Chapter Text
The expedition has gone splendidly awful, which Margaret is beginning to suspect is standard fare for most endeavors in this place. Death begets rot begets madness, and it grows tangible in the humidity of the hamlet’s sunless, overcast sky. Every aspect feeds off the last, cyclical.
She takes a breath, then feeds another cartridge into the barrel of her musket. It takes effort to ignore the blood at her feet. She was desensitized to it as a child; blood has always been a part of her life, ever since she first hefted a musket to her shoulder and pulled the trigger. There was no weight to taking the life of a dog, a deer, a goose—now, she simply finds it alarming how similar their colors are to a human’s spilt innards.
Delicate, slender fingers ghost across her shoulders. She jumps.
“Don’t retch now, dearie,” Audrey whispers, eyes fixed on the bodies in front of them. They’re as blue as an untainted sky, and they glint like gems in the torch’s dying light. “You might draw more of them to us, and there isn’t any use in us rotting along with this lot.”
Audrey steps over the bulbous, fetid bodies of slain pigs, heels skipping through red-green pus. She’s poised carefully on her toes as she squats, tucking the tailcoat of her jacket into the fold of her knees so it doesn’t drag in the muck. Her fingers slip into the inner pockets of the highwayman’s jacket with practiced ease, and Margaret finds her revulsion briefly overtaken by shock.
“You would disgrace our fallen comrades so soon?”
“This is our job, love—to bring back trinkets and shiny baubles for our dear employer.” Audrey hums, a smile playing at her lips as she unearths a silver locket. “They’re not going to be needing these things anyhow. Not where they’re going.”
Margaret huffs, her frown worsening as Audrey begins to pocket her findings. She tries, “It’s… undignified.”
“Yes, well,” Audrey brushes off her knees as she moves to the next body, “we all have to debase ourselves in this line of work sooner or later. You can’t keep your hands clean forever, Lady Margaret—perhaps you should invest in a sturdy pair of gloves.”
Margaret considers saying that she’s no more a Lady than Audrey herself, or that she wouldn’t be down here if not proving herself didn’t mean being seen as little more than a pauper, but Audrey chooses that moment to toe a swine out of her way and onto its side, revealing its yellow gnarled teeth and foam covered lips. Something rises in the back of her throat, and she’s forced to cut her gag off with a hand to her mouth. Audrey sighs, hands on her hips.
“If you really must retch, best do it now than carry the feeling out to battle with us. Come here,” she says, and then she’s back at Margaret’s side, hand on the small of her back. She guides her to a dusty corner that’s been spared most of the bloodshed. “Yes, down—there’s a good girl.” Margaret gags again, jerking forward, and Audrey’s fingers run circles along her spine. She feels like a child in her hands. “I’m going to scout ahead and see what lovely new horrors await us. You just get it all out.”
She leaves Margaret on her knees, with the taste of bile in her mouth.