Allard

Someone is crying again. The group huddles together at first but slowly spreads out as much as they can without leaving the protection of the guards. Eyes dart from body to body as friends and neighbors that have lived near each other for years, decades for some, suspiciously scan those nearest to them to see who will start biting next. The four guards not protecting the mage dot the outside edge of the group. Their hands rest on their hilts, knuckles turning white as they grip the leather-wrapped surfaces. It doesn’t help the townspeople to calm down. They shift further away from each other, then jerk back as they get too close to someone in the other direction.

“I would sure like to know what’s driving this SNAFU,” Momo mutters behind him. The three townspeople with bleeding wounds sit on the ground behind her.

“Snack food?” He whispers back.

“I’ll explain later.” She shifts, leaning against her ‘walking stick’. “Something is wrong with that group.”

Allard turns his attention to the mage and the three human guards facing outward around them. Seemingly taking it as permission to speak, the mage points at the three wounded people and loudly announces, “The infected are among us!”

Moans and cries of fear fill the air.

“They haven’t been bitten,” Allard answers calmly.

Vae steps out of the enclosure, wiping his short sword off on a piece of cloth that he drops just inside the protruding walls. “Two were infected in there. Neither had bite works on them, they turned at nearly the same time. If any of these have been somehow infected,” he emphasizes the last word, “they’ll turn in the next few minutes. And I will deal with them.”

His eyes flick to Momo, who nods with a tired smile that looks as fake as gold-painted rocks to Allard.

Allard wonders at the near speech the older elf gave before he focuses on a single word. “Somehow? If it wasn’t a bite, did they get scratched? Is that enough to pass it on?”

For just a second, something flashes across the face of the mage. A smugness, perhaps, but gone so fast that Allard wonders if he imagined it. He blinks, but all he sees is exhaustion and fear.

“No, they must have been bitten,” one of the guards interjected, scoffing at the trio blocking the group of injured townspeople. Farrel narrows his eyes at his guard, but the man just rolls his eyes and looks away.

“We aren’t killing them just because they are injured. If they turn, I’ll do it myself.” The slight tremble at the end belies his projected strength.

Allard nods, opening his mouth to speak when he hears a weak voice calling to him from the group of cowering people against the wall.

“Allard? You made it here?” A tall man steps out from between two others who back away from him quickly, nearly bouncing back when they stop abruptly before touching those on their other side.

Fading hair that was once the same color as his own is pulled back from a face that seems to be all jutting angles. Allard looks in shock at the man with drooping shoulders, shoulders that once seemed capable of supporting the whole world. “Father?” He asks in a low voice before running forward and grasping the man's forearms, then pulling him into a hug. “Why did you leave the town? You were safe there.”

“What they were doing wasn’t right,” his father replies, patting him shakily on the shoulder. “I thought if I didn’t speak up others would suffer. Don’t give me that look, it needed to be done, even if it turned out this way. At least I got to see you again.” His eyes grow misty, and he swallows hard. “I thought you were dead. I thought-”

“No, not dead,” Allard responds, cutting him off before he can get too upset. He puts his arm around the shoulder of the older man, wondering when he had gotten so short. The strong shoulders aren’t the only thing that has started to buckle under the pressure.

“Allard,” Momo calls to him, and he turns back to face his friends, bringing his father back with him. He nods, then frowns when he spies Norag speaking to her, her head bobbing as she listens.

“What’s going on?” He asks once he is close enough to hear without the need to yell.

“Norag said the biters that followed them have shown up. It’s a big group. Far larger than the last we saw.” She nods at his father, and Allard can’t stop a small smile at how easily she figured out who he was and how quickly she accepted him.

“There is a big group of biters coming? Those walls won’t hold against that!”

Allard frowns as he looks back at the mage. “Did you shout that on purpose, or are you an idiot?”

Stolen story; please report.

“How dare you!” The mage sputters, an affronted look pulling his eyebrows straight up toward his hairline. Farrel shakes his head and steps farther away from that group.

“What do you want us to do?” The head guard asks, looking over the remaining townspeople. “I don’t think any of them could raise a sword right now even if they were desperate.”

“I think we need to move them farther from the wall. At least until we have a plan.” Allard looks to Momo who nods slightly. “If Norag just saw them they should still be a bit out, there is no need to panic. I’ll go with Momo to get some water for the sprites to purify if everyone can stay calm.”

He raises his voice so that everyone can hear him, and he can feel his father straightening up beneath his arm. Farrel nods sharply and walks over to his remaining guards. With a few comforting murmurs, he has the whole group moving as one until they are thirty feet from the wall. Momo waits for him to extricate himself from his father’s leaning form, then sets off for the village at a sedate pace.

“Should we go faster? They could be here sooner than I made it sound,” he whispers just in case anyone can still hear them.

“There are some bad people in that group.” Momo pauses, clenching her jaw. “I think it is more than just those three guards and the mage.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I purified the wounds on the injured ones. They weren’t bites. Someone cut them. A straight slice across the outside of their biceps. And Vae said the ones that turned in the middle of the group had identical marks.” She glances back at him to see if he is following, but he must look confused because she sighs and continues. “They weren’t anywhere near biters for at least a few hours before they came to us. And they were in the enclosure for a good half of an hour before anyone turned. From what you said when I found you, it happens within two hours of being bitten.”

“Wait, so you are saying that someone figured out how to infect people? The cuts, they were cut with something covered in biter blood! It must be that mage, but why?” His voice trails off when Momo shakes her head slowly. “What, that isn’t what happened?”

“It wasn’t the mage. Not directly.”

“Because…” he trails off again, but Momo lets him work through things himself. The village looms ahead of them, dark under the feeble light of the crescent moon. “It must have been one of his guards. Mages don’t usually use weapons. Their magic is their weapon.”

“That’s good reasoning, but I think it is something more worrisome. I think there is somebody else hiding in the group. Somebody desperate enough to take the chance they could be infected. They are being used as a distraction, but for what?”

“Momo! Why are we leaving them if we think someone in that group is going to try to kill everyone again?” Allard immediately turns around to head back, but Momo grabs his arm and pulls him along with her.

“They turned people as a distraction, Allard. A distraction wouldn’t do any good with that horde approaching. They’ll wait for the best time, maybe after we’ve dealt with the biters. Or maybe they’ll wait until the two of us get back and they get a drink of water before killing us. I don’t know. But being thirsty isn’t going to help us think.”

He looks behind them, but in the end, his trust in her is enough to keep his feet moving forward. “I don’t like this, Momo.”

“I don’t think you are supposed to, Allard. In my experience, when situations suck there isn’t much you’ll be able to find to like about them. Now let’s get this done.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/js4cqrN.png]

By the time everyone has drank from the buckets below the shimmering sprites, Allard is feeling calmer. He stands against the wall, looking out at the approaching group, now shambling toward them maybe ten minutes away. “Are you sure this will work?” He asks Momo, who is peering between two vines next to him.

“Not in the slightest,” she responds, and he feels his shoulders loosen the rest of the way at her unworried tone. “It should, though. In theory. If the biter-ness can be purified out of things, then it should be able to be purified out of a biter too. And that is what is keeping them moving, right?”

“In theory,” he answers, throwing her words back at her. He wishes that they had been able to test the theory out before there were so many biters heading their way. He wishes he had tried harder to learn sword fighting under his mother. He wishes he would wake up and be safe in his bed. “This isn’t a great time to test it out.”

“There are rarely good times to do scary things.” She steps back from the wall and rolls her shoulders. A dozen sprites struggle to stay on their perches across her. She asked a few to accompany her to give the illusion that it was them casting the spells, but soon there were so many that she looked as though she were wearing a sprite hood. It didn’t seem to bother her, though, so Allard didn’t say anything about it. “It’s too many to deal with this the normal way, Allard. We will do the best we can.”

She turns around, unsettling a few sprites that scurry back to their spots. “Vae, Norag, I would very much like it if you could be providing some protection for those townspeople. “

“No,” Vae answers immediately, Norag responding with a “Not leaving you, Miss Momo” at the same time.

“Don’t make me wallop the both of you,” she says sternly. Norag hunches his shoulders but doesn’t argue again. “Somebody needs to keep their eye on that mage and their friends, and if things do get through all of those people will need someone to protect them. I trust the both of you.”

With a fierce scowl, Vae leaves them and Norag follows. Allard watches them walk away, the big orc turning back to look at them every few steps.

“What do you want me to do, Momo?”

“Stay with me and keep looking pretty?” She grins at him, but the grin fades so quickly he swears he can see after images. “What’s that?” She whispers, so low he can barely hear it.

Allard follows her gaze to a section of the wall not far from where they are standing. Something small and black is sitting on it a foot above the ground. As he watches, another appears a food away. “That looks like-” Allard gasps and grabs Momo’s arms, wrenching it as he pulls her away as fast as he can. “Explosives! There is a rogue planting explosives!”

Momo tries to pull away from him, to go back and stop them, but he knows that whoever the rogue is they will be able to sprint away much faster than she can get there. She must realize it too because she stops fighting and runs beside him.

It doesn’t matter, though. Allard hears the boom and throws himself over her, knocking her to the ground right as something slams into him and the world goes dark.