“Fuck me,” Janx said, and at first Avery thought he meant the noise, but then the big man ducked down and pulled at something half concealed by the sheets. Avery started when he saw it. The man Janx crouched over was bound to the floor with ropes drawn tight. As Janx pulled the cover back, Avery saw that not only the man’s wrists were bound but his ankles as well. Each rope was secured to a stake driven deep into the floor.
Going faster now, Janx ripped off another sheet—another. All the victims of the strange plague were so bound.
“The priestesses aren’t worshipping them,” Avery realized. “They’re imprisoning them. Safeguarding the village.”
“Quick,” Janx said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“First Xarris. I have to be sure.”
Things were only getting louder and more violent to the front; another burst of gunfire had gone off, and as Avery and Janx searched through the dark, loathsome rooms, still another cracked. How long before the soldiers outright shot someone? Had they already? Thankfully all the holy women—wardens?—had been drawn to the scene out front, and Avery and Janx had unrestricted access to the victims. The stricken people writhed on the floor, as if excited by the sounds of violence, and clutched dumb fingers at Avery’s feet. As the people moved, small shapes wriggled beneath their flesh, and he realized each one must be completely infested by maggots.
“Here,” he said at last, and knelt over the body of Private Xarris. Like the others, the private was gray and clammy, and his flesh had a life of its own. And, like the others, that awful staticy chirrup trilled from his lips.
“Gods, Doc,” Janx said. “Think we should really let ‘im up?”
Cautiously, Avery reached out and undid one of the straps binding the Xarris’s wrists. Immediately the hand shot out toward Avery, fingers sprouting maggots. Janx jerked Avery away just in time, but he lost his balance and fell.
“That’s why they’re bound,” Janx said. “They’re dangerous.”
“I ... see that.” Sadly, Avery added, “He’s Become.” The story of the runaway farm boy had indeed ended, and not well.
“Think so?”
“He’s just like the others now. It’s like—like he’s joined some sort of hive mind. He’s no longer really himself, if you follow. No longer Xarris but simply a piece in some larger organism comprised of many bodies. The same must be true of the priests of the Restoration. But … if that’s true … that means the hive mind is a conscious mind. It has a purpose.”
“What do you mean?”
“The priests were trying to seize Layanna.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I don’t, either.” Avery sighed. “I think this is what they’re trying to fight, Janx—the Nisaar. You were right. What’s more, I would bet that that’s the cause of all the tribal warfare in the region—the uninfested tribes trying to wipe out the infested ones.”
Avery suddenly noticed that maggots shared the floor with him. Wriggling in the hundreds—thousands—out from their hosts on the surrounding pallets, they thrust their horrid little bodies over the wooden floor toward him, inch by inch getting closer to his exposed flesh. With a cry of terror, he shot to his feet and stamped the floor all about him, feeling his boots crush the life from dozens of the things at a time—but not enough. Never enough.
“We have to leave,” Janx said.
He grabbed Avery’s arm and hauled him away, absolving Avery of abandoning his patient by eliminating his choice in the matter. When they reached the rear door and burst out gasping, Hildra and Layanna stood over the body of a junior priestess—still breathing, Avery was glad to see, but unconscious, a wound on her scalp bleeding. On the other side of the building, another burst of gunfire cut the air.
“What did you find?” Layanna said.
“We have—have—to burn the Hall down,” Avery gasped.
“The villagers would kill us,” Hildra said.
“Doc is right,” Janx said. “Those things could get loose at any time, infest the whole area.”
He was about to say something else when suddenly shouts rang out. All heads snapped in the direction they’d come from, toward the village wall. A group of warriors on the parapet were shouting and pointing their weapons at something beyond the wall, while one man had gone down with a huge arrow protruding from his belly. Other arrows arced over the wall, some aflame.
“Nisaar,” Layanna said.
Gunfire split the air, too, and not from submachine guns of Mailos’s group; these were heavy-duty, mounted machine guns, the kind, Avery realized with a cold sinking in his gut, used by Octunggen storm troopers.
“Hurry,” he said. “No time to worry about burning down the hall. The Nisaar will do that for us. We have to find our armor, rejoin Mailos and get out of here before they can encircle the village.”
Coming around the Hall of the Chosen, they found the groups that had been engaged at the front breaking up, though the shamans still barred the soldiers’ way, all armed with lances aimed at the soldiers’ chests. Mailos’s people would have to kill the women to come through. Everyone else was rushing to the walls, to arms, or to hide their families. Mailos looked emboldened.
“We have to get out of here,” Avery told him. “The Nisaar are attacking, and they have backup. I wish we could protect the village, but there’s no way we can fight them with the weapons they have.”
“We’re not leaving without Xarris,” Mailos said, speaking through gritted teeth. His face was a tortured mask, and his eyes had become mad things. The white scar on his dark face seemed to throb.
“We have no choice,” Avery said, speaking slowly, calmly.
“You don’t, maybe. I do.”
“We went inside. They’re all diseased—gone—there’s no hope for Xarris now. We can—”
But Mailos had lost interest in Avery. Moving aggressively forward, he shoved his gun up against the high priestess’s head and barked something at her. Instead of obeying, she thrust her lance against Mailos’s abdomen—not penetrating, but making her point clear. The other shamans tightened their holds on their own weapons.
Mailos shouted. One of the soldiers, a female, stepped forward and struck a shaman on the side of the head with the butt of her weapon. The woman crumpled to the ground. Another shaman launched her lance, catching the female soldier full in the chest and piercing her through. Six inches of sharp wood jutted out her back, slick with blood. One of the soldiers shot the priestess through the head. Another priestess immediately skewered him. Mailos gasped as the head shaman’s lance shoved through him, his gun went off, and they both collapsed, dead or dying. After that it was all a bunch of shooting and sticking, until only three panting soldiers stood over the corpses of a dozen.
After making sure Mailos and the others were in fact dead, the surviving soldiers pushed into the interior of the hall.
“They’re lost,” Janx said. “Even if they get Xarris out without getting swarmed, Xarris’ll have his wrigglies in ‘em in no time.”
“Come’n,” Hildra said. “Let’s get our armor.”
Even as the group moved away from the Hall, shots sounded from the soldiers inside, followed by screams. As Avery rounded a bend, he looked back to see a single surviving soldier stumble out of the Hall and fall to her feet, raking her nails across her face where the maggots burrowed in.
