When Given a Lemon

Part 40

As we climb, a very distant groan whispers out toward us, carried up by the breeze.

It's too faint to discern, but clear enough to cover my body in goose prickles. With the shiver returns the nausea full force. I barely hold it down, only with sheer determination I keep moving forward.

“Lem, you okay?” I whisper over to them, they walk next to me but the look in their eyes is distant, unreadable. “Hello, Lemon?” I tap their arm and they jump five feet in the air with a yelp that made me jump in response. My eyes darted around and those closest also ducked down in defensive positions before realizing there was no immediate danger. I glanced about, apologetically.

Lemon bit their lower lip looking a bit sheepish, “sorry about that.” They rubbed their cheek, “my thoughts must have carried me away there.”

Less than an hour later we come across another swarm that is even bigger than the last. Flanking us, they fly in to smash into the backs of those facing a few bugs on their other side, or crawl up to claw at the midriffs of anyone they could get close enough to before getting cut down. A few more sustained injuries, but despite the higher numbers of the grotesque pests at least there were no casualties this time.

I begin to feel like our team has honed their skills enough that we are starting to have an edge on the bugs that we come up against. A feeling I would have liked to have time to appreciate.

Of course nature decides at that moment to start to rain, the drops coming down hard enough to make it nearly impossible to see more than a dozen steps ahead of me, thus reducing our chances of survival –nevermind success– to a trickle.

I am beginning to think this mountain is cursed and that's how the existence of all these bugs can be explained.

They wouldn't normally exist in this world, but if the land was cursed, it maybe could have affected some of the insects and animals up here, mutating them into what we've been chasing around everywhere and fighting since we were dragged up here.

After this I would be happy to never see snow, mud, rain, or another insect, ever again. Hell, I'll just stay inside! If only one of the pigments they used to dye the clothes back home didn't come in the form of a dead beetle, I'd be set for life! It was one we had to squish up, cook, and strain, before adding a setting medium to it and I doubted I would get away with claiming it would cause a nightmare to prepare so there'd be no way around it. But at least no snow would be awfully nice.

The next rise we crest exposes us to a battlefield we did not expect to see. Many bodies of different soldiers that had come out ahead of our team lay broken on the ground while many others rally around a horned monstrosity who's body stands protruding halfway out of a burrow that's perched on a shelf of rocks up ahead of us. The lieutenant bellows orders and several archers prepped and let fly barbed or flaming arrows, most of which slam into the creature that doesn't even try to dodge any of them.

Horrified by what I see I nearly turn around to flee but Cayeol is right behind me, catching me by the waist thinking that I was falling, not running away. They push me upright and draw their blade all in the same fluid movement as if this moment was practiced.

The breath caught in my throat tightens my chest as my eyes reconnect with the ghastly thing bellowing its fierce dislike for what had been shot into it. On second look I realize there is something peculiar with this one. Unlike the countless ones we had encountered on our way here, this one looks like a hugely bloated, wingless, and yellow hooded slug.

Someone gasps nearby me, sputtering, “have we found their queen?!”

Oh for fuck's sake!
Queen?!