Derbish' anger was like the fever of a flu before the stomach twisting discomfort Leru felt as she approached the cave. Fear, anger, hatred, and no small amount of revulsion; She suppressed her empathy with a concentrated effort before it's effects could culminate in a physical reaction.
There was a rotten tinge to the wet, stagnant air as she entered the cave, and a small pile of what could only be flesh on the floor near a masked newcomer. They were thankfully ushered back out of the cave at the behest of the newcomer shortly after.
The masked man held a young woman at gunpoint while the locals gathered the mounts at his order. Derbish hitched one to the front of a wagon near the cave while Behr and Jenni saddled two others, then began gathering small stones in their pockets.
The masked man pointed to Derbish as Behr and Jenni finished. "That one drives," he rattled through his broken vocal mod before swiveling his arm to point at Leru. "That one rides up front. The rest of us will fit in the back."
Nobody moved until his face tilted -- a subtle motion, but suddenly they were looking straight into his empty eye sockets. Leru glanced at his hostage, then moved to the front of the wagon. She scaled a small ladder above the front wheel into the uncomfortable wooden seat, feeling the others load in behind her like a cloud of noxious fumes surrounding her empathy. Derbish finished hitching the broad mount to the front end of the wagon and climbed up to join her, stiff and staring straight ahead.
She sifted through the varying bundles of anxiety around her, unable to tell who was who-
She gasped, empathy recoiling as she her arms over her stomach -- whatever she'd felt had been thick, almost sticky. It writhed, and had clung to her empathy as she made contact, pressed into it like roots or mold.
Derbish cleared his throat and opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked at Jenni and Behr, then turned to peer into the covered wagon. "Where are we going, exactly?"
"Constantine," the robotic voice gurgled.
Derbish let out a long breath as he flicked the reins, setting the cart in motion. "Great. They ought to be real happy to see us." He shouted their destination ahead to Jenni and Behr, the former of whom turned slowly to the latter, who looked at the ground. The two kicked their mounts into motion, heading for one of the wider valleys in the rock walls ahead of them as the wagon jostled along behind.
It was slow-going despite the wagon's off road tires -- boulders and rock clusters littered their path, requiring Derbish zigzag around the larger obstacles or straddled them. The wagon tilted unnervingly as it traveled over some of the unavoidable obstacles, but Derbish seemed confident enough to keep it upright. Their burly mount moved with short deliberate steps, but it never complained or even seemed to strain with the weight it pulled.
Leru watched Behr slouched atop his mount, leaning on the creature's broad neck with his hand on the reins while the other fondled the handful of stones he'd gathered in his pocket.
Jenni looked straight ahead, back rigid as her mount clopped along. She came to understand why as they approached a pile of stones ranging in size from skull to torso lying across the valley floor. As they drew close, she could see thin tendrils of some kind of fungus snaking across the stones' surfaces, nearly an indistinguishable shade of beige from their sun-bleached hosts save for how it glistened. She also noticed the sole of a shoe, too small to be an adult's, nearly blending in with the jagged shapes of stone.
Derbish huffed as he drove them over the pile -- it collapsed slightly as the tendrils snapped under their weight.
Behr nudged his mount over the protrusion before he could hold up the rest of the group. "I told him I'd help him," he muttered to himself, just loud enough for Leru to hear over the clopping of the mounts. "Stupid kid."
"We're all born stupid." Jenni reached into her pocket; more beige tendrils glistened on the ground before them beneath an archway of stone. "Our ignorance of this fact is what makes it true, and what makes it so hard to learn." She lobbed the stone at the veiny patch of rock before them. It landed with a light thwack, followed less than a second later by a resounding crack from above as the arch crumbled. Stones bounced off each other as they hit the narrowing walls, tumbling till they landed in front of the group in a docile clump.
"That's why it's so important to try and teach each other just how monumentally stupid we are at every possible opportunity." She was barely audible from her position meters ahead, but her voice carried as she called back to Behr. "I do hope you're listening, because the opportunities are limited."
Behr nudged his mount forward as Jenni continued down the valley without so much as looking at him. "I tried- Hey!" Behr grabbed her by the shoulder as he caught up to her, earning him a glare easily apparent, even at a distance. "I tried to teach him. I told him where he was, I even told him we'd help him get out if he just waited. What do you want me to do?"
Jenni's bitter laugh shot down the valley. "What, now?"
They continued on in silence. The remainder of their trip was slow and quiet aside from the rumble of dirt beneath their carriage -- the land outside of the mountains was hard, flat, and seemed to go on forever in every direction. Scrubby plants dotted the range, all appearing to consist of dead sticks. They made their way towards a dot on the wavering horizon, barely distinguishable through the waves of heat that rose from the desert floor.
Derbish handed her his hat, still looking straight ahead at the horizon. "Trust me," he said as she stared at the sweaty article. "We've got another couple of hours to go, and I've seen what the sun does to darker skin than yours."
She placed the sweaty bowler on her head, opening a little wider in the narrow shade. She let her empathy relax out of her just enough to feel his concern, then turned as she felt him squirming -- her head reeled back as she realized he was in the process of removing his button up shirt.
He draped the lightly damp plaid over her shoulders with one hand while he held the reins with the other, covering her sleeveless arms in the surprisingly breathable material.
She'd been about to protest when she caught a glimpse of her arm. It's usual blue tinge was nearly gone, replaced with cracking white and peeling skin, and seemed to sigh in relief as it was taken out of the sun. "What about you?"
Derbish now wore only a sleeveless white shirt, more or less swapping places with her in terms of sun-protection. His arms were thick and hairy all the way to his shoulders, and though his general complexion was more pale than Nick he had a noticeable tan line where the shirt hung on his torso. "I'll be alright."
Constantine, it turned out, was more of an outpost than a town: two rows of maybe five buildings, none taller than three stories, ordered in two rows with a single road down the middle. The buildings were all cubical metal frames with synthwood panel walls: her fellow officers used to call them "worker storage", though they'd been stacked tens of stories high on her homeworld. One of the taller buildings leaned precariously over the road, it's front caved in like a number of its neighbors.
They pulled onto the road as the sun was on its way over the far horizon to find it eclipsed by a pile of grey, leathery flesh. Two short, muscular legs stretched out limply behind it, ropes tied around the ankles laying limp besides them.
Derbish managed to fit the cart between the beast and the buildings, rolling the large tires onto the sides of the corpse whose flesh held surprisingly well against the weight. As they rounded the front of the beast the tires landed on arms as thick as any one of them, each ending in limp fists large enough to wrap around an adult's torso. The beast's skull was round, tilted painfully up to look forward down the road. It sported a large, fractured hole in a largely unidentifiable face, save for a pair of wicked looking tusks and a lower jaw with the broad, jagged teeth of an omnivore. Black birds with serrated beaks perched on the tusks, pecking at the tissue inside the hole. Not three meters from the beast's fists was a wooden gallows, its pole laying across the macabre stage, snapped at the base.
"Stop here," the masked man vibrated from the back, and Derbish complied.
Leru shrugged off Derbish's shirt and handed to him. "Thanks, stranger."
He smiled, avoiding her gaze as he accepted it.
She placed his hat on his head while he readorned his shirt, then turned to jump to the ground. She landed in front of Nick.
His smile flickered like Perseverance's lights, fighting against insecurity.
"Nick, I…"
They frowned at each other for a long moment, until finally he reached to touch her cheek. His finger was cool on her skin where the hat's thin brim had been unable to cover her. "You're burned."
She half smiled. "Only a little."
His smile ceased to flicker, though it barely reached his eyes. "Good."
The masked man led them past the gallows to the still fully erect three-story building. A pasty, thin man slept behind a desk just beyond the entrance.
He startled awake as the door rattled against a handful of scrap metal dangling above, jerking up from the worn but comfortable-looking armchair in which he lounged amidst a collection of lazily spinning fans anchored to a small but sturdy desk. He blinked sleep from his gaze, then immediately opened a desk drawer as he saw the masked man. He rummaged around before quickly removing a handful of keycards held together with an elastic strap. He handed them to the masked man, head bowed.
The masked man turned to a nearby stairwell left of where they'd entered, passing the cards to Behr. "Second floor. Divide the rooms." He stepped to the corner of the room opposite the stairs and entrance and stood, gun still pressed to the young woman's back. His mask rotated towards the man behind the counter. "You may go."
The scrawny man let out a breath as he retreated through a door behind the desk, heavy deadbolts sliding noisily into place behind him.
"Tomorrow an RD-" he caught himself, "a -Capital- crew will arrive to collect… the corpse outside. We will take their vehicle." He shoved Ari slowly towards them, gun still pointed in their direction. "Anyone who comes downstairs before I come to get you will be shot. Sleep well."