"F-four point nine." Bergman declared as he finished squinting at the dry strip of colored paper in his hand. "We are g-going in the right direction, at least. P-probably."

"You never fail to inspire confidence, Bergman," Kali muttered under his breath.

"Y-you are welcome to do the tests yourself, s-sir."

Kali took one look at the complicated series of tubes, droppers, and vials, then shook his head. "You're doing good work, Bergman."

"Mhmm," the young man replied skeptically, as he secured the sample kit for travel. "C-cheap piece of crap."

It was a familiar complaint, one Bergman had been making intermittently for the last three days. Though the tactic they were using was textbook, the equipment they were using was not. A proper Vitrian subjugation team could check soil toxicity in a matter of seconds with a specialized tool. Meanwhile, they'd been given cheap surveyor tools intended to check soil quality months or years after the fact. The kits were imprecise, as they required matching colors from a paper strip with those in the instruction manual. A manual that took pains to remind its users to average the results over weeks for an accurate reading.

Truth be told, their eyes were a more effective instrument.

When they had set out days ago, they had walked through green fields and woodland hills brimming with life. By the second day, the infection had shown itself with dead grass and polluted water. By the third, the very soil beneath their feet was thick with unnatural black veins. It'd been days since they'd seen an animal, living or dead.

They were obviously going in the correct direction, but the captain wanted his reports.

"Four point nine," Kali repeated to Dimov. The boy stared at him blankly for several seconds, and Kali sighed. "Report it, yes?"

"Oh! Yes, sorry s-" Dimov stopped just short of calling Kali sir and instead turned his attention to the simu in his ear as he called back to the command post.

"The kid is greener than the grass," Kali complained quietly as he moved over toward Alarion.

"The grass is brown," Alarion answered. He kicked at a nearby clump, and it squelched under the impact, sticking to the side of his sandal with the consistency of tar. He tilted his foot to look at it and made a face. "Mm. There is some green in there."

Alarion glanced over at the big man who looked like he wanted to wring Alarion's neck. He got that look more often than he liked.

"He will grow into it. Or he will not."

It was a strange conversation to have. It wasn't all that long ago that Alarion was the 'kid' with poor social skills who was in over his head. He was sure ZEKE was absolutely cackling on the other side of the bracelet. At least someone was happy.

The rest of them were on edge. Despite the ever-decaying nature of their surroundings, the grid search had proven largely uneventful thus far. They'd stumbled upon a handful of low-rank fiends and subsequently obliterated them, but they'd seen no sign of the main body of the enemy. A boil this large would have dozens, possibly hundreds of high-rank fiends, to say nothing of the revenants or the lesser reanimated dead. But there was nothing. Only dead land and stragglers.

"Does this seem like a place where anything grows?" Kali asked, throwing Alarion's own words back at him as he plucked a small tin carton from an inner pocket. He opened it, and inside, Alarion saw a smattering of illicit substances alongside many more mundane cigarettes. He took one from the case and closed it halfway before he asked. "Do you…?"

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"Hmm? No. No," Alarion answered, the second denial more forceful than the first as he looked away.

"Relax," the sergeant scolded him. "Perk of the job is that I get searched a lot less than you, but anything stronger is purely for off-duty recreational use. Everyone has a vice."

"Everyone?" Alarion asked skeptically.

"I'd say girls for you." When Alarion gave him a look, he tried again. "Boys? I don't peg you for it, but you never know."

"Mm," Alarion answered non-committally, desperately wanting the conversation to end.

Kali struck a match and took a deep drag on the hand-rolled tobacco before he spoke again." There must be something. Music? Gambling? Wine? Everyone has something."

He didn't like the conversation. It reminded him too much of Sierra. Of her words about obligation and ambition. It made him feel empty. If everyone had something, and he had nothing, what did that say about him?

"I study Vitrian law in my off hours?" Alarion suggested. He considered it more hobby than vice, but he doubted the sergeant would see it that way.

True to expectation, the older man wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Assaulting your superiors. I ought to write you a citation just for telling me that."

Alarion smiled despite the jibe, then looked over toward Bergman. "And him?"

"Ivor?" Kali scoffed around his cigarette. "Stacking rocks in descending order of size, reordering the company inventory. Something of that nature. I'm sure the kid is a master of which shape goes into the square hole."

"Cousin… Captain Elazi says we're to proceed five miles northeast, take a sample, and wait for further orders." Dimov said, oblivious to the joke being made at his expense.

"Of course he does. Let us not keep the man waiting."

There were no songs as they marched. This deep into dead enemy territory, they managed their noise as best they could, marching single file to better hide their numbers and guarantee their footing. Kali led the way, his eyes on the ground in front of him, while Alarion and Bergman kept a sharp eye ahead.

Sinkholes became increasingly common the closer one got to the source of an infestation, and this was doubly true the more severe it became. Boils always formed beneath the surface, their caustic presence melting the stone around them. The fiends it birthed dug elaborate tunnel systems around the boil and any places of power within its influence. No one knew why they did so, but the end result of a severe infestation was a countryside littered with pockets of weakened earth or barely concealed caverns just waiting for someone to take the wrong step.

Every Auxilia soldier knew a tale of one patrol or another who didn't watch their footing and fell straight into a nest. They weren't taking any chances.

Such a march slowed them down considerably, however. They could have crossed the distance in half an hour if they'd been allowed to pick up the pace, but moving cautiously, it took them nearly two. With the sun dropping below the distant horizon, this would be their camp for the evening. Trying to cross infested ground by moonlight was asking to die.

"Four point s-seven." Bergman frowned. The number was obviously wrong. Although it became harder to notice distinct signs of infection as everything took on a sheen of disease, things had only worsened over the course of the day, not improved. "I will re-run it."

"Do it a few times, just to be sure," Kali told him. Though he hated the equipment almost as much as the specialist, Kali knew the value of it. With multiple tests taken miles apart, it should be possible to conduct a sort of rudimentary triangulation by comparing their scores. "Orphan, get the tents out from that weird gremlin of yours and-"

"Am I not in charge, sergeant?" Dimov asked, the question inquisitive, not presumptuous.

"You are, sir," Kali said after a moment of hesitation. Though Dimov lacked a formal military rank, he was the captain's equerry, which gave him a practical role equivalent to that of a lieutenant. "Typically, this sort of organizational task is left to the non-commissioned. You have more on your plate."

"Ah," the boy nodded once, digesting the information. "And in combat…?"

"I will defer to you, of course." Alarion could practically hear the words 'within reason', though the sergeant left them unspoken.

"Then I think it might be better to deal with the dead before we set up camp."

"What are you…" Kali trailed off as he followed the young Vitrian's eyes to the horizon. He squinted against the dying sun, and his expression went grim. "How did you even see… Orphan, get high and give me an estimate."

Alarion flickered into the sky, but he didn't have to go all that high. The mass of shambling dead was far away, but they weren't hiding.

"Dozens," he said as he landed next to Kali. "It looks like it is only the dead, but there could be revenants mixed among them."

"Inform command," Kali ordered Dimov.

The blue-eyed boy already had a hand to his ear. He exchanged a few short sentences Alarion couldn't make out, and then he frowned. "You are certain?"

"What?" Bergman pressed as he moved to join the others.

"We are not the only ones," Dimov said. "They are attacking us all at once."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.