in a pile of barely related research, ramble for a bit, bug Hull until he gave her some fun quotations, bang, she'd have a book. A whole book...

On a statue that was frustrating her more and more with each passing second.

Just...

Snow covered the land around them, and she could see the dark places where it hadn't found any ground - where the mountainside opened up to reveal yawning caves. Almost invisible without something highlighting them, the constant layers of scree and the omnipresent grey-black shades of the mountains were enough to conceal any openings. But now... now she wondered how she'd missed them. The mountains were crawling with the things, caves that led... she had no idea how deep. Maybe some led straight into the depths, maybe some had collapsed years ago, maybe some were abandoned, maybe some were still occupied. Maybe people lived in them. Maybe those villagers were here, hiding in the dark. Laughing at the travellers wandering around like a bunch of idiots... more likely, seeing if Carza and her two remaining companions were at all rich or dangerous - in the latter case, stay out of the way. In the former... well, no-one was going to miss them out here. Three dead to attrition, not too remarkable for the rest to vanish in this long, long mountain pass...

Patches of nearly luminescent snow marked the shoudlers of the enormous woman, giving her the stark appearance of a charcoal sketch - all whites and blacks, not a trace of grey or any real colour. Made her look almost alive... and as they passed by her feet, each one of them much, much taller then Carza, she could see that the sculptors had added in the precise folds of her leather hobnail boots, scratches where they'd been worn by constant use... lichen grew wherever it could, but half of it seemed reluctant. Like the statue was moving, shaking the corrosion free, leaving itself dark, perfect, and intact. For everything lost to flying pebbles, there was a startling amount that remained completely intact. As she passed fully into the shadow of the giant woman, Carza felt a tiny pulse of fear. She found it hard to identify. Natural nerves at being around something so huge? Maybe. Nervousness at what lay beyond it, possibly, possibly... or something else, something in the air. The same pressure she'd felt around Lirana, the aura of 'run run run' which weighed on her every cell. Evolutionary imperative. An order that existed without words, and didn't blare so much as it... slid its way through her mind, pervading every through, reducing intelligence until she had to obey whether she liked it or not.

There was something wrong with the statue, and she couldn't tell what. Only when she inhaled did she realise.

It was unscented.

It was made from local stone, had to be - same shade, same gradient, some feeling when she ran her fingers over it. This was definitely local, and yet... it smelled of nothing but, well, stone. Earthy, a little damp, a little cold... nothing more. A scent of fresh water from the melting snow, that was it. No perfume. The entire mountain range had stank of perfume, of a hundred spices all muddling together in her nostrils, warm and appetising, making her hungrier and satisfied all at once. The stone soaked that up, and gave none of it back. And that made her think... what was causing the scent? It clearly wasn't natural to the stone, there wasn't enough plant life for it, scented plants in general weren't common in a place too cold for most insects which would find the scent attractive, and there were no people scattering beautiful spices over the mountain. She thought. And mutants didn't smell like this, they smelled like sickly-sweet syrup which crackled in the nose like champagne - completely different.

So... what was causing it?

And why did she feel very nervous of those caves?

Movement brought her back to reality, and she snapped out a quick order. Not usually this imperious. But the situation was serious enough to warrant it.

"Hull, keep your eyes down. I don't want to know if she's anatomically correct."

"I wasn't looking."

"You were, I could sense you doing it."

"We promised not to be vulgar."

"And I'm making sure you adhere to that."

"Stop bringing it up, I'm not looking between her legs. That would be disrespectful."

"Precisely. I'm glad we understand each other. I won't abide tomfoolery."

Anthan snorted with laughter.

"I swear to..."

He looked up."

"...huh. I'll be damned."

Carza bit her lip. Not asking. Not asking. Not asking. She was not asking. She was not-

"What?"

Hull had to stuff a fist into his mouth to avoid laughing at the top of his lungs. Good. If he did, she'd probably poke him with something long and sharp. Like a knife. Or a stick. Maybe both, in varying combinations, just to stop him getting used to either one. Anthan hummed in thoughtful contemplation of... of... of whatever lay between the statue's legs.

"Oh, it's nothing naughty, but whoever sculpted this... well, they spent some time on the rear area, I'll say that much. Hoo. If this was a real woman - and I'm assuming it was - they must've been one hell of a looker..."

"Anthan, don't be rude."

She reasserted her control over the situation through a sharp tone of voice and a small stamp of her foot.

"Look, if they didn't want us to look, they wouldn't have built the thing straddling the pass like this."

"That's not the point."

"Yes, it is. I'm just surveying the horizon. And by some miracle, someone built a ruddy great statue with her legs open right in my sight line. Not my fault."

"It's directly up, that doesn't count! What are you surveying for, birds?"

"Maybe."

"Well, don't be vulgar about it."

"...alright, alright, fine."

She saw him dropping back just a little, leaving her at the front of their party. And a second later, he nudged Hull in the side. Oh, Founder, they were acting like... like blokes. Having a good old giggle at the fact that there was a gigantic statue with, apparently, a well-defined posterior. Vulgar. And now Carza was feeling terribly jealous. Not that she liked being vulgar at all, but she did rather like being included in things. Came from not being included due to her own basic incompetence. She did, rather dearly, like to have friends, but... but she wasn't willing to compromise on her well-honed prudishness. Being a prude was fun, if you had no taboos, what was the point in pushing boundaries? It was rather like being someone who liked alcohol, but wasn't willing to be an alcoholic because that would take all the fun out of it. Wait, that... actually just described her. Moderation was fun, was her point. Moderation in drinking, in vulgarity, in all manner of things. Except smoking. Smoking was best when done freely and in liberal quantities. Ideally for extended periods. Ideally with a good book and a spacious armchair...

She sneaked a glance.

...good heavens. What a woman.

...she wondered if her breasts were also- no. No, no, no.

She stalked onwards firmly, hands jammed in her coat pockets, face blushing a deep scarlet underneath her thick scarf. Still had some cigarillos left, rationing them. Very tempted to light one up now. Very, very tempted. And the two blokes were having a proper natter about the muscularity of the statue... had neither of them noticed the lack of scent?

Something was being marked with scent, and this statue had been the exception. She wasn't sure if that made her more nervous of the scent, the statue, or both.

"Anthan, what animals mark their territory with scents?"

The laughing-dogs could sound like humans in the right scenario. Birds could come with exotic plumage aplenty. She'd heard of eels the size of a human, of frogs to the far south that were multicoloured and terrifyingly poisonous. So... maybe the mountains had some sort of scent-dripping creature. Anthan grunted, and Hull, to her surprise, was the one to actually reply. Had he... well, one never knew. Anthan did botany. Maybe Hull had dabbled in animals.

"Some, I think. Dogs mark their territory by having a quick bit of urination. Heard that other animals do it, too. Wolves. Some larger ungulates. Things like that. I think cats rub themselves against things, maybe? Not too sure."

Carza blinked.

"Al...right, before I do anything, how did you know that?"

Hull grinned awkwardly.

"Well, other student was experimenting with pheromones. Well, he... read a very bad pulp novel while having a mental breakdown, and wound up..."

"Oh, Founder..."

"Smelled of wolf piss for weeks. Poor bastard."

"Did he recover?"

"Physically, yes. Socially, no. I think he works for the treasury now."

She'd been in the halls of the man who wore wolf piss to attract a mate. Offensive as a human, offensive as an animal, offensive as a man, and offensive as someone who was meant to be bloody celibate. There were rules, what kind of pulp novel had he been reading where people used pheromones in order to attract mates that weren't animals? Oh, oh dear, she'd heard of these, these... undercity chequebooks, long, thin pieces of cheap paper containing all the annals of human sin. She thought they were just stories made up by the forces of order and virtue to entrap the filthy outcasts of humanity, like using honey to attract flies. Oh, Founder, Founder... flurgh. Anyway. Wolves, dogs, cats, ungulates... that meant deer, buffalo, that sort of thing? Well, she couldn't imagine buffalo living around here... cats, maybe? Dogs? Wolves? Maybe they... no, no, that would demand some kind of animal that presumably lived in those tunnels and sprayed enough scent to make the entire mountain range stink of perfume... which seemed more than unlikely.

"How does it smell when they-"

"Like piss."

"...ah."

Right. So that excluded that. What on earth was making this place smell so good?

* * *

Snow, snow, all around... snow, crackling under her feet, snow, like a shot of liquor whenever she took in a breath, a burning chill that made her feel deliriously alive. So different to the heat... so very different. And so beautiful. She actually felt a little of her paranoia draining away, especially once they shared out a few drops of warming liquor liberated from the pub. Her boots were chilly, her coat was heavy and each little snuggling motion brought her deeper into her little tweed cocoon, giving access to little pockets of warmth and gradients of texture that she hadn't explored before. Heat made her feel all the limitations of the human form, all the ways it could be damp and uncomfortable... all the places a mosquito could bloody bite her. In the cold, though, she felt the limits of relief, all the heights it could scale itself to. In the heat, she could only find relief by stopping, drenching her head in water, or maybe dying. In the cold, she found relief with each snuggle, with each twist, with each stride that warmed her blood, with each droplet of liquor. Relief could be found in the simplest motion... in another little layer.

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She couldn't help herself, she felt happy.

And a second later, her smile turned to something more malicious.

Teach them to laugh about a statue's buttocks behind her back. Even if the buttocks were uncomfortably pert and...

She gathered up a snowball while feigning tying her shoelaces.

Hoo-hoo, she was a villainous little cad, she was. She was a villain from a poor-quality pulp novel. She ought to have a name like... Madam Smashscrabble or Lady Deadclaw, or something suitably unsubtle. Oh, she was devious, she had a snowball, and...

One whizzed over her head.

Those dishonourable cheats! Attacking a woman, and from behind! She could've been knocked on her face, could've lost all her teeth, how woefully irresponsible could those people be.

She whirled, and launched her own snowball. It was fine when she did it, obviously. That was just rational. She might not be the toughest creature in all creation, but she had arms, and she had eyes, and the conjunction of the two with a snowball was rather devastating. Hull grunted as the snowball hit him in the chest, but Carza barely noticed, already gathering another one. Founder, she loved snow. Anthan watched with mild amusement as the two had a riotous snowball fight in the middle of a canyon, with the shadow of the giant woman still hanging over them a little - even if by now she was a looming dark shape in the middle distance, rather than something which could kill them if it fell over at this exact moment. Eh. Carza barely noticed. Too busy getting another snowball going... when one slammed into her back, and almost sent her sprawling. She growled under her breath like an angry cat, and ducked behind a boulder as another snowball hurtled her way... right, yes, opening. Her snowball flew straight and true, and....

Hull yelled in pain.

Oh Founder. She'd hit him in the side of the head, did she put a rock in it by accident? She rushed forward, coat flapping around her ankles, eyes wide with alarm. If she ruined his face, then she'd... she'd never forgive herself. Hull was hunched over, nursing his face with one hand... oh, it did look red, she probably cut him or something...

"Hull, are you alright?"

"Fine, I'm fine."

"I'm sorry, can I-"

"No, I'm sorry."

"No, really, it was-"

"Sorry for this."

A snowball smacked her right in the lips. Her world turned white, right before it turned red.

She was going to kill him.

She was legitimately going to kill Hull, going to wipe the wicked grin off his face which was only reddened from exertion. Oh, he was dying tonight. Her snowballs were infinite. His snowballs were less than infinite. He kept laughing, though, even when she smashed another one right into the middle of his forehead, sending flakes all throughout his tousled hair. Anthan was drinking off to the side, smiling very slightly - and as per the rules of combat, she wasn't going to involve him as long as he didn't involve himself. He was just here to make sure no war crimes were being committed. And she was about to commit some regardless. Ha! So there! The tide of battle began to turn in her favour once more, she found victory leering at her like a strange clown, and then... then Hull did the unexpected.

He charged. Right into the flurry of snowballs.

She squeaked in fright as he barrelled through her offensive. Hide behind the boulder, hide behind-

His arms wrapped around her and lifted her high into the air. Her squeak turned into a hiss. This was cheating, he was wider than her, of course could do this, this was a clear violation of the laws of war. She didn't punch or bite him, though, which she probably should've done. Her hiss ended as her feet kicked at thin air, and she realised that she was completely pinned, Hull holding up her by her waist and threatening to drive her down into the snow where she'd never be found again.

"Do I win?"

"Put me down."

"I won though, didn't I?"

"You cheated."

"All's fair in love and war."

"No, this is a war crime!"

"Love crime?"

"Put me down, you giant beef wellington!"

He laughed loudly, and set her down with a thump. Her boots sank into the snow, then the soil, and she found the white powder coating her up to her shins. Hull's face was large, red, and grinning boyishly. She glared down at him - because, yes, she was still taller than him, especially when she was wearing boots, and she did not appreciate him using his bloody gammon-arms to cheat at snowball fighting. There were rules of war, and... what on earth had he meant by 'love crime'? Her glare softened as she saw a tiny nick where she may have accidentally packed a stone into the snowball. She wiped it off with her handkerchief, muttering in a distinctly unladylike fashion about how he ought to be more careful, ought to act his age. She hadn't started this, after all, he'd really kicked this whole thing off, she was just an innocent defender pressed into committing an atrocity by someone who was...

Anyway.

"You two ready to keep moving?"

Carza nodded firmly, feeling some of the expedition's importance settling on her shoulders once more. They were close, dammit. Very, very close. Hull brushed some snow from his coat, and she vaguely remembered something a little embarrassing - when she'd seen that he was alright after that damn mutant, and she'd jumped onto him and rained down kisses on his bruised face. Seemed to be alright now, but... well, that was... how could she describe... why would... hm. She wasn't sure what she was feeling right now. And she wasn't sure if she liked it or not.

"I didn't grab you too hard, did I?"

Hull's voice was low, and uncharacteristically serious.

"Hm? Oh, no, no, I'm quite fine."

"Well, good. Glad. Keep moving?"

"Keep moving, yes."

And with that, they set off once more, into the deliriously wonderful cool air, ignoring the dampness spreading up their legs from the melting snow, the numbness in their fingers from the snowballs... all of it was new and delightful. It didn't change things, not exactly, but... ever since Lirana, something dark had been coiling around her shoulders, hanging down her back. Weighing her to the ground. This feeling of dread, of having failed in some way. Like being on a train and realising, too late, that you were heading to the wrong stop and there was no chance of turning around, stopping, correcting one's course... one simply was on their way somewhere, and had to roll with the proverbial punches. Now, she felt... felt like things had readjusted. The steppe was only a few days away.

If only she could stop staring at those holes in the mountains, drilled by... mutants, maybe? Natural forces? If only she could figure out the scent, the statue... the general pressure which made her think she was being watched.

But for now, at least, she felt... remarkably decent.

* * *

That night, they bedded down in the shelter of another boulder, and shivered. Fires, well... they could find some shrubs which might work, but they were soaked through by the melting snow. More flakes beginning to fall from the darkening sky, too... seemed to be a pattern. Fall at night, melt in the day. Maybe it'd get better from here on out, though. Carza was stretching her legs a little, sipping quietly from a tiny metal cup. No alcohol, of course. Anthan had cautioned her about that. Drinking alcohol just... increases bloodflow to the surface of the skin, makes you look red, makes you feel warm, but in reality just makes you radiate heat even faster than before. Usually, that was fine. But in conditions like this, it might not be wise - if they were stranded in a sudden blizzard, which he seemed to think was quite possible, then having too much liquor in their systems could very well kill them. A reminder that as wonderful as the cold here was, it was still outside the perfect medium that existed in ALD IOM. There, everything was a happy average - here, it was a little too cold for humans, and in the forests, just a little too hot.

Maybe the steppe would be better. Nah, who was she kidding, it was going to be too hot or too cold or all at the same time and there'd be rain. Eh. Anyway. A stroll. A smoke. A metal cup filled with some tea - they were rationing it even more strictly than the cigarillos, good tea was a luxury in ALD IOM, and out here it was probably worth more than gold. All the things she wanted in life, and she drank contentedly, smoked happily, generally mulled over the wonderments of the world. She was feeling a little more optimistic... and a moment later, she paused. Stared off. The scent was still bothering her. It was wonderful, yes, but... she couldn't tell where it was coming from, and that disturbed her. Rather a lot, as it turned out. Made her think of an animal marking its territory, or... just something. Hard to say what. Hard to say why she was getting worried... maybe it was the idea that something was deliberately applying the scent, and had left the statue unscathed. The statue had made the scent feel foreign, not something that naturally welled up. Because if it did, why didn't the statue stink?

Stars wheeled above her, and she felt... wonderfully alone, for a second. Nice to have time with her thoughts and a lack of motion. Nice to just... ponder the landscape, the way the light was almost purple as it danced across the impeccable layer of solid white. The mountains were so very beautiful, the world in general had a stillness that was calming. And in the night, she couldn't see the caves. Which made her very happy indeed. She stared... drank... smoked... and heard something. A little crack-crack-crack - she listened for a second before tuning it out slightly. A rock falling from the mountainside, had to be. Heard something like it before, just a baby landslide. As long as she was careful, she ought to be fine. Could be a boulder sailing through the air right now, silent as plague, but she was honestly feeling very monastic right now. Very in tune with the universe, with her fellow people. If she was to be squashed, then she couldn't very well stop it. By running around like a headless chicken she might just make it easer to get squashed, eh? By staying still, she accepted what came her way, or didn't come her way. This was why she loved smoking, it made her incredibly relaxed, to the point where she achieved a form of enlightenment. She'd heard of contemplative monks before, no idea how they got by without smoking. Chemical dependency was great for enlightenment, asceticism was awful for it. Chemical dependency gave you a quick and easy route to perfect contentment and peace.

Founder, she loved cigarillos...

The crack-crack-crack continued, on and on and on... down, down, down... thump. Right. There it was. Down in the valley, and-

Thump.

...why had the thump come twice?

Thump-thump.

Why so many thumps? The cracks had ended, why was... she felt dread wash over her, and she quietly kept her eyes down, started to back away, just as Anthan had taught her. Something had landed, and was now moving in the snow. Could still be bouncing, or... maybe rolling? Just a rock? Or a mutant. A mutant emerging from one of the caves, curious about this little bony thing poking around... she'd taken her pills, she'd clipped herself of barely two or three skin tags. Contamination was scarce around here, it was why mountains were wonderful. Contamination was common in lowlands, in certain areas, not in mountains. Mutants came here, according to Anthan, because it was safe from lower mutants, it was a nice little safe spot to recuperate, where life moved at a slower pace, and there was no constant pressure of defending oneself against the rampaging hordes. No hunters, neither. So it was... likely stable, likely reasonable, as far as mutants could be reasonable. Keeping away from her, just curious, but... she kept going backwards, and-

Thump-thump-thump-thump.

Coming closer.

Crud.

Her nerve snapped like a twig. Too strained by too much. Lirana. Egg. Cam. Sleepless. Mutants. The thing in the forest. The silent village. The stinking well. It all came rushing back.

And she sprinted into the dark... right as something went thump so close, she could probably reach out to touch it. And to her surprise...

Sound.

Mutants didn't make sounds.

Mutants moved in absolute silence. They didn't communicate, they were alone - their languages were unique, they had no-one to talk to so they simply did not speak.

And yet...

The symphony of snarls, grows, and almost insect-like clicks... it was too intelligent. Too loud. Too...

Answered.

Another set, up in the darkness of the mountain, and then... crack-crack-crack. The sound of something descending at high speed. Her sprint picked up immediately, no matter how much she knew she'd be hurting in the morning. For once, she cursed the snow, how it sucked at her heels and made every step that bit more uncertain - was that a snowdrift, or a rock covered in the thinnest possible layer? Was there sure footing here? Was she going to make it from one step to the next? She'd lost her original trail immediately, couldn't track it with her panic... had to run, had to run, the thumps were louder. Something was coming after her, bounding in the snow, maybe on all fours, long leaps which brought it closer and closer... and more were coming, more sounds. The light of the fire was closer, and she felt...

Felt something sharp scrape up her coat, almost tearing the tweed apart.

A scream burst from her throat, and she stumbled chaotically, enough to avoid the next swipe from something sharp.

What was here?

Why was it chasing her?

Why did it have language?

The light was closer. The others had noticed. Anthan was standing, his gun pointing... the dark was confused by swirling snowflakes, enough to make it hard to target, maybe impossible... Hull wasn't hesitating, bounding out like a dog to grab her, haul her back...

Another swipe from the thing behind her.

And this time it caught her scarf.

Her scream choked off as the scarf became a noose. The thing was hooked, and she'd been... been caught, she was being dragged, she couldn't breathe, bruises were blooming over her neck, the scarf was cutting like a garotte, the hook was unstoppable, her limbs were limb and useless once she was tugged off her feet. The snow consumed her back, soaking down her collar, a sharp chill that made her thrash like... like a hooked fish, cutting itself deeper the more it struggled. She felt something reaching for her throat... her eyes widened at what she saw. And then a gunshot split the night, and the thing detached. The scarf tore away, and she gasped desperately, drinking the air in with greedy gulps. A second later, she was crawling frantically over the snow, hands utterly numb, eyes watering with tears from the choking...

Hull grabbed her, and tossed her in the general direction of the fire. She didn't complain.

More gunshots. She scrambled to her feet, coughing wildly, feeling her face turning interesting colours. Gun, gun... pistol. There. She picked it up, and barely managed to pull back the hammer... one shot, two shots... wild, uncontrolled. But she saw the way it lit up the dark, and the things scattering back. Her eyes widened further and further. Couldn't be. Couldn't be. Things were lurking beyond the firelight, and she saw them quietly retreating behind boulders, eyes gleaming... but not one. One remained. And she saw it.

Anthan swore violently.

Hull said nothing, but she saw how his hands were shaking.

A snarl.

And it was gone, into the dark, followed by a quick shot from Anthan, which elicited a grunt of pain... and nothing more. A limping rhythm to the thump-thump-thump of bounds in the snow. Carza clumsily wrenched her pistol open, ejecting the spent bullets, fitting more in with hands that shook so badly it took multiple attempts just to get one... the others clustered close around her, and Anthan threw a firestarter - the bloom of light and heat reassured her, kept her from panicking completely. Guns on every side, light to keep her safe, warmth to thaw her hands... freedom from the choking scarf. Enough time to think. About what she'd seen.

The thing which grabbed her...

It had glass skin.

Anthan grunted.

"Alright, so... so..."

He raised his rifle, and scanned the darkness with feverish intensity. Despite the cold, sweat was running down his forehead. Hull didn't look much better. Kept muttering to himself. The gods were real. The glass-skinned god of the Yasa, they were real. And she remembered her thoughts. That the scent was a mark, a way of declaring territory. The holes in the mountains where anything could be living. The creatures gleamed a little when the light fell on them... and it almost never did. Eyes burned. Four per creature, with long, silvery tusks extending outwards. Huge, twice the size of a person. Too many arms. Monsters, but they were speaking. They weren't unique. Too many, far too many, sharing a language. Not mutants, couldn't be, mutants didn't act like that, mutants didn't do this. A mutant wouldn't attack them, not like they were, a mutant wouldn't... wouldn't... it made no sense.

The pagan gods of a dead people couldn't be real.

But here they were.

One had hooked her scarf on its tusks.

One had reached for her throat with a glass-skinned hand.

Gleaming... fractal... flexible, but luminous. Impossibly so. Like diamonds, really... glass in the wrong light, diamond in the right. But she saw blood in the snow, they were alive, they could bleed, die maybe... but then she remembred the size, the terror, the feeling of almost being ripped apart.

They weren't mutants.

They could think.

They could strategise.

More thumps.

They were coming from the mountains. Anthan whirled, then stuck a branch into the fire... let it light up, and threw it into the dark. Creatures scattered from it, but there was no fear. They didn't fear fire, they didn't loathe it... they just knew the virtue of concealment. One of them stood over the fire, and she caught a glimpse of the huge creature... four arms, each one brutally muscled. Wiry dark hair protruding like a mane... tusks gleaming like twin crescent moons...

And with a contemptuous stomp, the torch was gone.

They didn't fear fire.

A whimper escaped her throat.

"What... what do we do?"

Her voice was low and terrified.

Anthan swore. Again.

"I don't fucking know. Sorry. Vulgarity. Anyway, I do not fucking know. Just... stay close."

More thumps. Hull spoke quietly, his voice shaking very slightly.

"They're surrounding us."

"I noticed. Stay in a circle, Keep the fire nearby. Don't let them close, light them up with gunfire if they step near us. Understood?"

Carza spoke quietly.

"They can think. They're not mutants."

"Humans don't have glass skin."

"They have language."

"...shit, shit, shit. Didn't... alright, fine, this is... if they're clever, maybe..."

Carza caught on, and raised her voice. Anthan had shot one, so had Hull. She was he only one they might not hate...

"Please! We're sorry, we didn't mean to intrude, we didn't-"

Silence. Contemptuous silence. They didn't care for them. But they couldn't let them leave. The scents had warned them. The statue had warned them, maybe. So many animals marked their territory, and these... things were no different. Many cultures thought about a city of the gods. And a city needed a wall, a city needed boundaries for it to be more than a cluster of buildings. They'd felt the walls, smelled the walls, just hadn't recognised them. Ignorance of the law was no excuse, they were here, they had ignored every warning, they were going to die, they were going to die. Intelligent life, with languages, with territory, with enough unity to not attack each other. Surrounded on all sides. She knew nothing about them, nothing... she was out of her depth, and the dark was growing. The cold was biting. The snow fell in thick, thick flakes... and in the great distance, the statue still loomed, somehow present despite the dark and the snow. A statue of a human, now surrounded by things that... were they gods? Were they actual gods? What were they? Some new form of mutant? Some other species? A hallucination as she died in the snow? Gods?

Twice as tall as her. Many times stronger. Tusks longer than her forearm. Four eyes. Four arms. Glass skin.

Gods or not, they could crush her. A single one of them could.

Thump.

And she got the feeling that there was more than one. That there were many.

Anthan grunted.

"We're surrounded."

Hull glared.

"I said that."

"I know. And it's true. Surrounded."

Carza looked at them both with wide eyes.

"...what do we do? We're... can we run?"

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Anthan looked grim.

"I doubt it."

"Can we fight?"

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"Too many. Way too many. And they're large, not sure how many bullets it'd take to kill one... aim for the eyes, everyone. Aim for the crotch. Aim for vulnerable things, things that might take them out in one good hit."

"The explosive, why not-"

"Could. But... if we're surrounded, we might as well rain rocks down on ourselves. If any are staying hidden in the dark, if they're not bunching up for us to target, then throwing it right at them is just a waste of black powder, unless we can run fast enough to outrun the rest. Not sure when to throw, not sure what to throw at... not sure where they are, not sure of anything. Ambush. Didn't expect it. Sorry. My fault."

Thump. Thump. Thump.

A moment of absolute silence. The snow swallowed sound. The creatures were prowling now. Not bounding. And she imagined huge feet slipping through the snow with elegant ease. The mutant in the forest had managed to be deathly silent while surrounded by branches and life and things that could break. These things were surrounded by silence. Snow that consumed it on the ground, that swarmed in the air and muffled every little step, and masked by the dark. Couldn't see them. Ten? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands in the mountains... surrounded, so completely surrounded, dead, so very dead. She couldn't communicate with them, fighting wasn't an option, they were surrounded and couldn't run, they were going to die. They were all going to die and it'd be her fault for bringing them here and Lirana's biography would rot in the damp and Cam and Egg would've died for nothing and Miss vo Larima would go back and be the only one to escape... the patrol, dead for nothing. All this stress, and it would've ended at the claws of something which wasn't even human, and might not be a mutant.

She was hyperventilating, and her gun shook like a...

Something flew through the air, and she shot instinctually. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. And only then did she stop, her own scream ringing in her ears along with the bullets... barely thought, just fired, maybe she'd...

A laugh echoed from the dark.

A deep, rumbling, inhuman laugh, distorted by tusks.

And her own scarf lay before her, perforated by a single bullet.

They were surrounded by something clever enough to play with them.

Something inhuman enough to not be communicated with.

Her hand found Hull's, and she murmured.

"Blessed be the Founder, who leads us from tribulation and into knowledge, blessed be the Founder at the last moments..."

A funeral prayer.

She squeezed, and Hull squeezed back, his voice catching as he followed along with her.

And from the darkness...

The laugh was unceasing.