Sometimes it didn’t hurt to die

  They had been walking for hours. Sweat clung to Jan’s brow as the bag ruffled around his head. His hands and feet were bound with rope, but just enough for him to shuffle along what felt like a jungle path.

  In the darkness, his mind wandered, Kiff’s face still imprinted in his eyes. He was dead.

  Kiff was dead.

  It had happened so fast. The soldier hadn’t even gotten a word in as his life faded. There was no difference between the two, yet Kiff barely got a glimpse of a world that held him dear. Laura had a family, Aloat a famous name, and Kiff had a father and family. Jan had no one. Irwain, Laura and Sill made up a patchwork for what should have been, and Sill was nothing more than a ghost in a rock. A pale imitation of whatever once proud creature Crous had stuffed to serve his hand. Kiff’s father had debts. He wasn’t rich, he was poor. The family had scraped and poured everything to send him to the academies, to hope for a better life and future without sacrifice. All they had was hope, and how quickly it had been replaced with sorrow.

  It should have been me.

  The words kept mulling over Jan’s mind, gnawing at his stomach as his guilt turned to rage. A spear pressed into his back, and he tumbled forward more. He thought of turning on the creature, but they tossed him around like a child’s toy. His connection to the source was still severed.

  “Commander!! Careful, log up ahead! Four meters!” Sill whispered.

  For some reason, they hadn’t taken Sill, likely, Crous’s dark magic had concealed the innamite, making it impossible for detection. The rock was unnaturally calm, had been mumbling all morning about being in the presence of some enemy, but Jan ignored its words with a bitter taste in his mouth. There were more important things to worry about.

  “Commander!! Log approaching 0.3 meters!!”

  His foot fumbled. He could tell from the scent of its breath that the dalious was walking infront. Twice, the creature stopped, hissing orders in a slur of speech at whatever bodies pressed against them. Jan fell back to wham into Laura and Aloat. The three hadn’t spoken but he could tell they were at least alive. Every few seconds, Jan would test to see if their magic had returned, but only a faint burn met his reach. Watchers were unruly and required steady ground to work properly. The devices couldn’t be carried. For something like this to happen, they would have to be walking between watchers, and for a path this large to be carved. That would mean an astronomical expense.

  Time passed.

  Jan’s feet began to blister. For the first time in what seemed like eons, less brush pushed hit his ankles. They were nearing a clearing. He stopped suddenly to feel Laura’s familiar head slam into his shoulder once more. His heart skipped when he realized she was still alive. The three let out soft whispers. It was a comfort that he couldn’t put into words. Aloat slammed into them too, and a guilty part of Jan wished she had taken Kiff’s place. They were too afraid. They didn’t speak again. Another pair of hands grabbed their binds, and Jan heard them being led in different directions.

  When the blindfold was finally lifted, he wished it had stayed.

  An army was infront.

  He was in a large clearing. It stretched along the horizon with a circle of trees surrounding another thin line of tents and smoke plumes. Ratlings were everywhere. There must have been around a thousand of those creatures. Chittering and squealing as the same pulsic masses sprouted like fleshy vines from their infected skulls. They wore ragged clothing made from rabbit or deer hide with cruel half-shapen cleaves and stolen imperial daggers. The dalious chilled him. It was young, but the sight of it slithering orders made Jan almost tremble. He looked around and couldn’t see Laura or Aloat anywhere.

  “Enemy soldiers commander, 2726 to be exact, all infected! But to varying degrees!”

  Sill’s words didn’t give him comfort. He tried to whisper to the rock in reply, but was too afraid of being seen. If these people had been enemies of Crous, then it was the only point towards the monsters' favour. Then another sight surprised him.

  Humans.

  Mercenaries dotted the warcamps. Half as many as the ratlings but enough to make up a sizeable number. They were clean-clothed and had a style of dress that looked like they had come from further west. Fur coats and assorted armour, typical of bandits, made up their appearance. Stolen imperial weaponry and bows lined their benches as game roasted over open fires. Some seemed disgusted by the parasites churning through their camp, and others were unnervingly calm.

  “Commander Jan! Remember the seven principles of hostage negotiation: name, rank and serial number, and we’ll make for our escape!! Do not speak, no matter what! Your serial number is A349187, but you really should have it memorized by now!” Sill responded.

  Jan ignored the rock strange it would make up some kind of “serial number” in times of crisis. He attributed it to some form of expression of fear.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “They’ll never take us! I have a plan! Explosions!! Gunfire!! Lightning burning from the sky! It will be magnificent!! Zh hzh zh_________REDACTED, REDACTED” the tiny rock added.

  Oh no, the tiny rock was delirious in fright. Jan paused. He, too, was terrified.

  It was nearly evening, and the light from their fires seemed to lick into the grey clouds. The infected made a circle around him; however, the scribe was near certain they parted like a river around the dalious’s presence. The creature was wearing a mix of rags and platemail. The infected pus was still oozing as it pushed him along. Nearly terrified, they finally stopped infront of a large dome-shaped tent.

  They watched him as he walked.

  Infected stared at Jan in an almost mesmerized gaze, unblinking eyes complemented by dilated pupils. He lifted his bound hands, and their eyes followed. Almost as would puppets on a string. Waiting, watching, lost in a moment of thought as curiosity and obedience blended into servitude. They seemed eerily fascinated, desperate to collect glimpses of his presence and mull it over in their dilapidated minds.

  Strangely, what few humans did walk past barely gave a notice to Jan. For the most part, they acted like gluttons on a series of roasted deer and assorted game. His stomach lurched in hunger until he saw what they were roasting. A boar sizzled over hot coals with the same infected pus slowly dripping from its skull.

  Suddenly, brown fabric rippled, and a human emerged from the tent. Jan stumbled back into a ratling, hitting them a little too hard. They seemed to leap at him for a moment.

  “Back!...back!” Jan shouted.

  “You show em Commander!!!!!”

  The rock wasn’t helping, and his boud legs tripped in the grass and slammed into another ratling. To his horror, the creature let out a loose whisper, partly out of instinct.

  “Your holiness…..” It screeched in terror.

  Jan turned and the ratling responded again.

  It knelt.

  Other ratlings followed, the creatures tilting their head towards the scribe in acknowledgement. The human from the tent eyed in wonder, but the dalious seemed angry at this and stomped into the ground for the creatures to scatter. Sill buzzed again, but Jan was too scared to talk.

  “Primelordss, I have thess childsssssss” the Dalious slithered.

  Neither showed signs of respect, likely equating them to equal rank.

  The other was clearly a bandit but more clean-shaven than the others with old eyes complemented by facial scars and short dark gray hair. Jan recognized an imperial service tattoo imprinted on his forearm. It was faded, half-matted with skin, and the ink bled deep with age.

  “When will it arrive?”

  The dalious paused for a moment, and Jan watched the worms in its brain squirm.

  “Six days and the sleep will be no more,” the lizard gave a fanged grin.

  The human turned to him, resting his hand on a nearby crate. He was old, but Jan recognized the belt he wore. It was an imperial commission, the kind high mages had used in history but not for at least two hundred years.

  “Fleshies, give 'em half a brain and they turn to mush? ha” The human spoke. He turned to the scribe and laughed.

  Jan didn’t respond.

  “What’s a matter? Not going to speak? Don’t matter, boy?”

  The man was clearly bored. But Jan could tell he was somewhat intrigued. Were they going to try to ransom him to Irwain?

  “You may have had a cushy life with that lazed ass, but we’ve had to work hard.”

  A few more humans joined him, almost like fishermen inspecting their catch.

  “Probably screamed when the lizard tore your pasty little guard friend in two.” Another human pipped.

  Jan shot daggers into their eyes. Blood matted his face as a bandit landed a punch. They seemed to enjoy this.

  “Ooh, I think you hit a nerve, Polin. Let’s not get the princling into a sweat; might have to throw a few ratlings at him.” The two laughed.

  “You mages are all the same, spent es ole life eating cakes on some Noble’s squat, en one Watcher makes you like toothpicks,” another laughed. He kicked Jan in the shin.

  Pain shot through his entire body.

  “Kill later!!!!” Sill commented. Jan tried to agree but got kicked again.

  In a moment, the dalious walked forward. It had been resting on a tree stump. Jan prayed for strength. He tried to think what others would do, Laura, Irwain, Aloat, hell, even that Jaen who had earned so much false praise. Strangely, the creature seemed to come to his rescue.

  “Bestsss shoowww respectss Primelordssssss”

  They looked awkward at this, but the other humans laughed until the dalious averted it's gaze.

  “Yes, sorry Jan, my most dear apologies, where are my manners, hold still.”

  Two bandits grabbed him on either side and angled his arms towards the center of the camp. They pressed down into his skin hard. Nails bit into his flesh as they dragged him to his feet.

  The Primelord smiled as he took a few tools from a bag. Jan’s face paled at the sight of knives, hammers and twisted scraps of steel, but thankfully, the man simply pressed his hands against the scribe's face.

  For a few seconds, he drove his fingers near Jan’s eyes, pushing back the skin to stare at the corners of the eyesocket.

  “Clear”

  “The enemy is checking for charge Commander!! Luckily for them, you have none!”

  On top of all this did the rock just insult him? Jan always took charge. At least sometimes.

  Then he took a thin needle and pricked Jan’s palm. The scribe tried to fight, but the man only smiled and pressed down hard on his feet. The humans behind him laughed as he siphoned the blood into a vial and seemed to watch as it transformed colour. He flicked it for a moment before reaching into a final bag and taking out something horrifying.

  It was flesh, just a mulchy pound of wriggling flesh.

  In an instant, the Primelord held the mass toward Jan’s hand and watched. The flesh stopped wriggling, and he nodded for a moment. Not a hint of emotion, just understanding.

  “In six days, you’ll understand Jan.”

  “We’ll all understand,” He said coldly.

  “Take him to the pit”.

  Jan struggled to his feet as two more humans strapped what looked like a backpack and an empty sheath onto him before they dragged him through the grass.

  The infected continued to watch. A few humans jeered and shouted in his direction, but the ratlings stayed silent. At last, they reached what seemed to be a cliff’s edge, and he then realized why there were no tents in the center.

  They were surrounding a quarry.

  A steep mud cliff surrounded what seemed to be a giant pit. At the bottom, Jan spotted more humans, imperial uniforms like scattered rocks, while pumes of smoke rose from an almost hellish landscape. There were wooden cranes, winches and scaffold-like walls surrounding the nearly two hundred foot deep quarry, but no direct route down. Jan squinted, and it only took him a moment to see what kind of rock the people down there were mining.

  Watchers

  That was until a foot kicked him in.

  Mud splattered against Jan’s face. He was at the highest point of the quarry and had tumbled what seemed like twenty or so feet. Pain shot through every inch of his body, and for a minute only Sill’s voice reigned through.

  “Commander, I think it’s time we got your Command chip back online.”