(This is the story text from the corresponding Radio Cataclysm podcast episode. If you prefer audio, you can subscribe here. Read and listen early on Patreon.)

The plains got dustier the closer they got to the border. Once they'd made it out of the valley of the Foke Farm, the wind picked up. The dirt and dust whipped across the land unimpeded. Here and there they'd cross a bare patch of rock before plowing into the dust again. It was a relief when one of the Tephra shouted, “Finally, a bit of rain up ahead. That'll keep the dust down.” Indeed, some sort of precipitation was falling just ahead of the column.

The relief was short-lived. “What the hell is that?” somebody said.

“Oh, sick!” said somebody else.

A chorus of voices erupted from the column of soldiers.

“Is it hail?”

“It's not rain.”

“Are we being bombed?”

“With meat?”

“What?”

“It's meat.”

“It's not meat.”

“Holy shit, it is meat!”

Colonel Destroyer had been silent so far, looking up at the sky until he spotted what he was looking for. “There!” he said. He pointed at something far above the column, partly obscured by ash and dust. “It's an Arterian hovercraft. No. Three of them.” He laughed heartily, a terrifying sound. “And they're dropping gobbets of meat on us! Have they disintegrated in fear at the sight of my visage? They just fell apart and threw themselves out of their ships in surrender?”

Chad opened up his horsehatch and peeked out. “Why would they drop meat?” he asked.

“Who knows?” Destroyer said. “Maybe it's infected. Fat chance of us catching ill, except maybe the prisoners. Burts, you'll be fine, you're full of nanobots. Meat! Meat for Meat Rom, I suppose. Perhaps they're attempting a trade.” He started to laugh again, but was cut short by a blood-curdling scream from the front of the column.

One of the Tephra was flailing his arm, as if trying to shake something off. “Cut it off!” he cried. “Burn it, burn it, get it off!”

It soon became clear what was happening. One of the gobbets of meat had landed on the soldier's arm. There it clung, spreading like a stain. It oozed through the cracks in the soldier's armor until it reached his flesh. The flesh, it consumed. The pink meat-like blob grew as it devoured. Soon it covered his entire arm. The soldier fell off of his horse and landed on the meaty blob. It made a squishing sound, but held its form. When the soldier stood up, his face was stuck to the pink mass.

“What do we do?” somebody shouted.

“Kill it!” said somebody else.

“Burn it!”

“Hold your fire,” said Colonel Destroyer calmly. “Let's see what we're dealing with here. Let it finish what it's doing.”

The soldier tried to scream, but was muffled by the pink mass. It looked like a slightly chewed wad of bubble gum with little dark blood vessels throughout. Soon the soldier stopped moving, though still he stood. The pink stuff grew faster and faster, quickly overtaking the soldier's entire body. A series of popping and cracking sounds came when the squishy mass started expelling bits of armor, pushing them to the outside of its form where they stuck like a cruel mockery of the soldier it had just consumed. Once all of the armor was in place, the bones started coming out. Broken bones protruded like spikes all over the thing. The creature's arms, if it could be said to have such things, undulated like crawling maggots until the soldier's femurs popped out of the ends like clubs.

“All right,” said Destroyer, “I've seen enough. Kill the thing. Kill it with fire. Burn all the meaty gobbets.” He drew his sword, turned around, and sliced through Burts's bonds. Burts ran straight for the heart of the battle.

The Tephra and Sparassa sprang into action. The Tephra sprayed the creature with incendiary rounds. Mostly, they pinged off of its armor. A few made it through, but they seemed to have no effect on the thing. No effect, that is, until it opened a hole that could be called a mouth and sprayed fire back at the soldiers. A few of the closest soldiers burned immediately. The rest returned to their horses and retrieved their As-Best-As masks, made from military grade synthetic asbestos.

The meaty gobbets had stopped raining down, but now they started again, striking many of the soldiers near the front of the column. The bits that had fallen into the dust started writhing and joining together. Within minutes, the front two-thirds of the column was surrounded by meat creatures, and the soldiers who were hit by falling gobbets started turning to meat themselves. The Sparassa used their spider guns to wrap the gobbet creatures with webbing, but the meat just oozed through the strands and reformed as if nothing had happened.

Some tried cutting off or burning the pink blobs that stuck to them, but the amount of fire it took to kill a piece of the stuff had the unfortunate effect of killing the soldier it was attached to. Dismemberment was just as lethal, and even less effective.

As soon as the fighting started, Sheryl turned to her prisoners. “Run,” she said. “As far from this as you can. I'll find you after the battle if I can.”

Steven and Matthew didn't hesitate. John said, “Good luck,” then followed the boys.

“One moment,” said Zeck. He reached under his shirt.

“Not another belly button bomb,” said Sheryl.

“Not a bomb this time,” said Zeck. He handed her a small yellow block. “Well, not exactly. You throw that on the ground, or against a hard surface, and it creates a small but powerful whirlwind. It doesn't last long, but maybe it'll help. Right, well, I'm off. Try not to get eaten.”

Zeck caught up with the wizard and the teenagers at the end of a good two hundred yard sprint. “You think we're safe here?” he panted.

“Where the hell have you been for the past couple days?” said John. “There ain't no safe places out here.”

“No,” said Steven. “Nowhere's safe, but some places are better than others. One of us shouldn't be here.” He pulled the cigarettes out of his pocket.

“Now?” said Matthew.

“There's no better time,” said Steven.

“The cigarettes with the genie inside,” said Zeck. He snapped his fingers. “Clever Dick. When you boys offered to wash the dishes, you snuck into the barn and stole them out of the evidence chest.”

“Just taking what's already ours,” said Steven.

Matthew held out his hand for a cigarette, but Steven shook his head. He pulled all of the remaining cigarettes out of the pack. He put his thumb and forefinger around them and stuck the bunch into his mouth, ten cigarettes altogether.

“What are you doing?” said Matthew.

Steven pulled the cigarettes out. “We don't have time,” he said. He put the cigarettes back in his mouth, pulled out his lighter, and lit them all.

“Stop!” said Matthew. “We had a deal; we're supposed to share.” He grabbed for the cigarettes, but Steven ducked out of the way, puffing all the while. “Give me half!” said Matthew.

John put his hand on Matthew's shoulder. “He's made up his mind, son,” he said. “You're not gonna stop him.

Steven smoked the bundle with surprising vigor, turning the cigarettes to ash within just a few minutes. His face turned green. He hunched over. There was just a sliver of unsmoked tobacco left in each cigarette. He let out a long breath through his nose, then inhaled as hard as he could.

The filters all vanished in a puff of blue smoke. Steven coughed long and hard. Bright blue smoke streamed from his mouth and nose. The smoke shaped itself into the form of a human man. He wore the remnants of a Tephra firesuit.

“All right,” said the genie. “Your wish is my command. Just one wish, now. What do you want?”

“First, I have a few questions,” said Steven.

The genie sighed. “All right. What do you want to know?”

“Is this wish going to have some kind of ironic twist to it?”

“No,” said the genie. “I was made for war. Ironic wishes wouldn't be of much use on the battlefield.”

“Healing would, though, right?” said Steven. “How well can you heal somebody? Can you cure disease?”

“I can heal any wound, knit any bone, and cure any disease, as long as the subject is still alive. I cannot bring back the dead, and I cannot guarantee that the person will never get sick again. After I've healed them they're on their own.”

“Yeah, I was afraid of that,” said Steven. “Can you teleport somebody?”

The genie shrugged. “Yeah, of course. But just one person, and only once. Just one wish, remember?”

“All right, I know what my wish is.” Steven turned to Matthew. “You've got to go home and be with your mom. You don't belong here. I'd wish for her to be cured, but she'd probably just get sick again. Everybody in Rintburg gets sick. More importantly, I'm sure she misses you like crazy. Even if she was healthy as a horse, she'd be sick in her heart to lose you. This is probably it, Matthew. We won't see each other again. So this is the only time I'm ever going to say this. I love you.”

“But what about your dad?” said Matthew. “You got the cigarettes in the first place, you should have the wish. He's going to the gallows. Don't you want to save him?”

“Sure,” said Steven, “but I can't. Look, Matthew. I'm sorry I lash out at you sometimes. I have a bad temper. I get it from my dad. His is even worse than mine. That's why he's in prison in the first place. It's nobody else's fault that he's there. And if he went free today, even if he had a clean slate, a good job, anything he needed, he'd just be back in prison in a few months. We could free him, but we can't change the way he is. He's where he belongs. You're not. You should be back home with your mom.”

“But what about you?”

“My mum was an arsehole, and my dad's an even bigger one. My brother is shit. He's in prison, too, most likely, and if he isn't, he ought to be. I don't know my cousins, but half of them are in prison or dead, and the other half are probably ravagers. You're the only real family I ever had. I got no home to go to. You do.”

“For fuck's sake, son, listen to him,” said John. “Look at that nasty fucking battle happening over there. People are being eaten alive by gobbets of meat. We've got a choice between siding with the psychopathic colonel in the spider mask or the army of robots being driven by homunculi. Do you want to be here? You're fifteen. There's always gonna be wars, there's always gonna be adventures waiting for you. You're not always gonna have a mother and a good home. If you don't go home, I'm gonna send you to the freakin' beast dimension.”

Matthew looked at Steven and tried not to sob. “I love you, too,” he said. “And I'm sorry.”

Steven turned to the genie. “I wish Matthew was back home in Rintburg with his mom.”

In the blink of an eye, both Matthew and the genie were gone. Zeck put his hand on Steven's shoulder.

“Don't touch me, corsair,” Steven said. He turned to survey the battle. “Sheryl's in there,” he said.

Two of the Arterian hovercrafts were hanging low over the crowd. A purple tractor beam shot out of one and surrounded Meat Rom's silk-covered form. A whirlwind spun up on the belly of the hovercraft, seemingly out of nowhere, an inverted twister sprouting from its hull. The airship turned bow over keel and crashed to Earth, mere feet from the battle.

“It came in handy after all,” said Zeck.

Meanwhile, the second airship locked its tractor beam onto Meat Rom. Colonel Destroyer shot a rope of webbing at the ship, but one of the gobbet creatures spat fire at the rope, burning it away like spun sugar. Meat Rom vanished into a portal on the bottom of the ship. Its prize acquired, the hovercraft zipped away, leaving a trail of purple light. It was soon followed by another trail, high in the atmosphere.

“Well, the airships are gone, but they're still beset by meat monsters,” said Zeck.

“Have you got any salt?” said John. “Or any salty snacks, like potato chips or peanuts?”

“I've got a salt lick,” said Zeck. He pulled a white block of salt out of his satchel. “I was going to use it to lure some deer, but I can always get another one.”

“Lure a deer?” John said. “Never mind, I don't wanna know. Have you been licking this?” he asked.

“No, why?”

“It's all misshapen. Like someone's been licking it. Is it used?”

“No, it's fresh. It's not licked, it's just homemade. It's artisanal.”

“An artisanal salt lick?”

“Do you want it or not?”

John took the salt lick. “Fine.”

“Whatever you're planning,” said Zeck, “Isn't this a bit well-worn? A wizard coming in at the last minute and triumphantly saving the day?”

“Believe me, fellows, there's nothing triumphant about what I'm planning to do.” He pulled his staff from a fold in his robe and held it aloft. He licked the salt lick, then held it high in his other hand. The gem on the end of his staff began to glow with the usual otherworldly light. The salt began to glow as well. Zeck suddenly felt thirsty. The air felt drier. His skin began to itch. The sky darkened.

John said something in a language Zeck did not recognize. The salt glowed brighter and brighter until it hurt to look at. It was yanked from John's hand by a force unseen. It vanished into a hole that appeared above the wizard's staff.

“Is that a portal to the Raw dimension?” Zeck asked.

“Shut up, dummy,” said Steven.

Something was happening to the meat creatures. All at once, they stopped fighting the few remaining soldiers. They turned to face John, if they could be said to have faces. They quivered like jelly. For a moment, Zeck thought they were screaming, but it turned out to be the sound of the moisture leaking out of their fleshy bodies. It all came out, all of the moisture in all of the meat creatures. It rushed through the air, straight into John's portal, a flying river of water and blood. The meat things crumpled to the ground, dry sponge-like husks. Some of them crumbled to dust. The ones that had swallowed fire couldn't contain it anymore, and they burned.

The portal snapped shut. John fell to the ground.

* * *

“Well done,” said Colonel Destroyer. Only two Tephra and three Sparassa remained out of the whole company, not including Sheryl. Bob sat on the wreckage of a horse, looking dazed. They were all sucking on tubes of Medi-Gel. Zeck and Steven arrived on the remains of the battlefield, supporting John between them.

Burts stood at the edge of the wreckage, staring off in the direction the airship had gone. “Missing your friend already?” Colonel Destroyer said to him. “We'll retrieve him. With a fighter like you, we'll make short work of these upstarts.”

Burts spun on his heel and looked Destroyer right in his bulbous black eyepiece. Without a word, he ran at the Colonel, closing the distance in half a second. He grabbed the Colonel by the throat and squeezed, but the Colonel was too heavily armored. All Burts managed was to dent his neck guard. Destroyer shoved Burts away as if he was brushing away a stray crumb from his breakfast. Burts hit the ground with a smack, then popped back up onto his feet like his joints were spring loaded. With a flick of his wrist, Destroyer shot a wad of weavers at Burts. Burts sidestepped them easily. The Colonel shot five more spider wads, and Burts dodged each of them, stepping closer to Destroyer each time. Burts struck at the eyes of the Colonel's spider mask, moving so fast nobody saw it happen until his fist was millimeters from its target. Not even Colonel Destroyer saw it happen, but his exoskeleton did. The suit reacted faster than the Colonel could. It caught Burts's fist in its left hand and held it tight. Colonel Destroyer quickly caught up with his suit, and he laughed in Burts's face. He lifted him high into the air, keeping Burts at arm's length so he couldn't reach. He sent a secret command to his right glove, which extended a long thick needle from the space between his middle and index fingers. Too quickly for Burts to react, the Colonel lowered him just enough so he could jab the needle into his chest. Burts cried out, more in surprise than in pain. Destroyer dropped him.

Burts landed perfectly on his feet and lunged at the Colonel. Then he screamed in pain. He stopped screaming almost as abruptly as he'd begun. His jaw snapped shut. He dropped to the ground, his body tensing and shaking violently.

“What the hell,” said Steven.

“Is he having a seizure?” said Zeck.

“In a way,” said Colonel Destroyer. “I've implanted him with a device that allows me to remotely immobilize him at any time. It will also activate automatically if Fawth comes within a meter of my person. Only I can override or deactivate the device.”

Burts stopped shaking. He fell limp.

“Like so,” said Destroyer. “Give him a shot of glucose, would you Chad? You fought well, Fawth. Better than most of my men. I'm speaking of the battle, not your attempt at melee combat against me. That was impressive, too, but I'm simply better equipped than you are. I don't expect loyalty from you. I know how you feel about the Churls, and about me especially. You hate me, yet you fought for me. You couldn't help it. You were quite literally made for battle. And you three.” He turned to Zeck and the others. “John Derman. You may be old, but it takes a talented mage to pull off a trick like that. To suck the water from your enemies but not your allies? Quite a feat.

“Zeck Strauss. I'm just not sure about you. One the one hand, you strike me as a coward. Then again, you fight when you can. Teymore told me of your resourcefulness with the cherry bomb and the whirlwind. No, I don't think you're a true coward. I think you know what you're capable of, and you do that much and no more. Nothing wrong with that, it gives you an instinct for self-preservation.

“Steven Broyle. You're young and surly. I can work with that.”

“As you can see, our ranks have been sorely depleted. We'll need recruits if we're to launch a counterstrike. I could certainly do worse than you lot. Bear in mind, I'm not making an offer; we're at war, and this is a draft. Desertion is punishable by summary execution. Or I might be feeling generous, and inject you with the same implant I've given Fawth. I don't expect loyalty from you. Only obedience.” Colonel Destroyer's chelicerae came together in a way that almost resembled a smile. “Rest up. It's a long way to Antarctica.”