The party made their way out of the area of operation. Confiscating a barb-headed spear, the be'ti without heavy weapons fastened the four enemy heads to the neck, proudly raised high with the staff resting on the shoulder and neck of the warrior.

  High above to the southwest of the mud fields the terrain levels out with the city walls, forming a precipice with the other side of the river a at least three stories high. Two arch bridges, undamaged and separated far enough for a ten minute strut, connected to red cy roads hedged by by glow yellow grass.

  Farther down the road, the rolling ndscape expanded to a collection of small hamlets and homesteads with patches of agriculture moating them from the prairie; to the left of the group was a forest with twisted, deformed acacia trees with low hanging branches, and to the right the ocean formed a thin film.

  And the nd festered with bloated corpses and twisted organic matter, the product of unnatural deaths; all of them in melr suits and red shirts. The dead men's flesh greyed and glistened under the morning sun with their fat and organs melting out from any orifice it could. As for the others - some were stripped down to their clothes with their forms frozen in leathery, crystallized textures rippling back; hunks of meat were thrown about, as if grounded by blenders; there were some mummified husks with the salt richly permeating across the skin with twisted faces in orgasmic pain, with jaws so open surely they must have cracked, with contorted arms and cooked eyeballs hanging out.

  Scarfs and cloth can only do so much to stave off the repugnant smell. The only things braving the corpses were birds of all types and small rapacious critters.

  There were remains of what must have been war engines, but now shredded to shards of firewood. Not even the few breech loading cannons found were spared, melted beyond utility.

  Such was the state of the road.

  Finding Lazard, Raynott, and the wounded be'ti was not difficult, as they had taken refuge within one of the homesteads. Fastening a sheet underneath the warrior, they lifted him up with the help of a stake. With that, the group continued south along the highway of rot.

  By the time the sun was well high in the east, the group approached a thick divide on the terrain - a continuous field of wuitziki on either side of the road about half a block in length. The scent of the flowers, mixed with the salt air of the ocean, weakened the senses in a rexing longing most appreciated after walking through the nauseating stink.

  The fact that they had reached this point with the trail of death behind made Kaehe'kakoe assume the worst.

  Captain Oxley: Worry not, guv. The rest 're beyond 'tis point.

  *Fix bayonets!*

  Save for the sniper, the riflemen did as ordered, while the other gunmen made one final weapons check.

  Private Selkirk and Temples went about cutting wuitziki flowers and distributed them one bundle per man.

  With the help of a wickedly forged billhook pole arm confiscated nearby, Kaehe'kakoe unfurled the banner of the Wilo Jawi - a bright blood orange fg with a cream white bordure and inner designs, even numbered short ribbons on the fly end in candy corn yellow. In the center were two saltire Saracen scimitar pattern swords with eldritch serrations from the middle to the hilt and a few chipped holes over the bdes. The hilts themselves had guards shaped in screaming, stretched faces forming twin curved horns up and down, with the rest of the hilts resembling shriveled, fyed arms.

  Between the middle of the bdes was calligraphic art of a human skull wearing a helmet akin to a Papal tiara with three small horns on each side and decked with a small disc on top. Between the middle of the hilts were a pair of detailed powerful eagle-like talons facing forward and crushing a naked man and woman, both also in calligraphic art.

  The script was an improbable amalgamation of Tibetan/Manchu, perhaps, but the overall message was clear - "Death to anyone made an enemy, whatever they may be."

  The bordure itself was two parallel lines going along the edges, and in the hollow was a continuous rayonné line decorated with damask decorations in the remaining free space.

  Captain Abraham: Should we alert Colonel Wilrd?

  Becker: Once we've found the others.

  Passing over the wuitziki fields, the rotting dead bodies continued to litter the grass, now their grotesque scent mingled with piercing nasal horror. Strewn about in pustuting decay were a number of sele'kwai, whom unlike the dead mara-mara, were clearly heading towards the road.

  The party continued on ahead following the tetric road, with more and more insipid sele'kwai corpses polluting the nd with less mara-mara, until, off to the left beyond the treeline, Captain Oxley spied a ft monadnock. As they made their way through, however, the stink would not let up - rancid fridge content, concentrated paint remover, and dumpster diving on a hot day.

  But it is here where the gene-joke's positions were turned. A meadow of arrows sunk deep underneath chipped trees and broken branches with improbable forms split open and rotting away. Beaked mouths and tentacle limbs, cwed hands and fused faces, brain lines on back humps; one could not puzzle what they would have looked like when alive, save for those whose flesh fluffed off their malformed bones, and even then, their bodies presumably were more disgusting than what the skeletons indicated.

  Reaching the clearing, the Outsiders observed from their binocurs the poorly made structures on the monadnock - stockades with pnks spread too wide, stone huts barely able to house a few people in, tent sheets over rickety supports, all with varying degrees of repair. Spread around the defensive perimeter, however, were yurt tents, simple banners, smoke plumes rising, and more importantly, people.

  Captain Abraham: Is that all of that remains?

  Captain Oxley: No...they coul' no' 'ave all died tha' fas'...

  Becker: Kumio, it's best you and your men follow behind us.

  Captain Oxley: *Mandrake 2 - Status?*

  Mandrake 2: *Situation normal. All present and accounted for.*

  Captain Oxley: *All advance to'a'ds the encam'ment.*

  Establishing a perimeter in the woods, the party waited while the exposed ground remained unmolested.

  Mandrake 2: *Positions established, sir. You may proceed.*

  Privates Selkirk, Temples, and the mercenary with the HK417 stayed in the rear of the arrow formation the party formed. In the middle, Kaehe'kakoe raised the banner as high as he could with his weapon on the other.

  The closer the party approached, the more they observed the warriors above come to life. As they climbed the monadnock Becker and the others at the front raised their weapons just enough to not cause hostility. Before the party made it to the first row of stockades, mara-mara came to reinforce the ones guarding the entrance, all wearing the red shirt, and with a small entourage of be'ti with crowned Maratha-style helmets without the nose guard was the commander.

  Compared the the more armored men under his command, Darkapa could easily pass as a 1.6 meter indigent veteran. He was a middle aged man with a plump hawk's appearance with a rosy complexion, chestnut blond fluffy hair and a mouth burried underneath a mid-sized beard with a mustache. The only pieces of armor he had was a leather shirt underneath the familiar bule metal on a thin curassies and a helmet exactly like an Italian morion supported by Attic helmet style cheek and neck guards. His clothing consisted of a dirty brown long coat underneath the armor with red cuffs, thick white slops wrapped between the knees to the short boots in pieces of long cloth. Grey finglerless gloves covered his coarse hands.

  Hanging across his back was a white sack bag tied by both ends, and on his left hip a red scabbard with another spine hilt sword. His main weapon was a spetum with its curved prongs pointing down on a staff whittled to look like bony bamboo and a bundle of long, thick hair at the neck, and like Kaehe'kakoe, also bared the banner of the Wilo Jawi.

  Becker and the other mercenaries parted away to let the two meet, keeping an eye on the mara-mara all the while.

  Neither two spoke at first...

  With the smile of long-time friends meeting each other after decades, the two men at st acknowledged their presence, embracing each other as best they could.

  Darkapa: We knew you would arrive!

  Kaehe'kakoe: Missed you too, Old Monster!

  The mara-mara cheered and whooped about, raising their fists and weapons high in the air with pride.

  *'ip-'ip, huzzah!*

  *'ip-'ip, huzzah!*

  *'ip-'ip, huzzah!*

  Even the mercenaries joined in on the celebration.

  Captain Oxley: *Mandrake 2, mee' us a' the entrance.*

  Mandrake 2: *Wilco. Breaking from concealment now.*