66 – Code-speak
Emerging from the cornfield still gripping her cleaver, she saw Zefaris standing over the motionless corpse of the pistol-wielder, pointing her revolver at his heart and breathing heavily. Her face was flushed pink, Fog pouring from her nostrils with every breath.
She looked… Disturbed. Extremely so. The reason became clear when the soldier’s burst-open head raised from the ground, his mouth curled into a manic grin. Though he had no eyes, he turned his head towards Zelsys, and though the speech center of his brain lay splattered in the dirt, he spoke, wisps of Fog rising from the corners of his mouth with each word.
“Even in dishonor, we serve the Divine Emperor. You stink as all of the pretender-sage’s works do, and by this stench we will always find you…” the dead locust-mutant mocked and accused, his skin visibly clinging to his bones and turning pallid as if he was burning the last shreds of his life to deliver this message of spite.
He drew in a ragged death rattle of a breath, but before he could speak another word, a lance of sparks and flaming lead splattered the remnants of his head. Now truly lifeless, his body slumped to the ground, and Zefaris let out a shaken breath, murmuring, “Fu-fuckin’ locust-men, y’don’t belong here...”
Zef’s eye snapped in the direction of where the dead pistoleer had turned his head, landing upon Zelsys to the sound of a relieved sigh as she cautiously lowered her revolver’s hammer and holstered the weapon. It was at this moment that she stopped exhaling Fog. Surprisingly, the markswoman didn’t at all seem surprised by either the mutations, or the apparently post-mortem speech of the soldier - she had, after all, stood above him with gun in hand, ready to double-tap him the moment he reanimated.
This was too far to not question.
“Was… Was this a normal occurrence in the war?” she asked, holstering her cleaver. “With the… The bug shit and the reanimation?”
With a heavy sigh and a reluctant nod, Zefaris confirmed that, “Yeah, pretty much. Once the head starts changin’, the person inside is probably gone. Even the Grekurians shot those things on sight. What the fuck are they doing here, though? It sounded like they’re...”
“...Extorting farmers with forced tolls,” Zelsys finished. “Explains why the Governor wants them gone, beyond the terrorism.”
“He wants you to play the exterminator, that’s why he wanted to speak with you? Not to chide you for beating the shit outta his son?” Zef questioned, stepping over the corpse and squatting down as she began rifling through its pants pockets. Among the spoils were a couple foreign coins, a single silver Gelt and two coppers, plus a small pouch of powder, some lead balls, cotton wads, and a makeshift ramrod. Money and reloading supplies. Upon closer inspection, his pistols were in too poor a condition even for resale.
She stood up, stowing away the spoils in a pocket as she approached Zelsys to join her in briskly walking back towards the main road and then back to town. Still processing the implication that this was not an uncommon sight during the war, she answered, “...Exactly in those words, yes. How’d you know?”
“Playing exterminator is code-speak for wiping out a hive of out-of-control locust-men. They’re half-insane soldiers at best, and feral animals at worst. A couple times we got through enemy territory under the pretense of playing exterminator, that’s how bad these fuckers get for either side, especially once some poor soul mutates into a hive queen and starts laying eggs.”
They quickly reached the main road, and almost as quickly got back to the town gates, and all along Zelsys questioned her counterpart, all her disgust and worry completely replaced by utter confusion and bewilderment at the nonchalance with which Zefaris regarded these monstrous creatures. It was clear she had completely dehumanized even the least-mutated of these people in her mind, and frankly, Zelsys couldn’t blame her.
“That’s… Bizarre. Pateirian soldiers just kept drinking these elixirs even if they knew that each dose risked mutations? Why?”
“Apparently, they believed that those favored by their Divine Emperor would eventually turn into a sacred orchid mantis, while the unworthy would become plague locusts. The locust-men would turn to banditry or just outright go feral to survive,” Zef explained in a spiteful tone, making no effort to hide her personal hatred for Pateirians.
For a short while, they walked in silence whilst Zelsys digested the information, recontextualizing her view of the situation from an isolated cell, to a ticking time-bomb waiting just out of sight. Perhaps all of the side roads were infested, perhaps the one she used to reach the man-eater beast was only safe because of the beast’s presence.
“Rot-bears, man-eaters, locust-men… Just how infested is Ikesia?” she wondered out loud. Zefaris let out a heavy sigh, looking directly at her.
“Assuming our trip out of the E.Z. was your first experience with Ikesia, I can guess that it’s worse than you think. A lot of dirty tactics were used by all sides, and that filth has only festered since the end of the war. Between that, the natural beasts of the land, and the lack of beast-slayers, it’d be an insurmountable task to keep even one town safe.”
“I wager we could get it done, if I teach all three of you Fog-breathing.”
Zefaris chuckled disbelievingly at that, but suddenly went quiet and stopped on a boot-heel, blinking a couple times in realization. She breathed in sharply through her teeth, then slowly exhaled. Nothing happened.
“T-the thing you did back there, with the Fog,” she looked to Zel. “Do it again.”
“Lover’s Breath…” Zelsys whispered without missing a beat, inhaling as she went. She leaned in, driven by the lust imparted by the technique to kiss a breath of Fog into Zef’s mouth. The markswoman’s face flushed bright pink, Fog spilling from her mouth and nose as she began to breathe heavily. After a few breaths the Fog disappeared, and she was left looking mildly flustered and disappointed.