Chapter Thirty Seven

It was bizarre, trying to move on after something like... that. Carza couldn't get how close it'd been out of her mind, she partially still thought that her survival had been a hallucination, that she was currently being melted down and added to that thing's armour. Just like Egg. It'd be easy, too - someone threw the fuel canister, and it missed. No, it was thrown, it flew, Anthan fired, and Carza's heart plummeted into her boots as he missed. Lirana and Hull missed their shots too, and the canister plunked harmlessly into the creature, which barely noticed the irritation - not aware of how close it'd come to death. And then it politely walked over to where the others were hiding and tore them apart, before shifting, staring at Carza, and commenting in its silent, apathetic way that existed only in her imagination: 'good meal, I expect something of similar quality tomorrow'. Presuming it didn't kill her on the spot. And when she had nothing to give tomorrow... well. Anyway. The point was, she had every reason to be dead right now. She'd been stupid, and in her defence, she was a scholar. Ideally, she'd have had time to research mutants, mutant combat techniques, could've constructed a bibliography, maybe bugged Hull until she got some references from obscure poems to serve as chapter headings... she was best when she planned. And when she had no time for that, she did things like thrash at something much, much larger than her with its own flaming severed arm.

Which was not the smartest thing in the world, if she was going to be terrifically honest.

And now... now she was alive. She lingered. She remained. Egg didn't. He was lying on the ground in front of her... barely recognisable. Flesh charred by the fuel, and even before that, he hadn't been doing too well. With his blackened flesh, he looked almost like a piece of pumice - his flesh was damn near porous at this point. Those red threads had sunk deep, intertwining with his bones, his muscles, moving them like a puppet's strings. His back was ripped apart by the bullets he'd hidden there, which had actually turned the tide on things. His final gift to the rest of them - something suitably godly. There was something mythical about that. A god, sacrificing himself to a foul creature, poisoning it from within... if she was feeling prideful and glorious, she might call it 'a good way to go'. But looking at the body... no. Not a chance. A 'good way to go' would be dying quietly and contentedly in a warm bed surrounded by his family. She didn't know if he had family. Brothers, sisters, living parents, maybe nieces or nephews, maybe even some children. Abandoned, illegitimate, unknown... comrades from the Great War who remembered him fondly. Cam had been friends with him, of course, but... the idea of killing a man and the only person who'd mourn him, that stuck in her craw and made her want to stay very, very still for a very long time.

Idly, she wondered what that thing had been. How old. How powerful. What it really looked like, once all the bodies and shells were gone. What remained... and what it had once been. Human, animal, plant... maybe a microorganism? Maybe some sort of fungus, the sort that learned to infest before it learned to live? And even now, was nothing but the armour it wore, the links that bound it together... something that existed entirely through relations, and never by itself. A deer, a snake, a mass grave... but never itself. It was a bibliography, that was the word she'd been struggling to find while paralysed with terror at the sight of it. A bibliography, with all its references made clear... and the work itself burned up into ashes, never to be seen by human eyes. And now... now she could see a huge pile of references in front of her, charred and licked by flecks of liquid flame. Her eyes locked on one chunk - one little gobbet of the jellied fuel that still somehow burned. Like a lump of priceless ambergris or pearly, fatty oil, dragged out from the body of a whale and ignited. She heard they did that, out east. On the coast. Heard stories of the devil-whales that lived in the great ocean, which were hunted by vast metal ships which hung them on their sides, crewed by men who slowly became like the sea itself, mutated by the contamination carried on the salt foam...

Distracting herself.

Egg was no longer burning. Lirana stared at the body with wide eyes... and quietly, carefully, she lifted a small shovel from her pack, and began to dig. Carza joined her. Hull too, and Anthan. All four of them digging with shovels and picks - mountaineering equipment, really. Bought for the snow and ice, and now cutting easily through the soft earth. It barely took any time to hew out a hole in the earth, deep and damp and dark, wriggling with small worms that fled from the stink of contamination. Even creatures without the capacity for thought could still recognise the scent, and still knew to run or face dissolution. His pack had been torn free by the creature, so... they were able to drag out a coat, and wrap his body up in it. Just to give it some decency. She couldn't even remember what god he was at the moment, what aspects he was channelling... she didn't know what Fidelizh did for their dead. Was burial offensive? Was cremation preferred? Maybe they should... no, burial would work. An unrealistic part of her wondered if they could leave a marker and then come back one day, after finding out the proper rites, exhuming him and doing what they were meant to. But that would mean crossing back the way they came, going into Sleepless territory once more, finding a clearing in the middle of identical woodland, surviving the thing again...

They were still guests here. Tolerated, because they were too annoying to kill.

His face was a melted death-mask, clinging tightly to a hollowed skull. No eyes, but she couldn't tell if that was good or bad. Not like Kralat's eyes, or the local woman's eyes, or... well, Cam's eyes. Just vacant dark holes where flesh had flowed smoothly to fill, melting to seal up a lacuna.

What was she meant to say?

She glanced at the others.

Did they... did they have anything?

Lirana was shaking like a leaf, taking deep, half-panicked breaths. Hull still looked bleary from getting smacked into a tree, but... otherwise solemn. And Anthan simply had his head bowed in respect, one hand filled with grave dirt. No-one knew the rites, the words... he'd saved all of their lives by putting himself in that creature's way, and by girdling himself with bullets that could go off after being ignited... and yet none of them knew how to properly mourn him. Beyond bowing their heads, lingering in silence... and then grabbing a handful of earth and letting them fall in unison. A shower of black hail, indistinguishable from his charred skin... and that was all. That was it. That was the entirety of the mourning rites they could perform. Carza wanted to perform the proper mourning rites of the Court of Ivory - they did have some, even if they were usually practised in the Court itself. She could scratch a small symbol into his forehead using a ceremonial golden needle, recite sacred words in the hidden language of the Court of Ivory, and even perform the lengthy and difficult Rite of Remembrance, in which she detailed every miniscule detail of him in a book, but... well, that rite was meant for people she knew well. What she knew of him couldn't fill more than a decent-sized pamphlet. And in the end... she didn't want to insult him by burying him according to a rite he didn't believe in. The others seemed to be of similar minds. But in the confines of her head, she offered a prayer to the Founder. A quiet plea for him to be commended into the knowledge of the Founder, to be Known and Recognised. To be Documented as a Quantified Value in the eyes of he-who-seeks-omniscience. Quietly, she made the sign of the fivefold-eye, and saw Hull doing the same.

Both hands tapping the centre of the chest - the first.

Then both hands moving apart, sliding up and down, away from the central point - the second and third.

Then the same process, but horizontal - the fourth and fifth.

The five-eyed symbol of the Founder, a central eye staring outwards, with four eyes surrounding it, staring in the cardinal directions. As with all the sacred gestures, it was not to be used except in important situations - knowledge wasn't meant to be bandied about by or in front of the uneducated and unrefined, it was to be reserved and concentrated, immune from bastardisation. But this situation called for it.

Anthan dug out Egg's rifle - ruined during his death, found scattered in a bush during their journey here - and used it as a grave marker while filling in the grave with a small shovel. Lirana pressed her hands against her throat, and for a second Carza felt nervous - what was she doing? Why was she doing it? Her hands were spread out, almost like a butterfly's wings, and she rested them palm-down against her throat, murmuring something... and then withdrew them. Oh. Huh. Mahar Jovan had its own sacred gestures then. They all helped fill in the grave in silence, the rifle standing up as the sole monument to Egg's presence here. And when the earth was filled in, when his body completely vanished, Anthan quietly removed a hip-flask from his own bag and poured it smoothly over the earth. The liquid was clear, but it shimmered with strange internal structures - alcohol, and strong stuff. Practically hissed on hitting the soil, which drank it up hungrily.

And that was all.

The funeral had been conducted in deathly silence, and only when it ended did they dare talk to one another again.

"...good job in there, Carza. Damn stupid, of course."

Anthan was gruff. Businesslike, even as sadness lingered in his eyes like motes of dust in a sunbeam. The others nodded. Carza coughed uncomfortably.

"It... was rather stupid. Yes."

"Very much so. But still impressive, have to give you credit for that."

"Could've gone wrong."

"And it didn't. Now, let's get out of here before that thing decides to be vengeful."

Carza shook her head slightly, even as she started walking.

"I don't think it's able to. It just seemed... bored. For the entire time. Even when it burned, it just…"

Anthan grimaced.

"Kept going. Always. You notice that sort of thing, especially with old-growth mutants. Think about it - imagine being an animal. Animal instincts to feed, to survive... but then you remove some of the more crucial parts. It can't breed, it can't even really cooperate with something like it. A proper mutant is perpetually alone, and condemned to exist until something kills it. It can't even fathom an end to its existence."

"...sounds lonely."

"It is. Contamination makes them stronger, makes them... better, in some ways, but it also cuts out something important from them. And what's left looks alive, acts alive, but really, it's just going through the motions."

"...except for the thing up north. The thing which started the Great War."

Anthan flinched.

"Well, no-one knows about that. For me, it's just... rumours, really. They came from the north, the refugees from there told stories... some said it was a living city, or a giant churning mass of flesh that birthed mutants, or a living island, or something that looked very much like a human, but very much wasn't. Lots of stories. No-one's certain."

Lirana grunted, and her voice was strained, irritated, punctuated by sniffs as she tried to get her nose under control - still suffering from a bad cold, and it made her voice unpleasantly nasal.

"Can we stop talking about mutants, just for a minute?"

Silence fell once more.

What else was there to talk about?

* * *

Hours later, they still hadn't quite figured out what could be talked about, if anything. They walked quickly, bunched up, guns ready. Anthan showed her how to actually reload the thing properly, noting grumpily that she'd picked... picked the wrong sort of pistol. Apparently. Her revolver kicked like a mule, and was clumsy to reload. If her hands were shaking too much, she'd find it damn near impossible. She didn't know how to stand while shooting, how to breathe when pulling the trigger... a whole litany of lessons that Anthan was half-heartedly mumbling... but it was obvious that he was enjoying finding something to distract himself with. Rifles, he said, were honestly a better option for a girl her age. They'd sit in the groove of her shoulder, the recoil would be less dramatic, easily compensated for... a pistol, by contrast, was considered more of a beginner's weapon because of the size, but in reality, a competent pistol user probably required more practice to be any good with the damn thing than a competent rifleman. And, quote, 'with her skinny arms, it was a miracle she hadn't broken her wrists from firing the damn thing'. Carza wasn't going to admit that her wrists were feeling... very, very sore indeed, just after firing it a few times at that thing. He seemed to understand the gun intimately, and as they walked over the rolling foothills towards the looming mountains, he even disassembled her pistol in front of her face, examining every speck of dirt she'd accumulated.

"...when did you last clean this?"

"...uh."

She couldn't remember. She thought she shoved a brush down the barrel, once. No idea about anything else. Her uncertainty must've reflected on her face, because Anthan grumbled good-naturedly.

"Clean it daily, alright? Unless you want something that breaks when you pull the trigger, or has a trigger so rusted it can't be pulled in the first place. Look, this is how..."

He used his rifle with easy skill, but there was something... fascinating about watching him with the pistol. His motions weren't just easy, they were delicate. He picked over the mechanisms with a degree of expertise that only someone thoroughly acquainted with the weapon would have, cleaning them carefully, inspecting every single piece for damage, humming lightly... giving the pearl-clad grip a very stern look. Carza flushed slightly. Alright, so she liked the pearl handle, she thought it was pretty. And... well, that was about it. It was growing a little chipped, though... feh. Focusing on minutiae like this helped her stay calm, reduce her paranoia. Adrenaline had burned through her, consuming emotions and worries, and now... now there was just an empty numbness. And she felt guilty that she couldn't distinguish between adrenaline withdrawal and grief. Powering forwards on instinct, struggling to even process that she was alive to begin with. He spoke quietly and almost reverently while he worked, cleaning it, oiling it, making sure everything worked as it was meant to, explaining each and every mechanism...

He liked his rifle. But he seemed to love this revolver.

"You... really like it, don't you?"

"Hm? Well. I... appreciate it."

"...why don't you have one?"

"Rifle worked better, and I'm used to using it in conditions like these. Don't get a wrong, a handgun is nice, but when the budget's stretched..."

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He shrugged.

"Anyway. It's a fine weapon. Take care of it, though - if you do, it'll last you for a good long time."

"...and I'm meant to stand like... this?"

"Space your legs a bit more. Adjust your shoulders, like... this. Rifle, you're transmitting the recoil into your entire body, pistol, you're just working with your arms. So, you brace them properly, don't try and lock up... let the recoil flow through you, and you'll be alright. Lock up, you'll snap. Be flexible. Or just start putting on some muscle, that helps."

"I'll try."

"Hm."

He stroked the gun for a moment before handing it back, and sighed wistfully.

"They say there's someone down in Sundragard who's putting together these... new handguns. They say they're like, uh, well.. imagine a gun that reloads itself using its own recoil."

Carza blinked.

"That sounds ridiculous."

"I agree. Sounds like something that sounds good on paper, but in practice... you can't really dispute just being good with a weapon, in my eyes. Friend said it was still a prototype, held together with string, happy thoughts, and a lot of theurgic mechanisms. Needs to be repaired every few minutes, if it doesn't explode in your face. But... well. Practice with this. Try and get a rifle, once your nerves are at the point where you don't shake like a leaf after each shot."

He paused.

"That's something, don't flinch. Once you stop flinching, you can really begin to improve - as it is, you practically need to adjust after each shot. Which you'd do anyway, but you need to do it a lot more than is necessary. Once you're over that hump..."

Carza smiled faintly.

"I'll try. But I get the feeling I'm not... meant for this sort of thing."

Anthan forced himself to grin, and he nodded over at Hull.

"Saw you two, uh..."

"Shut up."

"Look, all I'm saying-"

He took the pistol back from her unresisting hands.

"All I'm saying is that if you want to impress your friends, maybe get yourself... anyway, just give 'em one of these."

And then he spun the pistol.

He spun it many times. Flipped it, slipped it from one finger to another, changing directions, orientations, juggling it like it wasn't... oh Founder, he was spinning it, and it was loaded. Blood drained from her face, she stepped back, and... and the gun was pressed back into her shaking hands, having been fanned through the air with disgusting ease. She could barely shoot the thing, and he was doing sleight-of-hand with it. And when she had it back, all she could think was how clumsy her own fingers were, and how heavy the thing was, and how... how it had felt, the recoil kicking her when she fired at the creature, seeing bullet holes appear and not a single one affecting it. Not a single one even piercing its armour. For a second, reality returned, and she remembered the feeling of grave-dirt between her fingers, slipping under her nails... he'd spun a gun, that was it, and she was already thinking of Egg again. How he'd been so outgoing, so willing to talk about his homeland, to struggle through difficulties of translation just to show her how he thought, how he believed... lost his friend, and still kept going with the expedition, working with them, supporting them. Just being... decent, really. The gun gleamed in the afternoon light, and...

"...Carza?"

Hull's hand was on her shoulder.

"Hm? Oh. Yes. I'm... fine, sorry. Just..."

She shrugged helplessly. Hull gave her a sympathetic grimace.

"I know. Come on, let's just... keep on walking."

Best they could do, she supposed. Anthan looked at her worriedly, and flashed a small smile, reassuring her that he was fine, she'd be fine too, they were almost at the mountains. The three of them had stopped. Lirana had walked ahead. She stood on a hill, slightly further along. A mountain rose behind her, silhouetting her dramatically against the soft blue-tinged peak - a thick greatcoat was now draped loosely around her shoulders, and she'd even dragged out a ragged red scarf from her bags. The weather was getting colder, and she was... well, she had something in her system. A spark of worry flowed through Carza, a spark that had existed for some time but... well, now there were no distractions. Her back had been heavily mutated, and... and she thought back to a conversation, days ago. Lirana had said something she'd said the day prior, Carza had pointed out the repetition, and the look of confusion from Lirana had been... concerning. And now there was this illness she had that was making her sneeze... well, sneezing wasn't worrying in and of itself, but... but then she thought about the blood. Kralat had been killed by Lirana. The rest of the party had seen mutants, fought them, but Lirana had been doused in a mutant's blood, and if the thing in the forest had taught her anything, it was that contamination could be carried in the blood - she remembered the thick, tar-like substance that made the detector howl when brought close. Adding to that, she'd been attacked by one of the Sleepless, had been cut in her shoulder by an axe... and the Sleepless played dirty. She remembered those documents on Kralat's desk - mutated bodies thrown into water supplies, acts of terror to frighten the local population, disease spread in the refugee encampment outside Krodaw... little acts of monstrousness which made the Sleepless cause go further, increment by bloody increment.

Lirana had been exposed.

...and a sinful thought was developing in her head.

But for now... for now, the figure was waving to them. What was the problem, she silently asked. Why were they breaking up the group, she queried. Catch up, she ordered with a dismissive final wave, before striding off and surmounted the hill, disappearing down the other side. Anthan's mouth was drawn into a line as thin and grey as a stretch of barbed wire, and he walked after her with his own coat flapping around his heels. The ground was becoming hard and grey, mud gone, solidified into tough little waves that cracked under her boots as she followed, trotting quickly. The forest was thinning here.

They were out of the realm of the mutant in the trees. Out of the realm of the thing which gnawed on the dead and wore them as raiments.

...she felt around on her belt, and found that knife. That knife from the well.

Madmen had walked into this place, butchered, and then their corpses had become armour to a thing which was older than them, older by far, and possessed of a blistering apathy towards everything they stood for. It didn't care that her party left, or if they stayed. If they threatened it, it would leave. If they had something it wanted, it would take it, unless the cost exceeded the reward. It was an engine of calculation, devoid of feeling or philosophy. It wouldn't sit her down and force her to witness a debate between itself and its enemies - it had no enemies. No friends, neither. It had components, to be operated around, accounted for, perhaps removed, perhaps ignored...

It would mark their passing with the same lack of emotion as it marked their arrival, their conflict, their pursuit...

And in the forest behind her, lay a solitary grave where Egg rested. And she hoped, truly hoped, that he wasn't going to be disturbed.

He deserved a rest.

* * *

The forest died all around them. The trees changed. No more boundless canopies of wide-spread leaves, not hungry for rain, but gluttonous for it. Gluttonous for everything that came their way, devouring with the easy languor of the semi-tropical plant. In places like this, the plants grew with self-satisfied bloat. The moisture in the air let them swell, the moisture in the soil let them plant their roots wide and powerful, the abundance of creatures provided accompaniment. Grew as quickly as they rotted. No burning, the landscape was too lush for it, too... virginal. It was the sort of forest which repelled humanity because there was too much life in it, too many little creatures, all of them competing and squabbling and butchering. No possible chance for humanity to insert itself, unless as a host for them. A victim. A vehicle. Nothing more. But here... here the plants were hungrier. They knew scarcity. The closest comparison she could find was... well, the Courts of ALD IOM. The forest behind them was the Court of Salt. It was lush, decadent, rich, spoiled with the fruits of a pleasant little world, and so noisy that nothing could be heard over the general din. Trees held themselves sovereign until they were strangled by the next bunch. Constant rises and falls and rises and falls...

This new forest was the Court of Slate. Perhaps, if she was feeling less-than-fond of her home, the Court of Ivory too. The trees stood a greater distance apart, and rose higher. They had a long-suffering weariness to them, and with weariness came haughtiness. They didn't compete, because there was so little to compete for. Once they were in, they were in, and nothing short of catastrophe would get them out. Competition for resources only had a point when there were resources to compete for, when there was enough freed up for things to rise and things to fall. Here, though... life was longer, and colder. The soil was worse, closer to the mountains, which rose with soft, sloping peaks, weathered by millennia of storms. The trees took what was there, and what remained... barely enough for some scrubby little patches of grass, like patches of hair on a balding man's head. Carza had been bothered by mosquitoes for so long that she barely even noticed them these days, but... but now they were silent. The forest was broken by shuffling things, but no agitated buzzes, no shrieks... the birds were quieter, and used to being silent. There was only so much. And from this scarcity came aristocracy, came a world where everything was precisely honed for long-term survival at all costs, working with the little they had, a ruthless environment in which no decadence could be permitted. If the forest behind them had been full of fat, happy trees lounging in armchairs, now the trees were hard-backed old men with steepled, gnarled fingers, high shoulders, and eyes that gleamed with long-lived cunning.

They would never cover the world.

But the world wouldn't dare come to them. They, who had hewn out a life in somewhere like this, where the shadow of the mountains turned half of each day into gloomy twilight. Here, where the rains were accompanied by mudslides which tore up the young and rootless. Here, where the chills of winter could seep into the ground and remain for the entire summer, pricklings of frost dancing around every stone and every clod...

Here, aristocrats ruled, and strivers could slink to the foetid pools in the lowlands, where anything could live if it bred fast enough and suckled greedily enough.

Carza actually preferred it.

In a guilty way, she found... well, maybe Miss vo Larima had a point. There was something very nice about being aristocratic, even in a scholarly way. She wasn't born to aristocracy, she'd earned her place in the Court of Ivory. And yes, it was an elite institution in the city, and yes, it elevated her, but...

...but it was quite nice being elevated, she had to admit.

Anyway.

She liked this part of the forest much better. The cool air was a balm on her skin, and for once she felt her thoughts working as they were meant to. No sign of the creature, and here... here there were fewer places to hide, even with its reduced size. The trees were too thin and far apart, the grass was too low and sparse, the landscape in general was too open for its ambushes. If it wasn't for the poor quality of the soil, and the likelihood of landslides and avalanches... she'd be legitimately surprised that humanity hadn't just clustered around mountain chains and remained there. Mountain ranges had foundation stone in abundance, more than enough lying in their roots, enough to keep many springs of contamination... anyway. She had a coat, a hat, and she felt joyous numbness in the tips of her toes where the cold was sinking in a little more.

Numbness.

Never knew how wonderful it could feel.

The mountains were close, now. Very, very close indeed. She fully anticipated entering the pass within the next few days, maybe sooner if they were lucky. The river was thinner than ever before, sometimes barely even audible - it had sliced a deep groove in the earth, and the soil muffled it quite effectively indeed. Definitely nothing to fish for here. And according to Anthan, they should be approaching a village soon enough - the last one before the mountains. Not sure what they'd be doing in this place... she liked it, but it didn't seem very feasible to live here. She imagined villages with rolling fields of corn and wheat surrounding them, golden in the setting sun. Grass could barely manage to survive here, so...

Maybe they just ate bears.

...did this place have bears?

This place had bears, had to. Made too much sense. This was bear country.

A spark of fear in her gut. She wasn't especially frightened of bears. But she was afraid of large things with sharp implements at its disposal and a habit for killing humans with alarming speed. Those were the features she was alarmed of. A very large and angry bird could qualify. So could a lion. Bears just happened to fit into the category.

...then again, whales didn't have sharp implements, and she was alarmed of them, conceptually speaking...

...well, fine. It was the inclination to kill and the ability to kill in conjunction that was the crux of her fear.

And the mountains were, indeed, starting to be touched with a faint, coral-pink shade, like the inside of a shell... the sun was going down behind them, turning a burnished gold. Nothing was chasing them, nothing was hunting... they could buckle down for the night if they needed to, or push on ahead. And with the landscape becoming much simpler, much more... smooth, for lack of a better word...

Well.

Carza kept her eyes fixed on Lirana as they walked. She was staying ahead of most of them, walking with the stiff energy of the stressed and tense. Hands stuffed in her pockets, scarf bundled around her mouth. Shivering, sneezing... keeping her eyes fixed ahead, and her rifle over her shoulder. Egg and Cam both... no wonder she was worried. And Carza was legitimately uncertain of what to do. She'd been mutated, yes, but the question was how much she'd been mutated, how deleterious it would be, if it would attract other mutants... she hadn't had to deal with this before, one of her own suffering from mutation. No idea how to work around it. Could it be treated? Cured? She knew mutated people, if they weren't homicidal, were sent off to sanitariums to wait out their conditions... and it didn't a take a genius to know what they did. Contamination slowed, and eventually halted most forms of biological ageing. A sanitarium couldn't hold someone forever, so it kept them until their mind slipped away and they became animals... and then they'd be quietly shot and burned. Best mercy they could be afforded, really. A place to make their peace, to finalise their affairs, and then to enjoy the twilight of their sanity surrounded by some form of comfort. At least, if she was thinking optimistically about it. And she liked to think that she was an optimistic person at heart, so... she'd think of it like that.

But... but Carza had clipped her own mutations. They all had. And they weren't going mad - why should she be any different? Why should her mutations go deeper? Why should she be singled out for special treatment?

...well, she'd been soaked in mutated blood, hit with an axe coated in who-knew-what, and then all the stresses they'd all been exposed to...

And her back...

It'd been a ragged tapestry of mutations. In some places, barely recognisable as human.

...maybe superficial.

Maybe.

Had to be.

The village approached them slowly, poking its way over the horizon. Dark shapes, simple dwellings with tiny windows. Small, cheap panes of glass held in thick frames, and no lights twinkling behind them. Unease grew in Carza, and Anthan barked for the team to cluster up. No unnecessary risks. Carza flinched as Lirana came closer, panting slightly - almost like a dog. No, no, she just had a nasty cold, she was sniffling up a storm. It was being soaked in the river and not drying out properly, it was the elements. That was all. Everyone knew that proper mutation conferred immunity to most diseases, so if she had a cold, she wasn't fully mutated.

Right?

They slowly, slowly entered the village. Letting the dark shapes grow larger and larger. They were built from the aristocratic wood of this forest, and the ground around them was littered with tiny needles. Just a dozen or so, but there were lone cabins scattered out further and further. Furs, she saw. Still fresh. Mostly. Strung up on frames, drying, tanning... all of them ready for processing into clothes or fine cloaks. They seemed to live by hunting some of the wildlife out here, maybe some gathering of plants, and... ah. She could see something. The widest part of the pass, a lip so broad that it was barely recognisable as anything but a regular plain. Small fields were out there, small picket gardens really. Green plants swaying gently. Good spot to grow them, really... the pass meant that the sun would be on them nearly constantly, rise or set. Anywhere else, and the plants would be dying due to getting starved of light whenever the sun touched the mountains. Good move, really, though she wondered why anyone would think of living here...

Her approach answered her own question.

The village was empty.

She'd seen empty villages before. Entirely on this expedition, as it turned out. They were eerie, yes, but... mundane. Burned buildings, mass graves, gore, signs of what had depopulated the place, even if the specifics eluded her.

And here...

Here, it looked like everyone had quietly stood up from their work, and walked away.

She shivered.

"Anthan, this is... definitely the right place, yes?"

"Most likely."

"Really?"

"Really. No other villages around here, according to vo Larima. Just this village before the pass. That's not the pass up there, not really - just the widest opening to it, we'll be travelling for a day or so before we reach it properly."

Nuts. She'd thought this was almost over.

"So... so what happened here?"

Anthan shrugged, his brows furrowed with concern.

A mutant would've massacred people, dragged them out by force, there'd be a struggle. Not just...

She poked her head into a house which so happened to have an open door.

A few flies were buzzing over an abandoned bowl of meat, and a rat glanced over at her - it'd been gnawing its way through a bat of oats. Ah, so that was what they grew - no, wait, what was... she retreated from the house immediately. Something was wrong here. Something was very, very wrong. Hull shot her a sharp look, and she struggled to draw her pistol, stammering slightly as she went.

"There's... there's stew in there, just... laid out. No signs of s-struggle. None."

The others were looking more and more nervous with each passing second. The silence of the village was crushingly strange. Reminded her of that empty place they'd rested in, when she first felt the stench of that mutant wash over her. Where she had it confirmed that they were being hunted. The same air of a recently-abandoned place, one that they were intruding in. The people were just hiding out of sight, if she poked around she'd find them, and they were all very, very insulted at how rude she was being. She ought to talk with them, announce herself, be a good guest. And yet... yet her voice was echoing in the great empty spaces of this place, shadowed by unfathomably high peaks.

The night was drawing in. The sun had sunk behind the great mountains above them, and now... now the glow was limited to a faint outline. A golden tracery along the tips of each mountain, highlighting them in a way that made them look like smoothly sculpted teeth. More suited for grinding than tearing. The village, with its dark,. low houses, huddled against the storm, seemed like a limpet clinging to something incomparably vaster than itself. A light began to ignite in the centre of the village, where the houses clustered most densely - it was an unflickering light, a constant light, the sort which reminded her of the lights in the morgue, emanating from a dull iron lantern.

Someone had set up a theurgic lamp in this place. A local sun, a poor replacement for the real one, but... well, if it worked, it worked. Turned on automatically when the night advanced. Probably the most expensive thing in this whole place, more expensive than an entire house. But she could feel its necessity. The rolling hills seemed like they were watching them. The four clustered together in the silent centre of town, and stared out nervously, wondering if something new was going to advance out of the shadows. If a dead eye would gleam from those hills. If another mass grave was going to advance on them.

Where had everyone gone?

And why had they gone so quietly?

The little sun of the village... for all its brightness, for Carza, it did little more than highlight the sheer dark that surrounded them on all sides. A low, keening wind blew over the peaks, tumbling down like a herd of galloping horses... and when it reached them, it echoed from the stones and the hills, the sound bouncing from height to height until the starless sky consumed it. A sound which was almost human. Almost, even if a stony throat was producing it.

But the precise nature... that was entirely up to interpretation.

Moaning in grief?

Laughing in glee?

Whispering in interest?

Or sighing in boundless hunger?