The Elementals : The Dawn of Darkness

Chapter 28 - The Thing About Zombies

"You've both cracked, completely lost it. You know that, right?"

"Shadow, I think we're both thinking the same thing here. SHUT UP!"

That was me telling our pessimistic friend over there to button it or be thrown over the wall, a threat both I, Sheira and half of the guards had warned him over. After a quick hour-long powernap and a quick bite of lunch, Sheira and I had got to work, walking the length of the wall, asking where we would be most required, what to expect and how to not die. Simple really. Shadow had made an appearance a little while later but not to pull his weight, rather to try (Emphasis on the word try) to convince us to make a quick getaway stage right.

For the most part we'd ignored him and had simply continued to fit the giant cannons that lined the battlements with firestones, tiny balls of burning death that could fire a blast of solid fire every minute or so when rigged up to the machines, ignoring mister whiny over there or simply threatening him with death by zombie when he wouldn't shut up. Just your average Sunday night, right? Although, to be fair, even this was on the weirder end of our little journey and we've been attacked by a robot with bloodlust.

Shadow wasn't deterred by the general consensus of 'button it' and with some feet of agility that made me feel just a little bit queasy, jumped round one of the enormous ballista by swinging himself round the outside of the wall to land in front of us. "You are aware what you're doing here. You are helping a group of random strangers fight off an army of the undead without needing to, we could just get some shut eye and leave first thing tomorrow or, better yet, get the hell out of dodge now."

Sheira scoffed as she loaded up the second to last stone into the projectile launcher. Golden flames flared down the frame of the weapon, leaving it smouldering in a very cool way. "That's rich coming from mister 'let's go away from our destination to Anglesey'. You brought us here, so technically its your fault we're in this mess," she snapped as she started explaining to the operator of the ballista how to use it and not set himself on fire.

Shadow fumed, "that was before I knew that there was an army of the undead knocking on the door every night. What are you looking at me like that for?"

I shrugged, "I dunno, maybe you can't use that argument, but you know its complete bull."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that even though Tulip and Zach told you about the Night of the Living Dead situation, you only changed your tune when you arrived in Truespear Hollow. You're fine with the zombies, but not with this town. Why?"

Surprising literally no one, Shadow narrowed his eyes, turned on his heel and left without another word. He was obviously hiding something, blind people could figure that out, but the guy had walls as impenetrable as Alcatraz but for the briefest moment, and I mean the briefest, he looked like he was about to say something. Well we were making progress, albeit not very much but hey, it was progress. Sheira and I finished loading up the final ballista (For those that are wondering the Vulcan Star was remaining very firmly inserted into Incaendium. While using that as a power source would probably kill everything in sight that would also include the guy on the cannon and half the population of Truespear Hollow) and made our way back down to solid ground and met up with Lillian at the base.

"All loaded up and ready for tonight," Sheira said as a couple of guys hoisted some sort of giant fan up onto the wall.

Lillian smiled gratefully. "I cannot thank you two enough for this, even if it's just for one night we might be able to cut the numbers back and that could be everything."

"It's no problem," I said, "but it would be more helpful if he was pulling his weight." Shadow was busy arguing with Crash on the other side of the village last time I saw him, but it was still very obvious who I was referring to.