Chapter Sixty Three

The morning came upon them quickly. Accompanied by a suite of emotions.

Relief, that was one. Contentment, that was another. A budding itch in her neck which made her feel moderately irritated, but, well, she could deal with it. Better than blisters, she loathed blisters. And later, panic.

But the panic could wait.

To begin with... well, panic was inconceivable when her eyes first cracked open. Oh, the steppe was beautiful - life slowly coming to itself, the night fauna giving way to the day fauna, which stumbled about blearily, struggling to come back to itself. To the small animals which poked around the undergrowth, she imagined the night had been a threatening landscape full of enormous birds and vicious predators. To her, it'd been downright restful... even if she'd woken up being crushed into a near-paste by Kani's enormous arms. Seemed to have confused her for the cat, which was sitting a distance away with a distinctly smug look on its face. Founder, Carza was confused with cats. She liked the quiet, the self-reliance, but she disliked the sense of smug superiority. A dog was clever, but it was also very, very stupid and humble. It was a dog, it wasn't just stupid, it knew it was stupid, and that humans were effortlessly, wonderfully clever by comparison. Very good sense of the social hierarchy. Cats had overinflated senses of importance... well, she thought they were overinflated, until the moment came for her to feed the creature, at which point she realised that it was contributing nothing whatsoever, and in exchange for nothing received shelter, warmth, and as much food as it desire.

Which made its sense of importance feel unpleasantly justified. If Carza managed to scam her way to that sort of good life, she'd been self-important and smug as well. Done better than dogs, at least - those things actually had jobs.

...come to think of it, did she dislike the cat, or was she jealous of its evolutionary acumen? She had to go on adventures to gain a position as a scholar. The cat did nothing whatsoever and achieved a standard of living unimaginable for most wild animals. Minimal threats, maximum food, ideal levels of comfort... looking at a small rodent scuttling clumsily amidst the grass, she thought that the cat hadn't felt remotely as terrified as that thing surely was during the night, when birds circled silently and invisibly, hunting for the slightest movement. No, the cat had just snuggled up and had a pleasant nap.

Alright, fine, she was jealous. Very jealous. And understandably so. Damn thing wasn't even getting hugged.

In the moment of silence when she woke up, noted her situation, but before she'd made moves to rectify it... she glared at the smug-looking feline.

"You contribute nothing."

The cat blinked lazily, stalked up to her, and... mewled. For food. And to her horror, Carza was already looking for some, didn't want the poor little guy to go hungry, then he might leave her and abandon her to the world, and remove all convenient props for making conversations less awkward, and... and she probably had a brain parasite. She'd heard about the parasites cats carried, and how they seemed to improve people's opinions of cats. And... yeah, she was infected. Couldn't even bring herself to mind. Urgh. It took some effort to get out of Kani's clutches, but once she was freed, she took a deep breath and felt humanity returning to her in a freezing-cold wave. She realised how filthy she was, how much dust and grime had accumulated, how much she longed for a change in clothes, a change in scenery, a long sit-down and some tea from an old, dusty samovar. A rich dinner accompanied by brandy. Her books, her window, her chair and her desk. All the things of human need and human want, all the things which defined the psyche of the domesticated human. It'd been a while since she'd felt this, a tug in her stomach... the burrowed fish-hook of homesick nostalgia, tugging her in the direction of ALD IOM, with all its strangeness and familiarity. Old inconveniences or gripes faded, and all she was left with was a phantom vision of her home. All the good, and none of the bad. And quietly, Carza left the camp... and knelt.

Withdrew a golden needle from her pocket, sealed in a tight case, protected from the elements. She'd fallen out of the habit, but now she could feel old faith stirring. The practice had seemed silly in such a strange country, but... well. Now it felt necessary. She quietly began to brush the needle down, removing dust from the gold, scrubbing for any grime. More than there'd ever been, she been lax in her duties. A brush with a silk handkerchief, a gift from Aunt Melqua. As she worked, she murmured to herself. Little prayers to the Founder. Prayers for wisdom and understanding, or simply old parables murmured over and over to ingrain them into her head. The last time she'd really done this had been in Krodaw... months ago now. Had no mind for it in the mountains, in the forest, on the steppe. Not until this particular, otherwise unremarkable morning. The needle was... hm. She ought to anoint it. She'd even brought a vial of perfume to... to... oh. Where was the vial? She'd been keeping it in this jacket, and... she rose to her feet, looking around. No, no, was it in her bags? Maybe?

"What are you doing?"

Kani was standing there, looking sleepy and unkempt, wiry hair protruding at all available angles.

"Just... nothing, really, it's-"

"Is it a rite? I've not seen you do this before."

"From my home, yes, I've... been a bit lax. It's... well, I suppose you could say it's for inviting luck."

"Hm. You look worried."

"I need some perfume to finish it off, and... well, either I've lost mine, or broke it, or it's buried in my bags. Just a tiny vial, so..."

"Is the specific type of perfume important?"

"Not really. It's more about the symbolism of respecting the needle, what it represents, and-"

"I can... give it some scent. If you'd like."

Uh. Oh. Huh. Carza blinked a few times. That felt... well, it was very decent of her, but she'd... well... she was being nice. Genuinely offering to help, putting her modified biology to some sort of use. Probably trying to get more used to it, instead of treating it like... well, an ugly mutation. She scratched at her throat as she thought... before nodding in silence. Kani took the needle with gentle care, and got to work. Extending a vestigial arm... up close, Carza could see how it was meant to develop. It had skin, but it was mostly growing in. Likely lacked the nerves necessary to feel anything beyond mild discomfort. Like a newborn, really... which implied interesting things about that glass skin to begin with. Forming a final layer, with a gossamer-thin fleshy covering the bare muscle. Interesting, and she could imagine Kani and Ayat making a killing among the biologists back home who'd want to see how other species could approach the same problem. Founder, it just struck her - she was taking them home with her. Another species! She'd gone out to find something out about the nomads on this side of the mountain, and she'd found another damn species! It was... unfathomably bizarre, the sort of thing that got her a place in every damn history book, the sort which made her famous!

Not that she cared about being famous.

But she could be very bloody famous.

Kani opened up a scent gland - a small dark hole in one of the hands, gleaming with some sort of fluid. Shimmering very slightly like oil... a raw concentration, highly potent. She wondered about the chemical properties... as someone who knew almost nothing about chemistry, of course. She was thinking about it being venomous or acidic or something along those lines. Not that it mattered, gold wasn't very reactive to begin with. A real chemist would be wondering about a whole host of other, more important things, but Carza had thoughts about flammability. That was her - 'can I burn it', 'can it poison me', 'can it melt me', the basic concerns of the ignorant chemist. The opening was rubbed against the needle, up, down, very cursory. Not a flood of perfume this time, she was getting more experienced with it. No more uncontrollable floods of scent, this was more delicate. Marginally more, at least. Kani quickly handed the thing back, retracting her vestigial arm back under her robe... hm, she'd made a small hole. Interesting. Didn't want to unbutton the thing every time, wanted to start integrating the arms into her life instead of treating them as unsightly exiles.

Had to say it - the needle smelled better than it ever had.

She'd be the envy of the Court of Ivory if she got it back.

"You could make a lot of money selling that stuff as perfume."

Kani sniffed lightly, self-effacing and shy. Bringing up glands seemed to make that happen, for her and for most people.

"I'd rather not, at least until I figure out what this means. It's scent-language, and I'm not fluent in it."

Carza blinked.

"...so you-"

"Don't know what I just wrote on your needle, so I tried to be reserved. I think it's just... well, gibberish."

"You didn't-"

"Swear violently and invoke death against one's mother, no. I think. I'm not sure if I could luck into saying that."

Carza frowned very slightly. Vulgarity. Damn vulgarity. Well...

"Thank you. I'll just... get on with it, then."

"Of course. I'll leave you alone."

"You can stay. If you like."

"...well, I suppose I ought to get used to it…"

She knelt nearby Carza, watching closely as Carza finished the rite. The needle was cleaned a final time, brushed for remaining specks of dirt, wiped down, all the while she recited her prayers. To the Founder, to the Court, to its holy mission, to the city of ALD IOM, to the betterment of the species, to the destruction of ignorance. To the lake of mud where good scholars went, to study for the rest of time in the grey towers of the Founder's eternal university, until total understanding was reached, the endeavour was complete, and everyone could sit down and rest. She traced the point of the needle against the tattoo on her forehead, and remembered what it felt like to get it tattooed in the first place. She'd heard nothing about theurgy out here... but maybe it was pointless to think about, Carza knew so little about theurgy that it'd be near-impossible to ask, to stumble through the endless issues of definition. A few final prayers... personal ones. For her own survival. For the commendation of Hull va Trochi to the highest possible ranks of the afterlife scholars, for those who gave their lives to the advancement of the holy mission. Let him become a high provost, a senior academic, someone who could meander through poetry for the rest of time. It'd been a while since she was willing to think about that, almost blocked it all out... didn't want to confront the fact that Hull was gone, but... she felt cleansed by saving Kani, by bringing her and her brother back to ALD IOM with her. Like she'd redeemed herself a little.

And could start to really move on with her life, away from the feeling of cold, cold lips pressed against her own, and her first real friend drifting away, never to come back.

A prayer for Kani and Ayat. A prayer even for the family that hosted them... and definitely one or two for the first family, for Tobok and Mrs Cauldron, even for Dog. That they'd get to the valley in time, and find some sort of peace in the coming years. That Dog could find someone else to marry - not because she wanted that especially, but on behalf of Kani.

A final thanks to the Founder. And she was done.

Kani helped her up to her feet, picking her up with scarcely more effort than picking up Little Friend.

And then it began.

Carza looked off into the distance, enjoying watching the sun rise... when she saw them. Dark shapes. And several. Her rifle was out in a moment, and she twitched the telescope into motion, staring down the strangely organic lens. Dark shapes... riding over the crest of a hill. At first she thought they were just raiders, which would be unpleasant, but... no, the horses were too big. Much too big. The Scabrous were coming. And... and she could only see three. Hm. Maybe they'd decided to split up, to divide their force until they could find their quarry. She could see Ayat galloping in, panic blooming on his shining face. The camp was stirring to life by the time Carza yelled a warning, and the second her warning was completed that life exploded into motion. The camp was being ripped apart in seconds, but the problems were growing faster than anyone could react. Ayat clattered to a halt, out of breath, pointing madly behind him. The three. Three Scabrous were coming, on their enormous horses, brandishing their terrifying weapons, coiling and uncoiling their languid red whips like wrestlers clenching and unclenching their fists before a fight. The ground was already shivering... and she could hear their squealing, whispering laughter on the wind, thought she could feel the heat of their horses. The two of them ran for their horses... and Carza looked at the camp.

They'd given up on the tents. Abandoned. Just grabbing food and saddling up as quickly as possible. Slow. They'd been sleeping, and if Carza hadn't been performing her little rite... their saddles needed time, and they weren't anticipating coming back. Needed saddles, needed food, needed water... and Carza felt a stabbing pulse of guilt. They were here for her and her friends, and... well. That made things rather clear, didn't it? Kani nodded quietly. She agreed. Ayat, who attracted barely any stares - he wasn't Scabrous, so he wasn't important - nodded as well, but she got the feeling that he was just trying to join in with the others. Probably. Carza called out, loud as she could.

"We'll go in different directions. The Scabrous will follow us, not you. You'll be able to claim your stuff back soon enough, we'll lead them away."

Into the marshes. Where the mud would bog their horses down, and the Scabrous would be completely and utterly isolated from their home territory, way too far north to call on reinforcements or put together an organised attack. The family glanced at one another, nervous, distrustful... but they nodded nonetheless. Trusting? Or just resigned? Either way, time to go. The Scabrous were picking up the pace, and Carza clambered awkwardly onto her horse, irritated that she hadn't found an opportunity to change out of her dust-stained tweeds. Well. She'd take what she could get. Three pursuers, three pursued, and a family ducking out of the way. She didn't think about firing back at them - they were already reacting to her rifle's presence, spreading out across the steppe, riding low on their horses and exposing minimal flesh, and she could see where their horses had been changed - more boney plates around the front, like armour to repel the grub. The single irritating thing with this rifle, which was otherwise terrifying in its accuracy, its range, its destructive power... well, it couldn't really do anything to armour or clothes. She'd need to get around them, and by the time she started thinking about that, she realised that that was exactly what they wanted. Get close, think she was being clever... and realise too late that they'd been playing this game for much, much longer than herself, and they had no interest in losing this time.

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If she got close, she lost. If she remained at range, she couldn't get a proper hit. No idea how many shots she'd get from the sac on the gun, maybe it needed proper care to regenerate the grubs, maybe it couldn't regenerate them at all, maybe she was on the verge of having the grubs die of old age, and she'd be up a certain creek with a distinct lack of a paddle.

Too much uncertainty.

And they were coming closer.

They all rode off as quickly as possible. No time for goodbyes, but... she was thankful for the family. It'd been good to get some liquor and hot food into her, to sit down and sleep surrounded by life instead of the boundless plains where anything could be, or nothing, and she'd wonder which was the more alarming. She didn't even know their names, but they'd still obeyed tradition, let her in, fed her, let her sleep... and now the least she could do was make sure the Scabrous didn't try anything. No time for goodbyes. None at all. Carza's horse snorted irritably as they took off... remarkable how quickly they recovered, these things. Not natural chargers, and not good at hauling carts or ploughs, but they were sturdy and they were dependable. She might not even eat this one if the situation called for. At least, she'd look for a few alternatives first. To her surprise, she wasn't feeling awfully panicked. She just felt... grim resignation, and mild concern. There was urgency in the air, but there'd been urgency for a while. This hadn't been the end, just a brief period of relaxation, an unwinding... a ploughman stopping for lunch, and then back for the process. The endless process.

North.

To the marshes.

The squealing laughter of the Scabrous pursuing them as the stink of salt became stronger and stronger...

* * *

The salt marshes were enormous, she realised. A tremendous stretch of boggy land, criss-crossed by narrow, winding rivers. And despite the name, half of it was freshwater. Salt and fresh, merging into a single titanic mass of land where horses disliked to roam. Where the cries of hunting birds switched to the silent, strange shapes which clung to the trees - the trees! By the Founder, there were trees now! Scrubby little things, often just a dead trunk with a crown of white branches, girdled all around with thorny bushes that clambered up and up. A royal robe for a dead king, and each tree seemed unique, never accumulating into anything resembling a grove, let alone a forest. A whole graveyard of tree-kings, with dead crowns and robes of thorns, standing amidst grey soil and grass which became more and more sparse as the salt seeped into it, like poison spreading outwards, killing the grass and replacing it with either barren, soggy earth... or tall, tall reeds which thrummed with minute black flies. Carza was already out of breath, and her horse was streaked with mud. The cold was making her nose run, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd closed her mouth, mucus preventing her from using her nose. The others were moving on too, and... oh.

Kani had her own horse. Barely noticed.

The family had a herd of them, and couldn't take each and every one. Seemed to understand that the three of them were distractions, and they were only as good as the time they could run away for. Needed a new horse. A worthy sacrifice to keep the family nice and safe. And to her knowledge, it'd worked. The three of them were racing over the damp soil, glancing over their shoulders to see the Scabrous running after them.

Two things had kept them alive. Just two.

The rifle. It was impossible to fire it properly from her horse, but she tried occasionally - it was so quiet that her horse didn't even react to it being fired, so she could fire it over and over without worrying about getting bucked from the saddle and left to be crushed under the mutated hooves of the Scabrous' steeds. Not that it meant much, but when she fired, the Scabrous huddled low to their sculpted saddles, sheltered behind the enormous heads of their horses, and hissed venomously. And most importantly, they slowed down. Just a little. But they slowed, and it gave the hunted trio a chance to make up some distance. Three Scabrous was too much to fight. All they could do was run. And the second thing keeping them alive was the ground. Their own horses were splashing through puddles of sickly-looking mud, and each step made their hooves cut a little deeper into the softening earth. But the Scabrous? They were making ditches, tearing apart the ground as they went, boring enormous furrows in the earth. Carza's horse could be used to pull a plough, these creatures had no need, they were the plough in this equation. Did more damage to the earth than any crude hunk of metal could.

They were carving up huge snail trails of churned earth, and still they kept going, the horses uncomplaining, even as their breath formed huge, translucent clouds in front of the pursuers.

The salt marshes welcomed them gladly. The steppe faded. From the Dustlands to the Salt Marshes, the Scabrous were pursuing them unfailingly. There was no real thought or cunning... just keep on going, really. Hope that the mud took care of them. They weren't firing, didn't dare expose themselves enough to get a good shot. These things were... well, if they could shape mutants to their heart's content, they could probably live forever, or for a very, very long time. They weren't just gambling with a few decades of debauchery, they were gambling with centuries of decadence, an eternity of pointless self-satisfaction. It made their lives mean more, and their deaths infinitely more. No wonder they were pursuing them. They'd killed two eternities. Even if they never did anything but hurt others and enjoy themselves, those were still two histories which had been cut off. And yet, to the shock and alarm of any observer, Carza didn't particularly care. They were going to turn Kani into a guard dog, something sculpted to satisfy their aesthetic sensibilities, degrading her mind into nothing but animal instincts.

She had zero pity for them. For their entire group. If they didn't want to get shot with their own weapons, maybe they shouldn't have been taking people as livestock.

Clouds of black flies rose up from the ground, hungry for blood, latching onto their horses and any exposed scrap of skin. Kani barely noticed - her skin was tougher now, their bites meant nothing. Carza could feel her skin erupting with tiny red blotches, itching up a storm... her neck was suffering particularly badly, the damn thing was being gnawed to piece it was itching so much. Took conscious effort not to start digging away with her nails until they came away red and raw. But Founder, she was itchy. And flecks of mud flew up from the ground as her horse stumbled a little, churning up more earth, splashing like ice-cold drops of rain and staining her deeply. The thorn-robed trees glared imperiously out with their various eye-like whorls. For hours and hours they rode, and the ground became worse and worse. Salt was staining her skin and clothes now, building up in tiny, imperceptible crystals that made her throat itch and her tongue feel swollen. They sought dry land when they could, stepping on long strands of light-coloured earth which rose high enough to be useful. The Scabrous had no such luck. And as the day wore onwards, they fell backwards. Slumping backwards in the mud, horses struggling to kick up mound after mound of sodden earth. The red-gold of their creatures was fading, replaced by mottled brown, until it seemed like huge river-boulders were rolling clumsily after them, hooves weighed down with enough mud to create enormous boots, weighing them down further and further...

Their own horses were struggling. But compared to the Scabrous, they were like will-o-wisps dancing on the surface of a swamp, light as air and twice as swift, luring the unwary and clumsy to their doom.

The Scabrous weren't firing.

Why weren't they firing? They might not get another chance! And where was... hold on, where was the red light? They always had red light following them, from lanterns or from the glowing liquor they drank which spilled from those same lanterns. They weren't firing, they weren't lashing out, even their laughter had died down. And stained with mud, their armour caked with the stuff until it was hard to see what lay underneath, it... well, they almost looked dour. No more terrifying fleshy debauchery, they were just... things. Clumsy and slow instead of blisteringly fast. Another hour... and they were gone completely, fading into the pea-soup mists which were rolling over the bleak grey landscape. For a little while they kept going, cantering carefully over the most solid areas... but one by one they began to slow. Just a little at first, and then more, then more, and finally... a stop. They were being chased by the Scabrous, and they'd stopped, standing around while sour-faced horses snapped greedily at the sparse grass which lined this place, giving the reeds a few exploratory nibbles now and again.

Even the cat seemed surprised, poking its little head out of Kani's robes and blinking owlishly.

Kani coughed.

"...uh."

Ayat shrugged.

"Hm."

And Carza just blinked rapidly.

"I have... wow. Did we... no, we haven't escaped, they're still coming, just... slowly. I guess."

Ayat hummed thoughtfully.

"And they didn't fire. Not once, even when it made sense."

"What?"

"Oh, it made sense to fire. Sometimes. They were close enough, we were slow enough... we were moving at a light canter because of the land, it would've been easy to shoot us out of our saddles, very easy."

Carza stared at him.

"...and you neglected to tell us to duck?"

"I assumed you knew, and-"

Kani exploded.

"Ayat, speaking as your older sister, do not assume we know things, if you see something, say it."

Ayat narrowed his eyes.

"But then you get annoyed."

"Fine! Better than me being dead! Thus far, that could've gotten us killed, and Carza started a massive wildfire because you weren't telling us what we were doing wrong."

Carza blushed.

"It wasn't that big."

"It was huge, Ayat told me so."

"Ayat..."

"She asked."

"Shouldn't have told her."

"But she asked."

"And... anyway. Fine. So... Kani, Ayat, what now. What... do we actually do? They're still chasing us, so do we... turn back? Wheel around and try to circle around them while they're stuck?"

She laughed nervously.

"I mean, I didn't expect this to work, nothing works, there's always a massive risk of failure, and... well, I haven't fainted. None of us are wounded. This feels like it went too easily."

The others shrugged, and Ayat spoke first.

"It happens. The best battles are the boring ones, because you usually win those without any issue. They chased us, their horses were too heavy, they sank in the mud, we outpaced them."

"Do you think we can get back? Circle around them?"

"...maybe. I assume you want to give them a wide berth?"

"Ideally."

Ayat hummed.

"We may have some trouble, then. We've gone in... very far. I assumed you knew, and this was part of your... anyway," he hastily corrected, seeing Carza's eyes narrow and her eyebrows descend into a single furious line, "I'll see if we can get back. I'll try my best."

He smiled good-naturedly, with a kind of innocent optimism which... well, it was definitely out of joint with everything else. For once, Carza took in the swamp properly, not just as a sequence of dry islands to hop to. The thorn-cloaked trees were more and more plentiful out here, some of them reaching genuinely impressive heights, and a deep, grey fog was settling comfortably over the little slopes of the marsh. It felt like... well, it felt like the banks of a river, where tiny waves lapped over and over, shaping the sand into tiny, smooth waves. But executed on a much, much larger scale, spanning untold miles, with hills that rippled gently into the interminable distance. The air stank of salt, and the horses were shifting nervously. Black flies clustered everywhere on their hides, greedily gnawing and drinking what they could. One of them ambled to a nearby pool, and hesitantly slurped up some water... before spitting it out, snorting and shuffling in irritation. How long had they been riding out here? Hours, right? Time had ceased to have much meaning. Minutes, hours? Pointless. More, that was the operative word, more time. Anything which came before was pointless, all that mattered was that it kept on going. And now... now she realised just how long they'd been out here.

And the cries of corpsefowl filled the air, rattling shrieks which could've issued from the depths of a hanged man's chest. Hollow, half-dead, devoid of any real feeling. Flies rose up higher and higher, black clouds mingling with grey. And in all directions sprawled the salt marshes. Vast. Unfathomably vast, leading to a vast, poisonous sea. Water everywhere she looked, seeping up from the earth in stagnant pools, sliding along in sluggish, unformed rivers... and yet not a single drop could be drunk, not that she knew of. And when she took a drink from her canteen, to soothe the thirst of the chase... she couldn't help but notice how hollow it felt. How greedily she'd gulped earlier in the day, and how little she really had left. Almost more empty space than filled space... how long had they been out here? Where were they? The sky was an invisible haze of grey, the land wasn't much better, and she realised just how much the fog ate up sound... pierced only by the screech of a bird, or the splash of some river-dwelling fish.

She shivered.

And her confidence in the success of her plan was starting to feel foolish.

And her suspicion that things weren't going to be so easy was starting to feel very wise indeed.

* * *

The swamp was vast.

The flies were infinite.

The mud was cloying.

Her neck was itching.

And now she was reconsidering her earlier fondness for her horse. If she needed to, she'd eat this thing with gusto.

The horses had become burdens with alarming speed. They weren't used to this sort of environment, with poisonous water and soft earth, with nary a hint of sky or truly dry ground to be seen... and they kept stepping oddly. They were in deep. The marshes had swallowed them whole, the driest way out was back the way they came. Carza had hoped they might find more paths, but... well, it was hard enough seeing a few feet in front of their faces, let alone seeing a proper path through the labyrinth of rippling hills. No way of telling when a 'wave' would come crashing down into the softly flowing water. It all looked so placid, but if a horse put a foot wrong... the earth would part around the hoof, and they'd be sucked down a good few inches at best, and a good few feet at worst. They'd only experienced that once, and Kani had spent the better part of twenty minutes hauling the terrified creature out of the mud, soothing it to make it stop struggling. The more they struggled, the more they sank. And this place panicked them until struggling was all they could think of doing. So the trio led their horses along behind them, feeling the mud cake their books and slither up their legs, splashes lashing up like whips to sting their cheeks and stain them yet further.

In less than an hour, they'd become straggling, mud-slicked pilgrims with weary eyes, struggling onwards through a labyrinth of high grounds, the earth so unstable that 'high' could become 'low' in a matter of seconds, collapsing down into the salt mire. And all the while the dead trees mocked them, remnants of an ancient forest now serving as nothing but climbing bars for thickets of salt-hungry thorns which knew how to live in a place like this, and did so with aplomb. If they weren't struggling over unstable ground, they were trying to negotiate through thickets of black spiked branches, or batting away massive clouds of black flies, or simply heaving their feet up one at a time when the mire became impassable. The reeds were growing thicker, some of them so dense that they formed a solid wall all to themselves, or made the ground look deceptively certain. Carza could feel her unease rising, but she was too weary for panic. The salt marsh was deep, it was cold, and it was vast. And anywhere, the Scabrous could be coming.

If they managed to get an ambush off, even a single one of those creatures could wipe them out.

And so she scanned the fog frantically with her rifle at the slightest sound of noise. Could imagine the Scabrous dismounting from their huge horses, and following along lightly. She'd seen how careful and delicate they could be on foot, seen it when one had fought Ayat to the death. Dancing around, skipping carefully, light as a feather and strong as steel. A single one could wipe them out with ease if they got the drop on the trio. Shoot Carza first, disable their best weapon. Then go for Kani, her natural strength could prove a problem. And idly finish off Ayat like a careless afterthought. Simple. A grub for Carza, best to be sure. Swords would do for the others. She could almost hear them whispering to each other, the spiracles of their suits opening and closing sensuously, moaning out little words to one another in a language she couldn't hope to understand. See them? Yes, right there. See them? Raise your rifles. Unwind your whips. The skinny one goes first. Dance over the mire while they struggle like clowns. Extend the knives from your arms, let them gleam invisibly in the sunless midday...

Now!

She jerked around, staring blindly.

Nothing. Nothing but the mocking shrike of a corpsefowl, flitting from distant tree to distant tree, hunting for the dead-looking brown fish which slithered along in the shallow rivers and pools. Hunting for the sea? Or contenting themselves with the mire, where they could feast on reeds and insects until the end of time?

Carza kept itching at her neck. Damn bugs. And damn... hm. Neck. Neck. She'd been itching at it all day, just... poking and prodding and yet it never seemed to get any better. Had she been bitten? Founder, it was irritating... and surrounded by such paranoia and tension, she felt like she was a student again. As stress mounted, little restraints faded. The obligation to eat well? Gone once the essays became hard enough. Proper grooming? Pointless if she wasn't leaving the library for another day. And now... any kind of inhibition she had towards tearing her shirt open to scratch at her neck faded. Damn it, damn it, she wanted to just feel some bloody relief at the moment, and she didn't care from whence it came, so what if she gouged her neck-flesh, she needed something to provide easy relief!

As they walked in the fog, as they wandered as mud-streaked pilgrims with no goal in sight beyond dryness, she started to scratch harder, pulling her collar down, unbuttoning her shirt to get easier access... oh, Founder, it felt wonderful getting some cold air on the thing, made it all feel a little more... well, numb. She remembered why this was all helping - the scratching, the cold. It was all because the body was adjusting to stimuli. Pain yielded painkillers. And if she caused herself pain, then the painkillers flooded in and she felt blessed relief. In a way, she was dosing herself with painkillers, like some... ooh, like some little opium-den dweller. How exotic. Urgh.. The others shared a quick laugh as she started scratching furiously at her neck, shivering in happiness as relief flooded her system, and... and hold on.

Something was wrong.

She felt something. Just felt... wrong, and when her nails came away, she saw... she saw redness under the nails, but thick redness, not the usual loose clots of blood she'd have expected, this looked more like... like shavings, like red, meaty sawdust, like she'd been digging her fingers through minced meat. She stopped scratching. Started patting, investigating... and what she felt made her freeze completely, the others shuddering to a stop behind her. Even her horse snuffled in, curious at the reason... and it backed away immediately, nervousness crossing its huge, dark eyes. Carza pushed against her skin a few times, then a few more, then a few more still...

No mistaking it.

The skin had changed. It felt... thicker. Stronger. Sturdier. Mottled with tiny imperfections, little skin tags pushing upwards, shedding when she scraped too hard, a warmth which defied the cold around it, a thickness which defied any wound. No flies had bitten her neck. Not a single one. None of them dared to, evolution compelled them to stay away.

Her breath hitched.

She remembered killing that Scabrous creature. Feeling it bleed uncontrollably. She'd taken her pills, all her pills, more than the recommended dose, and... and... and her neck had itched, but she'd thought nothing of it, idiot, idiot, overconfident idiot. She'd taken her pills, though, she'd coughed up blood, pissed blood, felt all sorts of odd symptoms, let the poison rush through her, that should've worked, and...

And it'd still happened.

Mutation.

And at that moment, a breeze picked up, an ocean breeze that carried yet more salt on its waves, coursing over the hills... and slowly clearing the fog, just for a moment. And from the fog something emerged. Something huge. Not an animal, and not a Scabrous horse, but... but something else. Something else entirely. A massive building, built from grey stone - a series of hexagonal pillars rising high into the gloom, locking around a circular structure. A tower, a huge tower, so large she couldn't see the top... it emerged from the mist like a devil-whale from the ocean, breaking the mist around itself, splitting the air, emerging with all the suddenness of a bullet. No birds sang around it. The salt in the air seemed thicker, almost straining the moisture from her skin. It wore its years like a corpse wore a shroud.

No mind for it. All she could see was the skin around her neck, red and scaly, mutating slowly into something stronger and better... a poison planted on her surface, leaching deeper and deeper, growing more and more virulent with each passing moment, seeping from the skin to the flesh from the flesh to the blood from the blood to the brain and then... oh Founder. Oh, Founder. Not after all she'd gone through. Not after everything. She couldn't have... no, no, no. Not like this. Not like this. Her breathing was tighter, tighter, she was afraid to feed it air, almost wanted to pretend it was an animal that would scuttle away if it thought she was dead, but... oh, Founder, she could see it twitching...

Kani's hand clasped down on her shoulder. Went stiff when Kani saw what was wrong.

"...let's get inside."

Carza nodded hesitantly. Her eyes were wide.

She was mutating.

She remembered Lirana. Slowly overtaken. Memories fading, earliest first. Body twisting. And for the first time in a little bit, she brought out the detector. Flipped it open. Activated it properly.

A low, mournful whine.

A mutant was here.

A mutant was very close.

A mutant was inside her skin.

Oh, Founder...