23
A couple of hours after lunch, my attention, and thoughts turned toward Myriana. This naturally turned my body around, and walked me back to the main gate, through the growing throngs of the festival goers.
Sunset marked the time for the official events to begin. The number of people inside the walls had tripled already, padded by all types, eager to help with long braided whips of ribbon, cloth, probably from old sheets, torn into strips and woven around tall summer poles. Make-shift beer bars were thrown together with kegs and planks down both sides of the main road. Food was prepared and on platters. The smell saturated the air with strange perfumes and motley merged spices.
Thick with the ragtag and bobtail, two equal, competing crowds pressed flesh into solid mass on each side of the gate. Those in the threshold appeared to be holding their breath. Eyes, bulging with alarm, and shifting from here to yon with sharp, panicked expressions, were the only body parts they were able to move.
Sitting down on the edge of the hardware shop’s roof, I watched the conflict of those trying to come in, and those needing to go back out, so they could bring more stuff inside again.
It took ninety minutes to reach the fishing village with a cavalry line. Marcus, her road captain and experienced war leader, told me he had made the trip to the village more frequently than anywhere else in the realm. Myriana told her porter, Mark, that she planned on staying for lunch, and then coming directly back here. Tonight was the beginning of the goddess festival. She agreed it was a good move, and even looked to be curious and expecting to have fun.
So, where is she?
"Shit," I huffed, as I looked around. Clearly we were safe from invasion with the crowd plugging the gateway. No zombie horde could survive core. I scanned the throng, with relaxed eyes, not focusing on any one thing. Doing this was often the best way for the eyes to catch uncommon or panicked movement. As I did this, my attention came to a halt on the Temple. I paused.
My ignorance of this festival, and all else to do with the human beliefs of the goddess, possessed a thickness, which I stepped around lightly.
Like the cold storage, which no one has cleaned for over a month, which then lost power, my religious ignorance sat like a passive dread; waiting.
I watched the masses at the main gate, as they into gathered critical mass. After several minutes I decided no one was actually going to die there. Sure, they were being pushed and pulled, squeezed and possibly scratched as they tried to get through the gate, but it was all part of the fun. No one could complain about having a crowd when you’re throwing a party.
Standing up, I stretched my arms high, and arched my back. Looking at the street below, to make sure I didn’t drop on anyone’s head, I spied two maidens turning away quickly, then giggling as they ran into the crowds. The people were having fun. And soon enough, Myriana and I would be just as joyful as they were. We’d dance and we’d sing and everyone would watch and smile…they’d accept me. Not just as a shifter, but as someone who could be close to their queen. Smiling, I was about to step off, and stopped.
The chill in my spine raised the hairs on my neck and down the backs of my arms. Alarms railed so loud inside my ears I could no longer hear the outside world.
I didn’t move my eyes to search. In the last five seconds I saw the danger to the Keep.
I turned and looked out past the walls. The was sun high. The sound of laughing girls broke through. Girls at the Summer Poles, weaving colorful strips. A dance. A song. Skipping as they sang. The summer pole. It was clear in my mind. The stripped sheets flapped in the wind weaving, sinuous motion around the pole — here… then behind…. then here… like shadows in a forest.
My eyes darted to the green belt outside the walls, before I completed the thought. With the sun above and bright, the tree shadows were walls. Still I searched. Waiting. Watching. When I saw them, I called alarm in the Kind language. Zombies! Hundreds of them in the green belt. Maybe more.
I glanced around, but my call was not heard over the commotion in the streets below. The guard tower? No, they were fixated on the people pushing through the gateway. Shifting my body weight too hard out of frustration, a slate roof tile broke under my foot.
"Perfect," I said, and broke six others then gathered the pieces. Near the front tower, the alarm bell hung — a massive thing made of brass, able to be heard down to the coast. I knew my aim, and distance, and set to throw the pieces of slate as hard and fast as I could.
The bell rang with strikes in rapid succession.
The whole Keep, every mother father, child and lover. Every priestess fell silent and turned in my direction.
"Zombies in the green belt! Get those people inside. Warriors! Outside the walls until they are! Move!"
The flow changed to one direction and the gate began to clear quickly. Guards who were Kind, leaped from the walls, landing outside, where I met with them. After pointing out the movement, I received no question. They listened, and they knew their business.
"What’s your mind on this, Fenrir?" one of them asked.
Glancing around, I had hoped Karal or Adian had heard the alarm. Nothing. "We get this gate closed, and man the walls. As soon as it’s barred, I’m going into the green belt. We need information. I can get in and back out without much trouble."
"The Queen is still out there," another said and I’d never felt weaker in my entire life. If she were beside me, I’d protect her with every part of my being. If all her men were by her side, I wouldn’t have shivered with so much fear. But as it were, the heart in my chest beat ten times as fast. Painful.
“What do you mean she’s still out there?” I sounded nothing like myself. Not like a man who was strong and composed and had his shit together.
"We’ve been keeping lookout for flares. No sign, no message. Think these things have something to do with that?"
"I do." My voice was cold and the panic started to set in, but I know I couldn’t let it. Matters of the heart lead to irrational behavior. And irrational doesn’t win a war. The point was, if I didn’t know how affected I was by Myriana, my body was surely giving me the signs now.
"Then I’m coming with you. You’ll need help to get through without injury, and this thing is just starting," the man said.
"I won’t slow down for you. Stakes are too high," I warned.
He laughed, then clapped me on the shoulder. "Just try to keep up youngster."