23rd Bell - 81st Day of Winter, 515AV - Eight Days West of Zeltiva
"Least they coulda' done was let us run a couplea' whores down to the camp. Gods above, ain't natural goin' this long without a poke."
If anything was guaranteed to make a sellsword whine more than lack of gold, it was lack of cunny. After eight days of it, Konrad was getting tired of the usual tirade. He'd heard it so often he could mouth along as the rake-thin Sunberth mercenary talked, regaling all around their fire about how unfair it was, how cheap, how cruel.
He sighed underneath his hat and tried to drone him out. Which wasn't easy, considering the wind whistling through the damn arrow holes in it, front and back.
Hey, could have been worse. Nearly was.
"For the love of all the gods," one of the others let out with a groan, half-muffled by a jacket-pillow that wasn't seeing much service. "Fangor went over it before. Zel don't take slavers. Zel don't like slavers. None of us goin' in, not for nothin', none of them comin' out, fer even less. Just quit yer whinin' and live with it."
The general chorus of agreement did nothing to stifle the outrage of the sellsword.
"Yeah, well-"
"Ain't no well, just how it was-"
"Yeah, well, all I'm sayin'," the murk plowed on, in the self-righteous tones of all arseholes who start or finish any sentence with those three words, "Is that a whole sodding season on the road with naught but my hand is startin' to get to me."
"F'fuck's sake, boy, you wanna get yer thing wet, just drag one of the women out of the carts." Konrad couldn't help but add an opinion, especially when it seemed like the most sensible one. "Long as y'don't mark 'em up, who the hells' gonna care?"
Which, of course, was the wrong tact to take. The man was set on complaining and that's what he'd do, launching into a list of reasons why he didn't want no slave cunny, why Fangor would cut his balls off for "spoiling the goods", and blah-blah-blah...
"Gods, is Darrick still goin' on about his swollen balls?"
Konrad tipped up his hat with one finger as Three Eyes' voice entered the fray, wandering in from the shadows beyond the fires. It meant his watch was about to start. He started to sit up and-
-bit down to hide his wince as fire erupted across his belly. His wound from the Denvali ambush hadn't quite healed, though it wasn't serious anyway. Stupid sod with the gladius should have bit deeper, really raked it into him. But he was lucky, apparently, and lived on to have their perpetually-tipsy "healer" (Konrad couldn't call him that out loud with his very tone dripping with quotation marks) sewing him up.
It was a scratch, and everyone knew it. But old habits die hard, especially when they keep you alive, and Konrad wasn't about to show his weakness to anyone. So he swallowed it, getting up to his feet even with his stitched grinding against his skin. Three Eyes handed him a skin of weak wine, half-empty of course.
Around them, the camp either drank or ate or talked or slumbered. The caravan had found a field clearly frequented by similar expeditions, all the long grass worn down by wheels and hooves and trampling feet. The bones of old fires were dotted here and there, and after a few chimes scanning the bare hills and woods surrounding them, Fangor had just nodded, and that was the signal.
Circle 'em up. Make fire. Water the animals. Bed down.
It had been just after sunset when they did, and the camp was at peace... or as much as one populated by mercenaries, murderers and human chattel could be. The animals seemed fine enough, braying or whinnying at their posts in the night. The slaves had quit what little whining they bothered with. Begging and promises purchased them naught but scorn from the mercenaries. Better to just eat their meager rations and stay quiet. Stay alive.
Konrad ran his lips around the inside of his mouth as he looked in the direction of that black, shapeless boxes. In front of each one was a row or two of shackled slaves, all chained together and then chained to the wheels of their carts. There were women there. Some weren't that bad to look at... and Konrad had been a while without getting it wet, too.
After all, they were only slaves.
Nah, he tells himself, hefting his crossbow over his shoulder and starting to tramp over the turf away from the sellswords' fire. Not tonight. Gotta be on watch and then sleep. Better to be sharp tomorrow then get my-
Yuk.
He stopped. Yeah, he'd definitely heard that. He'd heard plenty of strange and eerie things riding that damn cart and sitting around the campfire, but that was new. Konrad frowned and gripped the crossbow a little tighter. Gods, it almost sounded... no, that was just-
Yuk-Yuk.
"You hear that?"
He was answered by rustling, shuffling, men rising to their feet and swords coming out of their scabbards. He cast a look behind him and saw the sellswords divided. Some wore the same face as him: curious, confused, almost disbelieving. But the rest, including Mister Lacking Cunny...
"Oh, gods."
Fear. Konrad could feel the stink of it on his skin. Whatever was out there, it was enough have hard men shaking with but a sound, men who didn't flinch or panic when desperate Denvali came howling out of the rocks at them. Konrad started backing up. Whatever was out there, and getting closer, he wanted these bastards next to him.
Or in front of him, preferably.
"ON YOUR FEET, YOU FUCKIN' SCUM! UUUUUUP!"
Fangor roared like the wrath of the gods and everything with a pulse that slept for half-a-league around was instantly awake. The man himself was strolling through the sellswords, warhammer grinned in his hands, grim look of unholy irritation on his face.
"You know what's coming!"
"Do we?"
Yuk-Yuk-Yuk!
Konrad's head snapped back and his crossbow went up. That was close. Barely beyond the ring of light the campfire cast about. Something... shuffling. Shambling. Dragging its feet and making that weird, throaty hooting. As he stared he saw the shadows gain... edges. Too many edges.
And stars shining on the ground.
A man tottered out of the darkness, but Konrad corrected himself within a moment. Not a strand of hair anywhere on it, nor clothing. Every inch covered in mud and... no... not covered in mud, it's skin was mud. Growths and tumors seemed to pulse under its skin and its mouth hung slack and loose, low moaning crawling out over teeth like a ruined mountaintop.
Eyes that were like pits in a coalmine. Sucking in all light, reflecting nothing, staring at them all, these armed and rough men, with naught but hunger.
Stars in its skin. Gleaming. Glinting.
Spreading.
Konrad stepped back again as the sellswords steeled themselves. Nightmare after nightmare lurched into the light of the fire, constellations of gems and stones jutting out of their skin, so many the horizon seemed choked with them.
"What the petch is-"
