The Last Will – Chapter Ten: No Spilled Blood
Thanks to MoonRein, Crystal Wolfblade, Old School Assassin, and name x2 for reviewing.
Isaac readjusted his grip on his hatchet and glared at Eve's captor, fear and rage twisting inside of his gut like a pair of warring snakes. Fear as to what would happen next and rage at himself for allowing this to happen, for not realizing that they were being trailed. The stranger was tall and bulky, wielding a large knife and an even scarier grimace. He spoke again:
"We've had our eyes on that bag for weeks." He growled. "Hand it over or else I'll cut her head clean off."
As if to display this, the man pressed the blade of his knife deeper into Eve's neck, causing a single rivulet of red to run down and stain the collar of her makeshift cloak. Her eyes were wide and her shoulders trembled, no longer due to the chill of the catacombs however. With her arms pinned, she was unable to reach her knife and therefore resorted to staring pointedly at Isaac.
There didn't appear to be any room for compromise. Isaac swallowed hard and moved to lower his hatchet.
"Alright." He said. "Alright, just don't hurt her. We'll give you the…"
"ISAAC!" Maggie's scream launched the world into sudden chaos.
Isaac wheeled around at her call to find that a second stranger, a young woman with cropped hair, had flanked behind them and was lunging towards him with a spear. Several things happened at once, Judas grunted as a third bandit clubbed him over the head, Maggie launched herself between the spear and Isaac, shielding him from the blow, and one of the attackers beyond Isaac's view let out a pained cry.
Maggie fell with the spear buried in her gut. Blood began to pour like water and before Isaac even realized what he was doing, he was stepping over her and bringing his hatchet down as hard as he could atop the bandit woman who had attacked him. The head of his axe split the stranger's shoulder, missing her head by inches, and knocked her to the ground as well.
"Get back!" Shouted a rumbling voice. "Get back!"
Isaac loomed over the woman that had tried to spear him, hatchet raised to strike the killing blow, but before he could finish her, another figure tackled him off of his feet. He collided with the wall and cracked his head against the stones. With blurry eyes, he watched as the thugs clambered to their feet, scooped up Eve, and retreated into the catacombs, back the way whence they'd come.
"No." He grumbled, pushing himself away from the wall and staggering to his feet "Dammit!"
He couldn't chase after them, there were far too many, not to mention the fact that he was still seeing a multitude of stars dance across his vision. With a tight chest, Isaac rested against the wall and gripped his hatchet tightly in his fist. He had almost killed that woman. Ever since they'd first been jumped by the marauders so long ago, he'd wondered what he would do if it came down to actually killing someone or not. Now, he supposed, he had his answer.
"Isaac." Judas's voice pulled Isaac from his thoughts.
He turned to see his friend crouching over Maggie. The blonde girl lay on the floor, dumbly clutching the spear that remained lodged in her side. Blood continued to pool around her as her mouth opened and closed like that of a suffocating fish.
"Maggie!" Isaac's eyes widened. In all the excitement, he hadn't even- he didn't know…. Like a blur, Isaac fell to his knees by her side and inspected the wound. Her hand reached out and seized a fistful of his sweater and Isaac gripped it in his. "Th-That looks bad. Judas what…"
"We've got to pull it out." Judas talked fast. He was already shrugging off his coat, struggling to pull his broken arm through the sleeve. "I'll hold her down, but you've got to do the pulling, Isaac. You hear me? Isaac!"
He'd zoned out again, lost in Maggie's fearful gaze. He shook himself.
Now's not the time to lose hope.
Balling up his coat, Judas pressed it to Maggie's wound, just below the spear, and then straddled her, pinning her to the floor with his good hand. The spear hadn't pushed all the way through her body, but remained lodged mid-way through her side. If they could pull it out, they could sew her up with… something. They'd make it work somehow, Isaac promised himself that.
Maggie looked up at him with watery eyes the size of dinner plates. She tried to speak but her mouth simply hung open, useless.
"Sorry, Mags." Isaac gripped the handle of the spear. "I- I love you."
He pulled.
Sights and sounds flashed by Eve in a flurry of disorder. Rough hands dragged her by the collar across the ground, causing her to stumble and nearly fall. Her captors kept their stride though, shepherding her aloft down the corridor, through several doors, before finally depositing her painfully on the cold floor.
"Don't move." Growled the now familiar voice of her captor. His hands snaked up her sides, before finding her knife and relieving her of it once again. Then he gripped both of her hands, pulled them behind her back, and tied them swiftly with a strip of leather, most likely his belt. "Sit." He commanded, positioning her upright. "If you move, you're fucking dead."
Blinking away the confusion, Eve took stock of her surroundings. She was in a small room, dark save for an oil lantern sat in the middle of the floor. All around her lay filthy bedrolls and clusters of discarded sacks, rags, and assorted clothing. Through a single door in the wall, she could see a much larger space. With a start, Eve realized that she was back in the large room where she and the rest of the group had seen earlier and that her kidnappers were this hut's mysterious inhabitants.
Her kidnappers were now huddled together on the other side of the room, tending to one of their own: the woman who Isaac had hacked at with his hatchet. She was screaming and crying as her friends pressed rags into her gash and shouted back and forth to one another.
"She's losing a lot of blood, man!"
"I can see that! Where the hell are the damn sutures?!"
"In the duffle, with the gauze! Grab as much as you can!"
They scurried like a horde of ants, whose dirt pile had just been disturbed. Eve counted five in total, three who had jumped her group out in the maze and two more that she hadn't noticed before, who must have been waiting back here. One of their group, a man who had been standing worriedly off to the side, caught sight of her looking around.
"H- Hey, Joseph. What are we going to do with her?" His voice shook as he pointed a stubby finger in Eve's direction.
The large man, named Joseph, must have been the leader. He glared at Eve with his lip raised up into an angry snarl. He advanced on her, drawing his enormous bowie knife in one swift motion.
"How many of you are there?" He demanded, crouching in front of her again. "Answer me."
"More than your group can handle." She bluffed. "Let me go now. No one has to get hurt."
"People have already gotten hurt!" He stabbed with his knife over towards the woman, who was doing a good job of steadily coating the floor with her blood.
"You attacked us!" Eve bit back. "We weren't looking for trouble. You brought this on yourself."
Suddenly, Joseph lunged forward and grabbed Eve by her hair, shoving her head back to expose her neck. One again, he pressed the edge of his blade to her skin.
"Answer my questions. How many of you are out there? Are they coming for you?" He leaned in close and Eve caught a great whiff of sweat on his skin. "Are you one of them?"
Eve swallowed hard and felt the blade shift uncomfortably against her neck. She didn't know what to say to any of his questions. If she told him the truth, that it was just her, Isaac, Maggie, and Judas out there, then there was a good chance he might lead his group out to hunt them. She didn't know if Isaac and the others were coming for her either. She'd only known them for a short time, they had the bag of food, why would they risk their lives for her?
"Who- Who are you talking about?" She choked. It was hard to breathe with her neck bent at an angle. "Who are them?"
"Don't play dumb." He growled back.
"She doesn't have the mark, Joseph." Interrupted the short survivor who had spoken earlier. "Her cheek. It's clean. She isn't marked."
"She could be undercover."
"Do you really think they'd be smart enough to try that?"
"I wouldn't put anything past them." Joseph narrowed his eyes and turned back to Eve. He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off again, this time by the shrill scream of his wounded companion. The woman was struggling feebly as two other survivors tried to hold her down.
Joseph cursed and left Eve's side to rush to his friend's aid. Together, they succeeded in holding her down as one of the others sewed up her wounded arm to the best of their ability. It was messy and poorly-done, but there was little they could do under the situation. Eve could see that.
"You're like us." She spoke quickly, drawing attention back to herself. "You're survivors. We're all stuck down here. We shouldn't be fighting each other like this."
"You were in our territory." Responded Joseph coldly. The woman passed out finally under his grip and slumped against the floor. Wiping sweat from his brow, Joseph rose to his full height and turned to tower over Eve again. "How did you know about that bag of fruit?"
"We were attacked by those zombies and one of them had it under it's shirt. How did you know about it?" Countered Eve.
"Doesn't matter how we knew about it. All you need to know is that we've had our eyes on that bag for weeks. You had no right to take it like that, fucking thieves."
"If you knew about the bag, then why didn't you just take it?"
"Because it was being held by that zombie, obviously."
"You could have killed it and taken the bag. I don't understand why you…" Eve trailed off. She looked around the small room, took note of the group's bedraggled state, their lack of equipment and weapons, and their various wounds. Her mind quickly made the appropriate connections. "You haven't killed any of the monsters before, have you?"
Joseph bristled.
"We learned not to mess with them." He muttered, looking around his tattered group as well. "Besides, people are a much bigger problem, people like you."
"We aren't a threat to you or your group. I promise you that." Eve pleaded with him. "Just let me go. I'll go back to my friends and you'll never see me or any of us ever again."
"No." Joseph shook his head instantly. He began to move about the room, gesturing for his group to follow his lead. "It's too late now. If we let you go, it'll just come back to bite us. We need to get ready for your friends."
Eve watched in horror was Joseph dug through a backpack and produced a bundle of makeshift stone shivs, handing them out amongst his group.
"You can't fight us!" Begged Eve. "No one will win. It's pointless! The group I was with won't even come for me, you have nothing to fear, how many times do I have to say…"
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than a familiar voice echoed from the large room beyond the wooden walls. Eve's heart filled with a bizarre mixture of happiness and terrible dread. Joseph drew his knife and crossed to the lone door to peek out of the cabin.
"Come on out!" Isaac called from outside again. "We just want to talk!"
Slowly, Joseph turned back to Eve and grimaced.
"What was that you were saying just now?" He hissed.
Isaac beat a tattoo against the blade of his hatchet with his finger. The weapon, which had always hung heavily on his belt, felt even weightier with that woman's blood staining the metal. He'd deal with that anxiety later though, as of now he had bigger problems to deal with. He and Judas approached the lair of Eve's kidnappers and came to a stop about a dozen yards from their front door. Isaac called out:
"Hey!" Seemed like a good place to start. "It's us. We aren't here to fight."
His words echoed around the large room, reverberating back to him off the stone walls. There was no response and Isaac's finger tap tap tapped against his hatchet incessantly, counting the seconds until a reply came. After exchanging a quick look with Judas, he tried again.
"Come on out! We just want to talk!"
Again the words echoed and, after another moment's pause, the front door opened wide and three men shouldered their way out to face them. In the lead was Joseph, whose large blade remained gripped and ready in his hand. His companions wielded stone shivs, but kept the sharpened ends pointed towards the ground for now.
"Alright." Continued Isaac, who wished to keep things civil for as long as possible. "We're off to a good start here. I want to say, first off, that we are not going to fight any of you. That's not why we're here. You have a friend of ours and we just want her back."
"Where's the food." Responded Joseph, ignoring Isaac's words. "The bag of food that you stole."
"We didn't steal anything!" Snapped Judas from Isaac's side. "That bag was out there in the open. Anyone could have grabbed it. You didn't have to attack us."
"How else are we supposed to treat looters? We've been snubbed by people too many times to let a bunch of scrawny pricks walk away with what's rightfully ours." Joseph pointed a stiff finger at Isaac then. "You may not look like Disciples, but that sure as hell doesn't mean you aren't. Why else would you be in this part of the catacombs?"
"Hold on a second, please." Isaac raised his hands in a shushing manner. "You said a lot of things just then that make absolutely no sense. Who are the Disciples? How do you even know which part of the catacombs this is? It's all one big maze, isn't it?"
"I'm not answering any of your fucking questions!" Barked Joseph. He pointed vaguely with his knife. "You could be surrounding our camp right now as we stand her flapping our gums. How many of you are out there? Tell me."
"Stop. Just stop for a moment and relax." Isaac tried to placate the man. "There's not any more of us out there and we aren't looking to take anything from you. We just want our friend back, you know, the one you kidnapped."
"Who says she's even still alive?"
Isaac's stomach turned with a resounding thud. If there was one thing that he didn't want to her, it was most definitely that. The entire temper of the situation shifted rapidly and Isaac's hand came to rest on his hatchet once more. For a moment though, he didn't know what to say. The open-ended question was so unexpected. Luckily, Judas was there was well.
"You didn't kill her." He said confidently. "Not when you can still use her to bargain with."
"Bargain?" Joseph repeated. "There's nothing to bargain for, not anymore."
"Not even that bag of fruit?"
"No." Joseph and his companions advanced a step. "There's nothing in this hell you can use to bargain for that. It's too valuable. Besides, what's to stop us from killing both of you out here right now and going out and finding that bag for ourselves, free of charge?"
"Nothing will stop you from killing us." Answered Judas smoothly. "But what happens afterwards, considering our fifteen buddies outside, might not be too good for you."
Joseph smirked.
"So there are more of you out there. It's about time someone answered my damn questions."
"There are a lot more of us out there." Responded Judas. "But they won't have to come in, if you give us our friend back."
"No." Said Joseph.
One of Joseph's friends, the short man with the stubby limbs, grimaced and hissed to his leader:
"Joe, what the hell are you doing? Let's just hand the girl over." He said. "These people are dangerous."
"They talk big, but unless we know for sure what we're dealing with, we aren't giving up our prisoner. If they have back up, then she's the only thing keeping us alive." Joseph responded, equally hushed. "Trust me on this, we're going to get out of this on top, alright?" Turning back to Isaac, Joseph continued. "Listen, axe man. Here's what's going to happen now. You and your friend with the stupid hat are going to leave and come back with our bag of food. Then we'll swap, the bag for the girl. Everyone goes their separate ways, no spilled blood, got it?"
Isaac rubbed his chin and cast a weary look towards Judas, looking to his friend for guidance. The bag of fruit was truly invaluable, not only did it provide the obvious source of food, but the seeds from the fruit could be used to grow new crops, assuming that there was a place out in the catacombs to actually plant the things. However, Isaac knew that he could not abandon Eve for the bag, not in good conscious. Judas gave him a small shake of his head, but Isaac pointedly ignored it.
"Deal." Said Isaac. "We'll be back with the bag soon, but on one condition."
"You don't have room here for negotiations…"
"I want to see her." Interrupted Isaac firmly. "Bring her out so that we know she's okay."
It was Joseph's turn to weigh his options now. After a moment's pause, he grimaced and shook his head as well.
"Sorry, pal." He said and the short man by his side let out a low groan. "But we've laid out the floor plan for this exchange already. Trust us, your friend is safe and sound for the moment. Come back with the food and then you'll get to look at her all you want."
And before Isaac could respond, Joseph motioned for his group to follow him back into the cabin. The door shut with a heavy boom and that sound, echoing off the walls, seemed to drown out all the words spoken before. With a heavy heart, Isaac turned and stalked from the room back into the maze, with Judas hot on his heels.
"What the hell was that?" Demanded Judas. "That guy walked all over you. You should have said something more, argued for the bag. Dammit, Isaac. Without that fruit we're probably going to starve out here. Maggie…"
"Just shut up for a second." Isaac snapped, a rare display of annoyance flashing across his face. He was dog-tired, covered in Maggie's blood, worried about Eve, and furious with the situation. Not to mention the fact that he was still freezing to death in his boots, and the frozen sweat along his spine wasn't helping. "We don't have any other options."
"Besides going in there and killing them all or…" Judas took a breath. "Dare I say it, leaving her."
Isaac came to a grinding halt and whirled on his friend.
"We," He began, voice low. "Are not going to be killing anyone. I'm the only one with a good weapon, your arm is shot to shit, and Maggie's not going to be doing any fighting any time soon." With shaking hands, Isaac reached out and gripped Judas by the shoulder. "And we are not abandoning Eve, under any circumstances. So get that thought out of your damn head."
"We haven't known her that long, Isaac."
"Yeah, well, she's one of us." Isaac turned and led the way through the catacombs once more. "I can tell."
Maggie felt herself dying.
The cold, which had once been all around her, pushing at her skin and clothes, trying to weasel it's way into her very bones, was now eating her away from the inside. Her toes had gone numb and her fingers were quick to follow. She'd bundled herself up as best as she could inside of her fur coat and tucked the bag of fruit under her own shirt, distending her stomach and giving her a pregnant appearance. The torn rags of Judas's coat were wrapped tightly around her middle, but regardless of the bandages, Maggie still bled slowly, painfully, pregnant with death.
Isaac and Judas had left her, for good reasons of course, alone in the catacombs. She buried her face in the collar of her coat and wondered if they'd have any luck rescuing Eve, if they would get lost on the way there or back, and if they would even return for her.
They will if they can.
She knew that.
Isaac and Judas were her friends. She'd taken a spear for Isaac, tended to Judas's wounds, promised to guard the precious fruit while they were gone. She was valuable part of the team, so she reassured herself, there wasn't just a dead girl in this coat, not yet.
A sound, footsteps on the hard floor, was the only thing in the world that could have pulled Maggie's nose from the fur collar of her coat. If it was Isaac and Judas, than she was saved. If it was someone else, someone dangerous…
The bloodied spear, pulled from her side, lay nearby. She could reach it with her hand if she tried, but would the effort be worth it? Of course. Of course. The fruit. She must protect the fruit. No matter how cold she felt, she had a job, and Maggie always did her job.
The footsteps grew nearer, Maggie reached with her hand, and heard the resounding cock of a gun.
"Easy now." Said a deep voice. Maggie feared for a moment that it was Eve's kidnapper, returned again, but then the voice continued and she felt oddly… safe. "We aren't looking to hurt you, just put down the spear." The voice continued.
Maggie did as she was told, and looked up, the effort of even moving her head: immense. Above her stood two swimming shapes, distorted by her delirium and pain. The one who had spoken was tall, with broad shoulders and muscular arms, and the other was slim, holding the cocked revolver and glaring down at her with one eye.
"D- Don't." Maggie managed, before she passed out.
Yes, there are going to be some OC's like Joseph in this story, but hopefully most of them will be tolerable. The main focus though, no matter what, is always going to be the main six. Everyone is going to be together for the first time next chapter, so that's something lol
Thanks for reading.
- Mike