Chapter Twenty

The fortress exploded with motion, and Carza gripped hard to Hull. Her gun, was still in her hand, but... the face had vanished, it could be anywhere, and she knew that if it wanted her dead, she'd be dead. And if she was going to die, she wanted to hold a friend close to her. Not letting him die when she could save him. Hull woke up almost immediately, his lit cigarillo dropping down between his legs. He heard her screaming, was still waking up, and immediately stood upright. Carza did not squeak (she honestly and truly did not squeak) as she was hauled up with him. She weighed less than a couple of wet towels, and Hull was fuelled by panic. She dangled messily around him as he staggered off in the vague direction of light and motion and people. And only after a few seconds did he realise who was around him... and by that point he'd committed. Carza clung to him like a spider monkey as he continued to advance on the fires, pretending that he hadn't seen her. Neither of them were going to discuss this. Carza would make sure of that. Funny the things which came to mind when completely threatened and on the brink of torture and death. Soldiers were moving in, but the face was gone.

Carza was still processing what she'd seen.

Staring eyes. Blazingly bright against a face painted to match the tones of the forest. She thought... thought she remembered the irises looking split - one of the first signs of major internal mutation. Maybe that was just... she honestly couldn't say anything for sure. Not even if the face belonged to a man or a woman. Simply... simply those eyes. Those staring, staring eyes...

The soldiers rushed past her, waving lanterns and rifles, savage grins on the faces of the soldiers who'd been in the fortress when they arrived. Gleeful for contact. Carza watched with wide eyes as they charged in, squad by squad, a whole damn fortress coming alive. The commander stalked out of his office, dressed in nothing but his trousers, shirt discarded to expose a broad, scarred chest matted with hair and dripping with sweat. Bare feet, and gun in hand. Breath stinking of alcohol. The captain was right behind, hurriedly buttoning up his coat and brushing his hair under his cap. The commander's beard was twitching with fury, and his eyes smouldered like hot coals. The night came alive with burning torches... and Carza thought that the infiltrator was about to be hung, drawn and quartered, about to be ripped to pieces, the Sleepless would be repelled, and...

Nothing.

The noise ended as soon as it began. The soldiers were clustered around the wall in huge groups, pointing their guns, speaking in hushed voices that nonetheless thrummed with urgency. There was static in the air, a feeling of something about to break. She remembered the way the forest became an opaque and unknown wall when the sun set... maybe they were surrounded. She clutched her gun tightly, nursing it almost, wondering if she had the stones necessary to paint the wall with her brains to stop the Sleepless from finding her. She'd yelled the alert, she'd be tortured as a matter of course, she knew it, and... and... she imagined Melqua coming back to find letters from the Court, from the governor, all apologetic, all explaining that she was killed - not by her own hand, but by the hands of the Sleepless. Vanished. Eaten by the forest. Her hand shook... no, no, couldn't do that to her, couldn't do that to her. Melqua expected her back home at some point. Melqua had specifically requested that she come home, and Carza intended to honour that obligation. The fishing line of homesickness winched tight around her stomach. Hooks buried deep.

Hull grunted uncomfortably.

"Uh... Carza?"

She released her grip automatically and fell to the ground in a heap of limbs. No indignant squawks - too scared. She just scrambled back to her feet, hauled up part of the way by Hull's clumsy hands. They both watched, side by side, as the soldiers continued to poke around. Rifles were up, but without any direction - nothing to target. And she saw them go from their shoulders, to their waists, to dangled loosely downwards, barrels grazing their boots. They weren't just standing easy, they'd given up on being attacked at all. Carza felt more nervous... and silently, she nodded at Hull. He blinked. She nodded again. He blinked once more. She sighed.

"We should go and see what's happening."

Another blink.

"Oh."

"I was nodding."

"I thought you were just saying you were alright. Nodding can mean a lot of things."

She paused... then turned away and walked briskly across the central area of the fortress, wincing at the feeling of mud squelching under her boots. The ground was sodden, and it didn't take much to churn it all up. She had left so rudely because... well... he had a point. Nodding was very ambiguous. She should've just spoken. Why was she still thinking about this? It was completely irrelevant. And... and her arm was still bleeding. Quite a bit, actually. Small, painful nicks where the scissors had sliced away her mutations... automatically, she swallowed a silvery tablet, shivering at the taste, and the subsequent feeling of fatigue that washed through her. Every tiny thing suddenly seemed massively important now that she had... well, no face staring at her from the dark, telling her to shush. Pills. Bleeding arms. Poorly used gestures. Itch in her lower back. Clothes rumbled. Mud sliding a little, be wary of going downhill. It might rain tomorrow? Check pockets - clippers, yes, gun, yes, pills, yes, bandages, yes, pens, yes, notebooks yes. Check again, just to be sure. Gold bracelets? Still there, still ready and able to be traded off to someone else, definitely. Hidden underneath her sleeves, hide them better...

Stop it.

Stop thinking that way. Million miles an hour and going in a circle the whole time.

Just... just focus.

The soldiers were clustered around the wall, and as she walked closer, hugging herself, she saw... marks. Oh... oh Founder... he'd been clinging to the wall like a spider. He? She? Hard to tell from what she'd seen earlier. There were marks where he'd been, points where his fingers had dug in, deep, too deep. How could someone do that, hold themselves upside-down, clambering by digging their fingers into solid stone, and...

Mutated. Chimeric.

Unafraid of the land. Welcoming its curses and calling them gifts.

Lunatics. All of them. Lunatics.

And on top of the war was... a body. One of the soldiers. Throat, slit from ear to ear in a vast red grin. He hadn't just slit his throat, no, this was torn, the knife must've almost decapitated him... she could see the marrow in his bones, for crying out loud. Not even a look of terror on his face, it'd been too swift. He... must've climbed up the outside of the fortress, ripped open the man's throat, then climbed down to... what? Was she meant to be next? Was she going to get ripped apart? Why? What was the point? Were there others? The soldiers from the fortress didn't seem to think so, even if the patrol was struggling to follow their logic. The commander stumped past Carza, mud soaking him up to his knees, hair dangling low along his neck... Carza spoke, trying to stop him.

"What-"

He was having none of it.

"Infiltrator. Killed one of our own. Bastard. They love doing it. All about terror, eh? Hurting us, bleeding us... no chance of finding him. Once they're back in the forest, they're in their own territory. No chasing. No revenge. We'll burn the body and move on. Thanks for yelling."

Carza spoke quietly.

"Why didn't he kill me?"

He could've. If he'd killed her, the fortress wouldn't have been alerted, and maybe the infiltrator could've killed even more people, ripping out their throats and leaving the bodies for the maggots and the pyre. He could've done it. It wouldn't have been hard, she was weak, she was unskilled, her gun had been too far away from him to pose a real threat - no way she could've brought it to bear in time. If he'd dropped down, wrapped around her, she'd have been silenced. Hull was asleep - easy to kill even while pinning her. He was a mutant, no way of hurting him with her teeth or nails. And then... then he could've dragged her away, over the walls, no-one would know until morning at the latest. And if she was dragged to the forest... then she might as well be dead. No-one would look for her. No campaigns would be mounted to rescue her from their clutches. And she'd... she'd...

"Your eye."

She blinked.

"My..."

"Tattoo. Makes you look real foreign. They don't like killing foreigners, only if they're from Mahar Jovan, or one of our soldiers, or part of our administration. Pretty obvious you're not with us in any of those senses, so... the Sleepless are winning, they don't want to compromise that by drawing a bunch of people in."

He grinned.

"A few Wavelength airships, armed with enough jellied fuel... would they win? Well, the Sleepless would live through it. But we could burn this place to the ground if we had the resources - the capacity is there. Mahar Jovan won't do it, too much cost, too little reward, and... you know, monstrous and would kill hundreds of innocents or whatever. But if they piss off the rest..."

He tapped her firmly on her forehead, and she stepped back, hands immediately clenching into fists.

"Don't wear a headband, huh?"

With a coarse laugh, he dragged a small bottle out of his pocket and drank deeply from it, swilling the acrid liquid around his cheeks as he strolled back to his office. Carza lingered in the dark, breathing heavily, still feeling the impression of his finger on her forehead, on her tattoo. Was that... was that it? Her tattoo? That was what had saved her life? Had she just squandered her advantage, though, by warning the others? Maybe if she'd stayed quiet, let him enter the fortress unopposed, she'd be granted some sort of safe passage and... that was the most cowardly thing she'd ever thought. The kind of cowardice which doomed others, too. She walked unsteadily back to Hull, and the two stared at one another for a few seconds before either dared to break the silence, an honour that was claimed by Hull, speaking in halting Tralkic.

"Are you alright?"

Carza sniffed.

"No. Not really."

"How close was he?"

"Close enough to touch."

"Would you like a hug?"

"Yes please."

* * *

Neither of them slept a wink. They'd retired indoors, despite the heat, and rested quietly on the same battered sofa which was more lumps than smoothness at this point. It was weird seeing it - it was modern, she expected a military base to be all... ornate leather chairs and hard wooden stools, nothing close to a domestic sofa. But... no. It was mildewy, lumpy, and any hint of its original colour had been consumed by the spread of damp and mould, leaving it a shapeless shade of green/grey/blue/brown. Like they were sleeping on the forest floor. A very mossy forest floor. Not that either of them slept for longer than... maybe a few blinks? It was hard to say. One minute was very similar to the next. The forest ate the sunrise, so by the time the sun was visible it was already well into the morning... so who could say how long they slept. Carza was normally very skittish about close contact. Disliked it, as a rule. But... needs must when the devil drives, and Hull was the one person around she trusted completely right now.

The two of them had simply draped arms around one another's shoulders, and stared senselessly at the wall while occasionally mumbling questions that might receive an answer twenty minutes later as it finally penetrated into their brains.

"...you... you know about... the spies? Salt?"

Hull shifted uneasily at the question, and took his time replying.

"Yeah."

"Paranoid?"

"Not... not paranoia if they're out to get you."

"True."

Silence for over an hour, and they watched a drop of water slowly migrate from the top of the wall to the bottom. There were other drops, but... this one fascinated the two of them, for some reason. Carza assumed Hull was looking at the same drop. Why wouldn't he? It was a fascinating drop. Better than the others.

"...sorry for... taking you here."

She mumbled. Hull replied almost immediately, his eyes glittering with some semblance of life.

"Shut up. My fault. Just a few years left, right?"

"...few years..."

She absent-mindedly leant into his shoulder.

"...just a few years."

Hull grunted... and murmured something. Probably barely aware he was saying it.

"...my dad's a night guard. Before they... put me in the scholarium, there was this... time, when I was young, and my dad had to go and deal with this... courtyard. They'd been tearing up the flagstones, and they found this... nest. Hornets. Bad ones. The ones long as your finger, that make nests big enough to drown in. Small courtyard. Roof had been covered over during building work, they wanted to tear up the stones and plants and turn it into another library. So my dad... my dad, he got this bucket of mortar, told me to put on my biggest gloves, and come to help. Old courtyard. Lots of holes. So we plugged them, all the holes in the walls, each and every one. I could hear them buzzing... sometimes they'd come out, and my dad would swat at it... mum would spoon this awful stuff on our welts. We had dozens each. I just remember... remember finishing, and hearing them inside, all these hornets, screaming away, all of them at one. They knew they were trapped. Could hear them screaming from the other side... maybe they were angry, or afraid, or just... loud. Maybe singing. Heard them from my room for weeks... must've been imagination. Then we went in, and... and there were these bodies, inch deep on the floor. Yellow and black, yellow and black, over, and... over and over. You couldn't step without hearing crunches, and seeing those shining wings scattering like... confetti at a wedding. We ripped into their home in the ground, tore them out, found all these dried larvae. My dad would load up buckets with bodies, and I'd haul them out. Then he'd load my arms with their nest, and I'd go and burn that too..."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He paused for a long time.

"That room of screaming hornets that I'd helped seal up, and it just made them angrier. Left them there, smoked them, let them die... all of them, so many... couldn't stop dreaming about it. Do you think they ever realised how trapped they were? All of them? They just... kept screaming, they must've... known, I can't imagine them not... and we found a dead rat in there, couple of dead rats. Imagine being trapped in there, knowing you were trapped, and seeing the swarm turn around and say 'you're not the one to blame, but you're the ones we can hurt'. Or maybe none of them knew. Maybe hornets are just... just arseholes, and the rats were unlucky."

He shivered.

"...their heads were like huge eyes. Just welts and welts and welts, all piling up... a head of red bulging eyes, couldn't tell where the features ended and the welts began..."

He fell silent.

Carza pretended to be asleep.

And clung to his arm like he was the one solid point in a boundless hurricane.

* * *

The fortress awoke to two more men missing. One from the patrol, taking them down to twenty-one soldiers. The other from the garrison here. The Sleepless were toying with them... more than that, they surrounded them. The local soldiers were talking quickly to one another as Carza dined on a breakfast of pemmican and a pair of pickled eggs - the chickens had been slaughtered by the Sleepless weeks ago, and every single egg had been pickled. She flinched at the acrid taste, a bit too intense even for her, and watched the locals arguing. She could imagine the content of their conversation, even without understanding the words themselves. Stay here, or go with the patrol. Stay in a vaguely secured part of Sleepless territory, but be trapped and sitting ducks for any major assault... or go with the patrol, and maybe get back home. Maybe. But also be exposed, completely exposed, and subject to ambushes in a way that the fortress, as a whole, wasn't. Carza stared blearily. They'd run out of coffee before the chickens died, so... nothing on that front. She smoked happily, and it was just about the only thing keeping her upright. Well, sitting upright, but the point remained. She wasn't slumped or snoring or groaning or screaming or howling or doing any of the things she might otherwise be inclined to do. Her face furrowed, and her forehead-eye narrowed, as she dragged out every damn hint of stimulation this wonderful thing had to offer... Founder, she loved this stuff, she adored it, she relished nicotine in a way that that Marana weirdo could never understand.

She blinked.

...and she was outside again.

Oh. Right. Sleep deprivation.

Back on the road. Back on the horse. Back on... Frothy. The creature. Lirana looked about as bad as Carza felt. The fortress was left behind, and vanished in a second as the forest consumed them. once, she imagined, the fortress would've stood in a clear field of land, trees hacked back... but time had passed. The first army anyone coming here had to face, beyond the locals or the mutants, was the environment and the boundless forest. The heat. The damp. The twisting trees that would never be budged or torn, the plants which choked the wheels of wagons and slowed down even horses accustomed to this sort of thing. Insects which whined so loudly that Carza could barely hear her own thoughts, let along someone running from behind her, knife in hand and eyes staring like twin suns. The new growth was thick and untamed, but the old growth they passed into was not only thick, not only untamed, but also gnarled. It was old, and it'd seen more than they could know. This was the sort of forest where people vanished without a trace, the sort which had limbs positioned just correctly for a hanging.

A forest of gallows.

She spoke quietly, tiredness making her more... proactive about this sort of thing.

"Lirana?"

"Hm?"

"Are your thoughts very grim lately?"

Lirana shot her a very strange look.

"Yes. Yes they are. I feel that's natural."

"...oh. Alright. So... you don't have a solution?"

Lirana patted a flask on her belt. Carza groaned.

"Why is the solution always alcohol?"

Lirana barked out a quick laugh.

"You're the scholar, you tell me. If alcohol is always the solution, then maybe the solution is always alcohol. Eh?"

"...urgh."

Another laugh, this one more genuine.

"Hey, sorry about... uh, all that weeping business earlier."

...the time she apologised over killing someone, and pleaded with Carza that she didn't mean it, despite it being entirely justified?

"It's... fine?"

"Good. Good. Glad. Sorry."

Nothing more was said.

Anthan snorted at the sight of Lirana clenching and unclenching her jaw, either out of nervousness or a longing for more coca. To her relief, Lirana wasn't even asking if she could chew some - the mental effects would be disastrous if they got ambushed. Any slowing in reaction time could kill them, any bleariness might end their lives. Strict abstinence. Even alcohol was rationed and carefully used at the right moments, never on the march, never even during breaks. They walked... and the captain called a halt a few hours in. They'd found something. Not more bodies, thankfully, just... some random junk, left by the side of the road. He signalled for Carza and Hull to come over on their horses, advancing up the line of tired troops who clearly wanted to get out of this mess as soon as possible. She couldn't see a single rifle in its holster, all of them were braced across the saddle, and some soldiers were constantly holding their pistols, just to be sure. Paranoia was rife. Made sense. Carza couldn't escape the feeling of being watched from the trees... and maybe hunted, too. The captain, bags under his eyes, gestured curtly at the junk in question. Carza stared. Hull stared too.

It was... well, it was junk.

Nothing special about it. Probably some poor sod who was taken by the Sleepless... no, no, maybe not. This was all damaged stuff, and all of it was basically unmarked save for some animal trash. Probably just a waste dump, then. Not a drop of blood to be seen. Some old clothes too damaged to wear, a belt buckle that had snapped under the strain of its constant duties, a rusting horseshoe, some stretches of blanket and tent fabric that had been shredded by animals or simple wear and tear... it wasn't a full camp, it was literally just the things dumped by a wandering party that had no interest in carrying things it didn't need. That was it. So why was... the captain pointed again, more fiercely this time, unwilling to speak. Carza peered...

And she froze.

A stretch of belt. Good quality, but dried by the sun, stretched by the damp, and eventually... snapped entirely, pale ends glimmering with dew like bleeding wounds. That was all uninteresting. But attached was a broken scabbard, the bottom eaten away by a dark green fungus, the rest succumbing to all manner of problems. It was more liquid than leather at this point, and it wouldn't be long before it disintegrated entirely. But visible on it, plain as day, was a symbol. The scarred leather was embroidered with a very familiar symbol, at least to her. Not to anyone else in the patrol. It was unmistakeable - the same arrangement of jagged pentagons, one in the centre, one attached to each side. Like an oversized snowflake. Simple, recognisable... appropriate for a group priding itself on efficiency and a lack of pretentiousness. She felt a cold sensation brewing in her stomach, like she'd just swallowed a chunk of ice and it was sitting heavily, burning everything around it. Hull looked worried. The captain coughed.

"So... what do you make of it?"

Carza gulped.

"It's... it's from ALD IOM."

Hull took over - she'd given him a cue, a signal that they were to be open about this.

"Court of Salt. It's their symbol. No idea why someone other than someone from the Court would be wearing it."

The captain stared, narrowed his eyes as he struggled to focus on the tiny thing... and shrugged.

"Oh, well."

A sharp whistle, and the train was moving. As their place in the line came closer, the two horses with four riders had a chance to wait. And ponder. Carza remembered the warnings. The Court of Salt was out here, looking for them. Hunting for them. And now... now she had something resembling proof. They were here, in territory definitively tied up with the Sleepless. They were working together. That infiltrator... maybe they hadn't been informed going in, but they'd know now. Carza knew it with certainty - she'd be killed in the next attack, Hull too. And all for a handful of money. All to preserve access to a pass leading to a steppe which might well have nothing for them, not unless grass became a major luxury or an exquisite delicacy. Maybe they could take horses back, not like the world was starved of horses, definitely worth killing two scholars over it. They were here, they were here, they were with the Sleepless, which meant that her third eye had just become a target, and not an advantage. She was... she wanted to say something vulgar, but resisted at the last moment.

She was utterly doomed.

Hull grunted.

"Well, we should... still be fine. Still got the patrol."

"...I suppose."

But her concerns refused to fade.

And as the day passed... they only grew.

* * *

By the time noon came... she was half-mad.

Bodies were in the trees. She could see them. Others saw them. No-one reacted but her and Hull. Even the hires had given up after a while. They were hung by the neck, usually. Sometimes by the feet. Always wounded before death, huge gashes along their chests and thighs, everywhere that didn't bleed too much, wouldn't kill them too quickly or dull the pain. Naked, invariably. They were just... there, scattered around. The captain said, in response to Carza's questions, that they'd be beyond the territory of the Sleepless in a couple of days. Once they were out, the patrol would turn back and head back inwards. Shan, who was still a cold, aloof figure who spoke entirely to the captain and to no-one else, not to Carza, nor to the hires... he would continue onwards with them. Which felt odd, given that Carza didn't know him at all. The governor had vetted him, at least, but... where was the guarantee that the vetting had been thorough? She just... just needed to get her bearings. Once they were out of the stinking forest, they could think. They could reason. But here, it felt like madness was the one, correct state of mind.

How else could people just ignore the bodies in the trees, faces purple and chests pulsing as hives began to nestle around their hearts, around the putrid stew of decaying organs?

They wandered... and Shan called for a halt many hours later, as noon passed them by and the afternoon marched into the evening. There was no lunch, everyone ate in the saddle... or was entitled to, but in reality no-one could handle more than a bite before moving on, nervous of establishing a pattern. Patterns meant predictability. Predictability meant it was easier to die before getting a shot off. And that was... bad. Even the most cowardly soldiers wanted to get a shot off before they died, even if they'd rather not die at all. Her gun never left her hand now, no matter how much it shook. The steam of the forest rose around them, and she was waiting for the shriek of a detector, for the cry that they were being poisoned, the demand to suffocate herself again...

And as if on cue...

The scream.

The masks.

The suffocating interior. The limited vision. The damn filters. It had been bad before, and experience hadn't improved it - if anything, time had made it worse, because now she was wondering just how much this was crippling them, just how much it was-

The scream was continuing, and Carza froze.

That... that wasn't the detector.

Shan was gesturing frantically. The detectors were going off, but it was nothing compared to the scream down the road. The captain was clearly nauseous.

A woman was hanging from the trees.

Crucified in mid-air, suspended between trees, long and brutal strings piercing her flesh. Half-flayed. Her back had been torn apart, and now the flaps were held open by the strings and hooks which kept her suspended, which wound around her limbs and kept them locked, prevented any kind of escape. Carza almost thought she could see the vertebrae of her spine, little bone-white towers protruding like castles or forts from a red, wet landscape of churning and twitching muscle, ever fibre of the woman trying to escape while the world refused to let her go, and the trees were humming in the wind like they were hungry or happy or something else entirely. Gnarled bark like gnarled faces contorted in laughter, tongues of sap dripping down to lap up every drop of red-red blood that pattered. Carza couldn't even see all the damage, just the slow drip of blood and a face locked up in agonised...

She wanted to throw up.

But a thought kept going through her. Maybe the bodies in the forest, the heads, the staring intruder... maybe it'd all hardened her, just a little. Just a little. Just enough to think clearly even when madness surrounded her.

Why had the woman only started screaming now?

The other soldiers realised this as soon as she did.

But it was too late.

Distraction. The woman had been up there, but only now had her gag been removed - the lines of scarred flesh were still visible.

The captain roared:

"Sleepless!"

And they descended.

Infinite.

The forest howled around them. Insects driven into a frenzy, that refused to touch Sleepless flesh with all its contaminations, but lunged for the nearest vulnerables. Lirana swore under her breath, and then kept her mouth locked shut. Carza's hand was wrapped around her gun. But time was moving too fast for her to think. Already she could see the whites of their eyes. Locals, but their flesh was painted to resemble the trees, and they looked like the whole forest was alive and hunting them. Icons were picked out on what clothes they chose to wear, suns and moons and animals and stranger things besides in bright colours turned dull by the mud. They were barefoot. She didn't know why she focused on that as her breath froze in her throat and they came, they came, they came. Hundreds, thousands, millions, an infinity of legions of howling killers. Their hair was long and braided with bones and small skulls. Their teeth were bloodied and stained where they'd been chewing their weapons to hide their laughter as the ambush grew near, and from the leaves they had stuffed in their cheeks, the residue of which frothed out in a great wave to stain the first riders. A choking stimulating wave that made the horses snort and start. Guns fired, filling the air with smoke.

The Sleepless soaked them up. Some died. And the rest charged over, bare feet now slick with blood, laughter turning to snarls and roars. They screamed in a language Carza didn't know, and might never know at all. Things out of nightmare. The crack-crack-crack of rifles, and she could see people with their ears bleeding from the noise, but they kept firing as long as they could, but the ambush was too close and there were so many and they were being overwhelmed in seconds. Carza began to cry as she pushed the gun under her chin. She could see people with arrows sticking from their necks, and the few who armed themselves with pistols let of deliriously accurate volleys that simply plucked down troops. She saw the local girl's eyes fill with despair before the seething mass of humanity took them. She pressed the gun under her chin, higher, higher, almost like she was trying to impale herself with it, to taste it and know the taste of her killer and she wept and imagined all the things she would not be and never could be and never should be and Melqua crying in her empty room with tea growing cold on the table and her father moving on and-

A gun sliced into the neck of Frothy, and he fell with an agonised squeal, blood running freely over the earth. Carza was jolted from the saddle, and she wanted to crawl away into the dark cool mud and to never come out and to drown instead of die from the bullet under her chin and Lirana grabbed her and hauled her under the horse as it struggled weakly, heart pulsing out blood, heart killing it better than the bullet ever could and they were surrounded by horseflesh. Lirana drew Carza tightly to herself and whispered that it would be alright it would be alright they could live but it would be alright in the end. The Sleepless were among them. And like this... they were all the same. No technology meant a damn thing. She saw soldiers she'd travelled with for over a day now being chopped down, necks filled with arrows, shirts blooming with red roses, and she was reaching for her gun again but Lirana was squeezing her tightly and refused to let her go. Hull, where was Hull, where was he? She saw a huge Sleepless, unnaturally vast, slicing the captain and piercing him and hauling him up like a prize fish and his knife was coming for the captain's scalp and she looked away and-

And...

And...?

Smoke and the smell of blood. The stink of urine as dying animals and men voided themselves into the mud to the laughter of the Sleepless. The mud caked itself into wounds and drank the blood hungrily, leaving no bodies, no men, no women, no-one but the seething earth and the remnants of its victims. Their guns were being taken. Carza was still under the horse's cooling body, her clothes made filthy by the mud and blood, clutched like a life-raft by Lirana who kept whispering that she was alright, it would all be fine - but Lirana's teeth were chattering her eyes were bulging and her skin was burning with nerves. Where was Hull? Where were the others? Where was Hull? One of the locals was lying nearby, skull turned into a crater by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He'd known what would be done to him. The woman in the trees was silent now. She'd screamed from the beginning of the battle for a short few seconds, and then a bullet had plunged through her eye and put her out of her misery. But the woman... she'd suffered what the local auxiliaries would suffer if they were caught. Carza's hand could barely feel her gun, the pearl handle and her flesh had reached the same temperature, she held nothing more than another piece of herself, a part that was numb but still warm like an arm she'd slept on funny. If she moved her arm she could bring it under her chin and...

And she couldn't do it. She just couldn't.

The Sleepless had started laughing again. Lirana pulled Carza tighter, and drew out her own pistol.

"We take down as many as we can, alright? If they come for us, if they're not taking us captive, or if they look like... like... we take them with us, you hear?"

She was maddened by the blood in the air. Didn't know what she was saying.

"We... we do what we can, we go down fighting, alright?"

Clarity burst in Carza like a reservoir had broken, and she hissed back in the city-speak of ALD IOM.

"Speak my language or they'll kill you."

A dumb blink. Dumb. Idiot. Ox. She still understood, though. Even if it took a moment. A quick nod. And Carza's mind had gone from terror to ice-cold reason. She needed to see. Where was he? Where was Hull? Where was her friend? She heard a thump as an axe buried itself in the head of a struggling soldier to the hoots and hollers of the entire raiding party.

She looked around, one eye concealed by fallen hair... her gas mask had been torn free, when had that happened? Down in the mud now, sinking a little, eye glasses staring with accusation glinting in their fractals. One shattered. The other intact. A huge solid pupil. She stared into it for a second... and then kept looking. Where was he? She was being poisoned with each breath she took. The only scream in the air was from the detectors. Maybe they'd just detected the Sleepless, and... and...

Where was he?

Some were being led away as prisoners, hands bound, Sleepless jabbing them onwards...

And a form stopped by the horse.

Her hand tightened around the gun. Her breath stilled.

The animal was hauled aside by a few hands - a group shifting the huge corpse, then. It wheezed as it was moved - the motion squeezing out the last breath in the enormous lungs. And Carza felt dim sunlight on the back of her neck.

Sleepless all around.

One in front of her. Crouching.

A man. Tall. Rangy. His eye sockets were painted black as camouflage, turning his eyes into glittering stars at the bottom of shadowy pits. Blood streaked him from head to foot, as though he'd been rolling in entrails like a dog. Guns strapped across his torso, ammunition with them, and a huge axe hanging at his waist, dulled where it'd been at work recently. Without the horse, she could hear everything. The nonsense-speak of the dying. Begging for water. Praying. The artillery had been gone for a while, but the thump-thump-thump continued. This time it was from bludgeons and axes and long knives, plunging down and down and down over and over and over into the necks of the dying. Not mercy. These were the people too weak to be captured and used for entertainment. The fun ones were being hauled off. Lirana opened her mouth... and said nothing. Too shocked. Too scared. Thought her tongue would betray her and say something in a recognisable accent or a familiar language, and she'd be hauled off to a worse fate than anyone but the local auxiliaries.

So it was Carza.

Her heart was pounding.

She'd thrown up in her mouth a little, and the acidity was stinging her throat.

Her eyes pricked with tears, all her sobs had been exhausted in the battle.

A few minutes, and she'd lost everything.

So... so.... so...

Ransom.

"Yalsa!"

She screamed it as loudly as she could, and it still came out as a half-whimper, half-hoarse yell. The Sleepless stared down... and smiled widely. She could see a necklace of ears around his neck. Just like the soldiers in the fort.

"Yalsa?"

He said the word mockingly. Carza managed to reach for her hair, brush it aside, show her tattoo. She gibbered for a moment in city-speak, begging for mercy, begging for anything, and... and... and only then did she repeat herself again.

"Yalsa! Yalsa Yalsa!"

The Sleepless was interested in the tattoo, and poked it curiously, like it was alive. She couldn't even flinch, no room. She saw the knife on his belt, red and merry the nose of a drunkard. He could scalp her. He could scalp her and the scalp would be more impressive than the others, foreign and tattooed and strange.

"Yalsa?"

He was still playing with the word, and it elicited laughter from the others. He leant close, and poked Lirana, barking a few words in a language neither of them understood. Lirana had the mental wherewithal to gabble in city-speak for a while, again begging for her life, and telling Carza that she was alright, that this would all be alright. Idiot, don't reveal things, you never knew who could understand them, and... and...

And she heard Hull.

He was alive.

His voice was raised, and he too was crying for yalsa. For ransom.

For survival and fair treatment as the remains of the ambush cooled around them, dead bodies piled high and horses still screaming as their lives left them through the holes in their flanks and throats.

He was alive.

He was alive.

She allowed herself to cry, just a little... the Sleepless shrugged.

"Eh."

He grinned.

"Yalsa."

And then a sackcloth descended over her head... and Carza knew no more of sight.