Chapter 12

Something’s wrong.

The thought runs through my half conscious mind but it doesn’t make sense. It might as well have said “half off crimson fishing wings.”

Heavy. So heavy.

And hot.

A low keening whine brings me a step closer to awareness. Groaning, I peak through cracked eyes and sigh. Desperation and Tenacity are laying across me. Uncomfortable, but fine, Cola’s done the same.

Bad gas included.

Heaving forward I grab on to their fur. “Get off!”

Desperation chuffs and Tenacity curls into my arms as she yawns showing off the blood stained fur about her mouth.

The smell of hot sewage, mixed with old socks, far to much garlic, burning something floods my nose and turns my stomach. Turning to the side of the bed I dry heave once as I struggle for fresher air.

It doesn’t come and I turn my attention back to the two that are so intent on cuddling with me they’re close to killing me.

“Dammit one of you stinks! Get off!”

Another shove brings them no closer to moving. They do however, look up as the door bangs open and both Samira and Love burst into the room their weapons drawn and looking ready to rain hell down on whoever was remotely bothering me.

“How did you two get in here!” She roars as she skids to a stop.

Annoyance. Agitation. Exhaustion. Frustration. Hunger. The two send me their feelings and images of Samira and her manifestation.

“Lady.”

Love clears her throat and points to something beyond the wall of fur that the two have become.

“You dug a hole?” Samira groaned.

Can’t see that I blame her. It’s a pretty glaring security flaw more so as the room is on the first floor. Not that I’m going to tell her that. I’m stupid, but I’m smarter than that.

Desperation didn’t even look at Samira, just chuffed and allowed his eyes to slide shut.

Tenacity however doesn’t respond in the least.

“Who cares how they got in?”

I shove on the animals that are so intent on using me as a bed and neither of them budge. Fluffy bastards. Don’t they understand that sometimes people have to pee?

With a sigh I fall back into the furs, the need to relieve myself building. Gathering up all the focus I can spare I send the two of them a message.

[Get off or I’ll see the two of you skinned!]

The two, unwilling to see if I’m going to live up to my word, scramble to get off. In the process they trample across my bladder. Tenacity hasn’t fully gotten down when I shove myself off the bed.

“Highness!” Samira calls as I brush past her, but there’s no time.

“I have to pee!” I yell over my shoulder.

Through the building I move at nearly a waddle until I reach the shared restroom. It’s not pleasant by any means. For all that I focused on trying to make their day to day liveable I forgot something. Industrial grade deodorizers. Or lack thereof.

Pulling the latrines door open I nearly stumble back as the smell hits me.

Sadly, it’s still better than the animal’s gas. I’d ask what they ate but I know exactly what Tenacity ate, even if not who.

Egh.

Worry. Confusion. Concern. Curiosity. Danger. Death.

Desperations sent impressions are a mangled mashup that still comes so fast it's hard to keep up.

“I’m fine pooch and I don’t care if you think it smells like death! It smells bad yeah but a bad smell won't kill you!”

The two heads whine lowly in unison.

“Why are you even here?”

They were meant to be rhetorical, and in most cases it would be, but no I had to connect my brain to the creature. Because of that I’m not surprised when Desperation sends me a response.

Love. Safe. Danger. Than an image of the doorway in front of me pops into my head.

He’s scared for me? That’s so sweet. I scratch him beneath his chins. “You have to make it impossible to stay annoyed at you, don’t you? But don’t worry. I just have to use the toilet.”

The head on the left leans forward and licks my face. It’s as I’m wiping dog slobber from my face that it happens. My bladder begins its complaint by constricting swiftly.

“Dammit.” Pushing the head reaching to the side I move ahead.

Perhaps it is because the doors have been left open for a minute, or because I’ve been desensitized to it due to continued proximity but my eyes aren’t burning as I walk into the room.

Still in desperate need of a deodorizer.

“Didn’t ma, make these things once?”

Vaguely I remember her setting up a decorative thing in the bathroom filled with potpourri or something. Whether it actually smelled better than the normal stench that filled the place is as far as I’m concerned, still up for debate.

Five minutes later with my business done I’ve discovered something, well two things but the ground inside the latrine being stone doesn’t seem overly worth mentioning. No amount of willpower will allow one to hold their breath for any real length of time without some kind of navy seal like training. Second, I understand what Desperation had been getting at.

Something that I should have realized.

Methane buildup. The windows they have are either nonexistent or poorly placed. It was less than a minute after I couldn’t hold my breath any longer when I started feeling woozy.

I stumble my way through the door and slamming it closed behind me, slump to the floor.

Desperation is on me in an instant, pressing his heads against me.

Fear. Worry. Danger. Want. Safety.

Placing a hand on each of his heads I begin scratching him about the ears.

“I get the danger now and I’ll take your next warning.”

“What danger your highness? And why are you in front of the latrine?”

A voice I recognize as Kida’s asks.

Looking behind Desperation I find her. She’s awkwardly dancing this way and that leaving her need clear to any who look. I start to answer and freeze. How the hell am I supposed to explain natural gasses? Especially one that couldn’t be seen! They know of sicknesses, kind of.

They thought they were the effects of foul spirits.

Okay, maybe the people are just shy of being country bumpkins.

“This room holds a sickness.”

Kida takes a step backward. “The accolytes!”

The accolytes? Just the thought of those monstrous bastards has my heart freezing in my chest. Each and everyone of them was trained diligently to be a lunatic in faithful service to the goddess! Maiming countless children to offer up their hands and feet as sacrafice.

Yeah, I know I came up with them, and I’m well aware there’s something wrong with me.

But in all fairness I killed the last of them off during their assault on the kings brother. Did she think one of them was haunting the latrine? Actually sounds like something one of the petty bastards would do.

She starts to turn and freezes, slowly she looks over at me terror stricken.

“They went to hunt the Hare with the rest of the warriors.”

Ah. Apparently I missed some. I’ll have to take care of that. Mentally I add it to the list. Above the toilet’s gas problem and below the failure of the emitters.

I wave a hand, “just make sure no one goes in there and it should be fine!”

She doesn’t look like she believes me either.

“Anyway, you spread the word, I have to look into why the dead are standing.”

She bows. “Yes Highness.”

With a sigh I start off and pause a few steps later.

Wait. If the priests still live why haven’t they attempted to cleanse the dead through fire? They liked burning dead people!

Turning I start to ask Kida, only to find the child was nowhere around. The girl definitely has a future as a scout. Or a messenger.

Gone. Left. Disappeared. Gone.

I nod and scratch the dogs chins. “Yeah. She’s gone”

Okay. A question for later then.

“Come on, I need to check on Aster and then get to work.”

Desperation chuffs. His annoyance strikes me like a slap to the face.

“What the hell! I thought you liked Aster!”

Annoyance. Irritation. Absent minded. Annoyance.

Offering a small laugh I pat the dog on the side and move on.

As I near my room I find Samira waiting for me, the cruiser held over her shoulders and Desperations harness in her other hand. Tenacity however is nowhere ot be seen.

[Return]

Hunger. Here. The beneath. Protect. Hunger. Protect. Here.

The sand beneath my feet begins to shift. Huh. Its acting like an invisible bodyguard. Thats kind of cool. Like controling a shark as you swim through the ocean.

And it just upgraded to very cool.

“Lets go visit Aster.”

“Why would you need to visit me?” Aster asks as she opens the door behind Samira. “Pretty sure there’s a better use of your time, Highness.”

Narrowing my eyes at the girl I look her over. If it weren’t for the bandages around her head no one would likely be able to tell she’s injured.

Smirking I shake my head, “there’s no better use of my time, not when one of mine has been injured.”

She shrugs, “its just a bump, Baba’s cleared me already. Besides I thought we we’re supposed to consider ourselves on duty here?”

I nod with a frown. “Chances the attacker is around isn’t impossible but the city’s way to big to be able to hunt him down.”

Samira shakes her head, “patrolling the outskirts of Lyomenos is our task. Not policing it. Besides I cannot advocate a task that would put your in harms way.”

“What about the hares?”

Her face twists into a snarl of anger. “Either you were with me, or moving to fast for the creatures to be a threat unless you were stupid. These are close quarters with numerous places to hide.”

Raising my hands I back down. I was saying I didn’t want to chase him down anyways. “I want to take a look at the mines today though.”

“Do you think thats, where he’s hiding?”

She doesn’t look happy as I shrug. “It could be, It won’t hurt to check to see if someones been through it recently.”

Slowly she nods and internally I let out a cheer!

The mines just so happen to be one of the places I want to see most!

Stones of dull beiges and pinks jut from the walls, centipedes and ants, some as big as fingers moved about the cave floor. Veins of gold and the cherry red dartite lines the walls.

Okay, on their own they’re not much to look at, but when the light is reflected inside the whole things aglow. Saying it looks like flowing molten gold would be pretty accurate.

“Agreed. Now—” Samira says and deposits a hard chunk of bread into my hands along with a cold soup. “I saved you a bit of breakfast, Highness, please eat.”

Choices, choices, I can eat a breakfast that doesn’t look appetizing and probably wouldn’t for a prisoner or go about my patrol with nothing in my stomach.

Ripping off a hunk of the bread I dunk it into the soup to soak. Once its soaked through I pop it into my mouth. Kinda heavy on the pepper, but I’ve had worse, no question.

“It’s my suggestion we remain close at hand and just patrol outside the city walls.”

Did she wait until the food was in my mouth? With how chewy it is it wouldn’t surprise me.

“It makes sense considering the majority of the cities fighting force is away.” Aster said after a moment.

I whirl and glare at her, is she in on it? I mean, yes it makes sense, especially considering the possibility of a second force of enemies that lived apart from the bandits. But still. It wouldn’t even take a half an hour if Desperation went at full speed and then what? Come back to the city an d wait around until the next patrol?

Boring.

“We stop near the corpses and do a bit of investigating and fine.”

I grumble. I half expect, half hope that the two of them will say no just so I can be obstinate and make the full run but the two of them unexpectedly agree.

They look at eachother and offer a satisfied smile.

Son of a bitch! The two are working together! Well, it may have worked once but there was no way it’d work the same way again. And I will have my revenge.

I fling another chunk of bread into my mouth and pull Samira’s load into my hands.

“Samira, you’re staying here, so get comforatable.”

She gapes at me like a fish, but I don’t care. Aster would take the unofficial dismissal and run with it, using it to amuse and pamper herself. As for Samira, she’ll be torturing herself with evey spare moment.

“Come on Aster.” I grunt and take off.

We make it to the gate before she says a word.

“Highness, don’t you think your punishment was a bit harsh?”

Cocking my head to the side I regard her with a cool smile. “Coming from the other person who conspired to trick me. Are you sure you want to be asking?”

Resolutely she nods and drops to a knee.

“Of course Highness. The lady prime she doesn’t trust anyone to look out for you. Not even me. Not really.”

I answer with a sigh. “I know and if it was just you, I probably would have ignored it. Samira is supposed to fight beside me, not in front of me. I’m not a child.”

Taking the rope I wrap it about Desperation careful to make sure it wasn’t going to pull at the heads in the wrong way before moving back beside her.

I hurl the cruiser into the sand and step into it. Aster’s a half-second behind me.

“If you say one word in Samira’s defense I will leave you wherever we’re at.”

She doesn’t say a word.

***

An hour and twenty minutes of silence later we’re s speeding across the sands back toward the mounds of bodies and towards the gate, though that wasn’t the goal.

We enter the corpse covered field.

Ahead of us another body rises bouncily to its feet.

Swerving to the side the sands lift into the air and pelts the bloated body causing the body to wobble and belch with all the force of a human sized volcanic eruption. Blood, guts, and grubs poured from its mouth toward the end. Then it fell. Its distended stomach looking like so much loose fabric laying over a body.

However, that’s not my concern. The grubs flopping about on the ground, each movement weaker than the last, are.

I know they aren’t native to the desert. I know it. I used variations of the things across several of the short spin offs I did.

It could be as simple as mixing a copy of the notes into the file? Or did I guess wrong and this is a world that is an amalgamation of all of them? Including the ideas that never made it. Not unreasonable, but I don’t see how that’d work. Something about it seems wrong.

[Stop.]

Danger. Enemy. Attack. Not stay.

The dog has no interest in listening it seems.

“Desperation stop!” I call hauling back on the reins. The sudden pull must have thrown it for a loop, as he begins to slow.

“Highness you can’t just stop in the middle of a potential battlefield!”

Apparently Aster holds the same opinion as Desp— wait. Battlefield? A certain worm that are known for raising entire fields of the dead in the middle of battlefields pops into my head.

Turning I look at the piles of bodies. Really look. It only takes a moment before I spot a hand start to float upward before dropping back down.

[Stop!]

“Stop!” I pull on the reins hard until Desperation skids to a stop.

Hopping out of the cruiser I ignore Aster’s cry of “Highness, wait!”

I scoop up one of the stilled worms and hold it up to the light for the barest moments before hanging my head.

“Did you figure something out, Highness?” Aster asks.

I shake my head. “Not even close. No matter how hard I think about it I can’t figure out why anyone would bring these here. All they do is travel thoughout the body feeding off dead tissue as they make it airtight, lay their eggs and fill the corpse with gas until it blows up.”

“You seem to know quite a bit about them, Highness.”

I wave her off. “They’re common corpus grubs or jubilation worms if you’re from the Southern Grasslands.”

“Considering I’ve never seen them or heard of such creatures I am impressed that you have.”

It feels as if someone has dumped a bucket of ice water over me. I swiftly shrug. “I don’t remember when I learned it. Probably the records.”

“Are you certain that you’re not receiving the information from the goddess?”

I deadpan.

“Aster, we’ve been over this. I’m not some chosen of the goddess.”

“You prayed to the goddess and the Tuviat did go and slay your enemies.”

I sigh. “I did that to mess with Baba.”

“Ah.” She seems almost embarrassed as she looks away. Then again, she openly admitted to believing a trick I played on someone else. That couldn’t feel good.

Damn me and my big mouth! I’m an ass.

Damage control, thats what I need. SImplest would be to redirect the conversation. Turn it back to the worm. But that wouldn’t fix anything.

Shifting I point at the sand beside the cruiser.

“Just watch.”

[Rise there.] I included a picture of the spot I wanted her to pop out and waited. A split second passed and I feel a minor shift in the sands beneath my feet and a breath later Tenacity poked her head out of the sand.

“How?” She asked sounding breathless.

I tap my head. “It’s kind of like speaking with Endurance when he’s out of body. Except its intent rather than words.”

“Thats it?”

Nodding I smile.

“When we get back you’ll be able to experience it better. There should be enough animals to start connecting them to people.”

She snaps her fingers. “Thats why you wanted the hares! You plan on bolstering our forces!”

“More like I’m getting rid of the stabilizers.’

I point at the animals. “They’re why I don’t need one, and I plan on teaching you and everyone else”

She grabs on to me and hauls me closer to her. “You’re telling me you have a way to save us and haven’t brought it up to anyone? People are dying, you know! Your people!”

Taking hold of her wrist I rip her hand free and respond as calmly as I can manage considering I’m being yelled at.

“And who do I choose to give them to first? Or do I leave that to the King? He’d start by equipping those of the white. We don’t have enough animals for everyone. Not to mention no one knows who’s stabilizer is going to fail. People would still be dying.”

She looks unconvinced. But considering she’s not trying to rip my head off I let go of her hands and continue.

“I finally got enough to make a decent start and I plan on having more shipped in.”

Still glaring at me she bites down on her thumb.

“Is that why you were so kind to Lady Ama despite the fact she’s the worst sort of person?”

I nod. “I plan on importing as many creatures as we safely can before they realize what’s going on and up the price.”

“I guess that would be easier than sending out hunting parties to bring in the ones around here.”

Shoving her finger in my face she continues.

“If a single child dies because of this I will never forgive you!”

There is no doubt, not even the tiniest shred in me that doesn’t believe her. So it’s a good thing I don’t plan on letting a kid kick the bucket.

As if I’m going to take a chance with a child dying! They didn’t even need emitters! How that hasn’t been noticed I have no idea. Maybe it became the thing to do at some point?

“There hasn’t been a single child to die since they started failing but agreed.”

Aster looks surprised for a moment before nodding.

“As for the other issue.”

She begins to pace back and forth, though I’ve never quite understood pacing. Is it supposed to increase blood flow or something?

I’ve tried it before but didn’t notice any difference. Maybe I should try it again/

“Have you considered that someone is attempting to fight a war using false spirits to frighten people? Think about it. It makes sense, if you get aggressive with someone they’ll reply with aggression. But if you play off their fears and send them running they’re not likely to come back are they?”

There’s no way thats right!

That tactic would be insane!

It’s like a plot straight out of an episode of Scooby Doo! Scare the occupants out of the city so they have complete access to the gold and dartite. No one would approach because of the spirits and if anyone did well with a haunting anyone who’s superstitious would have a ready made villain. Any who didn’t come back would just strengthen the rumor.

And me without any scooby snacks.

“At the very least its something to bring up with Baba. After that we can take a look at the mines.”

Tossing the grub back on to the ground I make my way back to the cruiser.

Aster’s stomach growls and mine joins it a moment later.

“After lunch of course.”

She laughs.