Zeck vs Colonel Destroyer 7: The Ballad of Ruby Cadence

(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.)

“These are the symbols for dreamspace, dream walking, pocket magic, knowledge hidden, knowledge revealed,” said John, pointing at each one in turn. “But it beats me what any of it's supposed to do. I don't know much about synthesizers, but I do know that this one's a blend of magic and electronics, so I'm betting it's a little out of your wheelhouse, too. This kind of thing was not uncommon during the war, but I've never seen something quite like this before. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I don't have much of a choice, do I?” said Zeck.

“Fewer options every day,” said John.

Zeck stood up and brushed his hands off. “Ready when you are, Colonel,” he said. “It's still a little dusty with skeleton crud, but it's all patched.” The console hummed with power.

“You're sure,” said the Colonel. “I don't want to get locked out for good. Or blown to pieces.”

“Is that a possibility?” said Zeck warily.

“It's not not possible,” said Steven.

“I need you to be absolutely certain you've set it up correctly,” said the Colonel.

“As close as we could get,” said Zeck. “Some of the cables were corroded, so John had the idea of coaxing some of the vines back in. They seem keen to be a part of it, somehow. Anywhere we needed a cable, or the wires were corroded, they climbed right in. aside from that, I followed the patch sheet to the letter.”

“Does it need a power source?”

“This whole place is like a living battery,” said John. “It's saturated with energy. All we have to do now is flip the master switch.”

“Everybody but Strauss out of the truck,” said the Colonel. “Better if only one of us gets blown to bits, should something go awry.”

Bob's head jerked, as if he'd been startled. “Hold on,” he said. He put a hand to the side of his helmet, something he often did when listening intently. “Colonel, sir, I'm receiving a distress call. It's from Captain Solomon. 'Soldier down.'”

“Yes, I hear it,” said the Colonel. “Lieutenant Teymore can handle it. Ouroboros is on his way, and I've already told the Tephra to hold their position. If you're receiving a transmission, Jaut, you can safely assume that I hear it, too.”

“But they're requesting backup. They need our help.”

“As I said, help is on the way. The Lieutenant will report in when the situation is dealt with. If they can't handle it, it's better that we get this bunker open so we have a position to fall back to. I'll not have you questioning my leadership again. Do you understand, Jaut?”

“Yes, sir,” said Bob.

“You may proceed, Strauss,” said the Colonel.

Zeck took a deep breath. “Nice knowing most of you.” He flipped the switch.

The LEDs on the console lit up in a wave. A march-like drumbeat rolled from the speakers. On the smooth steel wall of the bunker, a black rectangle appeared. It looked as if the wall had simply vanished in that black space, leaving an endless abyss. A bolt of electricity jumped from a sigil on one of the synth modules, forking into Zeck's hands. He yelped. The sigil glowed with a deep red light. A sequencer started up, playing a simple melody from a square-wave oscillator. John chuckled. Zeck smiled with recognition.

Inside the black doorway, a multicolored wireframe landscape appeared, bright and flickering like a laser show. A robed figure stood in the center. “Greetings, hatchling,” it said. Its voice seemed to come from both the doorway and the speakers.

“How is that happening?” Zeck wondered aloud.

“You have the blood,” said the figure, “but have you the heart?” A three-dimensional laser outline of a Churlian airship appeared behind the figure in the robe, accompanied by a low bass growl. “You have chosen this as your trial. When you are ready to begin, place your hand on the broken shell.”

“Oh, shit,” said Steven.

“Trial?” said Zeck.

“It's a trial of initiation,” said Steven. “I thought they were just a legend.”

“Oh, they're real,” said John.

“I thought you said this was a Melody Lock,” said the Colonel. “You were all so sure of it.”

“Well, it is,” said Steven. “But think of it as the most secure type of Melody Lock you could possibly have, under the circumstances. I wonder if they programmed it this way for extra security when the bombs fell, or maybe they actually were planning to initiate someone that day. Either way, this is not ideal, to say the least. The trials are usually tailored to a specific person. It's something they would have trained for. It's not just for unlocking a door, it's for testing to see if you're worthy to join.”

“Join what?” said Bob.

“Who knows?” said Steven. “The Cult of Nowhere? Freemasons? Ex Ova? Insert the name of your favorite secret society. Like I said, I thought these things were a myth.”

“We did trials of initiation in the Pyroclasts,” said John. “But they were never like this. They were more symbolic than anything.”

“Time grows dear,” said the robed figure in the doorway. “Battle does not wait for the timid.” The airship turned toward Zeck. The laser-lined scene seemed to grow beyond the frame of the door.

“You'd best get started,” said the Colonel.

“How can I possibly pass a trial specifically made for somebody else?” said Zeck. “I mean, I recognize the song, but...”

“If you know the song, then what's the problem?” said the Colonel. You are a musician, yes? And you're proficient with the synthesizer?”

“I'm proficient with the synthesizer, which was also the name of my first album, but that's not the problem.”

“Well? What's the delay?”

“It's the song,” said Steven.

“The Ballad of Ruby Cadence,” said John.

“If you all know it, surely you can play it. Children play the piano.”

“It's not like playing the piano” said Zeck. “It's a dueling synthesizer jam. There are some common elements that you'll hear in most performances, like the intro melody, but it's never played exactly the same way twice. Each performance is different because every player is different. And every synth is different. A lot of them don't even use keyboards. Hearing ten different people play The Ballad is like hearing ten different people tell the same story. Each one tells it differently. And it is a story, about a wizard named Ruby Cadence who battled a Churlish, er, Churlian airship that used sonic weapons to rain destruction and terrorize the populace.”

“The Alkonost,” said the Colonel. “Commanded by Colonel Sone. I'm familiar with it.”

“Anyway, the song itself is always played as a duel. One side takes the role of Ruby Cadence, sonomancer, and the other side takes the role of Sone aboard the Alkonost. I've seen it performed plenty of times, but I've never been a part of the duel before. Even calling it a duel is a bit of a misnomer; it's more of a reenactment. Ruby Cadence always wins, so I'm not sure how this is meant to be a test.”

“I suspect there's more to it than that,” said the Colonel.

“Perhaps,” said Zeck, “but it's quite as clear as mud. There's no indication of what to do or where to begin. Anyway, it's traditional for the airship to fire the first volley.”

“War comes to all,” said the robed figure, “be they ready or not.” The truck rumbled. The airship's weapons array slid open, laser-outlined rows of sonic weaponry trained on Zeck's position. “Fight back, or face annihilation.” The lasers flickered, making it seem as though the speakers on the ship were vibrating. Sonic waves blasted from its weapon ports and struck Zeck. A sickening mixture of pain and shame rippled through his flesh. Out of something like instinct, he turned to the console and placed his right hand on the broken egg symbol.

For a split second, all was blank. The trailer and the synthesizer and the Colonel were gone. Silence all around. Only for an instant, and then everything was back.

The living room in that little apartment in New York City. That hideous wallpaper. That smell. Sulfuric fumes seeped in around the windows and mingled with his father's cigar smoke. Mom made him smoke on the fire escape, but it lingered on his clothes. Zeck smelled it now as he sat on his dad's lap. And something else. A smell like rain. No, like water from a hose. Fresh plastic. Across the room, his mother was setting up a new keyboard on its stand. “You wanna play the keyboard, Zeckie?” His father's voice. “Your mom's gonna teach you. Heck knows I can't.”

He sat at the keyboard, the cushioned stool spun up high so he could reach. His mother placed his hand gently on the keys. Middle C. Every Good Boy Does Fine. Scales. Chopsticks. Heart and Soul. The memories were there and gone, like turning away in a dream and looking back to find everything changed.

Upstairs. The music room. The house in Dayton, after they'd moved. His mother installing a new module in a synth that already covered half a wall. The Beast, she called it. Always hungry for more. Zeck sat in the corner watching her plug and unplug cables. There were more than he could count. She never hesitated, she moved as if she was building a sculpture, the shape of which she'd always known. He fell asleep in a beanbag chair while she worked, flipping toggles and nudging knobs just so. Every motion seemed as natural as the swaying of a tree in the wind.

She taught him piece by piece. “This is called an oscillator.” He learned the difference between a square wave and a sine, a sawtooth and a triangle. Dozens of filters. How to use a sequencer. It was like learning a new alphabet. Soon, he could tell you the frequency of a sound just by listening. He could close his eyes and picture the waveform. Sometimes, when he was falling asleep to the sound of her work, he thought he could hear what she was building.

“When will it be finished?” he asked.

She smiled. “It'll never be finished.”

“It's not just music, what she does,” his father would say. “It's magic. Acoustomancy. She has wizard blood, you know.” Mom would roll her eyes and snort.

“Sonomancy,” she said. “But I'm not a wizard.”

She played down the street at the coffee shop, in a trio called Speckle Pattern. She crammed a few synth mods into a thrift shop suitcase. “Just enough, and a little bit more.” They called it Beast Jr. The others in the trio played keyboard and sang. Zeck drank hot chocolate while his dad drank espresso. More often than not, he fell asleep on the sofa in the back. He started drinking coffee instead, so he could stay up with his dad and hear the music.

They were playing the night the Riverlords came to do battle on the banks. The sound of the music drifted like a fog and sapped their battle cries. They made their way inside, and sat entranced for the rest of the night while their weapons lay forgotten at their feet. They did not make peace that night, but they left without fighting, and did not battle again for two more years.

Her band mates came for dinner sometimes. Mom's sister, Emily, and their friend Erika. After, they went upstairs to write and record. Zeck's father took him to the movies.

Speckle Pattern went on tour. Beast Jr. came along, so Zeck was allowed to play with the Beast all he wanted. His mother had patch sheets, but she didn't need them. She could always find her place again. Zeck stayed up late into the night, trying different patches, chasing the sounds his mother found so effortlessly. His father, shouting, woke him at daybreak. “Zechariah. Get to bed.” Zeck had fallen asleep on the floor, headphones twisted around his face. They were bent where he'd slept on them. Dad was just coming in from a long night of work. Exhausted. “Your mother's favorite pair,” he grumbled and banished Zeck from the music room.

His mother laughed it off when she got back. “Those were a million years old,” she said. Zeck bought a new pair with his allowance.

He sat at the keyboard again. The stickers were worn from years of being rubbed at. He barely gave them a glance. His fingers knew the way to go, and music followed.

He knew the modules now, and all of their names. The tangle of cables, the switches, the knobs, were no more a mystery than his own tongue.

“Not bad,” said his mother from the doorway. She'd been standing there a while. He hadn't noticed. There was only the machine. A bottomless well of sound and music.

Some time later. A night. An eon. The finite length of a time he can't get back. His parents arguing. Not their first fight. Their last. He only caught snippets. “Too dangerous... take him with you... not another one... can't go... won't know the truth... capped his teeth... broken shell...” And then the whispering, worse than shouting. The night before another tour. Going abroad this time. Flying into New Belgium. But the airship never landed. No wreckage was ever found. It just vanished, somewhere over the Atlantic.

Later. He fiddled listlessly with the synth. Nothing sounded right. Everything was there, but something was missing.

Later. He played as if the machine were his enemy, as if he could trade the life of the Beast for that of his mother.

Later. Zeck tried to block the doorway. His father held a toolbox. “We have to sell it, Zeck. I thought we were done running, but we're not. We can't stay here, and we need the money.”

“I'll get money. We can't sell it, it's not even finished!”

“It'll never be finished.”

That was the last night in the house in Dayton. His father dismantled the Beast gently. Methodically. After he went to sleep, Zeck packed as much of it as he could into a suitcase. He wrapped his clothes in a sheet like a hobo's bindle. He paused at the door to his parent's bedroom, left ajar by his father, who slept fitfully. Zeck waved goodbye without a word, without trying to wake him. That was the last he'd seen of his father.

For a split second, all was blank.

Zeck was back in the truck, disoriented as if waking from a dream. Unlike a dream, the memories stuck. He could still smell the old house. Feel the worn stickers on the keyboard. The final notes of The Ballad of Ruby Cadence were ringing in the air.

“What just happened?” Zeck asked. He turned around. Where the dark rectangle had been, there was now an open door leading into the building. Steven's mouth hung open. John wiped a tear from his cheek with the sleeve of his robe. Even Chad's neutral expression showed cracks around the edges.

“You were like a man possessed,” said Bob.

“I can't say I'm a fan of squeak-squawk bleep-bloop music,” said the Colonel. “But you managed to open the door. Well done.” He stood in the doorway and peered into the gloom. “I've sent a message for the Tephra to bring the horses,” he said. “This will make a good shelter for the night, provided there are no traps inside. Captain Jaut, you'll go in first and do a sweep. And be quick about it.”

        *

If the vaguely block-shaped heaps held together by kudzu's embrace could still be called buildings, the overgrown lanes that ran between them could only be called streets in the broadest sense of the word. Sheryl and Captain Irving stuck close to the walls, soundless, shadows in the weeds. After they'd gone about a quarter of the way around the clearing's perimeter, Sheryl relaxed a little. She sent a HUD message to Irving, “Minimal risk. Stay alert.”

A little while later, she broke radio silence. “Let's take a break,” she said. She sat down on something that might have been a bench at one point. It was covered in a plush moss the color of emeralds. She pulled off her mask.

Captain Irving stood at ease, staring straight ahead in the direction they'd been moving. Sheryl looked down the street, but didn't see anything.

“You can have a seat, if you like, Irving.” Sheryl patted the bench. “Or find your own, if I make you nervous. I only bite if provoked.” After a moment, she added, “That's meant to be a joke.”

Irving hesitated, but finally took a seat next to Sheryl. She reached up, paused, lowered her hands, reached up again and took her mask off.

“It's nice here,” said Sheryl. “Peaceful.”

Irving nodded. “It's a little spooky, though.”

“You think so?”

Irving shrugged. “Maybe I'm just not used to the wilderness. I've been in the woods before, but only if you count Attle Park as the woods. It's not like this.”

Sheryl didn't reply. She just gazed up at the canopy.

“You're not worried we're letting our guard down?” said Irving.

“I don't ever let my guard down,” said Sheryl. “But if it'll make you feel better, we can keep moving.” She took a deep breath before putting her mask back on. “I just thought I might like it here, for a minute or two.”

Irving put her mask back on, too. “But you don't?” she asked over the radio. “Like it here?”

Sheryl didn't answer. She got up and motioned for Irving to follow.

“Permission to ask you a question?” said Irving after a minute.

“Granted,” said Sheryl.

“Do you- Is it true you've seen Plumwine up close?”

“Where did you hear that?” said Sheryl.

“Everybody says it.”

“Everybody?”

“Well, not everybody. It's a rumor. Among... some of the Sparassa.”

“I saw him briefly,” said Sheryl after a moment.

“So it's true about the task force?” said Irving. “You led a top secret squad into Arteria to assassinate Lord Plumwine?”

“Assassination was a secondary objective,” said Sheryl. “It was primarily an intelligence gathering mission. It went poorly.”

“But you saw him? Face to face, or over vid?”

Sheryl stopped walking. She didn't answer.

“I'm sorry,” said Irving. “I should be quiet. I don't mean to pry. I probably don't have clearance to know these things, anyway.”

“No, it's all right,” said Sheryl. She dug in her utility belt for something. It was a pill. Her hand shook as she fed it through a port between her chelicerae. “If you're here, you have the clearance. Anyway, I think the cat's out of the bag as far as the Arterians go.” She started back down the street. Irving walked beside her. “We were face to face. Plumwine and me. Closer than I ever want to get again.”

“What was it like? I've heard- well, I've heard a lot of things.”

“What are they saying?”

“There are so many rumors, but- They say he dug into the ice and rock, dug down until he found a cache of ancient Saurosapien technology buried there. And he used that to build his army of clones, but it turned him into a monster.”

“Hm.” Sheryl considered for a moment. “Where to begin? It's true, he's hardly human anymore. He has stretched and pulled his flesh like taffy, lifted his skin as if it were a blanket and plucked his tissues like seeds from a fruit, drilled and drawn from every square centimeter of a body that has grown and warped and crept its way along the ducts and conduits and corridors of his compound until there is not a room he does not touch, nor a corner he does not see. He has, over the years, abducted, tortured, and deranged a few hundred outsiders. But it is his own flesh from which he grows the clones that people his halls. It is a castle built by and for and from himself. He is the lord and he is the jester and he is the serf. He is as much a part of its walls as the ice and the rock. Once, long ago, years before the Empire had revealed itself to the world, you would not have known Plumwine from anybody else you passed on the street. But now? In form? He's more like the ones that some call gods. Pray you never meet one of those, either.

“That is not what makes him a monster, though. None of his transformation has changed who he is inside. To the contrary; he has warped his flesh to match his boundless ego, and now he would spread the sickness of his empty heart until the world collapses into itself like a rotten harvest. If there was any good within him, it withered long before the Empire sent him into exile at the bottom of the world. Why else would they take such drastic steps? No prison, no execution? He must have been truly rotten from the beginning to deserve such a sentence.

“And if that wasn't true before, it certainly is now. Any chance that he could be redeemed, any chance that he could turn back upon himself and leave the path that he has paved, any chance of that died long ago with the world that Emperor Vincent killed. He is a fetid wound, a bloviating parasite, driven only by love for himself and hate for all others, as like to a man as a shit is to a peach.”

Irving held in a laugh. “Sorry, that all sounds horrible. It's just- That's the first time I've heard you swear,” she said.

“Sorry,” said Sheryl.

“No worries,” said Irving. “It just took me by surprise, is all. I'm sorry if I offended you. That's the most I've every heard you say, as well. By far. I apologize if I touched a nerve. Not that- I didn't mean...”

“You're fairly new to the Sparassa, aren't you? Practically a Spiderling.”

“I've been in for a little while. I went straight from the academy to the Funnel. Graduated last year. This is my second deployment.”

“You must have gotten high marks,” said Sheryl. “Most take an intermediate course somewhere before going into the Funnel.”

“My mother was Sparassa,” said Irving. “I guess I wanted to make her proud.”

“You're not an orphan?” said Sheryl.

“No. Both my parents are still around.”

“I only ask because it's fairly common for Sparassa to come from the Orphan Sponsorship program.”

Irving nodded. “They told us that in one of our classes. Eighty percent of all Funnel graduates, I think they said. Are you? A sponsored orphan, I mean? You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to. You don't have to do anything I say. You're my commander. Now I'm babbling. I'm not being very professional, I know.”

“Not very,” said Sheryl. “And there was a time, not so long ago, when it would have bothered me greatly. But to be honest, it doesn't bother me at all anymore. To answer your question, yes, I am an orphan. A 'Child of War.' But that's neither here nor there. What district are you from?”

“Cornerstone. Seaside.”

“Nice area,” said Sheryl.

“I guess so.”

“Any brothers or sisters?”

“No. I'm an only child. I have a few cousins, though. One in the Tephra. I've been trying not to think about him since the attack, but... I hope he's okay.”

“You said your mother was Sparassa. What did your father do?”

“He's a baker. Runs his own shop. Gets up at four o'clock every morning, just to get things ready.”

“Did you have to get up early and help?”

Irving laughed. “No, my parents wouldn't allow it. My studies always came first. He did teach me to bake, though. Sometimes I'd stop by after school with my friends and I'd help him make a batch of cookies or something. Two days a week, his apprentice ran the shop, so Dad would take the time to show me how to knead dough properly, or how to tell if something's ready or if it needs another few minutes in the oven. He once gave me a pet sourdough starter to take care of. I kept it alive for three years. I had to give it back when I enlisted. They still use it in the shop. He even named a special sourdough after me, with cheese and herbs baked into the loaf. He calls it 'Dani Bread.' Sorry, I'm rambling.”

“No need to apologize,” said Sheryl. “You can keep talking about your family if you want.”

Irving shrugged. “I try not to think about it, but I keep wondering if I'll see them again. We got lucky in the Hinterlands. And finding this place, I guess. But we're still a long way from anywhere.”

“It wasn't luck,” said Sheryl. “Not only luck, anyway. I saw you out there, on the battlefield. You're good at what you do. We all are. We stand a good chance of survival.”

“I hope so.”

“And listen, Captain. Danielle. I left the Sparassa for many reasons. And when we get back, I'll probably leave again. But that is not today. Right now, my only priority is keeping all of us alive and getting us home safe.” She looked over at Captain Irving, impossible to read through all that armor, both of their faces covered.

Captain Irving started to say something, but she was cut short by a blast of red and a series of symbols flashing across her HUD chat.

Sheryl got the message, too. “Distress signal,” she said. A second later, she was halfway down the road, her hydraulic greaves propelling her ten meters to a stride. She sent a message back to Irving, “Keep up.”

Zeck vs Colonel Destroyer 6: A Box of Wires

(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 structure was barely recognizable as a building from the North side. A single-story box of brick with earthen drifts sloping against the backside, they'd mistaken it for a small hill at first. Only when they came closer and saw the corners jutting out did its structure become apparent. A little distance away, a glittering spring gushed from a rocky mound. It ran through the clearing, between mossy stones and down a disconnected stretch of road before disappearing into a storm sewer.

Close by, a large circle of stones sat conspicuously in the open. In the center was a soggy pile of ash. “This is the 'ring of stone' the Speaker mentioned,” said John. “Meant for travelers who need a cook fire, or warmth. Or ritual. It should be safe to build a fire within it. As long as nobody goes around torching the foliage or anything.”

John closed his eyes and waved his staff across the floor of the clearing, moving it like an oar in a river. “The water is strong here,” he said. “I feel it twisting this way and that, beneath the ground, through a hundred pipes and tunnels and underground streams.” He let his staff lead him around the half-buried building. “And this,” he said, pointing at the building. “There is strength here of another kind. Of many kinds.” A box truck was backed up to the South wall of the building at a wonky angle, with only a few feet to spare. Its tires were rotted or eaten completely away, leaving its rusting wheels half-buried in the dirt. A constant loop of muffled chirping sang out from the trailer, as if a menagerie of exotic birds were caged inside. Kudzu covered all.

“Be so good as to clear away the flora, Derman,” said the Colonel. “Let's see what we've found.”

John whispered something dark, and the vines retreated from the building's walls, taking along their roots and grabbers. Brick upon brick fell to the ground, their mortar turned to dust by years of grasping, digging vines. The cinder blocks used to brick up the windows fell away, too. Behind it all was a cube of steel, welded tight. The slightest movement of air sent ripples of light across its surface, the tell-tale shimmer of enchantment.

After the noise of the falling bricks faded away, the looping chirps and tweets rose again from the back of the truck, louder than before.

“What is this place?” said the Colonel.

“A shop of some kind, I'd guess,” said John. He tapped a wooden board that lay among the bricks. It was all that remained of an old sign. “Looks like a cup of coffee, but the paint's too faded to make out the words. Whatever it was, it must have been repurposed as a shelter during the war. Could be Resistance, like you were looking for. Could be military.”

“What kind of enchantments are we looking at, Chad?” the Colonel asked.

Chad unfurled his Scrowall and scanned the structure. “A physical ward, a thaumatic ward, and at least one more, but I can't tell what flavor. It's a very strong combination. The scanner estimates ninety point three percent resistance to physical attacks. Eighty-three point nine resistance to thaumaturgy.”

“Strong for three decades ago, perhaps,” said the Colonel. He zapped it with his thaumaturgical wand, but it had no apparent effect. “Can you dispel these wards, Derman?”

“I can give it a shot, but I never really trained in that kind of thing. My specialty was water magic during the war. I'm a herpemancer now. Enchanted steel bunkers are more of a battle mage thing. But I'll take a look at it.” He ran his fingers over the surface of the wall. He gave it a sniff, tapped it with his staff, pressed his ear against it. Finally, he gave it the smallest of licks. He shook his head. “This is a pretty advanced defensive shell. Whoever built this shelter, they really wanted to protect what was inside.”

“Well, at least you gave it your best shot,” said the Colonel. “Strauss, I assume you're proficient in breaking and entering?” said the Colonel.

“I don't know why you'd assume that about me,” said Zeck. “I mean, I have found my way into a few secure locations, but that's neither here nor there.”

“There must be an entrance,” said the Colonel. He tapped the enchanted plating. “Anything that can be shut can be opened.”

“Where would we even begin?” said Zeck. “There's no lock. There's no door. No window. All of the seams are welded shut.”

“We'll have to excavate it,” said the Colonel. “Nothing is impenetrable. They wouldn't build a bunker or a shelter without a means of ingress. They'd need water and electricity, presumably. There's likely to be an access point underneath the building. Perhaps there's an old sewer tunnel nearby. Damn the noise!” He spun around, drawing his sword and slashing at the vines on the box truck all in one motion. Two vines grew back for every one he severed. “It would be much easier to think without that incessant chirping,” he said.

John whispered again and waved his hands. The kudzu covering the truck's rear door parted like a curtain. The doors themselves were missing, leaving the truck wide open. The vines retreated from the vehicle as they had from the wall, revealing a strange tableau. A human figure sat hunched on a stool, one hand on a keyboard and the other hanging like the pendulum of a clock. He stood and turned to the company.

“Your bones are plenty,” whispered John.

The figure in the truck was another skeleton, though less adorned than the one that had spoken for the forest. His eye sockets were empty. As the vines retreated from the truck and from his body, his tattered clothes fell away. His bones clattered to the floor one by one. His skull toppled from its spine and rolled across the keyboard, playing a ghoulish arpeggio that faded to silence as the tendrils crawled back from the towering console behind the keyboard.

“Why did it have to be another skeleton?” said Zeck.

“Bones can't hurt you,” said Bob.

“I wouldn't say 'can't,'” said John. “Probably won't.”

“Those clothes,” said the Colonel, pointing at the rags now heaped on the floor of the truck. “That's a Resistance uniform. This is a Resistance bunker. That settles it. We won't rest until we've found a way in.” He ran his gloved fingers over the steel wall of the building and scratched at it with his magic wand some more. It didn't leave a mark, but made a sound like hot metal on dry ice. “They could have stashed anything in there. Weaponry, arcane artifacts, secrets about their tactics thought lost to the ages. There may even be a means of contacting the Isle. I'm willing to bet the interior is incredibly well preserved. A structure like this could withstand armor piercing gunfire, earthquakes, a direct hit from a bomb, demi-thaumatic or not, and all manner of elemental attacks.”

“But what about termites?” said Zeck.

“It's brick and steel, not wood,” said the Colonel. He stepped up into the truck. “What is that heap of junk behind the keyboard? Some ancient computer? A control panel for a weapons array?”

Towering over the keyboard where the skeleton had sat was a wall of knobs and switches, cable ports and LEDs. The whole setup was composed of dozens of boxes, most no bigger than a bookmark. Many were made of metal, but there was a scattering of wooden panels with arcane glyphs burnt into them. Cables dangled from some of the ports, but most of the plugs were empty. Little footprints remained where the vines had recently been.

“It's a synthesizer,” said Zeck.

“It doesn't look like any synthesizer I've ever seen,” said the Colonel. “Very primitive. Loose cords. A thousand knobs. What does it make? Textiles? Food rations?”

“Music,” said Zeck, pointing at the keyboard. “It's a modular synthesizer. One of the strangest I've ever seen, and I've seen quite a few.” He climbed up into the truck next to the Colonel and switched on his electric torch. “I know what most of these modules do, but some of them are complete mysteries to me. This one doesn't have a port or anything, just a pictogram. This one just has a keyhole and a drawing of a broken egg. And why is it here in the first place, backed up to a shielded bunker with a Resistance skeleton at the controls?”

“Oh,” said Steven. “I get it now.” He tapped the steel plating that covered the building. “It's a Melody Lock.”

“I doubt that,” said Bob. “It wouldn't be very secure. People use Melody Locks on their diaries. Other people, not me. If anybody knows what song it's been programmed with, they can open the lock. I've heard. From a friend.”

“The ones the Resistance used were a little more advanced than that,” said Steven. “For these, you can't just sing it, or play it on a flute or whatever. They were complex compositions that you had to have precise equipment to play. They'd record them on shiny discs called seedees that stored music. The seedees were encrypted, and they would only play in special modified players. Of course, you could hack them if you knew how, so if they really wanted to keep something secure, they'd assign a bard to it. The bards wrote music with hidden messages that they used to communicate with each other and identify fellow Resistance fighters. But they also held the keys to the locks, so to speak. Even an encrypted seedee can fall into the wrong hands, and encryptions can be cracked. But a bard can't be forced to play if he doesn't want to. Try to force him, and he's bound to fuck it up anyway. Too many mistakes, and whoever's trying to get in gets fried. Most of the locks were booby-trapped.”

“How do you know so much about the Resistance?” Zeck asked Steven.

“Matthew knew. It was- is a special interest of his. They taught a little bit of it in school, but only the basics. And a lot of the text was expurgated. And I didn't go to school a whole lot, anyway. But I helped Matthew do his research on the Web.”

“What you're saying is that all we have to do is play the right tune on this electric piano machine, and the door will open?” said the Colonel.

“Yeah, but what song?” said Steven. “It looks like that poor sod yanked as many cables as he could before he kicked the bucket. He probably scrambled the knobs, too.”

“He broke the key, so to speak,” said John. “Probably just as the bombs of the Retort were falling. He died protecting the people in the bunker.”

“If you lose the key to your house, you call a locksmith,” said the Colonel. He looked at Zeck. “Or a locksport enthusiast. Strauss, you've expressed familiarity with this machine. You can play it.” It wasn't a question.

“I can play it if we can even get it working,” said Zeck, “but there's no way of telling how they had it patched. I can make music with it, but there's a million different ways to set it up.”

“Chad, can you fix the synthesizer?”

“I'm afraid I lack the expertise,” said Chad. “I have extensive musical training on the salpinx, the rhoptron, and of course the lyre, but my knowledge of electronic audio synthesis is limited to vocal reproduction.”

“Give me a soldering iron and I can fix anything that's broken,” said Steven, “but I'm not much of a musician. And I have to agree with the pirate; it would take a hundred years to figure out how to patch the thing. And we still don't know what song they used, or if it's an original comp their bard came up with.”

“What would really help is if we could find their patch sheet,” said Zeck. “It's a sort of instructional diagram for the synthesizer. Tells you where to put the cables and which toggles to flip. Where to turn the knobs and everything. This is just too big, too complex of a setup for guesswork. There's far too many possible combinations. And this guy's certainly not talking.” He tapped the skull's forehead. Its jaw fell open, as if to speak. Zeck shrieked. The Colonel cackled with amusement.

Zeck's wits came back to him when he noticed something in the skull's mouth glinting in the electric torchlight. He plucked it out with his thumb and forefinger. It was a small brass key. “He must have tried to swallow it,” he said. He peered into the skull's mouth. “This guy had terrible teeth. That one's worn down to a point.” He ran his tongue over the caps on his own teeth.

“As I said,” said the Colonel, “a key for every lock.” He took the key from Zeck. It fit perfectly into the keyhole under the symbol of the broken egg on the synthesizer rack, but it wouldn't turn. The Colonel fiddled it back and forth, but any more force would have bent it. “It must have corroded,” he said. “At least now we know this lock is important. It could be the crux of the entire puzzle. You'll have to pick it, Strauss.”

“Careful,” said Bob. “It could be booby-trapped.”

“With my luck, it will be,” said Zeck. He reached to pull the key from the lock. A static spark jumped from the metal to his finger. He flinched away, but as the initial reflex wore off, he felt a strange attraction to the key. Instead of removing it, he gave it a turn. The lock turned smoothly this time, as if it had never resisted in the first place. “I guess it just needed some loosening,” said Zeck.

“So it seems,” said the Colonel.

Inside the box was a sheet of paper, folded twice. Zeck unfolded it to find a complex hand-drawn diagram. It looked like the scribblings of a lunatic. Rectangles full of circles that vaguely resembled the synthesizer's mods had dozens of lines connecting them and scribbled notes written in every direction.

“Would that happen to be a patch sheet?” said the Colonel.

Zeck nodded.

“And you can read it.” Again, it wasn't a question.

“It's a little beat up. And a little unusual. I might need John's help interpreting these sigils. Sure, I can do it, but it's going to take some time. Probably want to move the skeleton first. And dust a little bit.”

“Set to work, then.”

Zeck waved the patch sheet. “Even with this, there's no guarantee we'll get it exactly as they had it. And we still don't know what we're supposed to be playing.”

“One problem at a time,” said the Colonel. “I have a feeling a solution will present itself to you.”

        *

Captains Solomon and Corrigan crept through the woods, stealthy as the spiders they were dressed to resemble. They were close enough to the treeline to see the clearing, but far enough into the woods to have ample cover.

Corrigan sent a HUD message to Solomon; a reddish hue that pointed the way to a possible target.

Solomon looked where the HUD pointed her. Off through the trees, a deer was drinking from a creek. It was a buck, healthy and muscular. Solomon replied with a 'negative.'

Corrigan sent his message again, with additional symbols for emphasis.

Solomon responded in the negative again, and kept moving.

“Oh, come on,” said Corrigan over the radio comm. “We seldom have a chance like this. It's right there. It'll take no time at all to take it down.”

“We're only halfway around,” said Solomon. “You heard the Lieutenant. No hunting here. It's too risky.”

Corrigan scoffed. “The Lieutenant. Why is she even here? I heard she left the Sparassa to join the Imperial Guard. That Captain Jaut was her partner. That fucking twit, her partner, driving a paddywagon back and forth, delivering perps to court. A glorified bus driver. You don't leave the Sparassa to become a fucking attercop unless there's something wrong with you, or you royally fucked up somehow.”

“Irving thinks that maybe she was undercover. That she never really left, but she was gathering intel or something.”

“And you believe that?” Corrigan snickered.

“Not my business,” said Solomon. “I have no love for the Lieutenant, but she's my commander. That's all that matters. Anyway, the Colonel certainly thinks highly of her. Do you want to tell him that he's made a mistake?”

“I'm sure he has his reasons. And I'll follow any order he gives me. But that doesn't mean I have to kowtow to Sheryl.”

“The Colonel can listen in on these conversations, you know,” said Solomon.

Corrigan froze. He snorted. “He's not listening to this. Not that I'd care if he was. I speak my mind to him all the time. The Corrigans are one of the most trusted families in the military.”

“Yeah, but you weren't born a Corrigan. And the Colonel knows that, too.”

“Whatever,” said Corrigan. “War Children are born on the battlefield. You think the Lieutenant was born a Teymore? You must be color blind.” He extended his wristblades with a faint snik. “I'm taking down this deer. You can have my back, or you can go off on your own without your partner and see how the Lieutenant likes that. Last chance to share the credit when I stroll into camp with a venison feast on my shoulders.”

He stalked off in the direction of the deer. Solomon sighed, but followed. She knew it was a bad idea, but it would have been worse to leave him behind. “You can keep the credit and the blame,” she said. “This is idiotic.”

“Stick to HUD chat from here,” Corrigan said. “Your voice is distracting.”

The woods were darker the farther they got from the clearing. Captain Solomon switched on her eyepiece's multi-spectrum viewer. Something struck her as odd about the deer, but she couldn't put her finger on it. As they drew closer, she got a better look at the creature, and it quickly became obvious. It wasn't exactly a deer. It was a chimera, one of the countless mutant hybrids that had emerged from the war. Above the shoulders, it was like any other buck. From the neck back, it was covered in armadillo-like plates. Its armored section was the size of an elephant. Its limbs were proportional to its body, but they looked more like those of a rabbit. The hind legs were taut and muscular, spring-loaded levers ready to leap at any moment. Solomon messaged Corrigan. “Too big. Armor. Few weak spots.”

“Neck. Easy kill,” he sent back. He crept up to the beast from the side, his wrist blades fully extended.

The buck seemed not to have noticed either of them. Solomon crept around the other side, inching closer as she went. Now she had a full view of the animal, from head to tail. Something seemed off about the creature. Something not quite right, even for a strange hybrid. She zoomed in with her eyepiece and toggled between settings. When she hit infrared, she knew what was wrong. “Not neck,” she sent Corrigan, marked urgent. “Tail. Stop. Retreat.”

Corrigan returned a general inquisitive signal. He was close enough to strike now. The deer head lifted from the stream. A moment too late, Corrigan realized what Solomon's message had meant; it wasn't the creature's head, but its tail, with an antler-tipped flail on the end. It moved fast, like a snake. The neck of the tail slid up and out of its armored shell, lengthening as it rose. It swung away from Corrigan, raising its false nose as if to sniff the air, then swung back like a whip. He dove to the ground and rolled away, springing back up onto his feet in an instant. He turned to the creature, raising his blades to slice through the tail if it swung back in his direction. As fast as he was, he was too slow. The deer-headed flail was already moving straight for him. It smacked him in the chest, knocking him off his feet. One of the antlers struck his chestplate, skittered off and snagged on his coif.

The coif was made of tactical silk dyed black, the strongest armor-grade fabric produced in the Churlian spider farms. It could withstand a slash from a razor-sharp blade. When struck by a bullet, it congealed instantly, stopping the shot and absorbing most of the impact. But it could still be pierced, under the right circumstances. And the antler was pointed, and needle-sharp. It pierced the silk and kept going, straight through Corrigan's shoulder and out the other side, hooking him like a fish. The impact lifted Corrigan off his feet and tossed him backwards. The piercing point twisted and turned on its way out of his shoulder, ripping flesh and scraping a deep gouge into his collarbone. Blood sprayed. Corrigan screamed. His mouthpiece swallowed the sound, but Solomon heard it in the comm. He landed with a thump. He kept screaming, louder and shriller, no words, only sounds of pain. Solomon muted the feed from Corrigan's radio.

The deer head swung to the side, then swiftly back. Solomon dived out of the way and circled around to the other end of the chimera. It seemed to sense her movements, even before it could see her. “If that's the tail, this must be the head,” she thought. Sure enough, the part they'd thought to be its tail lifted off the ground. Its armored segments peeled back, revealing a face like that of an opossum. Its forehead and snout were covered in armor. The only vulnerable spot was its mouth, which measured five feet from corner to corner. Its teeth were the size of daggers, and looked as sharp. Captain Solomon could smell its breath, danker than a butcher's dumpster. Its teeth parted with a warning hiss, showing a red dark cavern just big enough to fit a human.

“Nope,” said Solomon. She crouched, then jumped straight up and landed on a tree branch well above the creature. It sniffed the air. Its tail slowed, weaving to and fro like a cobra.

The creature turned toward Captain Corrigan, who lay on his back where he'd landed, clutching at his torn shoulder, flinching away, then clutching it again, as if every motion made the pain worse. The chimera sniffed its way over to him.

Solomon sent an emergency override to Corrigan's armor. Once she was linked in, she sent a command to his helm. A shrill note, inaudible to humans but sickening to certain other animals, emitted from Corrigan's mouthpiece. The chimera shrank back immediately, but only for a second. The noise seemed to make it angry, and it moved as if to swat at Corrigan. Solomon took aim with her spider gun. She shot a wad of weavers at the deer head on the end of the tail. It hit right between the dark spots of its false eyes. The weavers couldn't do much about the antlers, which poked right through the webbing, but the end of the tail was nicely wrapped in off-white silk. It didn't have much of an effect on its movement, but Solomon's primary intent was to distract the beast. It worked. The chimera turned around to see what had attacked it from behind.

Solomon knew she wouldn't have much time. She leapt from one tree to another until she was close enough to drop down next to Corrigan. She sent another command that told his suit to stiffen, keeping him from moving. She hoped it would prevent his injuries from worsening when she did the next bit. She put one arm underneath his body and grabbed him around the waist. She raised her right arm and leapt again, extruding a length of web rope at the same time. Even with hydraulic greaves built into her suit, she couldn't jump quite as high with Corrigan's added weight, but the rope stuck where she wanted it to. She found herself hanging ten meters above the ground, with the rope in one hand and Corrigan in the other.

The chimera had wandered back their way. It was close enough to spit on, pacing back and forth. It thrashed its tail against the trees and the ground, trying to clean off the webbing. The deer head swished through the air and crashed into the tree they hung from, shaking their branch. A rivulet of blood ran from Corrigan's shoulder down his stiffened arm to the tip of his finger. A drop welled there for a moment, then fell. It landed on the creature's face. It reared back. Solomon wasn't sure it could see them, but now it knew they were there.

There was an emergency beacon in her utility belt, but she didn't have a hand or an inch to spare. She'd have to rely on her radio. “DISTRESS,” she sent, first through HUD chat and then over the comm to anybody who could receive it, “Soldier down.” She hoped the signal would carry.

Zeck vs Colonel Destroyer 5: Fear is an Echo

(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 ground was littered with luminescent flakes. The Colonel scooped up a handful and held them to his face. “What are they?” he asked.

“Chaff,” said John. He picked up one of the flakes between his thumb and forefinger. It looked like the petal of a flower. It pulsed with white light. He sniffed it. Its light briefly dimmed as he inhaled. “It's shed by the forest, like a snake sheds its skin.”

“What use does it have?” said the Colonel.

“Depends on your purpose,” said John. He picked up a few more petals and rubbed them between his palms, rolling them into tiny cigar shapes. As he rolled the chaff, the light left it, went somewhere else, and a dozen baby snakes fell from his hands. They slithered into the undergrowth and were gone.

“Collect some of that, Chad,” said the Colonel. “We may find a use for it.”

“What have we here?” said Zeck. A metallic object shaped like a tin can stuck halfway out of the dirt. It had a chrome finish that was still surprisingly shiny.

“Careful with that,” said John.

“What is it?” asked the Colonel. Zeck turned the object over in his hands. A small amount of gritty dust sprinkled out.

“I'm not one hundred percent certain,” said John, “but it has the look of an irker.”

“What's a nerker?” said Zeck.

“An. Irker,” said John. “Little devices that fly around, making noise and flashing lights. Resistance used them to confuse targeting systems and distract soldiers. An annoyance, mostly.”

Zeck shook the irker next to his ear.

“Although, they did sometimes put explosives inside,” said John.

Zeck tossed the irker away reflexively. Everybody braced for an explosion, but all that came was a low-pitched whine that drooped into silence.

Steven turned the irker over with his boot. “I could probably do something with this,” he said. “I bet the power source is shot, but it might have some components we can use. We can always use scrap for repair. Or for cobbling together weapons, shields, communicators, stuff like that.”

“If you think it's useful, by all means,” said the Colonel. “Toss it in the horse. Make a note of all new inventory, Chad.”

John led them on through the ruins. His staff dipped toward the ground. He sniffed. “The river,” he said. “It runs beneath. Through the middle. It comes in coal black. The forest drinks it up and spits it out clean, pure and clear.”

“You're starting to sound like the skeleton nymph,” said the Colonel.

“This way,” said John. “There's something different. A quiet place. A box of wires. It sleeps.”

        *

“Bloody dryads,” said Corporal Bunting. “They've got the sack to build a forest on a perfectly good ruins, but they whip out the thorns and vines as soon as they whiff a little fire. I don't know what it's so mad about; most forests like a good fire now and then. Believe me, I know.” He looked around, as it to see if the woods were listening. “If we ever get back to Churlia, I'm coming back here with a raisin squad. And I'm bringing marshmallows.”

“What's a raisin squad?” asked Murkle.

“Comes from R-A-Z razing,” said Bunting. “That's what they do. They just raze everything in sight. Lay it out nice and smooth. A well-cleared land is the foundation of Empire. Do it right, and you can lay a city out as easy as spreading a picnic blanket.”

“Ah,” said Murkle. “It's not to be done lightly, you know.”

“Wassat?”

“Burning. It shouldn't be done cavalierly.”

“No, no, of course not,” said Bunting. “I take it very seriously as a profession. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy it.” He elbowed Murkle, who didn't reply. “Anyway, I thought you Caustics were all about the fire and consumption.”

“I'm not Consumptive Caustic. I'm from the reformed branch of the Church. We believe in a world of balance. And fire doesn't always mean literal flame. There's also the phlox that sustains all life.” He looked around at the clearing and took a deep breath. “It smells like water here. I smelled it when we entered the forest, but it's even stronger here in the clearing. Like fresh rain and hose water, mixed together.”

Bunting sniffed. “I can't smell much of anything these days. Took a flame spout right up the nose a few years back. Pretty much burned away whatever it is you use to smell with. Can't taste much, either, as a result.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Murkle.

Bunting shrugged. “I never got that much out of food, anyway. Just shovel it in. Never cared if it was hamburger or filet mignon. In fact, I'd prefer the hamburger; less chewing. And it's not like I work in a flower shop. If you've ever been inside of a Submag, you'll know that between the chemicals, the sweat, and the indigestion, not being able to smell anything is short of a godsend. Your people might really believe that, I guess. Seeing as it was fire that did my sniffer in.”

“That which destroys also sustains,” said Murkle. “It's rich here. I can feel it. There's phlox in every lamplight.”

“You really like it here, eh?” said Bunting.

“It's... invigorating. It's also quite discomfiting. I feel a joy in my heart when I take a breath. But also a heaviness. As the impure flame casts smoke, there's still much that's unclean in this place.”

“Well, I'll say this much for it,” said Bunting, gazing up at the canopy. “You can't see that nasty purple sky in here.”

Murkle followed his gaze. “A blessing, to be sure.”

“Do you figure it's some sort of bad omen? The purple sky?”

“I don't believe in omens,” said Murkle. “Do you?”

“No, I just thought,” Bunting started, then started again. “I never really studied Causticism. I mean, we all went to the services when I was in the academy. Maybe not every week, but at least a couple of times. I may or may not have been a tad hung over during the sermons. It was a good show, though. I mean, not show, I didn't mean that, it's just, they did some things I never seen before, all the firework stuff... I didn't mean to call it a show.”

“It's all right,” said Murkle. “The fire dancing is very beautiful. And I do enjoy the fire breathers. On Solstices, there are full-body conflagrations and elemental torsion sculpting.”

“I've no idea what half of that means.”

Murkle smiled. “It means they put on a good show.”

“I've never been to a Solstice service. Not at any of the temples, anyway. There's a Caustic monk on every ship, and they always do a reading and a little bit of flash-and-burn. I've been in the Tephra for thirty years, but I never had much of an interest in the Church. I know it's all about fire, and you burn your skin with that stick every morning. And you've got all them sigils on your head. But, I don't know. I figured maybe the purple sky was a sign of the end times, or something.”

“Not in Causticism,” said Murkle. “But perhaps it is, anyway. Plumwine's influence grows. And we are but few, cut off from home and help.”

“A bit of a dour outlook, that.”

“Sorry,” said Murkle.

“Don't be sorry,” said Bunting. “It's the most I've heard you say since I met you. You're not the most talkative fellow. They don't make you take a vow of silence back at the temple, do they?”

“No,” said Murkle. “We don't do vows of silence. We just tend to be... poorly socialized. Those raised in the Pyrosterion tend to stay in the Pyrosterion. It's not forbidden to leave, but most don't, save for small errands.”

“What, you mean they spend their whole lives there? Grow old and die, all in the temple?”

“Well, some leave when they come of age. Some stay. Some don't join until later in life. But yes, there are those who spend their entire lives in service to the temple.”

“So, what made you wanna leave? If you don't mind my asking.”

“I was looking for a more active way to serve. The war was a victory for the Empire, but for the Caustics, it was a disaster. To this day, the Tephra are associated with Consumptive Causticism. Most of the Caustic monks who serve in the military are from the Consumptive order. But most of us aren't like that. All destruction and death. Most Caustics find it vulgar. Brother Orso suggested I join the Tephra so that I might present an example of the good we can do in the world. Show that we can help instead of hurt. Father Tuin was against it. He's my old mentor. He may be the wisest Caustic in our order, but I don't think he understands why I chose to join. If I can bring him stories of people we've helped, lost souls we've converted to Causticism, wounds we've healed, of both body and soul, I think maybe he'll understand. Of course, I've yet to have a chance to do any of that, but I haven't been out here long.”

“So, this is truly your first deployment?”

Murkle nodded. “After graduation, I had a fortnight to spend in the Pyrosterion, to say my goodbyes. Then they shipped me to Brazil. I spent two days there before Colonel Destroyer came and collected us. Said it was a secret mission, and he needed all the Tephra he could get.”

“So, back in the Hinterlands,” said Bunting, “that was your entire squad.”

Murkle nodded. “Didn't get a chance to know them, really. Except for Brother Thomas and Sister Caren. They grew up in the Temple, too.”

“I lost my squad, too,” said Bunting. “Some of them I've served with since the beginning. Martin Hannick, now he was a good soldier. Nobody else could do a controlled burn like him. Very focused. Aaron Bolcomb was the best magma nav I ever plumbed with. I knew both of 'em since grade school. I guess I'm the only one left now. Same for you, I guess. Damn shame for your mates to go so young.”

“They're all Equal now,” said Murkle.

“And you believe that, even though the Colonel didn't let you do the rites?”

“Ash is ash,” said Murkle. “The rites are for the community. They're important, but the fire is what really matters.”

“Does it help? Knowing that they're 'Equal?'”

“It brings a sort of sense of peace,” said Murkle. “It settles the unquiet world. Flame is flame and ash is ash.”

Bunting didn't say anything for a while. The forest was quiet, in the way that forests are.

“Are you feeling better since the incident with the vines?” Murkle asked.

“No worse than a hangover,” said Bunting. “I might take those pills in a minute, though.

“Permission to ask you a question that may be personal?” said Murkle.

“Fire away,” said Bunting.

“Who's Gary?”

“Gary?”

“Right after you hit the tree, when you regained consciousness, you called me Gary.”

“Ah, yeah. I suppose I remember that. Just a little addled from getting my bell rung, I suppose. I came to and saw you there, in the middle of the forest. A young Caustic cleric, head covered in sigils. I thought you were him for a second.” Bunting eyed Murkle. “There's some resemblance there. Gary was a Consumptive preacher. Joined the Tephra at the same time I did. We went through Crucible together. He was barely old enough. I guess I was, too. Hard to believe I was ever that young. He had the fire in him, all right. Boy, we raised hell in the Obsidian district after graduation.”

“You fought in the war together?”

“Nah, this was just after the war ended. I signed up as soon as I was old enough, but the treaty was ratified just before I came of age. I cursed my luck, but as it happened, and I'm sure you know, there was still plenty of fighting to be had. Rebel strongholds everywhere. This place reminds me a little bit of one of my first missions. We got sent in for a surprise attack on a rebel unit that'd fortified themselves in an old Aztec pyramid in the middle of a jungle. Or maybe it was Mayan. South American continent, anyway. I don't know much about that kind of stuff. Whatever it was, it's gone now.

“These rebels had been holed up there for months. Dense jungle all around, plenty of food and water to keep them going. Loads of weapons, magical wards, all that shit. They had protection on all sides, including the sky. And nobody had been able to take them from below by magma tunneling because they had a trans-dimensional heat sink under their pyramid. You know about those?”

“They covered the basic concept in Crucible,” said Murkle. “They keep the bedrock at a steady temperature, no matter how hot the magma gets underneath. I understand they do it by redirecting the heat energy into another dimension. I wasn't aware they were used for defense against the Tephra.”

“They're not anymore,” said Bunting, “and they haven't been for awhile now, because somebody figured out a way to break through the barrier no matter how effective the heat sink is. That's what the Vulcan Drill Mark III does. Just melts right through the rock like a laser beam through butter. Boy, we fired it up and burst right through. Turned that pyramid into a miniature volcano. Most of the rebels never even knew what hit 'em. They were caught in the eruption. Turned to cinders before they even had time to sweat.

“When we broke crust up top and marched out of the ship, there were only a handful of stragglers. We mopped most of them up real easy. They had guns and grenades and lightning magic, but we were ready for all that. We mopped the floor with them without a single casualty on our side. And only minor injuries. 'It's too easy,' Gary said. He had a huge grin on his face. Never liked to wear his mask. Said he liked the heat on his skin. I swear, you could see his sigils glowing red while he waved his flamespitter, torching what was left of their camp. Smoke everywhere.”

“I thought you said he was a preacher. He fought alongside you?”

“Oh, hell yeah. Like I said, he was Consumptive. He was a preacher all right, but he was no cleric. He signed up for combat. Wanted nothing more than to make it onto a raisin squad. He was right, though. When he said it was too easy. We got cocky. There was one rebel we'd missed. Their battle mage. To this day, I don't know if he had a premonition we were coming, or if he just happened to be out in the jungle away from camp when we got there.

“Anyway, we thought we were done. Their camp was an ash heap. We were ready to call it a day. The lava had cooled off by then and the ship was half-stuck, so we're going around hammering liquefaction stakes into the ground. You can start a lava flow without them, but they make it go a lot faster. Even if the shaft you came up through is still wet. But you have to place them in just the right spot, and you need all twelve of them in place or the melt will be lopsided, and that can be a disaster.

“So the ship is working on a slow melt in the middle of this hard lava field, and we've got about half the stakes in the ground. None of us saw it at first. The ground starts shaking, and we figure it's an earthquake. That happened once during a training drill. It's pretty common when you're breaking crust. Best thing to do is just get the ship moving and get out of there, so we keep working. Next thing I know, Martin Duffy, our mage, gets yanked into the air like he's flying. We look up, and a bunch of Tarzan vines are wrapped around his waist. He's just hanging upside-down in midair. His staff is dangling from a vine next to him, just out of reach.

“Before we can work out what's happening, a whole lake's worth of water comes pouring down on us. Sets the lava right back up again, with the ship stuck halfway submerged. There was nothing but steam in every direction. The air was just thick with it; we couldn't see nothing. I hear screamin' and yellin' from all around, and I still don't know what's going on, so I just stand there like an idiot, pointing my spitter this way and that.

“Captain Beryl comes on the radio and tells us to keep the liquefaction going, so I run blind through the fog, following the nav lines on my HUD, and drive another stake where the computer tells me to. All the while, there's horrific noise of shrieking and slashing and what sounds like trees falling down around us, and I don't know if the screaming is my squadmates or something else, so I just keep working. I manage to get one more stake in the ground before the steam starts to clear, and I see what the hell attacked us.

“It's like the jungle itself has stood up to fight back. This rebel mage had raised some kind of giant squid-plant monster out of the forest. If you thought the meat thing that chased us in here was big, this was bigger. And it completely surrounded us. I mean, it had thousands of arms made out of trees and vines it kept whipping around, hitting the ship, trying to hit our guys or pick them up. It wasn't shaped like a person, it was just a big old mass of living jungle. I really can't do it justice. It's one of those things you've just gotta see in person. It was studded all over with things that looked like Venus fly traps, only they were bigger than coffins, and they kept snapping at us. And pitcher plants, do you know what those are?” Murkle nodded. “That water they'd poured on us, it wasn't from a portal; it was a pitcher plant the size of a house. The wizard controlling it all was sitting in a chair woven out of branches, up in this tree at the center of the whole thing. Nothing could touch him. Gary emptied a whole magazine of explosive rounds at the guy, but every single shot was intercepted by a vine or something.

“We just needed one more stake in the ground if we wanted to make a quick getaway. But the place where it needed to go was on the opposite side of the ship from me, right in front of the rebel mage. I look around for someone who can cover me, and it's just Gary and me. Everybody else is gone. I look up and see Martin still dangling by his foot. One vine's holding him, and another is carrying his staff. The vine snakes over and hands the staff to the rebel mage. Now he's got two staves. And poor Martin. The big vine that's got him by the foot swings him right into a Venus fly trap. It snaps shut over him, with one of Martin's hands sticking out through the teeth.

“I have to get that stake in the ground so we can get out of there. Gary still doesn't have his helm on, and he doesn't have an earpiece, so I can't radio him. So I just yell, 'Cover me!' and I make a run for it. Gary knows what to do. He's got his rifle in one hand, firing incendiary bullets, and his flamespitter in the other, torching vines left and right. A big, gnarly vine swoops down to grab him, but it just burns up like a cigar before it can touch him.

“I run across the black-hard lava, around the ship, and manage to plant the stake right under that fucking plant wizard. Captain Beryl radios for us to get to the ship, but I'm already on my way. I yell for Gary to hoof it, but he's like a man possessed. He's letting loose with everything he's got; thermal grenades, incanters, switching back and forth between his rifle and his spitter. By now, he's surrounded by vines and limbs trying to get a piece of him. I whip out my flamespitter and manage to make a hole for Gary to get out through. We head toward the cool-dock, keeping our spitters flaming so the vines can't get too close. We're about to board when a twisted bunch of vines hauls up a chunk of what used to be the pyramid and slams it down on the dock. It splits in two and snaps off from the ship. Hot lava splashes up and burns the vines, but they've already done their damage.

“With the cool-dock busted and the lava melting fast, we'll have to swim to the ship, which isn't a problem for me, but Gary still doesn't have his mask on. Worse, he's left it in the ship. I take mine off and turn to give it to him. That's when I see his face. When that rock splashed down on the dock, a big splatter of lava hit him right in the head. His left eye's just a black hole, still smoldering. I can smell the flesh burning. But he grins at me, teeth sticking out where his left cheek used to be, and he takes my mask and shoves it onto my head. 'Get the fuck out of here,' he says, smiling all the while. Captain Beryl's in my ear, telling me to get to the ship, but I can't move. I just can't take my eyes off that smoking hole where Gary's eye used to be. Gary knows, though. He sees I'm frozen in place, and he knows my suit is all sealed up now. He knows if I get submerged, the plants can't get me and the ship will pick me up even if I can't swim. So he puts his hand flat on my chest and shoves. I fall backwards, and I'm about to take a plunge right into the magma when I feel something catch me.

“Even with all my armor on, I can tell that something's snaking its way around my body, lashing my legs together, pinning my arms to my sides. It lifts me into the air, and I see Gary rising up with me. He's been yanked up by his feet. Dropped both his weapons on the way up. Little tendrils keep growing out of the bigger vines, squeezing and pulling at him.” Bunting wiped at his face, flushed and dripping with sweat. He tore open the pill packet Chad had given him and swallowed them both with a long swig from his canteen. He sat down on a flat block of concrete and took a breath. “Murkle, have you ever seen a flash bomb?”

“They showed us one in basic training,” said Murkle. “It was quite bright. They told us not to look directly at it, even with our goggles on, but one of my bunkmates did. He was blind for three days. Had to wear regenerative contacts.”

“Bright as the Sun,” said Bunting. “And probably just as hot. I don't know what the alchemists put in 'em. Magnesium, I know, but that's not all. You can't put them out with water. You can't smother them. They just burn and burn, and just when you think they're about to fizzle and snuff out, that's when they blow.

“So Gary and I are both tangled up in these vines, and I can feel them trying to pull me apart, but my armor's enchantments are holding, at least for the time being. Gary wasn't so lucky. Those little tendrils crept in through his neck hole, into his suit. That was all they needed. They popped his armor apart from the inside, like peeling a banana. You could see sparks flying out when the enchantments dissolved. His chest plates just fell away. He's still got some pieces of armor on his arms and legs, just where the vines are holding him, but now they start to pull him in all directions. His left arm pops out of the socket. Blood sprays out. The vines let if fall, and it drops straight into a fly trap. You feeling okay?”

Murkle swallowed hard and waved his hand dismissively. “I'm well. Please, continue.”

“So the vines keep yanking at his right arm now, and I can see that he's got something clenched in his hand. He's bleeding out pretty bad, but he's still yanking back on the vines as hard as he can, making them work for it. I can feel the ones around me getting tighter and stronger, too, and I know it's just a matter of time before they crack my shell, too. They finally get his right arm popped off, and I shout when I see it happen, but Gary's not screaming or nothing. He's laughing, still with that grin on his face, even with that burnt-out hollow where his eye was. A second later, I realize what he's laughing about. His right hand unclenches when they yank his arm off. There's something there that he's been holding onto. It starts to glow. My mask dims the light, but I know just the same that it's a flash bomb. It plops into a pitcher plant, but like I said, water won't affect it. It starts to boil, and the bomb gets brighter and brighter. The wizard's forgotten about me, now, and he drops both me and Gary right into the lava. Everything goes black. Last thing I saw were the sigils of Gary's litany, burning like a brand.

“I woke up on the ship. They told me the flash bomb not only saved my life, it set the forest blazing. They widened up the lava pool before they dived, and the rebel mage fell right in. Burned to ash, just like Gary. I guess they're both Equal, huh?”

“I would say so,” said Murkle.

“Anyway, Seeing you standing there in the woods with the litany all over your head, living vines snaking around, I guess it put me in mind of Gary. Not to mention, I was slightly concussed at the time.”

“I can see why something like that would give you a fear of vines.”

“Fear of?” Bunting scoffed. “I'm not afraid of vines. We've got the Fornax on our side, right? I burned my fear away in the Crucible.”

“My apologies,” said Murkle. “I meant no insult.”

“No worries,” said Bunting. “You went through Crucible, too, but I keep forgetting that this is your first time out. I know you signed up as a cleric, but you're still a soldier. You burn away your weakness in the Crucible. 'Fear is an echo of weakness,' that's what they used to tell us. It's just a memory of before you were strong. And memories can't hurt you.”

Zeck vs Colonel Destroyer 4: Your Bones are Plenty

(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 Colonel didn't waste any time putting as much distance between the company and the Arterians as possible. Their robotic horses were synced to the Colonel's destrier. As long as they stayed within range, they'd move as a herd. Through a copse of long dead trees and over a hill, across a murky stream that hissed when they crossed, and back onto another broken highway they rode their robot horses.

They came to an area with more trees, the remains of a long-dead forest. Their skeletal trunks didn't provide much cover, but it was better than being in the open. The circle of meat seemed a safe distance away, and the Sunrise Window hadn't moved. Colonel Destroyer's voice boomed from the speaker in his helm, “Company halt! We need to formulate a plan. Chad, take another look at any satellite views you have of the area. I don't care if they were taken months or years ago; find something useful. Then see if you have any seismic data on this region. We could use a cave system or an old shopping mall to shelter in. Anything large and covered, really.”

“There's very little data available on the Southeast Quarter,” said Chad. “I don't have the equipment to do a seismic survey. Old maps and seismic data are no longer accurate. Satellite images are... incomplete in this area. If we could access the Cloud, I could do some rough imaging, but we haven't had access since the shroud turned purple.”

“Lieutenant,” the Colonel shouted, “you've had the most experience with the Arterians. There must be a way to lose this airship if we can't take it down. Some weakness we can exploit.”

“You've read my reports,” said Sheryl. “You know them as well as I do.”

“And there's nothing you neglected to report?” he said, “Nothing you held back after Erebus?”

“You know what I know,” she said.

“Derman, you've traveled extensively. Surely, you've visited these lands,” the Colonel said.

John shook his head. “That stream we crossed back there, they call it the Styx. Not a subtle reference. Could've called it the Rubicon, too. There's no mistaking it, if you know what to look for. It hisses and spits like a snake when it's wet. Shines with crystals that shred your boots when it's dry. If there's a borderline, that's it. We're in the Forsaken Quarter for sure now. Not many come down this way. Only the desperate or the curious. Caravans turn back when they see the Styx. Any mages that come this way are either dumb or bonkers.”

“Strauss,” said the Colonel, “do you have any explosives in that navel of yours?”

“Not at the moment,” said Zeck. “I could produce something, but I'd need the right ingredients and a few hours to digest them.”

“We may be able to gain time,” said the Colonel. “The Sunrise Window isn't following us, which leads me to believe the Arterians have dumped their entire load of meat gobbets. Those things eat fast and grow fast, but they chase slow. Only effective where they're dropped.”

The ground trembled. A crashing cacophony came from the direction they'd fled, as if some enormous thing were lumbering through the woods.

“What the hell is that?” said Corporal Bunting.

He had his answer a second later. Rising over the hill like a grotesque sun, a creature three stories high lumbered forth. The meat monsters had merged together, augmenting their bulk with stones, broken asphalt, sod, whatever they could grab and absorb. Now the fleshy giant reached down and tore whole trees out of the earth, sticking them to its arms like clubs. It crested the hill, tottered for a moment on its crude legs, and lurched forward, gaining speed as it went.

“That's a new trick,” said Zeck.

“To me!” cried the Colonel, and took off at a gallop.

The company followed, the throttles of their mounts cranking up to full speed. Still, they struggled to keep pace with Ouroboros. The cybernetic destrier's legs were a blur, drumming across the landscape, leaving a trail of torn and tattered earth. They were back in the open now, with an long stretch of highway ahead. With any luck they could gain some speed. But the road was a jumble of shattered asphalt and multifarious detritus. Greyish-brown dust collected in every crack and crevice. Here and there, a patch of scrubby weeds poked from the dirt. Most of the trees were splintered wrecks jutting from the parched soil, or fallen logs melted with rot and then dried out. The shape of the land rose and fell like waves on a sea, but unlike the smooth lava hills of the Hinterlands, the Forsaken Quarter was broken and erratic. Roads, or what remained of them, began and ended abruptly. Hills rose in gentle curves, then dropped off in cliffs that had no geological business there.

The robotic chargers handled the rough terrain with ease, trotting over the cracked and crumbled road where wheels would have failed. The Colonel led them through blasted field and ruined forest, down one road and across another. At one point, they inflated their horses' emergency flotation flanks and forded a river with a swift current and water the color of tar. Still the giant gobbet followed, crossing the river in two strides. It seemed to gain size and speed with every step.

“I think I've found something,” said Chad through his rouncey. “If it's still there, that is. A living forest. Dense canopy. At the very least, it might slow this thing down.”

“Heading!” shouted the Colonel.

“Transmitting,” said Chad. “Just a kilometer past that hill.”

As they crested the hill, a wide valley came into view. Most of the land was the familiar mixture of shattered infrastructure and hulks of dead trees, but right in the middle of it all was a burst of green. It stretched into the distance as far as they could see, overgrown with countless trees and undergrowth. The black river they'd crossed earlier snaked through the valley and disappeared into the forest. Kudzu spread like a stain over the canopy. As they drew near, they saw that the edge of the wood was encased in a dense shag of vines.

The Colonel slashed at the kudzu with his sword. Just as quickly as the vines fell away, they grew back, thicker than before. The Colonel kicked his heels into Ouroboros and together, they tried to chomp and push their way through. The kudzu wouldn't budge. “There's no way through,” he said. “It's a hopeless mess.”

“A little of this'll do the trick,” said Bunting, drawing his flamespitter.

“That won't be necessary,” said John. “I can get us through.”

The giant was over the hill now, and making short work of the valley.

“You'd damn well better,” said the Colonel.

John closed his eyes as if trying to remember something he'd known a hundred lifetimes ago. He took a deep breath and spoke. His voice was the breeze. Long words from some distant language. This was no mammalian tongue. The words were like ripples in a pond. Leaves dancing before a storm. Tree trunks bursting in a frozen wood. The vines parted, making a doorway just wide enough for the horses and riders to enter two by two. John went in first.

The giant was mere steps away. The earth shuddered with every footfall. “Well, don't tarry,” said the Colonel. Once the company were all inside, the vines crept back into place and the hole shut tight.

It was dim inside the forest, but not dark. Daylight was never very bright these days, but it still took a moment for everybody's eyes to adjust. The vegetation was so densely woven, it shut out every bit of sky. This place was as much a cavern as a forest. A faint bluish glow, like moonlight on snow, permeated everything.

“We should put some distance between ourselves and the entrance,” said John. “This way.” He pointed to a corridor that seemed to grow out of the darkness at his gesture. “It'll get brighter farther in.”

The company followed John down the corridor. It did get brighter. Not as bright as day, but plenty to see by. The blue tint was joined by shades of green and earth-tone shadows. As they went farther into the woods, they saw that some of the light came from old incandescent light bulbs that hung from vines, their filaments replaced by stamen-like growths with a pulsing glow.

The ground had stopped its trembling for a minute, but now it resumed. A belching roar came from high above, and closer than was comfortable. “It's reached the edge of the forest,” said John, “but we should be far enough inside to be safe.” He spoke again in the tongue of the woods, brief but urgent. The canopy crashed and ripped as the giant tore away fistfuls of kudzu and treetops. Daylight poured in. The creature shoved the foliage into its body, festooning itself with shreds of greenery, then reached down and tore away more. It didn't have proper eyes, but it seemed to spot the group, or smell them. It took a step into the forest, not crushing the flora where it stepped, but engulfing it with its pink and purple mass. It towered over the company, almost close enough to reach down and grab them.

“Derman, If you have some sort of plan, this would be the time to spring into action,” said the Colonel.

“I've done all I can,” said John. “The woods will do the rest. Look. It's already starting.” He pointed at the giant's midsection.

The kudzu was climbing the giant's legs like a spreading stain. The giant tried to lift a leg to shake it loose, but the vines held tight. It pawed at the kudzu, but the vines grew faster than it could peel them away. The vines climbed higher, drilling in with roots that sprouted instantly and squeezing the meaty figure with curling tendrils. They spread from the torn shreds the giant had stuffed into itself, pouring out of its body like green blood. The giant's movements began to slow. The pressure of the vines on its torso squeezed the air from it in one massive belch. It shriveled like a raisin. Within minutes it was just a tower of leaves, swaying gently in the breeze.

“It's gonna fall on us!” said Corporal Bunting, but it stood fast. The vines crept across the canopy, closing up the holes and shutting out the sky once more. Purple and gray gave way to green and blue. Down the corridor of trees, they could see a bare patch of the giant's leg. It writhed and flexed, but there was no vitality to its movements.

“Is it dead?” said Steven.

“If it ain't dead, it's close enough,” said John. “The kudzu will make sure of that.”

“I didn't know you could talk to plants,” said Zeck.

“This ain't just any forest,” said John. “Well, it is, but it's not. There's something else here, too. I felt it when we got close. Anybody who's ever even dabbled in magic couldn't help but feel it. I spent some time in a dimension called The Wilderness back when I was with the Pyroclasts. It's like the beast dimension, only there's more of a focus on flora than fauna. There's more to it than that, but you get the idea. There's things there that you might call forest spirits, or elementals, or whatever. Dryads. Fairies. Names get lost and distorted over time. Whatever you want to call them, there's one here. I'm not too surprised, either, considering all the demimagical shit the Churls rained down in the Retort.”

“Whatever this thing is, you can command it, correct?” said the Colonel. “You have power over it. You induced it to throttle the giant, and you can induce it to perform other tasks as well.”

John snorted. “I can't command them,” he said.

“'Them?'” said the Colonel. “There's more than one?”

“No,” said John. “Well, kind of, but not really. I'm using 'they' as a gender-neutral pronoun here. In any case, they let us in because I asked nicely. I warned them about the giant, and they defended themself when the thing attacked. I'm not the boss of them. Quite the contrary. We're all guests here. They don't just control the forest. They are the forest.”

“Can you guarantee us safe passage through this land?” said the Colonel.

“You might want to ask them,” said John. He pointed behind the Colonel.

The branches and vines were spreading apart, opening like a portal. Something was approaching, gliding through the treetops from somewhere deep in the woods. It was a figure tall and spindly, lit from behind by an aura of blue. A wispy fog surrounded it. It was held aloft by a column of rippling kudzu.

“What the hell is it?” said the Colonel.

“It's the vines, come to finish us,” said Bunting. He drew his flamespitter. Without waiting for an order, he shot an arc of flame at the approaching form. It didn't last long. The greenery surrounding Bunting exploded with life. Brambles erupted from every nook and cranny, emerging from the shadows like thorny tentacles. Tendrils of kudzu wrapped around his legs and wrists. An arm of twisted vines hoisted him off the ground. “What the hell!” he shouted. “Murkle, help! Burn this shit away!”

Before Murkle or anybody else could act, a thick pipe the size of a cannon rose from the ground. The pipe was bent like a periscope, and the opening pointed directly at Bunting. “What-” he started, but was cut off by a blast of water. Bunting flew from the kudzu's grasp and slammed into a tree, pinned by the geyser. After a moment, the water shut off. The Corporal dropped to the ground, motionless. The pipe retreated into the earth.

“Bunting!” Private Murkle ran over to his fallen comrade.

A sound like knots of wood popping in a fire came from the mist-shrouded figure in the trees.

John spoke again in that primeval tongue. It sounded like the burbling of a stream. “Everybody mind your manners, please,” said John quietly.

The strange figure moved toward the group, seeming to hover on its pillar of kudzu. The fog pulled away like a curtain. A ghastly figure stood over them, a human skeleton picked pristine and woven together with roots and vines. It wore a crown of antlers. In its left eye sat a salamander, in its right a little frog. A jay and a crow sat on its shoulders. All about, it glowed with that living blue light.

“It is by the water mancer's plea that you are spared,” said the figure. Its mouth didn't move when it spoke. The voice seemed to come from all around it, like the fog. “You have led this creature here.” It turned its face toward the remains of the gobbet giant. “Yet it shall be food for us. Food. Eater. Food.” It turned its face toward Corporal Bunting, still unconscious with his head in Murkle's lap. “You bring fire here, out of season, out of the ring of stone. Yet the snake mancer pleads forgiveness.” The skull's teeth parted, and a garter snake peeked out like a tongue. It regarded John curiously, then retreated.

“Why do you appear as a vision of death?” said the Colonel.

The skeleton turned to the Colonel and held out a clenched hand. It opened its fist, palm up. A male black widow crawled there. The bony hand presented the spider to Ouroboros, who licked it away and ate it with uncharacteristic delicacy. “Your bones are plenty,” said the figure, “their spirits fled. How quickly they forget. But if you speak a certain way, one recalls the other.”

“I haven't time for riddles,” said the Colonel. “We request safe passage through your forest.” His voice was unusually small, as if the air had swallowed it.

“This I cannot guarantee,” said the dryad. “But this much I can say. Do not destroy without need, and I will not harm you without cause. Do not consume without hunger, and I will not waste your flesh. I cannot protect you. But you may protect yourselves.” They looked at Zeck, then Sheryl, then back to the Colonel. “You may find what you seek. In town. You may find that which seeks you. Many have traveled here. Some have gone. Some have stayed. Prey. Predator. Prey.”

The skeletal figure floated backwards on a verdant wave. The fog enveloped it, the branches and vines settled back into place, and it was gone.

“Is that a yes?” said the Colonel.

“It's as close as you're going to get,” said John. “If we don't tear the place up, or try to burn it down, it shouldn't be any more dangerous than any other primordial wilderness.”

“We should be fine, then,” said the Colonel. “So long as the kudzu doesn't strangle us.”

“Speaking of,” said Sheryl. She dismounted her horse and went to examine Corporal Bunting. Murkle had already pulled off his mask, as well as his own mask and gauntlets. He cradled Bunting's head in one hand and pressed the other gently to his forehead. “How is he?” Sheryl asked.

“He's out cold,” said Murkle. “But he's breathing. I can feel his warmth. His phlox is strong.”

“I need a medikit,” Sheryl called over her shoulder.

“See to it,” Chad,” said the Colonel. “Derman, a word.” He called John's horse so that it trotted up alongside Ouroboros.

Chad climbed out of his rouncey with a medikit and hurried over to Bunting. He worked quickly. “His vitals are good,” he said, “but he probably has a concussion. This will wake him up and prevent any permanent damage.” He stabbed a one-shot into the Corporal's neck.

Bunting opened his eyes and sat up with a gasp. He locked eyes with Private Murkle. “Gary?” he said. Murkle shook his head and looked at Chad.

“What's your name?” Chad asked him.

“Gordon Bunting,” he said. “What happened?”

“You were knocked unconscious,” said Chad. “Can you tell me how?”

Bunting thought for a second. “I can't remember,” he said.

“What's your rank?” said Chad.

“Corporal. In the Tephra.”

“Good,” said Chad. “What's his name?”

“Private Murkle. Niewt Murkle.”

“What year is it?”

“Twenty Thirty-Five.”

“What's my name?”

“Chad. You're the Colonel's squire.”

Chad held up three fingers. “How many?”

“Three,” said Bunting.

“Good. You were only out for a minute. I gave you a shot that should fix you up, but if you have a headache, take two of these.” He handed Bunting a packet with two pills inside. “If you feel nauseous, let yourself vomit, but stay hydrated and let me know. Let me know if any of your symptoms worsen.”

“I remember,” said Bunting. “I remember now. The vines came. The forest. It's alive. I tried to torch it. I got hit by a blast of water. And the vines. They grabbed me. They were all over.” He shuddered.

Chad nodded. “It's good that you remember already. That's a good sign. I think you'll be all right.”

Bunting nodded. “Thanks.”

“Chad, are you quite finished playing nurse?” the Colonel called.

Chad patted Bunting's knee and stood up. “Aye, sir.”

“There's still a patch of pink wriggling away over there,” said the Colonel, pointing to the last exposed portion of the giant's leg. “Here's your chance to get a sample of the gobbet flesh, if you're quite sure it's quite safe. We wouldn't want it to escape and eat us all in the night.”

“I've built a containment device that should suffice,” said Chad. He climbed back into his rouncey and drove it up to the patch of flesh. The horse's metal teeth chomped off a nugget. A vacuum tube sucked the sample down the horse's throat and into Chad's containment device. “We have a seal,” said Chad. “Chance of a breach is point zero zero zero one.”

“Excellent,” said the Colonel. “Right, then, company. Sally forth. We'll make camp at the first decent clearing we come to.”

The riders were quiet, but the forest was full of sounds; the unceasing growth of the kudzu, the shush of the horses walking through the undergrowth, unseen animals stalking and scampering. The company came to the end of the corridor sometime around midday. The clearing they'd found was enormous, miles wide in every direction. The canopy stretched far overhead, dense and lush. It made a dome over the clearing like a living cavern. Not a sliver of sky showed through, but the floor of the clearing and the canopy alike were dotted with soft blue lights. Many of the bulbs had cracked, but some kind of amber-colored resin sealed the fractures. The floor of the clearing was cluttered with the shaggy ruins of an old town. Crumbling buildings and rusting cars peeked out from under heaps of moss and kudzu.

“A place that used to be civilized,” said the Colonel. “Could there be anything of use to us here, Chad? Supplies buried in one of these buildings?”

“Possibly, but unlikely,” said Chad. “The Retort happened thirty years ago. Any canned or dry goods will have spoiled or been consumed by now. We could clear the kudzu and excavate some of the ruins, but it would take days to explore the whole site. Perhaps even longer.”

“What about you, Derman? Sense anything interesting?”

John looked around at the ruins. He took a deep whiff. “Many things,” he said.

“Any protected sites?” the Colonel said impatiently. “Any pockets or bubbles that survived like that farmhouse? Any bunkers left from the Resistance? Thaumatic wards, chronostatic voids, hell, anything?”

“I'd have to do some divining,” said John. “Could take some time. I'd need my staff to do it properly. And I'd have to do it on foot.”

The Colonel grunted and hopped down off his horse. “Sate yourself!” He slapped the destrier's flank. Ouroboros danced over to a clump of kudzu and wasted zero time chowing down, slurping vines like spaghetti into his throat grinder.

“Lieutenant, see that the area is secure. We don't want any vagabonds wandering into our camp. And tell your soldiers, no hunting. I know how Sparassa like to hunt, but we can't risk courting danger. We don't know what dwells here.”

“Aye, Colonel.”

“Bunting, you and your private corral the horses.” He pointed to a flat area flanked by two low buildings. “There. Keep an eye on Fawth's horse. Let him rest in there awhile.”

“Aye, Colonel.” Bunting saluted and gathered the horses as the soldiers dismounted.

“Captain Jaut and the new recruits, you're with me and the wizard. We're going to see what these ruins hold.” He opened one of the packhorses and retrieved John's staff. He handed it to the wizard. “Don't try anything clever,” he said.

“I wouldn't dream of it,” said John. He closed his eyes and held his staff with both hands. He stood as if the staff was pulling him forward. After a moment, it did. “This way,” he said. The Colonel and the recruits followed.

Sheryl stopped by to check on Bunting before she dispersed her Sparassa. “How do you feel?” she asked him.

“Fit as a fiddle,” he said. His voice was cheerful, but his eyes were sunken and tired.

“Good.” She handed him his flamespitter. “You dropped this back there. Keep it in your holster unless absolutely necessary.”

“Believe me, I'm not keen to piss off any Dryads again,” he said.

Sheryl nodded and turned to the Sparassa. “Irving, you're with me. Solomon, Corrigan, you'll patrol clockwise from here. We'll secure the perimeter of the clearing first, rendezvous on the far side, then make our way back through the middle. I'm not getting any static on local comm bands. If I had to guess, I'd say this forest has some kind of protection from Plumwine's jamming signal, which means our radios should work as long as we're in here. Let's use that to our advantage. Report anything out of the ordinary. Well, further out of the ordinary than usual. Keep your masks on. Keep your external speakers off. Radio comm and HUD chat only. If communication fails, activate a beacon. But only if absolutely necessary.”

“These woods are crawling with wildlife,” said Captain Corrigan. “We won't be needing rations tonight.”

“No hunting,” said Sheryl. “You heard the Colonel. I'm giving you the same order. This place is vast, wild, and unfamiliar. We don't know what lives here. We can't risk it. Just focus on securing the perimeter.”

“Aye,” confirmed Captain Solomon.

“We were fortunate to find this place,” said Sheryl. “Let's make this a good day.”

Captains Corrigan and Solomon saluted Lieutenant Teymore, turned and started around the edge of the clearing. They were Sparassa, so they went quietly and soon blended into their surroundings.

“Ready?” Sheryl asked Captain Irving on a private radio channel.

Irving sent an affirmative ping to Sheryl's HUD, a soft ball of green. HUD chat was a silent language, imperceptible to others. A signal from one soldier to another appeared as subtle shades and shapes in their field of view, blobs of colored haze and shorthand symbols that could be read faster than text. Sheryl returned a brief message. Irving smiled inside her mask, and they began their patrol.

Zeck vs Colonel Destroyer 3: Conflagration

(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.)

“Tephra!” Sheryl shouted across the yard. All the soldiers and recruits were saddled on their robot mounts, lined up two by two. The Colonel's cyborg destrier, Ouroboros, trotted in restless circles around the company. He snorted when he saw Sheryl approach. “Corporal Bunting, we need suppressant. There's a fire in the house. Bring all you have.”

“Sorry, ma'am,” said Bunting. “We used most of our suppressant in the battle of the Hinterlands. The Colonel told us to leave the rest. 'Dead weight,' he called it.”

“Of course he did,” Sheryl muttered.

“I have a small amount,” said Private Murkle. “About ten liters. It's intended for ceremonial use, but it's the same substance.”

“That won't be enough,” said Sheryl. She pulled her mask on and fastened it. “John, can you put out a fire? Not a regular fire; magic, streaming out of a broken staff. There's one in the fireplace and one in the stove. And a third, as well. Getting hotter with every second.”

John shook his head. “I've seen this kind of thing happen before, when I was with the Pyroclasts. I could contain it for a while. But I'd have to flood the house. Not just the basement. The whole house, submerged in a ball of water. And even that wouldn't last. I felt it when that thing sparked up. It's pouring straight out of the Raw. I can't stop it on my own. I'd need a focusing stone the size of a bowling ball, and two other mages to form a Round. I could sacrifice my own staff, use it to negate the one that's on fire. I'd do it in a heartbeat, but...”

“But?”

John glanced around pointedly. “Does this look like a good spot for a crater?”

“How long will they keep burning?”

“Could be weeks, could be years. But most likely, they'll just fizzle out in a few months.”

“Months?” said Zeck.

John nodded. “Unless... They'll keep getting hotter for the next few hours until they level off. But there's a chance they don't level off. In that case, well, the problem will resolve itself by the end of the day. Best thing to do is get them out of the house and into a five-mile radius nobody cares about.”

Sheryl looked at the Tephra in their enchanted armor, As-Best-As masks on their faces, not a scrap of skin exposed. Their suits were designed to submerge in lava if need be. “Bunting, you and Murkle come with me.”

*     *     *

The stove was glowing red now. Flames shot out around the seams of the door and the burners. Dan grabbed the pitcher that sat next to the sink. It was only half full. He tossed the water at the flaming stick in the Colonel's hand. It vaporized before it even touched the staff, filling the room with steam. The fire didn't waver. The Colonel chuckled. “A pint of water for a magical fire?” he said. “It would take a great deal more than that. Perhaps if we tried the well?”

“No!” Megan cried, but it was too late. The Colonel cocked his arm back and threw the fragment of staff through the kitchen window. The glass didn't even break; it melted as the missile passed through it. The Colonel's suit was built to react faster than a human could, to strike with more precision, hit harder, throw farther. It had no trouble hitting a stationary target. The flaming log arced over the garden and fell straight into the well. It sent up a shower of sparks when it hit the inner wall. Seconds later, a column of steam gushed into the sky.

Megan grabbed a box of baking soda from a cabinet. It was full, unopened. She kicked at the handle of the stove's door until it swung open. Her boot sole stuck for a moment to the metal, and the smell of melted rubber filled the air. The heat washed over them like a wave. She chucked the entire box into the stove. The cardboard burned away instantly, spreading its contents over the burning log. For a moment, it seemed to work. A cloud of carbon dioxide swelled from the heated powder. The flames retreated. Seconds later, they returned, brighter than ever. The cloud of CO2 vanished up the stovepipe, propelled by the rising heat.

“Powdered sodium bicarbonate,” said the Colonel. “Not a bad idea. But it would take a mountain of it.”

“You've made your point,” said Megan. “I- I understand. We shouldn't have a broken staff. It's dangerous, I see that now. We'll get rid of it. We'll have it destroyed. Or you- you could take it, if you like. All three parts. They're yours.”

“I don't want it, it barely works,” said the Colonel.

“Please shut it off,” said Dan. “Please, the metal is warping.” A crack appeared in the plaster around the stovepipe. The ceiling paper was darkening and peeling away.

“That can't be good for the house,” said the Colonel.

Megan grabbed Meg by the shoulders and locked eyes with her. “Take your brother,” she said. “Go to the shelter. Lock the door behind you.”

Meg wanted to argue, but she knew that the look on her mother's face meant there was no argument to be had. She took Chuck's good hand, said, “Come on,” and they ran to the basement.

“Grab that one,” came Sheryl's voice from the living room. “Take it outside.” She led Corporal Bunting into the kitchen. “Corporal, get the one in the stove. Take it outside, away from the house.”

“Belay that order,” said the Colonel. Bunting stopped. “You as well, Murkle,” he called in to the private. “Get back on your horses, men. This is not our problem to solve.” He turned to Megan. “What would you do if this happened when nobody was around to help? Do you know how quickly a house can burn? Especially when the fire is coming straight from the Raw dimension. That stuff really blazes, as your father surely knew.”

“Why are you doing this?” said Megan.

“What have I done?” said the Colonel. “It's your staff. It's your responsibility. I've merely performed the inevitable.”

Sheryl cringed. “Performed the inevitable.” It was a phrase she'd heard countless times from the Colonel.

“What do you want from us?” said Dan.

In the living room, something cracked. It was enough to send a tremor through the house. “The chimney's going,” said Murkle. “And the ceiling.” Smoke began to pour through the doorway.

“Oh, my god,” said Dan. He ran to the living room.

“I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish,” the Colonel called after him.

“Don't just stand there!” Dan shouted at Private Murkle.

Murkle looked in at Corporal Bunting. Bunting shrugged. “Colonel's orders,” he said. “With me, Private.” He led Murkle back outside.

“I have an idea,” said Meg. She stood at the top of the basement stairs. Chuck was behind her, clinging to the hem of her shirt.

“I told you to go,” said Megan.

“They blocked it off,” said Meg. “The whole root cellar. Stuck webbing over the door, like they knew we'd try to get to the shelter.”

“They what?” said Sheryl. “I didn't order that.”

“I did,” said the Colonel. “You can't just run from your problems.”

“It's fine,” said Meg Jr. “I know how to shut off the fire, but I need something of my grandfather's.” She grabbed a ruby out of the loot sack and tossed it back into the Colonel's chest. “I'll even buy it back.”

“This should be interesting.” The Colonel nodded at Chad. “Let her take what she wants.” Chad held his potato sack out for Meg Jr. She rummaged for a moment until she found what she was looking for: a ball of crystal the size of a plum. A thin line ran around its equator. Reddish smoke with a viscous, oily quality swirled inside the ball as it moved.

“Meg,” said Megan.

“I know what I'm doing,” said Meg.

“That doesn't look like a negation sphere,” said the Colonel.

“No,” said Meg Jr. “Grampa used all those in the Retort, just trying to hold things together.” She twisted the sphere's halves in opposite directions until a click was heard, then raised the ball above her head as if to throw it down.

“If that's a thaumatic grenade, you'll do far more damage to yourselves than to me.” The Colonel chuckled. “Granted, I don't know about all of the homemade bric-a-brac in there, but-”

“You don't know shit,” said Junior. She threw the orb at the kitchen floor. The crystal shattered into a thousand pieces. The red smoke coagulated into a dense cloud no bigger than a cherry. It glowed brightly for less than a second, almost as bright as the fire itself, then went dark. The television remained silent, but the radio in the living room came to life. It blared a shrill string of Morse code for several seconds before falling silent again, the energy from the sphere dissipated.

It was Sheryl's turn to look panicked, though she let it show for only a moment. “It's a distress beacon,” she said. “Transmitting on a narrow band, but they'll be sure to pick it up.”

“Oh, you wretched bumpkins,” said the Colonel. He closed the loot chest and hoisted it. “Bring Fawth,” he barked at Sheryl.

“You can't just go,” said Megan. “Stop this madness first!”

“I can't,” said the Colonel. “Nor would I if I could. You've made your own bed. Your house will be a total loss, I'm afraid. Let this stand as a lesson to you; magic is not to be trifled with, and weapons are not toys.” He marched outside. Chad cinched the sack of arcane objects and followed.

Burts was conscious, but not moving much, still recovering from the shock he'd received. Sheryl picked him up in a fireman's carry. She turned to Megan before she left. “Grab what you can and go,” she said. “Quickly. The fire's going to get worse, but the things that are coming are worse still.” She turned her back on the family and took Burts outside.

*     *     *

The Colonel stowed the loot crate in the nearest empty packhorse. Chad tossed his potato sack in after it before climbing into his rouncey and shutting the hatch. “Ouroboros! To me!” the Colonel shouted. The coal-black cyborg destrier trotted over and presented his side for the Colonel to mount.

Sheryl ran to the mount Bob had prepared for Burts. “Help me get him strapped on,” she said. “I can get him up there, but we don't have time to waste.” Bob hopped down and secured Burts to one side of the horse while Sheryl got the other. “At least he won't fall, but it would be better if he were in fighting shape.”

“What happened to him?” said Bob.

“What do you think? Here.” She found a glucose one-shot in her utility belt and jabbed it into Burts's arm. “Let's hope he perks up soon. We might need him to fight.”

“Soldier of the Empire!” Megan strode toward the Colonel. Dan ushered the children away from the company and around back to the goat shed, giving the house a wide berth. A sharp crack and a crash came from inside. Black smoke was pouring out of the chimney and the front door now. The living room windows lit up like a jack-o-lantern. Megan tossed the sack of gold and gems to the ground. The top was open, and a few baubles rolled out. They glittered in the firelight. “These are worthless here,” she said. “There's no place within a hundred miles, five hundred miles, where we can sell these items. I demand recompense.”

“You may petition the Iron Court,” said the Colonel. “Perhaps they'll send you a check.” He put his foot in a stirrup and mounted Ouroboros in a single motion.

“My grievance is with you, and I demand a trial by Lectrice,” said Megan.

The Colonel paused, seemingly taken aback by the word. “Your request is denied. But as compensation, I will offer you this bit of advice: Computer and robotics makers will buy gold and gemstones. You have two goats. Take them to the nearest backwater town and trade them for a horse and cart. Ride to civilization, or something resembling it, sell the loot, and your family will be set for life. If, of course, I manage to save the world from the creatures you've just summoned. And people call me a monster.”

“I demand a horse,” Megan said. “You've plenty to spare.”

“We have none to spare, but even if we had, I couldn't give you one. These are for military use only.” The Colonel glanced around at the sky as he talked, almost as if he were afraid. “You'll never be satisfied, no matter what I give you. If I give you a horse, you'll want another. If I give you another, you'll want a gun. If I give you a gun, you'll want-”

“A house? My house, my family's home, everything we had in this world, gone in an instant?”

“You still have your lives,” the Colonel said darkly. “I haven't time for this. Chad, blank one of the empty horses. Quickly, now.”

Chad trotted his rouncey up to one of the horses in the rearguard. He moved his horse close to the other, as if to make them kiss. A moment later, the packhorse's head drooped. The light in its eyes flashed.

“This is the final thing,” said the Colonel. “After this, you get nothing more from us. I hope you appreciate how generous I'm being.”

“I won't forget this,” said Megan.

“How much longer, Chad?” said the Colonel, his ocelli watching the shroud.

“No more than thirty seconds,” said Chad from inside his rouncey.

“There,” said Burts, his voice a whisper. He tried to point, but his hand was strapped to his horse. “Up there, coming fast.”

Bob followed his gaze. “You have better eyes than me, Fawth,” he said.

“Just a speck,” said Burts.

“I don't see anything,” said Bob. “What are you- I see it. I think I do.” His eyepieces had zoom functionality, and he narrowed in on the speck. It was a drop of blue in the mallow shroud, small as a poppy seed.

“There,” said Bob, pointing. “It's coming this way.”

“What are you on about?” said the Colonel.

“In the sky. Something moving. Sending you bearing data now.”

The Colonel looked where the data pointed him. “That's no airship,” he said.

It looked like a tiny hole in the sky, no bigger than a drop of water. It moved at an alarming pace. A shaft of light, refracted through the atmosphere, shone down like a spotlight through the hole.

“It's a Sunrise Window,” said Bob.

“What's a Sunrise Window doing in this part of the world?” said Zeck.

“Probably just on its way somewhere else,” said Bunting. “A lot of them operate on a timeshare basis. One farm gets it for two or three days, then it flies off to another one for a few days, then they switch again. Or some rich bastards will hire one for a week at their beach house so they can get a real tan instead of sitting under a Vita-Lamp.”

“Chad, are you quite finished with that horse?” There was a tinge of anxiety in the Colonel's voice.

“Just one more thing,” said Chad. A start-up chime sounded from the pack horse's speaker. It raised its head and neighed. “Ready,” he said.

The blue dot was directly overhead now. It widened rapidly, shoving aside the purple shroud and the column of smoke like oil in water. Steven stared at the open expanse, his mouth agape. Perhaps from the sudden light, his eyes began to water. The sky above was clear and blue, but it was raining. An Arterian airship flew in circles around the perimeter of the window, trailing a short tail of magenta light. Something was falling from its cargo bay. It looked like dirty hail, but it hit the ground with a wet smack.

“Oh, no,” said Bob.

“It's raining meat,” said Zeck.

“Not again,” said Bunting.

The airship flew in a wide circle, raining gobbets of meat as it went. All around them, in a ring the size of a coliseum, hundreds of fleshy blobs smacked the ground, flattening when they hit. The blobs were reddish pink, with tiny purple lines throughout. Blood vessels, or something like it. Within seconds of impact, they'd not only regained their wad-like shape, they'd begun to morph together and grow,  absorbing stones and sticks and other detritus. None fell among the soldiers and horses, instead forming a dense perimeter around them with the burning house at the center. Within seconds, the meat wads had formed vaguely human shapes, with thick tentacles in place of limbs, and no faces but open mouths, some with stones and shards of asphalt where teeth should be.

“They're penning us in,” said Zeck. “Why don't they just attack? They could devour us in minutes.”

“Great pep talk, corsair,” said Steven.

“No fire. Remember,” said Bunting. In the Hinterlands, the meat monsters had devoured or killed most of their company. They'd tried flamespitters and incendiary rounds at first, but the creatures seemed to be fireproof. They just swallowed the flames and spat them back. Blades were likewise ineffective, as any severed bits continued to grow and devour on their own. Bludgeoning the creatures was exactly like clubbing a wad of chewing gum. Only John, using aquamancy, had been able to defeat them by draining all of the moisture from their bodies, turning them to powder. Only then had they burned.

“Tell me something useful, Chad,” the Colonel said. “Haven't you been studying these gobbet creatures? How do we defeat them?”

“I've only been able to study the dust from the creatures we fought in the Hinterlands. The ones that Mr. Derman exsanguinated.”

“Exsanguinated?” said Zeck. “He dessicated them.”

“Regardless of terminology,” said Chad, “it made them somewhat difficult to examine. If I had a live sample, I'm sure I could devise a way of destroying the creatures. Draining them of all moisture certainly worked, but we'll not always have a mage nearby.”

“Well, we have one now. Derman,” said the Colonel, turning his spider-faced helm to look at John. “Could you perform that trick again? Suck the water out of the advancing horde?”

John Derman shook his head. “I'm out of salt. We've got jerky and salt pork, but that ain't gonna be enough. It takes a lot of salt and a lot of concentration to do something like that. I could drain maybe one of them, if it's small.”

“Prepare to do so, just in case,” said the Colonel.

“It would be a lot easier if I had my staff.”

“No time,” said the Colonel. “You'll have to make do with what you have. I've acquired more salt, but it's buried in a potato sack in a packhorse. No time to dig it out, or your staff. What about summoning a flood? Easier, Yes?”

“Relatively speaking,” said John. “I could probably manage that, but we'd get caught in it just the same as them.”

“Prepare for either, on my order.” The Colonel turned back to Chad. “Have you nothing else of use?”

“I have been developing an organic destabilizer,” said Chad. “It's unreliable and very dangerous, but it should prove effective against the gobbets. Unfortunately, it takes a long time to synthesize with the limited laboratory I have. I've only been able to produce a small quantity thus far. Fifty milliliters. We would need a thousand times that to defeat a horde like the one in the Hinterlands.”

“Give me all you have,” said the Colonel.

The hatch on the back of Chad's rouncey opened up. He popped his head out and tossed a capsule-shaped object to the Colonel. “Ouroboros!” said the Colonel. “Load up!” He leaned forward with the capsule and fed it to the destrier, who swallowed it whole.

“Stay vigilant!” said Sheryl. “Don't let them touch you.”

“Megan!” Dan shouted. He was struggling to lead a goat that didn't want to be led. Meg Jr. led the other goat, which was much calmer despite having Chuck on its back. Megan led the rebooted robot horse over to them. “What the hell's happening?” said Dan.

“Exactly what your daughter hoped would happen when she sounded the alarm,” said the Colonel. “The monsters have come for us. I hope you're satisfied. They'll devour you, same as us.”

“Sorry, but we won't be staying for breakfast,” said Meg Jr. She twisted the top of her penny whistle until it clicked. She played a short, plaintive tune. Pale blue light seeped out of the whistle's end, leaving trails in the air wherever it moved. Meg Jr. ran around her family in a circle once, twice, three times for good measure, drawing a ring around her mom and dad, Chuckles, the goats, the robotic horse, and herself. Without a parting word, she played the plaintive tune again. With a flash and a crack, the family vanished, leaving a concave scar in the ground where they'd stood.

“They teleported!” said Zeck. “I can't believe she had a warp whistle.”

“Forget about them,” said the Colonel. “We need to break away from this horde.”

The creatures shambled closer, tightening the circle and pressing the company closer to the burning house. One of them slouched toward the Colonel, the other gobbets quickly filling in the gap it left in the ring. “That's close enough,” said the Colonel. He drew his sword, though they all knew it was an empty threat. “What do you want, Plumwine?” he said. “Do you hear me? Can you listen through these monstrosities, or are they no more than amoeba made in your image?”

The humanish blob stood only a few yards from the party. It pursed its mouth hole and made a hissing sound. Its body grew as it swallowed air, swelling into a taut ball of meat nearly double its original size. Its mouth shrank and shifted, forming something approximating lips and a tongue with its putty-like flesh. It expelled a stream of air, vibrating the makeshift mouthparts to produce a sound like a squealing balloon. It loosened its lips and tried again, sounding this time like a wet rubber tuba.

“It's taunting us,” said Captain Corrigan. “Are we to just sit here and take this?”

“Hold your position,” said the Colonel. “It's trying to speak. I think.”

The creature swallowed another bellyful of air and tried again. “Buuurts,” it belched.

“It said, 'burps,'” said Bob.

“It said, “Burts,' of course,” said Burts.

“Buurts Fawth,” said the creature. “Give him to us. Waaalk away.”

“I'll go,” said Burts. “If you leave these people alone and let them walk away unharmed, I'll go with you.”

“Like hell you will,” said the Colonel. He sent a signal from his helm to the horse under Burts. The straps that held the super-soldier released his limbs. At the same time, the back of the horse opened up like a doctor's bag. Robotic arms enveloped Burts and pulled him into the courser's belly. The horse snapped shut, sealing him in. It was a feature meant for apprehending horse thieves, but it worked on anybody. “You're getting greedy, Plumwine. You already have Meat Rom, and now you want his little friend? Is your little coup not going as expected?”

A hissing surrounded the company. The other meat monsters were inflating now. “You aaare suurrrounded,” they belched in unison. “Let him go, ooor be devoooured.”

“No,” said the Colonel. He trotted Ouroboros straight up to the creature that had approached him. The destrier reared up on his hind legs, revealing a belly covered in nozzles where nipples might have been on a normal horse. One of the nozzles pointed straight at the creature and sprayed it with all fifty milliliters of organic destabilizer.

The sound of air escaping through a thousand tiny holes burning their way through the voluminous flesh of the meat monster was accompanied by a chorus of anguish, all of the inflated creatures deflating at once with a noise that was all too similar to a cry of pain.

Ouroboros, back on all fours, burst into a gallop. He headed straight for the line of meat soldiers, aiming for the one he'd wounded. The other horses, still synchronized, formed up and followed. “Now!” cried the Colonel. Bob aimed his blunderbuss straight ahead. He had six rounds of two-pound shot, and he didn't hold any back. He gave two shots to the three creatures directly in their path. Two of them simply fell backward, stretching and squirming to regain their positions. Even the wounded one seemed to be recovering quickly. The third was squatting on a patch of loose gravel and couldn't find purchase when the bullets hit. It flew through the air and smacked against a tree.

A hole had opened in the circle. The Colonel made it through first. Bob slowed his mount to the back of the formation. He switched his blunderbuss to the spray setting and opened fire on the closest creatures. It didn't have much effect, but the company only needed a few seconds. The meat gobbets were still absorbing the impact of his other shots, and literally absorbing the shots themselves. By the time the closest gobbets had managed to close the line, the riders were already through. Bob rode through last, after the Sparassa. The creature on the right stretched a tentacular strand of flesh after him, flinging it like a whip. It slapped onto the barrel of his blunderbuss and wrapped around the shaft. Bob didn't hesitate to let go. Under his mask, he allowed himself to smile. He'd lost his gun, but they were in the clear.

Zeck vs Colonel Destroyer 2: No Time for Breakfast

(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 family sat around their small kitchen table. The Colonel had not come down yet, but the rest of the Sparassa had come up from the basement. They were fully dressed in their sleek plate-and-silk armor. Their masks were designed for fear and function, rather than to strictly resemble the huntsman spiders they were named for. Their chelicerae didn't move as they spoke, as the Colonel's did, but they were fully articulated with a thousand pound bite strength and retractable fangs. Their mouthpieces amplified their voices and added a sub-20Hz buzz, producing a physiological sense of dread in the unprotected listener.

“The Colonel said you'd be wanting these,” said Captain Solomon. She held two sacks of potatoes.

“On the counter,” said Sheryl.

Solomon set the potatoes where she pointed. “We're to ready the horses, if that's all.”

“That'll be all, Captain,” said Sheryl. Solomon nodded and led the other two Sparassa outside.

Meg Jr. was silent. She glared at Sheryl, but she was secretly glad the Lieutenant had dismissed the others. She wasn't even afraid of spiders, but the soldiers made her gut feel like pudding. She sat close to her brother, her hand on his back. Chuck wore a fracture cuff that Sheryl had placed on his arm. Junior had objected, but her mom scolded her and let Sheryl apply the device. After anesthetizing the area, it would set the bone and give the healing process a jolt.

“How is your wrist feeling, Chuck?” Sheryl asked.

“It feels like my whole arm's asleep,” he said. “It doesn't hurt anymore.” He smiled and poked at his hand. “It tingles.”

Sheryl looked through the medikit and took out a small packet. She tore it open at the end and held it out to Chuck. “You should eat this,” she said. “It's called Medigel. It'll help your arm heal faster.”

Chuck reached for the packet, but Meg Jr. grabbed it first. She sniffed the open end. “What is it?” she asked.

“Be polite,” said Dan, meekly. He looked like he was trying not to be sick.

“It's all right,” said Sheryl. “It's a suspension of tiny robots called nanobots. You can't see them without a microscope, but they're programmed to help the body heal itself. They work wonders. If you spread them on a cut, it'll heal by the end of the day. As long as it's not too serious. If you take a few doses, you can heal a broken bone in a fraction of the time it usually takes.”

“If it works so well, why is your face covered in scars?” said Meg.

“I haven't always had it when I needed it,” said Sheryl. “And scars are tricky. You'll probably have a scar on your bone,” she said to Chuck. “Even though you can't see it. But in a way, it's a good thing. Your bone will actually be stronger than before.”

“Awesome,” said Chuck. Meg Jr. tasted a little bit of the gel and, after a second, handed the packet to Chuck.

“Lieutenant, is it?” said Megan. “We aren't hiding anything else. We were only taking precautions when we hid the kids.”

“We hide them when ravagers come, too,” said Dan.

“Not that Churls are anything like ravagers,” said Megan quickly.

Junior scoffed, but didn't say anything.

“But even ravagers don't come down this was too often,” said Megan. “It's just us out here. We're all we have.” She locked eyes with Sheryl.

A commotion in the living room broke the tension. “There's no hurry, Jaut. Just don't make promises you can't keep,” the Colonel was saying. “It's been well more than five minutes.”

Bob muttered something inaudible as he ushered his recruits out the door.

The Colonel strode into the kitchen, still in full armor and mask. Chad followed, carrying the broken knife and the log from the oven the way he carried everything: as if he'd always had them, but never owned them. The Colonel circled the table, looking around the room with his shining ocelli. He tapped the fracture cuff on Chuck's arm. The boy flinched. “Rickets,” said the Colonel. “No Sun, no Vitamin Lamps. Small wonder the boy's arm snapped like chalk. If you lived in a city, you'd be charged with neglect.”

“We take supplements, shithead,” said Meg Jr. “From the caravans. Don't blame vitamins for what your lapdog did.”

“Meg, hush,” said Megan.

Sheryl didn't say anything, but she knew what the girl said was true. She'd broken countless limbs in her career. Hers and others'. She could tell a strong bone from a weak one.

The Colonel peeked out the back window. “Charming garden,” he said. “I suppose you could live on it. My spiders found a great hoard of potatoes in your cellar. Not a bad start to the day. Carbohydrates, a bit of protein, vitamins. But a bit bland without salt.”

“There's some in the drawer, there,” said Dan, pointing.

The Colonel opened the drawer to find a mason jar full of salt, along with an assortment of dried herbs in smaller jars. “A great quantity of it,” said the Colonel. “I'll be taking this for our mage to use. And this stone. Strange place for it.” He held up a piece of volcanic rock that was nestled between the rosemary and sage. “Light the stove, Chad. These old wood burners take time to heat up.”

Chad opened the firebox on the pot-bellied stove. “Pardon, sir, but it's empty,” he said. He replaced the log Chuck had used as a makeshift club, but that was the only trace of wood in the kitchen.

“Of course,” said the Colonel. “I imagine you have your children fill it every morning. We didn't spot a woodpile outside. Tell me, where do you keep your fuel?”

“There isn't any,” said Dan.

“There must be,” said the Colonel. “There are plenty of dead trees around. Surely, this isn't all you have? A piddling stick.”

“It's magic,” said Chuck.

“Indeed?” said the Colonel.

Megan took a deep breath. “It's a relic from the war,” she said carefully. “It burns, but isn't consumed. Safer and cleaner than burning wood.”

“Safer,” said the Colonel.

A clomping sound from the living room heralded the appearance of a shortish man holding a stack of luggage that towered past his head. Most of it was Churlian military issue hard cases and duffel bags, but at the bottom of the stack was a large trunk. The load must have weighed hundreds of pounds, but he didn't waver under its bulk.

“Fawth, you arrive at last,” said the Colonel. “Leave the steamer trunk. Take the rest outside. Once you've loaded the horses, come back in. And bring the loot chest.”

Fawth set the stack down, then picked up all but the trunk and carried it out the front door without a word.

“That's my grampa's trunk,” said Meg Jr.

“Is it?” said the Colonel. He flipped it open. “That would be your mother's father, or your father's father? Or both?”

Megan cleared her throat. “The trunk belonged to my father,” she said. “He was a mage with the Pyroclasts. Those are his things. From the war.”

“Relics like your little fire log?” The Colonel snapped open the clasps and flipped up the lid. “Not just any mage,” he said, pulling out a red robe embroidered with the symbol of the Pyroclasts and a number of decorations indicating rank, battalion, and several distinctions of merit.

“He was a battlemage,” said Megan. “A Lieutenant.”

“And he fought for the Pyroclasts? Sworn enemies of the Empire?”

“Former enemies,” said Megan.

“Well, that would explain this,” said the Colonel. He lifted a small log from the trunk, not much more than a stick, really. It was of the same type of wood as the log from the oven. “It's not just for cooking, is it? This is a flame staff.”

“It was a flame staff,” said Megan. “Now it keeps us warm and cooks our food. He broke it in three. One for the stove, one for the fireplace, and one to remind us. The rest of those things are mementos from the war. He oversaw the artificing of all of the things in that trunk. Some, he even made himself. But they're not harmful. Most have been disarmed. The rest aren't dangerous.”

“Is he still with us?” said the Colonel.

“No,” said Megan. “He passed away a few years ago, of Ashen Plague. He did everything in his power to keep this home for us. When the weird bombs fell and the land turned to pudding, we saw the street signs and cars and the houses across the street sink into the ground like stones.”

“Atomic tenderizers,” said Sheryl.

“Whatever you call them. It was like watching a painting melt. Our neighbor across the way, Mr. Hauer, ran out of his house and into the street, and he just vanished. All that was left were ripples, as if the pavement was water. I was only five years old. I remember it like yesterday. It was luck or providence that my dad was home on leave with an injured leg. He used a negation orb to shield the house. We floated in a sphere of protection, like a bubble in a maelstrom. He was a powerful mage, but it nearly killed him saving the house and a few acres out back. I think it did shorten his life by a couple decades. He's buried out back of the farm, if you want to check. This place is all we have, and he fought back against the sunderance of the Earth itself to keep it for us.”

“I tip my hat,” said the Colonel. “The Retort was not an easy thing to survive. I'm always impressed when I hear of somebody who managed it.” He rummaged in the trunk, pulling out items and examining them with a detached sort of interest. “Even so,” he said, “and with all due respect to your late father, this is a bit of a conundrum. I'm not sure what some of these items are, but I am sure they'd all be considered contraband. These should have been surrendered after the war. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it's due to ignorance, living as you do in the middle of nowhere.”

“We're familiar with the terms of the treaty,” said Dan. “Those laws apply only to offensive weapons of a magical nature, or newly developed magic of any kind. These items are all defensive or practical. All of the offensive items have been disarmed. And none of them were made after the war ended.”

“If you're familiar with the treaty, then you also know that during wartime, martial law supplants everything. And it gives me considerable leeway. I'm free to take all of these if I choose.” He held up a silver sphere ringed with symbols.

“Try it, and you'll lose that hand,” said Meg Jr.

The Colonel laughed. “She has great spirit, that one,” he said. “Reminds me of a certain Lieutenant when she was young.”

The one called 'Fawth' returned. He was lean and muscular, and not much taller than Junior. He had a hard look in his eyes, seemingly reserved solely for the Colonel. He stood in the doorway, holding a large chest and glaring.

“Just set it there, Fawth,” said the Colonel, pointing. Fawth obeyed without a word, setting the Colonel's loot chest next to the steamer trunk. The Colonel turned to Megan. “You took a bit of convincing,” he said, “but you did eventually offer room and board and supplies in service of the war effort. It would be rude of me to leave you without recompense.” He set the silver sphere back in the trunk and opened his own chest. The contents glistened, even in the filtered light. Gold necklaces and bracelets, cufflinks, earrings, diamond rings, antique coins of silver and gold, a rainbow of loose gemstones. A few of the smaller trinkets and gems tumbled to the ground. “I consider myself a fair man. How about one item from my chest for each item I take from yours?”

“Hell no,” said Meg Jr.

“Meg, shh,” said Megan. She nodded at the Colonel. “That's more than fair.”

“You can't just take our stuff,” said Junior. “The war's been over since before I was even born!”

“The old war, maybe, but there's a new war now,” said the Colonel. “This self-described 'Lord' Plumwine commands a grotesque army of homunculi and lumbering gobbets of meat. You may not want us to win, but you'll definitely want them to lose. It's only been a week or so since their attack, so I'd forgive you for not knowing, out here in the boondocks. Although you can see the purple sky for yourself. That's their doing. They've taken control of the Cloud and jammed our communications. Your devices won't have been affected. Don't ask me why. Primitivity, no doubt. There are more ways for an automobile to break than a bicycle. Whatever the reason, non-Churlian equipment doesn't seem to be affected by the jamming signal. And you do own several radios and a television. Strange for a house with no electricity.”

“It comes and goes,” said Megan. “The lightning herds. Sort of electrical storms that march across the land. We bottle it up in battery jars, but we've been out of juice for weeks.”

“Then I suppose you can't have heard about Plumwine, let alone colluded with him,” said the Colonel.

“We'd never collude with an enemy of the Empire,” said Dan. “Or the Empire itself. But we'd offer room and board to either, as we should have done when you came to the door.”

“You'd offer room and board to an enemy of the Empire?” said the Colonel.

“No, I- That's not what I meant.” Dan looked down. “I'll just stop talking now.”

“What my husband means to say, is that we're done with war. We take no part in it. My father gave it up after the Retort. That's why he broke his staff and committed himself to keeping a home here.”

“A home? Here? Miles from civilization, living on potatoes and well water? Chad, do you have a power pack?”

Chad fished a small item out of his pocket and handed it to the Colonel.

“My thanks,” said the Colonel. He held up the item, a plastic box the size of a deck of cards. “This is a quantum battery, contained in a small case fitted with half a dozen different power ports, with converters for direct current and practically any other antiquated electrical requirement under the Sun. In terms you can understand, it will power your TV.” He carried the television in from the living room himself and set it on the counter. He plugged the cord into the three-pronged port on his power pack and switched the set on. “In addition to jamming our broadcasts, Plumwine has been sending a message of his own. Meant to be received by antiques such as this, I suppose. It doesn't matter which station we turn to, they're broadcasting on most frequencies.”

A barely audible hum filled the air as the set powered on, the dust standing like hair in the static on its screen. The audio came through before the picture warmed up. A monotonous voice recited a string of numbers, then said, “This message repeats.”

“Excellent timing,” said the Colonel. “We've caught the beginning.”

The man onscreen looked human, but there was something unnatural about him. His movements were strangely precise. He was shown in close-up, cut off at the shoulders. His eyes had a purple tinge. Sheryl looked away, then, with an effort, looked back.

“Greeting, friends,” he said. He spoke with a clear, concise cadence. Every word was thoroughly pronounced. “I speak to you today as a representative of the nation of Arteria. I used to be known as Samuel Elkin, a name given to me by the wealthy families of Churlia. I once fought for the Churlian Empire, unquestioningly. I was what they call a warchild. An orphan, taken from one of the countless lands they have pillaged. I will never know which one. Perhaps yours. Perhaps my parents and yours were neighbors. Perhaps you and I are even family. I may never know my real name, but my new name is Damson of Arteria. You have never heard of the Arterians, but you have much in common. They are, like us, are humans, and though we differ in some ways, we are in many ways the same.

“Many scores of years ago, the Empire of Churlia performed cruel and ghastly experiments on some of its poorest citizens. They sought power, immortality, and many more. These experiments were grotesque failures. When the Churls saw the ruination they had wrought upon the lives they deemed disposable, they turned their backs on their victims. They sailed their island to the bottom of the globe, and abandoned these people to the cruelty of the iciest continent, Antarctica. Cursed with longevity, these victims of the Empire made a new home here, building a nation from a people and a place the Churls considered garbage. Those same curses the Churls afflicted them with, they have turned into virtues. I have seen it firsthand. I was part of an elite squad of Churlian soldiers. Our mission: genocide. We were to wipe out the Arterians, once and for all. Thankfully, we failed. I was injured, and abandoned by my comrades, left to die in the snow.”

The picture cut away as Damson's speech continued, narrating a grainy montage of a lifeless soldier being discovered in the snow, doctors standing over a spot-lit operating table, and Damson's unconscious face enveloped in a purple fog. “Lord Plumwine graciously took me in and shared his healing animus with me,” he said. “Thanks to him, I am once again whole, and stronger than ever before. I bring you today a message of peace and unity from all of Arteria. Like you, we appreciate freedom, work hard, and values.

“We have known of the Churls' thirst for power and control for centuries. In the year Two-Thousand, the rest of the world learned of it, too. No longer content to pull their web of puppet strings from the shadows, they revealed themselves as the war-mongers you know them as today.”

The footage onscreen was now a compilation of news reports and home-shot video of the Churlian invasion of Y2K. Many of the worst events from the invasion and the following war were highlighted in a brief but brutal montage. The raising of Mount Philada. The blackened sky. The Nuclear Consumption. Yellowstone. Meg and Chuck had never seen footage of these events, only heard stories from their parents and Grampa Chuck.

“The footage, as well as the speech, is tailored to location,” said the Colonel. “In other countries, they'd hear this propaganda in their local languages and see footage of what happened in their neck of the woods. Of course, it's all old news, with no mention of everything the Empire has done for the world since the war ended.”

“Propaganda?” Megan whispered.

The footage played on as Damson continued, “We watched the War of Churlian Expansion from our icy prison, all too familiar with the Churls' thirst for power and disregard for life, but unable to help. We have spent the past three decades working tirelessly to rectify that. We mined our home for resources, built our numbers exponentially, and devised a plan which, if you are listening to this, you have already witnessed. Our army is vast. Our will is strong. We have struck a devastating blow to the Churlian oppressors, but our goal is one of peace. We have attacked only military targets. We have wrested control of the Cloud from the Churls' iron grip, preventing them from coordinating a counterattack, and more importantly, placing control of information back in the hands of the people. We have taken these first steps on our own, but we cannot take the next steps without you by our side.

“How many of you live in poverty, still rebuilding the homes destroyed in the war? How many of you are ill with diseases unheard of before the Churls invaded? How many of you have never seen the Sun, while those who kowtow to your oppressors live in opulence, eating fresh fruit while they tan their faces under a Sunrise Window?” Meg Jr. raised her hand.

“In the coming days and weeks, you will begin to see these Domes of Strength appear in a city near you.” The footage switched from highlights of the war to a static shot of an Arterian airship descending from the purple shroud. A long tube lowered from its belly and stopped at a height of about three hundred feet. Silvery material poured from the end of the tube, spreading through the air as if covering an invisible surface.

Damson explained, “Constructed in a matter of minutes using cutting edge Arterian technology, these domes will be the safest place for you and your family. Inside, you will be provided with food, shelter, work. If you wish to join the fight against the Churls, you will be trained and made strong. Your illnesses will be cured. Your wounds healed. The Churls want you weak. We will make you strong. Together, we will fight back against the Churlian elites and their empire of destruction. Report to your nearest Dome today, and take back what the Churls took from you.” The speech ended with another shot of Damson, but this time the camera zoomed out as he spoke, revealing a cavernous room carved from ice and rock. Filling the room were hundreds of pneumatic soldiers standing in orderly lines, holding laser rifles. “Together, we can make our world whole again. Together, we can make our world stronger than ever before.”

“Believe it or not, there's more,” said the Colonel. “But you get the idea.” He switched the TV off.

“He sounds all right to me,” said Meg Jr. “Am I supposed to be afraid of them just because they clobbered you?”

“You think this is only between the Arterians and the Empire?” said the Colonel. “That's propaganda, dribbled out by a brainwashed drone. Note the color of his eyes. The same sick power that turned the sky purple. It's Plumwine, speaking through him.”

“He's right,” said Sheryl. “I've... seen it happen. He's been infected. Brainwashed. That's not Sam Elkin.”

“Yeah, he said that,” said Junior. “That's the name you people gave him when you slaughtered his family. You think he's brainwashed now? What do you call whatever you did to him when he was a kid? Probably younger than Chuckles.” She put a protective arm around her brother. “I know all about the 'War Orphans.'”

“Would you have us leave a child behind, helpless and alone among burning ruins, knowing that their parents were traitors to the Empire?” said the Colonel. “The orphan program gives them a chance to do something meaningful with their lives. Traitors raise traitors. Empires raise model citizens.”

“The Arterians are dangerous,” said Sheryl, changing the subject. “Those soldiers standing behind Elkin are hollow suits of armor with little clones of Plumwine inside. They have something new, as well. Some kind of meat construct that consumes everything and everybody it touches. We're not even sure what it is, but it comes from Plumwine's flesh. It's not an army. It's not a nation. There are no Arterians. It's Plumwine. He's the only one, aside from Elkin now. That purple fog is his animus, his lifeforce, his will. It powers the soldiers and keeps the clones alive. It runs through the veins of his meat puppets. It infects your mind and confuses your thoughts. It'll happen to everybody who enters one of those domes. It might be happening already. He'll infect the minds of everybody on the planet, and consume the rest with his hordes of flesh. He'll start with us, but he'll finish with you.”

“If we get to see the fall of Churlia, that suits me just fine,” said Meg Jr.

“Meg, that's enough,” said her mother. “If my father were still alive, he'd be horrified to hear you say such things. He renounced fighting after the Retort, before the war was even officially over. The house settled into place, the land hardened back up, and we looked around and saw how little was left of the world around us. I know it's better in some places, but it's a lot worse in some places, too. I don't want to see any empires fall. I don't want to see any more death and destruction. We're trying to build something here, as best we can. Trying to make a bad place better. We don't want any trouble. And we don't want any part in the war. So just tell us what you want. If you want my father's arcanic devices, you are welcome to them. Just take what you need and please go.”

“Very well,” said the Colonel. “If that's what you truly want. Breakfast is off, Chad. We don't want to burden our hosts with our presence any longer than we have to.” The Colonel upended the potato sacks, letting their contents tumble out onto the counter and linoleum. “Hold this.” He handed one sack to Chad, who held it open like a child on Beggar's Night. “I'll abide by my earlier offer,” said the Colonel. “One of mine for each of yours.” He took an item from the steamer trunk, a small cube with a different constellation of stars printed on each side, and dropped it into his sack. He picked an emerald from his chest and dropped it into Chad's open sack. “One for one,” he said. He continued that way, taking things one at a time from Grampa Chuck's trunk and paying for each with a trinket from his loot. Meg seethed in silence. Her mother hugged her around the shoulders. She shrugged away.

“I'll have to have my mage examine most of these,” the Colonel said as he neared the bottom of the trunk. “Altogether, though, not a bad haul. I'll leave the robe. I'm sure it has sentimental value to you. And this,” he held up the piece of flame staff that had been stored in the trunk. “Clever, I must admit. And heartwarming, turning a weapon into a household implement. How is it activated? A phrase? A song?”

“A word,” said Megan. “And you have to be holding a piece of volcanic rock that used to top the staff. Each piece is activated by a different word. Heart, and Hearth, and Home.”

“That would explain this,” he said. He picked up the pitchstone he'd found in the spice drawer. “Every staff needs a stone. Staves are difficult to break, and with good reason. You're right that this is not a newly developed weapon, but it is a weapon still. And it may not be new, but it has been changed. Much like the Forsaken Quarter itself. In some ways, it's no longer as dangerous as it once was. In other ways, much more so. Magic and technology, considered by some to be one and the same, can be wonderful things in the right hands. Handled properly. Take my friend over there.” He pointed at Burts Fawth, still standing silent in the doorway. “He's the product of a secret facility called Woulf Labs. A secret kept by the United States military. I needn't go into details. Suffice to say, the entire laboratory is a violation of our treaty. Without the guidance of Churlian scientists and engineers, they've grown cocksure and dabbled in things they're not ready for. Things they can't control. Using a combination of biological manipulation and cybernetic enhancements, they attempted to create an army of supersoldiers. They did not fail, but they were not prepared for the success they found. Two of their creations ran amok, releasing countless more in their escape. This man is one half of that duo. Say hello, Fawth.”

“Hello,” muttered Burts. His expression didn't change.

“Here he stands, no longer running amok, standing quietly until spoken to. He would kill me if he could, yet I do not fear him. He loathes me, yet he will fight for me. Under the right circumstances.”

“Please,” said Megan, almost in a whisper. “If you're going to do anything, please don't do it in front of our children.”

“Oh, If I'd wanted to kill you, I'd have done it last night,” said the Colonel. “If I decided in this very moment that I wanted you dead, I'd have no compunctions about doing it myself. Not a single person here could or would stop me.” He drew his sword. The blade swished through the air toward Chuck's head, moving so suddenly and so fast that nobody in the room had time to register what was happening. Nobody but Burts. The supersoldier leapt like a frog, straight at the Colonel's sword arm. He may have made it in time. He may have intercepted the strike and saved Chuck's face from being sliced in half. He may have, but the Colonel stopped himself before Burts had a chance. The sword never reached the boy's skin. It was sheathed as quickly as it had been drawn. Burts, too, had been stopped. As soon as he'd moved toward the Colonel, something had overridden the impulse. His body was no longer under his control, but his momentum carried him through the air. The Colonel caught him by the throat and held him aloft. Burts shook, then stiffened. Every muscle in his body seemed to contract. Then he slumped, awake but drained of vigor. The Colonel let him fall, and he collapsed in a heap.

“Settle down,” said the Colonel over the screams of the family, and the timbre of his voice commanded silence. “Merely a demonstration of the value of control. Woulf Labs built this man up from a weakling, made him strong and durable, gave him blood that would heal nearly any wound. They also programmed him to fight, but they forgot to give him one thing. An off switch. A brake to his accelerator. I've given him that. I've given him control, and with that one addition I've improved him manyfold. This staff,” he held up the log, “you control it with a word and a stone. On and off. But it's not stable.”

“We've not had any trouble with it,” said Megan. “Not in thirty years.”

“Thirty years is nothing,” said the Colonel. “You have thaumatic storms in the Quarter. The electrical storms you bottle up for power.”

“Lightning herds,” said Meg Jr.

“Whatever you call them, lightning herds, thaumatic cyclones, it's not just electricity. It's thaumatic energy. The same thing that allows your crops to grow without sunlight. The storms can be quite intense. And they never stop. They only move. I know this because they make it quite difficult to map this part of the continent.”

“Again,” said Megan, “for thirty years, we've lived with them. We fill our battery jars when they come through. We're not ignorant. We know about the thaumatic radiation that lingers in the soil. It feeds our plants, as the Sun no longer can since you blotted it out. It's not a threat to us, it's our lifeblood.”

“You've been lucky so far,” said the Colonel. “But the same energy that fills your battery jars can be highly unstable. Unless you've learned to control it.” He raised his left hand. A thin metal probe slid out between his middle and ring fingers. “Just a simple thaumaturgical wand,” he said. “Good for disrupting basic wards and deflecting certain attacks. It can also do this.” He held the wand a millimeter away from the piece of staff. A blue spark jumped between the objects. The staff burst into flames. It burned thick and bright, the heat warping the air above and around it. The Colonel held it fast, not flinching or showing any signs of pain. “Just a small thaumatic discharge, and the staff conflagrates immediately,” he said. “This could easily happen during a thaumatic storm. Your father must have known that, or he wasn't much of a mage. You must have a plan to deal with something like this. As you said, you're not ignorant.” He set the pitchstone on the table. The metal of the stove popped and creaked with sudden expansion. “Oh, yes. The staff may be broken, but its components are still twinned. Now that its containment spell is disrupted, when one piece conflagrates, the others follow suit.”

Sheryl ran to the living room. Sure enough, the log in the fireplace was burning as well. She yanked on the lever that opened the flue, then ran outside.

Dan grabbed the pitchstone from the table. “Home,” he said. Nothing happened. He closed his eyes. “Home,” he said, louder this time.

Megan grabbed the stone from his hand. “Home,” she said. “Heart and Hearth and Home, never shall I roam.”

“Oh, that won't work anymore,” said the Colonel. “The staff's containment field has been disrupted. You'll need more than a bit of doggerel to control it now. I'd think fast if I were you; even I can only hold this flaming log for so long before I have to drop it.”

Zeck vs Colonel Destroyer 1: The House at the Bottom of the Map

(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 Sun rose softly, a spreading stain on the volcanic shroud. The bruised light seeped onto a small crop of potatoes and cabbages, the biggest patch of green for miles. There was no cock to crow, but a scrawny goat raised an eyelid and lowered it again. Another one slept on nearby. It was no farm, but a good garden, well kept. The house was a dab of order in a landscape of chaos. No other buildings stood in that ruined place. None of the roads ran straight and smooth, but the house stood square, a cement walkway leading down from the door to the shattered asphalt. Nearby, a team of robotic horses stood patiently, guarded by a dark form. Nobody stirred inside the house. A short distance away and twenty feet under the ground, a hatch slid open.

“It's too dark without a flashlight,” said the boy.

“Your eyes will adjust,” said the girl. She looked at her watch. “Sun's coming up. That'll be enough light to make our way by.”

“Mom and Dad said to stay in the shelter.”

“Then stay. You make too much noise, anyway.” The boy's face crumpled. The girl sighed. “I didn't mean that, Chuckles. It's just safer here. I'll be back in a minute. Sit tight.” She crawled into the tunnel. Once she got away from the dim light of the shelter, it was darker than having her eyes closed. She made her way on her hands and knees along the rough planks that lined the floor.

“Meg, wait. I'm coming,” said Chuck. Meg Jr. didn't answer, but she stopped to let Chuck catch up.

The tunnel was a quarter of a mile long, but it seemed longer. Meg was sure they'd been crawling for an hour when they finally reached the door.

“How do you know they're still asleep?” said Chuck.

“They got here late,” said Meg. “And they need lots of sleep. Ten hours, every night. Grampa said.” Their grandfather had never said such a thing, but Chuck was too young to remember. “Just stick close to me. Stay as far from them as you can, and you'll be fine. They have sensors that wake them if they're ambushed, but not if an animal or something creeps by. Or else they'd never get any sleep.”

Grampa Chuck really had told her that one, along with a thousand other things. “So you're ready when they come for you,” he'd said. Meg had always thought he was just trying to scare her. But now they really had come.

“You have to be quiet if you're going to come along,” said Meg. “Not a peep.”

“What about your whistle?” said Chuck.

“They can't hear it on the other side of the door,” she said, and hoped it was true. “Promise to be quiet as a cloud.”

“Promise,” he whispered.

The penny whistle hung on a string inside Meg's shirt, and she pulled it out now. She fiddled with the mouthpiece. She could just give it a twist, draw a porting circle and whisk herself and Chuckles to safety. But what about their parents? No. Grampa wouldn't abandon them. Wouldn't abandon their home. She played a quick three notes. The door shimmered faintly, the only light in the tunnel. From somewhere inside the lock, the same three notes played back in reverse order. A moment later, a snippet of song played out from a hidden speaker. Meg had practiced this a thousand times, and she knew exactly what to do. As soon as the music ended, she played the next few bars on her penny whistle. She played as softly as she could, blowing just hard enough to produce a note.

Chuck sat and listened, keeping his promise not to make a sound. He'd heard the song before, though he couldn't remember all the words. It was one of Grampa Chuck's favorites, something about starting a fire, or not starting a fire. Their parents played it on the turntable whenever they had electricity.

The song ended. The click of the lock sounded like a gunshot to Meg's ears. The door swung open, bringing a cool draft from the cellar. She held her breath and listened. Nothing. She tapped Chuck on the shoulder, and he followed her through the root cellar and into the open area of the basement. After a moment's deliberation, she went back and closed the small door into the tunnel. It latched with another click and vanished into its cloak spell.

There wasn't much light, but Meg had been right; there was enough to make their way by. Bulbous white sacs hung from the ceiling, hammock-like pouches made of spiderwebs. Inside each sac, Meg knew, was a soldier from the Sparassa. “You'll never see their faces,” Grampa had said. “They wear masks like spider's heads. They've got fangs that drip poison. They can almost see behind their heads with all those eyes.”

There were four sleeping sacs, but no other webs. No tightly wrapped body-shaped packages. Their parents weren't down here. Meg held her breath and hurried to the stairs as fast as she dared. Chuck was right behind. Neither of them noticed the pair of eyes that followed them across the room.

In the kitchen, Meg slid a chef's knife out of the block on the counter. She heard the squeak of the stove opening and spun around. Chuck had pulled out the log from inside, and was holding it like a club. Meg shook her head. Chuck nodded. Meg shook her head again. Chuck stood there with the log, defiant. Meg sighed and moved on. “If he has to use it, it's too late anyway,” she thought. “Better to go out fighting.”

They stood in the doorway of the living room for a minute, straining their eyes for any sign of movement, listening for the smallest sound. Meg's heartbeat thundered in her ears. Finally, she went in.

Meg had never been a good sleeper. Not since Grampa died, at least. She got tired of lying awake for hours at night, so she'd get up and do her chores early. Or she'd sneak out to the field and lie on the skeleton rock and imagine she could see the stars through the shroud. Or she'd crawl out through the tunnel to the shelter and pretend the Churls were invading. Years of insomnia had given her a map of every squeak and creak in the house, and all the places you could step to avoid them. She turned to Chuck and pointed at her feet, then mouthed the words, “Follow me,” and hoped he saw. Hoped he understood to step exactly where she did.

The stairs were all the way across the room from the kitchen door. Meg took each step slower than she normally would have, exaggerating each one so her brother could follow. To his credit, Chuck didn't step on a single squeaky board. He didn't drop his log. He didn't say a word. They were as quiet as a cloud, until Meg put her foot down in a pile of something that crunched like dead leaves. She felt it on her bare foot, but there was no way to avoid it without throwing off her balance and falling, which would be much louder than a soft crunch, so she put her foot down.

Meg knew she should just keep going. She had an inkling of what she'd stepped in, and she knew she didn't want to touch it. Maybe it was just dried leaves the Churls had tracked in. Sometimes they blew in from the Slumping Wood, but it was weeks too early for that. She couldn't help it. She had to know for sure. She stooped down and scooped up a handful of the stuff.

They were almost weightless in her hand. They looked the same color as the floor in the scarce light. Each one was a tiny bead, hugged by eight legs lifelessly curled about its form. “Bred for one purpose,” Grampa had said, “and that's to wrap you up. You'll think you're faster than them, but you're not. You'll try to brush them off, but there's more spiders in that egg sac than you can imagine. More than you'd think possible. They'll hatch, and swarm all over you, and weave their web sac around you before you know what's happening. They wrap you up, and then they just drop dead.”

Meg shuddered and dropped the spiders. There was another pile of the tiny corpses at the foot of the stairs. Two piles. One for Mom, one for Dad. She wondered if Chuck knew what they were, or what they meant. He dutifully crunched through after her.

The stairs were easy for Meg, but Chuck had shorter legs. Most of the way up, you only had to skip a step at a time, or put your weight in just the right spot. The top two steps were different. No matter where you set your foot, no matter how careful you were, the top two steps made a sound every single time.

Meg took a giant step straight from the third stair to the landing. She turned and looked down at Chuck. Her heart leapt. A tall figure stood by the front door, glaring at her. Her blood turned to ice. She started to gasp, then caught herself. She blinked. Of course, there was nobody there. It was only the hat rack, with all of their coats hanging from it. The weather was starting to chill, and they'd gotten their Autumn gear out of the attic last week. But hadn't that shadow moved? Meg shook her head and put it out of her mind.

Chuck was eying the landing, trying to calculate whether he could stretch his leg far enough to cover both stairs at once. Meg set her knife down on the floor. She pointed at Chuck's club and held out her hand. He gave it to her. She set it next to the knife, then descended back to the third step. She knelt down and patted herself on the back. It had been years since she'd given Chuck a piggyback ride, but he remembered the gesture all the same. It was a little tricky on a single step in a dark stairwell, but he put his arms around her neck and she grabbed his legs and stood up.

Meg couldn't help but grunt with the effort. Chuck had not only been shorter, but tens of pounds lighter last time. Still, she'd lifted plenty of potato sacks. She could carry her kid brother. All she had to do was breathe. All she had to do was take one step.

Taking the step was the easy part. She hadn't known how much harder it would be to pull herself up to the landing with the strength of one leg, with no free hand to brace against the wall, with nothing to grab to pull herself up. It took every ounce of strength, and she was sure that their combined weight would be too much and the creak of the floor would be enough to wake to whole house. But it didn't. She put her other foot down, and they were there at the top of the stairs. She set her brother down. They picked up their weapons.

The hallway looked a mile long. All of the doors were ajar, except the linen closet. The first room they passed had been Grampa Chuck's. Now it was Meg's. Grampa had always told her to stay low when sneaking by a doorway. She crouched as low as she could and crept forward. She risked a peek inside. It was her room; she had to.

Two people shared the small bed. Another slept on the floor next to it, and a fourth slept on the rug at the foot of the bed. The one on the rug wore tight-fitting black pajamas and a fancy-looking wristwatch. The plated mail uniform of an Imperial Guard was neatly arranged on the floor close by.

The other three all wore different outfits, but they were each fitted with helms attached to pauldrons and rerebraces, ivory-colored plates that covered their shoulders and upper arms. Training yokes. Those three were either prisoners or new recruits. Or both. Grampa had a broken yoke he'd kept after the Sack of Roanoke. The Churls had captured his unit and put them in a work camp. “The yokes keep you in line, all right,” he'd told her. “But there's limits to what they can do. They control the body, but not the mind. They can make you dig a ditch, but they can't make you cast a spell. The worst part is that you get used to them after a while. They're not comfortable, sure, but it's just like wearing a few pieces of armor. They're not even active most of the time. Just kind of there. But then, if you try to do something you're not supposed to, or if you don't do something they tell you to, the yoke kicks in. It hijacks your nerves, takes over your muscles. It has its limits, but like I said, they can make you dig a ditch.” Meg thought they must be horrible to sleep in.

She glanced to make sure Chuck was still behind her. He gave her a nod. They crept on. Chuck's room was next, and she peeked in there, too. Chuck still had a pair of bunk beds, left over from when they used to share the room. She only saw two people in there, one in each bunk. Their armor was piled neatly on the toy chest. The plates glistened with a dull red, like embers in an old fire. These two were Tephran soldiers. Grampa didn't like the Sparassa, but he absolutely hated the Tephra. “Brutes. All they do is burn and wreck things. Broke through the ground up by the hot springs. They have submarines that can go through lava. If there's no lava where they want to go, they make their own.” Meg wondered briefly why there were only two of them, and what they were doing here. She decided she didn't care, and crept on.

Chuck paused to peek into his room, but only for a second. He stuck close to his sister. Their parent's bedroom was at the end of the hallway. The door was only open an inch. She'd have to push it open. Not much. Only enough to slip through. But doors were not the same as floorboards. You couldn't just avoid the squeaky parts. She tried to remember the sound of her parent's door. She'd heard it every day of her life, except for the two weeks when she was eight and they all went with the caravan to buy livestock. Now, when it really mattered, she couldn't remember how it creaked, or if it even made a sound at all.

She sighed. She could spend the whole night trying to remember all the squeaks of all the doors, but it didn't matter. She didn't have any other choice. She pushed the door open just far enough to slip through. Chuck followed right behind.

On the bed were two off-white bundles, each about six feet long. One was Mom, and the other was Dad. They weren't alone. The closet door was open. Sitting on the steps that led to the attic was a man with the face of a spider. He wore a full suit of armor, with copper-colored plates that shone even in the gloom. “Copper,” Meg remembered. “The color of a Churlish Colonel. They're the worst of all.” The spaces between the armor plates were filled by something that shimmered black and red like the Tephran armor. The eight eyes on his helmet seemed to stare right into the two of them. His chelicerae moved when he spoke. The fangs looked wet. “Children!” he said. “I've been expecting you.”

*     *     *

Lieutenant Sheryl Teymore was awake. She'd slept fitfully for an hour or so and then jolted out of sleep. It was how her nights went more often than not, ever since the Plumwine incident. She lay in her hammock, suspended in the fetal position. Sometimes she managed to lull herself back to sleep if her mind would consent to wander. Mostly, she stared and waited for morning to come.

The click of a door drew her attention. She stayed still, feigning sleep. She'd had her suspicions about their host couple's story, but she'd hoped she was wrong. They'd insisted their children had died of Ashen Plague, but that rarely affected those under fifty. Sheryl suspected the children had been secreted away in some hidden shelter. Her suspicions were confirmed when they tiptoed out of the root cellar. She watched them cross the room and creep up the basement stairs. Then she slipped out of her hammock and followed them.

She kept her distance, keeping to the shadows and staying as quiet as all Sparassa were trained to. She watched them cross the living room, avoiding all the squeaky boards in the house they'd grown up in. Were still growing up in. They were far from silent, but they were almost as quiet as Sheryl, until they crunched through the spent weaver husks. The girl picked up a handful of weavers and examined them.

It hadn't taken long for the Colonel to wrap their parents. When they spotted the house late last night, Sheryl had offered to speak to the owners. The Colonel had insisted he do it. He was brusque. “We are soldiers of the Empire, in need of room and board. We will take what supplies we need, and you will be duly compensated.”

“This isn't wartime, and we don't owe you shit,” said the father, and grabbed for the Colonel's sword. He was lucky to still be in one piece. The weavers wrapped him quickly and he hit the floor with a thud.

“There's a new war,” said the Colonel. “Less than a fortnight old. But the law applies, all the same. If you refuse us, we're free to take what we need by force. And without compensation.”

“Of course,” said the mother. “We didn't know. We don't get news very often down here. Please forgive us; we just lost our children. Ashen Plague. We weren't thinking clearly. Of course, you'll stay the night. And we'll share whatever we can.”

That was when the Colonel had wrapped her. “Search the house, top to bottom,” he'd commanded. “Find those children. Look for any signs of collusion with the Arterians. But do be tidy about it.”

The girl dropped the husks and continued tiptoeing. “What are they doing?” Sheryl thought. “Looking for their parents, probably. Trying to save them from us. I should stop them. Wrap them up and take them outside. Before the Colonel finds them. And then what? Send them out alone into the night? There's nowhere to take them. There's nothing around for miles.” They were halfway up the stairs. Sheryl crept after them, nearly blowing her cover when the girl turned back to help her brother up the final steps. She managed to hide at the last second, and watched the girl carry her brother on her back past the final two steps, barely making it without falling over. “They haven't creaked a single board, but if the Colonel is listening, they're being far too loud,” she thought.

She caught up with them in the upstairs hallway. This would be her last chance. She was fairly sure the Colonel wouldn't harm them physically, but there was so much else he could do to them. To their family. The children were nearing the master bedroom, no doubt in search of their parents. The Colonel had stationed himself in the attic for the night, just up the closet stairs. They were pushing the door open; she had to act. She rushed forward, quiet as a whisper. She was right behind the boy, ready to wrap them both up and carry them away.

Of course, the Colonel was already there, waiting for them.

*     *     *

“Good work, Lieutenant,” said the Colonel. His voice was thirsty and metallic through the speaker in his mouthpiece. “I had a feeling you'd root them out.”

Meg spun around. “You'll never see their faces.” But this soldier's mask dangled from her utility belt. Meg saw her close-cropped hair. She saw every scar on her face. She saw those haunted eyes looking down at her.

Chuck swung his club at Sheryl. Reflexively, she grabbed his wrist midway through the swing. There was a soft crack. Chuck wailed. Sheryl took the club but let go of the boy's arm. Her mouth hung open. Meg stabbed at Sheryl with her knife. The tip snapped off against her armor. Sheryl snatched the knife away, almost as an afterthought.

Meg stepped back, grabbed Chuck's good arm and pulled him close.

“A little brutal, Lieutenant,” said the Colonel. “No need for breaking bones just yet.”

“It was-” she almost said 'an accident,' but stopped herself. “Let me mend his arm,” she said to Meg. “Let me help.”

“Don't you touch him!” Meg shouted.

“I'm sure they have their country medicine, Lieutenant.” The Colonel stood up and towered over the children. “Now, wherever have you been hiding on this cold night?”

“Fuck off, Churl,” said Meg, and spat at the Colonel. “Release our parents and leave our property. Now.” Chuck wept quietly at her side.

“Your parents told us you were dead,” said the Colonel. “Some cock-and-bull story about Ashen Plague.”

“They were trying to keep us safe from you spider-faced pieces of shit,” said Meg.

“Oh, yes?” said the Colonel. He took the kitchen knife from Sheryl. “They weren't planning for you to ambush us while we slept?”

“That was just to cut them loose when we found them,” said Meg. “We know all about your web sacs.”

The Colonel held the knife against the dark silk that covered his throat, between his chest plate and helm. He pressed hard and slashed. Nothing happened. The silk was unmarred. He held up the knife. “This would not have sufficed.” He raised his arm toward the bed. “This will.” A thin nozzle extended from between two fingers. A heavy mist sprayed out and settled over the websacs that contained Meg and Chuck's parents.

“Let them be alive,” Sheryl thought.

The webbing started to dissolve as soon as the spray touched it, melting away like cotton candy in water. The mother opened her eyes and gasped for air. A lot of people do that, Sheryl knew from experience. You can breathe just fine in one of those sacs, but your mind believes otherwise. Some people feel like a baby in swaddling clothes. Some feel like a corpse in a burial shroud. In either case, nearly all of them fall asleep within minutes. Removal of the silk revives them almost instantly. Suffocation is rare, but every so often somebody will have a heart attack while they are wrapped. For a moment, she thought that had happened to the father. His eyes were open, but his face was frozen in a rictus of panic.

“Oh, god, Dan,” said the woman. “Danny!” She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. She slapped his face. He gasped, sucking in a lungful of air all at once. He went straight into a coughing fit, rolling over onto his side and holding his belly.

“I'm all right,” he said after a minute. He turned to his wife. “Megan, are you okay?”

“They found the kids,” Megan whispered, staring at her children across the room.

“Oh, my god,” said Dan. “Please. Do what you want to us, but please don't hurt our children.”

“What sort of stories do you people tell each other about the Churls?” said the Colonel. “By the way you act, you'd think we were inhuman monsters. Hiding your children in some dank shelter, only for them to sneak up to us in the small hours with knives and clubs. We're simply soldiers on the road, seeking assistance. It's a shame we couldn't find a place of trust between us. Take them downstairs, Lieutenant. We might as well sort this out over breakfast.”

*     *     *

Corporal Bunting and Private Murkle were already awake, roused by the commotion. They watched Sheryl pass by with the host family, children first. Their transit was followed by the sound of reveille, played with a crisp precision by the Colonel's squire, Chad. Chad was still upstairs, but his bugle shook the windows from attic to cellar. Bunting and Murkle scrambled to their feet and saluted the music. Overhead, footsteps clomped around the attic.

Bunting's wrist comm crackled with static. “Respond, Corporal,” said the Colonel's voice.

“Bunting here,” he replied, stifling a yawn.

“Saddle up and prepare to leave on my command. You and Murkle are the vanguard today.”

“Aye, sir,” said Bunting.

“And leave the room neater than you found it.”

“Will do.” The comm fell silent. “I guess we'll be eating breakfast ahorse,” Bunting said to Private Murkle. “That means we'll be on horseback. Not that we'll be eating a horse for breakfast.”

“I know what it means,” said Murkle.”

“Help me buckle my armor, would you?” said Bunting. “I have trouble reaching the ones on the back. Not as flexible as I used to be.”

“Of course,” said Murkle. “Just as soon as I've done my devotion.”

“You really have to do that every morning?”

“I don't have to. I want to. It keeps me close to the Fornax.” Murkle took a long metal tine from a small case he kept in his pocket. The case contained a built in lighter, and Murkle held the tine in the flame until it was red hot. Then he touched the glowing end to the back of his hand just long enough to leave a fresh mark next to a number of older burns. He shook the tine to cool it before putting it away.

“What happens if you run out of space on your hand?” said Bunting.

“The tine marks vanish after a month or so,” said Murkle. “Not like the litany.” He gestured at the marks burnt into the skin of his head and neck. “Those are meant to stay.” The sigils of the litany covered half his face and a portion of his bare scalp. They marched on down his neck, and possibly farther. His head was completely hairless, save for his eyebrows and eyelashes. Corporal Bunting was far older, but only wore a few sigils here and there, the kind favored by Tephran soldiers.

“I just don't understand it,” said Bunting.

“It's not for everybody.” Murkle stood. “Ready to suit up?”

*     *     *

“We can be saddled inside of five minutes,” said Captain Bob Jaut, not at all sure it was true.

“Try to instill some order in your recruits today,” the Colonel said over the wrist comm.

“Aye, sir.”

“It really is your one job, Jaut. I don't ask anything else of you.”

“Aye, sir. I'll whip them into shape. You'll think we're a whole new squad.”

“Just keep the chatter down and crank up the resistance on their yokes. It's not complicated. Honestly, the incompetence I have to deal with-” the Colonel muttered before the comm fell silent.

Captain Jaut turned around. Zeck got to his feet, stretching to coax the stiffness out of his shoulders. “Morning, Bob,” he said. “Sleep well on the rug? The hard wood did wonders for my back.”

“If that's sarcasm, you can cut it out,” said Bob. “And jolly well call me 'Captain.'”

“Here's a serious question, then,” said Zeck. “Captain. Those were definitely children that walked by with their parents a moment ago. But we searched the house, top to bottom. No kids. The parents said they were dead.”

“That's not a question,” said Bob. “But clearly, you did not search thoroughly enough. Yet another reason you're still in the training yokes. I must say, I'm disappointed. Disappointed in the lot of you. Not one of you stood for reveille.”

Steven sat up on the edge of the bed, rubbing his eyes. They'd all gotten nearly eight hours of sleep, but he didn't look rested. “You searched as well, attercop,” he said. “And it would be a lot easier to follow orders without you standing behind us, picking apart every move we make. Not to mention, these yokes are fucking horrible to sleep in.”

“I'll second that,” said John. “I'm used to sleeping rough, but I never woke up this sore, even after a night in the Hinterlands with a pile of rocks for a pillow.”

“It's for your own safety,” said Bob. “If you wandered off in the night, even for a perfectly innocent reason like waste relief, the Colonel would hold me liable. And what if something happened? We're in an unfamiliar place. Say you went to find a toilet, but instead you fell down the stairs and injured yourself? I'd carry that guilt with me, long after the Colonel reamed me out.”

“If you were really concerned for our health and safety, you'd want us all to get a good night's rest,” said John. “Especially Steven here. Teenagers need more sleep, you know.”

“Well, he can't sleep longer than the rest of us. That simply wouldn't work. We work as a team, and we move as one.” He placed his hand on Steven's shoulder. “If you need a little pick-me-up, the medihorse contains a variety of safe, legal stimulants. We all use them from time to time.”

“Trying to get me crocheted? I didn't have you pegged for a pusher,” said Steven.

“I'm not familiar with your youthful dialect,” said Bob.

“Aren't we supposed to be recruits?” said Zeck. “In training, ostensibly. These are fetters, not uniforms.”

“They are training tools,” said Bob. “And we're lucky the Colonel had some stashed away. You haven't had the benefit of eight years at the Academy. Consider this an accelerated course.”

“Aren't these the same things you make prisoners wear in your work camps?” said Steven.

“They are,” said Bob, “and they're quite effective. Restraint produces discipline. Think of the yokes as training wheels on a bicycle. After a time, you learn to ride without the training wheels ever touching land. Then, when they're finally removed, you don't even notice their absence, because you were no longer aware of their presence. You learned to live without them by learning how to live with them.”

“That is the most depressing bit of propaganda I've heard all day,” said Zeck.

“It's early yet,” said John.

“I'd still like to know where the kids came from and what the hell is going on,” said Zeck.

“Perhaps they hid in a nearby cave and sneaked in through a window,” said Bob. “Their parents probably sent them to hide when they saw us coming. A sure sign of guilt.”

“A sure sign of fear,” said John.

“You were with us at the Foke farmhouse, Bob,” said Zeck. “You can't tell me you trust the Colonel with those kids.”

“That was entirely different,” said Bob, though he didn't sound at all sure of it. He paused a moment, then picked up his uniform and started to snap it on. “Regardless of the situation or the reason for it, the Colonel wants us road ready. He has made me responsible for you three. Four, including Burts, and I take that very seriously. My job is not only to train you and integrate you into the squad, but to keep you safe. Keeping you safe means instilling a sense of discipline that will keep you prepared to face danger when you least expect it. Discipline in this context means respecting the web of command. Our job is not to question orders, our job is to follow them.”

“Told you it was early yet,” said John.

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