Anthony left the wheelbarrow with Andrew. Even walking just a bit, he was feeling a lot better. Being able to walk without having someone holding his hand was doing wonders for his confidence. It was only a short walk from the gate at the north of their compound. The compound was designed with a single entrance and exit. It was covered on three sides by a thick wall of Earth, interlaced with roots.

He longed to walk outside. There were only so many times that he could look at the same three and a half walls. He had had enough for that particular day. So when he got to the bank shift gate, he asked one of the warriors to let him pass. It took him about ten minutes to walk around the entire place. It was about the size of a city block. Opposite of the exit and entrance, the rest of the town of Arva lay.

"Hey there boss man, how is it going?" Sonya said from atop the wall. Her long brown hair waved in the wind. She was, of course, wearing the scrub top he had been wearing when he came over and she looked damn good in it.

"Oh, boss man is it?" He said the whole thing next to the wall, and peered up. "I like that one."

"Don't let it go to your head. I have a boyfriend, after all."

Sonya waved one hand, turning packed earth and stone into a walkway between the two of them. She began to descend the stairs.

"So this is new," she said, pointing to his cane. "How's it working out for you? I'll admit it gives you a bit of a silver fox look. A girl could get used to this."

She sidled up next to him, kissed him on the cheek and put one arm around his waist. He was going to go walk around the wall but he got stopped. He fully expected to be stopped more than once. But what he did not expect was for someone to just do that.

"Do you mind going for a walk with me? Is all your work done? I sure could use the company. And you could tell me about Cara."

"That sounds good. I need to stretch my legs anyway, so let's go. We can go at your pace so let me know if I'm going too fast."

"Please take your time walking around. We haven't even seen neither hide nor hair of a zombie,” Sonya pointed out some of the closer buildings.

This town was very small by their standards. With only about 40 houses and one governmental building, there wasn't much to it. Unless you work on a farm somewhere, you live in the center of a very rural community. There wasn't much else for dwarves to do in the grasslands. The main industry of Arva had a lot to do with being a logical stopping point for caravans headed north.

Aside from that, they were roving nomadic tribes of Orcs that sometimes made it this far north. One such tribe, the Green Fang tribe, had held their jamboree just north of the town. As they walked they passed by two orcs who were napping on top of the wall. Neither one got up or said anything.

"Bob said that they were working the night shift? Is that true? We haven't had any problems with them have we?"

One of them snorted loudly.

"That has to be a good sleep. They are working the night shifts. Just the two of them. We had Brandon around the first night just in case something happened, but it was completely unnecessary. I like how remote we are right now from just about anything because otherwise we would be overwhelmed with zombies. And you know how much I hate that."

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," he said.

"I swear to God Anthony, if you're about to go on a Robin Hood tangent, then this might not work out," Sonya said.

A goat came up and barred their path. They took a short route around it. If his life was going to be a part of so many goats, he should probably learn how to distinguish between male and female goats. The first step was looking.

"This one here has got an udder so it's a she?"

Sonya nodded. She kept a wide berth from all the goats. Two nights ago, they had confronted the death knight that had broken Anthony's back. She had an army of undead dwarves and Orcs with it. After they had escaped from their situation, a lot of the Orcs and some of the dwarves were trying to get goats. Or at least that's what everyone thought it happened. Because there were no goats before, and there was no other explanation. Nobody thought that the goats would have shown up on their own.

Anthony was willing to bet just about anything that this was not a card effect. It was more likely that the effect was something from one of the gods.

He had a good idea of which one. It was hard to miss the signature.

Whether it was a gift or a curse he wasn't sure yet. Either way, the amount of goats was a hassle. It was only when the goats started irritating the horses that they had to start managing them in earnest. Anthony had him worried that they might have a problem with other zombies, but none had turned up in the past 2 days.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Better the devil they knew though. Unless the zombies began to stealth through the tall grass, they would be seen long before the caravan would need to mount a defense.

"So all the houses are clear. Finally? We can go have a party anywhere?" Anthony said. "Because I have brought a bottle of water if you want to celebrate. I figured everyone had drank enough of our beer already."

They were just beginning their journey and had a lot to figure out if they were not going to have enough beer to go off of. Potatoes were one thing, but it was doubtful if they would be able to get anything done without a good supply of alcohol.

"Settle down Romeo. We're going to be low on water soon. I'm glad that you're feeling frisky, but let's keep that inside the compound. There's no telling what kind of things we might find in there," Sonya said, smiling at him.

"So about that thing you told me about. You're one hundred percent sure about it?" He said. "Did you want to keep one around the walls, or do you want to stroll through downtown?"

"Do you want to see the one shop they have? We can do that and turn around. That sounds good. Nice and slow with you," she said. "It'll give me time to talk about us."

He gulped, but he had made his bed.

The dwarven general store had been the only commercial building in town. It looked like it pulled dual duty as the municipal center. The building had been stripped of any useful goods. It wasn't even large enough to sell cards.

"The shelves are bare. I feel like we need to do something to memorialize the town."

"Did you ever get any training on grief? Or how to handle dying patients?" Sonya said.

"One of the nursing instructors said that she would always adopt whatever religion that their patients were going through. Especially if they wanted to pray together. I thought that wasn't right. But also I don't know how I would feel if I was dying. I mean then there are the cultural norms, like burying people according to their wishes. None of the dwarves here got to choose a burial of their own. Yil hasn't given me any guidance on what to do for them," Anthony said.

"Cara didn't speak to me about that. I guess that I could smoke some dwarvish kush in their memory? Do you think that would help?" She said, gesturing to the shop. A large painted sign showed a pipe being loaded with something dank.

"I think-If it was me, that's exactly how I would want it to be. I would like you guys to have a barbecue and drink something in my honor. Or maybe smoke something up. I wouldn't want you guys to be sad that I died. I have had two lives now and this second one is proving to be a lot different than what I had expected."

"A barbecue? We could arrange that."

Andrew would have no problem making a barbecue grill. Perhaps there was one more thing that they could do.

"Now let's see if we can figure out how to make a memorial."

----------------------------------------

"All right, let's call this meeting at the council to order. I would like to acknowledge that we are being joined by Borgan and song and that we thank them for their efforts," Anthony said to the assembled crowd. He passed the stick to Sonya, as she had asked to speak shortly after they started.

It was the first time that they had all met up since the battle. After they were all clear, they went back onto a rotating shift of watch duties. This meeting was held about and hour before dark, an optimal time for the changing of the guard. No one was on the walls for this brief time.

"Thank you both," Sonya said. "We know that you're both going through a lot right now and we are all doing our best."

The two tall orcs nodded in unison. Sonya returned the stick to Anthony.

"Thanks, Sonya. We appreciate you both. I think I speak for all of us when we say that," Anthony said. "Now I want to move on to more pressing matters. We've all had two days to recover from the death knight and her legion. I don't doubt that we've all gotten stronger, but the question at hand is do we think that we can take another one on? Or should we figure out a way to get off this continent, then return with a larger force?"

Bob raised his hand to speak. Anthony handed it over.

"Everyone that thinks that we should take on another death knight, raise a hand," Bob said. The group had sat in the circle, hopefully to represent that they were all equals. Bob sat to Anthony's right, as he was in charge of the day-to-day missions and scouting. If Finley was awake he would have been sitting on the other side. Instead, Sophie was there, having volunteered to fill in for the quartermaster role.

A few people raise their hands, sheepishly. Most notably, Bob and Sonya stood out. Both Orcs looked on in amusement.

"Pardon this humble orc, but a death knight is one of those things that appeared behind our lines and nearly killed two of us?"

Borgan said.

"We have killed two so far," Bob said flatly. "Neither one was simple."

Song began to sign something complex to his brother orc. Borgan nodded along as the signing got wilder.

"My brother has reason to believe that some of you are chosen. If this is true, then we would like it to be known," Borgan said.

Bob and Anthony shared a knowing glance.

"It's true. We are all chosen," Anthony said.

Borgan gasped. Song began to gesture even more wildly. Anthony was happy that no one was trying to interject over the mute orc.

"Really? This-Song is telling me that there has never been more than two chosen summoned at once. This explains much," the orc said. "We should have known when all of you returned from that battle. I believe that he will want to follow along if only to learn of your adventures."

Anthony blinked several times.

"Our adventures? We are fighting for our lives here," Sonya said.

"We can think of no better way to honor the clan," Borgan said.

Anthony wished that he could put a hand on the orcs shoulder but he was too far away.

"That said," Anthony said. "It seems like we have a mixed decision here. Perhaps clan Green Fang can help us decide where we should take our next steps."

"If you are all chosen then shouldn't you be taking out the undead?" Borgan said.

A goat bleated behind him. The two meter tall orc nearly jumped out of his seat.

Song began to sign again, this time pointing at the goat then at the ground.

"Green...goat?" Borgan said, confused. "Apologies, but my brother is making little sense right now. We can return to his comments."

"We should be. But you have seen how few resources we have. Almost immediately upon being summoned, twelve of us were captured by the first death knight. That we were able to free and save them was a stroke of luck," Bob said. They all knew that Bob was the reason that most of them were alive. He might have glossed over his own part there, but he didn't need to tell the orcs everything.

"Can you explain the part about no more than two chosen being summoned, though?" Sonya said.