Pillage

With a sharp jerk of its reins, Eschar’s Dregea skidded to a stop before the cliff edge. The pillars of smoke rising from the village could be seen from miles away, a screaming siren to everyone around that the blighted army was here, and war had been declared. From here, he could see everything, smell the charred flesh, hear the screams and begs for mercy. 

Black eyes watched intently as the soldiers marched through, unorganised but with a pure viciousness that was unmatched. You didn’t need tactics when you were fighting against civilians. 

Standing among the trees was Lucille. Eschar didn’t notice her at first, hidden behind long, twisting branches, but she was there, lording over the destruction with a watchful eye. She’d sent word forward to him, but he didn’t actually expect her to be here. She didn’t look up from the fires once. 

The silence between them hung in the air for a few more heartbeats before Eschar gave a rough, raspy laugh. What little of the Aboreal guards left were turning and fleeing at the sight of the encroaching army, prepared to fight people but not a disease. He expected such acts of cowardice from them. “So the old Queenie finally did it, finally made good on her threats.” He didn’t see any of the corrupt royals here, nor any of her regular entourage, so he had to assume anyone important had taken the tunnels and didn’t arrive by boat. 

“It was inevitable.” Lucille responded flatly, flicking open her revolver and spinning the barrel. The small clicks of the metal barely audible over the chaos that took place below. “The spores drive them to expand, so they may find more hosts. You cannot reason with it, it is all consuming.” 

Eschar rolled his eyes, clearly she’d been spending too much time with that bat-thing again. “Geez, I’m right here Luce.” He flipped his hand out in mock offence, the jingle of the reins making his dregea take a step back. “I would be six feet under if it weren’t for that fungus.” 

Lucile finally looked at him, gold, pin point eyes staring right through him. “And yet you stand before me, rotting, as a walking feast for the very earth you escaped.” 

Eschar was beginning to remember why he stopped talking to her. 

He knew Lucile meant well, in her own way at least. She always had been overly poetic and dramatic, and she was never fond of the elder mushrooms. Eschar always chocked it up to not actually having a brain, no rushing of endorphins or thudding adrenaline to see the perks of such a substance. She always was a Debbie downer. 

He at his beard, blunt fingernails catching on necrotic scabs which tore away with little resistance. It had been feeling like his skin was way too tight lately. Suppose she was right about one thing at least, he needed more of those damn things to keep the spread at bay. 

“Will you be joining them?” 

Eschar hummed in question, zoning back into reality. He didn’t meet the lockette’s eyes as she had turned away again, facing the soldiers as it began its trek deeper into the Verdant Kingdom. 

“The blighted army, will you be joining their cause?” 

Eschar followed her eyes back to the scene, now still with the battalion departing. The fires even seemed to ease, now that the soldiers were not there to cheer them on. It made space for the lone noise that was piercing the air, the screams of a mother as she clutched her dead child to her chest, glow dimming. He predicted she'd be fully infected by day fall. 

“I’ve considered it.” He wasn’t around when Morgana had begun her scheming, still stalking the desert for answers to a question he didn’t even know. Heaven knows if he had, he would’ve been the first in line to take the Verdant Kingdom down a peg, but now that he was back in the forest for the first time in years, an uneasiness settled in his stomach. Something wrong, something that told him that this wasn’t his fight. He hated that it might have to do with who was still sitting high and mighty in Haven. “I know they say the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but…” 

He didn’t like Morgana and Muramasa when they were pure, and he sure as hell didn’t like them now. Petty teenagers in adult bodies that their family drama spill out onto the courtroom floor. Parents in name only. That didn’t sit right with him. 

“I don’t want to feed their egos.” Eschar gave a shrug. 

Lucille paused, before giving a firm nod. “Good.” 

Eschar genuinely didn’t expect her to have a strong opinion on the matter, she was indifferent to her own species’ politics and crimes let alone the ones of another world entirely. 

“You’d get killed. Again.”

Eschar clicked his spurs against the sides of his Dregea. Yeah, he was leaving now.