Coming closer to the village, Ratcatcher decided that this looked more like a settlement to her. A sturdy wall made of wood encircled the village, tall enough that Ratcatcher would have to use a hand to scale it rather than jump over it. Her nose picked up a rancid smell coming from the wall’s foundation. A scorpion’s venom, occasionally used to scare away insectoids. A sensible choice, considering locals’ limited supplies, although she could’ve sworn it felt disgusting for anyone within these walls.

In response to their approach, flames flashed upon the wall, alerting the defenders. People took position above the gates, all dressed similarly to their guides, and aimed bows and crossbows at the advancing group. With a corner of her eye, Ratcatcher spotted several traps hidden in the sand, and some stones coming from the ground had scratch marks on them, indicating that the locals had trained themselves rigorously.

Let’s ease them a bit. The explorator placed her mancatcher to be held by the maglock on her back and raised both hands to show that she meant no harm. Augustus and the others followed suit.

“Open up!” Mardiyya shouted, coming forward. “These are the elder’s guests.”

“Raaji! Mardiyya!” a man happily shouted from atop the wall. A tall man leaned forward, pulling down the cowl of his cloak. “Are these then…”

A thumb sent the nearby stones trembling and cut him off. Kayleen jumped off a nearby rock, deliberately taking a path across the traps without triggering a single one. The Wolfkin stood up, dusting off her cloak, and yawned, her mouth filled with fangs.

“What is the meaning of this!?” the man on the wall shouted, noticing how Mardiyya went silent, grasping her cloak. His hands moved, aiming his crossbow at the group.

They never saw Kayleen up close! A panicked thought flashed in Ratcatcher’s head. Kayleen most likely appeared to them in a blur after the duo was shocked during the battle.

“Peace!” Augustus calmly said, stepping forward and taking off his helmet. Deliberately slowly, he put the helmet down on the road, exposing his face to the threat of the guards’ arrows. “We are just a group of weary travelers in need of a safe haven for the night. My name is Augustus, of the Rho household. On my blood and the blood of my kin, I swear that none of us will raise a weapon or a hand at the people here.”

“You seem to know our customs, outlander. And you came in good company,” the guard captain eased a bit, lowering his weapon. “Show us your faces, and you may enter.”

Well, shittings. Ratcatcher decided, hearing the soft hissing sound of Elirob taking off his helmet. So far, so good. Nonchalantly, Kayleen allowed her own helmet to slide from her face, revealing a wolfish head with dimly shining amber eyes beneath. All hell broke loose at the sight of her grinning, smug snout, holding both paws behind her back and yawning once more.

“A Changed!” the man roared, stopping himself from shooting only when Raaji jumped in front of Kayleen. “You bring a Changed to our midst? Raaji, Mardiyya, are you their prisoners?”

“Hey, hon, let’s all calm down and lower your weapons, ‘kay?” Kayleen offered, pushing the youth behind herself. “I got to be honest, your toothpicks won’t do shit to…”

“She meant to say that we are deeply respecting your customs and are sorry for causing the commotion.” Ratcatcher stepped forward, allowing her visor to open. “We’re new! Nice to meet you all…”

“A rat!” shrieked a young-looking woman. “They have a walking rat with them!”

“Step down from that wall, big girl, and repeat these words in my face, so I could smear your blood across my fist, you damned ra…” She felt Augustus’ eyes on her.

Rat. She is not a rat, dammit! She is a human being! How do these dimwits even know about rats? It’s not like they see any of them around her, and with large insects running afoot, none of the rodents could survive in this desert. Ratcatcher remembered her brother’s face each time anyone dared to call him like this. The boy didn’t deserve to be treated like a subhuman just because he had happened to be born with a minor visual change. And neither should she!

But… She breathed once, ignoring the arrows and angry looks on the walls. Forcibly, she raised her hands once more, smiling at the people at the wall. What good would feeling angry at them do? She had no right to judge them, for all people have different lives, and as Planet is her witness, the locals here draw a short straw upon birth. She won’t add misery to their lot.

“I apologize for sounding rude,” the explorator said with a steady voice. “Name’s Ratcatcher, nice to meet you all…”

“See! Told you she was a rat! It’s even in her name! I bet she even has a tail!”

The explorer did nothing but sigh and repeat soothing mantras to herself, letting Augustus take over the conversation. She really wanted to crack someone’s skull right now. Rat. As if!

****

“Please accept my deepest apologies for the rude welcome,” said a thin, elderly-looking man, lowering himself onto a carpet with the help of one of his daughters.

Izzaddeen al-Taheri, the village’s elder, lowered an elbow on a plain-looking pillow, resting his strained legs. The man put on a long blue robe, wrapped with a white sash around his waist, with a simple-looking white shirt beneath his robe. To apologize for the rough welcome, Izzaddeen invited the group to stay in his home, offering them an almost royal welcome. The elderly man wanted to hand them bottles with water and sacks of dried meat, along with the rooms of his sons and daughters.

With a polite bow, Augustus refused all offers, sitting crossed on a battered carpet and asking only for a place to stay for the night. He also made the entire team share a meal immediately upon entering. Only once he made sure that all of them had eaten at least a bite did their leader allow them to take off their power armor.

Ratcatcher mimicked his posture, sitting next to him, while Elirob and Smar, the only member of the team still in full armor, sat on a bench near the wall, while Kayleen, dressed in a white shirt and black pants, lazily relaxed on a window’s eave, allowing the night wind to move her fur and enjoying the opportunity to make locals below nervous.

Izzaddeen’s house hardly reminded her of the luxurious mansions of mayors in Iterna, even most leaders’ houses in the Ravaged Lands looked like spacious palaces compared to this place. Two stories tall, made of rough-cut stone blocks held together with clay, the single most precious thing in the house were the cold storages beneath the house. Aside from it, Izzaddeen, a father of eight sons and seven daughters, owned two carpets and two large tables, along with a set of beds meant for his offspring. A single stone slab behind the elderly man served as a crude tapestry of the family’s history.

Ratcatcher felt genuinely shocked at the lack of any firearms in the elder’s house. In the Ravager Lands, hell, almost in all lands surrounding Iterna, the commune leaders either had a well-stocked shotgun at a hand’s reach or full power armor eager to be put on at a moment’s notice. Giant insects, escaped bio weapons from the Old World, or a simple raider gang—the number of dangers prowling in the night was hardly countable. And yet the people here relied on mere arrows and spears to deter the night’s dangers. The most advanced piece of engineering here were hidden communication devices and moisture traps sticking proudly from between the buildings. As the elder explained, anything more advanced than this can cause fierce punishment from Mendal.

Finishing a bowl of cusack’s milk, Ratcatcher decided to clear something out.

“Let me get this clear, mister Izzaddeen. You are the Underway leader, right?”

“Underway is an idea, Ratcatcher.” She beamed at his use of her tribal name instead of her civilian name. “I am merely the one who lays the course for this idea for now.” Izzaddeen took a drag from his pipe, letting out a thin streak of smoke. He offered a pipe to her, and Ratcatcher politely refused.

Izzaddeen blinked, seeing Kayleen’s paw before his face. Two guards, Mardiyya and three of her sisters, tensed up, reaching for knives at their belts. With a laugh, the wrinkled man offered the Wolfkin his pipe.

“Solid stuff. I can almost feel this concoction tearing at my lungs,” Kayleen commented, unleashing smoke into a window. She searched in her pocket and handed the elderly man a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “A gift. From my tribe to yours.”

“Thank you, friend Kayleen. May the sands spare your breath.” The man shook Kayleen’s paw without hesitation, easing his people.

“May the Spirits grant your tribe water abundance, elder.” The Wolfkin returned to her brooding.

“Is it wise to invite us here? What if someone reports our presence to the Dominion?” Ratcatcher fired up, earning herself a glance from Augustus.

She ignored him, remembering full well the sight of the doomed villages in the Ravaged Lands. The Resistance, as a whole, tried their best to govern their lands as well as they could. Partly because of this, Iterna tried to help them in any way they could before the war. They gave them a lot of medicine and food, hoping that King would one day make the Resistance one of Iterna’s vassal states. However, there were a few rotten apples within the Resistance. A nation known as the Regulators oppressed their citizens, acting more like thugs with their constant and unreasonable extortions and treating non-combatants like second-class citizens. On one of her assignments, Ratcatcher became a witness to the decimation, a ritual killing of every ten people in the village for the crime of failing to pay taxes.

Ratcatcher tried to stop this. Of course, her status as an Iternian had given her the ear of Yasen, the second in command of the Regulators. The man promised to spare the village, only to kill almost everyone there after she left. Speaking plainly, while Ratcatcher supported condemnation of the Reclaimers’ invasion, she felt deep satisfaction at the news of Yasen’s and Blaguna’s demise.

This brought her back to the crux of the issue. Why are they here? Sure, this village was mostly the safest place for them to stay for the night before crossing the desert, but why are the locals willing to risk their hides?

Izzaddeen guessed her unspoken question: “No one is stupid enough to report to our masters. True, in the past there were some misguided fools who aimed to earn themselves a better position this way.” A streak of smoke left his lips, hiding his stone-cold eyes. “They got eaten along with their villages. Our masters are not known for their mercy. Tell me, friends, what do you know of the Underway’s history?”

“Not much,” Ratcatcher admitted. “You were formed sixty years ago…”

“Earlier.” Smar shook her head. “Much earlier.”

“How do you know it?” Augustus asked. “Not to cast any doubt on your knowledge, but Iterna’s encyclopedia states that the first refugee party to set out by the Underway appeared sixty years ago.”

“The first human party,” Smar nodded, taking a terminal out of her pocket and showing it to Augustus. On its display, Ratcatcher saw a being cowered by bone ridges, standing tall atop the ruins. “Malformed, of a civilized kind, the ones who settled in with the Reclaimers. Appeared in the Ravaged Lands, seemingly out of nowhere, along with a large caravan of humans with them. And there were other exoduses involving abnormals.”

“Friend Smar speaks the truth,” the elder admitted, shifting his position a bit and accepting a bowl of milk from his daughter. “According to the stories, the Underway has existed for centuries, in one way or another. They saved the lives of everyone they could, helping people escape the Desolation.” A shadow appeared on Izzaddeen’s face. “But there are no longer any abnormals among our ranks. Despite my pleas, the other villages gift any children with physical deformities to the sand afraid of housing Changed among their ranks. Even we are not without sin… “

Ratcatcher clenched her fists, feeling a trickle of blood running down her left hand. Stigma. Here too. In the post-Extinction world, the three major powers accepted all abnormals as humans, no matter the visual or biological difference. Choosing otherwise was the worst kind of hypocrisy, all abnormals, big or small, came from the humans.

But some societies viewed any abnormal as a sin or a threat, often outright killing such people at birth or hunting them to extinction. This wasn’t a one-way grievance, the abnormals brought their own share of woes into the world, with some of their numbers trying to take over the world. But the crimes of one person should not affect another, no way, no how. Children born in this very village had no control over the oppression dealt by the Naturalborns, and neither should all Naturalborns bear responsibility for what Mother has wrought upon this land.

With two quick breaths, she calmed herself. What’s done is done. Save the living, protect the weak, and guide the misguided back to light. A motto of Iterna’s problemsolvers, but one that Ratcatcher very much liked herself.

“Do you know how the Underway operates?” The old man asked.

“Yep, we read about it.” Ratcatcher eagerly nodded. “The Underway helps those taken by the flesh tithe escape. You lead the refugees through a tunnel system to safety, and the guards are paying the price!”

“That’s the short version of it, but you are making us sound way more impressive than we actually are,” Izzaddeen laughed. “We simply pick up those who have managed to escape from the guards, and rarely, very rarely, we stage full escapes. Or I should say staged.” The old man sat, leaning against a stone behind him. “The tunnels are no more. An earthquake ruined our last safe exit from the Desolation, leaving us trapped with our masters.”

“I am sure that this is a solvable problem,” Elirob finished his bowl with meat and leaned closer, his green eyes flashing with an idea. “Send the tunnels’ locations to Iterna, and you just might find them to reopen once more, sir.”

“Let’s leave it for later,” Augustus asked him. “Izzaddeen al-Taheri, in exchange for granting your people asylum in Iterna, you have promised us aid.” He nodded to the guides. “We just met, but your son and daughter show great promise, and I thank you for honoring the deal and offering us food and a place to stay. What other information may you share with us?”

“Only knowledge, Augustus Rho. The Dominion is ruled by Mother…”

“We know this much.” Kayleen spat in the window. “Skip the boring part, I want to explore this place.”

“Kayleen,” Augustus warned her.

“No, no, this is quite alright,” the old man laughed, lighting up a cigarette. “In my age, it is easy to forget about time. Once we get to Iterna, I plan to retire and live the rest of my life as a happy senile grandpa, witnessing the new generation of my grandchildren. Friend Kayleen, this is what we know. Mother has the following children: Kriegshaw, Ahya, Brother, Gaexus, Reza, Fromir, and Lazarus. One of Ahya’s minions, Mendal the Merciless, is in charge of this region, along with her son. If the stories are true, each of Mother’s children has some sort of power, but we do not know what sort exactly…”

“Gaexus has the power of engulfing an area in darkness that blinds and deafens the sounds.” Kayleen rolled her eyes. “How are you living in here and not knowing the powers of your oppressors? Where is your pride?”

“Kayleen. You will not insult our hosts any further.” Augustus met her angered look.

“Insult? Leader Augustus, you heard them! Their lack of knowledge, the fact that they are disposing of their own abnormals, disregarding the weapons that could have liberated them by now…” Augustus stood up, and Kayleen bared her neck in submission, standing at attention. “My apologies for this outburst, allies, it was unworthy behavior. Regardless, this is boring. I am off to look around.”

The Wolfkin leaped from the window, disappearing into the night. Ratcatcher’s ears caught a faint sound of her landing, followed by surprised gasps and screams from the villagers.

“I’ll accompany her!” Smar stood up from her seat.

“Elisa, please keep them out of trouble,” Augustus asked, bowing slightly to the village elder in apology.

With a smirk on her lips, Ratcatcher raced after Smar. The night might just have promised her some fun.

****

Mardiyya felt a bit nervous waiting for the outlanders to finish their talks with her father. Raaji had told her not to abandon her fears and trust her father’s wisdom, and she tried! She really tried to be an obedient daughter and to follow the orders she was given…

But seeing these disgusting creatures… This Ratcatcher, or Elisa, as Augustus sometimes called her. And this wolfish filth with her long snout and a mouth filled with fangs meant to rend… Just how much can they really trust Iterna?

Mardiyya shook her head, banishing her fears. She made her decision, and she is going to live or die by it. Her people’s lives depend on them, and she had no right to make an empty leap of faith into uncharted waters.

The door to her father’s room opened, and Mardiyya praised the sands for her luck. The one who stepped was this foolish Elirob, clearly the most meek and foolish member of the Iternian group. Exactly the one she needed.

“Greetings, friend Elirob.” She moved forward, taking him under the arm. “May I call you just Elirob, by chance?” She accompanied her murmured question with a promising smile.

“Naturally,” the green-eyed youth responded. “To what reason do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

Politeness and not a drop of lust. Not a problem, perhaps Mardiyya would be considered ugly in this mysterious Iterna. As the saying goes, there is more than one way to obtain precious spider silk.

“I heard your words about repairing the tunnels.” She let a sheepish look mixed with near-full adoration beam from her eyes, faking an idiot’s image. It worked wonders when she needed to get close and slip a knife under a Changed’s ribs before. “If it is not much, could you explain to me something about the miracles of Iterna? How could you move all these tons of rocks?”

Mardiyya’s smile widened at his softened expression. Nodding to his explanations about ‘drones’ and ‘machinery’, she led the young fool by the hand to the room she shared with two of her sisters. Thanks to her lie about ‘getting to know the Iternian boy better’, the girls left, finding their own amusement for the night, no doubt. Elirob got so caught up in his explanation that he only noticed something strange when she locked the door behind them.

“Care to explain what…” He stopped, looking surprised at the dagger near his neck. Meeting her look, he continued. “… Is about?”

“What game is Iterna playing?” Mardiyya demanded to know.

“Beg your pardon?”

“Stop toying with me!” She hissed into his face, pressing the dagger closer. “Iterna offered to move my village, all of us, to their lands just because my brother and I will accompany you to some rocks? Cusackshit! I saw, I saw the monsters you brought to us… Are you planning to make us change one master for another? Is that it?”

“No,” came a calm response.

His hand grabbed her wrist, making Mardiyya gasp in shock at such speed. She barely even saw him move, much less heard him move. And she killed Changed before, either by sneaking on them or by feigning her weakness. Mardiyya wanted to scream a warning, seeing the man’s other hand grab the blade of her dagger. The spider’s poison at its blade could put a grown man into a week-long slumber filled with never-ending nightmares. Sometimes this poison was used by the elders to punish criminals or misbehaving youths.

The blade cut his skin, drawing blood, before crumbling like cloth in his palm. In panic, Mardiyya kicked, aimed at his crotch, and frowned, feeling a striking pain above her knee. The man’s body felt like an iron bar. All her attempts to break free from his grasp made her feel as if she were a child once more, trying to drop her elder brother.

“You are afraid and thus prone to rash decisions, Miss Mardiyya.” Elirob let go of her hand, walking steadily to unlock the door. “I saw it in your eyes, therefore I let myself be caught in your trap. Otherwise, Augustus might have harmed or killed you for this attempt. If you want to, feel free to leave, or you may sit and listen. In this mission of ours, there are two types of people. Expendable and not. You and your people are not expendable.”

“And what type are you?” Mardiyya asked with suspicion, stepping away to her bed, where another dagger lay under a pillow. His figure became a shape of darkness in the lightless room.

“Why, I am expendable, of course.” A flash of green from his eyes illuminated his smiling face. She saw him reach into his pocket and shuddered in fear. The man was neither a fool nor a lamb.

“Well then, mister expendable type.” Mardiyya swallowed, reaching under a pillow and finding a small flask. “Take it.” She threw the flask to him. “It’s an antidote to the poison that was on my favorite blade. I suggest you drink it before you wet yourself, crying for mommy.”

“She’d never let me live this one down,” Elirob chuckled, sitting on the floor and throwing the flask right back. “No, Mardiyya, no poison can fell me. Your fear is understandable, but misguided. Elisa and Kayleen had saved your life…”

“To eat me later. Or worse,” she spat accusingly. “I know well the deceit of their kind.”

“You don’t.” A light flashed, illuminating the room, and she saw a rectangle-shaped device in his hand, shaped like a very thin piece of glass. At a press of his finger, the strange artifact projected an image of a group of people into the middle of the room. Mardiyya saw a laughing Ratcatcher, who looked way younger, hugging a blonde woman, both of them being lifted by a ripped male, with Augustus looking disapprovingly at their backs. “Before you is an academy, a place of learning, where young Elisa studied, if you can call it that, her craft side by side with other people. And these are Wolfkins, helping during a refugee crisis…”

The image changed, showing the brutish and fiendish-looking Changed. They were in the middle of some desolate plain, filled mostly with rock rather than sand, helping injured people walk, carrying some children with massive sunburns atop their necks, and distributing food and water to their parents. She saw pain, relief, anxiety, and uncertainty on the people’s faces, which looked a lot like hers. But never, not once, did she see fear on the people’s faces when they interacted with these fiends. In fact, many of the kids laughed, despite what was probably horrible pain.

“Why… Why are you showing me this? How are you showing me this?”

“Because you are misguided and afraid, Miss Mardiyya, and unwarranted fear draws out some of our worst traits,” Elirob responded to her. “As to how this thing is called a terminal, get used to it, you will have one once you come to live in Iterna. It is a machine. Now, how about you call your friends and family, and I show you just what life outside of the Desolation looks like, fairly and without hiding a thing? The world is a harsh place, but it is time to dispel some of your fears.”