Chapter 11

Signs of Infection

The men moved out looking a little bit lost. Luuk knew they would obey his orders but they did not like them. He knew the missing men were dead. They had to be. It was too close to the corrupted lands for the disappearance to mean anything other than that.

A reaver could have gotten the men but Luuk would have expected a fight. Maybe one of the more subtle creatures from the corruption got to the men. A Lurker might have gotten close enough to take one, but not both and Luuk had never heard of two lurkers working together. A shade could have easily taken the two men but why would a shade take only two? It could have easily taken have the men without much effort.

Luuk did not think that anything he was familiar with from the corrupted lands was responsible, there was something new attacking his men. This new enemy was doing something to the people of this land to turn them into these undead creatures that they fought in the town. This new enemy was something that Luuk did not understand, what were they after? What was this enemy trying to accomplish?

The men traveled slower under the weight of this unknown enemy, of this unconventional attack. The men started to look at the forest as a hostile land when the day before it was a friendly, if oppressive environment. They looked at the trees like they might harbor an enemy. Luuk knew it was only a short time before they started to look at each other that way.

Luuk looked at himself and knew he too was affected. Yesterday he saw this troop as a young and active battle force that he could lead. This was a group that would not be defeated. Now he looked at them as a young group that had to survive. He no longer looked at the mission goal to be triumph but survival.

He watched as Williams and Fedor moved among the men and tried to cheer the group.

They were not successful.

After what seemed like a long morning march Luuk called for a halt. He told the men they would rest for an hour then have a meal. After the meal they would continue. He split the men into two groups. One to be on guard while the other rested. Luuk gathered his thoughts as he rested in the shade of a large tree.

Williams and Fedor approached him, but he waved them off.

Was the loss of two men that much of a blow to the group? How would they deal with the loss of more if they met resistance at the border?

Luuk changed his bandage and went in search of Williams and Fedor. He found Williams alone, eating a cold meal of dried meat and cheese.

“What do you think we should do about morale?” Luuk asked Williams.

“I'm not sure sir.” Williams replied, “The loss of two men was blow, and to know that even of they are found they are still lost is another. These men are young, some have never been to the border, never mind into the corrupted lands.“

Williams paused. Luuk could tell he had more to say but was unsure how to say it. Luuk waited in silence, allowing Williams to find his voice.

“It would almost be better...” Williams began, looking directly at Luuk, “It would almost be better, if we had something to fight. Something we could see and fight and defeat. This enemy it attacks the men by taking away what they are trained to rely on. It takes away their faith in each other.”

Luuk nodded, Williams had seen right to the core of the problem.

“Is your wound bothering you sir?” Williams asked. “Do you need to see a healer?”

Luuk looked down to see he was scratching under the bandages.

“No, the bandage just itches.” He told Williams, “I need a clean bandage and some sleep, nothing more. We should get going I want to have a look at the boundary today, if we push hard we should make it.”

The men moved quickly throughout the afternoon and deep into the evening. The trils became more and more overgrowth as the got closer to the corrupted lands. Years ago they had boundary markers but they found that the boundary moved form time to time. Sometimes as much as a thousand paces in a hour. The corrupted lands were something created by magic and human means to mark them were not very effective. Anyone who knew where to look could find the boundary to the corrupted lands anyway.

Luuk thought about what the events of the last days could mean. Sometimes when you were in the corrupted lands things seemed to forget they were dead. They had always called it re-animation. They would move around. Some people claimed dead people had talked to them. The big difference is that re-animation always happened inside the corruption, and never on such a scale. You might expect a Reaver or a wolf to jump back to their feet for a moment, no more than a minute at most. What they saw the day before yesterday was hundreds of re-animated corpses all acting in unison. This was something new.

Luuk thought there was something familiar to it though, something that was pulling at his memory. He felt like he should understand what was going on. One of the scouts reported a dead Reaver. Luuk consulted with Williams and quickly decided to leave it. If they went out of their way to burn every dead thing they found they would never move.

As the day went on Luuk felt better and better. His wound stopped throbbing and he could study the land around him. They had traveled the entire day it was full dark and they had not reached the boundary.

Luuk called in Willaims and Fedor. “Find a place for camp I am going to scout ahead, we must be close.”

Williams and Fedor started issuing commands to the men.

Luuk ran off to the north confident he would reach the edge of the corrupted lands in a matter of minutes.

The forest here was different than anywhere else Luuk had ever visited. There was less undergrowth, as if the land itself was reluctant to grow anything that could be devoured by the corruption.

Luuk stopped and looked around. He realized he was not going to make it get a glimpse of the corrupted lands tonight. He sat down to rest for a moment before turning back. Heading back to the camp was hard he felt almost compelled to continue on his own.

He headed back to meet up with Williams and Fedor and the men. He was about halfway back to the group when he met up with two scouts. He spoke with the men, Adams and Quinn about what they had seen. They reported nothing out of the ordinary and that they would return to the camp when they had completed their sweep around the camp. Luuk dismissed the two and continued on. The camp was exactly where the two indicated it would be. It was well hidden, He was glad he had seen the scouts he might have missed it.

Luuk entered the camp went to speak with Fedor. He spoke of the distance he went without seeing the corrupted areas. Fedor told Luuk that they set up small personal fires rather than a cook fire to reduce visibility. They also had set up guard posts rather than send out scouts.

“What do you mean? I met two scouts on the way in. Adams and Quinn.” Luuk told him.

“Sir,” Fedor replied, “Are you sure? Adams and Quinn are the two men who went missing last night.”

Luuk looked back into the night where he had met the men.

“Sir, you should have that looked at.” Fedor pointed to Luuk wounded left arm.

Luuk looked down, the wound had broken open as was seeping. It was badly infected but for the first time in days it didn't itch.

“I'll clean int and redress the wound before I retire tonight. That will be all Fedor.” Luuk dismissed the fist leader and sought a place to bed down for the night.

Luuk unwrapped his arm. It looked pretty bad. The wound was definitely infected he carefully cleaned the wound. Rubbing salve into the cut to help ward off further infection. He applied a fresh bandage and went to sleep. He hoped things would make more sense in the morning.