Chapter One

Jonathan Slayer looked over the parapet of the wall that surrounded the capital the streets were empty in the desolate wasteland that had once been the capital of an entire state. One lonely infected stumbled down the street, it was a decrepit thing not one of the dangerous fast ones or “freshies” as they were commonly called. The name came from the first days of the infection when people thought they moved faster because their corpses were fresher that hadn’t been true of course as had much of what we had initially thought about them.

                “Should I shoot it Sir?” asked one the wall-guards raising his longbow and knocking an arrow to it. Guns were only taken out in times of emergency or carried by the elite of the guards, bullets were too precious of a resource to be wasted and the materials it took to reload the bullets once spent were both rare and dangerous to acquire.

                Slayer held up a hand. “Not just yet, wait for it to get closer I don’t want the arrow being wasted and its shaft shattering its nearly fall and the foraging parties will have difficulty getting the fletchers new shafts soon,” he said calmly and the guard lowered his bow.

                “Do you think it’s a freshy? It might be pretending to be a shambler I’ve heard that some of them do that so they can pounce on you when they get close,” he said his arrow still at the ready. That had been another mistake believing they were all stupid and brainless creatures it wasn’t tell they had wiped out half the armed forces that we had learned differently, they certainly weren’t as smart as a human but the freshies had the intelligence of predator and tactics of lion or wolf by the time the military had realized that it had been to late they had been outnumbered three to one and with the infected mixed in with survivors airstrikes hadn’t been possible and then there just wasn’t enough of an army and only bands of survivors like ours were left those who had managed to build walls or occupy and fortify buildings.

                “No, I don’t think so son,” the man said answering the guards question. though he was younger than the guard the older man took no offense at the familiar phrase it did not do to take offense at Lord Slayer.

                Although his official title was governor of district one; only the other governors and the senators of the Nebraskan Republic called him that though, in his district he ruled with absolute authority much to the distaste of the senators who lived in the capital. He was a lord here no matter what his title might be and most people excepted this, except the senators and other governors. the senators were a constant irritant in the twelve years he had served as governor, they debated endlessly and tried to squeeze him for power and privileges to make changes but Slayer would have none of it, he would not have the people’s safety jeopardized by politics and politicians who didn’t know one end or a sword from another.

                His status was not one of permanence but one that was re-elected every three years, he had lost an election six years ago due to one of his rivals on the senate stirring up trouble but the idiot who had replaced him had botched the job so badly that he had gotten more than a dozen men killed in a fight with the rebels and had hanged himself shortly afterword’s. The senate had practically begged him to take his job back and fix the major crisis they were in but Slayer had agreed to it only on one condition, any matter that had to do with district one would go through him, and him alone.

                The guard let his arrow loose once the shamble was within twenty yards and it jerked sharply and then toppled to the ground. A cleanup crew with meat-pikes, long poles with meat hooks on the end, would come by and drag it away to prevent the spread of disease. There were several pikes used by the infantry guards, meat-pikes were one of the utilitarian ones, used to prevent being bitten by infected that were only lying on the ground and might roll over and sink their teeth into your arm or leg once you got close. The meat pike sank into the flesh at the shoulder and hooked under the bone all at a safe distance.

                There was a screech of tires and a black jeep rolled down the street, it skidded around potholes and piles of debris and five men sat in its back, an American flag flew in the air tied to a pole on top of the car. The wall guards ducked low behind the metal parapet wall on top of the outer wall. This was one of the most dangerous places to be constructed ten years ago wall three had been attacked and breached hundreds of times, it was only a ring of cars stacked three high and covered with sheet metal and a wooden scaffolding to walk along. Wall two had been breached a couple of times in the last eleven years but wall one had never been defeated, anyone who got on the other side of that wall died the moment his feet had touched the ground. Only the rebel’s agents could get behind it to try to sabotage the Republic.

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                The guards pulled out arrows from their quivers and knocked them to their bows. A bell was run to alert the guards in the barracks and shouts could be heard as they pulled on their light coin male and helmets buckling their swords and quivers to their waists.

                Guns roared as the rebels began firing at us the wall gave us some shielding but two men fell back one with red staining his black uniform pouring out of his shoulder, the other with a stomach wound. Both were pulled off the wall and rushed to the capital tower and the infirmary.

                “On my command aim and fire!” Slayer shouted as the jeep continued to pepper the walls with bullets, it obviously intended to race by and leave them weakened with dead and wounded but he didn’t intend to let it get away.

“Ready the fire launchers!” came a cry from below the walls behind Slayer.

“Pull, Aim Fire!” Slayer shouted and the singing of bowstrings filled the air and a dark angry swarm of arrows fell and hit the jeep men screamed but the driver continued moving, but not for long. Behind Slayer came another command to fire and a glass bottle flew in an arc over the wall, it struck the jeeps hood the impact igniting the phosphorous on the bottle which lit the homemade napalm of Styrofoam and gasoline. The jeep swerved as the driver was blinded from the flames over his windshield, it hit a particularly deep pot hole at an angle and the jeep flipped and skidded along the street. There was a moment of silence, a figure climbed out of the jeep tried to make a brake for it but two thin boney arms latched around his leg as he ran past a abandoned car. Teeth bit into his leg and he went down screaming.

Slayer the encounter had been brief but these types of attacks were all to common the rebels always drawing new recruits with their promises to return the old America and its way of life to the country. he did not suffer from these delusions nor would he suffer those with them either.

“Put him out of his misery then kill the infected, pile their bodies with the rest of the corpses,” he ordered sweeping his black cloak around and walking down the wooden steps followed by one of his two bodyguards who couldn’t even be heard except for the whisper of their red cloaks. The guards were necessary as Slayer had been the target of no fewer than sixty assassination attempts from rebels and he suspected from a few of the senators though he had never been able to prove it. He was alzo the main target in battles between the Republic and the rebels.

Slayer began walking through the gardens that filled the space between wall three and wall two, in this day and age space between walls where people could live in safety was the most valuable resource. A man in a wheelchair pushed by another man with a hook in place of his had approached Slayer from the opposite direction stepping and rolling past rows of squash, tomatoes and beans and corn. The man in the wheelchair carried papers and the other man scanned the area as if ready to be attacked.

“Jamal, Jay what brings you out here?” Slayer addressed the two men nodding first to the one in the wheelchair and then the man with the hook in place of a hand.

Jamal looked around and then gave a slight nod to Slayer and lifting two fingers, a signal. “We’re free to talk, no-one has entered the gardens yet and Captain Rasp had the area cleared ten minutes ago.” He said. “I take it from the two men in the infirmary that the attack did come as we predicted?” he said.

“Yes, our test has been conclusive I scheduled two parts of the wall to only be lightly guarded by three men. That schedule was made two days ago, plenty of time for whoever is supplying the rebels to get the information out, I brought around a guard patrol and had Captain Rasp do the same on the other side of the wall just as you suggested, were they attacked as well?” Slayer asked.

“No this was a quick raid probably wanting to grab our food supplies,” Jamal said nodding to baskets of corn and squash covered in blankets waiting to be brought in as they had for the past week, purposely left there to tempt the rebels to make such an attack. “If you investigate the jeeps wreckage I’m sure you will find several ladders and ropes to help carry the baskets back over the wall before the guards were able to stop them they would have set a snipper on the walls to give them cover and pin the guards in the barracks while the rest grabbed their loot and ran.”

“A risky wager they might have attacked another part of the wall and gotten the food left out there,” Slayer pointed out.

“I doubt it these two locations were too tempting, besides I had tracking devices placed in every basket we would have found the rebels and then dealt with them, if there were any alive perhaps they could give us the identity of the traitor.”

“I doubt they knew his name these were just grunts but now we know it’s one of the guards so that at least narrows it down from the entire district,” Slayer said his fingers stroking the hilt of his long single edged sword.

“It could be a family member or friend someone the traitor is close to and got the information out of,” Jay said.

“No, the schedule is only looked at by the officers and I gave instructions for them not to inform anyone until the following evening, that’s too soon to be a low-ranking guard and too few people for the information to become gossip so soon. We have a traitor and he is one of our officer’s I can feel it. Jamal, I want you to make use of your resources and spies, make a list of likely suspects and start having them followed.” Slayer ordered.

“And those we don’t suspect?” Jamal asked with a look towards Slayer knowingly.

“Have them watched as well, we can’t take chances with the Republic’s safety, when the traitor is found I will deal with him personnel and he will regret the day he ever betrayed the Republic.” Slayer said his left hand forming a fist that tightened in anger that was reflected in the fire behind his eyes.