by Pirateaba
He gestured, and the five gathered around the Centaur. Grimly, each one reached down and began to haul the body away. It was horrible. Ken and the other Humans had gloves and the Dullahans had gauntleted hands, part of the armor that covered their entire body, but the stench and smell was overpowering.
Not to mention the Centaur wasn’t entirely whole. A part of her fell off as she was being dragged—Ken looked away and tried not to gag.
Perhaps it would have been easier if they cut her up and carried the bits to one of the corpse piles that would be burned come dawn. But neither Ken nor the other new recruits in Gravetender’s Fist had the stomach for it. So they dragged the body, swearing as they crossed the uneven ground and mud, heading towards a place where a pair of armed soldiers with lanterns stood looking in every direction.
“Hey there!”
“Hey! It’s us!”
Luan called out as the two soldiers spotted their group. He didn’t need to say anything else. He just needed to reassure the soldiers that they were alive and not undead. The lantern that Aiko carried helped, but Ken had learned to be wary of every moving shape as they worked.
Their group deposited the corpse at the pile of bodies. It stank. Flies buzzed and Ken had to back away fast or vomit again. Not that his stomach was full—he’d been told not to eat anything before nightfall, and this was why.
“Big one.”
One of the soldiers commented and Luan grimaced.
“She got up right when we came by. Scared us all to death.”
“Be grateful she wasn’t a Ghoul. Only thing worse than a Centaur Ghoul is a Dullahan one.”
The soldiers called out as Luan and the group trudged away. Ken glanced at the two Dullahans, one male, one female, but neither reacted to the statement. Probably because it was fact. A Zombie Dullahan was a nightmare to fight, mainly because of their armor and the fact that their head might be lying on the ground, making putting them down again that much harder. You had to batter them to pieces unless you found the head.
“Let’s go back. It’s this way, I think. Right, Aiko?”
“Yes.”
Their group trudged back the way they’d come. They had an area to cover, and the zombie Centaur was only one of the bodies they had to haul back to the pile to be burned. It was a horrible, foul job, and Ken hated it. But he had signed up and so he had to work.
This was Gravetender’s Fist. A suppression company enlisted to dispose of the undead and corpses that were the natural byproduct of a conflict involving two companies, the Razorshard Armor company, and the Roving Arrow company.
Ken’s unit, along with everyone else in the company, had a simple job. They went out, found dead bodies, collected them into a pile, and burned them so undead wouldn’t spawn from them. They killed any undead that had already risen, and then got off the battlefield before the two sides began fighting again.
This was their third night doing it. Was it better the third time?
Yes. A bit. The third night was better than the first, if only because there was no shock and horror. The fear was still there, almost overwhelming the senses in the torch-lit darkness, but Ken and the others could operate under it now.
“Body pile!”
Aiko called out to her left and Ken, Luan, and the two Dullahans stopped dead in their tracks. They moved towards Aiko and spotted a group of corpses. They approached warily, weapons at the ready. A pile of bodies could be burying a zombie or something worse. Aiko stepped forwards and stabbed the pile repeatedly, but nothing moved.
“Let’s take them back.”
Luan sighed and Ken reached down to tug at the armor of one fallen soldier. He paused as he saw a Human face in the lantern light, twisted with fear. It was staring right at him.
“Ken?”
Aiko’s voice snapped Ken’s head up. He saw her looking at him. He shook his head.
“Nothing.”
He began to pull at one leg, as Aiko gingerly took an arm. They dragged the body away and Luan bent.
“Hold up. The sword’s here.”
He pulled it away before Ken and Aiko dragged the body any further. Luan went around collecting armor, weapons, that could be used, while the Dullahans dragged one body. Ken and Aiko resumed pulling their burden.
Back towards the pile. It was most efficient that way, apparently. Burning each body where it had fallen was too hard, and it carried a risk of spreading fire. So the Gravetender’s Fist company had designated areas where piles of corpses were collected, to be disposed of later.
The pile Ken and the others were assigned to was taller than he was, and it was one of many. It took hundreds of people hours of non-stop work to collect the bodies and burn them before the next day began. It felt meaningless because the next day the soldiers would begin slaughtering each other as soon as it was light, but the work was necessary.
Bad things appeared if the bodies weren’t laid to rest. Ken saw one of those things later that night. He heard a scream that rose above the buzzing of insects, the voices in the distance, and the pounding of his heart.
“Ghoul!”
He and the others froze in place. Ghoul. One of the stronger, faster variants of undead. They were rarer, but far deadlier than a zombie. And the call had come from nearby.
“What should we do?”
One of the Dullahans looked around, her hands tight on her sword hilt. She was wide-eyed. She’d seen a Ghoul before, seen what they could do. Ken’s stomach twisted with fear. He’d seen too.
Luan’s voice was steady. He motioned them to stand in a circle, as they’d been instructed to do.
“Stay together. Watch for anything—”
“Look! The Captain!”
Aiko cried out. Ken saw their company’s captain, Quallet Marshhand, sprinting in the direction of the scream. He shouted, and Ken saw a blur of movement heading towards him. Quallet slashed out at it with his axe, incredibly fast. For a moment his form was obscured, and then Ken and the others saw him hacking at something on the ground. The chaos ended.
The Ghoul was dead.
“Back to work!”
Quallet shouted at all of the people who’d stopped, his voice reaching far across the valley. Ken felt a hand on his shoulder and Luan nodded.
“You heard him. More corpses.”
That was life. Ken slowly began to move forwards, shoulders aching, sweat and insects fighting for space on his body. He kept dragging bodies towards the pile until he heard a horn call, and hurried back towards the gleaming flag, illuminated by magic and lighting up the area around it. As the sun broke over the hills around the valley, Quallet led his weary company back towards the neutral ground where they could rest and sleep.
Another day done. Countless more to come.
—-
When he wasn’t on duty, which lasted the whole night, Ken slept. He woke up past midday like the others, found food waiting for him, and ate the unpalatable rations in silence. Then he glanced at the sun.
It was falling fast due to the season being allegedly winter. Ken had already learned to hate that fact: it meant he had to work more and night would come sooner. But for a few precious hours, he was free to stay within the neutral zone his company had been allotted. He could chat with other members of Gravetender’s Fist or the other suppression companies, scrub himself with dirt—water being far too precious, unless it rained—gamble for food with dice, squat in a latrine if he needed to relieve himself, or go back to sleep.
Small things. But Ken would have gladly squatted over the insect-covered pits in the ground for hours rather than spend five minutes hauling corpses. Well, maybe an hour for every ten minutes.
Instead of going over to where the people from his world, the Humans of various nationalities, mostly American, Australian, and European countries, were talking and sitting amongst themselves (or having sex in one of the tents, which had bothered Ken and Aiko when they’d heard about it—and heard it happening), Ken took a chance and went over to talk
with another group that sat by a fire, talking amongst themselves.
The Lizardfolk, one of the main races inhabiting Baleros, looked up as one as Ken approached. He smiled and waved at them, which was received well, because they instantly waved him over.
“Human! Do you need something? Is it orders from Captain Marshhand?”
Some called out to Ken as he hesitantly sat by the fire, trying to smile, to project sociability. To Ken’s knowledge, this was the first time anyone from his group had tried sitting with the Lizardfolk. They’d chatted of course, but never for long. It had always been—what was the word? Awkward.
And Ken had an idea why.
“No I am not here with orders. I would just like to ah, talk.”
“Talk!”
Some of the Lizardfolk immediately laughed and crowded around Ken, in a moment he found himself sitting by lots of scaly bodies. The Lizardfolk of Baleros were thin and reptilian, with long tails and colorful neck frills of flesh. They looked like they had odd versions of a lion’s mane—each Lizardfolk had a very colorful frill, which often contrasted with the rest of their scales.
“So why do you want to talk to us, Human? What is your name?”
Ken found himself looking at a blue-scaled Lizardgirl with deep red neck frills, bordering on purple. He knew her.
“You are Quexa, yes? I am Kenjiro Murata. I am very pleased to meet you.”
“Oh! You were assigned to my pile last night! Did you hear about the Ghoul? It attacked my group—nearly got me!”
Quexa grinned at him, her red neck frills opening and closing as she gestured to some other Lizardfolk.
“I thought I was going to die—I tried to hit it with magic, but it was too fast! Then Captain Quallet came and cut its head open! Lucky! You look different from the other Humans, you and that girl. Are you two having sex?”
Ken’s eyes widened and he tried to reply to Quexa in order. Lizardfolk had an odd way of talking. They’d ask and reply to multiple questions and statements in the same sentence. To fit in, Ken tried to do the same.
“I am very glad you are okay. I ah, am from Japan. It is a different country than the other, so I look different. I and Aiko are not having sex.”
Quexa’s eyes brightened in appreciation and Ken saw other Lizardfolk nodding as they listened to his scatter-shot response. He smiled inwardly. Yes, this was how you talked to Lizardfolk! He was right! The mood around him grew more intimate and Quexa scooted closer, a sure sign he was being accepted.
“Oh, I was asking because you look the same. And a lot of you are having sex! Every day you Humans have sex! Aren’t you worried about getting pregnant? Or do you all have birth charms? Can we borrow them? They must be very effective!”
“I uh, do not now about birth charms. Many of my…my friends are very worried, so they have sex. I uh, do not know about being pregnant. I hope they do not become pregnant, because we have no charms.”
“What?”
“Humans are so reckless!”
“Are you interested in trying it with us?”
The Lizardfolk practically jumped on Ken, asking questions, laughing, speaking in a jumble with no clear leader. As was their way. Ken had watched them carefully before this moment, and he thought he understood Lizardfolk. He had observed how they interacted. So they could understand him. So he could understand them. So they could be…friends?
The first thing Kenjiro had observed was that of the three non-Human species in Gravetender’s Fist, the Lizardfolk liked to talk the most. In fact, they were what he would call おしゃべり, or ‘chatterboxes’ as some of the Americans called them. Only, that applied to their entire species, not just one in particular.
It wasn’t hard to observe the other races—Ken had served with them for three days already, on top of the time he’d been marching with them. And one thing Ken had noticed was that Lizardfolk stuck together. They liked being part of a group and, this was crucial, seemed to decide things en-masse.
They were also uncomfortable being the odd ones out, which is why Ken had noticed that every time a group of people from his world came over to talk to a few, the Lizardfolk had seemed edgy. It was only when they were in greater numbers than the outsiders that they seemed happy to talk.
They didn’t like being outnumbered. But when they weren’t, they were as social as could be, which is why Ken had chosen to speak with them, rather than Dullahans or Centaurs first. He wanted to, well, he just wanted to be friendly with them.
Ken believed in being friends, in forging relationships. It was a part of his culture—making strong ties and getting to know people was how the business world in Japan worked. It was everything, and Ken was trying to apply that idea here. It was all he knew, and they were all on the same side, right? All the more reason to be friends. Especially because Ken knew nothing of this world.
And Lizardfolk liked to talk.
“You’ve never met a Lizardperson? Ever?”
Quexa had moved rapidly past the horribly awkward and intimate talk of sex and was quizzing Ken about where he had come from. He couldn’t answer concretely, but she seemed happy enough to explain her people to him.
“We’re Lizardpeople! Only, you knew that. We’re the biggest species on Baleros—there’s Dullahans and Centaurs of course, but we have more sex than they do. We’re sort of like Drakes, if you’ve met Drakes, although they hate it when we say that. We’re not related, you know, although we look sort of the same.”
“Ah, yes. I know Dullahans and Centaurs. But there are other species, yes?”
“Yes!”
Quexa laughed at Ken and the other Lizardfolk immediately shouted out names of species.
“Ever seen a Selphid?”
“What about a Fraerling? Ever stepped on one?”
“How about a Gazer?”
“Seen a Naga? One of our people?”
Ken hadn’t. Quexa pointed a Selphid out for him, and he saw one of the pale-white soldiers standing in the Untimely Demise company, talking with a Centaur. The Selphid had a Lizardperson’s body, but the body was clearly…dead. The scales were pale, and there was a bloodless wound on the side of the Lizardperson’s body that wasn’t bleeding. Ken shivered and Quexa noticed.
“Don’t worry! Selphids don’t steal living bodies. Or they’re not supposed to. They did that in the past, you know? Only, now if they do it we kill them. So they steal corpses! They live inside them. That’s a Selphid. I’d show you a Gazer, but I don’t think you’d see many in a Centaur-led army or a Dullahan one. They keep to themselves, mainly.”
The conversation diverged into a lecture about how weird Selphids were, with other Lizardfolk adding in details and stories.
“You know they never fight? Selphids. Even if they’re hired on opposite sides, if they meet they just bow to each other and won’t do battle, no matter what! I think that’s because there are so few. Well, we killed a lot of them a long time ago.”
“Hey, are any of your people [Mages]? You have a lot of shining magical artifacts. We see them, though you keep hiding them! What do they do?”
Pressured by the Lizardfolk, Ken tried to explain about the iPhones, computers, tablets, and other electronic devices some of the Humans from his world had carried. He showed his dead iPhone to the Lizardfolk and they were all over it, poking and prodding and vocally disappointed when it didn’t work.
Quexa handed the iPhone back to Ken. It had been dead ever since he’d come to Baleros—he’d forgotten to charge it and had been looking for a charger back in the Australian airport when he’d been taken. Aiko didn’t have hers, and neither did Luan.
“You should get that fixed! I bet a [Repair] spell would do it. I’d cast it, but I don’t know the spell.”
“Ah. And you are a [Mage]?”
She shook her head.
“I’m a [Sorcerer]. It’s not the same as the [Mage] class, you know. We cast magic by thinking about it real hard. Mages learn spells, but us [Sorcerers] are too lazy. We can�
�t use big spells unless we’re really high-level, but we don’t have to study. Cool, right?”
“Yes, very!”
Ken tried to be as friendly as possible. After an hour of rapid-talk his head was spinning, so he got up and politely excused himself.
“I am very glad to meet you all. I hope we can talk soon, and that you are all safe this night. Thank you very much for greeting me.”
He bowed to them, making the Lizardfolk cry out farewells and warmly wave him off. Satisfied, Ken left the group and heard them continue chattering behind his back.
“See? I told you some of them were nice.”
“Did you hear his accent? I wonder where he’s from.”
“What about the shining things? You didn’t ask where they got them—”
Ken made his way back to the Humans and explained to Luan and Aiko what he’d done. The other Humans clustered around him, and soon they were going over to the Lizardfolk—in smaller groups. Chatter started up, and soon the Lizardpeople were comfortable enough to talk with Humans on their own. Ken felt accomplished, and then felt his happiness drain away as the sun set.
The valley was filled with bodies as Quallet ordered everyone to take up arms and march down into the darkness. He carried the flag of Gravetender’s Fist, a fist shooting out of soil emblazoned on cloth that shone brightly in the dark. It was one of the precautions the suppression companies took. They carried bright lights and waved shining banners so neither army would look at them as enemies.
That was the fourth night.
—-
On the fifth day, there was beer. Ken heard about it as soon as he woke up, and found a mug filled with a frothy orange liquid shoved into his hands by one of the Americans.
His name was Johanas. He explained to Ken, face flushed, already clearly intoxicated. Ken leaned back a bit as Johanas excitedly talked.
“One of the guys traded a flashlight to him for a ton of beer! Hey, did you know that you can recharge all of our stuff with magic? It turns out if you cast [Repair] on something, the batteries get recharged too!”
He looked very happy at the news. Ken was happy too—but reservedly so. He appreciated drinking as much as anyone else, but not, it seemed, as much as the Americans. Some were under twenty one, which was apparently the drinking age in America. So many of the young men and women from America were drinking a lot—too much, in Ken’s opinion, to actually enjoy the experience.