In the back of the wagon, Feldana shivered a little, but kept looking back into Sherra's eyes, not daring to even breathe loudly.  She could feel her throat drying out, but stifled any urge to cough.<br/><br/>The two men outside the car nodded emphatically on hearing Dreamer's news.  When he mentioned Lady Maeve, however, they cast smug looks at each other.<br/><br/>"Lanner's not gonna like that," the closer one said.  "Shark told him he could have her."<br/><br/>"Yeah, I think you better go tell Lanner about that yourself, bro," said the other.<br/><br/>"He's holed up in the old slave-driver's mansion, down south a piece," said the first, gesturing in the right direction.  Then he grinned.  "Lanner's gonna be mad as hell.  Well, we'll start getting people loaded up.  Sent a few boys on ahead already.  Be seein' ya, bro."  The two of them withdrew into the ruined town, snickering to each other.<br/><br/>In the direction the man had pointed, a country road pierced the grain, bending into invisibility.  There was no smoke in the distance beyond the crops.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Merelli knew the young man was busy.  Perhaps now was not the time for words.  He stood back as Raice kept his onslaught going, batting away furs with that large chain of his.  Merelli took the moment to look at his grazed arm.  Noting that it was a simple flesh wound, he let it be for the moment and decided to draw the cultists' attention away from Raice, who looked to be nearly encircled now.  He shot a cultist dead, then purposefully wounded another in the leg, causing it to tumble and fall, howling.  Some began to turn toward him.  Merelli let the left corner of his mouth curl up.<br/><br/>He fired again, killing the one he'd wounded.  Cultists began gathering in a phalanx ahead of him, growling and snarling.  It was then that he noticed he was alone among the dead... no others were nearby.  The other corner of his mouth rose, his lips parting to reveal his white teeth.  His finger contracted and another Cultist fell, clutching at a gouged jugular.  The one beside it was rallying followers to him - an acolyte no doubt, wielding a pair of jagged short swords polished in blood.<br/><br/>In his periphery, Merelli saw his reserves massing for the counterattack he'd ordered.  He lifted his right foot slightly, letting the toe rest on the ground still.  The angry Cultists began to move, charging at him in a clump.  He counted out the instants in his mind.<br/><br/>One... the acolyte was shifting his course to plow directly into him.<br/>Two... the Resistance troops had spotted their commander alone, without support.  They were turning.  They wouldn't be there in time.<br/>Three... Merelli brought his gun level with the acolyte's eyes.  A helmet covered the rest of his skull, but Merelli didn't need this bullet to score.<br/>Four... the bullet flew from Merelli's gun.  In the same motion, Merelli was flinging it behind him, away to safety.  His right foot began to rise.<br/>Five... the acolyte took the bullet in the eye, dying as he fell.  His momentum carried his torso forward and downward as his feet stopped pumping.  The shock jarred the short swords from his grasp.  They flew toward Merelli, twisting end over end.  The other cultists had barely processed what was happening.<br/>...SIX.<br/><br/>Merelli caught the short swords.  The acolyte was sliding at him on the ground.  His right foot came down on the acolyte's head and kicked him off, into the air, sailing over the heads of the cultists.  He landed as they were whirling, trying to find him.<br/><br/>"<span style="font-style: italic">FRICIA VERFIN!</span>" he cried.  Before they could turn, he was among them.  They were dead within moments.<br/><br/>Merelli's men rushed up to him, looking at him in shock.  "Sir...?" said one.<br/><br/>"We start the counterattack here," said Merelli, whipping the short swords behind him to free them of blood.  "Turn to follow the dragoness and the reptilian boy.  That is the break in their line."<br/><br/>"Yes, sir!"  As his troops rushed off, Merelli let himself have a breath.  It had been years since he'd done that.  His leg was already sore with the exertion.<br/><br/><br/>The First Sergeant's lips puckered as he swallowed back bile.  Emiko would never have her hand back.  He tried not to conjure an image of some ruthless monster eating it, and instead tied off the tourniquet and moved to Jenten, examining the bat-fur's injuries.<br/><br/>Something HAD hit him pretty hard.  There was a big, nasty lump above his left eye, and some bleeding.  The First Sergeant reached into his jacket for his flask of water to swab Jenten's wound... and was a bit put off not to find it there.  He shuffled his clothes a moment, looking for it, then he turned to Emiko.  "My flask," he muttered, drawing close.  "You still got it?"<br/><br/><br/>Janus had never felt so detached from his body before.  The arm holding the switchblade was working like a piston, jabbing relentlessly into cultist after cultist, downing them like dominos.  Occasionally as he pulled the blade free, some hot blood would splash against his lips and he would revel in the taste of the blood.  He could taste the difference between a human and a fur.  And he wanted to drink the human blood.  He wanted gallons of it to course down his throat.  Somewhere deep inside him, the boy that was still Arnold Janus was reeling in dismay.  So... this was what it was like to be cursed.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The Sludge Freak felt its prey wriggle inside and decided to speed the process up, loosing many tentacles and stuffing Faust all the way in with little delay.  Faust's surroundings immediately became a stifling, suffocating sack of wet ooze, but his circulation was returning...<br/><br/>The wetness on Faust's skin was beginning to burn.  The thud of a heartbeat pulsed nearby.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>As the group began to move, Halvorson positioned himself ahead of Feign, alongside the medic.  He let Baz come up to take point to find their way.  As they passed O'Toole and Sara in their hiding places, Halvorson nodded at them, giving them an all-clear signal.  O'Toole gratefully slid out of the secondary line and into position behind the newbie, looking him over curiously.  She brushed a clump of roaches from her shoulder, after realizing that the new fellow was talking.<br/><br/>He looked back at her with a smile.<span style="font-style: italic">"I would ask your aquaintances, unless your officer would like us to save our breaths for the journey."</span><br/><br/>She furrowed her brow at him.  "L-T, who is this?"<br/><br/>"That's Feign, First Sergeant," said Halvorson, not looking back.  "He got lost down here.  Apparently he and some of his friend were going to try to hit the Bitch where it hurt, but then... well, it didn't go as planned."  At this he did look back at her, his eyes conveying a warning she couldn't quite interpret.  Was he unsure about Feign, or was he unsure about their own success?<br/><br/>Letting it slide, she looked Feign in the eye.  "My name is Can-o-Whoopass," she said with a straight face.  She then pointed at Sara and the medic.  "These are my pals Nutbuster and Doc Makes-it-hurt."  She nodded up ahead.  "The little guy's Rat Bastard, and the officer is Major Agony."  Halvorson chuckled.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">"This place smells funny, even for a sewer,"</span>Baz said from the front of the group.<span style="font-style: italic">"Chemicals... smells like a laboratory."</span><br/><br/>Halvorson nodded.  "This is where the Bitch keeps all her special labs.  Most of 'em are in the Palace, from what I've heard, but a few big companies are on the Square, too, makin' all sorts of stuff."  He lowered his voice.  "I better check with our boys."  He put his mouth to his collar, keying the little radio.  "Foxtrot, this is Trash Truck.  Had a bit of a delay, we're back on track now.  Status report, over."<br/><br/>Baz's ultrasonic detection would be able to lead them with relative ease in the right direction.  They were in a main line and would be at the outlet to the lake soon.  One thing stood in their way: a floodgate, currently closed.  It blocked off the whole line.  Kazmer did not vent its sewage into Lake Kassemar untreated, so this line was kept cut off from the lake unless there was a sudden flood that would threaten to overwhelm the combined sewage/drainage system.  Then the floodgates would open, allowing excess to empty out into the lake.  To get to where they needed to go, the team would have to find a way to open the floodgate.