“No, it wasn’t your fault,” Stem said, shaking his head and giving Chase one last squeeze on her scalp. “If it hadn’t have been you, it would have been something else eventually. It was a bad idea, building that prison here. I don’t know what Baroness Floria was thinking.”
“Ever since she started sending the Camerlengo ‘round to handle us instead of coming herself, she’s been right unreasonable,” Danver Posey said. “Time would come we’d need to move on anyway.”
“Speaking of that…” Stem stood up and looked around at the others. “Everyone full up? Good. Let’s do another Forced March.”
Instantly, Chase felt herself speed up… and she knew the same thing was happening with Greta and Renny, and the three other halvens who were in her temporary team. Across the way, two other halvens invoked the skill, assigned to their respective groups, and the twenty-strong group charged once more into the woods, their speed far faster than their usual pace. Dancing lanterns bobbed and weaved around them as they went, as Renny did his thing, illuminating the path through newly-fallen night.
Midway there, great peals of sound echoed through the forest. The bell in the church! Chase realized. That’s the alarm! We’re too late!
The others evidently thought so too, judging by the expressions she saw on shadowed faces, and Greta clutched at her arm like a drowning woman. Even though it slowed her, Chase let her sister cling to her, find what comfort she could. If the worst had happened, then she couldn’t grudge Greta that.
Had it all been for naught? Chase wondered, and ran, hoping against hope, sending up a silent prayer to Hoon.
The prayer, it seemed, was answered.
No carnage awaited them at the village. Just the whole of the village gathered in the town square, as far as Chase could tell, nearly a hundred halvens and three tall humans standing out in the crowd. Torches blazed and flickered, and Mother Bloom stood on the steps of the church, trying to calm the frantically babbling mob.
The babbling ceased, as fourteen halvens, two humans, a gribbit, two golems, and a dwarf surged out of the night, skidding to a halt so fast that they kicked up a small cloud of dirt.
“They’re back!” Chase heard Milla Wheadle cry.
“Who’re those longshanks?” Gammer Burke whined.
“Holy fump it’s a walkin’ pig! With armor!” An unidentified voice shrieked. “Tell me someones else is seeing this! Tell me this ain’t the gin talkin’!”
“They’re here to help,” Stem shouted back. “There’s trouble coming.”
“There’s trouble here!” Goody Fobs shouted back. “Tollen Wheadle’s gone missing! Him and that dwarf you brought in, Stem Berrymore!”
A good number of the crowd muttered, and shifted over to stare suspiciously at the dwarven adventurer. He shrugged and shook his head, doing his best to look innocent. It didn’t seem to work, and the muttering grew.
Her father tried to get them to listen, but shouts and conversations broke out through the mob, and Chase could almost feel the fear and alarm rolling off them.
This is bad. Vaffanculo will be here at any minute. She looked around the group, hoping that someone would take charge, but nobody was. Nobody could!
Unless…
Chase whispered “Status” and checked over her skills.
Yes. Yes, she COULD do this!
“Silver Tongue. Lecture!” she said, invoking her new Teacher’s skill for the first time ever.
Your Silver Tongue skill is now level 4!
Your Lecture skill is now level 2!
“Listen up!” She bellowed, slamming her hand against her father’s shield… and instantly regretting it. That hurt! She was pretty sure a red number had floated out of her from that.
But that was fine, in fact perhaps it helped gain the crowd’s attention. She saw most of the fear-filled faces turning towards her, and most of the loud conversations died.
“An evil necromancer is coming to kill us all! But we can stop him if we fight back. He’ll be here soon with his horde of clowns, so we have to prepare. My father will—”
“A horde of clowns? What? That’s ridiculous!” Millie Wheadle cried. “Are they going to act creepy and squirt us with water? Stop lying, Chase. Tollen’s the problem right now, not your stories!”
A chuckle ran through the crowd, and Chase flushed. “They’re zombies, and they’re coming to eat us! We need to fight them!”
But the crowd was laughing now, the absurdity of the idea working against her. Everywhere Chase looked, she saw the faces of her neighbors twisted up in hysterical laughter. Stubborn laughter.
The more she pushed here, the more they’d resist her, she knew. They’d do it just to make themselves feel smarter. Reason was useless against halven mental inertia… or lack thereof.
They won’t believe me because they don’t want to believe. They don’t want to believe that something like that could happen here. Chase grimaced. She had double stacked skills on this, and her charisma was through the roof. True, her skills were pretty low, but they should still give her the edge…
…except that one of those skills only worked with lies, now didn’t it?
Well. When had she ever relied on the truth to get her what she wanted? Why start now?
“Okay, you got me,” Chase said, raising her hands. “I was lying about that.”
The laughter broke off into surprised murmurs and confused glances.
“The fact is that the Camerlengo knows of the hidden harvest caches, and she’s sending mercenaries here to confiscate them.”
That got a reaction. This was a village of farmers, and no farmer in his right mind would willingly report all of their harvest to their liege lords, no matter how good the lord was. And going by the grumbling she’d heard from the old hands, the Camerlengo wasn’t very nice at all, when it came to tithes.
“So why clowns?” Millie Wheadle asked, but Chase ignored her. Her voice was confused, and no one was listening to her anymore. “We need to find Tollen!” Millie persisted, casting around, looking for help.
Chase almost felt bad for her. Almost. But she was too busy feeling joy about the words that popped up in front of her. The words that told her she’d succeeded.
You are now a level 5 Grifter!
CHA+3
DEX+3
LUCK+3
You have learned the Forgery skill!
Your Forgery skill is now level 1!
You have learned the Pickpocket skill!
Your Pickpocket skill is now level 1!
You have learned the Unflappable skill!
And why wouldn’t she succeed with this story? Zombies? Zombies were the stuff of legends, and boogeyman stories, and things that couldn’t possibly enter into the very limited imaginations of the inhabitants of Bothernot. But tax collectors? Those were an ever-present fear. Lies about tax collectors were real in a way that the truth about zombies could never compete with.
“We need to go move the harvest. Fast!” Someone in the crowd decided, and the mob split up, groups of halvens separating out by family, and heading back to their farms.
All save for about a dozen, who looked around at each other and headed over to the new arrivals. Millie was in the lead, her mouth twisted into a furious frown, bangs flopping as she charged straight toward Chase.
“Chase Berrymore! You… you… you liar!” She burst into tears as she approached, flailing at Chase with weak punches. Chase easily dodged, feeling pity for the small girl.
Greta caught Millie before she could do much more, and Millie sagged, wailing.
Before this morning, that would have horrified me, Chase thought. She would have caught me flat-footed, bowled me over, and it would have been the worst tragedy I had ever lived through.
Now? Now it was barely worth noticing. Chase had way too many other things to do, here.
“What was that all about?” Mother Bloom said, rapping her cane against the ground to draw Chase’s attention.
“I had to get t
hem out of town, on alert, and busy expecting interlopers.” Chase said, forcing herself to look Mother Bloom in the eyes. “They didn’t believe me when I told them the truth, so I lied.”
Mother Bloom looked back at the remaining halvens… and the humans, Chase realized, as she recognized Florenzia and Janasi Dijetto, and Old Man Carver in the group. And Burt Crabapple, who had gone past them to have a long talk with his mother, Susan.
And then Chase’s mother was there, hugging her, gathering Greta in at the same time. Chase closed her eyes and sagged into her embrace.
“That’s enough, Selma,” her father spoke. “I’m sorry. We’ve got a lot to do and no time to do it.”
“Why?” Mother Bloom, finally said, tapping Chase’s arm with her cane to get her attention. “Why did you want to scatter my flock?”
She honestly sounded lost. Chase tried to find a good way to say it, then decided that no, the old priestess deserved the truth. “Because I’m sorry, but they’re going to be useless. I’ve spent months figuring out how zombies could eat this place, and in every case, most of the town ends up just being fodder. They get scared and scream and run around and do idiotic things like open the door and go outside when it’s quiet or go check out the strange noises from the dark cellar, or something like that.”
“We’re not like that!” Millie shrilled.
“Oh yes you are!” Chase rounded on her, the venom in her tone making the smaller girl shrink back. “What’s that you told me this morning? You don’t need brains? Well the zombies do, and they’ll take even stupid, lazy ones like yours, Millie Wheadle! So, you better start trying to get smarter because they’ll eat you if you don’t!”
Millie slapped her.
Chase slapped her back, sending a red two floating up from her head, and knocking her on her rump.
Your Brawling skill is now level 8!
Then her father’s hand fell on her shoulder. “Easy. Don’t look down on ’em. They’ve never known a real fight. They’re not who you’re really mad at here.”
Chase closed her eyes. “Now that they’re at their farms, they won’t be clustered. They won’t be easily trapped between buildings. Everyone’s got escape tunnels and ways out of their houses. They’ll be expecting people coming and they’ll hide… which is best, because most of them can’t fight a damn anyway.” She opened her eyes and stared at Mother Bloom. “We could have worked together. Could have fought them off. But that would have required them to believe me. And well, they didn’t. So, if they get out of the way and let a small group of really good fighters handle this, then that’s almost as good.”
“You’ve spent months figuring out the logistics of a zombie invasion?” Mother Bloom’s voice held suspicion, and Chase rolled her eyes.
“It’s true,” Greta said. “She was trying to get me to help her with the zombie thing. And she’s an Oracle.”
“An Oracle?” Now Mother Bloom sounded impressed. “You saw this happening, Chase? A vision or something of the sort?”
“Not this, not precisely.” Chase rubbed her face. “Ah… sorry about that slap, Millie. Lesser Healing.”
Millie gasped as she mended. Her bangs flipped back from where she sat on the ground; her eyes were huge and weeping big tears. “My brother… please. I just want Tollen back,” she whispered.
“He’ll be fine, I promise you,” Chase lied. “If there’s no body then that means the prisoner took him with her. She’s out of the picture, so he’s safe from the zombies. Everything else we can sort out after we survive this. And we can survive this.” She looked up to her father... and found that he’d been ignoring the conversation, talking with the rest of the crowd while she’d been straightening out Millie and Mother Bloom.
Before her eyes, they were organizing at a speed she’d never believed possible, not from how she’d seen them drag their feet and whine during the day-to-day slow idleness of Bothernot. The dozen or so that had remained behind mixed in with the veterans of the old wars and the adventurers and started breaking out into groups of seven. Just as she realized what was happening, what was about to happen, words flowed across her vision.
Stem Berrymore has left your party!
Susan Crabapple has left your party!
Stig Stoutfoot has left your party!
Grindy Low has left your party!
“Dad?” Chase asked, as he stepped away, heading toward another part of the crowd.
He looked back and smiled. “Don’t worry, Sweetpea. We’ve got a plan.”
“All right.” She frowned. “What is it?”
“No time to discuss. Your part of it is going to be rearguard and healing.”
“What? No, I need to—”
“Mother Bloom and Father Gronk will be our main healers for the four active groups. You’re going to get Greta and Renny and Gadram to guard you, and you’re going to be on hospital duty. Invite them now, please.”
“I can fight, Dad. I can help.”
“I know you can, but that’s not where I need you. Not unless things go bad. Chase. Do this for me. Do this for us,” he said, reaching out and grabbing his wife’s hand.
Chase withered beneath their gaze. “Low blow,” she whispered. “All right. Okay. So… hospital duty?” He had been through wars, Chase reminded herself. He knew what he was doing. And if he hadn’t, well, she could improvise. “Invite Gadram,” she said while she thought.
Gadram Granitegrin has joined your party!
Meanwhile, her father explained. “People who get wounded, but not too badly, will come to you. You heal them and send them out again.” Stem looked past the festival stage, out past the church, and past the lightposts hung with ribbons. “We’ll make our stand around the Dewdrop Inn, use it as a fallback point. The cellar there links up with the church, so you set up shop in the church, and—”
“No, bad idea,” Chase said. “They’re mostly human-sized zombies, I think. The church is big enough they can fit through and fight easily. We need something too small for them to get into. Like…” she glanced over at one of the nearby stone-walled buildings. “The bakery! Put us there.”
“That’ll mean that whoever we send through the cellar will have to leave the church to get to you. Bad idea, if the Necromancer’s got enough minions to flank us.”
“We put a watcher in the church, then. Greta can do it. Just keep an eye out, keep the lights down, and watch out the back and sides to let people know when it’s safe to run,” Chase argued.
“I’ll do it,” Millie Wheadle spoke up, and Chase turned to stare at her, surprised.
“You?” Her tone was a little harsh, judging by the way Millie flushed.
“Maybe I’m not really smart, but my eyes are good, Chase Berrymore! And you know it!”
Chase’s ears twitched as she considered. “All right. I believe you.” She felt bad for slapping her earlier and letting her help like this would probably go a long way toward smoothing over that little incident. Millie was just worried about her brother, after all. Chase could understand that. “Can you spare her? From… whatever group she’s with?”
“I can.” Her dad considered her. “All right. We’ll try it this way. If there’s a lot of them, we won’t be able to hold the Inn anyway. So, we’ll make the bakery our fallback point. If things go badly, we’ll come to you, so you stay there, understand? Protect it so that we have a safe place to retreat.”
Chase bit her lip. “All right, we’ve got it.”
“Now go! We don’t have much time!” Stem insisted, and the groups split up to their assigned places, to prepare as best they could.
Chase went, running, knowing that every second counted.
Which was a bit of a rookie mistake, as it turned out. Especially for an Oracle, who had a somewhat more intimate acquaintance with the concept of time.
As she would find out, seconds are precious beyond compare. But only the right seconds, at exactly the right moments…
CHAPTER 18: A NEW FATE
The bakery was set up in a rough shape, equivalent to a letter “q”. The main building itself was rectangular, with four stone walls framing the first story, and wooden walls rising above them to form the second story. From the side of the southern wall stretched a brick wall that ended in an outdoor oven, with a wooden board stretched across another brick wall, where the loaves were laid to cool after they came out of the oven.
It was a fairly clear shot from the back door of the church to the little cul-de-sac formed by the outdoor structure of the place, one that an agile person could flee into and then be well hidden from casual observers. And after they put out the nearby streetlights with a few thrown rocks, the shadows pooled nicely around, decreasing the odds that fleeing wounded people would be seen from a distance.
At least until Renny raised a paw and asked an important question.
“Don’t zombies see in the dark?”
“Ah,” Chase said, rock in her hand, taking aim at the last streetlight. “Er…” She didn’t want to admit that she’d forgotten about that.
Then they both jumped as a stone flew past them and shattered the light. Darkness fell, and Chase looked behind her to see Greta tucking her hands back in her apron. “Zombies might, but the Necromancer probably can’t. And he’d be the one to tell them to go over here, right?”
“Greta, you’re amazing,” Chase told her sister.
“If yer done with the lovefest, ye might want ta get inside,” a gruff voice whispered from the open doorway.
“Right,” Chase said, and the three of them slipped through the rounded door, into the shop itself. Gadram, the dwarf closed it behind them, sliding a bar into place one-handed, keeping a dagger out and ready in the other.
The inside of the shop glittered with candles, nestled in and among the trays of dinoche, currant buns, and twisted braided loaves. A glorious smell rose, and Chase’s mouth watered.
A counter traced along the far wall to the west, and that part, at least, was windowless. The smaller metal oven was embedded in the stone wall to the south, and only a few shuttered, small windows were there in case of smoke or to vent excess heat. A stone stairway went past the oven, up to the second floor, where Missus Canver lived. But she was out helping her husband hide grain now, so the matter was moot.
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