Slow Corps, as they called themselves, were anything but slow.

They walked through the forest at such a brisk pace, Poire struggled to keep up - not from exhaustion, but simply because his legs didn’t know the terrain as well as theirs. He slipped over moss-covered stones, got stuck in puddles of mud hidden under the foliage, and had to fight through every branch that came his way. If it wasn’t for the liquid armor completely covering his body, he would be covered in scratches and bruises.

Slow Corps waited for him. They helped him move, when he was stuck, showing him the way out. But they didn’t talk to him.

They didn’t even talk to each other.

There was something in the air between them. Some hidden tension that only stretched tighter as they dove deeper into the jungle.

They walked mostly during the day, when both suns were high in the sky. Even with the liquid armor forming a mask over his face, filtering the air, the humid air made it feel like he was trying to breathe through a warm, wet carpet.

At one point, as they were walking down the hill, Poire pointed up at the moons. There were three of them right now, chasing each other over the horizon. When they caught the light from one of the suns, huge, concave pockets of metal on the moons’ surfaces shone, glistening and bright.

“I think they’re part of the grid,” Poire said.

“Truly?” Laykis stopped, and looked up. Staring up at the sky. “What do they do?”

“Not sure. I didn’t learn much about old architecture. If they’re part of the old grid, they were built long before I was born.”

He stood next to her, and together they watched the moons. Gently glinting in the sunlight. Somehow, it made Poire feel less alone, to see the creations of his people, still hanging in the sky.

Two clicks and a long whistle cut their reverie short. That was how the Slow Corps talked to each other - instead of words, they made sounds that could easily blend in with the sounds of the jungle.

The Chief was calling the squad down the hill to make camp, barely a word said to the rest of the Corps.

Each night, the soldiers dug shallow pits in the ground. They even shoveled one out for Poire and Laykis. They covered the pits with sticks and leaves. Sometimes, they also dug small trenches for rainwater to drain out of the pits.

Each morning, they filled in the holes and scattered the leaves, to hide their tracks from any pursuers.

But who would be following us out here?

Lastly, before they set out, the soldiers of Slow Corps slathered fistfuls of mud on their exposed skin, covering their faces, their arms, working it into every scale.

“Why do you do that?” Poire asked.

And for once, he got an answer from the longneck soldier, who had white tattoos running down his neck. The insignias on his shoulders were now hidden under a thin layer of mud.

“The mud hides our scent.”

“From what?”

“Bugs. Blackmouths,” the longneck said. “This whole gullshit planet.”

“Sergeant!” A voice snapped through the trees. Poire hadn’t even seen the Chief standing there. “Quit talking to the asset.”

The longneck paled. He gave a quiet, “Sir,” before walking stiffly away from Poire.

The Chief watched him go, his glare as hard as fire-wrought iron.

That night, when it rained, it also stormed. Flashes of lightning clawed at the sky. Each bolt of thunder rumbled so long, it made the world shake, and the wind carried curtains of rain that shook all the leaves of the jungle. No amount of ditch-digging would empty Poire’s foxhole of water. But the liquid metal wrapped around him completely, keeping his body dry as he lay there, trying to sleep through the fury of the skies.

Laykis was next to him, her knees curled under her chin, her eyes dim - but still open. Her haunches and her feet sank several inches into the mud.

Slow Corps huddled in their mud pits, hopelessly wet in the driving rain. By the next morning, they were so thoroughly soaked, their uniforms were stuck to their scales. Still, they went about their morning rituals - filling in the dirt. Scattering the leaves. Covering themselves with fresh mud.

It was the way they moved. Though their muscles were sleek and finely honed, all of them moved with a sluggish grace, as if they couldn’t remember what it was like to be rested. As though they were machines, moving in a dream.

These were supposed to be the best of the best. Vorpei’s special forces. And not one of them looked like they had slept in weeks. They walked with weary experience and their feet carried them easily through the underbrush as if they had walked ten thousand miles this way, and no longer needed - nor cared - to watch their steps.

Where once had been a dry gully between the hills, now there was a shallow, flooded wetland. Broken leaves and sticks floated down the slow-moving stream, and buzzing clouds of insects swarmed around them.

The Corps was washing off old mud in the stream, wading up to their ankles in the water, while the Chief watched from the banks of the hill. He always kept both hands on his rifle. He watched Poire trudge through the new wetlands, his feet dunking and squelching in the ankle-deep water. Laykis was right behind him, and she sank even deeper.

“How much farther?” Poire asked.

The Chief looked at him. It wasn’t contempt in his eyes, but it was something close. Or maybe that was just the scar that ran down the side of his face, curling his lip in a permanent snarl.

“We’ve been walking for days, now,” Poire tried again. “Don’t your soldiers need a rest?”

“They slept last night.”

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“They looked tired.”

The Chief was chewing on something. When he spit, it came out in a dark stream of liquid that made a wet plunk in the slow-moving, muddy water. Sunlight peeked through the trees and illuminated the swarm of insects that were dancing around his head.

“If the godling needs a rest, then say so. My soldiers are not your business.”

“No,” Poire said. “I can keep going.”

“Then we keep going. It’s dangerous to sit still for too long.”

There was a sudden squelching splash from the stream. One of the soldiers made a sound, halfway between a shout and a scream. Before Poire could turn his head, the Chief pulled his weapon up to his face, looked down the sight, and shot.

Something huge and black had crawled out of the temporary stream, a beetle the size of a dog. It had launched itself out of the stream, and its pincers had clamped down on one of the soldier’s ankles, tearing a red gash around his leg.

The Chief shot again.

The insect’s black, shellacked shell - once shiny and slick - exploded in chunks of yellowish flesh that splattered back into the muddy water. The insect let go of the soldier, and though half of its body was now missing, its legs still worked at the water, kicking uselessly as the stream pushed it away.

The Chief put his rifle back down. Gave Poire a meaningful look. And then stalked off down the bank, towards his injured soldier.

The soldier who had been bitten - a cyran with black and gray scales, and a large lower jaw - had crawled back to the bank, and was holding her foot up, gasping in pain. She was trying not to look at her ankle, where the blood was dripping in wet, red streams down her heel. One of her compatriots was helping her hold her leg up, and talking to her while he painted some kind of salve on the recently-ripped flesh.

Poire couldn’t hear them, but he could see the Chief ask her something. She nodded. And then, she was wrapping her own bandage around the wound.

“We keep moving,” the Chief said to the group.

“What?” Poire asked, finally putting to form what had been rolling around in his mind. “She can’t walk on that! She has to go back.”

The soldiers looked at Poire. Looked at their Chief.

He spit again.

Nobody answered him.

And when Poire turned to Laykis for help, she only shrugged. “It’s their choice.”

“But they could get killed out here.” Poire said, trying - and failing - to keep his voice from rising. Didn’t they understand?

“I think they know that,” Laykis said. “The Book says this. Many will die to protect the Savior. So it must be.”

“No!” Poire said. “No one should have to die. That isn’t right.”

He shouted at the soldiers, who were loading up their gear. “You can go back. Tell Vorpei I didn’t need you. Tell her I can find my own way.”

“Poire,” Laykis put a hand on his arm. He jerked away from her.

The truth was, he wasn’t sure if he could find his own way. But he had the armor. Nothing could touch him, right? So why should they risk their lives just to show him the way?

“We keep moving,” The Chief said, “All of us.”

The hardness in his voice put an end to the conversation. All the soldiers of Slow Corps gathered their gear and headed out. The injured cyran refused to let anyone else carry her gear. She hopped a few times on her foot, learning to walk on it again with obvious pain lancing across her face.

Why won’t they listen?

The Chief led them on some old trail that Poire couldn’t see. They cut through brush and jungle, and despite their injured compatriot, they moved faster than they had before. There was a tension in the way they moved.

Even the injured cyran, who was limping and hiding her pain behind a steely grimace, seemed nervous.

Poire overheard the longneck soldier talking to himself, whispering, “It’s close. Go through, and come out. And then, it’s all over.”

“What’s close?” Poire asked, making the longneck jump, as if he hadn’t meant to say anything out loud. His eyes were wide, alert. Anxious.

“Huh?”

“You said we’re close. Close to what?”

“The templelands,” he said, as if that was supposed to mean something to Poire.

Morning became midday. Midday, became evening. Their legs ate the miles.

Poire was in the middle of the line, and Laykis was behind him. He was watching the injured soldier, limping heavily now. A fly landed on the back of her neck. She didn’t seem to notice.

The air was thicker. It almost had a taste to it, too. The smell of old vegetation, tinged with the acrid scent of an electrical fire. Mist clung to everything trees, condensing and dripping off the red and violet leaves.

When they stopped, it was late in the day. There were tendrils of mist curling out of the trees now, rising up from the floor of the forest. The injured cyran sat heavily on a boulder, half-covered in moss. She took off her boot, and unwrapped the bloody bandages. Poire couldn’t take his eyes off of her. There were so many flies, just around her.

“What?” she said.

Poire blinked. He hadn’t realized he’d been staring. “Nothing. Sorry. I thought I saw something.”

She made a sound, and turned away from him. All those flies.

Can’t she feel them?

The Chief was walking up and down the line, giving quick orders to each of them. When he came to the injured soldier, he said nothing. Just nodded. She nodded back.

The flies were buzzing. Humming. Drowning out the sound of the forest. Don’t they see them? And her face - there was something wrong with her face. When she turned her head, Poire could see the flesh. Yellow and decaying, the rotten scales sloughing from her cheeks. Her eyes gone from their sockets.

Poire blinked.

She growled at him, still dabbing at the red wound on her ankle with a clean rag. Her face was dripping with sweat, but otherwise untouched. Her eyes were still there.

But I saw it. I know I did.

Poire felt a flutter of worry in his stomach, but he had to tell her.

“You have to go back,” Poire whispered.

She looked up at him, her face a rictus of pain. “I’m not supposed to talk to you, Divine One.” Was that shame in her voice?

“You have to leave. You can’t keep going. I can see it.”

Her eyes widened.

“See what?”

Poire closed his eyes. Squeezed them shut. And opened them again.

He was alone. The trees were shaking in the wind. Here, the suns crept through leaves, baking cracks into the muddy ground.

There was a body, slumped over the boulder where she had been sitting. Nearly human, except for the scales, turning white in the sunlight. He could smell it. Black flies, crawling over its face.

“Do not,” a voice cracked from behind Poire, “Do not talk to my soldiers.”

The Chief was standing behind Poire. He blinked away the vision, slowly pulling himself back into reality. Back to the forest, where all the soldiers were watching him. Mist still curled in the trees. Neither of the suns showed through the canopy.

The Chief ordered them to move out, so they did. The injured soldier cast one last glance back at Poire, before setting off with the rest of the soldiers.

Laykis was at Poire’s side, and this time he didn’t pull away. She ushered him forward. He sank into her grip, almost sobbing against her. Laykis’s joints were whispering slightly as she walked. Her metal frame was streaked with droplets of water, and her feet sunk heavily into the mud with every step. But her eyes were not on the road - she was staring at Poire now, her eyes fiery with light.

“What did you see, Divine One?”

“I don’t know,” Poire said, shaking his head. Trying to wipe the tears from his eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. She was dead. I could see it. I could feel it. Why won’t they turn back? They can’t help me if they’re dead.”

Here, she lowered her voice. “I don’t think they’re here to help you, Divine One. I think they’ve been ordered to watch you. Take caution.”

***

The edge was an empty stretch of land, only a few yards long, between the forest and the cliffs. Here, all the plants of the forest shied away from the cliffs, leaving a bare strip of hard, rocky ground that overlooked the canyon. Moss of every color grew on the stones, making them as colorful as they were slippery.

A small streams of water poured out from the forest, and fell down the cliff walls, disappearing into the wind below, and mist climbed back up the cliffs, and settled over the ground.

To the untrained eye, the templelands was a desolate wasteland. Hints of ancient metal, rusted and corroded metal peaking out through that pale, gravely bottom, so far below. Hundreds, maybe thousands of rock structures and holes dotted the landscape.

The others shifted uncomfortably, staring down into those depths.

But the canyons were perfect. Carved into the stone - not by nature - but by a machine, perfect and level.

Human-made.

And when a wave of mist rolled down the canyon, shooting up from the ground out of those holes, he knew it for what it was.

There was nothing to worship in the templelands. This was not a holy place.

This was just the exhaust port of some massive machine. Of the Old Grid...