The archway shook, showering them with dust and chips of stone.

Agraneia could hear it - cracking and whipping at the canyon wall. Bursts of wind gusting at their backs as it tried to thrust itself inside. They were too deep for whatever it was to reach them.

But there was a problem on the other side.

There were locals in the village. Just standing there. Dumbfounded at their arrival. The soldiers were shouting at them, gesturing wildly with their guns.

These locals were not warriors. They were poor villagers, pushed to the edge of the forest by war. Most lassertane didn’t wear much by way of clothing, but even Agraneia could see how they dressed themselves in shambles. Every one of them was too old, or too young, to fight. Many of them were missing limbs, or eyes, or both.

One old reptile was covered in scars so terrible, huge patches of scales were flaking off, revealing pale, gray flesh underneath that was covered in blisters.

When they saw the cyrans come in through the arch, they hissed and clicked and shrank back into their holes. Those who had been caught out in the open closed ranks together, shielding their young.

An elder, the one with the blistering scars, held a hand up. His other hand was on a wooden staff, used to support his limping gait. He took a step forward, towards the cyran.

Maybe he was asking for peace. But to greenfins who didn’t know any better, all that hissing sounded the same. Sharp. Frightening. Vicious, even.

Agraneia didn’t see who shot first. She only knew it was a cyran, not the locals.

The locals broke. Bullets ripped at the air, explosions of smoke and fire. One of them ran towards the soldiers, and old woman wearing a tattered, red shawl. Falling to her knees.

At first, Agraneia thought she was begging the soldiers - and maybe she was - but now, she was clutching at a dark, red hole in her chest. Falling to the ground.

They didn’t stop shooting until, at last, over could be heard Captain Dinnae’s voice, “-FIRE! CEASE FIRE, GODS DAMN YOU! CEASE FIRE!”

Smoke filled the air. She could taste the acrid tang of gunpowder. Her muscles ached. Her hands were gripping her knives. Some dark, thoughtless part of her longed to join the fray but… Why?

They’re not fighting back.

So?

It took every ounce of effort for Agraneia to hold her ground. Her head was pounding, and the edges of her vision were turning red. She held herself firm as they rain of bullets slowed.

Stopped.

And it was silent, except for the scuffling of soldier’s boots. Even the archway behind them was eerily quiet.

A round piece of fruit was still rolling, jostling back and forth in place before coming to rest. Blood trickled down the steps, where one of the locals had fallen, his old hands still clutching a satchel filled with more fruit.

There was a young lassertane, he couldn’t have been more than two- or three-years old. His tail, almost as long as his body, sticking out of the grain sack that he wore as a shirt. The Emperor’s sigil was printed in faded, blue ink on the sack. His short, chubby fingers were curled against his chest. He looked like he was sleeping against the wall of a house, except his head was twisted at an unnatural angle. A dark stain splattered the wall behind him.

“Who told you to start shooting?” Dinnae screamed at no one. At all of them. “Fuck! Who shot first?”

She stopped in front of one of the soldiers. Prodded him in the chest, “Was it you? Who told you to shoot, soldier?”

Agraneia could see the whites of his eyes, but not with terror. Just stunned at what he had seen. What he had done. Not blinking. He clutched his rifle to his chest while she yelled at him, not saying a word. He was looking through her, at the dead locals, at nothing.

Someone else answered. Corporal Medus, from the left flank. “We thought it was a trap.”

Captain Dinnae whirled on him. She looked like she was about to explode. Then, she changed her mind.

She turned to Agraneia, and with barely contained rage, she said, “Keep your squad under control, Lieutenant.”

Agraneia gritted her teeth. Her nostrils flared. The edges of her vision seemed to darken with the beating of her heart. She said nothing.

Badum. Agraneia could hear her heart in her ears.

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“Got it, Lieutenant?” Dinnae jabbed a finger into her chest. “You fuck up one more time-”

Badum.

Red. Everything was red.

“Sir,” Agraneia said slowly. Struggling to let even that word out.

“And don’t ever override my command again.” She said. “Or I will personally cut every last shiny scale off your shitty hide.”

I saved your life, Agraneia thought. It bubbled up inside of her, without her meaning for it to. The straggler soldiers had never come through. If Agraneia hadn’t pulled her, Dinnae would still be back there…

Hold it back. Hold it.

The captain left Agraneia standing there. She commanded Witch Patrol to “clean this place up,” and the soldiers started moving bodies. The scribe was hovering over something in the corner, but Agraneia was too focused on trying to let the red sink back into her.

Except, he kept digging. She watched him, digging through the baskets that they had dropped. Was he looking for fruit or something?

There were shouts ahead. A few others had been sent to clear out the rest of the buildings, where they found more locals. More gunshots roused Agraneia from her thoughts. She climbed the winding steps up the stone-carved village, and by the time she reached the other soldiers, all she saw was Taeso spitting on a corpse of a legless Lassertane.

He looked up at her, getting ready to spit again.

She walked by him, without a sound.

The village was empty, but nobody wanted to camp here. Dinnae wanted them to move out, and get back into the jungle. They moved as one, the patrol growing ever smaller. They trudged up the craggy switchbacks and carved steps slick with mist. Past all the empty stone houses, until the cliff walls receded and the treeline stretched stood in front of them. An endless black and red wall, dappled with red vines and orange and yellow leaves.

Agraneia took the rear, except for the scribe who was lagging behind all the rest. They wouldn’t wait for him. The rest of Jewel and Diamond squad were up ahead, and she could hear them laughing.

Medus slowed enough to walk beside Agra.

“Lieutenant,” Medus said. He sounded shamed. Like he had words he wanted to say, but didn’t know how to shape them. “Lieutenant. I’m sorry. I thought I was helping.”

“Did you shoot first?”

“I didn’t shoot at all. Not until I… They didn’t have weapons. They didn’t have anything.”

“It’s done,” Agraneia said. “Can’t ever go back.”

“Yeah.”

And then they were quiet, for a while. Trudging up the rest of the hill, back where the wet stone became wet dirt. Mud, and streams of rivers.

First, it was evening, filled with insects. Flying, buzzing, biting, being slapped until came the night, and the rains. But after the Temple Lands, the going was easy. The easiness made them complacent.

When they made camp, the soldiers were grouped too close together. Witch Patrol was a ragged fraction of what it had once been, but they still should’ve spread out more. Agraneia didn’t say anything. Dinnae, at least, made sure they stayed silent though. As silent as they could.

“Stay quiet, and stay out of sight,” she said. Whatever mood had taken her in the temple lands seemed to be wearing off, “We’re in enemy territory, now.”

Agraneia heard someone say “The whole planet is enemy territory.”

Agra made sure her foxhole was on the far edge of camp. A dozen paces from the next one over.

Then, she went to help Medus finish his. Taeso and Diamond squad had built two holes, right next to each other. Agraneia looked at it, but made no comment. It wasn’t worth it.

No, she thought. You just don’t care.

If the captain wasn’t going to say anything, then neither was she.

She was about to settle in for the night, when she realized she hadn’t seen the scribe in a while.

His gear was piled up at the back of the line. Way too far out. His hole was only half-finished.

There was a set of footprints, leading away from his gear, down the slope of the hill, where all the rainwater was starting to collect into small rivulets into a little, black stream. She could hear it, burbling nearby.

He was bending over and washing himself. No. Washing something. His back was to her, so she couldn’t see.

“Scribe,” Agraneia whispered, coming out of the woodwork.

He jumped, and almost dropped what he was holding. He shielded it from her, not turning around.

“Lieutenant?”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m fine!” he whispered back, loud and hoarse. “I’ll catch up. Don’t worry!”

She narrowed her eyes. And took a few steps closer to him. He squeezed whatever was in his arms tighter, and said again, “Don’t worry about me, Lieutenant. I’ll be right back over.” His voice was tense. Needfully anxious.

“What is that?”

It made a sound. A small sound, halfway between a gurgle and a cooing rasp.

Agraneia’s heart stopped.

“Scribe,” she said slowly, “Where did you get that?”

“He was covered in blood. I had to help him. He was covered in his mother’s blood.” The scribes voice was shaking now, quivering with emotion. “I had to wash it off him. Nobody should have to-” He bit off the word, trying not to choke on his tears.

“Oh, gods.” He said. “We’re supposed to be helping them. What are we doing here?”

The lassertane infant turned in his arms, it’s large black eyes staring up at Agraneia. It stretched its mouth, not quite a yawn, revealing a maw with tiny teeth. The skin of its mouth, and its tongue, were both a deep, dark violet.

She couldn’t stop looking at it.

“You have to get rid of that,” Agraneia said.

“Why?”

“They won’t let you keep it.”

“I’ll find a way,” he said quickly. “I promise, Lieutenant. As soon as we find another group of them, I’ll give it to them. I’ll make sure it’s quiet. I will.”

Agraneia said nothing. She turned away. And left him with the Lassertane child. A hot, hard weight sitting in the pit of her stomach. Burning her from the inside.

***

Lucas Pulchus Lukaius, junior scribe for Carper’s Weekly, the most widely-read publication in His Glorious Empire, picked his way back up to the campsite. He had chosen a spot that he hoped was out of earshot. The helpless thing was teething fiercely, and anything Lucas put near it, the child grabbed and bit. Bark. Clothes. His fingers.

When he got close to his foxhole, he stopped, and listened. Half-expecting the Lieutenant to have sold him out.

But nobody was waiting for him. Nobody was even watching him, as he set the child down - swaddled in the scribe’s last set of clean clothes - and began to dig his foxhole.

Only then, did Lucas notice the tin metal kit laying on the ground next to him. Rations, cut into small, bite-sized pieces. And a piece of cloth, tied into a knot, soaked with alcohol. There was a note, badly scribbled, inside the kit.

To chew on. Keep it quiet.

Lucas squeezed his eyes shut. The tears of frustration brimmed over. He clutched the child tighter, so that it cooed quietly.

Despite the tears, Lucas was smiling.