Chapter Sixty

She wasn't out for long. Not at all. Barely out in the first place - just slipped into a vague unconsciousness where she didn't resist getting picked up and slung over Ayat's enormous shoulder and carried out of the camp. Less of a total breakdown, more of a temporary mental shutdown. Parsing what had happened, and turning over duties of mobility to external contractors. She wasn't passing out, she was delegating. That was what she told herself. Founder, she felt awful... thinking about that thing's flesh being ripped apart, it... it made her feel sick even remembering it. Maggots, grubs, worms, whatever they were, choking every single blood vessel, not even really eating. Once they'd entered the skin there wasn't much point, they just bred and bred and bred and destroyed through sheer, overwhelming pressure. Crushing organs, bursting blood vessels, splitting the skin... she'd seen blood forced outwards in a second, reduced to a bubbling, seething mass a second later, and then... dry. Dry as dust, and just as dead. Felt sick. And it wasn't just the pills boiling in her gut, purging mutation as violently as possible. Nasty things, side effects including frothing at the mouth, blood in urine, skin shedding, and flights of unconsciousness.

In short, exactly what she was experiencing now.

Except for the urine part. That would be a happy surprise later on.

Her eyes cracked open, and she blearily passed a hand over her face... red. Bloodsoaked. A second...

And a flask of water was violently upended over her face. She spluttered, and... realised the blessing that flask had been a second later. She rubbed her hands over her face... oh, goodness, she was upright again. Sitting on her behind on the grass, water splashed over her. One eye was... a bit stuck, but some washing opened it up. The blood had caked over it, basically forming the whole thing into one huge scab. Picked it away in fat red flakes, easy enough to get rid of, and there was no wound underneath. Her eyes were both functional. Ears too. She'd just been in a position where there was a lot of blood, and a mask holding it all in. Her nose, though... that was utterly shattered, and an exploratory poke made her hiss in pain, instinctually trying to retreat into herself. Her eyes were open, but it still took a second for her to parse the wobbling shapes in front of her, to force them to resolve...

Two shapes.

Ayat.

Kani.

Oh, Founder... she lurched to her feet like a drunkard, staggering and listing badly, needing a hand from Ayat to support her. Didn't care. Just lurched forward, and directly into Kani. A hug. She didn't give many hugs, but this felt appropriate. In her defence, everything was still a bit wobbly, like she was seeing the world through a jellyfish's body. It took her getting this close to be sure, and to feel those glass-skinned limbs wrapping around her, pulling her tight. Her vision sharpened slowly... and she clutched Kani tightly to herself. Not letting her go. She'd... she'd done it. Founder almighty, she'd done it. Hull had died in the mountains, and Kani hadn't died in that cage. Ayat hadn't even gone... it'd been touch-and-go. Reliant on some amounts of luck. But she'd done it. They'd done it. All three of them were alive. She felt a weight on her shoulders relax, a nervous pit in her stomach unwinding into nothingness. Guilt for losing Kani in the first place, and then guilt for Hull... just a little alleviated. A little reduced. She'd... she'd redeemed herself, almost. A little, in her own mind. It wasn't full, it'd never be full unless she managed to resurrect Hull and Lirana and all the rest.

But it was something. And after so long with nothing, it was... good to have a win. A real, genuine win.

Mostly.

She looked up blearily.

"Hello."

Kani smiled down. Something was odd about her mouth, Carza noticed... still fuzzy...

"Hello, Carza. Very kind of you to pick me up."

She glanced off at her brother.

"Now, either you come here, or I'll need to drop Carza. And I'm not sure of my conscience could bear that."

Ayat stumped closer, looking down at the ground.

"Hello."

"Yes, she already said that. Come here."

Another person in this very odd hug of theirs. And a very odd hug it was too. But it was something. No, no, she was... there was something different about Kani. Had she made a mistake? Got a wrong demigod with a brother named Ayat and a friend named Carza, and... her vision slowly sharpened. Her legs felt stronger, the pills had lost their initial effect, her mind was back where it ought to be - inside her head. And she slowly eased off Kani, out of the hug... and her eyes widened.

Kani hadn't come out of this unscathed. She wasn't a princess in a tower who could be found with nary a hint of anaemia, sun-starvation or bed sores. No atrophy, neither. She was a person. And she'd spent a day with people who created flesh-tents and sculpted horses with mouths in their stomachs and antennae sprouting from their eyes. These were not normal captors, and they hadn't wanted her for a normal purpose. And now... oh, Founder. They'd changed her. Dosed her, or something. A pair of small tusks were sprouting from her jaw, wired up to the rest of her skull. Natural growth, but they were underdone. Bread taken out before its time, still pale and shaky around the edges, still a bit on the raw side... the skin around them was still sore-looking. She wasn't meant to grow them. They weren't as long as an ancestor's, but they were still long. Noticeable. Not just little bony stubs, they were tusks, the same kind that had gored Hull to death.

Kani flinched.

"...you've seen them, then."

"What did they-"

"If they wanted a human, they could play with a human. They wanted something else, I think. More fun to play with a demigod, to make us grow up before we're meant to. They liked seeing my tusks, ran their hands over it over and over, examining what they were like at my stage."

A morose sigh echoed out.

"...I'm not done."

Ayat squeezed her shoulder.

"You still look like a sister to me."

She shot him a look.

"Of course I do, I didn't grow tusks all over my damn head, you dunderhead. I still have a face."

"And two eyes."

Another sigh.

"Not quite. Go on, hold up some fingers."

Her eyes fell closed. Carza quietly held up two.

"Two. I think."

A shift.

"Four."

Carza grimaced, and Kani opened her eyes again.

"Not very good, but they work."

Looking at her for longer, Carza could see more changes. She was taller, a little broader, more muscled... her hair trailed down her back now, sprouting outwards, thicker and longer. Wirier, too. No idea if she had any additional arms, but if she did, they were vestigial - a full-grown set wouldn't fit under her clothes. She looked... there was no polite way of putting it, she looked like an ogre from a storybook. The sort of barbaric creature that roared angrily at passers-by, demanded tolls... not inhuman enough to be monstrous, not human enough to be human, just... brutish. Ill-formed. Not quite put together. A prototype, like all the old ogre stories - a human, but too big, and too stupid. A human that had been left in the oven for too long. But then Carza looked into her eyes, her beetle-black eyes, and saw how they were shimmering with a very thin film of moisture... not crying, nor even close to crying, but familiar with the act... and Carza felt any kind of doubt evaporate. She hadn't changed. Still Kani, just... a bit more grown up, and before her time. Unfortunate, no doubt about that. But as long as she was Kani, as long as she was alive, Carza was happy with things. The alternatives were worse. Her mind was her own, her body wasn't grotesquely changed... a human would've been long-gone by now, by the point they had tusks and the like. She smiled hesitantly... and saw something.

"Did you bring that rifle?"

Ayat looked uncomfortable.

"You... lost your weapon. I couldn't find it in time. That rifle looked functional."

"It's a monstrous machine that should never have been invented."

"It also kills the Scabrous."

She was about to retort, but... no, he was right. He'd brought the hand along, still anchored around the gun, stiffened by rigor mortis. Reviewing the situation... well. That had been closer than she'd have liked. Much, much, much closer. They'd gone in with the element of surprise, two on two, one of them taken out before battle was properly joined... Carza had a gun, Ayat was skilled with his weapons, down to a two on one, and they'd still almost lost. If that creature hadn't played around for a bit, they'd be dead. If, at any stage, they weren't very lucky, they'd have died. Well, Ayat's skill had been pretty decisive, but on his own he'd have died. Two people working in tandem, against a foe that was mostly toying around with them and lacked much in the way of skill when it came to ground fighting... and they'd both almost died. Came this close. If they'd fought both at the same time, no surprise attacks, they'd have died. Simple. Anything more than that, any more Scabrous, maybe on their horses... dead. Completely and utterly dead, not a chance of winning. They'd won, but it had highlighted how precarious things were...

And she understood why no-one had done this before. Stolen their guns, used severed hands to operate the triggers, that sort of thing. Because even with a gun that could kill them, the Scabrous were fast, they were powerful, and they were numerous. Even if someone managed to pull it off like she had, she could imagine the Scabrous waging a war of extermination to make sure no-one else pulled it off in future. Hell, a simple adjustment to the gun, something to detect if it was a living hand clutching it... that'd be enough to foil it all. And the moment this hand rotted, the moment it went beyond the limits of this weapon's acceptance, the thing was just a lump. No idea if these grubs needed to be fed to survive, no idea how many were in there, if they bred, if they could escape...

No wonder no-one had done this. Even if they had, they wouldn't have been able to pull it off again. She certainly doubted that she could.

But for the time being, it made for a good weapon. The moment they had a chance she was burning it, killing these grubs. And she wasn't sleeping anywhere near it, just in case. Just in case.

She itched idly at her neck, and coughed slightly... Founder, those pills really messed her up. A lot.

"Alright, so... what's going on?"

Kani huffed, some of her old self returning... even if she did flinch every so often. Noticing her tusks again, or feeling some shift in her biology which was profoundly unusual and definitely premature. Carza wondered if this could be repaired... if she could become a proper ancestor later on in life, completing the mutation process. Or if she was now condemned to a half-state for, well, forever. Maybe. Surely this had happened to others, and even if it was a nexus of bad luck in their culture (because apparently everything was), presumably there was a chance of having a normal existence. Come to think of it, and she hated thinking this because it was proving Dog right, Kani would probably fit in better over the mountains. In ALD IOM, all of her species were equally strange, she wouldn't stand out as remarkably odd. But that felt like a poor way of selling her home to Kani - 'come to my home, people will think of you as a regular old freak, and not a unique sort of freak! You and your brother will be siblings in blood and in freakishness!'

Urgh.

No, probably best to get her back to her family. They'd know what to do, and... well, like Ayat had said. They needed a child back. If their son was exiled, then at least their daughter could stay with them... odd as she now looked. The single funny element of this was that she'd grown taller. Her clothes hadn't. It looked like she was a child paddling at the shores of a lake, trousers hiked up to stop them getting wet. She looked like the most depressed paddler around. Which was an awful thought to have in these times, but in her defence she was very precarious right now and could think what she damn well pleased in the confines of her own battered skull thank you very much.

Ayat coughed.

"Well, it's... only been a few minutes. You weren't out for long."

"Any sign of the others coming back?"

"Not yet. But it won't be long."

Kani shivered.

"He's right. Trust me, they can move fast when they want to."

And they'd definitely want to if they thought they were losing their prisoner, two of their comrades... Carza didn't say anything, just started staggering back to the horses. The three of them went onwards in absolute silence. They knew the stakes, knew how close they were to losing all that they'd gained. It took a few seconds for Ayat to start helping Carza along, speeding her progress - acting as a giant, sentient walking stick. She wasn't an invalid, but... right, so those pills were designed to purge everything from her. They were more or less a case of firebombing her body to kill any mutations which might've accumulated. Her detector was off with the horses, turned off to stop it from yowling like a startled cat as they approached. No idea how mutated the blood of the Scabrous was, but she was willing to bet that it was potent. And... now she had no gas mask. Fantastic. That'd make matters harder. A small bead of panic generated, barely the size of a pearl, twitching somewhere in her stomach. Reassurances flowed quickly - she was feeling fine, she'd taken her pills, she'd clip in the evening, she'd take as much medication as was safe... she hadn't been exposed to mutation for a while now, which meant that her body's immune system would still be fresh. The danger lay in prolonged, frequent exposure to contamination which slowly acclimated the body to its presence. Being doused in blood for a brief period, that was... that was fine.

Right?

It should be fine. Kani was stumbling very slightly - not out of weariness, but because she was simply too tall. Towered over Carza now. Not as tall as an ancestor, but... definitely large. And her long limbs were still adjusting. Had to relearn how to walk, really. Kept hunching into herself instinctually, kept flinching when her short tusks entered her vision... even her blinks were confused. She'd blink, then blink again quickly. Brain still getting used to having a second pair of rudimentary eyes, seeing light even mid-blink. The horses... ah. That might be an issue. Two horses, and Kani was... well, big. Quite big indeed. Ayat realised this problem at the same time as Carza, and Kani groaned in embarrassment.

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"Sorry. I should've thought about... sorry."

Carza didn't respond. Trying to figure out how to get around this. The Scabrous would be here soon, and Carza had assumed that Kani would be, well, normal-sized. Had barely imagined getting out of here alive, admittedly, and... dammit. In terms of what needed to happen... so... dammit. No clue. None. She wasn't a horse person, but she could still see how... right. Idea.

"Maybe one of us should stay behind. Let the others ride on. I'll volun-"

Ayat slowly turned to stare at her.

"...a wet robe would weigh about as much as you."

Carza blinked.

"What?"

"It'll be fine. Kani can ride on my horse, it's been used for large loads in the past. Had to carry plunder somehow. I ride on yours. And you can ride on the back."

"But-"

"You're not that large, Carza."

"But Kani-"

"My horse will handle her. You... really don't know anything about horses, do you?"

"Shut up."

Ayat was about to go on, but... well, he caught a look at her rifle. Oh. Goodness. She was holding that now. It was awkward, fitting the severed hand over the trigger, but... workable. She'd rapidly become very dangerous indeed. A walking war crime, more accurately. Eh. Well, now she... felt more like a giant rat than ever. She'd exploded her enemies, shot them in the back, stolen their weapons, stolen their limbs, her face was still crusted with blood, her nose was a mangled mass that could be seen as a deformed snout, and she was slightly hunched over. Plus, skinny and easy enough to toss over a shoulder or the back of a horse. Founder, she was a giant rat, wasn't she? She had the feral element down, at least. Urgh. Either way, they approached, and... ah. The cat. The kitten, poking its small head out of a saddlebag and staring imperiously at the approaching trio. Kani froze.

"...Ayat..."

"Hm?"

"Is that a cat?"

"A kitten. Yes. I found him out west."

"Why would-"

"Present."

Kani turned to stare at him.

"You brought no gold. No jewels. No captives. But you brought a kitten."

He silently nodded, looking a little bashful.

"...do you not like him?"

"It's a kitten, Ayat. Why would I dislike it? It's a kitten, they're... unambiguously endearing. And if you dare get rid of it I will hurt you. Do you understand? That thing is mine now, and I will love it for the rest of time. Any objections?"

The cat seemed nonplussed at this conclusion. Ayat shook his head hesitantly... and Kani rushed off. She moved like a wounded deer, staggering and limping, struggling to get used to having much longer legs... the cat was swept up, and promptly stuffed down the front of her robe. Did they just... carry pets that way? Was this how they dealt with domesticated animals? Either way, the cat didn't particularly seem to mind, its little grey head poking absurdly out from the robe-coat, ears twitching like scientific instruments, whiskers quivering as it slowly examined its new home. Very docile thing. Carza idly wondered if Ayat had tried this with other animals, but this one was the only specimen that had been so... accepting of such brusque treatment. Carza found herself feeling a little confused, once the panic started to settle and her embarrassment declined to an acceptable equilibrium. Kani was seeing her brother again. Her brother, that she'd been willing to turn away from her family to see again, who'd been exiled from his country, been campaigning in the east for Founder-knew how long... and she was already threatening him if he dared touch the cat that he'd brought home, seemingly for her. Beyond a single hug...

Was this just how siblings worked? She'd never had any, so... actually, come to think of it, for all the fondness she had for Hull, she'd... been very brusque at times. Very brusque indeed.

Affection was odd. No wonder she'd decided to become a scholar-nun who buried herself in books half the time. If something was ambiguous in those, she could write about it, talk about it, people would appreciate her insight. Whereas ambiguities of affection tended to come across the same way as talking about a dream to someone else - pointless, boring, and faintly embarrassing. Far too much insight.

Saddled. Riding. Racing back east as quickly as possible. This seemed to characterise this entire encounter with the Scabrous - long periods of nothing followed by brief periods of utter terror. The steppe in general abided by that rule. That the Event had to be preceded by Nothing, succeeded by Nothing... the steppe in general was a vast expanse of Nothing, with Events flickering like tiny stars across the night sky. Twinkling one moment, gone the next. She dimly recalled a parable about that, something that the Founder had described in one of his more lucid moments. The Founder had been wandering in the Kingdoms of the Dissolute, and had stumbled across a group that some theorised would go on to become the Court of the Axe. This group lurked in the far north, near the shadows of the northern branch of the great mountain chain they were currently headed towards. Lived in the cold and the dark. Barbaric bunch, scarred and brutal, warlike to the point of insanity. One of those rare 'prototype cultures' which could only survive for so long before everyone around them got sick of them and forced them to change - or to cease entirely. The Founder had heard a parable from them, on how they saw humans in relation to the world and the world beyond: 'like a sparrow flying through a banqueting-hall in the middle of winter. For a second it is seen, for a second it exists and is known and is glorious. It is warm, illuminated, surrounded by strange scents and loud noises... and then a second later it vanishes into the dark. And never again shall it be seen. Does it live? Die? Cease entirely? It hardly matters. It will never been seen again. And if it is not seen, it does not exist'.

The Founder had found this view of the world so indescribably depressing that he'd written down this parable, with the strong caution to avoid this sort of thought. He was open about his creation of the Court of Ivory, of how he'd sculpted their religion to encourage modes of thought conducive to the great purpose. And to him, the afterlife was part of that - a way of making people optimistic and long-sighted. They had more to worry about but themselves and the flesh around them, they had eternity to keep in mind. The steppe... well, she could imagine a similar parable being told here. Endless nothing... and then sparks of contact. Motion. The horse underneath her was easily hauling Ayat and her along, and she bounced uncomfortably on its back. It barely minded having the two of them. Ayat's own horse was supporting Kani - it was doing just fine, but Kani was struggling. Finding it hard to translate muscle memory to her adapted form. Carza idly wondered if she could use scent-language, or understand it, at least. If her senses had sharpened enough, if the glands had started working. Felt indelicate to ask.

Because despite her light attitude, Kani looked like she was a bit too close to the edge. She was suppressing her panic, her fear, her general malaise. Carza could understand. If they were done, if the Scabrous were gone for good and they were utterly safe, she might have not rode onwards for quite some time. Might've stayed very still and waited for the world to settle. The gnawing in her gut was chewing up the memories of the Scabrous bleeding out on top of her. The feeling of its undulating flesh-suit. The sight of the grubs breeding endlessly in its mutated body. She still felt curious about them... what they were, how they were able to manipulate contamination, if they were at all related to the creatures in the north which had surged south during the Great War... but she recognised something important. The memories wouldn't help her, not now. If she dwelled too long they just made her feel paralysed and impotent, curling up like a dead insect. And she could never write anything about them, not during the blossoming of her career as a scholar. In writing, it'd just sound like madness. Living tents, flesh-suits, rifles filled with grubs, horses the size of barns, great red stars and dead gods... it was all a bit fantastical.

Not anthropological in the slightest, no sir. She'd carry the Scabrous with her to her grave... or at least, into her retirement. Leave behind a slim volume describing her experiences, some limited research around the topic, further interviews with Ayat and Kani... and that would be it. A slim, ambiguous volume debated over by her successors unto the end of time.

Best she could do, really.

They rode until the sky cleared, until the grass turned from brown to green-blue, until the awful red light faded away. They were leaving the Dustlands, but yellow pollen still clung to her clothes, her skin, her hair... the horses were snorting in irritation, and the cat seemed to be taking it all rather poorly. But the fresh air cleared things out slowly, and each time Carza checked herself over, she realised there were less and less markers of that place, that part of the steppe which seemed to be perpetually uninhabited. Too barren and lifeless to gain anything from it, grass too spindly to make for good eating, pollen too perpetual to make for comfortable living. The Scabrous wouldn't stop with it. They'd need to go outwards, to greener pastures in order to find more captives, more things to do. She could see why they moved like this - the pulsing of fortunate and unfortunate eras, retreat and advance with random intervals. Retreat to lure people in. Advance to capture them. For... whatever they did. Maybe they like having human meat for developing new mutants to serve them. Maybe that camp had contained a season's worth of captives - shifted into tents, into suits, into weapons, into horses...

Flesh as clay, and the Scabrous as sculptors.

What must their home be like? Did the buildings live? Did the cities crawl? Did they have citizens, and if so, what did they spend their days doing? Finding new and untapped pleasures, adapting life to produce stranger chemicals... when life was malleable, what did one's life become?

In all honesty, she didn't want to know. Let the Scabrous have their world, and let her have her own. If they kept with their current pattern, they shouldn't be more than a natural disaster. Not a force in the world than the tide or a storm. Both of which were powerful and inevitable, obviously, but storms didn't tend to actively participate in politics, and tides didn't really aspire to drown the world and claim an empire amongst the ruins of old continents. They were constant, and... it seemed like the Scabrous were, too.

But still. Felt silly to tempt fate. So they rode in the general direction of the mountains as quickly as possible, angling south a little - aiming for the valley where the parents were living. Carza still hadn't told Kani about Dog and his... well, his little outburst. Even now, Carza couldn't hate him for that. He'd been a panicked little idiot trying to cover his own completely understandable cowardice, and he'd decided to redirect all negative attention onto someone he already disliked. The response from the parents had been predictable, they were highly emotional at the time. Plus, they hadn't even told her to leave, really... still making up their minds. If Carza came back, with Kani at her side, with Ayat trailing behind... she thought that they could make amends with one another. Apologise, clarify, work through things. She intended to be the bigger person, not to pursue revenge or spite.

...but that being said, she couldn't imagine Dog would be sticking around for long.

And she wouldn't lie, the idea of him leaving wasn't one that displeased her. But she wouldn't kill him or hurt him.

Physically.

It was a few hours before things started to go wrong again. Carza knew it was coming. But it appalled her nonetheless to feel that red light washing over the land. The Scabrous were hunting. They were angry. Once more, she checked the rifle in her hands... beautifully sculpted, if it wasn't for the pulsing ammunition sac on the bottom. That, that was really the deal-breaker. If it was a normal rifle, she'd probably have kept it. Maybe they wanted it back. Maybe they just wanted one of their tools returned... or maybe by handing it over she'd just earn a quick death. Or a slow one. Inscrutable bastards, those Scabrous. The horses were pushed onwards, keeping their pace variable, alternating fast with slow, giving them time to rest. They were living creatures, not machines - but the Scabrous seemed to immune to that. The red light was slowly growing. The thunder of enormous hooves was more and more audible with each passing minute... Ayat grunted uncomfortably, and Kani shot him a look.

"What is it?"

"...wondering when you'd tell us to get on with the brushes."

Kani slowed her horse to a slow halt. And stared at her brother.

"What."

"...the brushes. I thought you'd-"

Her voice was weary with experience.

"Ayat. Brother of mine. Blood-kindred. How many times. If you have an idea, say the idea. Don't assume we all thought of it before you did, sometimes we did, and often we didn't. Alright?"

Ayat blinked.

"Oh. Sorry."

"Now. What was your idea?"

"Brushes for the horses. Covers the tracks."

"Why did you not suggest this."

"...well, I thought you'd know. You're smarter than me. Both of you are, honestly. And if I thought of it, and I'm slower than most, then I thought you'd have thought of it first. Happened all the time in the desert, I'd say something, the others would laugh and say that I was being slow, and... after a while I just stopped."

Carza coughed uncomfortably.

"Remember how I started a wildfire?"

Kani's eyes twitched to Carza.

"What."

"I started a small wildfire. Ayat knew it would happen, but he thought I had a plan for it. I didn't."

"...so that was what caused all that smoke. No wonder they're angry. I'd be angry if someone started a wildfire very close to my camp-"

"It wasn't very close."

"...but it was very close by the end, right?"

"A bit."

"How big was this wildfire?"

Thoughts of the Carza Stratigraphic Layer (Carza being the name of a mass-murdering warlord who burned all in her path, and not a stupid scholar who didn't realise that dry grass and fire didn't tend to mix well) flashed through her mind. Embarrassment. Oh, fantastic, she could still feel that. Stress hadn't denied her embarrassment, then. Her panicked mind was still considering humiliation to be a vital emotion to keep around, very integral to her continued survival. Why couldn't the damn gnawing take care of that, huh? But no, blushing up a storm and slowly retreating inside her coat was definitely a vital thing for her to continue to exist, oh yes indeed. Was this a case of 'Carza is defined by being embarrassed, if she cannot be embarrassed she is no longer Carza, if she is no longer Carza then she is dead, if she is dead then we have failed, ergo Carza must be embarrassed for her to survive'?

She'd spent years studying logic. Why hadn't her damn subconscious picked up on some of that.

Argh.

"Doesn't matter. The brushes?"

"Here, let me show you."

Ayat hopped from his horse, and started gathering up huge bundles of grass, torn loosely from the grand. Carza leaned forward, interested - and flinched when he placidly reached for his own hair and ripped out a small clump. The wiry strands were wound over and over one another, tighter and tighter... and then the final string was wrapped carefully around the bundle of grass, securing it together. His final act was to tie the brush to the tail of his horse, before setting to work on the other. The horse moved slightly, stepping forwards and shivering in annoyance at someone poking around its hindquarters (and Carza wondered if it was going to kick him for a second). And Carza saw, clearly, how the brush swept on the ground behind the animal, covering up the markings from its hooves, sweeping dust in such a way that it filled in the imprints. Or, at least, covered them up fairly well. Damn, that was... not just a good idea, but an obvious idea. She was getting the feeling that Ayat wasn't slow, but he had an eye for basic common sense, then became certain that, as a piece of common sense, his ideas would be understood by everyone around him. Probably before he'd understood them himself. Idly she wondered what had induced this habit.

...probably him talking about some very stupid ideas, seemed fairly obvious, really.

They continued onwards, veering very sharply to the north. Completely contrary to their original route. Throwing the Scabrous off the trail... but even so, the awful scent of rot was starting to creep into the air again, and when Carza reactivated her detector she heard a low, mournful warble - like it was singing them their own funeral dirge. Unique privilege right there, usually one could only hear one's actual funeral dirge if there had been a terrible mistake involving deep sleepers and very sturdy coffins through whch the sound of pounding fists couldn't be heard. Or someone who wanted to arrange their own funeral like some sort of morbid freak.

Hm.

"What would your funerals look like? If you got to plan them, I mean."

Oh wait. Taboo against talking about death. Nuts. Kani stared at her.

"Has my brother been corrupting you?"

"No. I'm just... uh..."

She was bloodstained, her nose was broken, her eyes were wide with fear, her heart was pounding again, and she had a living gun in her hands.

"...uh."

Sort of hard to condense that down without becoming vulgar, honestly. Ayat hummed seriously.

"Difficult question. What would you want?"

"Nothing cheerful. Back home, I have an aunt, and if I died of old age she'd be dead long before me. So... I'd want people to really regret coming to my funeral. Spite them. Make it funny, yes, but overall - spiteful. I'd have a funeral with an admission fee, that should put everyone in a really bad mood. Then the money would be dumped into my grave, so no-one would profit from it."

Kani groaned.

"Why would you do that."

"It'd be memorable, wouldn't it? And quite funny. Plus, I wouldn't like most of the people there... people remember bad things better than good things."

At least, she did. Which might qualify as a character fault, but she was busy worrying about the red light blooming behind them. Ayat looked worried.

"You come from a strange place. I think I prefer our ways."

"...of forgetting people?"

"It's lucky."

"I understand, I understand, but wouldn't you want something exciting and memorable, just for the sheer hell of it?"

Kani groaned, and spurred her horse to greater speeds. They were zig-zagging madly now, doing everything in their power to throw off the trail. Ayat was directing them towards a river, apparently - go into it, walk along the shallow bed, then clamber up. The winter made all the rivers lower, given that most of the water in the mountains was being locked up in the form of ice. So, should be safe, and should be a good way of masking their progress even further.

"Carza, as someone who's very tense right now, I have to say - if I killed you, I'd have a wonderful few last words. 'Carza, you were always fascinated by our dead, well, now you get to meet them.'"

"...that was... grim."

"You were talking about your own funeral."

"And you were talking about killing me. The funeral was topical. We might die."

"And I might kill you, you never know."

"...are you feeling alright?"

Kani slowly turned to face her. The sunlight gleamed from her tusks. Her wiry hair twitched like a nest of antennae. Her clothes strained as she moved, struggling to contain her enlarged muscles, her greater height... and to Carza's horror, she realised that, yes, she could see Kani's knees. That was just... wrong. Knees were a surprise. Legs were the enemy of all morality, in her experience. Explained why ladies in other cities were enjoying... stockings and the like. Because legs were the sin organs of the body. How did you reach sin? Walking, running, hopping... how did you begin sin? By taking off one's trousers and exposing one's legs. Legs were sinful, and now she could see Kani's. This day had become vastly more uncomfortable as a consequence... just look into her eyes. Her black, intense eyes, which now had two partners which looked almost like freckles. The cat nestled in her bosom looked incredulous as well. Sardonic, really. No, it was just doing a normal face, but as a cat it looked perpetually sarcastic.

"No."

"...right."

Her gun pulsated, the grubs inside the sac squirming eagerly. The red light continued to blossom behind them... but the Scabrous were confused. The beating of hooves was slower, more... erratic. They were trying to follow the trail even after it had vanished, and probably wound up churning up a half mile of mud before they realised that the trail wasn't going to reappear no matter how long they extrapolated the previous arc. No, they'd need to go north - breach their territory, accelerate their expansion. Maybe that would... no, they were moving. And something... Kani pricked her ears.

"I can... hear something."

Her nose twitched.

"Smell it, too. Like... it's familiar, but... it's not one of the Scabrous. Coming from their direction, though."

Right. Sharper nose. Good to know. Ayat was silent, but his eyes were wide with apprehension, and he seemed to curl into himself - Carza got the feeling that he was a younger brother, and when nervous around his sister, he reduced his size, acted more skittish, generally returned to the status quo when they were children. She was guessing, but she thought she was right. And if she thought she was right, she probably was. She was a scholar, after all. And these two didn't have Certificates of Being Smart.

Founder, just having Kani back was cheering her up considerably. For all the nervousness in the air... she was happy to have her back. Happy to feel some of the emptiness Hull had left behind filling in, healing slightly.

"...it's... not one of their horses, either."

Carza flinched.

"Maybe it's something else. Something they've created."

"...I'd think so too, like a dog or something, but... it's just... no, there's something wrong, it almost smells like..."

She sniffed again... and her eyes widened.

"We need to run. Now. Get to the river, douse ourselves in it. Whatever we do, we need to throw off our scent."

She spurred her horse into a wild gallop, ignoring all the usual advice of saving energy for later - and the urgency was infectious. Ayat didn't need to ask for clarification, even if Carza desperately wanted to. Kicked his horse into galloping after hers, tearing up the earth. No thoughts about tracks - if they went too fast, the brushes weren't doing anything. So why would... why... whatever was pursuing them, it could smell them, didn't need tracks. And she could feel the wind changing, blowing against them. The sky was flecked with the grey of gathering stormclouds, a last gasp of summer wind and rain before the dark and cold set in for winter. And the wind was erratic, kissing her cheek one moment, slicing her lips the neck, buffeting her hair from every single angle... and now it blew against them. In favour of their enemies. Their scent would be carried high - blood, fear, contamination, horses, sweat, a whole bouquet which suggested them, and no-one else.

And in the distance, something roared.

Her blood ran cold.

She knew that roar. Knew it well. Haunted her dreams for a good long while.

"Move faster."

Her voice was a strangled whisper, and Ayat spurred the horse to obey, faster, faster, faster. Never fast enough, always seeming to crawl over the barren landscape. And the roaring was always coming closer... the savage cries of something which had caught their scent, something too large for a horse, something which she remembered well.

The roar of an ancestor.