Chapter XXIII: Talk

This was bad. I had seen just one of these things go toe-to-toe with Miss Rook and do fairly well, armed with nothing but a metal claw and some smoke grenades. But the more closely I looked, the more I realized that every single one I saw had one of those weird guns. They looked almost more like an Earth gun, but with more gears and cams and brass on the outside, with the stubby shape and large, protruding magazine of a Tommy gun or an AKM or something. Either way, deadly.

I froze. Did I try to get closer? Find out what they were planning with some well-timed eavesdropping? Or would it be better to retreat now, to fight another day, and warn the people back at the treaty grounds of what was presumably headed their way. 

I, of course, took the more dangerous route, and started figuring out how I was going to get in without getting a bunch of holes put in me. Regeneration or no, getting shot still hurts. So long as I remained in a half-crawl, half-walk, the grass would keep me hidden, so I took full advantage of that fact to slowly circle around the edge of the camp, looking for a way in. 

I had made it about three-quarters of the way around before I found my mark. One of the tents had a slight slope to it, and was stuck out a bit from the rest of the camp. There was still a decently wide gap between it and the edge of the grass, maybe ten feet, but with how fast I was I could probably cover that without anyone noticing. There weren’t many stonewose on guard duty, maybe four groups of two in total, so it was only a matter of five minutes or so before I could pop my head up over the grass and look around and see that absolutely nobody was so much as glancing in my direction.

I ran. I jumped. I’m fairly sure I could have won gold in the high jump with that leap, and invented an entirely new category with the way I flopped over onto my side, so that my impact on the leather roof of the tent was more of a roll than a slam. Then I froze, heart pounding until my ears told me that I was safe. I crawled over that first tent, did an absolutely terrifying jump across one of the footpaths, and decided that I had gone far enough. Whatever I saw from that second tent was all the information I would have. 

When I crawled across that surface, I did not expect how much information I would get from up there. The tent I’d landed on wasn’t directly bordering the main thoroughfare of the camp, but I could see it through the gap in two nearby tents, and what I saw wasn’t good.

For one thing, the stonewose were being trained. They had a firing range set up, with wooden stumps carved roughly into the shapes of humans, and rails between them so that they wouldn’t accidentally cross over, and a hillside to absorb the bullets behind. I was mostly on the money when I’d compared the weird clockwork rifles to Tommy guns; they fired at full-auto, a bass crack-crack-crack that you could feel impacting against your ribcage. The gears and other accoutrements clicked and whirred and spun rapidly with each shot; the clockwork must have been how it could self-load. From what I could tell with my threadbare firearms experience, they were being trained to fire in short burst of five or six, military style. Which made sense; the person training them was about as military as you could get. 

She was about eight feet tall and built like the parody of strength, huge shoulders and limbs like tree trunks, dressed from head to toe in a huge overcoat of mixed scarlet and sandy brown, decorated with small metal plates and elaborate epaulettes. She had her hands folded at the small of her back like a sailor, and was pacing back and forth, handing out clipped phrases of advice to each stonewose as she passed. That explained the military uniforms, at least. 

Suddenly, one of the ghouls stopped firing. It looked at its weapon in confusion, then said something loud that I was fairly sure was profanity in whatever language they spoke. Scowling at the jammed gun, it tossed the weapon to the floor and started walking off. 

Their trainer wasn’t having any of it. She crossed the space in a second, seizing the disgruntled rookie by the throat and lifting it into the air with one hand. She said something, presumably a badass villain one-liner, then whipped around with her whole body, sending the unfortunate stonewose flying at least thirty feet into a tent. And as she turned to check if any of the others were getting funny ideas, my blood went cold. Her face was covered by a blank steel mask, with huge staring glass lenses for eyes. A reikverratr mask. And given the description Sir Margaret had given me… this was the real deal. 

I was almost so stunned by the sight of that damned mask that I let her see me. Almost, but not quite; I scrambled backwards, taking cover behind the peak of the tent, and waited for my breathing to slow back down to reasonable speeds. I wasn’t going to risk being around that thing for another second, and I’d found all the information I needed anyhow. I took the leap, and the crawl, and the second leap, and the dash, and I found myself in the sea of grass once more.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out the situation. It was a classic playbook in the arsenal of dirtbag imperialists across time and space: send in a few of your agents with fancy toys and the best training manuals, and raise a force of locals to overthrow whatever you wanted overthrown, instead of having to risk anyone you care about. It was like the CIA and the Taliban, except if the Taliban were actual monsters instead of just figurative ones, and also the CIA had agents with superhuman strength. Fun.

I made it about a hundred yards out from the camp before remembering that I actually didn’t know which way the treaty grounds were. With the ground vastly too hardened to take footprints and the endless fields of fodder-grass not having shit in the way of landmarks, there was absolutely no way to tell where the treaty grounds were. So I did the logical thing, and I had a bit of a depressive episode. 

Somewhere in between having one of my friends impaled on a sharpened fucking stick, and the discovery of an army of machine-gun bearing cannibals with regeneration powers disturbingly similar to my own, my chill reserves had run the fuck out. I was terrified of the impending death of all my friends and, assuming I could even die, myself. Furthermore, I had just walked about ten miles and only had four hours of sleep that night. So I curled up into a ball and cried, my hand clamped tightly over my mouth so that the stonewose wouldn’t hear. I let myself sink down into the deepest pits of guilt and helplessness, because I knew that that was where the truth lay. If I couldn’t even stop Ironseed from dying, if I couldn’t even defeat the Musician from a prepared ambush, wearing armor specifically designed to defeat her, what chance did I have? The only future I could conceive of for myself was death, or else being forced to stand by totally helpless while the bad guys won. Again. And with the way they’d reacted to me trying to stop an all-out fight, there was no way anyone would help me, which made sense considering I was a loathsome, brainless worm. 

I spent the next few minutes wishing that I’d never even been brought to Selene, then a few lamenting how my life on Earth sucked, so it was really only a matter of time before I reverted to the mean. Just as I was starting to silently enumerate my own flaws to myself, I was interrupted by the sound of someone tramping through the grass. 

It was pure curiosity, not hope, that made me lift my head off of my knees and look around. It was probably just going to be a stonewose patrol, or maybe the reikverratr herself, coming to put me out of my misery. Instead, I looked up to see Anna and Unity, of all people.

“What are you two doing here?” I said, wiping the tears out of my eyes as I stood up. 

“What, who said—”

“Anna, she’s right-right behind you,” Unity said.

“Hmm? Oh, Emma! We were trying to find you!”

“Get out of here before you get yourselves hurt,” I said. “The Cassandrans have a whole camp of stonewose with machine guns.”

“Oh dear,” said Anna, looking in the direction of the camp. “Then you shouldn’t be sitting here.”

Unity looked more confused than concerned. “What’s a stonewose?”

“Ghouls.”

Unity didn’t waste a moment, rushing forward and grabbing me by the wrist. “No time to-to wait here, we can tell-tell you what we wanted to as we-we’re getting out of here.”

Though I didn’t exactly appreciate being grabbed and dragged around to places, she did somewhat have a point; being near the gun-wielding cannibals was probably a bad thing. So I followed Unity at a slow jog, and Anna limped as quickly as she could, until we were maybe a mile away and Anna was winded. Even then, Unity only slowed to a walk, continuously shooting glances over her shoulder as we went. 

“I don’t know what you were thinking, getting that close to them,” Anna said in between breaths. 

“They’re a danger to everyone,” I said, “and they aren’t just any random raiding party. The Cassandrans are here, and they’ve been supplying them with training and weapons like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

“Oh dear,” said Anna.

“Miranda’s ti—” muttered Unity, until Anna very loudly cleared her throat.

“Yeah, it isn’t great. But we’ll figure out how to deal with it later on. What I’m wondering is, what drove you two to go ten miles out of your way to find me?”

“It wasn’t that far.”

“We-we found a clue!” said Unity, triumphantly.

“A clue for what?”

“The traitor,” said Anna. “And all the assassination attempts on the delegations.”

I stiffened up. “How did you know about that?”

“Emma… you’ve been talking about it with anyone who will listen for the last few weeks. We heard about it from Lady Halflance; she was complaining about your ‘obsession.’”

It didn’t hit me until then just how much I’d been thinking about the “Cassandran infiltrator” theory. Did it really qualify as an obsession? It had been more of a hobby than anything else, something to keep me occupied while we were all stuck in the middle of nowhere. That, and a way for me to contribute, to be useful to someone for once in my life. 

“Not to say-say that we don’t believe you!” Unity added. 

Anna chuckled. “Halflance is a bit of a… spoilsport. Besides, with everything that’s gone wrong around here, either someone’s brought God’s anger upon us, or someone is working against us. I’m more inclined to believe the latter.”

It almost made me want to blush. “Thank you… for believing me more than Halflance. What’s the clue?”

“We were helping some of the girls unpacking things by the riverfront,” said Anna.

“It’s real hard-hard work, back and legs stuff, not like most of-of the work we have to do.”

Anna nodded. “While we were doing that, I noticed that there was a scrap of paper someone had left on the floor.”

“I don’t think it’s paper, it’s more like parchment or the like,” said Unity.

“Whatever it is, I am a firm believer in not leaving garbage about, so I picked it up and was about to get rid of it entirely.”

“But I say-says that I want to see if there’s anything on it,” Unity said with a grin, “And it-it turns out, there is!”

“It’s a bit cryptic, but it’s written in plain language. I thought you might want to take a look at it.”

“Sure, I guess,” I said. There was a pause. “Do you have it with you?”

Anna patted herself down, searching through half a dozen pockets in her dress that I hadn’t even noticed before. “Unity, do you have it?”

“I think so,” said Unity, and also began to search herself, feeling the furthest corners of pocket, folds in her coat, and so on. 

“Please don’t tell me you lost the clue before you could show it to me.” I shoved down my frustration and rubbed at my already-aching forehead. “Do you at least remember what was written on it?”

“I found it!” said Unity, producing a folded-up piece of what was definitely parchment from… the neckline of her dress. Of course. She stuck out her hand to me.

I took the parchment gingerly, as though there were any way to touch it less. It had clearly been discarded, leaving it wrinkled and slightly torn around the edges. I unfolded it. 

another shipment, definitely. The last one was a bit bitter for my taste, not to mention strong as hell, even my throat burned a little bit. Maybe some fortified wine for the next one? Everybody expects I will show off the best of Murahnok as Chanter, and those lowland plums are a miracle of horticulture if I’ve ev

“It’s… I think this is just the Chanter of Murahnok asking for another shipment of alcohol,” I said. “What was her name… Dinara?”

“Dinara Murahnok, yes,” said Unity.

“Noted boozehound. I’m pretty sure she sends out messages like this on a weekly basis, at least,” I said with no small amount of amusement. “I’m sorry, but this doesn’t help me.”

“Ah. My apologies, Miss Emma,” Anna said with a small curtsey. 

“Don’t apologize,” I said quickly. I couldn’t stand it when either of them acted as though they were lesser than me. “You still went so, so far out of your way to help me. Thank you for that, either way. And you broke me out of another breakdown, which is a kind of assistance in and of itself.”

“You’re welcome,” said Unity, beaming. 

“Now, do either of you remember which way the treaty grounds are?”

…

Things had been bad when I’d left the treaty grounds, and they were worse by the time I got back. On the walk back, strolling through the high grasses, Anna and Unity filled me in on everything they had seen after I left. The story had spread around that the Durkahns had executed Doctor Ironseed, or that someone had accused the Durkahns of executing her, or that Ironseed had been killed by stonewose and that the Durkahns were taking the opportunity to turn on all humans. Presumably the Durkahn servants had heard similar rumors, except with the roles reversed. None of them had any reason to stop working, though, until the soldiers had showed up and started pointing swords at people.

We returned to find a cluster of structures that looked less like a treaty grounds and more like a microcosm of a cold war. The three of us were just about the only people walking around in the open, though I caught glimpses of a few servants, Durkahns and Bluerosers alike, slipping between the huts and trying not to be seen. The areas around the center, where the Chanter’s dwellings pushed right up against the Burnardor and Halflance households, were crawling with guards, at least two dozen on either side, guns out, looking across the line with suspicious eyes as though an attack might come at any moment. 

Thankfully, people recognized me; my habit of being everywhere and sticking my nose into everything paid off, and it seemed that there was a general understanding that I wasn’t an agent of anybody but myself. With Anna and Unity, I was allowed through the barricades, and into the Halflance compound. If nobody else would listen to my warning about what was coming, Lady Halflance would. 

Which is why, of course, Lady Halflance wasn’t there. I, Anna, and Unity were escorted into the foyer by a squad of guards, where we found a rather chaotic scene. Durkahns and Bluerosers with rifles lined the walls, eyeing their opposites, while someone had rearranged the tables and chairs so that four people could face each other and talk. 

The first, and the one whose presence made the most sense, was Sir Margaret. Not one of the appointed negotiators, but she had a good head on her shoulders, and this was her home as well, so why not. 

The second was one Genesis “Living Garbage” Burnardor. The woman who had almost certainly had a hand in causing all of this, the most chauvinistic, self-righteous, bigoted piece of trash this side of the RNC, the person who honestly should not have even been selected to come here, leaned back in her chair next to Sir Margaret and fiddled with a pen. My anger at her had been subdued for the last few hours by self-loathing, but now that she was right in front of me, it was an exertion of will not to lash out and punch her in the face. 

And then there was Adilet Kurzurnah, along with a much reedier Durkahn sitting next to her, who I assumed was acting as an interpreter. It hit me that I had never really spoken to her, and I had basically no idea who she was. If she was the traitor, the Cassandran chaos agent, there would have been almost no way for me to know. The more surprising factor was that she was in the same building as Burnardor and Sir Margaret, and nobody was fighting yet. 

All eyes in the room were on me. This was fair. So I cut to the chase. “We’re all in serious danger,” I said, voice trembling ever so slightly.

“We are very much aware,” Adilet said through her interpreter. “That’s why I’m here, to dispel the danger through dialogue and cooperation.”

“I don’t just mean from each other!” I said. “Though we should probably stop trying to kill each other while we’re at it.”

“Working on that,” said Sir Margaret.

“We’ll see if that proves possible,” Burnardor said, simultaneously. 

“The Cassandrans are here… well, one of their agents is here, and they have a small army of stonewose with machine guns. The camp is maybe ten miles away, they could be on us in a day, and I am not going to let them destroy everything we have here just because you all are too busy having bullshit petty squabbles!”

“What is a gun? Is this a Bluerose invention?” Adilet said, hand resting on the pistol at her hip. Sometimes I hate language differences.

“Machine rifles,” I muttered, “but that’s besides the point.”

“A Cassandran agent?” Sir Margaret asked. “Does this have to do with your whole pet theory about the Cassandran spy? I suppose the Empire would have a motive to make a mess of things here, but I find it easier to believe that they’d be currying favor with the lesser temples than something so brutal as to arrange an attack…”

“There was a reikverratr teaching ghouls how to use weapons more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen in Bluerose,” I said. “I saw it; that same mask, the impossible strength, it all lines up.”

Sir Margaret’s entire posture changed instantly, as her shoulders and back straightened, and her mouth hardened into a frown. She stood, throwing back the edge of her coat to expose the saber and pistol at each hip. “Are you sure?” she said.

I nodded. 

“Then we must be prepared for the worst, and forget about the Ironseed issue until after we’ve faced the more dangerous foe.”

“Incredible,” Burnardor drawled. “The war hero Margaret Halflance, swayed to action by the ramblings of a nosy child.”

I lost my temper. “Shut the fuck up, you self-righteous vulture bitch! Even if that is true, even if I am nosy, at least I care about people for more than how they can benefit me, and at least I’m actually doing something to keep people safe! Also, I am twenty-fucking-four years old.”

Burnardor, for the first time doing anything that might be worth credit for someone who wasn’t so loathsome, did not react. She simply glanced at Sir Margaret and said, “Why do you allow this little… lemon tart to stain your family crest, Halflance? I thought you were smarter than that.”

“Unlike you, I consider a girl being in need of help reason enough to help her,” Sir Margaret said just louder than a whisper. “But that is none of your business, not now.”

Adilet’s interpreter had apparently taken some time to convey the meaning of my rant at Burnardor, but now that she was done, Adilet rankled, rolling her shoulders and frowning intensely. “We are trying to negotiate a peace, but you come in here with wild claims and colorful insults? Hold your tongue and wait your turn, girl.”

“It doesn’t matter if you negotiate a peace or not if the reikverratr’s army comes along and blows you all full of holes,” I muttered. Then, more loudly, “and what possible reason would I have to lie about an invading enemy army?”

“Perhaps you ran out of romance novels and decided that you needed attention,” said Burnardor.

“Or you intend to distract us during the critical moment, allowing for the Bluerosers to strike a killing blow?”

“And when have I ever shown an interest in taking sides? Or in causing harm to anyone, regardless of what country they’re from? Do you remember last week, when I threw myself in front of a bullet for—”

“Trying to argue on the basis of your own morality, are you? That’s rich.”

One of the doors leading from the back rooms of the Halflance compound had opened, though I was too focused on the argument to know when. Judging from the looks on their faces, nobody else had either. 

“Dr. Charcharias? I didn’t realize you were back there. Now might not be the best time to interrupt, though, with the negotiations and the imminent risk of everything collapsing into a bloodbath.”

The good doctor was looking like a bit of a wreck. Her eyes were a bloodshot red, and her coat was open, exposing dry gills with greying edges, as she leaned up against the doorframe. “I’m right next door, and there was a ruckus, so I dropped by. And what else do I see but Emma trying to make it out like she’s the most pure and righteous little dove in the whole of Imbrium.”

Burnardor raised an eyebrow. “Nice of you to make an appearance, Doctor. I didn’t expect that you’d share my opinion on the Halflance wasp; perhaps we should talk more.”

Charcharias grinned, baring her double row of serrated teeth. “Buy me a drink first.” She turned to me, ocean-blue eyes glaring right into mine. “You’re a walking miracle, Emma, imagine what we could do together if you’d just… cooperate! Don’t claim to want to help people if the only way you’ll do it is the one that lets you show off!”

My mind went blank, and I struggled to put together the right words. “Is that what this is about? Are you seriously not over that?”

“What reason would I have to be over it?” said Charcharias. “So many people, the sick and the dying, could benefit from the secrets of your ability! But you won’t let me do the tests I need to do more than the most surface-level investigation into it.”

My jaw clenched, and my nails dug into the palms of my hands as I scanned the faces of Adilet, Burnardor, and Sir Margaret. Burnardor looked smug; Adilet and Sir Margaret confused. “I’m not going to become your lab rat, Amina. More importantly, this is not the place to be having this conversation! There is an army breathing down our necks!”

“No, no, I think we should listen to the good Doctor! A good reminder for the two of you,” Burnardor glared at the others seated at the table, “that she isn’t a messenger from on high.”

“What does the disfigured woman speak of?” said Adilet, looking frantically from person to person. “Is the Halflance girl trustworthy?”

“I’ve known her for months now,” said Sir Margaret, “and never once have I known her to lie for her own benefit—”

“But you admit to not knowing her for long! Did you know, Colonel Halflance, that my guards caught her entering my own abode while I was at business?”

Sir Margaret’s eyes flicked to me for just a moment. I got the feeling that she was going to confront me about that later. “And because she engaged in some mild trespassing, you think that Emma would have a reason to lie about the presence of a reikverratr? Do you even know what a reikverratr is, what they can do, how utterly ill-prepared we are for anything even resembling a reikverratr attack?”

“Don’t go all jelly-like on me,” Burnardor snapped. “Your shell-shock is no cause to—”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I said, adding another mental check mark onto the list of ways Burnardor was a wretched human being.

“What is wrong with me?” Burnardor said imperiously. “You are the one who has barged into a sensitive negotiation and begun throwing around claims!”

“Because if the reikverratr shows up with an army, we are all going to die!” I said, barely able to hold myself back from actually screaming. 

“Let the adults talk,” Charcharias said. “Maybe you can go and learn the concept of delayed gratification, hmm?”

“Fuck you! Fuck everyone,” I said, and screamed, and ran my nails down the side of my face to leave white marks. “I’m leaving, and when the reikverratr shows up, I’m not helping you.”

Sir Margaret gave me a piteous look. “I’ll arrange for patrols when this is done.”

I ignored Charcharias showing her teeth at me and left. My emotional state was a bit past furious, to put it lightly; it was an exertion of will to not punch the doorframe on the way out. The soldiers standing guard outside of the Halflance compound nearly jumped out of their shoes as I dashed past, swearing and making other angry noises as I did so. All I wanted to do was get away, to not have to think about Burnardor or Ironseed or any of the rest of them any more.

I ended up somewhere around the corner, slumped down against a wall. Anna and Unity took a minute to catch up. “What happened?” Anna asked.

“Are you-you going to be okay?” Unity said slowly.

I didn’t even look away from my feet. “Go away. Right now. I’m not going to deal with anyone, and there’s nothing you can do to help.”

They were hesitant, backing off a step but not leaving my presence, looking knowingly at each other. It wasn’t enough.

“I said go! Now! I don’t want your help! I don’t want your pity. Everything’s going to hell, and you two are trying to give me pity. So fuck off!”

The “fuck” was what got to them. They drifted away like life preservers on still water. I was, for the most part, alone. 

More importantly, I was angry. I was so angry that it had even overwhelmed my usual response of despair and self-loathing. I hated Burnardor, and I hated the reikverratr, and I hated whoever else was responsible for the death of Dr. Ironseed. Whoever had robbed me of the chance to apologize, to work out what was really going on, to help her do some real good, was going to fucking pay. With my newfound immortality, I realized that I could do something: I concocted schemes of bloody vengeance, considered how I would take a sword and a pistol and just mow them all down, Burnardor and the ghoul army and all the rest, to hell with the consequences. 

But that would just make me as bad as him, wouldn’t it? Besides, I didn’t have the nerve for it.

My reverie of hatred was suddenly interrupted by the very object of it, stumbling upon me as I leaned against the wall of that building. It could have been ten minutes or it could have been eight hours, but however long it had been, Burnardor was done with the negotiations, and she had come to find me alone. 

Scratch that; not alone. Sarnai was there as well. For a brief moment I wondered if she had taken Burnardor’s side, and in my fury considered attacking her too. That was what made me realize that I’d been going too far, and I swallowed my rage, or at least put a towel on it.

Burnardor gave me a long look-over, then started talking. “My guards said that you broke into my home because you wanted to talk about something I had done which offended your sensibilities. I suppose now is as good a time as any to talk?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s talk.”

SaffronDragon

Well, things are definitely coming to a head now. And how could they not be, with a literal army at the doorstep? In fact, I should probably warn you all: things are going to start getting really intense over these next few chapters, so please be prepared for that. There's going to be more violence, more intense feelings, and a few revelations that have been a long time in the making. And, of course, all of that intensity is already up on my Patreon, where you can read them right now for only $3 a month just by clicking the link below. For higher tiers, you can also read a collection of exclusive short stories (including 2 Selene prequel spinoffs) and vote in patron-only polls. If not, I'll see you in two weeks for Chapter XXIV: The Traitor.