Chapter XXIX

Dmitri’s Dilemma

As the argument undoubtedly continued back in the quarters, Dmitri made his way to the holding area where his horse bounded out the stables to join him. He had grown rather fond of the animal over the past month or so that he had been riding it, and he felt alive like he had never done before when he rode it.

“Going out again imperial.” A dwarf at the gates said as he observed Dmitri, load up his supplies before saddling and then mounting the animal. “When can we expect your return?” He asked looking upwards at the rider.

“A few days tops, I want to check out the eastern sections a bit more.” Dmitri said, he knew that whilst they had been pretty much searched already, it wouldn’t hurt to do a once over on the roads. The dwarf nodded and Dmitri rode out the gates, not realising that he had left his staff back in his room.

As he rode out for what may well be the last time, Dmitri realised that he was at peace with that fact, he accepted, even a part of him wanted to die out searching. So as not to feel like he died for nothing. His disease however took wanting out of the equation, he had accepted his fate, that he would not die in this mountain, where the vast concentration of people were that he could potentially infect in the immediate time after his death.

As he made camp that night, about twenty miles southeast of the woodlands where Martin had disappeared, he had the strange sensation of being watched by someone, it was an old feeling, dating back to his time on the streets of the imperial city. You had to keep one eye open at all times down in those slums elsewise you at best find yourself without anything that you had had the day before, and at worse, you would no longer have your life, as well as your possessions.

“Who’s there?” Dmitri said as he took out his gun and held it close to him, as he guessed, no-one answered, and he looked around at the perimeter of his encampment. It was a simple affair with only a single tent and campfire. His horse was tethered to a nearby tree that looked more dead than alive at this point, rather like him, he thought morbidly to himself.

A sound distracted him from this last morbid thought, and he turned around, slightly too quickly as the hardened skin on his right side cracked open, and a few bits came off, he was entering the final stages of the disease now and he knew it. But he had vowed that he would end it before that happened. He re-focused however and saw a black figure walking towards him in the darkness.

“You.” Dmitri said as he re-holstered the gun and sat in front of the fire as the tall dark figure of Eugene Fitzfurgel comes out of the darkness and into the firelight. It was hard to say who had suffered worse since their last encounter, back at the manor.

Eugene’s skin was chalk white, and he was deathly thin, his long fingers gripping a blade in his cold dead hands, the once charming and convincing right hand of Osmund looked like a reanimated corpse.

“Me.” Eugene said, his voice was cold as the night air, and had the scent of death in its breath. “Look at what has become of you, a wandering host.” Eugene said as he smirked his lipless mouth at Dmitri

“Look what I have avoided by refusing to take your masters offer last year.” Dmitri said as he got up, ready for the inevitable, before continuing. “And here was me thinking that I looked bad.” Dmitri finished, returning to his fire and stoking it some more to get the heat up.

“I came here to kill you and take your gem, but seeing you do not have it, and your current situation I may as well leave you here. To fester in your disease.” Eugene said as he stepped forward a bit more, but noticeable staying away from the fire. “I can clearly see, given your situation that I chose the right side to begin with. The powerful side. The winning side.” Eugene finished.

“If you define winning by the ability to take life, the desire to possess, to control. Then you have nothing that I want.” Dmitri said stepping forward to show his lack of fear at this man in the full firelight. This did seem to do the trick, as Eugene spat something out of his mouth towards the flames, it didn’t put the fire out, but it was now greatly reduced.

“I have more than you.” Eugene said angrily, trying to Dmitri to share his rage, but Dmitri simply stood still as his fire died in front of him. Seeing this lack of response, Eugene continued on. “Why are you out here alone. You are not simply sulking away to die away from your family. No, you have a purpose here.” Eugene said, and a smile remerged on his lips as the look on Dmitri's face frowned. “You are looking for something?” Eugene continued before his dead eyes widened in the epiphany. “No. You are looking for someone. Pray tell who is it. Who has my master taken from you?” Eugene said, as his smile widened at that thought, and the hurt the group were feeling for their missing comrade.

A feeling of anger rose in Dmitri as he saw the smile on his enemy’s face, the fact that this pathetic excuse for a man was alive when so many good people were not, made him angrier than anything else.

“Well, I will tell you, you are on the right tracks heading this way. But it is futile, Mr Jones. They will see the light and join my masters cause.” Eugene said as he walked towards the dying fire. “You know what. I am going to let you live, as seeing you suffer, as you fail to complete your mission. Will bring me so much joy.” Eugene said as he was about a few inches away from Dmitri, after which he walked away, but as Dmitri made to follow, he clicked his fingers and the flames re-emerged twice as big as before stopping the captain in his tracks. Darting around the fire Dmitri fired ten rounds into the retreating back with absolutely no effect.

After a while, the flames settled down once more to manageable levels, which had given Dmitri time to think. Despite his hatred for Eugene, the man had given him the first nugget of hope, he was on the right course. They had taken Martin south, and due to his more south easterly direction it was safe to assume that they had crossed somewhere at the point where the mountains met the coast.

He thought about going back to the mountain to fetch reinforcements, potentially bring the entire army of the north down to the other side of the snow mountains. But then he remembered one of the reasons he had left, his death was soon upon him, and he didn’t want to potentially infect anyone when his body gave up on its fight, as he wasn’t sure what would happen to the disease after his death, if the infectivity went up or down or stayed the same, he didn’t know. So, he made the decision that he would never regret. He chose to go on alone.

The following morning, he got up and noticed how the blackened skin was starting to fall off and a reddish puss had begun to show and weep out of his ruined under skin. Knowing that this was time when he was at all infectious to people, he hurriedly packed up his camp and headed off. The process would only last a few hours, but it was the reason why he had wanted to avoid the mountain. After the hours had passed and his body had wept it’s last it would no longer pose a risk but would be only a few days away from giving up the ghost.

Putting this thought out of his mind, and spotting a cluster of woodland up ahead, he decided to make for it, they had found their first clue in the woods. What were the odds that they would find their second in one too. It wasn’t much to go on, but after the previous night, he was feeling lucky, and so, he set off.

As Dmitri rode into a large clearing, his horse suddenly stopped, so quickly that the animal almost caused him to fall off. He steadied himself and looked down at the horse, which was clearly agitated by something.

“What is it?” Dmitri said, patting the horse’s neck, trying to calm it down. But a groan to both his left and right, alerted him to the problem, before the horse ever could. He looked around, and that is when he saw them.

A hoard, by the sound of it about fifty strong came out of the tree around him. He drew his gun and began to fire, aiming for the heads, and getting a few confirmed kills. Before his horse, panicked by both the hoard and the sound of the gunfire, reared up causing Dmitri to fall to the ground. He tried to roll, as to not put so much pressure on one part of his body, and yet he heard the sound of his right wrist crack, and an explosion of pain ran up his arm as it did so.

Fighting the urge to howl in pain, he got up, thanking the gods that he hadn’t broken his back from the fall, and continued firing. He noticed his horse running about in a blind panic, although it seemed to be doing him a favour as, as it charged about, in trampled some of the hoard underneath it.

Despite this unusual from of help however, Dmitri was still losing, he was tired, his wrist was killing him and, more importantly he was running out of ammunition. He noticed however, that he had somehow managed to clear a path up a nearby slope, it wasn’t much, but it might give him an advantage. So, he began to back up, drawing the hoard with him as he did so.

After a few more minutes firing his weapon, the inevitable happened at the worst possible moment, the gun clicked as he used up the last of his ammo supplies. He drew his knife instead, whilst thinking of the staff that was resting against the wall back at the mountain and wondering what on earth possessed him not to take it with him today. But there was no time to think about that now, as he began to engage in close quarters, driving the knife into the rotting skulls of the dead as he did so.

He and his horse had managed to get the hoard down by half, he judged as he returned to his little hill for a breather. He was panting and sweating from head to foot from the physical exhaustion of the battle. The hoard seemed to be adapting as well, they were no longer just following him up the small hill, instead they were trying to find alternate ways up, or going after his horse, which continued to run amok.

Realising that even if he won, without a horse he would surely die out here, he did the only thing that he could think of. Dmitri began to charge down the hill towards the hoard, knocking a few over in the process and slashing wildly at the others.

It took a while for the stupidness of this decision to really hammer itself home. As he fought on, his hands became sweatier and so he found the knife begin to slip out of his hands as he continued on. This didn’t become apparent until he realised that he was fighting the dead with the butt of his gun, rather than the blade. He looked around on the ground, trying to find the blade, but only compounded the issue, when he tripped up, his prosthetic leg having been caught on a branch on the ground, where he collapsed and immediately felt that something was wrong.

As he fell onto the head of a nearby zombie, he crushed the skull, unfortunately the thing that didn’t brake beneath his fall was his knife. Which had been hiding underneath the skull before it had been broken by Dmitri fall, and was now subsequently punctured itself into the side of his body.

This did make him scream, as he pulled the blade out of him, he knew instinctively that the wound was going to be a fatal one. It felt like something was hanging out of his side. He didn’t look, there was no point, the mass of his own blood on the ground was proof of that.

All that remained was to finish off the last of the hoard and head back to the mountain.

It took him longer than he would have hoped, as the pain from both his wrist and now his side, was enough to almost make him pass out. But eventually he managed it. Observing the scene around him, but chose not to stay for long, as he walked over to his bloody horse, which looked in an almost worse condition than he did.

By some miracle, he was able to calm the beast down, and mount it for what would almost certainly the last time, and simply whispered to it.

“Take me home boy.” Dmitri said with a gasp, the simple act of whispering was enough to make his side act up it would seem. Despite this, the horse seemed to be listening, as it began to weave its own way through the forest back towards the mountain, with its rider not knowing if he would be able to hold out for long enough to get back.