Enjoy this written piece, have yourself a lovely day, and see you Friday for more!
Plague Watch I by Mackinley Clevinger, August 9, 2016
“Report any sick or dead that you know of as soon as you become aware of them, even if they’re your family. Especially if they are your family. We can’t take chances anymore, and none of you want to explain to your kids why grandpa tried to eat them. If you see anything at all, even the barest hint of illness or suspicious behavior…”
Schmidt looked over the crowd before him, pausing in his speech for a brief moment. Sputtering torches spat foul smoke over the fearful citizens, drifting off into a noon sky that was unrecognizable if you weren’t accustomed to life under the plague. A thick bank of dark clouds turned their lives into one long night, punctuated by a period of perfect darkness when once the moon had reigned.
“Tell us. Report it to the Plague Watch as soon as you are able. We’ve all lost people, we’ve all felt the bite of the plague upon ourselves and our families, but if you work with us, if we all band together during these accursed times, then we will be safe. We will beat this plague. That is all.”
A few members of the crowd gathered torches and lit them, each leading a small group away from the pavilion down dark alleys and roads as Schmidt stepped down from the wooden platform affixed to the second floor of the guard house, the exterior below it a torn and broken mess of glass and scrap-wood, ramshackle supports keeping the front of the guard house from falling apart.
Schmidt came to a halt beside the platform, feet coming together and his arm raising in a salute as a woman approached him with a sour expression, her clothes in a rugged state but showing finery missing in the uniforms of the men and women passing through the guard house.
“Officer. What do you need with the Plague Watch today?”
She took him by the arm, not breaking her stride as she pulled him away from the passing guards into an alley barricaded several feet in. Looking over her shoulder and satisfied no one was nearby or had noticed, she turned towards Schmidt.
“The Queen’s daughter has taken ill. She isn’t expected to make it past the dark tonight.”
Schmidt pulled his arm free from the Officer and swore, passing a hand across his collar where a delicate chain necklace lay, ending in a multi-pronged symbol that glowed weakly as his hand neared it. Between thin lengths of metal, a pebble-sized gem bobbed lightly as the necklace shifted along his neck, not touching the metal.
“Thought the royals were safe up in their palace, Officer. Thought you taking half of the Plague Watch last month was supposed to keep this from happening.”
The Officer narrowed her eyes, crossing her arms as she glared at Schmidt. He coughed into a fist, looking away from her towards the barricade and shifting in place awkwardly.
“Officer.”
She sighed, dropping her arms to her hips and shifting her stance to put her weight on one leg, rubbing a hand against her side and wincing lightly.
“We don’t know how this shit spreads, Lance-Corporal, and it’s not like it matters. She didn’t just… get sick. You’ve seen all the cults that have popped up in the last year. Broken Hand, Last Light… the goddamn Plague Walkers. They’ve been causing us all a hell of a time, and we’ve barely kept one step ahead of them even with the bodies we took from the Plague Watch.
“We’re still looking into how they did it, but they breached the palace and used themselves as bait to… She was bit, Lance-Corporal, and the palace was – is, still, – overrun. We’ve holed them up and need the Plague Watch to assist us in retaking the palace.”
Schmidt shut his mouth with a clacking of teeth, body tensed as incredulity washed over his face.
“They – you can’t – we’re barely able to patrol what’s left of the city as it is! If you split the Plague Watch again… we had to abandon the markets and the churches last month, and we’ve cordoned off half the neighborhoods that are full of the dead. We can’t… We’re spread thin enough as it is, Officer.”
“You abandoned the… We’re not splitting the Plague Watch, Lance-Corporal.”
Schmidt released a breath of relief, air rustling the hairs of his moustache.
“We’re combining it into the Royal Guard, who will be taking over all of the city’s defenses.”
The sudden intake of breath left Schmidt coughing as spit caught in his throat, the Officer speaking over his hacking coughs.
“Her majesty no longer understands why the guard has been split, and in her grief would not listen as we tried to explain the joint nature of… “
She trailed off, the placid expression on her face sliding off to show a look of defeat.
“Her word is final, Lance-Corporal. We are all to report at the palace gates tomorrow to retake her majesty’s home, and, officially, your new priority is the defense of her majesty’s family.”
“And whoever survives will form the new Royal Guard for the entire damn city?”
The Officer sighed, sarcasm findings its way into her words.
“C’mon, you’re all joining the glorious Royal Guard. Used to be the envy of every young lad.”
Schmidt shook his head, joined a moment later by the Officer in mutual disgust with their royal family in the time of crisis. Her face suddenly twisted in pain, clutching her side and gasping through her teeth, body bending over reflexively and hurting her more.
Schmidt backed away from her, putting himself between the Officer and the open alley entrance as his hand drifted to a short sheaf at his waist, hand gripping a knife as he looked around himself in worry.
“Officer, you’re not… you didn’t carry the plague into – “
She lifted herself up, unable to avoid leaning towards the wound in her side as she looked Schmidt over.
“Lance-Corporal, I would not endanger the lives of the citizens I am sworn to protect for something as simple as relaying orders. I’m a friend with one of the medics, and they permitted me to leave.”
Schmidt stared at her, turning what she said around in his head for a few moments.
“Officer, are you carrying the plague within you?”
She lifted a hand to her neck towards a similar small amulet hanging off of a chain, hers more rounded and delicate than Schmidt’s with its own tiny gem floating between the lengths of metal that glowed softly while her attention was on it. There was a catch in her throat as she answered him.
“While clearing the way for the Queen’s safe passage I led a team diverting attention away from her retinue, and we did suffer casualties. I was among the group taken to the medics, where they discovered that I had been… bitten.”
Schmidt stepped away from her, interrupted moments before yelling across the courtyard.
“So I cut it out myself.”
He froze, eyes widening as he looked at her wound and imagined what she’d done. She drew up her shirt above her left leg, revealing what at first appeared to be a scarlet undershirt but upon inspection was a dense mass of bled-through bandages, the surface wet and glistening in the flickering torchlight cast into the darkened alley and centered around the area just above her hip.
“I… that… Officer, that doesn’t…”
“Officer Ling, Lance-Corporal, and I know.”
Ling tucked her shirt back into her pants, streaks of scarlet blood now decorating her shirt.
“I know it doesn’t do a damn thing but buy you time at…”
She wavered, eyes becoming unfocused for a moment as pain wracked her body. After a moment it passed, leaving her holding her head and her side while she gritted her teeth, gasping.
“At a fucking painful cost, but someone had to play the messenger, and I didn’t want to waste away in a crowded tent before having my head caved in.”
She breathed deeply, chest expanding as she winced at the skin stretching.
“I’m going to die in the churches, Lance-Corporal, not bludgeoned and burnt in a pit with so many others. There’s been enough disrespect in death in this accursed city. I’m not going to let myself become so easily forgotten, and neither am I going to let a madwoman force good men and women to die for her needlessly. No more.”
Schmidt stared at her, stunned.
“What… what do… you can’t disobey – “
“All the crown wants you to do…”
Ling reached behind herself and pulled out a sheaf of papers bound together.
“Is take this to Amick, and Lance-Corporal…”
Ling passed the papers into Schmidt’s hands and stepped by him towards the alley’s exit.
“You don’t have to show up tomorrow. Nobody has to, if nobody knows.”
Schmidt watched as Ling stood at the mouth of the alley and rolled her shoulders back, fighting against the pain to hide her injury in the resolute desire to take control over the end of her life. He took ahold of the emblem around his neck and held it up, the glow strengthening as he said a short prayer over it directed towards her.
Ling froze, turning and listening to his prayer before nodding in thanks. Her face assumed the placid expression of a busy officer, and she moved out into the pavilion, taking up a torch as she went. She spoke briefly to another Lance-Corporal, remaining curt before handing her another set of papers and then departing from the guard house in the direction of the barricades leading to the churches.
He looked down at the papers in his hand, mind racing at what Ling had suggested. He held little respect towards the foolish decisions of blue-blooded royals with no common sense, but for as long as he’d been alive he’d always been surrounded by the absolute fact that you had to follow their command. The Queen had been the absolute ruler for years; if she ordered something to be done, you did it.
With thoughts of what he’d seen become of traitors to the crown, balanced against what he’d seen become of the victims of the plague, he wandered across the pavilion, leafing through the packet and reading snippets from each page. Amick was a fellow Lance-Corporal on guard duty by the sewers, but the papers… were for a promotion. To officer, no less, and his first command was…
Schmidt’s blood chilled in his veins as he read what Ling had told him, seeing it in writing from the Queen herself a stronger conviction of the madness of it all than a deserter running off to die in a plague-infested corner of the city. Amick was going to be an officer, and he had orders to lead the Plague Watch into the palace to retake it from the dead and any cultists that remained there.
They were all going to die.