Chapter Thirty One

The night passed.

And she didn't dream.

But she thought she dreamed. The heat was bearing around her, and she imagined her eyes opening a little, a quiet thrash as she tried to escape her own skin and slide into the river as a naked pile of muscle and bones which could cool themselves in the free-flowing depths... her hair clung to her face in huge strands, and her vision was sliced into pieces by the resulting impenetrable black bars. She dreamt that she blinked, and thrashed, and turned, and only made herself warmer and thirstier... and then she thought she heard a sound. It was a dream, of course, and the sound was right at the edge, a half-remembered thing distorted by everything she could imagine. She heard... heard someone screaming, far out in the darkness. Maybe? Could be an animal, the sound was too muffled to really make out... and she was far too tired and hot to think. She was in the state of living death that accompanies waking in the middle of a hot, hot night. And she could barely process that something had screamed, let alone what had screamed...

Something crashed, out in the dark. Something huge.

And then... nothing.

No more screams.

Only the sound of retreating footsteps... and Anthan humming in nervous curiosity, gun ready, and...

What had she been thinking about?

The chirping of crickets, the humming of flies, the ripples of the river... living death slipped from one state to the next, dreamlike, and impossible to really process. She struggled, and only stopped when Lirana's arm fell across her while the woman murmured something in her home language, something that Carza didn't understand and didn't want to understand. It'd likely embarrass both of them. She grumbled, sighed, snorted to clear some fluff from her nose, coughed, grumbled again, turned, and fell asleep with her face pressed into the bark in a position that'd be intolerably uncomfortable in any situation but this specific one. It would never be comfortable again, but right now? It was the best thing she'd ever felt and she loved this stretch of bark and-

* * *

Morning brought a river which turned to liquid gold as the sun's rays caught along it, darkness vanishing, opaqueness enduring. The foam glittered in the morning light, and Carza... Carza took a deep breath, tasting the clean water in the air, the fresh breeze which played along the edges of her hair and danced over her skin. For once, she felt... clean. And a second later, she was going to feel a hell of a lot cleaner. Her face was immersed in the river the moment she held the detector close, and heard not a single whistle. For the first time in... in days, she had a clean face. The water was pure and bountiful, clear and uncontaminated. She immersed her head completely, ignoring the way the babbling water soaked into her collar, trickled down the back of her neck... cool water on all sides. She didn't dare drink it, too much paranoia still in her gut, but she was willing to do everything short of drink. She heard a splash... and another head was suddenly beside her own. Someone else was washing away the sweat, the grime, the blood. The feeling of a world caking itself into her pores... and now flowing free. This. This was why she liked her home. Because she had a bath. Was it big? No. Was it comfortable? Not particularly. But it was hers, and it was warm and it was clean. For the first time in days, a final knot of tension unwound - the feeling of self-disgust from wearing old clothes and being caked in filth.

When she emerged, gasping, she felt...she could feel her fingers moving properly. They weren't catching on each other, they weren't feeling friction from dragging over sweat and grime, they were just moving. Sliding cleanly over one another, feeling thinner, finer, more precise in every detail. The head beside her became visible. Who had...

"Morning, Hull."

"Flutgh."

He spat out some water.

"Morning, Carza."

"Sleep well?"

"I slept."

"I too slept."

They nodded at one another.

They were so good at conversation. She wasn't even joking, this entire exchange made her feel warm and fuzzy, because it was normal. People bad at conversation would ask about the man they'd helped kill, or the mutant that had died a foot or so away from them, or the terror of the last few days. But the two of them, experts at the art of conversation, had no such deficiencies and thus simply exchanged a few words. Which was why they were easily better-off than most - they were civilised. Carza blinked. Oh. Oh dear. She'd forgotten about the fingerpainting that Miss vo Larima had done on her forehead. Hull strained to look upwards, following her gaze... and then a drop of ink fell onto his shirt. The two lunged back into the stream, and started scrubbing viciously, cursing the fact that she'd marked them so, and thanking her for being so understanding and cursing her for selling them out and being generally conflicted because Carza had found herself liking the woman and had seen how the past few days had affected her just as much as everyone else and urgh. She drew her head back out, water flowing down the furrow in her eyebrows and cascading down the front of her nose. She glanced at Hull, and spoke quietly.

"Did I get it?"

"...no. Me?"

He had an enormous, ugly black smear across his forehead. A little faded, but... that was about all he'd accomplished.

"...not really. It's just sort of a... smear."

"...you're in the same boat."

The two groaned. Why. Why did she have to mark their foreheads with ink, did she understanding how hard that was to remove? Wait, she had a bit of cloth she used as a hairband sometimes, just to keep things out of her eyes... she could use one for this, disguise her unsightly little smear. Hull could do the same. Her excitement spiked in a fairly juvenile way. They could wear matching headbands! Alright, so maybe it was childish, but wearing matching clothes was something she found deliriously fun, largely because it was close to a uniform, and uniforms were easy. Uniforms were the one and only time she could criticise other people's dress sense, because she had a firm code on what the correct dress sense ought to be, and thus had... well, references. And everyone knew the best criticism came with references, especially fashion criticism.

"...Carza, why are you smiling?"

"Would you like to wear a matching headband, Hull? To cover up the smudges."

Hull blinked slowly.

"I have a hat."

"...oh."

"We could wear matching headbands. If you wanted to."

"No, no, the... hat makes more sense."

Hull tilted his head to one side, water flowing down the lobe of the lowered ear. He blinked.

"...would you like to wear matching hats?"

Carza blinked back.

"Yes please."

He nodded solemnly and walked off with his hands behind his back... before returning with a pair of hats and a sheepish expression. They were... indeed, matching hats. But she could see why he had two hats, when one would usually suffice. A pair of bowler hats, both of them rather battered. He shrugged guiltily.

"I... wore out one, and I thought I could bring it, and a newer one, then go through the used one first, throw it away when it was too battered, and move onto the other"

"...and?"

"Well, the newer one was just so nice, I felt that I had to wear it."

"...and now it's all worn-out."

"Pretty much. I can't even tell which one's the newer one, it was in our luggage when we got captured, been a few days since I've seen it."

He weighed them up.

"...you have this one."

Carza popped it over her head. To its credit, it did cover up the unsightly smudge. Also provided shade from the glare of the sun, and probably would stop insects from nesting in her hair. Unfortunately, it also fell down further than she'd like. Hull had a much larger head than she did - her brains were denser, that was the likely explanation. She had a tight brain, everything efficient and well-planned. His brain had to use more to accomplish less. Or, roughly the same. He was a smart guy, she was just smarter. Anyway. The hat threatened to slide over her eyes, and she pushed it up with a small huff of annoyance... mostly feigned. She was actually quite touched. And she had to admit, Hull looked better in a hat than a headband. She gathered her hair up inside the hat, nodded firmly (threatening to send the hat spiralling off, again, the thing was far too big), and turned to help the others. He knew she appreciated the gift.

Hopefully. Did he? He might. They communicated pretty well, but he wasn't telepathic, so... hm... maybe he was deeply insulted, and-

"Thank you for the hat, Hull. I'll take care of it."

Hull was already packing up his stuff, and glanced over absent-mindedly.

"Oh. Right. No need to thank me, assumed you liked it when you didn't take it off."

Crud. He had known.

...maybe she wasn't the mistress of conversations and social interactions.

...why had she ever thought she was?

Right. Water-induced euphoria.

The river remained a smooth golden mass as she got to work, packing up all her things... and staring into the forest. The dark interior. The permanent twilight. The sounds of animals gradually waking up, and insects alongside them. And of course... the Sleepless. The smoke from the fire had faded, the smoke was gone, and they'd slept uneventfully. No-one was injured. no-one had vanished... everyone, though, was tense. They ate quickly, mostly dried food from the Sleepless, the same masses of meat nad plant matter sculpted into small pucks that could be chewed gradually. Tasty, she had to admit. But not much else. The forest welcomed them gladly, old friends returning home, and in less than a second, she found herself longing for the river. Anthan led them along cautiously, his eyes darting from place to place. Nervous at having spent so long in one area, and eager to get out of it before their luck ran dry. The river was a golden ribbon that led them along - as long as it flowed against them, they were going the right way. As long as it remained in sight, they were headed for the mountains. And once they were there... they'd be safe. The Sleepless had no territory over the mountains, they seemed to have little territory near it. Once they got far enough, they'd be fine.

Idly, she wondered how to get back.

And as the silence drew out... she expressed her wonderment.

"...so, we're going over the mountains, but... obviously, it'll be hard getting back. So... any thoughts?"

Lirana shot her an odd look.

"Don't you think we should be more concerned about not dying?"

Egg hummed good-naturedly, mopping his forehead with a small thing that had once been a serviceable handkerchief.

"No, no, I... don't think so. Nice to focus on things ahead of the present moment, helps put things in perspective. I'm not sure how we can get back, I was... rather assuming the Sleepless would take over Krodaw, then rip each other apart in such a way that we'd have a peaceful return. It seems like something they'd do."

"I suppose... but, say, what if they don't? Or, what if the train back is impossible to take, because Krodaw is a smoking ruin?"

Anthan spoke up, voice hushed but still possessed of the same easy confidence which seemed to flow effortlessly through him now that he was back in his natural element of enemy territory.

"The mountains have few passes. Most of them are just a bit... not ideal. This one's the best, the closest... makes our lives easier. But if we need to, there should be some passes further south, though I'm really not sure how good they are, or what's on either side. Not my area."

Carza perked up.

"So, there are other ways?"

"Oh yes. Definitely. Some might even be passable."

Carza brightened significantly. She had a route back, then. That made... well, that made everything a sight easier. And so what if some of the passes weren't ideal? And so what if even this pass was a complete unknown to her? So what if this pass was unknown, unmapped, only really recorded in a couple of chronicles detailing the arrival of the Court of Horn, and apparently hadn't really been used in a very, very long time. So what? She could still get back home. And just because something was a huge unknown didn't mean it was invariably awful. ALD IOM had been 'unknown' to most of the continent for a very, very long time, and she still thought of it as possibly the most perfect place in all the world. Maybe the steppe was the same, somewhere unknown and paradisical, the sort of place which had to be locked up behind a mountain range unless people like the Sleepless got hold of it and burned it down to the ground to savour the glow and the heat and the knowledge that now no-one else could enjoy it.

Or maybe not.

The day continued. They walked, strode, ambled... did all the things walking individuals generally did. Freedom was suiting Carza well, even with the threat of attack looming overhead. She could walk, and didn't need to worry about Kralat dragging her in for some insane ordeal that only made sense to a mind as damaged as his. Not for the first time, she wondered if he was a mutant. He was large enough, but... he'd looked dead, no part of him crawling off. But then again... she really wasn't well-versed in the mechanics of mutation. Not well-versed at all. She still wanted to call him a mutant, just to explain some of his madness... couldn't say how much of that was a juvenile coping mechanism.

Her thoughts were interrupted some time later, as she continued to dwell on her limited lessons on mutation, beyond the obvious 'don't experience it, don't go near people experiencing it, and when in doubt, light it on fire'. Something bumped against her foot... and she glanced down to see a gun protruding from the earth. Her eyes widened, she wanted to back off, to yell for help, to point her own gun... but the gun remained still. No-one was burrowing up beneath her. It was just a pistol, rusted into uselessness, half-buried, barrel sticking out... the others caused with her, and glanced back to see the thing. Took some effort, but Carza dragged it out from the unyielding soil, which clung in fat clumps to everything it had once touched. Hull peered curiously at the thing. Carza studied it carefuly... it was ancient. Not dealing with some recent massacre, then. This thing was from years and years ago, based on the rust which clambered along the barrel, the rot in the wooden elements...

Lirana stared at it... and spoke quietly. Still out of it, even a day later.

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"It's Mahar Jovan. Colonial office."

She hummed.

"Not too old, I think. Close to the river, probably doesn't help with the rusting. Maybe before the Great War, I'd think..."

At her request, Carza handed over the gun, and watched carefully as it was examined by an expert eye. Lirana rolled it over in her hands, wincing at the dirty residue left behind... and froze. Something on the other side of the barrel, a tiny mark... she dropped the gun as if burned, and hissed under her breath. Carza blinked, tilted her head, and said nothing.

"...bad. Bad."

"Hm?"

"That little symbol on the side, it was from... alright, it was from the 61st Expedition."

Anthan glanced at her sharply.

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure. We had a... local politician, turned out he was part of it, ruined his campaign. Symbol was slapped all over the place."

Carza coughed quietly, and Lirana finally caught on that she had no damn idea what the woman was talking about.

"...right, right. 61st. So, Krodaw was... just a trading settlement, then it was expanded after a few wars were declared on us, and... anyway. But the other territories were still pretty untamed. So we used to send out expeditions. They'd be outfitted, they'd usually be a colonial battalion or two, then some local auxiliaries and guides, sent out with all the supplies they'd need for months on the road. They'd run around and just... have fun out here, I suppose. Map things out, make contact... the 'kingdoms' out here were usually just one or two villages with a big man ruling over it. Some would be willing to join us just by flashing our rifles and asking politely. 61st was like all the others... didn't know it came out this way."

She shivered, and trailed off. Egg took over, his face uncharacteristically grim.

"We heard about them out in Fidelizh."

Hull coughed.

"...what did they do?"

Egg stared off over the river, the gold playing across his pale face.

"Went mad. Not many other details. Not much but the bodies."

Lirana shrugged.

"Same here. Not much idea what they did, given that... well, the people who can talk about it are the old soldiers, who... weren't going to tell the truth. Hearings were all private, no idea what they decided on... most of the commanders were already gunned down by firing squad, or died during the expedition itself. I suppose this place was..."

A nervous glance.

"...no, maybe not. Not enough signs. Gun was probably washed ashore, went into the water some way upriver, or stolen and dumped later... either way, I doubt this is where they were."

Carza pressed.

"But what actually happened?"

Lirana shot her an irritated glance.

"I don't know. All I know is that the commanders went mad, killed most of the auxiliaries, then started carving a trail of destruction until half the men were dead, and half of the remaining men strung the officers up and ran home. And you either listen to the people who want to sound less guilty, or the people who want them to sound as guilty as humanly possible."

She smiled weakly.

"Back in Krodaw, you had some people who later joined the Sleepless who said... said the expedition had snatched babies from cradles to eat them, that sort of thing. Just... hard to get a straight answer. No-one wants to tell the absolute truth, because it's either too bad, or not bad enough."

Carza blinked. Hm

Hm.

* * *

The next interruption came hours later, as the sun was rising to its peak, and they were thankful for the endless twilight of the forest... even if they could feel the sun slowly heating the leaves, seeping downwards like treacle dripping from the sky. Founder, she wanted some treacle right now... anyway. The heat was bearable. More accurately, she was used to be soaked in sweat. More used than she once was, at least. They walked onwards, and Carza mulled over the 61st. It was odd, but... she was almost glad, in a way. The Sleepless were so painfully senseless that she needed an explanation, something that placed their actions in context. Maybe this whole place was just soaked in pointless violence, passing like a disease from one group to the next... maybe the Sleepless weren't some aberration, but instead sat at a strange point where they were almost understandable. The river flowed calmly, the trees glowed gold in the afternoon night, and shards of light pierced the canopy like uneven stars, like falling comets with unfading tails. Peaceful. She was... no, she'd moved on from the Sleepless, just needed to get out to the steppe. if she thought about the Sleepless, she thought about Kralat, and if she thought about him, then she thought about the dead eyes of the girl he'd killed... his own dead eyes overlapping with them, the awful feeling of sliding a knife into him, feeling flesh parting, hearing a pained bellow... the only pained sound he made before dying.

And if she thought about that, she felt like she was in that attic again, surrounded by rising smoke, fully believing that she was going to die.

And if she thought about that...

She kept moving.

Easier.

But then the stillness of the day was broken by a crack... and something slamming into the water.

Bullet.

Someone was firing at them. Anthan's screamed command send them all to the ground while he readied his rifle, pointing it blindly into the undergrowth from whence the shot had emanated. Eyes. Staring eyes. Too many. A few more gunshots, but... but they were way off, none of them coming close, most sending up sprays of foam from the water. Anthan fired back, and a pained scream met him - one which didn't sound remotely human. They were evolving. Mutating into something inhuman... but they had enough intelligence left to fire a gun. bad. Very bad. Egg poked his head up, and started taking potshots in return, and Lirana did much the same... while grinding her teeth with the frenzy of the habitual coca-chewer who desperately wanted some leaves in her mouth. Carza and Hull huddled together, and Carza hesitantly pointed her gun into the darkness... it was shaking wildly, she could barely see anything, and smoke was rising from the repeated discharges, enough to fill the air, enough to blind her even more effectively, and she was shaking, and... and...

She fired.

It soared off.

Nothing happened.

She almost felt relieved. At least she wasn't a twice-over-murderer.

Coward.

The gunfire was maddening, constant, and seemingly pointless - she saw no bodies fall, all she saw was her allies ducking, rising, firing, reloading, covering one another... it was messy, they were bellowing constantly, asking for more time, for cover, for ammunition, for guidance, or just general complaints at the visibility. They were pinned to the river, so at least the sunlight was reflecting into the eyes of the ambushers. Why not just descend? Why not just wipe them out immediately? Why not? Why... she had a sudden flash. Living death last night, when she was too hot to think and too tired to act, and she thought she dreamt of a scream in the forest, and...

Had that been the Sleepless?

Something snarled in the dark, and Anthan barked a warning to the others. Mutant. One of the Sleepless burst from the undergrowth, snarl cutting off and replaced with focused silence. She barely saw what it was - worse than the others, that was for sure. One of the thick-skinned Sleepless, the ones that wept red-pink haemolymph... half of him had moulted, thick layers of flesh peeling free to expose something brown and shiny, like insect chitin and human skin had fused, becoming something hard and shiny, yet flexible and bloody. It wept liquid where the chitin was still forming, and she saw far too many legs poking free. It leapt and shambled, nothing formed correctly, everything still harmonising... painfully unstable. Lirana fired wildly, and Carza saw chunks of it falling free, shivering and seeming to crawl away on vestigial, insect-like limbs, doing their best to survive as the host struggled to endure. The face was barely human, bloodless and sagging, as though it was ready to peel free and be replaced by something better. The forehead was hollow, sinking down to cover the eyes, and the mouth was a dull black slit hanging open to reveal something significantly sharper. Unstable. Shambling. Bleeding from bullet holes.

"Mark!"

Anthan's voice was clear, loud, almost panicked. What was he... Egg hurled a canister of jellied fuel, half-full, over his shoulder and into the air...

Where it was popped by a distressingly accurate shot from Anthan.

Flames erupted as the canister emptied violently. The mutant received the worst, and it burned in absolute silence. The body knew it was dying, and simply... abandoned ship. Chunks of flesh peeled free and ran, scuttling wildly over the crowd, too simple to understand concepts like loyalty or purpose. All it knew was survival, and right now, that meant leaving. She saw spider-like growths of chitin, flesh, and loose skin clicking away, some of them burning already and succumbing to the heat, others healthy and quick enough to slip into the undergrowth. This, along with the roaring orange flame, was enough to distract the Sleepless - she could hear nauseating crunches and excited cries from the huddled fighters, grabbing at the quietly squealing mounds of flesh which had detached from their old comrade, consuming them messily for any of the contamination they held in reserve. Gunfire ceased, an orgy of violence replacing it. Anthan barked at the others.

"The river's shallow enough, walk across, hold your things over your heads!"

Carza paled. Cross the river? Cross it? It was... it was... it was a gently lapping golden ribbon, she could... panic spurred her onwards, and she plunged a foot into the water, holding her pistol and her bag high above. The cold shot through her, and she gritted her teeth, striding further into the water. A controlled descent turned into a desperate stagger as the water made her clumsier, and she was terrified of falling over, losing everything, her gun, her belongings... water soaked her immediately, and she felt the rocky bottom of the river shuffling under her boots... oh, crud, she'd forgotten to take her boots off, no wonder she was the first one in... she winced as the others entered, the three fighters bringing up the rear to lay down fire on the Sleepless, who were recovering from their brief feast, returning to their senses. Or whatever passed for senses.

She staggered through the water, and heard the others behind her, churning up gravel and hissing at the cool water, still flavoured with some of the snowy cold of the mountains where it'd originated. The Sleepless were yelling at each other, navigating clumsily around the spreading fire - the noonday heat had dried out some of the leaves, and the fire was raging more cheerfully than it had yesterday. Carza clumsily turned out a little, pointed her pistol wildly, just trying to feel in control... and she saw a wall of orange flame lapping upwards, charring the trees, devouring the leaves hungrily... the mutant in the middle was nothing more than charcoal, anything living having died or scampered off by now. The Sleepless were trying to navigate around it, and she could see their shadows as they abandoned subtlety in favour of pursuit. For a second, she was... almost surprised. She saw mutants, guns, all the awful instruments of war, but... nothing else. She didn't see horde. The endless legion of horribles who would be charging after them. Maybe dividing up had saved them, split the forces chasing them...

She remembered the scream from last night, a scream she was barely sure had even occurred... and a sense of dread pulsed in her for reasons she couldn't quite articulate.

The flames rose higher and higher... and Anthan and Egg shot into it, anything to break up the attempts to circle around. The other shore was approaching quickly, but Carza could feel the water dragging at her limbs, sucking hungrily at her clothes like wind in a ship's sail. She struggled, her arms aching... and Hull barrelled ahead of her, stomping messily through the water, his eyes wide with panic. She stopped for a second as he passed, stabilising herself... and she saw him throw his things to the shore, sinking into the soft undergrowth, before turning around...

She squeaked in alarm as Hull dove back, and grabbed her things from her, tossing them carelessly to the shoreline, before grabbing her around her arms and yanking her in its general direction.

A moment later, she saw why he was so panicked.

One of the Sleepless had entered the water.

No sign of his mutations, he was too concealed by foam and furious motion. He was swimming hungrily in their direction - he'd dashed upstream, dove in, and now rode the current, flanking their efforts. The crackles of gunfire were distracting the three fighters... this Sleepless wanted to come in from the other side. Pincer manoeuvre. Carza gasped as she was flung to the shore, feeling the splinters in the shoreline tear up her hands... a hiss of pain escaped her lips, immediately suppressed by adrenaline. The Sleepless was ploughing through the water, and she could hear his breath, growing heavier and heavier, flecked with blood-red saliva... sleek, smooth, quick... she scrambled on the shoreline, and reached out for Hull - his hands pressed into hers, and the splinters dug deeper. She ignored them, and heaved. Hull kicked frantically, his clothes weighing him down... one large hand clutched the shore, and he tugged himself out of the water, and...

And the Sleepless was closer, eyes bulging, pupils split open and irises dividing, teeth sharp and hooked - if he bit one of them, they wouldn't be getting out, not with those teeth tearing inwards and preventing escape.

She fumbled at her side, clutching for... for... her gun.

It was cold and heavy. A prosaic weight.

The others had seen the threat, and were struggling acros... but they had enough problems covering their own retreat, making sure they couldn't just be picked off in the water, sitting ducks with no cover and no mobility. Carza fumbled with her gun, struggling just to get it on target, sweat dripping over her eyes... the Sleepless burst from the water, and Hull dragged himself out just in time, scrambling away... and a hand with eerily sharp nails dug into his ankle, eliciting a pained bellow. Couldn't just let him handle it. She pointed vaguely, and her finger automatically squeezed the trigger before she could think - idiot, idiot, why did she have her finger on the trigger when she was so twitchy. The sound was deafening, and the Sleepless flinched, relaxing for a moment...

She lunged. Her hands were frozen, she was panicking, she was terrified... and the gnawing in her gut had only grown worse.

The butt of the pistol slammed into his forehead, flakes of cheap pearl coming off and embedding themselves into the flesh. The face that glared up at her was twisted in fury and pain, and she saw huge gashes along its neck and chest, caked with brown-and-grey matter where the body was trying to repair them. Those gashes saved her - limited his range of motion, stopped him from clawing at her. She slammed down again. Again. Again. She felt his nose splinter, his face split, blood rushing to a dozen tiny wounds... she kept going, feeling the gun's firing mechanism shudder in protest, and she kept on going. Her voice rose to a scream as she went, shrieking insults and invectives that she was sure he didn't understand a word of, and she couldn't even remember really saying... froth was at the corners of her mouth, His grip detached only after his face was a pulped mess, eyes vanished behind blood and swelling skin, mouth reduced to a howling toothless entryway. He swiped blindly, and... and she'd overextended. Come too close.

A fist slammed into her side, and she sprawled over the bank, panting and wheezing, feeling like a useless wet rat.

The Sleepless was struggling out of the water.

His teeth, those that remained, were gleaming in the reflected light, little gold nuggets that bore down on... on Hull.

She ignored her pain.

Moved, shrieking at the top of her lungs.

The Sleepless was blind. He couldn't see her, and was too unstable to prepare. He stumbled...

And fell into the seething waters.

For a second, he was just struggling to get back upright, and a second later...

Crack.

He slumped, a red star blooming on his back. A weak straggle passed through him, an attempt to stay functional... another gunshot put a stop to that. Lirana was shakily pointing her rifle in his direction... and kept moving.

Carza slumped.

The three were here. The fire across the river was still raging, even more intense now. Another Sleepless had entered the water, but... Anthan swung himself out, and calmly plucked him down into the depths with dispassionate professionalism. The river had become a friend, now - a wall that kept them away from the Sleepless. If they crossed, they'd be shot easily. She kept staring at the body in the water, face-down, bleeding from a wound that was washed clean by the rushing water. Always... tiny, never flooding with blood that would disguise its true size and properly reflect its importance. All she saw was a bright red star and a few wisps trailing away, it was tiny... and it had killed him. She stared blankly, and was... was surprised at how guiltless she felt. There was terror, yes, there was adrenaline and fury and relief... but she couldn't bring herself to feel the same crushing guilt as when Kralat had died. She was already a murderer. And he'd been attacking, it was self-defence...

Her hands weren't shaking.

"Are you alright, Hull?"

Her voice was low. Flat. He responded carefully.

"...I'm fine. You?"

"Fine."

"You don't look it. Come on, let me look at those hands..."

She gladly surrendered them, allowed him to wash them and start to extract the splinters while she stared blankly into the water which reflected the gleaming sun, the shimmering fire... the river was the same, but its reflections had changed. No more peace here, just a body, blood, fire, a blazing sun... and the air was filled with the stench of burning fuel. One canister gone... one more left, and half-full at that. The others hauled themselves out of the river, grunting in exertion and irritation, already starting to remove their outer layers to let them dry. Carza could feel an unnameable savagery in her, a kind of... brooding violence. She felt splinters being removed from her hands, and saw the tiny trickles of blood leaking down from them, tiny red tears slipping over her muddy palms and into the river. She saw the flames rising higher and higher into the merciless day, and thought... this was the place where an expedition had gone mad, and the Sleepless were taking that legacy to newer extremes. The birds chattered, and she wondered if there was a madness in the air. If that was why she'd now been part of two people dying, had inflicted such violence without any reserve...

Why the regret was slow to build. Hull was alive, her companions were alive, that was what mattered, and... and she found it hard to feel legitimate guilt. The gnawing in her gut was turning barbaric. If given a choice between someone else dying and her, or her friends... it knew what it'd choose.

And she was being dragged along its unstoppable wave. Too many reminders of her old life. Far too many.

"Come on. We need to get moving."

Anthan's voice was low, cautious, considering. He was soaked, but he didn't really seem to notice - the heat would dry him out, evidently, and he felt no need to strip or change. Carza spoke quietly, still surprised at how level her voice was.

"...there's not very many of them, are there?"

She remembered the scream.

"...did you hear anything last night?"

Anthan hummed.

"They're mutants. They squabble. And a bunch were split off to go and hunt the other party. And maybe this is just a scouting party, maybe that burning body threw them off our trail a bit. We can't be certain that their numbers have actually reduced. Unless we can confirm a kill, we don't count it. Alright?"

"And last night?"

"I heard something. Screaming, but... hard to say where from. I thought I'd need to wake all of you up, but it never came again. Egg, you had a watch, did-"

"Nothing."

"...so, there we are. Nothing."

He shrugged idly.

"All I need to know is that we're being pursued now, and that we ought to get moving."

Hull spoke up, cautious and weary.

"Think they could cross the river?"

"I think they'll need to. But if they do, they'll need to go upstream or downstream - if they cross in sight of us, they'll be cut down easily. On land, I assume we'll go at similar speeds, I figure if they need to stick together they'll match the pace of their slowest - and you saw how slow that big mutant was."

Shambling. Half-formed. Barely able to hold itself together, eager to divide up. Unstable to the point of being dangerous. Maybe it would've harmonised and become something more... effective in time, or maybe it'd have remained a shambling wreck that even contamination couldn't fix, for all the enhancements it could offer. Too many things interfering in his mutations - diseases, meals, parasites... who could say. But he'd been slow. So, to keep their numbers up, they'd stick together, and... yeah. She nodded.

"So that balances out any advantages from being mutants."

"Precisely. Now, keep in mind that they'll be cautious to stop other mutants from finding them... I figure we'll be going at equal paces. Which means, by my reckoning, they'll probably go downstream, cross there, then go straight after us. Or they could divide between the banks... but that'd make them vulnerable, lower strength... hm."

He shrugged again.

"Either way, we keep moving. Either way, they'll likely try and chase us up this bank, so we should watch our tails, and watch the river. No way for them to get ahead of us and wait, not in my estimations. But should be careful nonetheless. No more sleeping in the wild, too. If we sleep, we should try and find somewhere more fortified."

"Fortified?"

"Old villages. Bunch of them along this river, I'd imagine. It's where villages tend to be."

He shrugged again.

"Well. Let's be off. You'll dry as you walk, it's hot enough."

She staggered to her feet... and Hull abruptly burst out laughing as he hauled himself up beside her. She gave him a look... and he poked her head.

Oh.

Hat.

"That's still dry, at least."

She glowered... but the movement of her eyebrows and forehead destabilised the hat, sending the brim crashing down over her eyes. A moment of silence. And Hull let out a long, low, wheeze of amusement. Carza fumed... but inwardly, she was just glad that something was still normal. Laughter, silly hats, the comedy of her boots squishing beneath her feet... it all helped distract from the gnawing urge for survival which made her want to do anything to live. That had realised that this would be a struggle of life and death, and she'd better start fighting like she was an ornery bull outside of breeding season. Even that thought, taken from one of her less-excellent novels, was enough to make her feel more human. She ventured back into the gloom of the forest, into the stinking world where madness lurked and contamination rose up... and watched as Anthan cut his way through, humming happily. She wondered if becoming comfortable in an environment like this was a coping mechanism for madness, or was a symptom of that same madness.

And if she thought too long about that, she became reminded of why she loathed philosophy.

"Thanks for getting me out of the water, Hull."

"Thanks for saving my proverbial bacon."

Carza paused.

"...and thank you, Lirana. Saved both of us."

The woman sniffed self-consciously.

"S'nothing."

Abruptly, she froze. Stared. Carza wondered if she was about to be part of another ambush, or was about to hear more unpleasant history... when Lirana asked in a quiet, curious tone:

"Sorry, I've been wondering this for ages now, and was too... professional to ask, but... uh... it's a bit personal, but..."

Carza tilted her head to one side, almost sending the hat flying.

"Go on."

"...Hull."

"What about him?"

"Are you two..."

She paused, considered, hesitated some more... then formed two fingers into an 'o', extended the index of her other hand, then poked it into the hole several times while - oh. Carza walked closer, and looked at her. It was one of her better looks.

"Don't make such vulgar comments. We're friends."

"...like, friends?"

Mahar Jovan was a debauched den of vice. She was certain of it. No-one normal thought things like this.

"Yes. Friends. As in, we have a friendship. That's all, you..."

She trailed off. Didn't want to meet her vulgarity with more vulgarity, that felt like giving in somehow. Like she was letting her own side down. The side of civilisation and reasonability and politeness and virtue.

"...uh. Alright. Just curious."

"Don't ask me any of this again. And don't ask Hull."

He had a capacity for vulgarity that she didn't want anyone to enable.

"Alright. I'll make sure not to."

She paused.

"...you know, I'm only twenty five, I could go for-"

Carza growled.

"I have brutalised one man today. Don't tempt me."

"Joking. Joking."

"It wasn't funny."

"It was, a bit."

A glare.

"...fine. Fine."

And with that, they were off again.

This place was definitely mad. No other explanation for it.