Chapter XV

The New Answer

Whilst Dave prepares to lay his trap for the two people following him. He wishes that he had just simply rode out on the scouting mission with Barca and Abi, who at that moment were in the process of riding through the largest blizzard either of them had ever encountered, whilst also trying to get around a deep snow drift on their horse's. Even with their limited knowledge of the terrain, they knew that doing anything else would have done nothing but lead to the deaths of their mounts.

“We should head back, we scouted enough of the land to see that there is nobody else out here Barca. Plus, the horses will die of cold if we stay out much longer.” Abi said patting the horse that was already starting to shiver, whilst she was no vet, she knew that if the horse could not replace the calories that they had burnt on this latest escapade, then they would die.

“We'll head back in fifteen. Don't worry the horses can take it.” Barca said feeling his own horse, it too was cold, but they hadn’t been out for too long so far. The only problem was that if it continued to snow like this, and they failed to make it back in time, then they would have a serious problem. Whilst the town was well prepared for winter, with fires having been lit almost two months prior, out here was a completely different story. Barca looks around the almost pure white landscape before doing a slight double take. “What's that?” Barca asked pointing towards the south west, raising a set of binoculars.

“I can’t tell from here; the blizzard is too strong.” Abi said as she looked through her own binoculars. Barca continues to gaze toward the location through a set of binoculars, he almost doesn’t believe his eyes, he rubs them and looks again where he sees a black car, just below the mountains.

“There's a car, about a click south.” Barca said, he was sure of it, animals had never been his area of expertise, but cars were, and he would have been able to make one out in this blizzard at night.

“What?” Abi said as she once again looks through her own binoculars and stares towards where Barca shaking gloved hand is pointing, he was right, now that she knew what see was looking for, it was much easier to spot, clear as day, a single black object nestled against the mountains.

“I want to check it out.” Barca said. it had been his first contact with something like this since the south had fallen. It was also curious, whilst the north-men had vehicles at their disposal, most were currently grounded due to the south, and more importantly, the oil rich Bartazer having fallen to the enemy. Which is why they seemed to have gone back about a few hundred years in terms of transportation and why it was so odd to see a car in a place like this, with no access to the precious fuel that was used to power it. Before Abi can react Barca rides off through the thickening snow towards the small black pin in a sea of white. It was to be expected, but it still made Abi annoyed at the lieutenant’s rash decision as she rushes to follow to follow him.

As Barca and Abi arrive about a hundred meters away from where the black car is parked, they find it seemingly abandoned, with no one in sight of it. Whilst the horses had made the run with relative ease, both having been fully equipped for the snowy terrain, it was clear to Abi that they were starting to become weaker.

She was about to tell this to Barca, who seemed to have little sympathy for the animals, but was stopped when two men come traipsing through the snow towards them. As they do Barca raises his gun at the two men, immediately suspicious, having not seen either of them in the town that they had just come from, and there were no other settlements nearby that could justify being this far north, he dismounted and slowly moved forward.

“Hold...” Barca starts but before the lieutenant could finish the two men draw out their own guns and open fire killing Barca's horse, as the tired old beast collapsed to the ground and didn’t move, glad that he had had the foresight to dismount before approaching he opened fire himself as another bullet grazed Abi's arm as she dismounted from her own horse. Despite Barca’s training and Abi’s good shooting skills, they were still clearly outmatched, and the pair began to retreat behind a rock for cover as a third man, taller than the others, walks towards the car dragging an unconscious kid about Dave’s age towards the car, and hauling him into the boot before opening fire himself, cutting off Barca and Abi’s retreat.

“Shoot the horse!” Barca hears one of their attacker’s shout at his companions. At this the lieutenant gets up and starts laying down fire wherever he could, whilst it doesn’t kill any of the attackers, it ultimately has the desired effect, as the three men clearly become wary of the skirmish, and quickly get into the car and drive off towards the border, where the mountains met the western sea.

“What the hell?” Abi said, observing the retreating car, she raises her gun before realising that she was well out of range. So, she drops her arm and holsters the weapon.

“Indeed. We need to get back though.” Barca said as he knelt by his dead horse, he felt sorry for the poor animal, he had no love of horses, they were hard to ride and stank like hell, but he would never have wanted to see one die.

“Wowwww... Who would of thought of that? Oh yeah me.” Abi said angrily, this was exactly the point that she had been trying to make back when they had first ridden out here. And they had achieved less than nothing, the only thing that had happened was that they had lost a perfectly good horse in the process.

However, Abi gets onto her horse and then gurglingly helps Barca on. But before they could set off, she spots something in the ground and dismounts quickly and begins to dig in the snow. After about five minutes she manages to unearth what she had first spotted, and both her and Barca’s mouths fall open.

Lying in the ground was decayed remains of a person, its rotten flesh burnt and eye sockets hollow. But what was remarkable, was that the corpse was still twitching slightly, seeing this Barca takes his knife and plunges it into the head of the corpse, which stops it from twitching at least but does not ease his mind.

“What the hell is it doing up here?” Abi said looking at the now mercifully dead, but still rotten corpse.

“I don’t know, but we should take it back to Bergskort.” Barca said and for the first time that day, Abi agreed with him. Although it took much longer to load the rotten corpse onto the horse as they had planned, as the animal didn’t want to carry the dead man, the horse kept moving away and kicking whenever they tried. Eventually Abi got onto the horse to steady the animal whilst Barca loaded the corpse onto it, mindful of the horses back legs that were twitching ominously, as if it was about to kick out once again. After securing their prize, Abi helped Barca back onto the horse and the pair rode back to Bergskort, wondering what exactly had happened to their prize that drove it this far north.

Back within the safety of Bergskort walls, Abi and Barca ride as fast as possible through the northern gates, the wooden gates were still open as they had been before, which after what both of them had seen on their scout would be something that they would both ask the governor to change on. As these people weren’t as safe as they clearly thought they were.

After turning over the horse and quickly explaining what had happened to the other to both the shock and horror of the stable master, whose horror increased as they took the corpse of the mount, much to the animals seeming delight that it was no longer carrying the dead person, it was impossible to say what gender the poor soul had been before his clearly agonising death.

It took longer than expected to get to the small lab than they had first thought as the town people had gathered around the stables at their return, only leaving when Barca fired his gun into the air to restore order, which did work in getting the crowd to move, but also got him some nasty stares from a couple. ‘What’s a few more enemies.’ Barca thought to himself as he rushed through.

Arriving at the small lab, Abi held open the door as Barca rushed through with the corpse over his shoulder. The lab was tiny, with only a half dozen workstations and a few rooms, nothing like the ones in the imperial city, or back home in Docksmouth.

“Ah Barca, your back early what are you…” Charlie started as Barca place the corpse onto an empty table leaving both her, Jimmy and the only other scientist, an elderly woman called Gurta, staring in shock at the corpse.

“Where did you find it?” Jimmy asked looking at Barca with shock and horror, just like the stable master.

“Found it whilst scouting, it was half buried beneath the snow.” Abi said, she didn’t know why she wasn’t talking about the attack, she just had a feeling that it was best to keep that to herself, at least for the time being.

“We thought it would be good for you to study it, see if you can find out how it was still moving well after the poor sod died the first time.” Barca spoke up, he was checking himself for any new wounds, whilst he was certain that the creature had been dead before he put it on the horse and then carried it here. It was better to be safe than much, much sorrier later on.

“We’ll do our best. But it may be difficult now that it is properly dead.” Charlie said taking hold of the corpse in her gloved hands and poking around at the decaying skin. It felt weird, despite the fact that it had been buried in the snow, it wasn’t cold, on the contrary it was quite warm. But the blood that came out of the corpse wasn’t normal, it was a light grey colour, as if the liquid too was rotting along with the skin.

“I’ll bear that in mind.” Barca said, but before he could leave, Forest McCoy arrived along with a half dozen of his town guards, unfortunately neither Codsworth nor Bruce were among them.

“What in the gods name is that?” Forest asked looking at the corpse, unlike everyone else however, there was no look of horror in his eyes, just a look morbid fascination with the dead thing lying on the table.

“We found it whilst scouting.” Abi replied, whilst they were supposably in a place of safety here, she still felt nervous and placed her hand onto the holster at her side.

“Why did you bring it back. What in all the worlds, made you make that decision.” Sjur asked, unlike his boss, the guard looked like everyone else that had seen it, it was even worse now however, with it oozing its dead blood. So much so that two of the guards excused themselves, followed by the obvious sounds of retching coming from outside.

“We need to examine it. It’s a small chance, but we may be able to find out why this has happened.” Charlie said, but Forest bit back a retort that was at odds with the look in his eyes.

“Get rid of it. I will not have it here where it can cause panic.” Forest bit back at the three scientists.

“Governor, this is worth studying as it may help us in the future.” Gurta spoke up, rather timidly, but she spoke up non the less, but with a definite green look in her face after having witnessed the of colour blood.

“This thing will cause chaos if it is left here. When I want advise from a scientist about keeping the peace, I will ask for it Gurta. Now shut up and do as I say, or I will find me a scientist who will.” Forest demanded, at which point Barca spoke up on the issue, he wondered if this man was as stupid as Osmund could have been, judging solely on his previous comment certainly seemed to prove that fact.

“This corpse was found not twenty miles from your walls, are you not even remotely interested how it got there, or why I had to kill it again despite it having been buried in a snow drift for gods know how long.” Barca said angrily, placing his hand on his weapon, as the guards surrounding Forest did the same. He wasn’t scared however, from what he had seen these guards were all bark and no bite, he on the other hand had spent his entire military career fighting hardened mercenaries and the dead. Before he continued. “You need to close yours gates as well, certainly at night.” Barca continued to the bluster of Forest.

“We have nothing to fear, we are far from the battle zone.” Forest said, waving the concern away as if it was nothing.

“This corpse proves otherwise.” Abi said curtly.

“Fine. I’ll have the gates closed, but you will burn that thing by the days end. I expect to see smoke coming from your chimney by nightfall. And you will not speak of this to anyone.” Forest said before he strutted out of the lab, followed by his lackies. Barca checked to see that they were gone, including the two that had relieved themselves from the room earlier on. Before returning to the scientists.

“Right. Looks like we’ve got till tonight to find out as much as we can.” Jimmy said, as he took a closer look at the corpse. Followed by the two others, although both Barca and Abi noted, with a lot less enthusiasm.

There was an unease around the house that evening, both Charlie and Barca had agreed to not say anything to the others about what had been found beyond the city walls, for the group’s sake as much as their own, even though they soon found out anyway. And whilst they didn’t fully no what Forest was like, they were able to guess that he was a lot bigger threat to them than Osmund had been, as this man seemed to be acting on his words. Both Codsworth and Bruce had seen his goon squad out beating people who spoke up about what they had seen when Barca and Abi had returned. And whilst that would serve no purpose but to verify the rumour. It didn’t help them right here, right now, with the fact that the governor that if the governor was trying to hide this, then what else was he hiding.

“How much longer have we got till we can move out?” Codsworth said, as this time the previous year, winter was drawing to a close, but this time around, it seemed to be just carrying on, with no end in sight.

“A few more months at least.” Charlie replied, she had been talking to Gurta talking about it a few weeks prior, the elderly woman had told her, that winters up here lasted a lot longer, than they usually did down in the south. Despite this, her interaction with Forest had made her desperate for the winter to be over, so that they could leave this place. Even if it was only a handful of them that would choose to go.

“Did you manage to find anything else out ant.” Abi asked, whilst they had initially agreed to not speak about the corpse. Now that the cat was out of the bag on that score, she felt safer talking about it, so long as it was inside.

“Nothing. We burned it just like the governor told us. But I was able to get some samples. I’ll have to wait until we arrive at the mountain to examine them however.” Charlie said as she leaned back on her chair, that she had managed to convince Gurta to let her do. As for some reason the elderly woman feared Forest’s retaliation at the slightest sign of disobedience to his orders.

On the whole it hadn’t been the best day for any member of the little group of southern in this northern town. However, although none of them knew it, it would be the day that would mark a turning point in all their lives.