[h1]North-Eastern Illinois[/h2]

	The mud splashed over the horses' hooves as the four androids trotted into the village. Crude wooden huts were deep into a fiery blaze and the air around them was hot. The horses sweated in the heat, the androids paid no real heed; after all, they had survived worse. But they knew too this heat would not physically harm their mounts, even the mule. It would be uncomfortable, but they would ride out in time and return on foot to better search the wreckage on foot.

	There wasn't any particular exchange of words as they went. A silence held between them as they looked on as the fires engulfed thatched roofing and collapsed walls. Clouds of ash and ember billowed hot into the air and rose rapidly skyward with the updraft. The mane, tails, and coats of the riders and horses were tugged gently into the fires as they passed close on the siren's call of heat and flame. In the muddied streets they could see bodies buried deep in the super-saturated earth and imagined scenarios as to what happened began to cycle. An attack, a raid. Bandits or a foreign lord raiding and pillaging the country side. Was it blind greed, or was it to provoke a rival? Bitterness between clans, communities? There had been rumors of nomadic bands breaking across the Mississippi on horse or foot, but this was far too from that the western Burning Country.

	They rode through and came out the other side, and hitching their rides to an unscathed grove of trees they turned and walked back on foot. The snow clung to their wet coats and boots only to melt again when they came nearer to the fire. Unburdened of the safety for mortal flesh they went about their work of examination. Uno who wore nothing against the outer weather walked solemnly and without regard into the burning huts to snag anything that would not burn to bring out of the fire, but in the crackling flames he only found ceramic vases that had already cracked and popped in the second or third blasting they were given, and melted trinkets; human and animal remains had either been buried or burned deep if not slain outside in the mud.

	Lada stood over the half buried corpse of a young woman in the mud. Her crude blouse had been cut and torn and her back bore the open wounds of recent heavy burns. A protruding arrow stuck out of her back, the tip burned black and the shaft itself completely carbonized but solid still. As he pulled her up out of the muck the arrow shaft shook and crumbled immediately and the arrow head fell with a soft thump in the mud.

	He knelt down and examined the woman's face, it had been beaten and swollen. Mud was caked to her face, making it appear darker than it was. Brushing it off with a gentle hand though he cleaned the half-frozen mask from her face to reveal the bruises and cuts to her face. Elsewhere along her body were signs of physical violence. Her breasts and thighs swollen and a deep bloodied purple. There were signs of trauma at her genitals.

	She had been raped, as far as Lada could tell. He pulled the remains of the arrow from her chest and scooped up the blackened, charred arrow head from the ground and pocketed them both in a satchel at his side.

	Dropping the body and rising to his feet he turned to Kacy who stood not far away where there was a burned and dirty mass in the ground. Lada came close and realized that the mass wasn't singular but of several. “I don't think this was slaving.” Kacy indicated, gesturing to the dead children curled in the mud, “Kids would've been gone.”

	“And the women.” Lada added, half-heartidly waving a hand towards the woman in the dirt, “I'm sure where there's one there's other. Where do you suppose the men are?” he asked also.

	Kacy looked up and around. “Where ever the attackers came from I suppose.” he said, “Or they were already vacated from the area. It would explain the slaughter, there was no one around to beg to differ, to warn them so they could run.”

	Lada nodded, “I suppose so.” he agreed.

	They trudged through the muddy streets of the small village in search of Ego. They found him in the central square leaning over the bodies of several men silently examining the corpses. He turned and checked the heads, they peeled back from the body with ease, but didn't detach. The cuts to the necks weren't full decapitations on many and the rest of the bodies bore signs of further attempts at mutilations; arms partly severed, stomachs cut open. “Most of them fought with pitchforks.” he said, gesturing to the side where a pile of farming implements had been stacked up, their blades rusted and caked in dried blood.

	“Anything else?” Kacy asked.

	“Found a sword.” Ego said, pulling the blade he left in the mud to present to his companions, “Too nice for country people though, doubt was anyone's here.”

	Kacy took the sword and gave it a once over. It was certainly a fine weapon, with no frills. The blade had been dulled and chips were present in the long straight blade. But in a fight and in hacking so many limbs it would not be unheard of for any of them. The only frill as far as Kacy could find was an embellishment of silver in the pommel, and most likely why it would be no farmer's.

	“You recognize this?” he asked, handing the blade to Lada.

	He took the weapon and examined it closely.

	“The horn-curved cross-guard, facing out away from the hand, short handle, just long enough to fit in someone's palm...” Lada's metal hands were far too big for the handle, a physical effect easily noticed on humans who had become long detached in the diets of the man Lada was proportioned off of, “... Perhaps northern Minnesotan. Superior?” he pondered, in a crooning voice.

	“We're far from the lakes themselves.” Kacy pointed out.

	“Which is curious.” Lada indicated, “I also collected an arrow, but I don't recall the shape of the arrow head or the feather pattern, but they all look the same to me.”

	Kacy nodded his head understandingly. Uno caught up with them.

	“Did you find anything?” asked Kacy

	Uno shook his head, “Nothing in the ruins themselves.” he said, his naked frame glowed a soft orange from the treatment of the fire. If they didn't find any water to douse him then he would be walking for the rest of the day. One of them would need to lead his mule. “I did find some tracks though on the other side of the village, heading north-west from here, nearly opposite of our approach. They look fresh.”

	Kacy nodded his acknowledgment, so did Lada. “The village is still burning, not even smoldering coals. The corpses it seems haven't undergone rigor mortis, we're not even more than a day behind the party that did this.” Lada said, “If we track them down, we can perhaps get answers, or dispense justice.”

	The other two nodded with silent approval. Lada turned and asked Ego about it but he held a cold detached silence on the matter entirely.

	The group turned from their brief forensic study of the village, and followed Uno to the village's periphery where he knelt and showed them the tracks. They look up across the muddy, snowy field and saw a broad swathe of churned field. “Did a lot come, or did they fan out?” Kacy asked.

	“I can't tell.” said Uno.
	
	They followed the tracks until they came to a point by some trees, there in the snow and tangled and trampled brambles they saw the prints change. “From foot to mount, or is the other way around?” Lada asked.

	Uno walked about, and answered the question, “Both.”

	“This changes the situation, we can't probably catch up with today.” Lada said, “But maybe we can tonight, they will have to rest and sleep.” they didn't.

	“I'll fetch the horses then.” Uno said, and turned leaving his companions in that trampled grove. The distant crackle of a smoldering village and chirping of early spring birds being all that was left in the still air as he left.