Chapter Nineteen

"Do we... burn them?"

Hull was quiet, and he kept close to Carza. She was twenty-one, she was an adult, and in a situation like this, she felt like a child. Like two frightened children clinging close together against a world which was seeming increasingly vicious and senseless. The eyeless heads stared at them, toothless smiles gaping, insects boiling from within their mouths and eye sockets. Who would do this? Why? Carza simply failed to process why someone would do this. She could imagine the bodies, she could imagine the process of being attacked, kidnapped, imprisoned... but the point where these injuries began, where the Sleepless decided to crack out their teeth, gouge out their eyes, slice off their limbs and brutalise them before allowing them to die... she failed. The comprehension simply didn't generate. And she couldn't just shrug and say 'that's how it is', because that was an abandonment of reason and rationale, it abandoned all anthropological logic. Where was the cultural or psychological foundation which allowed someone to do this? How did they justify it? How did they overcome that fundamental revulsion at doing something this brutal - because she had to assume that that revulsion existed or the world would've descended into absolute brutal chaos a thousand years ago. No cities would ever have been built, no cultures ever developed, no peace ever established if people lacked an instinctive revulsion to brutality against one's fellow man.

Right?

Or was she being woefully naïve?

A memory of her time as a child on the streets of ALD IOM. There'd been violence, of course there'd been violence, but there was always an air of... well, sense to it. She would get her face slammed into a wall because she had a bit of bread to eat, another child didn't, and that child would see violence as an instrument for... unconventional property redistribution. It was rooted in hunger. Greed, maybe - an inability to share, on the part of both parties. Grounded in basic human instincts. This... felt contrary to basic human instincts.

It didn't feel human at all.

And as much as she wanted to blame it on mutants, she knew that mutants were never this sadistic. Well, they weren't this... calculatedly sadistic. Could be cruel, of course.

The local girl yelled up the line to the captain, who was busy poking around, making sure no-one was hiding, no more surprises lay in wait. The forest steamed. Mutated insects were scuttling in the undergrowth - they were always the first to move for new springs. The plants would follow - some of the trees seemed to be creaking, eager for contamination. The bigger animals would be next - the ones willing to kill things in their way instead of simply going around them. The captain circled back, the black disks of his mask glinting like coins, his horse wheezing through its filters and twitching in irritation as flies landed on any exposed piece of flesh. He surveyed the scene, then barked at the scholars.

"We're moving on. No burning."

He left before they could question him. Surely there was something to be done? They wouldn't just leave the dead desecrated like this? The local girl laughed quickly, the sound reduced to a strangled series of halting gasps by her mask.

"No burnings, friends. No burnings."

Carza's voice was low and quiet.

"Why?"

"They're Sleepless property now. Burn them, the Sleepless come. They get all insulted. This their place. Would you burn your host's things, ha?"

With a final laugh, she was off. She kept laughing - but it didn't sound like she was having much fun at all. Broken, that was it. And as the line of soldiers began to move... Carza thought that they all seemed a little broken. Held together with strings and stress, duty propelling them to march even when they clearly wanted to sag, collapse, and sleep for a very long time. The masks covering their heads only aided the impression that they were puppets jerking onwards, crudely made and easily discarded. They rode on, horses the only things that seemed truly alive. No more jokes. Just silence up and down the line. Carza mounted up besides Lirana, who was pale and shaking slightly. Just a normal person, she realised. Just a normal person out of her depth. A certain amount of kinship there. Anthan seemed similar to the soldiers - marching on out of instinct. And Egg... Egg stared out over the bodies, bowed his head a little, muttered something, and left. That was all.

And Carza remembered that the Court of Salt was working with these people, supposedly.

What on earth were they thinking?

They rode off in silence, sticking close, always watching the forest. The shrill whistle of the detectors slowly declined, and she wondered in a moment of paranoia if the water had simply run out... no, no, they were out of the danger zone. Confirmed when they refilled the detectors from their canteens, and the whistling remained at a very, very low level. Within tolerable limits, then. Not sure what 'tolerable' meant to these people, but... Carza took in gulps of grateful air as the mask was removed. The local girl's teeth flashed again as her own mask came off, and she barked in laughter at the sight of how Carza's hair had done... interesting things while suppressed. Damn it. There went some more credibility. Easier to just shave it all off... no, no, that was silly. She didn't know if she had a weirdly-shaped head or not, but if she did, then shaving would be social suicide and it'd take months to properly recover. Rifles were out. And Carza kept her hand on her silly pearl-handled pistol, remembering the girl's advice - kill herself before the Sleepless caught her, because she didn't want to find out what they did to women.

She completely agreed.

They walked on, but the point remained - they had crossed into the territory of the other. Running commentary was kept up by her companions. The local girl supplied information, and it was bounced around the others - Anthan, Egg, Lirana, Hull - who interpreted it and reinterpreted it while the girl grinned widely and nodded eagerly. No idea what she was taking so much pleasure in. No stopping in villages around here. And if they did, the advice was simple - watch the children. If they were locals, they might be used as shields by the Sleepless, hostages really. If they were Sleepless brats, they'd be dragged out before any attacks. Apparently the Sleepless carried their families with them, kept a little ways away from the front lines. Sometimes whole villages would vanish overnight, and then be replaced by the families of the invaders. Never asked what happened to the disappeared ones. Didn't want to know. Carza reasoned her way through this, and Hull voiced her thoughts.

"...so, if there's children, be nervous because they're there, be nervous because they're not there... be nervous when villages are full, be nervous when villages are empty... is there any time when we're not meant to be nervous?"

Egg grunted.

"I get the feeling, old fellow, that we're meant to be nervous at all times."

A soldier was drinking from a hip-flask, and Egg gestured vaguely to him.

"I imagine that's why these boys have developed such a perishing thirst."

Hull smiled wearily. Carza had to admit that she wanted to smoke, but not to drink - she just wanted to fill her lungs with tobacco, not to addle her wits. The last thing she wanted was to see double when the Sleepless came charging out and she needed to aim a gun at her own head.

Why had she become so resigned to that?

No stopping in villages to rest. No stopping in general. The captain sent the order down the line - they were to ride until they reached an old fort in the middle of the forest, which apparently still had a few units attached to it. Carza felt a spark of surprise - an outpost? Out here? Did... did the colony still possess some semblance of control outside of the cities? But then more information came out. They didn't know how many units were still attached to it. They didn't know their status. Communications were sparse and messy. No guarantee that anyone was still alive. Last message had been a solid week ago, but the Sleepless had been relentless, and no forces could be spared to head out and check. This would be the first contact they'd had in some time now. All of this seemed... unbelievable to Carza, and apparently to Hull as well. Who just... forgot about a fortress full of soldiers? Who just neglected to check on them in the middle of hostile territory? Sometimes it happened, according to Lirana. She'd heard stories about it - bedraggled men, the last of their units, stumbling into civilised areas with horror stories about fortresses levelled by things which came from the forest. Common story from the colonia around the cities out east.

The world was mad.

And she'd volunteered to go out into it.

No stops, no hot food. Just riding and sipping carefully from canteens that grew warmer and warmer with each passing hour. She measured the time not in sunlight - which was barely visible through the tree cover as it was - but in how low her canteen was, how loud the slosh was... how lukewarm the trickles of water were. She could feel a tightening beginning in her stomach, a feeling that she was slowly hollowing out under the influence of heat and riding and stress. She wondered if she'd end up like these soldiers, eventually. Hollowed by heat, and turned into a marching puppet operating under old commands that simply kept on cycling through. She narrowed her eyes, and focused on the road ahead, ignoring the trickles of sweat which slowed to a halt as... well, as either her body adjusted to the heat, or it ran out of water and needed to preserve what it had. Probably the latter. No more contamination lay in their way... and as the sun started to set on her first day out in the wilds, as she became nervous of walking around this place in the dark... the fortress came into sight.

To her surprise, it was inhabited.

To her profound lack of surprise, it was mad.

It was a pasted fortress, something designed in a cool office and then transplanted awkwardly into the steaming forest. A low hill protruded from the ground, and on it sat the fortress - white, with numerous pockmarks that had turned a faint yellow and dripped with damp, until it looked like the fortress was covered in weeping sores. Soldiers stood on the walls, staring dumbly out into the sea of green, perceiving nothing. The road leading up was a little better than the winding trail in the forest, but it was obvious that the forest had slowly consumed every form of connection to the outside world, narrowing the road through encroaching undergrowth... like a vein being pinched shut. And with the way the damp had made the stone and plaster of the fort swell up, the impression was solidified in Carza's mind. The flag of Mahar Jovan hung limp and sopping with moisture, a dishrag pressed into service as a banner. The men below it didn't look much better. The captain raised his hand, calling for a halt... and he barked out into the twilight.

"Ho there! Look alive! We're here for shelter!"

He paused. The men in the fort stared back... and one of them finally shouted.

"Gods, you're not a damn hallucination! Come on in, we've still got water for now - please tell me you brought some damn food that isn't hard tack and jerky?"

"Got a little pemmican we can share."

"Gods be praised!"

A muted cheer rose up from the fort, and the entire train of soldiers relaxed visibly, and audibly. Hull hummed thoughtfully.

"...call me morbid, but I thought it wouldn't be beyond the Sleepless to kill these soldiers and dress up in their uniforms, or prop them up on the walls to lure us inside. Or intimidate us."

Egg nodded sagely, eyes dark with caution.

"You're not wrong. I'm not too familiar with these Sleepless chaps, but... it's not an unknown tactic. I imagine our guards here were thinking the same thing. See how they relaxed?"

They had. They really had. The moment someone yelled back in their native language, in their native accent, they had relaxed significantly. Hip flasks were brought out and drained with hungry gasps, a few cheap cigars and cigarillos were lit up, and for once, people took their fingers away from the triggers of their rifles, and the local girl removed her hand from her breast pocket where her emergency pistol slept. Carza didn't share their enthusiasm. She could see the pockmarks in the fortress, and in the ground surrounded it. She saw eerie stains on the walls where... something had happened. And she wondered how it would feel to simply be forgotten about. Was there anywhere else like this? Holdouts that would endure after the colony fell, and that would be basically written off? How many units were still stationed in some little outpost, too irrelevant to be attacked, too far away to be relieved or communicated with... or were they all already silent? Was everywhere but the colony dead and quiet?

Lirana spurred the horse forward gladly. She still looked awful. Kept itching at herself, kept glancing around, never rested in one spot for long. The horse had soaked up her nervousness, and it moved in swift, jerky motions, snorting continuously and never quite relaxing. The soldiers yelled loudly to their comrades on the walls, asking them when the last time they... oh, goodness. Vulgarity. She was close to civilisation, and suddenly vulgarity became unpleasant again instead of simply expected. She wanted a bath. She wanted many baths. And then she wanted to bury herself and never come out again. The horse came closer, civilisation became more and more apparent, she could feel herself filling in once again...

And then she saw the ears.

The soldiers on the walls were wearing dishevelled, sweat-stained uniforms... and around their necks, around their belts, were ears.

Human ears.

The Sleepless were here, they'd infiltrated and learned how to blend in, how to lure them close, how to...

They weren't local. She was close enough to see the whites of their eyes, and she could say for a fact that they weren't locals. And unless the Sleepless were abruptly hiring hated colonials to staff their forts... this bunch were loyal soldiers of Mahar Jovan. A wooden gate creaked open on rusting hinges, dragging up small hills of mud as it did so - they hadn't left in some time, clearly, and the earth had rose up, pulsing with moisture, to try and seal the doors closed permanently. The soldiers inside were scattered, some of them sleeping under the wrecks of old lean-tos, some of them leaning on their rusting rifles like walking sticks... and at the front was their leader. He wore nothing but a pair of army-issue trousers, and a loose white shirt opened to expose a broad, hairy chest. A curly beard made his face seem larger, almost capable of blotting out the sun, and dark, twinkling eyes nestled within the mass of hair that projected from below and above - he hadn't had a haircut in some time, and it didn't seem like he minded that fact. She didn't know how anyone could stand the heat with that much hair, but... he stood up, and belatedly Carza noticed the pair of tired-looking local women who stood nearby. The commander strode forwards confidently, no shoes, no socks, just bare feet squishing in the mud, thrusting a broad arm with a shovel-like hand forwards, almost dragging the captain down to his level through sheer enthusiasm. His grin was as broad as his arm, and it shone like a mound of silver coins.

"Hoy there, good man! Little late, no matter."

He walked around casually, ignoring the captain's responses of polite queries after his health. His eyes were locked on the hires, and on the scholars. He strode past Carza, and grinned up at Hull.

"Hoy there, young fellow. Forgot your uniform?"

Hull smiled good-naturedly.

"No, no, not a soldier. Just a scholar. Being escorted east."

The commander found this completely hilarious, and he roared over at the startled-looking captain.

"Didn't know your lot were doing escort service these days, hey? Pretty fun gig, must say - good pay, I assume! And hey, you even got girls with you!"

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

His grin was directed at Carza and Lirana now, and Carza felt a shudder run up her spine.

"Hey, you two play tennis? Me, I love the stuff, and I'm damn good at it. But out here... no real competition, hey? The nets, they rot before I can get up to anything, and the heat's too much for any of my men to do anything but stand around and feed the flies."

Carza reacted instinctually, and shrunk back slightly, retreating behind Lirana, who spoke up in her stead.

"No. No tennis from us. Sorry."

"Ah, shame. Shame. Alright, welcome to Fort Alma."

He spread his arms wide, sauntered back to his chair, slumped back down... and the women at his side immediately poured a glass of scotch into a glass, topped off with lukewarm water. They watched the new arrivals warily. And with a bark, the commander actually started commanding.

"I want your local auxiliaries to be checked. Your guests, too. All of them, checked. No wepaons I don't know about, understand?"

The captain bristled for a moment, and a soldier with a necklace of ears gripped his rifle warningly. There was something in his eyes - something very lost, and very afraid. An emptiness which had been replaced by burning paranoia and simple... detachment. He didn't seem to see them at all. Just bodies on horses. Same as the bodies which had been stripped of ears and used as trophies.

Carza shivered, and the captain barked back.

"I don't think that would be necessary, the governor has-"

"Governor this, governor that. Governor is dead out here, hear me? Governors built this place, governors ruined it. Out here, I am in charge. And I want to check them."

"You're being paranoid."

A humourless snort.

"Paranoia? Paranoia is when you think you're surrounded by enemies, huh? Well, this man has enemies, I can tell you that much. Search them, or send them outside the walls. Understood?"

The captain met the commander's gaze, and for a second it was uncertain which of the two would come out on top... but the soldiers from the patrol were eager to rest, and the soldiers in the fortress were so tightly-wound that a single tap could send them into a frenzy of violent motion. They had forgotten peace out here - all they knew was tension, fear, and frantic furious combat. The decision was made in silence. Not even a single nod, just the captain removing his hat and sitting down heavily, pouring himself a drink from the well-worn bottle of scotch that the commander had clearly been nursing for most of the day. And that, apparently, was enough. A signal to begin. The soldiers advanced... and Carza descended from the horse uncertainly, allowing them to check her for weapons. The pistol was found, along with a small knife she used for eating.

The experience was... well, to say it was uncomfortable was an understatement. It hit a number of sore spots. Her personal space was invaded. She was in a place unfamiliar to her. She was in a position of weakness, and had absolutely no control over the way things went. The only thing which stopped her from curling up into a ball was the fact that... she'd seen a dozen people who'd had a much, much worse fate. And if she focused on the patterns of their broken teeth, she imagined how it would feel to have her own shattered, and if she thought of that, of the cold air rushing over exposed gums, piercing like tiny icicles up and down, like the cold was gnawing at her... suddenly being searched didn't seem quite so bad. Two soldiers checked her over, and both were clearly stricken by something - their hands were shaking, their eyes found it difficult to focus, and their nails were so caked in dirt and dust that at this point it was harder to tell where cleanliness began. One of them spoke quietly.

"Where are you from?"

"...ALD IOM, sir."

She spoke as respectfully as she could. Not going to annoy them. Not if she had a choice in the matter. Lirana was being searched next to her, and it turned out that she had a pistol, a good few knives, and a cudgel stashed at various places on her person. She looked more surprised than anything else, for reasons Carza couldn't quite fathom. The soldier grunted, finally letting her go.

"Picked a hell of a time to come out here."

"...I'm aware."

"How old?"

"Twenty-one."

His burned-out eyes widened.

"Gods... too young for this business. Too soft. Listen, if the Sleepless get you-"

"Kill myself, yes. I'm aware."

"...no, no, if you get captured, make them know who you are. Remember this word, alright? Yalsa. It means 'ransom'. Yell that, point at the tattoo, get to talk to someone who can speak a proper language, then explain."

Carza smiled self-consciously.

"I... doubt they'd pay a ransom."

"Longer you live, longer the chance of getting out. Worth a try, huh?"

The soldier grinned.

"Got myself a daughter like you, last thing I'd want is her to blow her brains out when she had a chance of getting back home."

Carza blinked.

"...alright. Thank you. I'll... definitely keep it in mind."

The soldier searching Lirana barked out a quick laugh.

"You, though? You're one of us, no mistaking you for anything else. Kill yourself before they catch you, that's my advice."

Lirana scowled.

"I'll try."

Carza piped up.

"You speak ALD IOM's language very well, you could blend in that way. I'll be sure to back you up. I could claim that you're-"

"Shut up, Carza."

How rude.

And to her employer, no less.

Hull grunted in irritation suddenly, and the soldier with him made a surprised noise. The man with him was slightly hunched, and his face bulged with veins forced to the surface of the skin by a combination of heat and stress... and hunger, maybe. There wasn't much of him for the veins to exist in, fleeing to the surface was probably one of the few ways of getting out of his tightly-compacted mass. Carza turned... and saw this compact soldier holding aloft a paper bag of...

She narrowed her eyes, and spoke in Tralkic.

"Hull, are those monkey nuts."

"...yes. They are."

"Why do-"

"I thought you might enjoy them, is all. You looked stressed, so I asked Egg to buy some nuts, and I thought you could have them at the end of the day. Or throughout the day, depending on how stressed you are."

Carza's eyes ceased to narrow. Now they widened.

"Oh."

"Sorry. Meant to be a surprise."

The soldier sniffed the nuts, and Hull interjected, trying to get him to give them up.

Carza felt very touched. Very touched indeed.

...did Hull think she could be supported through monkey nuts? Fed treats throughout the day, or given little presents in the evening, just to keep her going? Not that she was going to turn them down, but she was a potent scholar, she had a degree in anthropology and linguistics, she had attained a small command over a language after only a few days of continuous study with minimal sleep, and... and she really wanted those nuts. They were impossible to get out here, just weren't popular enough to ship, and the climate wasn't right for them to grow. The soldier grunted, and thrust the bag back into Hull's hands, having taken just a few nuts as his right and proper tax. Carza smiled.

"Thanks. It's... very thoughtful of you. I... didn't pack anything for you. Sorry."

"No, no, that's fine."

He slapped his stomach.

"Got some mass to get through before I really starve, you're the one who needs to keep her energy levels up."

"Oy."

"Sorry, sorry. But... well, are you going to turn these down?"

"No, of course not. Give them here."

"I mean, if you're clearly feeling indignant about the gesture..."

"I'm not, I..."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. She was just an angry wasp which had somehow found itself in control of a human body, and found it easy to be irritated at things.

"...would you like a cigarillo later?"

"Carza, I'd be delighted to share a cigarillo."

He smiled crookedly.

"Party time? Nuts, cigarillo, whatever passed for liquor around here?"

Carza managed to smile back.

"Party time. Definitely party time."

"Sorry that we don't have any pickled eggs and stressed research proposals, I know it's not really complete without that."

"Stop pushing your luck."

* * *

Night settled quickly, and the forest became a solid, intimiating wall surrounding them on all sides. The road into it seemed like nothing more than a muddy tongue extending from the mouth of a great green beast, a beast which buzzed with insects, cracked with the passing of animals, and otherwise swallowed all sound. It would be easy to imagine that the colony had fallen, and nothing besides remained. This may be the last stand of Mahar Jovan's abortive colony in this awful part of the world. Or it could just be a bubble of strangeness that would vanish soon. The commander and the captain were sat together in a small steaming office, talking over defences and routes while drinking heavily. Anything to relieve the heat. The soldiers were standing to attention, reinvigorated and reinforced by the arrival of people they hadn't spent weeks in close proximity with. Carza couldn't sleep. The image of those heads kept coming back to her as she munched idly at a few nuts, and smoked slowly, making the most of every centimetre of tobacco. Hull had smoked with her for a little while... but he hadn't eaten. Hands kept shaking, too, so Carza had to light it up for him. It wasn't just the violence, it was... well, the tension. The feeling that something was stalking them. Footsteps in the corners of their minds, coming closer, closer, closer... and closer still, until the person could reach out and touch them... it was the paranoia. It was the feeling of being tightly wound, tighter and tighter until she thought she'd snap. Hull took a few puffs before simply slumping backwards and falling asleep, the embers slowly falling to the ground - sharp orange hailstones followed by dull grey snowflakes of ash.

Carza wished she could join him. But she hadn't even dared to undress or make herself more comfortable. Simply stared into the gathering night.

Footsteps surprised her, and her hands immediately went to her pistol... still there. The soldiers had allowed her to keep hers, same for the others. The local soldiers were suspected of being infiltrators, so they'd been subject to... significant scrutiny. Even if they were allowed to stay out of a cell, they were still stripped of their pistols and their knives. Those things would be damn good weapons if they were intending to hurt as many people in this fortress as possible - the rifles were unwieldy at close range, and their rate of fire wasn't particularly fast, so they'd manage to kill fewer. The commander had wanted everything taken, but protests from the locals, the patrol, and the captain had downgraded it down to rifles and nothing besides. Just in case the Sleepless attacked. She could see the locals at a distance even now, talking quietly in their native language, going around barefoot. Supposedly because their rifles were too unwieldy to blow their own brains out - easier to use their toes to pull the trigger while they crouched, mouths over the barrels.

That local girl was a source of endlessly grim conversations.

Egg stumped over, head shining with sweat. He stared solemnly off into the gloom... and said nothing. Carza slowly stood up, checking to make sure Hull wouldn't set himself on fire, before wrapping her arms around herself and stepping close to meet him.

She glanced over.

Glanced back at the forest.

Up at the moon, which was bright yet failed to cast more than dim, faded shadows.

Egg rocked back and forth on his heels, staring out.

And a burst of irritation ran up Carza's left arm. She hauled her sleeve up... and hissed under her breath. Crud. Crud. Crud. Skin tags. A good few of them. Mottled pieces of flesh where contamination was rising up to the surface. None of them larger than a... well, it was hard to find something small enough that wasn't invisible, but they were there. A little bigger than bug bites, but not as big as a boil. But... still. Panic rose up in her. Mutated. For the first time in her life, mutated. She felt a huge hand wrap around her arm, and almost screamed before Egg's face swam into vision, brow furrowed in concentration. He stared impassively down at her arm... and spoke slowly.

"Do you have clippers?"

She did. She did indeed. Sturdy metal ones, never been used. She tried to wave Egg off - she could handle this, just needed to...

He tutted quietly.

"No, these aren't right. Too new, they need breaking in."

He began to click them open and closed. She could... she could see what he meant. There was a very slight strain, a bit of awkwardness as too-new mechanisms struggled to operate. Mass-produced, these things. Not hand-crafted. And it was obvious. He kept clicking them open and closed, working his way through the initial awkwardness until the motions were smooth, and evidently the clippers could now be used for removing skin tags. She looked her up and down while she tried to keep her breathing under control.

"Well, sit yourself down, don't want you fainting on me, eh?"

He smiled slightly.

She sat.

He sat with her, still towering over her head. One hand ran over his scalp, removing a little sweat, and the other kept on clipping the air - open, closed, open, closed, over and over and over. She managed to speak past the churning panic in her gut.

"...I'm sorry about Cam."

He gave her a sharp look... that softened almost immediately.

"Don't be. It wasn't your fault. My dear friend... he and I lived, and continue to live, violent lives. It's an inevitability that one of us would die a violent death. The great disappointment for him, I imagine, was that his death was so... pointless."

"But I brought you here, and-"

"And if it wasn't a drunk in Krodaw, it would be a mugger in ALD IOM, or a mutant in the wilds, or a common murderer in a dozen other cities and a hundred other towns. This is the way of things for us."

He paused.

"But that being said... I miss him. And I thank you for your condolences. But do not take the guilt onto yourself."

He smiled slightly.

"Guilt, my young friend, is sometimes nothing but selfishness wearing a mask. It assumes responsibility were it needn't be taken, and denies us our own roles in our own deaths. Cam went to the wrong bar, and was killed by the wrong man who was there at the wrong time. You didn't send him to the bar, you didn't send the man, and you didn't dictate the time. Cam suggested the bar, the man came on his own, and the time was dictated by our performance at the other bars, and the governor's dinner - which you didn't organise. Allow Cam the dignity of at least dying by his own flaws and merits, and not yours."

She still felt rotten about it. Still couldn't forget the sight of his cold body on a cold slab in a full-yet-silent morgue. But... maybe... maybe he had a point. There was something selfish about assuming all guilt onto herself. If Hull hadn't done the subject he'd done, then they wouldn't be going to Krodaw in the first place. If the two of them hadn't met, then they'd never have collaborated. If her father hadn't flirted with a barmaid, she wouldn't have been born, and none of this would've happened. Guilt was something which could, in times like this, be placed on anyone. And claiming that guilt sometimes came close to martyrdom. And in times like this... that martyrdom could be pointless. After a point... Cam had died, and it was because a drunk man had gone mad. Maybe the Court of Salt was involved. That thought made her wriggle with guilt... but... gah. Too many uncertainties. Either she was feeling unnecessary guilt, or this was her fault, but also not, and...

She was going to just keep feeling rotten, then.

Felt workable.

"What god are you today?"

Odd question if she was anywhere else. But Egg answered quickly.

"Hunting-Citrus-Pronghorn."

Carza blinked.

"...alright."

"It's a noble role. And it was time to switch. My old role... well, it is not the mournful sort. The only thing worse than allowing a role to overpower you is deforming a role by your inability to play it."

He smiled sadly, and the clippers finally stopped squeaking, and moved with easy smoothness.

"Ah. Here we are. Now..."

She rolled up her sleeve at his direction, showing the angry purple-red skin tags. He spoke quietly, keeping her calm as he began to orient the clippers correctly.

"I once served with the foreign legion in Fidelizh, you know. And these... well, it was part of our routines. Shave, rinse mouth, clip mutations, move on. You'll be quite fine. Do you have medication?"

"Y-yes. I do."

"Don't drink liquor with it, the medication you bought has painkilling substances in it - bad with alcohol. Now... ah, this takes me back. Wonderful days in the foreign legion. I'm older than Cam, you see. He served on the domestic front... but I crossed the Tulavanta and went north. One of our little purging expeditions. The war was dying down then, but while the Wavelength were blazing their way further north, there were pockets of resistance left for people like me to clean up."

He paused... and clipped.

Carza hissed in pain.

A droplet of blood... but less than she thought. Easy enough to mop away. Stung like hell, though... but she realised that the pain was passing quickly. The skin tag wasn't part of her body, it was just a deformity that needed removal. And she'd sleep better knowing it wasn't there. Just a few more to go. It fell to the ground, and Egg quickly placed a small handkerchief in her hands, followed by the skin tag.

"Collect them, and burn them. Good habit to get in to. Understood?"

"Understood."

"Good. But yes, this is nothing compared to what we got up to out there. The Great War was... well, it was ugly. But towards the end, it was... just routine. War had become very routine to us, and once the main hordes were broken... the mutants became animals. Easy to clear up. I never saw the greater hordes that emptied out the north. You're familiar?"

"...only the broad details."

"Hm. Mutants... this place has mutants, but those who fought us in the Great War were large. Sophisticated, too. No random changes, it was all designed. They had leaders. Alarming stuff... and over, thankfully. Makes you thankful, though. These days, I like seeing mutants."

Snip.

She hissed, and collected the tag without complaint. He was doing her a favour. Her hands were shaking, she wouldn't have been able to do this as cleanly as him.

"I like seeing them stumble around, dumb as bricks and half as durable, drinking contamination and fighting each other senselessly... it's gratifying. You never forget when you've seen a clever one. And thankfully for you, I don't think you'll ever need to remember it. I believe most are long, long dead."

Snip.

"The patrols after the main forces were broken were almost leisurely. Hives to clear out, nests to burn... we even found one of the living siege engines, but all broken up and rotting. Eaten by the army that had brought it down south. That thing burned for days..."

Snip.

"All done now, though. And all the best for it. So, next time you feel nervous - remember, it can always get worse. And there's something very cheerful in that, I find."

He smiled. Snip.

"Fidelizh is like that. Grim, you know. Pessimistic. But I love it all the same."

Carza spoke through gritted teeth.

"Why did... you leave?"

"To see the world, and perhaps a world where the war hadn't happened at all. Fidelizh had a university too, you know. Then it became... well, the galleries were used for gunpowder magazines, the cellars were emptied and used for jellied fuel. And all the students were sent home with instructions to say goodbye to their parents, and make ready for war. I had a cousin, he's still alive, but completely mute. Can't speak, and finds it hard to breathe. Smoke inhalation. He was there at the Burning of the Million... a week-long pyre, and smaller pyres for weeks later. Still a scorched plain, nothing grows, likely nothing will. They burn it every few months, smaller blazes, something to stop the contamination."

She could imagine.

Snip.

And her imagination stopped, flinching from the vision as pain overrode it. Egg clapped his hands.

"All done. Very good of you not to scream."

Carza nodded her head quickly, afraid to open her mouth. She was better than this, she was better than a screaming scholar who couldn't handle a little pain. Even the small 'hiss' had been embarrassing enough. Egg clapped her on the shoulder, poached a monkey nut, and strolled off with a light whistle. And Carza thought she saw someone who was as burned-out as any soldier here. But who'd gone away from walking catatonia to simple... apathy. She honestly wondered what he was thinking. Did he blame her? Or was he just regurgitating wartime platitudes, maybe some that had been given to him? The Great War... ALD IOM had been untouched, but there had been rumours. Things on the horizon. A great city from which mutants came. The term 'mutant' felt unsophisticated and crude compared to what these things had been, apparently. Never seen one of the soldiers of that war for herself. Existential, and... confusing. She had no idea how it'd started. Why it had continued. How it had ended. No-one seemed to. No book mentioned it. There were some great battles, a few dates, but...

No-one knew why it had started in the first place.

And no-one ever followed up on those rumours of the great brass city to the north-east, hunched over the ocean, doing... something.

She wasn't sure if that was reflective of how serious the war was, that no-one had a chance to think... maybe scholarly incompetence... or maybe something else. She was a spy, after all - and that meant considering espionage as an option.

She lay back...

And blinked.

Someone was staring down at her from the top of the wall, with wide, wide eyes.

Eyes that never blinked.

A face painted to blend in with the environment.

She was frozen.

Her arm was weeping blood from a dozen clipped tags.

The face stared.

And a single, painted finger raised itself to near-invisible lips...

Shh.

She blinked again, and her mouth opened to scream-

The face was gone.

Carza was motionless for just a second, before immediately reaching for Hull and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Refusing to let him go. Her pistol was heavy in her hand, and she knew that if the face wanted her dead...

And her voice rose high into the night.

"Intruder!"