CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR - THE HORN-BACK INTERCEPTION
Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow.
Now, something interesting about riding on the back of an animal. You weren't really meant to do it. Riding another animal was something you did in two circumstances - when you were parasitising it, or when you were rolling around, pinning it down so you could sink your teeth into its neck. No animal just went 'oh, goodness, I feel like having a skeleton conveniently shaped for another creature's arse', no-one did this. No-one normal. And in both cases, the animal being ridden probably didn't want to be ridden, and the onus was on the rider to really adapt for the process. Even with horses, she remembered reading that humans who rode horses for long enough developed additional bones - it was a process so unnatural that the human body had to grow more bones in order to accomplish it. Oh, that was fine, but if a human spontaneously grew a tail if it lost its balance enough times, then everyone would go insane and bring out the pyres. But when you grew a few extra bones, oh, that was totally ordinary, and in fact barely noticeable!
The point was, Tanner was developing a moral objection to the concept of riding another animal. The fact that she was on a vast creature that'd once been a man and was covered in horns was only mildly contributing, she was a woman of principle, and had always mildly objected to riding other animals, ever since she was a young girl and her mother told her to 'go on and ride that donkey at the funfair, when you grow up you'll probably squash anything you sit on', and had left rather an impression.
The fact that she could joke about this was more because, in her mind, nothing more existed. She was travelling, there was nothing more she could do besides hanging on for dear life around the mutant's neck, her breath wheezing in and out of her gas mask like wind from an accordion. The binary reduction to hold on/fall off, live/die, succeed/fail meant that she basically had no choice at all, and that... was beautifully calming. Maybe humans had never meant to move beyond this state, and the addition of complexity was the beginning of ruin, the beginning of every foul urge and idle evil. In sluggish luxury, there was nothing but the lazy love of self-satisfaction and comfort, and the increasing of that comfort. The holiest of all numbers was two - two outcomes, success or failure, life or death. The most sinful of all numbers was three, particularly three when related to two. Because it suggested an increase. That three could become four, four become five, that outcomes could multiple and complexities flower like infinite fractals, expanding infinitely without actually increasing in size, until the whole structure collapsed into itself.
The same thing she'd done. By becoming a relative being, obsessed with how others judged her, with the impressions she left behind, dominated by shadowy versions of herself. And now she'd shed that, or glimpsed a world where she had, she wondered if she'd ever allow it to settle onto her back again. If she'd find the weight unbearable, or simply pointless. But... she'd become a fractal, hadn't she? Embarrassment, indignity, contentment, pride, approval, she'd been so petty. She'd become so damn introspective and hesitant that she hadn't expanded herself at all, only created more and more complexities. She was a labyrinth of complexities, yet the circle of people who would call her a close friend was... tiny, if it existed at all. She had a universe inside herself, yet she'd been ordered to come here, ordered around, ordered to believe in the law, ordered to practice the law in such a way, to herself, she was a perpetually unfolding crystal pattern, to the world, she was an entry in a ledger, a few slivers of data and nothing else. She was letters and mumbled conversations and neutrally phrased judgements.
Somehow, she got the feeling that by picking up an axe, ignoring her usual restraints, bullying an old man into letting her take control of the colony, and riding out on the back of an enormous mutant to go and drag a bunch of evacuees kicking and screaming back to the colony, she was already making more of an impact than she'd made in the last twenty-three years of life.
For once, she was unfolding. Turning the inner complexity into outwards expansion.
Rekida had spent untold generations growing more internally complex, with more tunnels, more walls, more statues, more palaces... but in the end, they'd never expanded their territory. Not once. Afraid of the consequences, the complications, the actual challenging of the tight-knit lattice they'd been constructing since their city was founded. And when the red tide came, they'd been drowned by it. Wouldn't make their mistake. Maybe that was why meeting the nobles had made her change. She'd seen everything that characterised herself.
And saw where it ended.
Wouldn't make their mistake.
Mr. Horn clambered easily over the slopes, and occasionally shot a glance over his shoulder, ruptured eyes ripe with more than a little concern - making sure she wasn't slipping, that she was unharmed and comfortable. Whenever he did, Tanner would nod with confidence she didn't quite feel, and would settle back to let the frigid wind scour over her face. Could feel his muscles growing more and more tense as they rode, which... wasn't especially wonderful. Should've brought All-Name, he could at least ask what Mr. Horn was thinking. The dunes rolled by, and beneath their feet, the evacuees were being stalked by yet more mutants, locking off their ability to retreat, while Tanner intercepted their way forwards. All other thoughts drained slowly from her head. And she was left in a state of absolute communion with her own body, her own intelligence, around which there was barely any membrane that interfered with the smooth flow into action. The mutant below her leapt suddenly, cresting a dune with a single bound, and she was utterly weightless. Just for a second. And for that tiny, tiny moment, she had no deficiency of being. She was entirely herself, and herself was enough. She was a luminous star on the boundless snow-scarred plains, a single bright point that existed with no reference to anything but its own chaotic physics.
The moment passed. But the scrap of light remained.
And no matter how fast they rode, or how cold the wind blew, it seemed to linger.
And gradually... gradually...
Mr. Horn came a stop. Sniffing the air.
Tanner hesitated... and when he extended a limb, gesturing to the ground, she slowly descended from his back. Her legs were... more than a little wobbly, but they were functional, and if she leaned on her axe she'd be fine. Leaning on an axe was significantly better than a walking stick - anyone who stared at the sign of weakness would also see a giant axe, and that really helped cancel it out. More walking sticks should have highly visible weaponry attached to them, might help with respecting the elderly. Presuming they could swing the stick, that is. The... stick-axe. The staxe.
No, all axes were staxes, dummy. No-one said the tip was called 'the axe', the entire thing was the axe, the thing at the end was the 'axe blade' or the 'axe head'. Moronic sow-creature.
...ought to stop calling herself that sort of thing. And for once, she actually found herself believing that suggestion.
The mutant sniffed again.
Tanner tilted her head to one side, communicating her question without speaking. Mr. Horn opened his mouth, and rumbled out a few words of Rekidan... before pausing, shrugging apologetically, and... covering his eyes with one large hand. Covered his eyes, and then tightened his face until it was utterly expressionless.
Tanner froze.
Well. Eyes were the windows to the soul. And if any creature could be considered fairly soulless...
Mutants.
She stared... and her face was impeccably flat as she raised one hand, and imitated a pair of legs running very quickly indeed, and with the other, imitated a more meandering pace. Mr. Horn shrugged, padded about a pit, sniffing the air like a dog... then he moved. Very quickly indeed. He galloped to Tanner's side, and stared her dead in the face, ruptured eyes wide, teeth protruding a little from his lips... then he shook his head. Backed off, disappearing over a dune, leaving Tanner to blink for a few moments in quick succession...
And a thumbs-up came from the crest of the tiny hill.
Far away. The wind was blowing in their face, scent must be able to carry from quite a distance - the detectors in the colony had been able to detect very subtle fluctuations for a while now, but those were... precise detectors, military-grade, designed for the safety of a whole, immobile colony. Had to have a longer range and greater precision. So... if a mutant, a regular mutant, who had a fairly unmutated head, could smell them...
They could be far, but they weren't far enough. And that worried her. Didn't how know fast they'd be moving. She nodded with certainty she didn't quite feel, looked around... then pointed down to the ground a few times, raising her eyebrows behind her mask.
Mr. Horn nodded, a small smile spreading across his face - given his size, though, that meant a decent-sized grin on anyone else.
Doom might be far off, but their targets were very close indeed. Wonderful. Tanner hefted her axe, feeling blood return to her legs after the chaotic ride, and she stumped off after Mr. Horn as he meandered around, hunting for... there. Goodness, they were well-hidden. The tunnels were never placed out in the open, they always emerged from under overhanging lips of land, they were far from any kind of convenient path that a road might sit on, they never had particularly large openings, and always had them at a certain sloping angle that allowed for the snow to cover up any hint of stone... if she looked carefully, she could even see carefully placed dirt, allowing for grass and other vegetation to cover it up in the spring, and there were delicately carved channels deeper into the tunnel's mouth that stopped the spring thaw from turning the whole network into a swamp, cunningly redirecting it to irrigate the soil instead, further growing their cover.
Give them credit where credit was due - they knew their tunnels. Damn good reason why the cartel had felt comfortable storing huge quantities of food down there, they were dry, cool, sheltered...
Tanner stood calmly, once more leaning on her axe.
And waited.
Only took half an hour before they emerged, and the moment Tanner saw a familiar face poking out of the darkness like the moon on a cloudy night...
She smiled, very, very slightly.
And hefted her axe.
"Hello, Tom-Tom."
* * *
The evacuees trooped defeatedly out of the tunnel, eyes wide yet strangely dispassionate as they glared at the mutant, at Tanner, and Tom-Tom. The leader, for her part, was sweating through her clothes and shivering like a leaf, like someone was electrocuting a particularly moist frog. Watching a little movement deflate in front of her eyes was a startlingly odd experience. No-one wanted to be seen, no-one wanted to be known. Being anonymous was the last defence any of them had, and they knew it was something they could only treasure for a few more minutes. As she'd suspected, they were unarmed, save for some truncheons and knives, even an old-fashioned cutlass that an older man had wrapped up in cloth. Stealing guns would mean stealing from the garrison, or from the cartel's secretive stores - neither of which were particularly subtle. They were retreating - they weren't animals backed into a corner, they were just people who saw an easier way out. Wouldn't fight. Even if they'd definitely win - and they wouldn't - she doubted they'd have struggled when others came out to stop them. Not sure why she was so confident about that fact, but here she was. Maybe there was some shame festering in them, shame of abandoning their neighbours and friends to the horde. Maybe there was a placid understanding that if they struggled, they made their fate worse. All they'd done was walk around - they hadn't taken that final vow, which could only be made with blood.
In the end, with Tom-Tom standing there, shivering and sweating, and her people shying away from her, there was the air of a party petering out. A party no-one had been having much fun at, with a hostess who was aware of how shabby it all was, and how little others liked it or her, and yet... the hostess had to keep going. Even as her guests filed away to find some enjoyment elsewhere, and she was left with heaps of uneaten food, the harsh strains of music echoing unheard from a gramophone...
This was a formality.
Tanner marched forward, noting the shapes of a pair of large, strident Rekidans in the darkness of the tunnel, making themselves known to the evacuees. No running down the tunnel. No moving ahead. Have to commit violence to move in a manner contrary to her will, and there wasn't any desire for bloodshed.
Even she didn't want any bloodshed. Not here.
Not yet.
"You're unarmed?"
"Yes."
"Is that a lie?"
"...yes. I have a knife. In my boot."
Caved in. Not much backbone left in her at this point. Tanner carefully removed it, and slipped it into her own pocket. Stared down at Tom-Tom, trying to figure out what to do with her. The woman slowly looked up, met her eyes, and her own seemed to waver, shivering like great vague jellyfish, trying to escape from her sockets and flee into the snow. There was a second of silence. Then Tom-Tom spoke, unprompted.
"I did it for my fellow people."
Tanner said nothing.
"I did it because the colony's doomed, and I wanted to save as many people as possible."
Still, nothing. Tom-Tom's voice rose, becoming almost hysterical.
"I did it because you know that place is rotten, there's just... layers and layers of lies and corruption, and now look! Look, there's... mutants, in the tunnels, intelligent mutants, and you're working with them, and... and..."
Something sparked in her - like the remains of some long-ended chemical experiment pulsing with sluggish reactions as untouched substances flowed back together. Her voice rose again, reedy and thin. Tanner looked at her, and saw Tom-Tom truly for who she was. She was a relative person. She was a person who ceased to exist when alone, and required the perception of others to achieve even the most meagre scrap of existence. She was a being of fractal self - the sort that could become infinitely complex, while remaining bound to the same basic area. She lacked Tanner's newfound bright calm, which she sometimes touched in moments of binary focus. As it always was - seeing her own behaviours from the outside made her shiver, at least internally. Seeing Yan-Lam grow intense and unerringly focused made her feel like her own habits were self-destructive, and without her habits, what was she? Seeing the Rekidans take unnatural pride in their own cloistered nature made her feel ashamed for how little she'd actually done with her life. Seeing Canima decay from a terrifying Erlize officer to a helpless old man because he was doing his job perfectly, obeying all the rules he was meant to, made her feel like her dedication to the law had been pointless. And seeing Tom-Tom flailing, sweating, shrieking, dwelling entirely in the eyes of others, it...
It made her feel like she'd wasted a good chunk of her life.
No wonder she'd changed. This colony had shown her every last one of her behaviours coming to a wretched conclusion of some kind.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
All but Yan-Lam. And she was... definitely looking a little tired.
Anyhow. Tom-Tom.
"And... and was I wrong? Was I actually wrong for trying to save people, was I doing something wrong? When a ship is sinking, if the law says to stay on it, then the law is wrong, isn't it? I... I mean, my father, he dragged all these people out here, the governor dragged people out here, this is the first choice they've actually made, and they've chosen to leave! Give us a chance to get to the settlement, give us a chance to get on a boat and head out, and that's it! At least give us the chance to do it, I mean, if the colony is doomed, any chance is enough of a chance, right? And I'm sorry for everything that happened before, I'm sorry about what I did, but please, please, at least let me make up for it by trying to help - I mean, what are you doing?"
Her voice rose, and there was nothing reasonable in it. Just the yelping of someone desperate to stay relevant.
"I mean, I mean, you're... working with, what, mutants, and they're meant to, what, help us against other mutants, like they won't just turn around and kill us once our guard is down? Hang on, what if you're starting to mutate, and you're just playing for the winning side? What if you're insane, and are going to get all of us killed? What if-"
Tanner spoke over her. Not talking to Tom-Tom. Talking to all the others, who were watching with close attention. Probably wondering if Tanner was going to execute her to show an example.
"Some of you came to the colony legitimately, some of you came here because a group of criminals offered you the chance to pay off your debts, win favour, whatever. Some of you, the bouncers, came here because either the criminals or the governor needed toughs, and the governor offered to wipe the slate clean for you, after whatever you'd done in Fidelizh."
She paused, examining their reactions, even as her heart continued to beat faster and faster. Had a vague idea, still improvising more than she liked.
"The governor forgot none of this. There's files with your actual criminal records. There's evidence of corruption that anyone can find. And the criminals never had your best interests at heart, their leader, Vyuli, wants to use this place to build his old city again. A city most of you are too young to even remember, and he's killed people in order to stop them from disturbing that vision. The governor wanted to control you, Vyuli wants to use you, I'm telling you that if you keep running, you'll find nothing at all. There's nothing out there. The mutants are already coming, these ones can smell them coming closer with each minute."
A second for her to catch her breath, to fight down the guilt at lying. And she was lying. The immigration documents in the governor's secret office contained no criminal records, not really. There was evidence of corruption, but it could easily be masked, and had been masked for a while. And she had no idea how close the mutants were.
But if she told the truth, everything became less urgent. Less necessary.
Kept going, even as a trickle of nervous sweat began to make its way down the back of her neck.
"Mr. Canima has given me the authority of acting governor. With that authority, I can burn these documents. With that authority, I can give you passage back home, no questions asked. I can absolve you of any debts, of any past criminal records, of anything. If you keep running, you'll find nothing. And maybe you'll survive by hiding in the wilderness and running south. And that's what you'll get. Wilderness. Snow. Hunger. Death, most likely. The same flight south that you, or your parents, or your grandparents did during the Great War. And they were lucky. But if you come back, you'll have a better chance of surviving, and you'll have something waiting at the end of it. If you run, you'll have nothing but hunger, cold, a city that won't take you back, and criminals that have long, long memories. If the colony survives, do you think Vyuli would forgive you for running? Do you think Canima would?"
A pause.
"But if you stay, I'll forgive you of everything that's happened before now. Completely clean slate, no records, nothing."
A voice yelled out of the assembled crowd, deep and masculine.
"What about this bunch?"
"They're sane, and they've been fighting these mutants for years. They won't have children, they don't want this colony back, they think I'll stand by my word and give them what they want - a quiet retirement on the surface, instead of underground. That's right - there was a whole colony of mutants underground, and the criminals didn't know, the governor didn't know, Canima didn't know, and I found out, and I'm telling you. Could've kept them far away from here, used the soldiers to hunt you instead. But this is how we're doing things - by being honest."
And by saying that, she was fibbing through her teeth.
If they poked harder, they might see through it. Might. The thing was - she wasn't morally opposed to the governor. Nor to Canima. Nor, even, to Vyuli. Vyuli was doing everything in his power to re-establish his home city, and she was working with the nobles of Rekida, who'd gladly do the same if they thought it was possible. If they found a village of perfectly intact Rekidans, culturally connected to the home city, they'd doubtless become significantly less friendly. What she wanted was to survive. There weren't any priorities above that. To personally survive, and for the colony to survive, not because she wanted the colony to endure, but because she was sick of the idea that because of a bunch of conflicting ideals and conspiracies, a very, very large number of people were going to die, or suffer fates worse than death at the hands, claws, and assorted pseudopods of a mutant horde. That was her principle. Oh, she had morals, she truly did, but she'd already sacrificed her profession, her faith, her very inner habits in order to do this.
The people stared at her.
Tom-Tom was spluttering weakly, trying to come up with a counterargument - but she knew nothing, she had nothing, she was nothing. She was just a terrified third daughter of a bitter criminal who had likely lived her whole life devoted to gaining his approval, and her 'revolution' against him was devoted to gaining the approval of others. If she'd only told a few other people, a tiny core of professionals, she could've left the colony and no-one would know.
But she had to be bolder. Maybe out of altruism - maybe there was a real core of morality down there somewhere... or maybe because she knew that 'Tom-Tom, the desperate survivor who just took the people she needed' would be less respected, less revered, less liked than 'Tom-Tom, the gracious mother of the exiles'.
Tanner knew this, because in her position, that's what she would be thinking. Even in a small way, even buried under layers of justifications, that logic would still come to mind. An ugly, ugly thought intruding inwards and lingering like a splinter.
Despite it all...
Despite it all, this was still fragile. She could see grumblings. Some of the bouncers were definitely considering soldiering on. Tanner hesitated...
And leant forwards to whisper in Tom-Tom's ear.
"Do you think they'll stay if they know about you and Lyur."
If they knew her incompetence had killed three people, including a father. Killed more, really - four, if you counted Myunhen. And while she hadn't done the deed herself...
The bouncers might know about elements of it. About the vague outlines. But she was doing them a favour by leading them out, enough of a favour that they might stay quiet. Hm...
"Are you sure the bouncers aren't here because they know, and they can control you? How long before they just shove you out of the way and take charge?"
Tom-Tom was shivering again, her eyes bulged in a distinctly Eygi-like fashion, and... she looked like she was having an allergic reaction. Pale, sweating, incapable of speaking, choking out a few vague sounds. Having a mental breakdown right in front of her. Tanner felt a twist in guilt in her stomach, and despite herself...
"And if you come back, I'll make sure you're safe."
Tom-Tom finally managed to say something past the lump in her throat. A tone that rippled with shame.
"He'll... still kill me."
Tanner said nothing. But her eyes flicked to look at Mr. Horn, then back to Tom-Tom. The woman had followed her gaze. And... got the picture. Tanner wasn't just a judge with the law on her side, she wasn't just some lackey who could ask a soldier for help now and again, she had mutants who, politely, probably thought of her father as a scumbag they'd never, ever ally with.
For the first time since she'd come to the colony, there was a genuine out-of-context solution. Just had to abandon this. Just had to accept that she needed to survive, and would take any amount of shame to do it. Come on. Do what Tanner had done.
Cease to be a relative creature.
Tom-Tom stared.
Gulped.
And murmured something.
"I'm... going to try and punch you in the face."
Tanner blinked.
"What?"
"Shh. Going to try and punch you. You punch me, you can break my nose, do whatever. Just... give me some dignity. Please."
She really had no negotiating position. This was purely charity.
Might as well.
Tanner shook her head gently at Mr. Horn, warning him to stay back. Then Tom-Tom took a deep breath...
And screamed, while slamming a fist into Tanner's jaw.
"You'll have to take me back comatose, you-"
Tanner thumped her in the chest with the haft of her axe.
Tom-Tom dug up a trench as she was flung backwards, a tiny yelp escaping her lips.
The crowd was very, very quiet.
Tanner raised an eyebrow. Oh, gods, please work, please work, please work, it worked on Sersa Bayai (maybe, if he wasn't just being pragmatic), it worked on Canima (very old man), it worked on the Rekidans (she was a marginally better alternative than the slow death down below), and...
It worked on Ms. Blue?
Come on, please work on normal, well-adjusted, ordinary people. Please!
She paused...
And one of the bouncers dropped his truncheon to the ground, shuffling back to the tunnel, shoulders dropping as if he was trying to avoid the eyes which locked upon him from all directions.
Straw that broke the camel's back, really.
The others began to shuffle behind him, and the mutants parted gladly, letting them head back to the colony. Tanner engraved their features into her memory, each face, ready to tie them to files she'd need to burn. Tom-Tom groaned from the ground, the wind absolutely knocked out of her, all the fight gone... and the more people that left, the smaller she seemed to become, until it seemed a miracle that she hadn't vanished entirely from sight. Barely took any time at all for the evacuees to vanish back into the darkness, slumping back to the colony with packs weighing them down pointlessly - not like they needed the supplies they'd taken. Still, if their only 'punishment' for desertion was to lug some food and clothes back home... anyway. Tanner rubbed her jaw with the back of her hand - hadn't really hurt, but anyone making physical contact with her left a kind of burning imprint behind for a solid few minutes, reminding her that someone had done something of some kind. Either way, Tanner stumped over to help Tom-Tom up. Gods, the woman wasn't much older than her, but she looked shrivelled. Prematurely ageing.
Just... hard to see what was in her. Tanner had known Tom-Tom for a while, but she couldn't pin down much in terms of personality. Was the whole cheerful act a front, or was she legitimately a friendly and outgoing person... until she got three people killed in one night and humiliated herself in front of her father. Did she genuinely enjoy fishing, the profession she'd had while out here... or had she just taken it up because it was something her father liked doing, or someone else liked doing, or because it was time to herself, where she had no-one to impress?
Tanner didn't know. And Tom-Tom would never tell, because the moment she did, she'd be filtering it by considering what Tanner would think of it.
"You measure skulls incorrectly."
Tom-Tom stared, still wheezing a little. Nuts, hoped she hadn't been too rough...
"You're meant to make a kind of plaster cast, then send it off to be examined."
Tom-Tom blinked.
And spoke very quietly indeed.
"...that makes sense. That makes much more sense. Scientific. Anonymous. No way of the reader deciding how their fortune should turn out because of who their client is."
"Possible."
"Thanks for hitting me."
"Thank you for not causing more of a fuss. Come on, we're going to stick you in the mansion, where you can't hurt anybody."
A small, empty laugh echoed out of the deeply hollow woman.
"...I deserve that."
Deserved worse, in a way. Prison time was a given, and some people had been sentenced to death for less serious crimes than hers. But Tanner was in charge - and nuts to the law. Killing Tom-Tom would make her seem vengeful, would make others think she was inching towards being a tyrant who murdered anyone who opposed her. Which she wasn't.
But she'd happily lock them up.
"Feel ready to walk?"
"Think so. Think so."
She sniffed, nose going red in the intense cold.
"I'm sorry. I really am. For everything. Never meant for this to turn out this way."
She'd said that last time. And yet, here she was, doing something stupid again. Meaning, Tanner had to be a little more firm with restraining her.
The mutants shuffled about, sniffing the air... and Tanner nodded to the two guarding the tunnel. They advanced, cautiously... and began to escort Tom-Tom away. Idly, Tanner thought of how quickly this had been settled. A quick ride, a bit of intimidation, thwacking her with the haft of an axe, and a hint of bribery. Done. Just had to ignore the law, exploit her authority, and basically treat being a judge as a helpful source of legitimacy deprived of responsibility. Canima would've hesitated at the idea of burning documents, Vyuli would've hesitated at being merciful, and both would've balked at working with the Rekidans in the first place. Even the governor would've had to work through soldiers, and Tanner had heard the things they'd been muttering. No guarantee they'd be remotely gentle - Tom-Tom would've come out of this with much worse than a light tap with the end of an axe.
The strangest part was... seeing so many people believing her.
Ms. Blue was downright weird. The soldiers were probably just looking for someone who did things, or who tried to do things, instead of just milling around behind the scenes. Canima was old and defeated, Bayai knew her and was a pragmatic soul, the nobles were really just following the one path open to them which didn't involve slow, miserable death - now they could have a slower, significantly more pleasant death, surrounded by comfort. If they won.
But these were just... people. Ordinary human people, trying to get by in life.
...the idea of them believing her act, following along with her commands, with the spiralling chaos that had unwound out of her restraints...
Not sure if she was excited or disturbed, really.
Almost wanted someone to shriek 'she's making this all up as she goes along, wasn't she a judge a few days ago, didn't she obey laws and whatnot, since when did she decide to take power, since when did any of us listen to her?'
No-one had.
And... that was certainly strange.
Just her and Mr. Horn again. He was still sniffing the air, his expression growing more and more tense. He gestured mutely towards the distant horizon, where evacuees had been heading before their interception. Towards the riverside settlement. Tanner felt a sudden pulse of fear - had the mutants already arrived, had...
The man struggled to mime out what he was smelling. He raised one long, dark nail to the soft flesh of his arm, and pressed down until a few droplets of red blood appeared. He mimed sniffing at the blood, then turned to the horizon and pointed once again.
Well. That was... clear.
Tanner started walking in the general direction of the settlement, then turned, raising an eyebrow.
The man nodded, then gestured to his back with a sheepish smile.
Oh, well.
While the evacuees went back to the colony, Tanner mounted on Mr. Horn's back and began to gallop back across the plains, snow whipping at her face. Storm coming. She retreaded the path she'd taken to get to the colony in the first place, following the roads that her carriage had trundled erratically down. If she walked a little further on, she'd find the bodies of horses, the wreck of a coach... the coachman's body had been taken for burial, but there was more than enough to still form a grim memorial. But even as she cast her eyes over the ground, she knew she'd find nothing. The snow had eaten it all, and wouldn't give it back until spring. No wonder this land seemed to breed violence within it - the consequences of a murder, the visceral disgust of rot or decay, the feeling of flesh turning cold... all of it was sealed away for half the year. Rot was delayed. Bodies were hidden. And everyone was already cold out here, the only difference was the spreading of the cold from the outside to the inside - and the outside was all most people felt, when it came to others. In a place where the graves made themselves, maybe it was easier to butcher people. Maybe that explained why the General was such a chipper fellow despite the deeds he'd surely been witness to, and had no great regret for seeing and not stopping.
Maybe.
The settlement was close - the mutant knew how to move, and sometimes they even dipped into the tunnels, racing down long, echoing passages that dripped with icicles where the seals had broken over the years, accelerating their progress... then he took a different course, went for a hill, climbing up higher and higher... giving her a view, rather than dumping her straight into the middle of things. Kind of him.
Tanner stared out.
...hm. She... well, the settlement was out there. Could see it, and quite comfortably. Snow-laden roofs, snow-filled streets, all the usual hallmarks. No signs of smoke rising from the buildings, or blood-slicked ruins, or anything of that sort. Nothing...
...nothing at all. No smoke from the chimneys on the middle of a bleak midwinter day.
No-one even trying to keep the streets clear.
No voices. No sounds. Nothing at all.
And if she looked to the river...
The dock was gone. Like it'd never been there to start with. And she saw no boats, none on the surface at least. Rationally, she knew some could be in sheds to shelter them from the ice which could worm into their wood and ruin the whole construction, but... the absence of the dock was inexplicable.
Then she saw it. Rather, she heard it.
Flapping like a defeated flag.
A single window, clicking against the outside wall. Opened delicately, not a single pane broken. And allowed to hang open even as snow eased through the opening and turned the house into a sopping, frigid ruin.
Click-click-click-click-click...
Panes glinting like diamonds in the distance, the unrelenting winter sun shining down without any warmth, and with interminable brightness that even her gas mask found hard to keep out of her eyes. Mr. Horn snuffed beneath her, not liking whatever it was he smelled. Blood, presumably, blood and contamination, and...
She could say with absolutely certainty that everyone in this settlement was dead.
And had been for some time. The mutants had come the moment the colony shut down for winter. A few big ones, maybe just one. Intelligent. Silent. Unrelenting. A bunch of unarmed civilians with no expectation of having to put up a fight against anything but the cold.
Maybe it hadn't even needed to kill them. Just had to drive them out, squat in their homes while they froze to death in the dark, miles and miles from any kind of backup shelter. And the snow had fallen to bury them where they fell. To swallow the settlement. A few strikes, and the dock would be gone too. Leaving... nothing behind.
Dimly, she remembered the old man who'd greeted herself and Marana, given them passage, given them a plate of fried eggs on black rye bread, and thick black coffee, while they waited for the sun to rise in their little garret room.
They were alone.
The dock was gone. The settlement was dead. Either the colony endured to spring, to get people out, or... nothing.
A flash of strange relief went over her. She'd saved them. It hadn't been... ambiguous, she'd saved them from coming to a ruined settlement, where a mutant might still be waiting to keep an eye out for any survivors. They'd never manage to survive, would need to build a boat, then sail south, and hope no mutant calmly picked them off, like they'd done to the settlement. Where...
And as if summoned...
She saw a shadow pass by the open window.
Felt keenly as if something was staring at her.
And a long, long, pale arm, glistening with strange dew...
Reached out to close it.
Click.
There was no need to communicate. Mr. Horn turned and began to run. Tanner crouched low on his back and waited for it to be over, relying on his mutant strength to haul her onwards where no other creature could.
In absolute silence, they ran back to the colony.
And Tanner knew, knew she was being watched by a single, unblinking, eye. An eye with a ruptured pupil.
Run.