Chapter Twenty Eight

Alright. So. Quick summary. Kralat was dead. He had ceased to be. Nothing living remained in his eyes, and his blood was now thick and inky, absolutely nothing endured in it. She was certain, to a scientific degree of precision, that he was no more. Still failed to believe it, though. The world, to her, was still... well, certain. It was made of fixed points, and her ability to affect them had always been miniscule. She was a tiny cog in larger machines, the best she could do was carve out a niche to sit in for the rest of time. That was it. She was never the one to set the larger machines out of motion, she was never to do anything significant. It was powerlessness, but it was comfortable powerlessness. It made morality easier when she knew that she couldn't change anything anyway, the idea of murder or theft or sabotage was beyond her in every conceivable way. Those things were things that were simply Not Done. And now she had Done one of them. She'd seen something in the world, it had stood higher and stronger than her in every conceivable way, and she'd still stabbed it in the... the...

The Unmentionables.

Oh. Oh.

Still processing this.

Failing.

The others were groaning. The battering at the door snapped them back to reality. Right, the... absolutely enormous catastrophe was still ongoing, Carza wanted to throw up. The Sleepless were trying to get in to avenge their leader, Carza really wanted to throw up. There was, seemingly, no way out from here and there was a great deal of blood and... Carza threw up quietly in the corner, coughed a few times, had a small sniffle, spat out a gobbet of phlegm because she'd already consigned herself to absolute, horrific, monstrous vulgarity. She'd stabbed a man in the unmentionables, and she couldn't really top that. No, wait, she could. She could go around swearing like a sailor. But... no, no, anyway. More important things to focus on. The others were staggering to their feet, groaning. Lirana was still frozen in place, blood coating her face, drenching her upper body - he'd had so much damn blood in him, how could someone have that much blood in them? Egg was bruised, pattered, holding his arm awkwardly like it'd been dislocated or broken... but alive. Hull, though... Hull was still stumbling from having his crotch viciously attacked, his face was the colour and consistency of a squashed mulberry, and he was limping badly.

They were so delicate, all of them. Even Kralat, in the end. A knife to the heart had killed him. And a few blows had sent them all into paroxysms of pain and squirming and constellations exploding before their eyes. Together, they'd put together a whole night sky, if they bothered to record the agonising pinpricks of light which had danced before them.

Carza felt numb.

Which was good. Because physically, she was in rough, rough shape. Bruises would be marching up and down her body come tomorrow morning... come the next hour, really. Most of her damage seemed internal, which meant she didn't have to see it, but soon enough she'd be feeling it. But she'd been lucky. Nothing broken, nothing dislocated, no blood showering over her... she felt something wet in her hands, and froze, wondering if she'd been sliced or something, and...

No, just... just her fingernails digging into her palm. Four little crescents on each hand, blood-red and ominous. In ALD IOM, full moons were bad omens. In Fidelizh, it was moonless nights that had the connotation. In Mahar Jovan, each phase of the moon had different levels of significance, bad or good depending on their relation to the surrounding stars. And... well, she was fairly sure that eight blood-red crescent moons was a bad omen no matter where she went. Anywhere in the world that'd be considered fairly bad.

And right now, it wasn't good.

So...

No, wait, she meant to say that, not think it.

"So..."

There we go.

She swallowed. Hard.

"...so, we probably ought to, uh, run. Yes?"

Nods all around.

Hull's lips had swollen further, and she saw a chipped tooth in the mass, somewhere. Oh, dear... she rushed over and immediately helped him stand, wincing as he brushed against one of her fresh bruises. Oh, her poor Hull... he groaned slightly, but otherwise remained upright, and tried to speak through his swollen face.

"...that was... "

She smiled weakly.

"Rather frightening."

"Bit."

"Yes."

"You said you'd bite his-"

"I know."

She did now. She'd been very unaware of it at the time, of course, which was... well, not great. Probably something unhealthy there. Oh. Right. Miss vo Larima. She was standing now. The only perfectly intact one in the room... well, malnourished, clearly a little changed by her time in that cage, and deeply, deeply afraid. She shivered, and backed away from Carza. Why was... oh, right. Repeated stabbings. And the dead body which was still upright. No-one dared go near it. Mutation was strange, and life was just a switch - maybe it could turn it back on, maybe he could start moving under some lesser intelligence, maybe this was him slowly evolving into something worse... the fear was still there. He'd never screamed, just... roared, and even then, only once. Never wept, never begged. Never said a single word once the fight began. She thought there was something terrifying there, in his... endurance. He'd been surrounded on all sides by people with knives, and he'd been so confident that he hadn't even yelled for his guards, just started to take them apart, and only numbers and weaponry had let them come out on top. Oh, and surprise. And a healthy amount of luck.

One man against four was long odds, especially when those four had knives.

Her novels about wrestlers taking on whole crowds at a time suddenly felt rather hollow.

Shame. She liked them.

Miss vo Larima coughed, delicately, and ran her hands through her hair over and over and over again.

"Right. So... I suppose we ought to, ah, run, yes. Miss vo Anka, please, I take it you know this place better than I do."

Everyone stared at her incredulously. The woman laughed weakly, and shrugged with exaggerated ease. Clearly as tense as the rest of them, maybe more.

"Well, I suppose you could... could leave me for the rest, but then I presume you'll buy yourself a second or so of delay before-"

Egg grunted.

"I would like to punch you."

"...that would be fair. Yes."

Carza interjected quickly. If any of them had died, she'd be the first to smack vo Larima. And do worse. But... they were alive. And she still couldn't blame her. The stink of that cage, the lack of space, the lack of privacy, the fact that everyone in there was probably nursing a significant grudge towards her for getting them in this mess... she couldn't even call her 'evil' or 'awful' or 'terrible'. Everything she'd done was something Carza would do. And she'd tried, she'd tried to create an out for them, but she'd been seizing hold of every little chance. Hadn't sold out Carza, had tried to limit the damage by doing for her 'secretary' instead, giving Carza room to make up a story where Lirana had infiltrated them, or blackmailed them, or had simply lied constantly... she had given them an out, gone for the least damaging reveal she could find.

Maybe she was being too forgiving. Not vengeful enough.

But... but she'd seen what the Sleepless did. They weren't forgiving. They were vengeful. And she barely understood them. The idea of holding an endless grudge, it just... didn't quite compute with her. She did hold grudges, but they were always smaller, weaker. Only for a few days, maybe a week. She couldn't even hate her own father, and he'd had her by accident and then needed to be blackmailed into having a role in her life. It was a character failing, she'd admit that much. Probably part of some bigger problems. And it meant she forgave things she probably shouldn't. Like this. Even with Lirana right there, covered in blood, because of something this woman had done... couldn't hate her.

Because she'd have done the exact same thing in her position.

"Don't. No point. So... there's an attic, maybe we can jump out of the windows, or..."

Lirana moved suddenly. Her face was still red, her eyes a livid white in comparison. She grabbed Miss vo Larima around her ragged collar, and punched her in the face. A snap as her nose broke. Her eyes screwed shut to protect themselves, and... Lirana hit her again. Again. Again. Her lip split open, one eye swelled shut, bruises were blooming across her face like seeds had been planted under her skin and the springtime blossoms were coming. She didn't resist. Barely fought back. Too weak, too stunned, just... accepting it. A fair transaction. She was freed from the cage and from the man who was still standing, and in exchange she had her face turned to pulp. Just like the Court of Salt would like. Lirana, though... Carza and Egg reached, grabbing her, trying to haul her backwards. They didn't have time for this, the door was starting to split, they didn't have time. But Lirana was savage. Something from the forest had infected her. The maddening spirit that Carza's mother had warned her about. The thing which lurked behind the branches and slipped through the nostrils of its victims, coiling around their brain in burning motions. The same spirit that had turned the Sleepless into killers... had turned her into a killer, something that was still making her profoundly, profoundly numb. She snarled like an animal, grabbed Miss vo Larima by her shoulders and pounded her against the wall, her voice rising to a wild shriek.

It took both Egg and Carza to haul her back.

Miss vo Larima was a bloody mess. Her face was split. She was bruised. Battered. Tired beyond belief.

And with shaking hands, she reached up to adjust her collar. To straighten it out... before adjusting her braces as well, making sure that they were level.

And from between split lips, she gurgled slightly.

"Well. Shall we?"

Carza wasn't sure if she should be impressed or frightened. But either way, they all began to stumble up the ladder to the attic, Lirana remaining a firm distance behind Miss vo Larima, for... obvious reasons. Wanted to avoid beating her to death. Her eyes were like smooth white marbles balanced on a red table, only their constant twitching was enough to remind Carza that she was alive. Hadn't said a word since killing Kralat... they could work with this, they could get through it. No, they couldn't, but Lirana could get very drunk and Carza could nod along with her ramblings, and... maybe that would do something? Anyway. A few moments, and they were in the huge attic of the temple, where they'd once stored precious materials, and now... plunder and weapons. They had their luggage, they had tools... if they had more bodies, they might even be able to muster a defence. But as things were, the best they could do was heave the ladder up, straining to shift the ancient wood, drawing it up into the attic... and slamming the door shut just as the door to the temple proper burst open, and the table was shoved aside by a cluster of Sleepless...

And the last thing Carza saw before the trapdoor closed was one of them looking up, pupils split, teeth bared, flakes of skin coming free as he began to evolve into something superior.

And then the door closed. A box was shoved over it.

And that was all.

* * *

At least an hour had passed. The Sleepless couldn't get up... but the people in the attic couldn't get back down. The windows were small slits, barely big enough for an arm, let alone a person - and definitely not most of their gear, which they'd need to survive for longer than a few seconds. An idea of using them as a kind of... well, as offensive measures, ways of firing to the world below with one of their many rifles was discarded quickly. The Sleepless could just retreat into the temple itself, or start figuring out a way to blow the temple up completely. They did have explosives, after all... the only issue being that blowing up the attic could collapse the whole temple downwards, destroying their base, most of their own supplies... and in the end, the Sleepless were mutating. No-one was here to lead them off, not to Carza's knowledge. No-one to corral or redirect them, no-one to launch assaults on Krodaw or any remaining villages. Unless backup came from other Sleepless, this group was condemned to mutate and go insane. Soon enough, they might forget that anyone was up here at all... and even if they knew, they might not care. Mutants had no lust for human flesh, they just wanted more contamination to accelerate their growth. The one impulse that remained. One sign of a mutated animal was a bloated stomach - before everything went, animals would just eat and eat and eat, following natural impulses before everything was condensed down to the urge for growth. Little would be digested - little was needed - and a mutant would simply store the food intact, ready for reintegration into the body.

So... waiting game.

Who went mad first?

The mutants?

Or the people trapped by mutants?

Carza spoke quietly.

"One of his wives wanted us out. Said there was a tree where a lantern would be hung. And someone would guide us out of here."

She paused.

"...so..."

Miss vo Larima was silent, breathing clumsily through her mouth. Keeping a distance from Lirana. Even now, her one visible eye was gleaming, cunning, clever. Plotting away. Hull groaned. The attic was... large, at least vertically. This place was primitively built, the height of the tower was mostly for show. It tapered to a point very, very quickly indeed, and for all its height the tower could only sustain two floors, anything more and they might as well be making vertically stacked linen closets. But they hadn't spared any expense here. She wondered what... well, what purpose had been served by this attic. The lighting was poor, the ventilation was so bad they didn't even dare light a candle for longer than a minute at a time, but the walls were carved. Elaborately, too. Long-headed men and women with long fingers... not advancing towards a cauldron, though. Instead, they just... sat, on ornate thrones, and stared fixedly at the people in the centre. The eyes were picked out with loving detail, almost human-like... if these carvings had been painted at some point, which was entirely possible, then it would've seemed like row upon row of elders were staring fixedly at the person in the middle. And if Carza did go to the middle of the room during their regular leg-stretching intervals, she found that the sounds she made were beyond magnified. It was deafening, honestly... and the geometrical harmony of the room became tangible.

Every brick. Every carving, the layers and layers of elders leading up to the darkness at the peak of the tower... all of it was done with perfect consideration. Standing in the middle, the sounds of the world beyond were consumed, and her own sounds became deafening. Her breathing. Her twitches. Her sighs. She even thought she could hear herself blinking, the sliding of membranes against one another, the rustling of an eyelash, the twitch as dust settled on her iris... all of it. And nothing of the world beyond. Nothing at all. Someone could be speaking right next to her, and she wouldn't hear a word of it. Maybe... maybe that was the idea. Maybe this was a meditation chamber. A place where you could make yourself ready for ascension... or you'd come here after ascension, and allow the mutations to progress. No-one could be hurt by you, and you'd be surrounded by reminders of your purpose, anything to keep your head clear.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

...it explained why this room had the sickly sweet smell of contamination.

They waited.

Plotted.

Attack? Poor idea, they didn't have the numbers, and if they pushed the Sleepless they might decide sacrificing all their supplies wasn't such a bad idea. No idea if they had explosives out there... they might. And if they did, then time was short.

Stay? All they had. Still poor.

They waited... and Carza kept shaking. Refused to talk about it. Her shoulders were twitching, her hands were vibrating constantly, just... jitters from killing someone. Even a monster... no, that was an excuse, he was human enough. Human enough for her to be guilty. And the worst part, she couldn't really see a better route. They'd come out here by necessity, been captured through no fault of their own, and if she wanted to keep her employees from dying, sooner or later this would've happened - sooner or later, Miss vo Larima would be convinced that spilling the beans would get her out of that cage. There was no world where she didn't want to get out, and if the guards made it clear that becoming an informant would give her preferential treatment... there was no world where this didn't happen if they wound up in this camp, and if vo Larima did as well. No route out of this existed, because Carza didn't know how she could've freed people from that cage, and she couldn't think of another, less harmful way for vo Larima to negotiate her freedom.

So... murdering him had been inevitable. From the second she stepped into this camp, one of them was going to die. That was it. The entire story.

And now... now they waited in a chamber where men and women became gods. The eyes of their predecessors were stern and unyielding - judgemental. They wanted to know why they were here, why they presumed to defile this place with their blood and bruises and with the profane mark of eight crescent moons. Couldn't stop digging her fingers into her palm... and if she wasn't, then she was gnawing her fingers instead, or she was simply shaking in place. Hull tried to help, wrapping an arm around her, even getting out one of her coats from the luggage and draping it over her shoulders. Lirana was simply staring off into the middle distance, lips moving very slightly.

For some time... silence. The die had been cast. And Miss vo Larima knew well enough not to annoy anyone else.

Nerves were high.

Carza quietly removed the coat from her shoulders. Far too hot. Getting hotter.

She smelled something.

"...smoke."

Her murmur turned into a yell.

"Smoke!"

They were smoking them out! She could see fire lapping underneath them... not rising high enough to burn, but the ventilation in here was so awful that the smoke would kill them soon enough anyway. It started to creep up, delicate grey fingers toying with the boards, slithering alone, knuckle by gaseous knuckle, creeping carefully and rising slowly... the others immediately stood. Lirana was struggling just to focus, Hull immediately started tearing strips of cloth to cover their mouths... and to her surprise, she saw Egg and Miss vo Larima working together. Necessity overrode everything... and maybe she'd hired him too, once. Either way. The two of them were rummaging through crates, looking for... random things, seemingly. Heavy blankets, solid boxes of ammunition, or... oh. Carza rushed to help, wincing as her bruised side flared up. Right, yes. The slits in the windows rose quite high indeed, and there were only so many boards.

Egg directed her. Blankets on the floor to block the smoke. Ammunition crates stacked on top, both to secure the blankets, and elevate the entire group. The smoke would remain low, and if they climbed upwards, they should have fresh air for longer. Carza could already feel her throat drying out, stinging and tickling all at once, and she coughed more than she'd like to admit. Her hair was beginning to adopt the consistency of straw. And cruel laughter echoed from down below. Damn, damn, damn... everything was going to hell in a handbasket. Trapped in an attic, time running out, it would take days for the mutations to worsen to the point of total insanity, days, even those on the brink would still take hours and hours. They didn't have that amount of time, they might not live to see the morning. They... they needed... damn, what did they need, what did...

They were going to die in here.

She'd done all of this, made herself a murderer, and now she was going to die.

No.

Miss vo Larima mopped her face with a filthy handkerchief, cleaning away some of the blood from her shattered nose. Her voice was nasal, raspy... irritating.

"So..."

Lirana interrupted.

"Shut up. Nothing from you."

"...alright, then."

Carza groaned, and banged her head against the stone wall, feeling the sculpted, judgmental iris of a looming elder. Smoke was still coming, just... much, much slower. Air already felt thicker, and she had to breathe more to get her fill, which only made her throat drier... water, they needed water. Only had so much, a canteen that had been left up there by someone else. Enough to sip from... for one person. For a group, it was quickly vanishing. They sounded like desiccated corpses when they spoke... and they needed to speak. Needed to plan. To scheme. To get out of here.

Hull hesitated...

And hummed.

Why was..

What was..

...she recognised it.

It was a theme tune from one of the theatrophone productions he enjoyed, and she somewhat tolerated. She liked comedies, he was the one who enjoyed all that... ghastly violence and vulgarity. It was a swinging tune, one usually carried by a twanging guitar which reached low, dangerous notes, suggesting all the mysteries of the coming show... which invariably involved a grizzled man-of-the-gun striding the strange lands of the east, hunting down criminals. Miss vo Larima stared... and a tiny smile crossed her split lips, and quietly she hummed along. As far as Carza understood, these stories often ended with him in a tight space, his moustache ruffled, his guns white-hot from all the quick-firing action... all odds stacked against him, all the powers of hell summoned to oppose his righteous crusade, the resident buxom lass (one reason she didn't listen to this show) would be wailing at the top of her lungs to be saved from the approaching improbably-accented bandits...

And then he'd say something droll, spin his pistols, kick down the door and fight, fight fight fight until the bitter end... and then he'd win, maybe with a bullet in the shoulder or the leg or somewhere it could heal by the next episode, and he'd be on his way, limping down the road with his horse at his side and a buxom maiden lounging attractively on a chaise longue with her bubbies practically exploding out of her corset.

Ugh.

Anyway.

What was he getting at? What was...

He reached for a gun.

"No."

"Well, if we're going out, why not go out guns blazing?"

"Because we won't, we'll be caught and flayed and tortured. Now don't be so damned silly, you gibbon."

"As opposed to dying of smoke inhalation?"

Lirana sighed.

"...he has a point. I'd rather die screaming than wheezing. And... and I just..."

She trailed off. Seemed to not know where she was going there... or at least, she didn't want to share it. Egg chimed in.

"Well, I'm in. No better way to die, so says I."

Miss vo Larima looked at them like they were mad. Oh, splendid, another point on which the two were in agreement. Then she shrugged, sighed, brushed her hair back into a semblance of reasonability, and spoke, most likely to deliver a load of rationality to them, to force them to see the light of Carza's objectively correct opinions.

"In a choice between dying, guns blazing, dying of smoke inhalation, or dying of self-inflicted gunshot wound, I think I might prefer the first for sheer theatricality."

Lirana growled.

"I thought I told you to shut your damn mouth, you bitch."

Miss vo Larima didn't smile, but her eyes twinkled for a moment.

"I forgot. Perhaps you shouldn't have jostled my brains so. Now, shall we die gloriously, or shall I attempt to bribe a bunch of mad, zealous mutants using money I do not possess, with negotiating skills I doubt they'll comprehend, or-"

Lirana cocked a gun she'd taken for herself, and older model of rifle.

"If you keep talking, my finger will slip. I've killed one man today. And I won't feel too guilty about adding you to my tally."

Lying. Her hands were still shivering. And her eyes had a faraway quality, like she was pretending this all was one long, awful, bloody dream she might wake up from... and maybe dying would help her get to that blessed awakening. She was detached. And Miss vo Larima recognised that... and quietly extricated herself from the path of the barrel.

"Understood."

Silence all around. Carza couldn't stop shaking. Dying to the axes of the Sleepless... to their teeth and claws, more likely... Founder, she wanted to hug Melqua, she wanted to get back home and do anything, but... no point moping. She was here, and she was going to die. And much as she wanted to do nothing, to at least die with her scalp unscalped and her guts where they ought to be... the gnawing was back. It was hungrier than ever. And it demanded her to take any chance for escape. Maybe she'd prove to be a dab hand with a gun, so skilled that she'd blast her way out of the temple, into the forests beyond, where she'd become Carza vo Anka the Baby Eater and the One Who Made the Sleepless Take Naps. The Desleeplessinator.

...she needed to die before she thought anything like that ever again, she was being worse than usual.

"...fine. If there's nothing else."

Hull gave her a small smile.

"It was an honour, Miss vo Anka."

She barely managed to return it.

"And likewise, Mr va Trochi."

Hull grunted, heaved himself up... and spoke, in the slurred speech of the severely concussed.

"Egg. You're a top lad, and a fairly decent god."

"Oh, thanks mate. Appreciate it."

"Lirana, top bird, been a pleasure working with you."

"...hm."

"Miss vo Larima... I have no idea what to think of you. You're a coward, you're rotten, but for a rotten coward you're being eerily decent."

"...for what it's worth, Mr va Trochi, I'm ashamed that I didn't give you an internship with us. Your relentless optimism in the face of death would've been appreciated. Treasured, even."

"For what it's worth, I wouldn't have taken it."

"I doubt that. They're rather well-paid."

Carza smile broadened a tiny bit. And Miss va Trochi most certainly noticed.

"I apologise for the same reason to you, of course. You both would've been sterling additions."

Carza's smile vanished, masked behind stern resignation, and she hefted a... oh, splendid. They had her pearl-handled pistol. Good. She didn't think she could hoist one of those rifles, they were monstrously large and heavy. She sniffed dismissively.

"Yes, well, if the afterlife has any internships, I'll be sure to seek you out."

Lirana grunted.

"I swear to every fucking deity that exists, you fucking people..."

"Vulgarity."

"Go ahead, cancel my salary, I'll be real torn up when I'm dead."

"...still."

Lirana grimaced.

"Yeah. Fine. Let's do this."

Nods were exchanged between all of them. Guns aplenty. The smoke was seeping up, the air was limited... and one the count of three, they wrenched their protective crate aside. A billow of smoke came in its wake, clinging happily to its sharp corners... and the door was exposed. Egg ripped it open, and Carza's heart was beating out of her chest as yet more smoke emerged. With shaking hands, she pointed her pistol... and fired wildly. Deliberately. No, that was a lie, and if she lied to herself on her deathbed she was really crossing an important line. A very, very important line. She fired by accident. And then she committed. The others did too. Hull fired wildly into the fog, fired until his gun was dry, and then he just reached for another one - too panicked and shaky to reload properly. Lirana and Egg were more calculated... and Miss vo Larima squeaked in panic as the bullets shredded holes in the fog below.

Nothing but gunfire.

Deafening.

Worse than even the massacre in the forest. That had been screams and gunfire and blood... this was just gunfire and ambiguity. Gunfire loud enough to make her ears ring, to make her hands shake even worse than before. Little stars blooming at the end of their barrels, pop, pop, pop, reminding her too much of the crack from the local girl's neck snapping... and ambiguity. The kind of ambiguity that could swallow the sky if it was so inclined... anything could be happening down there, maybe they'd won, maybe they'd fired down at the two wives, maybe the Sleepless were laughing throatily, soaking up the bullets with disturbing ease as they reached for a makeshift ladder...

The bullets ceased.

And silence reigned.

Something was in the fog, a dark shape, distinctively humanoid, one of the Sleepless, it had survived, it was coming, it had soaked up the bullets and was relishing the growing fear it was coming it was coming it was coming and Carza tried to reload... her gun fell from her grip, she was shaking so badly. The smoke swallowed it whole, and didn't give back a damn thing. Egg was calmly reloading... he sighted... he narrowed his eyes...

And paused.

"...it's just the body."

He was still standing?!

What was that man made of?

...and the smoke began to clear, the sudden ease of passage letting it pile upwards, diffusing just a little....

Aided by the open door.

Why would they open the door when they were trying to smoke someone out?

Bodies were on the ground, riddled with holes. She immediately tightened a cloth around her face, and reached for her clippers... mutant bodies, you never went near a mutant's body. The contamination was still in them, death didn't remove it. Either the body made you mutate, or other mutants came to feast on it and saw you as a competitor to be removed. That was it. Recent deaths, the ground was soaked with unnaturally thick blood, pulsing with tiny organelles which no human ought to possess... tiny hearts and lungs and livers and intestines, all the seeds for more life, even as the body died around it. Always trying to survive. Recent. She tried to talk, but the stammering in her voice was so awful that Hull had to take over.

"...did we... get them? You think?"

Egg grunted, still a little detached - professional, that'd be the complimentary word.

"...we got some of them, yeah. But the door wasn't us. Opened from the outside, if they were running it'd have opened from the inside."

He grunted again.

"Hold on, I'll check it out."

Carza squeaked.

"No, no, we need... need... need everyone h-here, we-"

"Don't worry, just having a peek. Be back in a moment."

He slid down the ladder, his bald scalp gleaming... were bald scalps good for these people, or bad? Were they attractive or ugly? She'd seen how they tended to the hair on their scalps, so...

Idiotic thoughts.

He stepped carefully... need to burn his boots, most likely. Soaked with bad, bad matter. But he was a professional, and he was stomaching it, so... presumably it was alright. Presumably. Hopefully? She had no idea. She was completely and paralytically terrified. Miss vo Larima quietly set her gun down and took a step back from it, her fingers twitching erratically, constantly sliding in and out of her hair in an attempt to seem cool and collected. She was as shattered as the rest of them, barely masking it. The stammering coward from earlier was still here with them, she was just... concealing it. And the gunfire seemed to have undone her. She remembered that some of her party had been killed instead of getting locked up... bad memories, most likely. She could sympathise. She'd dropped her gun, and Egg passed it up casually, eyes elsewhere.

He stepped carefully... thought... stepped some more... the body was still standing, still staring. Died with eyes open and legs operational, towering over the bodies. Like it'd been the one to do it. Maybe it had. Moving in death, gathering more matter, a mindless vessel for contamination that knew only the desire to grow. Maybe they'd missed... maybe Egg was going to be consumed, maybe... maybe...

She resisted the urge to scream at him to get back.

She was twenty-one, she'd been a student for three years, too, which meant she'd been very cloistered (and contentedly so), so... so she was too young for this. Far too young. Wasn't ready to die.

He yelled up, and she almost jumped out of her skin.

"Bodies are dead by us, that's for sure. Wounds are still smoking."

Oh. Splendid.

"The door?"

Her voice was embarrassingly high. Egg's was deep, confident, assured... everything she wasn't.

"Opened from outside... hold up."

He raised his rifle, and stared carefully. His reports were... strange.

"...bodies. Everywhere."

"What?"

"Bodies. Sleepless, looks like."

"Violence?"

"Not much. Seems like they sorta... slumped. Coming down?"

"Perhaps... perhaps we ought to stay up here, and just... weigh our options, and-"

Hull was already clambering down oh she hated him hated him hated him.

She followed. Obviously. Because Lirana and Ms. vo Larima were going as well, and she was not going to be here alone. Safety in numbers and all that. She scuttled down after them, feeling distinctly like a wet, frazzled rat... and scampered after them, picking her way carefully across the bloodstained floor, refusing to look down at the bodies, at their faces, at their eyes... wanted to throw up again... had to keep moving.

The outdoors was a burst of fresh air and life. No more smoke, just wisps of it trailing into the night... Egg was standing calmly, his rifle ready to go but not raised to his shoulder. He stared out, curiously. Carza joined him. Bodies. Everywhere. Just as he'd said. Must be... dozens. Five or six fresh bodies in the temple, and the rest... out here. No sounds. None whatsoever. The crying of birds slowly filled the air, but it was a vague intrusion, nothing concrete. Natural sounds had become the accompaniment for everything, but... but there had been silent movements from the Sleepless, the quiet sharpening of blades, the low conversations they held in their own language. Gone. The entire ambience... gone. All that remained was the forest, and even that sounded dimmer than usual, like it was just as surprised as she was. They were slumped, and she saw no wounds... not that she could see much. A dim moon was barely visible behind heavy clouds, and the whole sky was the colour of a horse's skin, the same tanned brown hue. Nothing besides. She stared... and the birds began to descend. Huge carrion feeders, with fat, pale, naked, greasy necks. Ready to plunge into the bodies of the dead. One of them landed nearby, and slowly, deliberately picked its way over, acting like some refined bird of prey...

And then its head dipped, and with a nauseating slurp, it drove its head into the bodies of one of the Sleepless. Mutant. Had to be. Its neck was too long, too... chitinous. Too flexible. And the beak opened in multiple directions at once, lined with hook-like teeth, with a long, questing tongue emerging like a pink worm. The wings anchored themselves into the ground with heavy spurs, and Carza watched in muted horror as it gorged itself, slurping and snarling and groaning in happiness... no digestive system, just a sac for meat, for more material to be reprocessed into growth by the cruel miracle of contamination. Its feathers were black as soot, but she saw... saw peacock-like eyes along it. Dark blue, rich, ringed with greens, and... and they were blinking. They were actual eyes. To tell if someone was coming up from behind. No wonder it was so content eating near them, it knew where they were at all times... and its claws had a mottled green colour that she knew indicated venom or poison or... whatever the correct term was. It could tear her face off if it so chose. The only thing which stopped it was the knowledge that there were better things to consume. The peacock-vulture devoured its meal, dragging the body around, and at one point starting to insert its entire, huge body into the chest cavity, digging around for as much contamination as possible. Carza stared...

And it emerged.

Two dark eyes blinked.

Its neck quivered.

And with a scrawlk of tremendous volume, it began to tear at its own fleshy, greasy neck, ripping out huge chunks of steaming flesh with with a beak that opened like a flower. It chewed and ripped and hacked, seemingly trying to eviscerate its own throat... and worse, it was still breathing through it, still capable of using it despite the damage inflicted, regeneration taking care of any true damage, subsidiary windpipes opening just in case... like pores, wipe and gaping, sucking in air hungrily. It tore and tore, and... the meat which dropped to the ground, it was...

It was burning.

...and something clicked.

She whispered.

"Poison. Someone poisoned them."

Agreeing murmurs around the group. Someone had... someone had poisoned them, had to be. There was no other option. Why would they just drop dead, why would this thing be so devoted to ripping its throat apart to stop the poisoned meat from doing too much damage... and the meat was really, really burning, melting really... and the Sleepless did seem a bit... shapeless. Suspects? It was comically easy to narrow down. None of them had any knowledge, nor ability. No-one even knew what poison had been used, so...

The lantern was lit on the tree.

The wife. The wife had done it. Her husband had died, she'd presumably been trusted to deliver food to his men, and... she'd poisoned them. Why would... why would she poison them? As if to answer her question, two figures emerged from underneath the lantern, draped around each other. One female... one male. Carza locked up, and fumbled for her gun's trigger. Who? Who? The woman was the wife, she had the same sashaying gait, the same effortless elegance, the same symmetrical beauty... but the man was unknown, but painfully familiar...

Egg raised his rifle, and called out a warning.

"Stop! Name yourself!"

The wife yelled quickly in response.

"We've met! My... companion is quite safe, I assure you!"

The man next to her raised his hand cheerfully.

"Don't worry, all taken care of! Sleepless should be enjoying a long-awaited nap!"

That voice... she remembered it, though she'd barely heard it. Her eyes widened.

He'd gone missing... she assumed he was dead, or he'd run, or...

"Now, let's talk about my salary..."

Her voice rose to an indignant, exhausted shriek.

"Anthan?!"