by A.R. Wise
Chapter Nine
Cerrus darted through crowd that had gathered beside the Tennerblane tributary, watching the fire consume one of the various abandoned buildings. The city watch had sprung to action, bringing buckets to help douse the flames, and had formed a line from the docks beside the tributary and up to the home.
“Move,” said Cerrus as he pushed his way through the daft residents of New Carrington. He hated them – every single one. He despised their beliefs, and their cowardice.
“Watch it, little man,” said a beefy smith as Cerrus thudded into his leather apron. The smith had mistook him for a child, as people often did. Cerrus wasn’t a dwarf like many of the jesters hired by the wealthy, but was instead afflicted with an unknown disease that stunted his growth, leaving him a forty-year-old man with the size and strength of a child.
Cerrus snarled up at the man, and the smith was shocked by the sight. The man guffawed and looked both frightened and embarrassed as Cerrus whispered a vicious curse and then pushed past the galoot.
He heard the smith muttering to someone else, “Did you see that kid’s face?”
Cerrus was gone, lost among the crowd before any of the people the smith spoke to could turn and see him. He was used to the hateful comments and disgusted stares of people in cities like this, he’d been living with them for years. Or he had been, until the day he met The Scholar. That’s when everything changed for Cerrus – when he learned that he could serve a greater purpose.
The crowd was growing, forcing Cerrus to get rougher with them as he pushed his way through. “Move it. Would you get out of the way?”
A dainty woman in a yellow dress and an umbrella to shield her pale skin from the sun was ahead, and she heard Cerrus coming. She looked down and saw his face, wrinkled from disease and riddled with warts, and she gasped. Then she pointed and frowned in obvious disgust. “Look. What is that thing?”
She would later claim to have seen a goblin rushing away from the fire, or so Cerrus imagined. He’d been accused of being a mythical beast more than a few times in his life.
He pulled at his hood, trying to cover himself as he continued to push through the onlookers. Finally, he made it to the alley beside the tavern and ran down it, away from the residents of New Carrington. “Idiots,” said Cerrus, breathing heavy from his journey. He had his climbing claws affixed to the straps around his palms, and easily climbed the wall at the end of the alley. Now he was above the others, and they were oblivious to his journey. The buildings in this part of the city were packed tight enough to allow him to scurry across the rooftops, the gripping soles of his shoes making the journey easier. What Cerrus lacked in strength, he more than made up for in agility.
When in the city, Cerrus rarely went outside in the daytime, preferring instead to roam the rooftops in the cover of night. However, this was an emergency.
He made it to the home of a man named Luther First-Cobbler, a merchant who plied his trade in the central market. Luther was a single man, with no family and few customers to realize he’d been missing for days. Luther, like several other residents of New Carrington, had been murdered and turned into one of the mindless dead, another weapon in The Scholar’s arsenal.
Cerrus opened the window that led to the attic of the home and slipped inside, unseen by the people below. When inside, he called out, “Scholar?”
A gruff voice chastised him, “Hush, worm.” It was Ferragut, a friendly brute who took pleasure in chiding Cerrus. “You want the whole world to know we’re here?”
Ferragut was reading, an activity that he needed considerable practice with. The Scholar had given him a hand-written copy of an ancient text. All of the living members of The Scholar’s army were tasked with reading these books, and they always brought along chests of them to fill the quiet hours. Ferragut closed the thin, leather-bound book. None of the novels had writing on their covers to prevent anyone outside of their group from knowing it was a forbidden text. However, Carrus recognized the book by its worn, red cover. It was Of Mice and Men, a novel by one of The Scholar’s favorite ancients, John Steinbeck.
“Where is he?” asked Cerrus.
“Downstairs with Madeline.”
“Madeline’s here?” asked Cerrus, his panic easing slightly. “Is she okay? Our house…” he was out of breath from his manic trip. “It’s burning.”
“We know,” said Ferragut. “Don’t worry, she’s fine, although The Scholar’s wondering why you left her there alone. He weren’t too happy about that.”
“Wasn’t, not ‘weren’t.” After correcting his friend, Cerrus asked, “Are they downstairs.”
Ferragut nodded and then went back to his book, annoyed that his grammar had slipped and that Cerrus had been the one to catch it. The two shared a tenuous friendship that dipped into animosity frequently, although it was usually in good fun. Ferragut had saved Cerrus from more than a few predicaments, but there was nothing he could do this time.
Cerrus headed downstairs, and found his sidekick, Madeline, in the study. This had been a bedroom, but The Scholar stored his library here, unpacking the crates of books and setting them out in the order he preferred. The books represented one of the greatest collections of ancient literature in existence, and was the prized possession of their entire group. Nothing mattered more than these books.
The Scholar had his back turned as Cerrus came in. He was kneeling beside a crate that contained his armor, and had retrieved the leather mask that was quickly becoming his trademark in battle. Madeline saw her partner coming and reached out her arms to welcome him in for a hug.
Cerrus grabbed her and pulled her in for a tight embrace as he said, “Maddie, I’m so happy to see you. Are you okay?” He leaned back and inspected her before hugging her again.
“I’m fine,” said Maddie. “A guard came to search the house. I let the zombies out to deal with him, but then he fell through the floor.” The girl’s voice was strong and certain, belying her cherubic disguise. Madeline looked like a child, but she was older than Cerrus by a decade. She, and all the children who traveled with The Scholar, was a half-dead.
The emergence of half-deads had changed the way the world looked at the disease. In the past, for as long as the plague had existed, contraction was fatal. It was only within the past few decades that people had started to survive the initial infection. However, the half-deads weren’t exactly immune. The disease affected them in other ways. They stopped aging, and their bodies healed from wounds differently, faster but with more of a chance of scarring. Then, when a half-dead finally did die, they would immediately turn into the zombie that they’d somehow avoided becoming until then. For that reason, no city allowed them to live there, either exiling or murdering them when detected. Almost two decades earlier, Golden Rock trained Swords how to detect and murder half-deads. Those Swords were known as Drakes, and had been sent out to hunt and kill all of the half-deads they could find.
“How’d the fire start?” asked Cerrus.
“He had a lantern,” said Madeline. “He dropped it when the floor fell in.”
“Why did you let the zombies out?”
“Because that’s what I was told to do,” said Madeline, allowing her annoyance with Cerrus to show. “You missed the meeting. The Scholar told us that the Swords might be searching the houses, and that we needed to let the zombies out early if they came.”
The Scholar turned, buckling the back of his mask as he did. Those glass eyes stared down at Cerrus, emotionless yet forbidding. Cerrus knew what this meant, and he worried that they were starting their war too early.
“Are we letting them out already?” asked Cerrus.
“We are,” said The Scholar, his voice affected by the mask’s respirator, making him sound distant and tinny.
“They might not find the bodies,” said Cerrus. “The fire was intense. They might’ve all burned up.”
The Scholar shook his head and said, “No, they’ll find them. If not right away, then by tomorrow,
and they’ll want to know why the basement was stacked with bodies. It’s okay, we’ve got enough to do the job.” He looked down at Madeline and said, “Give me a minute to speak with Cerrus alone.”
“Yes, sir.” She squeezed her partner’s hand and gave him a sympathetic smile before leaving the room.
Cerrus felt the need to explain before The Scholar even questioned him. “I was just out looking for…”
“Stop,” said The Scholar, his tone commanding and loud. His anger vanished, and he sounded as calm as usual as he said, “I don’t want excuses, and I don’t want to be lied to.”
Cerrus closed his eyes and took a long breath before admitting, “I was at an opium den.”
The Scholar stared, his mask hiding any emotion, which somehow made Cerrus feel even more shameful as he waited to be judged.
“I…” Cerrus couldn’t look at his master, and instead hung his head. “I’m sorry.”
The Scholar stepped closer, and reached out with his bare hand, setting his index finger to Cerrus’s chin and lifting his follower’s head. Then the leader of their murderous clan knelt and embraced his dejected soldier. “All the mighty falter. It’s how they stand up after they fall that make them mighty to begin with. Look at me.” He held either side of his soldier’s head, running his fingers through Cerrus’s greasy hair. Cerrus saw his own reflection in the circles of glass that hid The Scholar’s eyes. “So tell me, are you a soldier or a sop?”
“A soldier,” said Cerrus.
“Good,” said the Scholar. “Then prove it.”
“I will, Scholar,” said Cerrus, determined. “I will. I’ll fight…”
“No,” said The Scholar. “I want you to protect the girls. You’ll lock yourself away with them and wait until the battle’s over. I’m trusting you with their lives, Cerrus. Don’t fail me.”