Chapter 41 - Show Of Force

It was humans, not goblins. That was a good sign, but I didn’t recognize any of them, so I remained hidden and watched. Whoever they were, they had better weapons than the refugees at the station had when I left. They’d all been armed with rebar or chunks of wood. My fire axe had been one of the best weapons of the lot.

This crew was different. They all had shields, for starters. It looked like they’d sawed a bunch of doors in half for most of them, but a few folks had stop signs strapped to their arms instead. The weapons were better, too. I saw a lot of spears, and they weren’t just sharpened rebar. These spears were hafts of wood with a knife blade of some sort tied to the end. The whole thing looked pretty well put-together. I also saw bats with nails driven into them, a few crude sword-like weapons, and one guy even carried a fire axe like mine.

“Someone’s been here,” one of them called out. A woman.

“Goblins have definitely been here,” another shot back.

“No, this was someone else. I’m seeing a lot of footprints all around,” the first person replied. “Large group of humanoids. Maybe a dozen or more.”

That was my army’s tracks she was seeing. And probably mine.

“Lords is still here,” she went on. “We can get him buried, at least.”

“Look around for others,” a familiar voice said. That was Alfred! At least he’d made it. “We lost eight people in the confusion. I want to confirm deaths, if we can.”

I hesitated, considering my options. I could maybe withdraw and not get noticed, but I thought the odds of that were slim. If I started marching a small army away from the aid station, someone was going to see us. We could sit still, but sooner or later someone would want to clear this building. The aid station was gutted, the roof collapsed, the interior a burnt-out ruin. But they’d still want to check it over, just to make sure there hadn’t been anyone trapped inside when it burned, and to look for any supplies they’d missed before.

The best option was probably to just make myself known, but I wasn’t sure what sort of reception I was going to get. After all, as far as these folks were concerned, I’d killed three of them and fled into the woods. At least, that’s the story I figured they were telling themselves.

No, I needed to take charge right away. I had to be the one they were worried about screwing with, not the other way around. There were only six of them. With my current stats I had a sneaking suspicion I could take them even without my undead. Unless they’d started going after crystals a lot more than they had been when I left, most of those people probably had a tier two at best.

I gave mental commands to some of my undead, having the tier one skeletons march out through gaps in the sides of the building. They moved in pairs, keeping themselves under cover enough that they wouldn’t be seen right away. I gave them about a fifteen count to get to where I needed them. Then I ordered my skeleton warriors to advance, shields up, out the front door of the aid station. I followed close behind with the archers.

A phalanx of armed skeletons with shields marching out the ruined doorway got their attention right away! Alfred started calling orders to his people, telling them to form up, and they quickly made their own wall of battle. Holy shit, the guy had turned into a halfway decent leader! Who’d have thought?

Right when they got themselves formed up was when I had six skeletons pop out of hiding on either side of their formation. The tier one skellies weren’t as strong or as deadly, but seeing more foes on their flanks had to hurt. My archers stepped out to either side of my main line of battle and nocked an arrow, although I didn’t have them aim. Yet.

Hope barked, then howled. Alfred’s entire party froze in their tracks. One of them trembled and dropped to his knees.

But Alfred didn’t. The jackass just set his shield down on the ground, all nonchalant, and called out to me. “Selena, is that you?”

I came forward, the skeleton warriors parting in front of me to allow me by. “Yeah, it’s me.”

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“What’s with the theatrics?” Alfred asked, gesturing at the undead. “I thought we were friends.”

“Classmates, anyway,” I snapped back. “But after three folks from your group tried to kill me a couple of days ago, let’s just say I’m feeling like caution is warranted.”

He scowled. “I had a feeling that’s what happened there. We found Brad, Neal, and Tom. Had to put two of them down.”

“Put them down?” I blinked. I was pretty sure I’d left all three of them dead as doornails. Then it came to me—two of them were killed by zombies. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern turned them into zombies when they died. Oops. Probably should have made sure they were dead, dead. “Shit. Zombie bites. I’m sorry, Alfred. They came at me, my undead fought back automatically. If they hadn’t, I’d definitely be dead right now instead. I should have made sure they weren’t coming back, though.”

He shook his head. “Not a problem. If they tried to kill you, they got what they deserved. Can we…maybe take things down a Defcon or two? I can get my guys to put up their weapons, you get the skeletons to back off?”

I nodded. “I can do that.”

I ordered the twelve tier one undead to back away, then move to the perimeter. They’d give me early warning if anyone else came at us. No more surprises was a good motto. The warriors, on the other hand, I left in their rank, standing on the steps in front of the aid station. A little show of force was in order, just to make sure nobody got any funny ideas. I came down the steps, Hope close behind, and Alfred came forward to shake my hand.

“It’s good to see you, Selena,” he said. “I was worried you’d been killed.”

“Not yet, anyway,” I said as I shook his hand. “I ran into a lot of trouble, but came through the other side pretty well.”

“Better than we did, from the looks of it. How many undead do you have now, anyway?”

I shot him a look that said ‘you seriously expect me to answer that,’ and he just laughed.

“Fair enough. You’ve got a lot of them, though. We could use your help,” Alfred went on. “The goblins hit us last night, and they have something new. They were lobbing fireballs into the camp, burning down buildings and blowing up cars. It was a mess. I’m still shocked so many of us survived.”

I almost hesitated to ask, because I knew the odds were shitty. But… “Did Kat make it?”

Alfred nodded. “She did. We got crutches for her, so she was able to hobble her way back toward campus. We set up a temp camp west of here to get some rest and tend our wounded. Henry made it too, thank goodness, so he was able to tend our injuries. Kat’s with the others.”

That was good news. Kat wasn’t a friend; we’d been shoved together as roommates by the college, and there hadn’t been time yet to bond. I wasn’t sure we would have, if things hadn’t gone nuts. But she was still someone I knew, so for some reason it mattered to me whether she lived or died. Humans are weird about stuff like that, I guess.

“You look stronger,” I told him. I could sense it from him, now that I was nearby. That was new. The last time I was with these people I had no idea who had crystals embedded and who didn’t. Now, that was all changed. Alfred was a tier three. None of his teammates were, though. Most of them were tier two, and the guy who’d gone to his knees was tier one. Still, Alfred hitting tier three was pretty cool. He must have worked hard for that.

“I am,” he replied.

I decided to give him a little knowledge and show off at the same time. “Tier three?”

“How?” Alfred asked me, shocked. “How did you know that? Just from looking? From touching me? What was it, some new spell?”

I laughed. “Not a spell. I don’t know exactly why, to be honest. You’re the first people I’ve been able to do this with. I can see tier levels of people from just looking at you. I think I unlocked the ability when I hit tier five.”

The info drop was intentional. Since I knew he was tier three, and he was the strongest of this lot, letting them know I was tier five would hopefully make them less interested in screwing with me. Of course, if they knew killing me would make me drop all my crystals, it could backfire. But I was going to need to take chances with people sooner or later, and Alfred felt like someone I could trust, at least a little.

“Tier five?” Alfred said. “Wow. Yikes, you have been busy, huh?”

“Just a little bit. You too, though. Are you the leader of this group, now that Lords is gone? How did that happen?”

Alfred ran a hand through his hair, looking embarrassed. “Lords died last night in the attack. Without him calling commands, we’d all have just died in place, I think. I called for a withdrawal, and then helped cover the retreat until we got the noncombatants clear. When the mess was over, I asked George and Samson if they wanted to take over, and both of them declined. They said I’d done a good job and should keep doing it, so here we are.”

“Not bad,” I told him. “I think they picked a good man for the job. Listen, I have an idea where there might be people gathering. Maybe we can get your other people there? Get some help against the goblins?”

“That sounds like a good plan. Where?”

Before I could answer, I got mental feedback from the skeletons I’d set watching the eastern approach. We had company coming—goblins, and a lot of them. I sent a mental order to the undead to stay under cover and wait, then ambush the enemy if it got closer enough.

“Later,” I told Alfred. “We’ve got incoming. Your buddies from the forest are on their way. Wanna team up and take them down?”

“You got it,” Alfred replied. Then he turned to his people. “Tighten up the ranks. We’ve got trouble coming, people! Let’s get ready for a fight!”