CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - NO COUNTRY FOR HUMANS
She talked about Eygi. A lot.
Marana listened calmly, and wrapped herself around Tanner to share her warmth, the warmth of someone who wasn't moving constantly. She offered to clamber down once or twice, but Tanner ignored her. She couldn't say why she was so... committed to keeping Marana alive, a middle-aged alcoholic who'd tagged along on this journey out of some sort of personal desire for a holiday. But... she did. Kept her going through the snow, as minutes turned to hours, and as the hours chewed at the remains of the day like a cosmic wolf, starlight-toothed and moon-eyed, eager to supplant the greyness of the sky with its own infinite black pelt. The gurgle of the slavering being behind them rose and fell, a being with the half-ruined brain of a long-dead wolf and the body of something else entirely, a species and genus and family all to itself, a cancerous scion of tree of life, too unstable to prosper, too unique to bear fruit. The smart mutants hadn't descended on it. Not yet. Not sure why. Not even the one that'd been close enough to touch. Maybe it was planning something, or had only swept by to check on things before moving on. Dismissing the wolf-thing as broken and unsalvageable - a poisoned pill that would corrode anything that ate it. Useless even by the standards of other mutants. She had strange thoughts, now, wild conjectures. Maybe the wolf-thing was intelligent, and deliriously so, but feigned madness in order to lure in large mutants for consumption. Maybe the mutants were playing a long game against each other, letting this poisoned prey go on to make one of their own foes weaker. Waiting for someone to slip up and attack, to expose their flank to a killing strike.
Was she standing in a wasteland, or was she a tourist in a war of incalculable scale and inhuman coldness?
They could turn and kill this creature. They could try. But Tanner knew that, as a mutant, all that would really kill it, truly and utterly, was burning it to ash. Disintegrating it to the point where no constituent part could live an independent life. Unstable mutants were dangerous for that reason - they were practically already a bundle of independent lives existing as a truce. Rip them apart, they cannibalise themselves and shamble on, madder and stranger and more unstable than before. Burning. Only way. Burn it to dust, and bury the dust to be sure it wouldn't get into a water supply, just in case. But... but this thing, it wasn't just a monster, it was a meal for something. Burning it might just attract the big ones that were watching, even now. Maybe that was the point. Wait for her to hurt it, then swoop in to eat it, maybe killing her in the process, maybe not. She was trying to negotiate mutant politics while running from a rabid animal. Was this happening all over the north?
No wonder they needed judges.
No wonder it'd taken so long to reoccupy anything. The entire place was owned by warlords that spoke no language, understood no morality, and had no interest whatsoever in negotiating with humans. A nation where every last citizen was a warlord, a sovereign state, warring against all the others. She kept mumbling to herself as she ran, often talking about Eygi, like she was composing a letter to her, even now. Marana was good enough to ignore that. Ignore how Tanner blearily said she was just 'focusing on a letter she had to write', and promptly started burbling about weather. Coming up with meaningless sentences she'd repeat to herself a dozen different times (in-between rasping pants for air) in a dozen different formulations before she immediately forgot the sentence and moved onto another one. Didn't even remember that Marana knew Algi, and Algi was Eygi's brother. Didn't bother thinking about it. Irrelevant. This helped her stay calm, helped her keep going. That was all that mattered. The hills loomed like barrows all around, and the sky grew darker and darker. Soon, it'd be night, and once that happened... they'd be completely blind, completely, and would quickly succumb to the cold. Damn, damn, she'd hoped they'd at least be in sight of something by now... but the hills obscured all sight, the snow consumed sound, and soon enough, even their meagre visibility would vanish. They might be half an hour away from their destination along this long, snow-laden road, or they might be many, many hours away indeed. Further than her straining legs could carry them.
Think. Think.
Needed to... right, they needed to get away from this creature, but if they were going to be out here all night, they needed to ward it off, they needed to stay warm... burning, then. Use it not to kill, just to ward, animals and mutants both feared fire, no matter the state of the creature's brain, it'd know to stay back. Build a campfire, burn things, use them to keep it away. Simple.
Problems. How to build a campfire - she'd never done it before, not beyond some childish grass-fires she'd set when she was young and idiotic and lighting things on fire was in vogue amongst the other squalling sprogs. Second, where to find fuel. She had a trunk with some clothes in it, but... idea, idea. Wooden club. Wrap up in some loose clothes. Burn it. Replace the clothes, giving her a weapon, a source of some warmth, and... wooden club, you absolute dolt, you moron, you dozy mare unfit for siring children. A wooden club would burn too, and then she'd have, oh, wonderful, a pile of ash and no weapon. Except for the revolver, which, again, would just lure in more mutants and expose them to contamination. She was rambling. Rambling madly, sometimes out loud, sometimes just in half-heard mumbles. Also, shelter. A fire and no shelter was better than having neither, but it was still bad. The hills... there were some trees, some, but they were scraggly and poor, some of them might even be contaminated, and they were laden with snow. Marana murmured something:
"Light a fire under a snowy tree, you melt the snow, you douse the fire, you freeze. Read it. Once."
Oh, splendid. That worked. So, no fuel, no experience, no shelter, no light, no idea when things would end, no hope, no hope. She might die here.
"You're not dying here, Tanner Magg, not at all. Listen to me. You keep running, let me plan, alright? Just focus on running, leave this part up to me."
A part of her rebelled. Childish. She wasn't an idiotic brutish giant who just hauled people around like a glorified workhorse, she was smart, she knew so much about tax law, how on earth could she be treated like a mare, and.. she'd called herself a mare a moment ago, of the dozy variety, that assessment might just be correct. She'd dug her grave, might as well lie in it. Gods, she... did she have good life insurance? She hoped she did, no, wait, she did, the judges had excellent insurance policies, thanks to all the lovely work they did for the assurance companies, yes! Oh, her mother would be splendidly compensated, she knew those premiums would pay her back, and she was dying (technically) on the job! Oh, the payouts, the payouts!
She was going a bit dotty, wasn't she?
The snow did drive people mad. The coachman hadn't been wrong about that. A slight increase in heat, barely anything, and she'd be surrounded by an ocean of mud and rushing water. A slight decrease around the world, and the oceans would swell, freezing as they went. If all the water in her body froze, right now, would she burst open with icicles protruding like porcupine quills? Why was liquid water more compact than solid water? Would all mutants eventually become pools of stinking fluid once they evolved enough, figuring out that it was a more efficient way to live? Maybe the underground rivers were full of those mutants, or a single such mutant, a stinking god which had learned the most efficient and secure way to exist. Maybe they lived upon the back of this god, this undulating world-serpent, cosmic eel, barrow-dragon warmed by the heat of all the ground's magma. Maybe she was just going dotty.
Probably that.
So...
Something was in the dark and the snow. Something was... no, not a mutant, it lacked those eyes, those awful eyes, and the stink of contamination. It lacked it all. It wasn't even alive, the shape was wrong, resembled no animal, no... hold on.
She paused, almost falling.
Her voice was flat and dull.
"Coach."
Marana peered over her shoulder.
"And not ours."
Oh.
Well, good. Tanner's vision was blurry, she'd thought they'd just gone in a circle. Somehow. Despite running along a single road without ceasing. Gods, it was nice to have someone on her back to state the bleeding obvious. Gave her more liberty to be an idiot. Either way. Coach. Another one. The snow had mounted over it, leaving it as a strange hillock for the most part, only segments of the black wood protruding. Another thing about the snow - it was merciful. It had the decency of providing a grave for any who died in it. Even coaches. The wheels were shattered from its crash, though the strong wind was catching the lingering spokes, driving them into sad rattles of pseudo-motion, like windmills unhitched from any internal mechanism. There was no sign of the coachman, though Tanner had an idea for where he'd gone. The horses were nowhere to be seen, and they might sleep under the snow, might've been devoured, might've bitten their reins and run off to die in the hills. Another coach, then, run off the road and shivered to pieces by the impact. No sign of any passengers, so... Tanner's brain was paralysed, she could hear the gurgling of the mutant coming closer, and... and...
"Tanner. Coach. Wood. Shelter."
Oh.
"Oh."
Right. Wooden coach. Wood. Wood burned. Campfire. And it was mostly intact, the doors hadn't snapped off, though the windows looked to be broken. Hardly mattered, they could cover those with their coats if necessary. Marana jumped from her back, moving quickly - Tanner was exhausted, but Marana had been able to save her energy, and her hands flickered easily to her pockets, hunting for... for a lighter, an ornate one, silver and engraved with a small message. Tanner's eyes automatically strained to read it, but the darkness stole all meaning, stole all sight, and the snowflakes distorted her vision. Marana hissed through her teeth, concentrating... then grabbed Tanner's arm, dragging her to the coach, where the woman could point mutely at the spokes of the rattling wheels. Some were mostly being held on with sheer willpower, the material practically ruined. And the snow hadn't... for once, winter was wonderful. The snow hadn't melted. Not a single crystal had dissolved since this thing had crashed, dissolving to soak into the wood, to ruin it. Oh, it wasn't perfect, but still... Tanner grabbed one, ripping it free with a groan of surrendering wood, and handed it to Marana. Marana, for her part, had been working away - tearing off a piece of her skirt, unscrewing her lighter to release a foul-smelling liquid from the interior, just a little...
A click of the mechanism...
And a second later, they had a torch. A roaring little fire in Tanner's hands. Yes, the spoke underneath would burn too, but, it would burn slowly, and they had more spokes to work with - they had a whole damn coach to burn, if they really needed to. So Tanner brandished it boldly, holding a little star out into the dark, where something was gurgling out a strangled growl. A moment...
How... close had it been?
How long had it been nipping at their heels?
Just waiting for them to get tired. To make a mistake.
The mutant shambled closer, not even limping. Healed completely. Bulging knots of muscle formed from horseflesh riddled its mangy fur, keeping it moving even despite the wounds Marana had inflicted. The face was still a ruin of gore, but the exposed parts of the brain were covered in a shimmering grey lattice of tissue, slowly putting it back together. The eyes were dead. How... how could something live like that, how could it possibly endure? Realistically, she knew why - the creature had been dead for a long, long time, they were just dealing with the myriad organisms possessing its corpse. It twitched erratically, though - impulses moving strangely through a shattered skull. If they kept shooting it... Marana was reloading her revolver as quickly as she could, the wind howling all around her. Shoot it through the head again, brutalise that skull into nonexistence, maybe it'd leave them alone. A wolfish brain was chasing them, if they destroyed it, maybe the remaining matter would go for a mutant's top priority - contamination. Nothing more.
Marana seemed to have the same idea.
The mutant paused, staring at the fire, fascinated and terrified by it. Tanner and Marana were fixated on it as well, devoted to every flicker and shiver, to the slow erosion of the cloth and the blackening of the wood. It was the only thing holding this mutant back from them. And it... it just watched, single wolfish eye unblinking, myriad insectile eyes glittering like pieces of caviar. For a few long seconds, there was nothing but the wind and the fire. The mutant was still. The humans were immobilised. Marana was loading her gun as quickly as she could, but... the mutant knew she was doing that. Did it know what the gun meant? Did it remember? Would it attack, just to stop her? Or...
It started to move. Pacing slowly outside the firelight, watching them all the while. Moving with languid ease, unwilling to rush. The stench of contamination filled the air. Tanner felt her lungs burning, felt her entire body stiffening with tension. She'd been in a coach less than a few hours ago, heading for a new job. Now a tiny flickering star was all that kept her from being devoured. A torch in one hand. A club stuffed into the belt of her greatcoat, useless against something which would not die. A few weeks ago, and she'd been worrying about having tea with her mother again. Now... now she might die in a snowy wasteland with a surrealist next to her. How... fragile were things? How fragile was the world, that a few weeks of travel was all that stood between her and this? How precarious could the world be, years upon years after the Great War? The wolf... no, no, barely recognisable as a wolf, it was too shapeless, too mutated, the idea of the wolf had departed from its flesh. All that remained was a quadruped. Air hissed out of the misshapen muzzle, and from its jaws dripped a mixture of saliva and venom, while its bloated stomach wriggled with meat slowly being integrated into its biology. She could see a horse's eye slowly forming along its side, bulging and mad, and thought she could hear newer, larger, more powerful ribs slithering out of flesh, growing in moment by moment, pinkish white and reeking.
She saw all she was not.
Her biology revolted at the sight of it. Feared the sight of its end.
Marana's gun clicked.
The mutant didn't react. Simply stared at the flame, almost pyrolatrous with its obsession. The one thing uniting it and the humans who sheltered in its glow - a fascination with the light, a devotion to each flicker, a constant concern for when it would stop.
The gun kicked like a mule, and for a second another star lit up the doubtful night.
The mutant twitched, almost derisively... the bullet slammed into its side, but barely sank through.
Tanner paled.
Another kick.
The mutant soaked up the shot, and the first bullet was already pushing its way out of the creature, muscle contracting like it was giving birth.
It was adapting. No. Had adapted. Keeping its deformed head away, using its body to shield it, guarding what mattered. Go ahead. Hit the body. Tanner remembered the guns the mutant-hunters had used, the bores larger than her thumb, the pistols designed for rifle rounds, the bayonets mounted beneath, the half-pound conical balls, the constant specialisations for maximum damage. The bullets from this revolver... they hurt, but the mutant felt no pain. It had no natural biology, why would damaging the organs mean anything? They needed rounds that tore, that blew off a great torrent of flesh with each blow, that could destroy something with explosive ease.
This wasn't it. This was a coachman's revolver. It was meant for highwaymen. For warding off wolves. Mutants wouldn't attack a coach, not unless there was contamination to be found.
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Hadn't counted on a rabid thing with no sense of what it needed, only what it had once needed, back when something resembling sanity had lurked in that caved-in skull.
Marana's bullets stalled for a moment as she saw how little she was doing. The mutant was just waiting for the fire to go out. Then it could attack. And nothing would stop it. Already, it was lowering to lap up its own blood and meat, quietly reintegrating it. Tanner bit her lip... remembered how the coachman had driven the hobbling human-mutant away, and...
She yelled, swinging the stick at the creature with wild abandon. The fire became a comet, leaving a blazing trail in its wake...
The mutant backed off immediately, slithering into the dark where only its eyes were visible, flat and dead, single remaining pupil ruptured.
Mocking her with its silence.
She swung again, and the creature continued to back away... but it was circling a little. Go on, it seemed to say. Come out to fight me, you brute. Come on out to use those muscles, those all-too-human muscles, to break my skull. And when you're alone in the dark, I'll circle around and plant venom in your heels, make them swell and pulse with rot, immobilise you and let you die out here, cold and terrified. Maybe you'll live long enough to hear me start to chew.
She retreated immediately, the mutant following her in lockstep, driving her back to the coach. Marana had stopped working on the gun - now she was just working on the coach, finding spokes that were easier to remove, going for anything she could find, trying to build up a campfire, sheltered from the wind by the body of the coach. And... hm. She moved, hissing at Tanner to follow. Going to where the horses should be, and... digging with gloved hands, the snow light and easy to move, but so cold that it sapped energy regardless. Even her light body heat would be enough to melt a little, and each frigid drop would steal something from her. As expected, beneath the snow were the bodies of horses, their meat partially devoured by scavengers, by this thing. She started trying to build a fire in the bare ribs of one of the creatures, protruding like fish-bones from the slurry of a maceration tank. The eyes of the creature were gone, but a little flesh still clung to the skull, shrivelled by cold, and the growing fire winked through the hollow sockets, giving it a kind of theatrical life - like something they'd haul out onto a stage to frighten people, or something spotted in a hallucinatory daze in the mudlands.
Tanner and the mutant did nothing but stare.
The mutant waited.
Tanner felt terror with each blink. Each moment of darkness during which it might attack. Mutants were terrified of fire, but sometimes... sometimes...
This thing was mad enough already.
The minutes drew out, the snow grew fiercer, the flame flickered weakly, creeping down, inch by inch towards Tanner's hand. She didn't dare look away to see how the campfire was doing. Was it growing? Was it dying? Marana was silent, but her lighter was clicking away. The wind stole the smell of smoke - no idea if she was succeeding. Doubtful darkness endured. A nightmare glared at her. She glared back, but knew she was blinking, knew she was weaker. The torch in her hands burned lower, and she ached to thrash this thing to death. Kept picturing burning it, hurting it, feeling mutated organs pop like small fruit when she crushed them with her torch. The mutant was low and unpretentious, there were no raised hackles, no bared teeth, no twitching ears, nothing - it didn't need to work to intimidate her. Knew she was intimidated by presence alone. She wanted to write to Eygi, wanted to go back home... no, no, focus. Her golden pince-nez were locked up for now, possibly shattered, but she could... could imitate the rosy perspective they symbolically granted. The coach had been here, that was good. That was lucky, and she ought to thank every force she worshipped. There was wood to burn, there was a vague promise of safety. Things could have gone worse. They hadn't been killed in the first crash, after all. And she tried... would a judge be nervous? Even if she didn't have the right accoutrement, she could... she could think about the role of a judge, thought about it like she'd think about any of the gods of Fidelizh, any of the things she allowed to ride on her back. A judge wouldn't be afraid here, their hands wouldn't shake, not at all. She tried to project her memory-rooms into the world, wavering in the darkness. Her room in the labyrinth, crammed with textures and scents and sights and sounds, each one tied up with memories, each word laden with colossal meaning. The mutant was still here, but it... it was smaller, just a little.
The landscape became a mnemonic. The hills were bristling with laws. Familiarity extended like a web. Did birds feel afraid when they started their migrations? No, they just migrated, like with eels heading off on their endless pilgrimages. The world was familiar not because they knew every inch of it, but because they knew what mattered in it. Tanner understood the law, so she painted the world with it, and... and it almost worked, her heart slowed a little...
But she still almost shrieked when Marana appeared next to her, gun in hand, and... something else.
A long, pale bone. Taken from the horse. Wrapped in more cloth, and lit. The campfire was twinkling behind her.
The bone wouldn't burn. Tanner hesitated, took it... then threw her burning spoke at the mutant. It roared past the creature, which actually flinched, actually seemed to panic for a moment... before the flame was snuffed out by the snow, and the stand-off continued.
"Holding up, Tanner?"
Surprisingly...
"Mostly. Mostly. Took a bit, but... I'm alright. Stable."
Marana smiled faintly.
"Good. Because I'm absolutely terrified."
"Thank you for the bone, by the way. And the campfire."
Marana blinked.
"Alright. You're welcome for the stuff that's saving both of us. Sorry for not hitting that thing with enough bullets."
"No, no, I thought about that, the pistol's too weak, not designed for this sort of thing."
"Tanner, you're being polite. We're about to get eaten, maybe, and you're being courteous."
Tanner kept her face flat.
"Hm."
"Not criticising. Very admirable."
"Hm."
Marana snorted, and drew back to tend to the fire, to make sure it wouldn't go out before morning came. Tanner tried to figure out a plan, here amidst her web of significance that stretched from horizon to horizon. The mutant would presumably remain here until they were dead, or it realised they had nothing to offer it. Whichever came first. Morning would be no inhibition to it, not at all. So... that was it, that was the plan. Shelter near or in the coach, warm themselves with their little fire, use it to fuel torches, keep the creature away. Wait for morning, and warmth. Then keep moving through the snow, heading for Rekida. Hope that something took care of this creature beforehand, or that they figured out some way of killing it. The thing was, she... the animal part of her brain wanted this thing dead now, no matter what. But the rational part, the judicial part, knew that they'd just waste fuel and effort, expose themselves to risk. This worked. This was keeping the mutant at bay. They did no good by panicking, right? Right. Stay here. Stay warm. Huddle around the fire and let this creature stay back, warded by the light and the heat.
What they were doing was working. And the consequences of failure were such that, even if this situation was cold, and dangerous, and paranoia-inducing...
What they were doing was working.
And as her aches and pains started to grow, her body becoming aware of all manner of strains and scrapes that she'd gained since the crash... she tried to grow more comfortable. To wait for the breaking of the day.
And the mutant stared. Unblinking.
Waiting, just as they were.
* * *
There was no conversation, not really. Marana took a turn or two holding the torch, letting Tanner rest her limbs, but generally it was Tanner's duty - she was larger, stronger. Ached, though. Could feel bruises spreading up and down her body, and her back was completely numb. The cold was fierce, and they gave territory to the mutant, let it slink closer so they could more consistently huddle around the campfire. Glowing hellishly in the hollow ribcage of a dead horse, surrounded by its fellows, likewise mummified by the cold. Marana poked around the coach under Tanner's watch, a torch of her own keeping her safe from the mutant's approach. No passengers, but there were sacks inside, filled with letters, addressed to anywhere besides this wasteland. Rekida, all of them, destined for the colonists. Marana dragged some of the sacks to the campfire, using them as chairs to sit on or lean against while she checked her pistol over and over, made sure it was loaded, ready to fire, just in case the mutant got any ideas. The mutant became a constant companion, a thing that simply stood unyielding at the ring of the firelight, waiting for them to give in. Marana seemed tempted to rip open a few letters for entertainment, but Tanner's look stopped her.
Reduced her to just scanning the addresses, the names. Unfamiliar names, with strange pronunciations. Rekidans. Names that Tanner recognised from Fidelizh, too, with the proper formulation. The mutant existed in the void beyond the light, so she filled the void with random facts, random meanings, webs of significance that held her secure. Fidelizhi names. Surname was just a matter of origins, it wasn't provided in general conversation, considered irrelevant and overly personal. A family name being announced meant you were acting for that family, like you were taking on the mantle of a family member, letting the whole lineage ride around on your back. It meant responsibility, and responsibility was a heavy burden. The first name, the familiar name, was made of two parts. The first was a baby-name, a kind of root from which other things could grow. Used as a pet name by parents and other adults towards infants, but once you were grown, it was considered... almost embarrassing to use it outside of a domestic context. Once, you only got the second part of your first name when you'd proven your health for long enough - the baby name was lighter and less committing, better to give to the dead. Now, though... now it was different. Not so grim.
The second part of the first name was an indicator of broader, more important things. It meant a family lineage, but wasn't as specific as a surname. It was about allegiance to an archetype, a class, a greater body of humanity that was still vague enough to not be committed to. Gi, for nobles, but years of marrying down had spread it around more. Eygi. Algi. Brother Olgi. The old merchant caste, before that was dissolved, had Lug, and most Parliamentarians had that suffix, some taking it because it made them sound more proper. Eglug. Hallug. Camlug, names that appeared in the papers. Ima from a district once associating with fulling and waulking. Sister Halima. Mal for folk on the other side of the Irizah - Mals having taken it back in the old days, the foundational population, and from them sprouted the name. Some colonies were entirely occupied by Dols - permanent colonials, the first founders of a settlement, the last to leave when contamination came, eager to set off once the prospectors found a new site. Brother Rumdol. Yai for another district of the city, like Brother Gulyai. Izh for kings. No-one was called Izh, none but the city of Fidelizh itself.
She recited the names in her head like mantras, the world beyond the fire filling with the spectres of people she knew, shops she visited, names she's read in books and newspapers, heard in theatrophone broadcasts. Gi, Lug, Ima, Mal, Dol, Yai, Izh. Eygi, Algi, Olgi, Yonlug, Hallug, Camlug, Halima, Rumdol, Gulyai, Fidelizh. A sound like the buzzing of an insect, while all the others sounded clumsier on her lips. Like kings weren't to be spoken of clumsily, they were to hum across the tongue, they were to be drawled with barely a single flicker of the vocal chords. Names that undulated into the world, weren't projected, weren't shouted, weren't proclaimed. Like they were natural occurrences, equivalent to the babbling of a river. Kingship didn't impose itself, it simply emerged from the tangles of the human spirit - until the Golden Parliament decided that was silly, and ripped that suffix out of the kings, pasted it to the city. The city was the only king they needed. An empty throne was the only one they found pleasing. Yet the city was still littered with faceless statues of the men who were called Izh. And in Mahar Jovan, one still lived. One still ruled. His sad eyes looking out to the ruins of Krodaw.
The mutant shifted, and she was dragged back to reality.
Marana was still flicking through letters, most of them ignored easily, some catching her interest for a second or so, but Tanner's glare stopped her opening a single one.
How long had it been?
How many hours?
How soon would sunlight come to them?
The hills hid the horizon. The sun might be coming up now, but the hills would trap the light for longer than necessary. She waited. She thought. She lit her torch over and over and over, and marked time by how many had been destroyed. But the snow swallowed the stumps of torches, and she lost count after about a dozen, the first bunch taken away by the swirling flakes. The cold was penetrating deep into her, and she was terrified of snow-madness, of hypothermia. Bound herself tightly with scarf, coat, everything. Huddled by the fire whenever she could. The coach was a break on the wind, and it contained some blankets, enough for them to stay a little warmer. Sometimes Marana would point the gun at the mutant, just to make it shuffle a little, make it defend itself... but she didn't fire. Not wasting the bullets on something that wouldn't appreciate them.
And as the hours drew on...
Tanner's eyelids grew heavier. The torches burned lower.
One after the other after other. Birthday candles winding down to waxen stumps. Burning the bones of horses until they were black and charred and brittle, and had to be thrown aside. Burning strips of cloth until they started to run short, and had to burn the wood of the coach once again. A temptation to burn it all rose up in Tanner, to burn the whole damn coach, to light up a column of flame, just to drive the mutant back for a little longer.
And-
A noise.
A noise in the hills.
Tanner twitched, but didn't look.
"Marana. Look. Noise."
Refused to take her eyes away from the mutant, which continued to watch patiently for an opening. She could see hoof-like tissue forming over its sides like plate armour, sliding wetly out of the skin, growing in like fingernails, dirty yellow and unhealthy-looking. Soon, it might not even be wounded by bullets. Marana hummed...
"Can't see anything. Sure it wasn't the fire crackling, or-"
"No, I thought... never mind, I don't know."
"What was it?"
"I don't know. I don't. Just... thought there was something. Going mad."
She sighed, disappointed with herself. Embarrassed. Marana's smile was audible.
"You're a funny fish, Tanner. My turn to hold the torch, I think."
"No, still mine."
"How are we timing it?"
"When I'm tired, you get the torch. And I'm not tired."
"Are you ever tired? You seem... I don't know, untouchable. Survived a crash, protected me from it, shot two horses, then ran through the snow with me on your back for a while, and now... this. Wondering if it's even possible for you to be tired."
More embarrassment. Insults were easy. Compliments were so very, very hard. Made her itch.
"Not tired now."
She paused.
"If you want something to do, collect any letters which look important, put them in my trunk. Government letters, I suppose. Anything that's thick enough. Wish we could take everything, but... anyway."
Marana hummed in agreement, and spoke idly as she worked away. The sound helped keep Tanner anchored, helped stop her thinking about what might be nearby, creeping closer and closer, huge and fierce, ready to tear them apart or ruin everything...
"I suppose this was the mail coach the old man mentioned, back when we set off. Two coaches, both run off the road by mutants."
"Mutant. Singular."
"You think this one did it, too?"
"Think so. Same pattern. Coach crashed, horses partly eaten. Suppose it figured out what works."
Marana hummed again.
"Wonder if it got the coachman."
"Must've."
"...sloppy meal with the horses, though. Didn't consume them completely. I mean, the coachman would be the first one to die in a crash like this, he's exposed, he's got nothing to protect himself with. Wonder why his body isn't here, when he likely died on impact, and the horses weren't exactly moved."
"Horses are bigger than humans. Could haul the coachman away to eat in a lair or something, but the horses had to be on-site."
"Hm."
Wondered if the thing would do the same to them. Still. She tried to think of the incident... remembered how the coachman had been deathly silent through it all. He hadn't yelled once before or during the crash. One moment he was driving, then he was silent, then they crashed. Something about it was rubbing her up the wrong way, and she wasn't sure why. But two coaches, crashed in the same way by the same mutant at different places along the road...
Just... unsure, was all.
Another noise, and her head whirled for a second, before flicking back to the mutant, terror rising up her throat. No, still here, still here. But something was out there, she knew it. Was it that huge mutant from earlier, the one in the darkness? The one which had been watching for the right moment to strike? Had it grown bored? No, that thing had moved in absolute silence, this felt different, almost clumsier. The wind was... hm. It was blowing from behind the mutant in front of them, bringing its scent into their noses, carrying to the hills. Hm. Something out there was moving closer, and maybe the mutant couldn't smell it, the wind just wasn't blowing correctly, and it wasn't willing to leave them alone long enough to adjust. Marana stood, her boots making the snow crackle, and Tanner could hear her cocking her pistol.
"You're right. Something's out there."
"What?"
"Can't tell. Fire's making it hard to hear."
A pause. And she yelled, loud enough to make Tanner almost jump out of her own skin.
"Hey! Human? We're human, too! Let's talk about being humans together, why don't we?"
No response.
"Well, it's probably not human."
"Did you have-"
"We've got a fire and a mutant, it's not hard to know where we are."
Fair enough. Still. Would've been nice to have some warning. Marana didn't sit down again, she stayed standing, kept her gun at the ready, scanning the darkness. A long few moments passed... and Tanner spoke.
"Idea. Why don't you light a torch or two from the fire, throw them out into the dark? Just... check, I suppose."
"Waste of wood, no?"
Tanner didn't reply. She couldn't throw it herself, so it was entirely Marana's choice. Paranoia was clawing at the edges of her mind, rationality was suppressing it, and the two were clashing perpetually. She wanted to run, fight, do something... knew it would be pointless. Knew she had something good going here, and couldn't abandon it. There'd be no greater safety in the darkness - this coach was a miracle all unto itself, treasure it. Sacrifice some of their fuel for potential clarity? Save it all and endure a few more precious minutes as dawn crept closer? There was only so much they could burn, after all. And she remembered the snowstorm, how if they'd set out just a day earlier, they might've missed it, might've avoided the brunt of it, and running from the mutant would be easier, they might've evaded the mutant entirely, might've... she didn't want to waste anything, not if she could help it. No idea how pivotal it could be. Tanner couldn't decide, she was... she was bound up with too many thoughts. Too much restricting logic that made her aware of each possibility and risk. Being a judge was... not precisely ideal in a situation like this, when she needed a quick judgement. Marana moved quickly, grabbing a log, flinging it end over end into the gloom...
A curse escaped her lips.
"You're right. Something."
Tanner froze.
"What? What is it?"
"Just saw a leg. Drew away. Moving over the snow."
Over...?
"Human?"
"Didn't look animalistic."
Tanner blinked.
Stared at the mutant.
And the wind shifted. Blew in the other direction. Carrying scents to the mutant, rather than away.
And for once, it looked away from its chosen prey. Into the darkness beyond the fire. To things only it could see, scents it treasured...
The stink of contamination.
And from all around, in a broad circle...
Movement.
Surrounded.
They'd been relying on the wind. Sneaking around. Pacing in the darkness. Skimming over the snow, light and balanced enough to dance atop the surface like pond-skimmers. Surrounded on all sides, and only now the cover was blown did they dare to rush, to sprint with all the power contamination gave them. The mutant had been sitting here like a succulent cut of meat, bristling with contamination to devour. She'd thought a smarter mutant would come to snap it up. Sooner or later.
And the next thing Tanner knew, a silk-clad redhead was scuttling forwards, over the snow, mottled face locked into a rictus of hunger.
A redhead she recognised.
The wolf-mutant gurgled a shambolic war-cry.
The redhead was absolutely silent.
But her jaws were wet with eager saliva.
And her eyes were boiling with yearning.