Chapter 12:

An Unlikely Hiding Spot.

Judy ran the soft fabric of her cape along the hyena's cheeks doing what she could to smear away the thick blood. The hyena still wasn't happy about being covered in zombie gore. What did bring about a smile along her wide muzzle was how generous the bunny was about offering her cape to help clean her up.

Buja asked for a moment to rest and catch her breath. Now that Gideon had a chance to take in everything that happened, it left him terrified. Having seen enough zombie movies to know that this was how the disease spread. Bite marks, clawing, what would have happened if any of them had been bit? To actually see them move in the flesh curdled a scream in his throat. He was sure that if he looked in the mirror he would see flex of white scared into his hair. When he saw Aza, he remembered that she'd been the only one to come in physical contact with the things.

Gideon took the opportunity to examine the hyena's arm. There were no tears in her skin, the zombie hadn't clawed her. That was good news, but the spangles of blood all over her body gave him pause. The look on Aza's face was less than pleased when the baker fox asked if she'd swallowed any of the blood. Even after she said 'no', he asked her again. The answer was the same just louder and more annoyed.

When Judy was satisfied that Aza was cleaned up, she unlatched her cape and dropped it onto the crud slicked ground. Aza gave the bunny a gracious smile and relaxed. Judy followed suit, leaning back against the sticky wall.

"I can't believe this is happening." Judy voice was trembling once again.

"No one expects a Zombie Inquisition." Nicholas joked but it was clear, there was no humor in his voice.

"So what the sod are we gonna do now?" Finn's voice echoed through the dark.

The sounds of voices stirred the zombies overhead; their moans came louder as they scrambled to reach down through the grate. Gideon watched them wearily, rubbing the lump in his side. It had been hurting him since they fled the throne room. He half expected the zombie's combined weight to break the iron grate that separated them. If it did, they were all screwed.

The whole prospect was wearing a little thin. The pudgy fox never liked feeling useless; even though he'd done everything he could to move the group forward. Things were just so different in this world. He knew he had no real power for which to help his companions.

"For my part, I deem Aza and I will finish our mission." Benjamin rested on the ground next to Buja.

"The Lady of the Falls is a myth, brother!" Aza growled as she crossed her arms. "We need something more tangible to go on.

"Wait, you're looking for the Lady of the Falls?" Nicholas chimed in.

"So are we!" Finn said.

"Seems convenient, Bard." Aza turned to look at him.

"No, seriously, we were approached by one of her agents shortly after we took the contract from, Queen Kingslayer." Nicholas pulled his lute from his back tuning the strings.

"Her agent offered us a much larger amount of money for the stone, so we thought, why not?" Finn added from his perch on the baker fox's shoulder.

"Don't forget the protection too, my friend." Nicholas snickered.

"Always making deals with mythological vigilantes fox." Judy smirked.

"Silence, no one asked the Captain of the Dead for her opinion." Aza snapped at the bunny.

"Will you all just cut it out!" Gideon yelled. His eyebrow went slacked. "I dunno if y'all notice this or not, but we're literately and figuratively in deep crap right now. It's just us, no one else. So, I say we need suck it up and stop fighting among ourselves."

"Easy for you to say, baker fox!" Aza started but Brother Benjamin gripped her wrist.

"Our diplomatic friend is right, sister." Benjamin smiled up at the fox. "We are the ones to blame for him being involved in predicament, in the first place and he's been helpful thus far. I say we give him a chance."

Everyone looked at Gideon; their faces were almost impossible to read. Warmth flushed on the pudgy fox's cheeks. He secretly wanted to slip into a hole to escape there scrutiny. Gideon had gone to a lot of trouble to learn how to control his temper. Whenever he had an outburst it always made him feel incredibly self-conscious or guilty for doing it.

"Well, you- what did you say your name was?" Judy pushed away from the wall moving closer to the fox.

"Gideon Grey, ma'am," Gideon forced himself to make eye contact with her.

"Well, Gideon, what do you propose we do?" Her voice was calm.

"Getting outta the sewers should be job one. After that, I reckon we should find this Lady of the Falls. She might be able to tell us a little bit more about this Sunburst stone. As Nick -er, Nicholas pointed out; Bellwether wanted the stone, so it must be important." Even Gideon was impressed with the idea unfolding in his head.

"That would be a different story, if we had the stone." Aza added casting her gaze at Nicholas.

"It's close by, I promise." The fox chuckled nervously.

Gideon pursed his lips, considering the fox's reaction. "You stuck it up your butt, didn't ya?"

Finn let loose a high pitched cackle and Nicholas gasped his eyes wide in shock. "NO! Absolutely not,"

"Then why are you always looking so shifty when we ask about it?!" Gideon crossed his arm, wincing at the pain in his side.

"That is a really good question. Did I do something with the stone that I shouldn't have? Yes...yes I did. Was it necessary to keep it safe...yes?" Nicholas rubbed the back of his neck.

"Out with it, fox, none of us have the patience for your song and dance." Buja grunted getting to her feet again.

"First of all, I have to say how sorry I am and that you, Mr. Baker-Fox, should refrain, and I can't stress this enough, should refrain from being angry with me. But I may have, when no one was looking, shoved the stone into your open knife wound before the cleric sealed it up. I'm sorry, so sorry...there, we're friends, right?"

"You WHAT?!" Gideon reached up feeling the lump in his side.

The way it rolled around under his fingers and the way it knocked against the meat surrounding his ribs. Now that he knew what the lump was, he could feel it; he could envision it in there. That would explain why it hurt so much. His body registered it as a foreign entity and was trying to get rid of it. The feeling of it shifting around made his stomach churn. Thank goodness, he had nothing left in his stomach to purge.

"Everyone, keep your voices down." Aza said through gritted teeth.

"You what!?" Gideon whispered, he gripped the fox around his neck slamming him against the slime covered wall.

"It was an error-" Nick's words were pinched as Gideon squeezed.

Finn pressed the tip of his dagger to the baker fox's throat "Easy there, fatso. Let my buddy go or you're gonna have a lot more problem then that stone in your side."

The words coming in the voice of his lover hurt the pudgy fox's feelings. It took so much to remind himself that this Fennec wasn't his Finnick. It was a doppelganger that was lucky enough to look like the handsome one he knew and loved. Gideon relaxed his grip around the fox's throat and sighed. At once, Finn pulled the blade from his throat. It left and indent in the flesh. He could feel a trickle of blood dripping beneath the fur. Finn scoffed and slid down Gideon's body to the floor moving to stand next to Nicholas.

"Listen," The bard rubbed his neck and coughed. "I know it was a terrible thing to do, but I had no choice. I knew Carrots and her slave Mage were hot on my trail, so I had no other choice. Besides, all I have to do is make a little slice and pull the stone out. Then the good Cleric here, can patch you up."

"It'll be a while before we can do it, though." Benjamin grunted as he got to his feet. "Turning away the darkness isn't an easy feat. It would have killed a lesser mammal."

A smile came to Buja's lips. "It was an amazing feat to be sure, Friar."

"So I'm stuck with this thing inside of me?" Gideon added.

"Seems so, I assure you, as soon as I'm well enough to heal you, we can remove it." Benjamin touched the fox's shoulder with a trembling hand.

Judy cleared her throat as if to draw everyone's attention to her. "So, for now we should focus on getting out of these sewer, once out, we can head to the west. My parents have a farm there. We can seek refuge until we find another path to take."

"How far is it?" Finn asked.

"Two days, three at the most; if we run into trouble." Judy wiped the tears from her eyes.

Gideon realized that Judy had been quiet almost the entire time the confrontation had been going on. His heart ached at the thought that she'd just been standing there quietly crying over the loss of her entire kingdom. Something urged him to comfort her but realized that this Judy might see it as patronizing and stopped before he made himself look more the fool.

"Excellent idea, your family farm is on our way to meet up with the Lady of the Falls' contact. We can rest there before moving on to Port Kitteh." Nicholas added his own twist on their plan, making it his own.

"That's over a five days walking distance. Who knows how far this thing will spread by then?" Judy flexed, forcing herself to keep her voice down.

"Listen, Carrots, we don't have much of a choice. Like pudgy said, we're the only ones that know what's going on. We have to warn as many people as we can or else..." The bard fox knew he didn't have to finish his thought for them to understand.

"Don't call me Carrots!" Judy thrust her chest out at him.

"Stop acting like a pinhead then!" Nicholas smirked back

"Enough, let's get moving." Buja tapped her staff on the slimy stone beneath her feet and uttered a few words.

The ornamental top of her staff lit up the darkness with a cool white light. Now that Gideon got a better look at his surroundings, it looked much like the sewers he'd seen in fantasy movies. The stones were a cruder looking and the garbage and debris was a lot different than he imagined it to be. There were two stone walkways on either side of the rounded corridor that lay above the stream of sludge that ran along the middle.

"I'll lead," Judy said moving to the front drawing her sword once again.

"I'll guard the rear." Aza offered watching as everyone shuffled by her in a line before she fell in at the back.