The Lost Ones. Ch.15 (Patreon)

Chapter 15

The Best Intentions, Part Six.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” Sully said solemnly, “There is no way we can take everyone off the walls today.”

“We… have… to,” Joe said, staring flatly out at the fetid marshlands that took over from the verdant plains surrounding the city. “That’s what I think it is, isn’t it?”

“Land of the Dead,” Sully confirmed. “Yes, Sir.”

“They went out into that?” Joe asked.

“Apparently,” Sully said. “I spoke to the guard on the walls last night, and they report a lot of movement, and then… the people moved out in a guarded column.

“It’s suicide,” Joe shook his head. “Why, when it might pass tonight?”

“The first night is relatively safe,” Sully said. “That’s what I hear anyway.”

“Tonight won’t be,” Joe commented flatly. “And at midnight…”

“They will be changed,” Sully finished for him.

“We have to go look for them,” Joe said determinedly. “Scouts in every direction.”

“No need,” Sully scratched the back of his head, “I made sure to find out which way they headed, and one of the guards watched them till they passed out of sight.”

“Brilliant,” Joe felt his spirits rise for the first time in hours. “Which way.”

“I think some of my people are with them, and I think they are headed for our old village,” Sully said. “I can lead you there.”

“Will it still be there?” Joe asked.

“Maybe?” Sully said.

“We better hurry,” Joe said, his lips pressing into a thin line.

Joe took only Sully and the rest of his original party in the end. It was the limit of the horses they had, and he wanted to get this done. It would take time for people to make the trek back, and he wanted everyone safe before nightfall.

The Land of the Dead seemed eerily empty as they rode between stinking marshes on narrow paths. It did not take long to pick up the tracks of the Outer Villagers. It was difficult to hide the passage of so many people, but someone had tried pretty hard.

“Why would they hide where they went?” Andrea asked as they rode.

“So we couldn’t come after them,” Ivor laughed, “When a Paragon swears to kill you, you get pretty damn scared.”

“Enough,” Sully said. “Concentrate on where you’re going.”

“How much further?” Joe asked his eyes on the sky. The sun was nearing the high point. They were running out of time.

“We’re here,” Sully said in a quiet voice. “And so are they.”

Joe looked up, his charger slowing. There was no village in the distance. What there was was a castle. High, strong walls and a keep half the size of his own.

“They have someone who can use influence?” Joe asked.

“Apparently,” Sully said.

“So they are fine?” Andrea said. “Can we go back home now?”

“No,” Joe said. “We have to check on them.

He did his best to ignore the sigh that he got from the Elementalist.

“You are not welcome here, Paladin!” A voice called as the iron gate remained steadfastly shut. “We complied with your order, so go away!”

“I just came to talk!” Joe yelled up. “And to check you were safe.”

A braying round of laughter greeted that.

“First, you want to kill us, then you care?” A familiar voice called.

Joe looked up and saw Annalise leaning over the parapet.

“I was just angry,” Joe called. “I am sorry for what I said. To you and to Cristoff. I would never have hurt anyone.”

“You wouldn’t have to,” Annalise called down, “Your people would have done it for you!”

“That ends today!” Joe said. “All are welcome within my city. All!” He shook his head. “I never should have allowed the Outer Village. Fight, or don’t. There is no need to ban ANYONE anymore.”

“Too late,” The Battle Warden laughed. “Too little, too late.”

“Don’t do this!” Joe pleaded. “I came to make peace and invite you home.”

“We have a new home,” Annalise said. “Run home and play city lord,” She laughed.

She laughed, and for a second, the words shifted to ones he had heard all his life.

“Run home to Mummy and Daddy,” That was what he heard.

Before he knew what he was doing, he leaped from his charger and placed both hands against the walls.

“This Influence is mine!” He proclaimed. “I gave you the levels, the security, and everything else.” Anger pounded in his veins as he reached out, feeling the influence there, ready and waiting.

His party was screaming at him, and the people on the walls were screaming at him.

But in the moment, he did not care. All he heard was his own rage.

He took back the influence that they had earned on his land. It was his by rights.

So he took it.

His anger broke as bodies rained from the sky, the stones they stood on no longer existed, and they fell.

His head filled with their screams as his stunned eyes caught a small child dashed against the stones where it fell.

He felt hands pulling him away and up onto his horse.

His mind was full of horrors as his party raced from the carnage.

=============

A slap snapped him from his daze; to his surprise, he was within sight of the city.

“Nothing happened,” Andrea said, staring into his eyes. “Do you hear me?” She slapped him again. “We didn’t find them, understand?”

Joe nodded mutely. Everything felt strange.

It was like he was floating on a sea of calm, high above the world.

He stared blankly ahead as his party dashed him straight into the keep, locking the doors behind them.

“What happened?” Joe asked dumbly as they all stared at each other in mute shock.

“You took what was yours,” Andrea said curtly. “That is all.”

“He killed dozens of them,” Sully said coldly. “Children too.”

“We should have stayed,” Joe said, rising to his feet. “Helped them, I, I can heal people!”

“Sit down, idiot!” Ivor pushed him down into his chair. “They have numbers and levels on us all!”

“What?” Cole asked when he saw Joe’s confused expression. “Didn’t you even look?”

“I don’t know what happened,” Joe put his head in his hands.

“That doesn’t matter,” Andrea said. “They will be coming.”

“Why?” Joe asked again. “What more can we do to them?”

“You took their safety!” Andrea snapped. “They can’t stay there! Besides, children died. I doubt pragmatic thoughts are common there right now.”

“I forgot about that!” Sully laughed. “That mage is level fifty-five!” He stood and nodded. “They will come, and we better be ready.”

“Don’t tell them the truth,” Andrea said as Sully approached the door. “If you do, they’ll want us dead just as much as the Outer Villagers.”

“I’m not telling them anything,” Sully nodded to them and left.

“We better get some rest,” Andrea sighed. “This is gonna be a hell of a night.”

Joe sat there as Andrea and Cole slept fitfully on the couches. In his mind, he could see it happening over and over again. Without the blindness of his rage, his memory was all too clear.

Over and over again, he heard the screams, heard the breaking of bones, and felt the spray of blood that had hit him when a man’s leg burst right next to Joe.

Most of all, he saw the boy.

He looked like he was barely six. His head was deformed, smashed against the stone floor of the vanishing keep. His eyes were wide as he stared up, sightless to the uncaring skies overhead.

Joe blinked, and it was dark. He remembered nothing in between, but he must have slept.

The world sped up again, and he finally began to  FEEL what he had done. It was… awful. He had never meant to; the anger began to swell again. They had made him- the boy's eyes staring at the sky flashed through his mind. His anger flickered and died.

He was a murderer at worst and a killer at best. His carefully constructed view of himself falling apart. Annalise had been right, after all. That was what made him so angry.

Nothing like killing a child to shatter your self-delusions. At that moment, Joe knew himself. He was selfish and judgemental and only wanted to run away.

“You’re awake,” Andrea said calmly. “Look at me,” She demanded.

“What?” He almost laughed.

“No one has to know,” She said quietly. “Ever.”

“No one needs to know,” Cole added. “We can just move on.”

“We just need to adjust things a little,” Andrea added.

“Nobody needs to know,” Joe said, tasting the words.

It wasn’t too late. He could still salvage things. Joe felt his spirits lift. He could still be a hero.

“No one needs to know,” Joe agreed, sitting forward. “But not a single one of them can be allowed to live.”

“Agreed,” Cole said as Andrea nodded.

“Where’s Sully?” Joe asked suddenly.

“Dead,” Cole said with anger in his voice, “Went upstairs after we talked and cut his own throat.”

“The maids can’t see that,” Joe said, his mind shifting into fix-it mode.

“You won’t have maids anymore,” Andrea said, “Just in case you talk in your sleep,”

“Ah, right,” Joe said. “Well, I’ll miss the company, but…”

“You won’t,” Andrea said, looking him in the eye. “I’m moving in.”

“Sure,” Joe said. “There are plenty of rooms.”

“No,” Andrea said. “My price for this, all of it, is you. You’re mine.”

“Sure,” Joe shrugged. It wasn’t like he had complaints; she wasn’t bad-looking.

Putting aside the pretense of goodness was liberating.

============

“Where the hell are they?” Joe grumbled from the walls of his keep as midnight neared. “Did they all get killed?”

“No idea,” Andrea said from where she lay in his bed. “I hope it got them, but we will have to sweep the area once it changes, just in case.”

Joe kept watch for another hour before seeing the change take place. It was the Forgelands again. He kind of liked that one.

“That’ll make the search easier,” Andrea chuckled as she came to stand next to him. “I guess they didn’t make it in time.”

“Land of the Dead was kind of a non-event as well,” Joe laughed. “Not a single attack all night.”

“Well, no major ones, anyway.” She smiled. “The usual probing attacks; I assume we got lucky.”

“Nope,” Joe said happily, “I asked the guards, “Not a single undead all night.”

He saw Andrea tense.

“None?” She asked, her pale face draining to parchment white.

“Not a one,” He frowned, “What’s wrong?”

“There are ALWAYS attacks!” Andrea struggled into her clothes. “If nothing got through, that means something stopped them…. We are surrounded!”

“There is nothing there!” Joe insisted, “We’d see them if they were there, especially after they changed!”

“Did anyone check the Outer Village?” She snarled.

Joe opened his mouth to answer just as the first explosion went off. A pillar of magical fire lit up one-quarter of the city.

Things happened really fast after that. With every guard and fighter on the walls, the attackers slaughtered everyone they encountered with virtually no resistance. By the time the guards tried to leave the walls, they found the exits guarded by high-level fighters, trapping them in the defenses.

Some brave souls still tried, but they were cut down in moments.

Andrea and he tried to gather support, but there was none to be had. As screams of anger and howls of fear rang in the night, they were alone.

They did find Cole.

He was nailed to a wall, his entrails pulled out and hung around his neck. The words ‘Child Killer’ were written beneath him in his own blood. His arms and legs were shattered, but he still lived, a spell keeping him alive as he screamed in pain and begged for death.

A team of attackers chased them away, their mage staying to ensure that Cole did not escape his torment.

After that, they tried to escape, the pair burning all their mana and cooldowns as they tried to fight their way to a gate. It was no use. Many of their own guards had turned against them after hearing the stories of the outcasts.

Exhausted, they returned to the keep and ran to the most secure place in the city.

The Village Stone.

And there, in a stone tower, high above the smoke, screams, and flames, They found Annalise and Cristoff waiting patiently for them to arrive.

“Took you long enough,” Annalise said as she cast.

Andrea and Joe found themselves frozen in place, unable to move.

“I’m surprised to see you lasted this long, Andrea,” Cristoff said carefully. “I thought he would have run.”

“We tried,” Andrea snapped, “Didn’t work out.” She moved her eyes, the only thing she could, to look at Annalise. “I guess I’m going the same way as Cole?”

“No,” Annalise said. “Not quite.” She clicked her fingers, and Andrea shot up, pressed flat against the ceiling. The pressure slowly increased as Andrea screamed.

One second she was screaming; the next… she was paste.

“Goddess, preserve me,” Joe prayed desperately. “I need your help.”

A flash, and he was in the throneroom again.

She was there, her face twisted as if sucking on a lemon.

“I told you not to fail me,” She whispered in his ear.

CLASS REVOKED!

Another flash, and he was back.

Annalise laughed.

Joe fell to the floor, his armor gone, his skills gone, his levels gone.

Cristoff grabbed him by the hair, and they dragged him out into the first light of dawn.

They threw Joe out the keep's doors, and he felt both legs break as he rolled down the stairs.

A crowd had gathered there, watching impassively as he screamed in pain.

“Please!” He begged, “I never meant to hurt anyone!”

Blank eyes stared back at him as he cried.

A click sounded behind him, and he was dragged back, pinned to the floor with chains of mana as Annalise and Cristoff stood over him.

“Now, please,” She said kindly to a group he couldn’t see.

“His name was Ben,” A weeping woman said, laying a swaddled form next to him.

“Her name was Flower,” A man said, his eyes empty and hollow as another bundle was laid next to him.

“My son was Oliver,” A woman laid a swaddled form down and stepped back,

And so it went.

In the end, he had over a dozen swaddled corpses around him in a circle; every one was a child.

And then, they stood and left him there.

The sun rose and stood watch over him as the screams continued until his city was nothing but corpses. By the time it set, he was shivering with a fever, delirious with pain and loss.

Night came as a soothing coolness.

At first.

The bundles began to stir as the figures returned, staring mutely as their children, twisted into undeath by the Land of the Dead, completed their reanimation in the darkness.

One by one, they crawled from their shrouds and began to eat.

Annalise stayed and watched, her hands idly casting the spell that ensured he lived until the first little teeth cracked his skull, tiny hands reaching inside…