Chapter 32 - Get them Out

“Run, you daft pricks!” Bole shouted. He was already on his feet, practicing what he preached.

Geddon scrambled to pick up his shield. It looked small in his hand, more like a buckler. He was breathing hard already, and his legs shook. I couldn’t really blame him, since he’d single handedly held back a tide of undead. Regardless, he gave no ground.

I stood next to him, watching the bodies pile up and up in the gap between the doors, their snarling faces attempting to press through. If these things acted like the scourge-touched I knew, we wouldn’t be able to beat this back, not without killing them all, and I didn’t even have a way to do that.

The memory of my first fight on Ralqir surfaced in my mind, how the goblin essentially killed itself trying to get at me. The mindless determination they displayed in the cave had reinforced that impression.

The scourge-touched wouldn’t stop. They’d flow into the room. They’d bury us under a flood of bodies. I hated to admit it, but Bole was right.

“We have to move.” I said.

The lion maned giant shook his head, baring his teeth. “You move then. I can hold them here.”

“Brother Ryan!” Trix’s voice surfaced above the noise.

I turned. Two of the Returned were down, slumped on the floor and unmoving. The rest were either fighting with the guards who’d come together to form a sort of shield wall, Sissa and Samila in the front, Beedy behind, taking half-hearted swings with his truncheon over the shorter Samila’s shoulders. It was a stalemate of sorts, the undead bound by chains, the guards bound by their ‘duty and mercy.’ Trix, for his part, was behind the line, an arm slung in the ties of his robe and one eye closed from swelling.

A cold, wrathful shudder trickled through my body. Who had done this to Trix? The Returned I could understand if not forgive, but Bole… “Trix! Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he wheezed as he attempted to stand up straight. He was favoring one of his sides. “I’ll rub a little dirt on it.”

I gave him a nod. There would be time later for questions. “We need to get these people out of here,” I said as I limped toward him.

He looked from me to the door to the guards, confusion evident in his swollen eye, giving him a deranged look.

“We can’t!” Geddon bellowed as he swung his undersized shield into the face of the first undead to get out of the ward, snapping the creature’s head back and sending it end over end to the floor. “If they get out, they’ll infect the whole undercity!”

The wall of bodies writhed on the other side of the doors.

One sufficiently charged grenade could do… what? Buy time? Probably not.

It was no good. I’d kill a lot of them, but their bodies would still be in the doorway keeping us from closing it. Then their buddies would already be in our faces, and we’d be right back to square one. Besides, this problem was bigger than this door. I was starting to realize just how big.

“It’s too late for that,” I said, locking eyes meaningfully with Trix.

He tilted his head and perked up his ears as if he were waiting for me to explain further, but the little Volpa was sharp. Slowly, over the course of several seconds, realization seemed to come to him, and his pained expression gave way to horror.

“It’s already out,” he gasped, blinking a couple times as his mind came to grips with the implications. “It’s already out! We met an infected on the way here!”

“That doesn’t mean anythi- Back, you!” Sissa called as she and Samila shoved the gaggle of undead off of their shields. She’d positioned herself between the chain gang and me, and they only seemed to be paying attention to what was in their way when it actively hindered them. “If they didn’t attack you. How would you know? You’re not a healer.”

“She spoke like one of them,” I said as I bent down to pick up Trix and put him on my shoulder again. He winced slightly as I got my hand around his midsection but didn’t complain, choosing instead to lean on my neck and use his good arm to hold on tight. Something told me that if I asked him about who’d hurt him, he wouldn’t tell me.

“You’re not a healer! We have it contained here!” Sissa protested. Her voice had a desperate edge to it.

“What are the odds, Sergeant, that the one Returned we ran into on the way here was infected?” Trix asked. “I’m not a gambler, but a chance encounter seems unlikely unless the plague has already spread wide.”

I glanced over my shoulder to check on Geddon, only to see him throw an undead back toward the open doors. It smacked into the writhing mass, forcing the pale faces to duck slightly but otherwise not hindering them. There were six of them in the room with us now. Two circled around Geddon to get at his sides as the other two got back to their feet. The hulking guard was slowing down. His chest was heaving, and his arms hung tiredly at his sides.

Other undead poured into the room like a liquid, pooling in tangled piles of pale, fumbling limbs before they resolved into individual, screaming berserkers.

“Weapons free, Sergeant?” Geddon panted as he manhandled the next of the circling Returned to come within reach, spinning it around and launching it at the others.

Sissa shook her head, clenching her jaw.

As it was, this room was going to fill with hostile Returned in minutes, and, even if we were willing to kill them all, the scourge-touched would wear everyone down and run through the undercity unchecked anyway. The guards needed to decide now, or they would die.

“Unless you’ve got backup on the way, it’s only a matter of time,” I declared. “Make a decision or it’ll be made for you.”

Sissa’s dam of indecision broke, and she let out a frustrated growl as she shoved another of her assailants to the ground. “Damnit. Private… whatever your name is. Reach into Samila’s pouch and send the signal. Blue.”

Beedy was on the ball. He was moving even before the guard sergeant had even finished her sentence, crouching down behind Samila. He reached up to rip a tightly bound leather flap off of the back of Samila’s belt.

“Hey, watch the hands, Private,” said Samila. Her voice was awfully calm considering everything. She was the most put together of any of us, going through the motions of controlling the crowd without losing herself to uncertainty or exertion. She even had a little determined smile on her face as she jammed her shield up under an undead’s jaw and laid it out flat on the cobblestones. “You ready to run, big guy?” She called over her shoulder.

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“No! Gyaa! No biting!” Geddon shouted. He knocked one of the undead attempting to chew on his calf down to the ground hard with an open hand slap that I felt from a dozen feet away. “I’m not built for running.”

Beedy had something in his hand now, a blue slip of paper. He cupped it in his palm and used his free hand to strike the metal plate on his wrist. There was a flash, and the blue paper burst into equally blue flame, sparking and flashing like a cheap firework.

“He’s got it! Everyone good? Alright, people, we are leaving! Move!” Sissa shouted.

As one, Sissa and Samila charged at the battered undead, shields first, bowling them over. Geddon disengaged as well with a whirling swipe of his shield and a quick hook from his meaty fist that sent one of the infected Returned down to the ground out cold. Then he was moving too, in sync with his squad. They formed up quickly, practiced and professional as they jogged together.

They didn’t wait for me, and I didn’t expect them to. They took flight toward the archway I’d seen Bole use.

I broke into a run, taking a slight detour toward the center of the room. I reached out and plucked the pair of tripod spotlights off of the floor. Samila hadn’t been faking it before. They were heavy.

Would be a shame to leave this to the scourge-touched.

I didn’t allow myself to break stride.

Transfer Entangled Lantern to spatial storage? Y/N

Consume Entangled Lantern? Y/N

I chose ‘yes’ to both.

You gain knowledge of material: Steel. [3/10]

You gain knowledge of material: Link Glass. [1/10]

You gain knowledge of material: Link Glass. [2/10]

You gain knowledge of material: Steel. [4/10]

You gain knowledge of material: Steel. [5/10]

…

You gain knowledge of material: Steel. [10/10]

Affinity Type: Steel is now grade F.

Steel mana conductivity increased. [10%]

Component material: Iron: Affinity found.

Iron and Steel affinity depth increased.

“What was that?” Trix yelped from my shoulder.

“Practitioner stuff. I told you I need metal. May come in handy later,” I said. I would have rather put them both in spatial storage, but they really were heavy. Seconds were going to count here. Plus, I finally got a steel affinity at grade F, so it wasn’t a total loss on the second one. What’s more, my affinity gained… depth?

Trix didn’t press the issue. He just held on for dear life.

The chained undead on the floor reached for me as I passed, jumping to their feet to lunge at me as I skirted around them. Half of their number were unconscious on the floor, however, and it slowed them down, allowing me to skirt around.

The scourge-touched now trickling out of the gap in the doors, however, had no such hindrance. They tore through the opening and plopped to the floor to give chase, not even pausing on impact. They didn’t seem to feel any pain. They didn’t even need to breathe to do what they did. They only filled their lungs with air to scream after me as they poured over one another to be the first to get a taste of the human.

I sprinted through the archway and up the gentle incline of quellstone, easily catching up to the others since I wasn’t wearing armor or weapons like the rest of them, and Trix hardly weighed anything. Geddon was true to his word on how terrible a runner he was. We’d gone maybe a hundred yards, and he was already flagging badly.

Meanwhile the undead were hot on our heels. They weren’t overly fast but they came on with singular focus.

I stayed behind Geddon, bringing up the rear of the group, trying to assess how quickly we’d be caught. Too soon, by my reckoning. I summoned my pistol with a flash. Then I stopped and steadied myself on the wall to take careful aim. I targeted the frontrunner, a tall Returned with long, even legs that gave it an advantage over its less carefully constructed comrades.

Breathing out, I carefully drew a bead on his head and tightened my finger on the trigger, but I hesitated.

Yes, the infected Returned wanted me dead, and I didn’t really want to die. They were still victims here, and I didn’t know how I felt about that. Then again, if I didn’t put them down, what would they do?

I shifted my aim.

*POP*

Scourge-Touched Undead takes 11 damage. (piercing)

Trix flinched on my shoulder, reaching up to cover his ears.

I racked another round.

*POP*

Scourge-Touched Undead takes 15 damage. (piercing)

Pistols is now level 2.

The undead I’d been aiming for went down hard, his legs giving out underneath him, his arms reaching out to steady himself, tripping up his friends and creating an impressive pileup. I’d aimed for where I estimated his pelvis was, and with how heavy my ammo worms were, it must have done the job, shattering the bones. If he were human, he’d be in agony. He was alive, though. Probably crippled for the foreseeable future but alive.

It bought us precious seconds at least.

I ran to catch up with the others.

It wouldn’t be long before the chase was back in full swing. If we were equally matched in the speed department, we needed to put something between us.

“We need another door!” I called toward the front of the group.

Sissa was far ahead up the curling slope, looking down at us and urging us forward. “Any heavy doors would be at the next ward, and if they’re following protocol, they’ll be shut.”

“Then… where are we… oh, Light’s mercy… going?” Geddon gasped. He was leaning on the walls for support every couple strides now.

Sissa waited for us to close the gap between us to answer. “The closest hub. Smaller openings. Materials to maybe block the arch.”

“We can’t secure one of those, Sis. We’ll just be setting up a buffet.” Samila cautioned.

“I know! I know! Just go!” Sissa groaned as she waved us past. Then she got under Geddon’s arm to help him keep moving.

I remained at the rear.

Soon, the infected were nipping at our heels again, just around the last bend. Their howls echoed off the walls around us. Every time I looked ahead, I half expected a pale hand to grab my ankle and drag me into the sea of flesh and teeth.

“There!” Samila shouted, her voice husky from the extra exertion of bearing some of Geddon’s weight.

We were on a straightaway leading up an incline until it leveled out somewhere up ahead where dim light played over the bricks.

I got under Geddon’s other arm, exchanging a look with Sissa around the big man’s breastplate, and the both of us surged forward, practically carrying the exhausted giant up the hill. I was huffing and puffing now too. My calves burned like I’d been running all day.

The light got brighter and brighter, the apex of the slope coming closer. The undead’s voices sounded close. My mind conjured images of sharp claws tearing into my flesh, vivid enough to be felt.

Then we were up and confronted by a bright archway. The light blinded me, but we kept moving. Something crashed into my shins.

*CRACK*

Wood cracked and splintered as we barreled into a shoddily constructed barricade. Geddon’s mass turned the three of us into a battering ram of sorts, one that easily broke through the barrier, the inertia carrying us irresistibly forward. Exhausted Geddon toppled as he tripped over something near our ankles, and I came along for the ride, watching the quellstone floor come up to meet me. My face ground painfully into the cobblestones.

“Hey!”

“Get that back up! Now!”

The big man just laid there, heaving for breath, his arms questing for the best way to get upright again but failing.

I disentangled myself from the Geddon pile, shaking my head and reaching up to wipe blood off my mouth.

We were in one of the big hub rooms, a pub, it seemed. A big wooden structure stood in the middle of the room, a sort of self-contained bar with shelves stocked with bottles, glassware, and little casks stacked up on their sides. Tables and stools were scattered all over, many of them in the middle of being knocked over or picked up.

A crowd of people hurried around the room, running with various bits of furniture in their arms. Some brought pairs of stools, a group of three carried a long wooden table, while a huddle of other folks were crouched next to the bar, grunting as they attempted to loosen the heavy top. Frightened looking people carried their disparate pieces of wood over to the archway we’d just burst through and piled them up to block the opening. Others sat huddled on the floor nursing wounds that bled through ripped clothes. One woman was missing fingers, and someone was bandaging the wound with what looked like a towel.

“Oh no. Seriously. When I said run, I didn’t mean with me! You’re going to get us all dead!”