“Dead people, no sign of attackers, sir,” Ratcatcher reported, standing up on the dune’s crest.

Their small group had left the village yesterday and was now busy moving across the Great Sand Sea of the Desolation, the supposedly most deadly place in the entire region. And Ratcatcher had to admit, the place well earned its cursed reputation.

Prior to leaving this place, Ratcatcher and Augustus asked Izzaddeen’s permission to look at the trade maps, finding the routes a bit surprising. The slave population smuggled some medicine and occasionally some mechanical parts across the circles of settlements all around the crater in the middle of the country. The people took monumental risks traversing through the stone caves filled with insectoid colonies and giant spiders or trying to sneak around the towering fortresses of local rulers.

And the vast patch of land, with barely any military patrol, was just there. The Sand Sea. Izzaddeen explained that only great caravans, no less than a few hundred people strong, accompanied by Changed and sometimes Naturalborns, dared venture through these lands unopposed. Only these parties were powerful enough to beat back desert reapers, a smaller kind of sand reapers who hunted in packs.

The last part piqued Kayleen’s interest, and the Wolfkin spent the first part of their journey pestering Raaji with questions as to who exactly these beasts were. The first day of their journey was uneventful. They crossed deep within the Great Sand Sea, evading quicksand, and following the guides’ directions to the letter. In their past, Raaji and Mardiyya joined two of the great caravans, carrying goods for sale to lands owned by Ahya and returning safely. Later, the duo ventured into the Great Sand Sea on their own, scavenging the remains of caravans and simply trying to map out safe routes for the Underway.

Since most people traveled during the night, the group moved on during the day. Smar’s suit helped her ignore the burning light, although Kayleen had to carry the medic across a few treacherous parts on her back. Medical stimulants and natural hardiness allowed the guides to keep up with the group just fine, and the rest were hardy enough to take the journey like a morning breeze.

At the end of their first night, Ratcatcher’s armor fully restored itself. Her tooth was still missing, of course, but all the bruises and swellings that she got in her struggle with Reben no longer bothered her one bit, and she volunteered to serve the first watch for the night, earning Kayleen’s annoyance. The Wolfkin wanted to guard the party on her own, only for Augustus to spread duties equally.

And on the morning of the second day of their travel, they have finally found out why everyone preferred to avoid the crater. Kayleen was the first to sniff dried blood, warning the group. Accompanied by Raaji, Ratcatcher reached a tall dune to survey the situation.

She saw a site of butchery. Wooden carts were smashed asunder, and the trading goods, mostly metal and cloth, were thrown all around the sand, covered in blood. Bodies of dead caravanners, human and Changed alike, lay on the overheated sand, half-eaten. Most of them looked as if some great blades had cleaved through them, leaving bisected pieces scattered all around the ground.

Judging by the clean slices on the carts’ pieces, whoever did this was armed with razor-shaped blades. She saw cusacks’ skin lying on the ground and tilted her head in confusion. Some bodies looked paper thin, a mere touch of wind raised them in the air before allowing the remains to fall on the ground.

The explorator struggled to come up with the way these people perished. Obviously, they were hacked to death, but what happened next? Skinned by some raiders? Possibly, but who would do this without leaving literal pools of blood on the ground? And why leave clothes behind?

“Whoever attacked them, it happened a day or so ago.” Ratcatcher sniffed the air, sensing the smell of blood, and fired acid. “Correction. This happened a day ago, at most. Still, we better change the route to avoid the maniacs who did it.”

The scene filled her with a mix of sadness and grief. Sure, Changed were her enemies, technically, but here lay people from both sides. She wondered if they had left the village right away, would Augustus have permitted her to help the attacked caravan? It was an empty thought, of course. Without them, Medan or Reben would’ve killed most people in the village. She can’t save everyone, this much Ratcatcher has learned in her travels.

But I can at least give them a burial. She decided, contacting Augustus: “Sir, may I stay behind a little? To bury the pe…”

“No!” Raaji hushed, grabbing her hand and pointing at the sand. “This is the trap.”

She followed his finger, unsure at first what he meant. And then she saw it. The sand beneath one of the ruined carts bulged in one place, and something within it shifted. Ratcatcher noticed a long, thick chitin plate, then a long tail and one enormous, bladed arm. The strange creature disappeared just as quickly as it appeared, burrowing beneath the sands.

“Desert reapers,” Raaji said, relaxing. “You see how there is not a single vulture or insectoid preying on the corpses? These bastards lure them in, and the moment they come close…”

“Ratcatcher, Raaji, we have company,” Augustus said over communications. “West, a kilometer away from our position, is approaching your location.”

The explorator buried herself face down, looking to the west. A figure appeared on the dune, one of Changed who looked like the ones attacking Iterna’s party. The being moved on all fours, sniffing the air and leaving drops of green blood across the sound. Ratcatcher grasped her weapon, noticing more and more soldiers appeared from behind the crest. They spread out, ignoring the massacre before them.

“Doesn’t look like they are the rescue party,” Kayleen noted, linking her vision to Ratcatcher’s camera.

“No, it is not. What are the chances of them stumbling on us, here of all places?” Augustus agreed with her. “Elirob, watch over Smar; Mardiyya, and Raaji, you two retreat to him as well. Kayleen, Elisa, on me. We have a thorn to remove.”

“Wait! I have an idea!” Ratcatcher hushed quickly, grabbing Raaji’s shoulder. “Desert reapers, are they finding their prey based on vibrations?” Seeing his confused look, she continued. “You know, they ‘hear’ when a large caravan is passing by?” Raaji nodded with a look of sudden realization, and Ratcatcher smiled conspiratorially. “Isn’t that just perfect? Do you still have any gunpowder bombs for distraction?”

She took three small leather skins filled with gunpowder from the grinning guide. Tying them all together, Ratcatcher ignited a rope at the end of one of them. And she cast the makeshift bombs with all her might. The bomb landed between the ruined caravan and the corpses, exploding in a small splash of sand that alerted the soldiers.

The Changed never managed to start their search. Shapes moved beneath the sand, moving like giant snakes toward the explosion and encircling the soldiers. They have noticed them too, shouting commands to form up when the ground beneath one of them exploded and one Changed got grabbed by what looked like a pincer, raising the unlucky soldier up.

A desert reaper was an apt name for the creature. Reaching around two meters in height, most of the insect’s body was made of a tail, with six limbs at the upper part of the torso. Two grievous-looking blade arms served as the upper hands, and chitin plate after chitin plate overlapped the body itself. The moment the blades started to gutter the soldier, the desert reaper spat a thin stream of acid from its small head, hidden behind mandibles.

Dissolving fluid. Ratcatcher understood, slowly retreating from the fight along with Raaji. When this fluid got into a system, it both paralyzed the victim and started dissolving them from inside, allowing reapers to drink their prey like a cup of water. The Changed blocked the stream with one paw, groaning from pain and firing acid at his tormentor, earning a barely audible scream from the giant insect. Struggling madly, he tried to pry the blades to the sides, succeeding and slithering away just before the monster could drag him underground. All around the group, more and more shapes broke from beneath the sands, bringing their weapons down on the Changed.

The desert reapers acted with a certain, almost animalistic intelligence. When one insect attacked a Changed, another circled behind him, aiming to strike at the vulnerable spot or to cripple him, while the first dodged the counterattack. And the soldiers knew it, closing ranks and facing the foes back-to-back, bathing the insects with searing acid, only to find new creatures striking them from below.

Ratcatcher steeled herself, retreating from the fight. They would have killed her. Or eat her. Or both. These soldiers showed little mercy to the Iternian party either, feasting on their remains like a bunch of mad dogs. So why then, does it hurt so much to leave them locked in combat with the foe?

Stop being soft. She told herself this, leading Raaji back to the group and faking a smile. Yes, there was no point in hating either Changed or Naturalborns. Both kinds of abnormals were the product of their upbringing and surroundings. At the same time, she won’t let them hurt her friends and comrades.

“Well done, Elisa,” he said, looking to the side. “Still, we better change our route. I am unsure how they located us here…”

He sprinted forward, pushing Ratcatcher aside. Rolling across the sand, the explorator heard the movement of sand behind herself and the coming of two great blades aimed at her back. Augustus parried one of them and almost rammed his second saber between the desert reaper’s mandibles, killing the creature outright.

Ratcatcher’s relief got short lived, another form broke from behind Raaji’s back, raising to full size and bringing its blades onto the young man’s back.

“No!” shouted Mardiyya, tackling his brother to the side and screaming as the blades were coming right at her face.

The explorator fired an armor-piercing dart, praying to the Planet not to miss. Her shot took away half of the insectoid’s head, slowing it down just long enough for Kayleen to jump forward, taking both incoming blades in her claws. The Wolf Hag laughed, stopping the chitinous blades and feeling how the insect’s tail wrapped around her, encircling the Wolfkin in a living mantrap.

“We really ought to stop this habit of saving our guides,” Kayleen chuckled from beneath the living mass. “It should be otherwise, really.”

The desert reaper shook, screeching weakly as a paw speared him, coming out between two chitin plates. Ratcatcher hacked at the creature’s back, breaking more plates and causing it to let out an ear-piercing shrill. The scream lasted less than a breath, and the reaper’s body twitched one last time and came apart in two pieces, torn asunder by Kayleen’s paw, who stood up smirking in a shower of insides and gore.

“Kayleen, are you fine?!” Smar raced to her.

“Awesome!” The Wolfkin spread her arms, stepping toward the medic, covered in the whitish blood of her foe. “Who wants a hug?”

“Not me!” Smar shrieked, jumping away from Kayleen’s paws and making Ratcatcher laugh at the silly sight.

“Kayleen. Enough.” Augustus stepped away from the dead body. “You two fine?”

“Yes, sir.” Raaji straightened. “Sorry for causing the ruckus, it won’t happen again…”

“It will happen as many times as it needs to be.” Augustus sliced his weapon in the air, removing the blood from its blade. “This is not a competition, nor have you made any mistakes. Mardiyya, do we have an option to change the route?”

“That depends on where we need to go, sir,” the woman replied, looking at Smar.

The medic stopped dodging Kayleen and took off her helmet, revealing a sweating face. After taking two quick breaths, Smar pointed to the west.

“Should’ve guessed it,” Raaji sighed. “Sir, we have two options. There is a crevice to the west. We can either try to cross through a pass, but these Changed most likely came through it.” Noticing Augustus’ look, Raaji started explaining. “These soldiers belong to Gaexus, who owns vast lands to the south. The bastard has always been busy fighting with his brother Kriegshaw for supremacy, never showing interest in the Great Sand Sea. I mean, he already controls most trade routes and takes a cut from the raids passing through his lands. And now, with Kriegshaw’s death, the presence of his troops here is even stranger.”

“Out of the question, then.” Augustus nodded. “And the second way?”

“Through the stone pillars.” Mardiyya pointed to the north-west. “Instead of going through the bottom of the crevice, we can bypass it in another place, where stone pillars are coming up from the ground. It is dangerous if you are afraid of heights, but Raaji and I have passed that place in the past with no troubles.”

“Sounds fun,” Ratcatcher said, seeing Augustus give a nod. “Lead on!”

****

The group reached what locals called a crevice in under an hour, and Augustus called for a stop, seeing the heavy breathing of their guides. They found a dark spot under a broken stone sticking out of the ground, with several tunnels leading underground. As Mardiyya explained, at night hordes of spiders were coming out there, hunting for less fortunate souls that dared to traverse this patch of land. Leaving Kayleen to wage a small genocide against spiders hiding in the dark and Smar to administer boosting injections to their guides, Ratcatcher walked to the crevice edge, looking down out of curiosity.

She saw the rocky depths, albeit poorly. The massive canyon was at least two kilometers deep, and four hundred meters of emptiness separated Ratcatcher from another side. Stretching all the way to the horizon, this crevice was splitting this region of the desert in two.

The ground below confirmed her suspicions. Even with all the sand being washed down and with dog-sized spiders skittering down there, Ratcatcher saw metal sticking out between the ruined stones. Metal walls and doors, all in perfect condition. According to the world’s history, in the Old World, a capital of a second-world country was built somewhere around this place, selling less advanced countries fuel and energy. What she was seeing now were the ruins of the once-prosperous civilization, now buried under tons of sand.

A mere thought of the various paintings, diaries, and video records locked deep below made her head spin, and Ratcatcher stepped away from the edge. She wanted to jump down, it wouldn’t even hurt that much. This was an actual explorator job. Rummaging through the ruins, making a map of interconnecting tunnels, squeezing through gaps so tight that a single wrong movement could pop your rib… And of course, cataloging treasures and bringing lost objects of cultural and technological value back to the world… Ah, she almost drooled at the prospect. Why, oh why, has Iterna’s National Museum never sent her and the others here?

She came back to the camp just in time to see Kayleen bursting out from the underground, chomping down on the still trembling spider in her paw.

“Should we move now? I think I saw these pillars.” Ratcatcher asked.

“Our guides are still tired. And during the day, the stones are overheated. I suggest we take it easy,” suggested Elirob.

“We can move just…” Mardiyya tried to stand up.

“No.” Augustus waved to the guides to keep sitting. He stretched his legs, taking off his helmet. “Night is about to come. We’ll cross the place after dark. Kayleen, will spiders be an issue?”

“These?” The Wolfkin laughed, devouring the remains. “Nah, the hive is decimated. Say.” The Wolfkin dropped on the ground, allowing her helmet to slide off her head, and looked at Augustus with amber eyes. “I can’t figure you out, boyo. You’re strong, I’ll give you that. And your tribe saved the life of Warlord Martyshkina. Why then have I heard whispers among your people filled with hatred against your tribe?”

“Tribe?” Augustus asked.

“She means Rhos,” Ratcatcher said quickly. “Kayleen, it is a bit of a sensitive topic, and…”

“It is fine, Elisa,” Augustus’ eyes caught light from sparks when he started sharpening his saber with a stone. “Kayleen, tell me, what do you know of Numbers?”

“The Plague from Iterna?” Kayleen yawned and pressed a claw to the lower lip. “A host of body snatchers originating from Iterna numbered around a thousand members. They apparently want to resurrect some creator and exterminate humanity. All of them address each other by number, hence the name. The lower the number, the stronger the bitch.” Her claw tapped. “I met some of them in Belaz, not really impressed with their single digits. Oh, and the double digits and triple digits have these weird scars all over their bodies, making it easy to root them out. Not sure why they’re still a thing after all these years, Aranea and Annie kind of butchered a few hundreds back in Belaz.”

“Because they replicate themselves.” Ratcatcher said, putting a hand on Augustus’ shoulder. He did not throw her off this time and kept sharpening his weapon.

She remembered the first time he was introduced as their instructor, back in the academy. Elina went white as milk and stepped back to the door. The other students fared little better, leaving only Ratcatcher to come forward to greet him properly, all without knowing his origins. Even after he told her, she saw no reason to change her opinion. It mattered not from whom or from what parts a person came. Only what sort of person mattered in Ratcatcher’s eyes.

“Eh?”

“Each number is part of a greater whole,” Elirob started explaining. “Within each and every one of them lies knowledge of an extensive genetic manipulation, locked away in their minds and available only to their leaders and high-ranking Numbers. Once their population dwindles, this knowledge resurfaces, and the lesser members recreate their lost comrades, all the way down to their memories and powers. It’s quite remarkable, really, they somehow found a way to create a cheap way of cloning themselves…”

“And their creator,” Augustus said tiredly, looking into Kayleen’s eyes. “Is called Maximillian. Maximillian Rho. My father.”