{Chapter Thirty-Six: Old Townsfolk}
Ghoul was gone.
But he hadn't technically abandoned his friends. Not yet.
Ignoring the branches whipping at his face, he ran hard and fast through the trees.
He'd seen smoke from on top the wall. There weren't many ways for a wildfire to start alone that he knew of, and with the amount of rain lately, it wasn't exactly largely possible that two water-starved trees toppled against each other and created sparks. Besides, after watching the smoke for several minutes, he'd decided it was too small and too controlled to be a wildfire.
Ghoul had gone to investigate who the outsiders he'd located were and see if they could provide assistance.
A far distance from the wall and into the forest, Ghoul stopped to catch his breath. Very few vibrations touched his feet, most of them muted by the wall. A faint breeze, all but killed by the density of the trees, tickled his nose and brought with it the scent of smoke. He was going in the right direction. But he'd next to killed himself running the way he had been, and his landing from jumping off the wall had been awkward in his haste, making his ankle hurt a fair bit. It didn't seem to be actually injured, not broken or strained, and he didn't think he'd twisted it. It'd just been a bad landing, so he'd come down awkwardly on the ground. So Ghoul rested his back against a tree, hands on his knees as he huffed for breath.
Catching enough breath to straighten himself up, Ghoul checked his bearings and began running again.
But before he'd gotten too far, he was blindsided by an attacker from the bushes. The weak breath he'd caught was forced from his lungs as he fell to the ground, crashing on top of his gear and further hurting his leg. He faintly saw a knife swung up.
But the attacker wasn't expecting a swift recovery.
Ghoul snarled, his feral instincts kicking in. His attacker was slammed to the ground with a pained 'oof!' His own knife out, Ghoul pounced on the stranger. The blades clashed, shrieking horridly against each other as they threw out red and orange sparks. The mysterious attacker gradually pushed back against Ghoul, and the two slowly found themselves on their feet, trying to gain any ground at all from each other. Still feral, Ghoul suddenly deflected the other knife and went down, spinning around and knocking the other's feet out from under them.
But they were a good fighter too, landing on their hands and flipping to their feet. Still down on the ground, Ghoul hissed, springing forward. The other jumped back, but the now-wild ravenette had anticipated that through his defense-mechanism, landing on his hands at their feet and somersaulting forward, driving his feet into their gut. Now it was the stranger's turn to be winded, but Ghoul's gear had made his recovery slow and clumsy.
Another fast recoverer, the stranger very quickly had their hands around Ghoul's neck.
That very quickly had Ghoul snapping out of his violent trance and falling to his knees, gasping, "No, please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I won't do it again, I promise, I'm sorry..."
"What the fuck?" the stranger asked, grip loosening as Ghoul's shaking hands wrapped around their wrists, his knife abandoned somewhere in the grass.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I won't..."
The stranger didn't let go, but they were certainly done fighting. Ghoul had his eyes squeezed shut, breath coming in short, panicked gasps. "Jesus, kid, are you in trouble or something? Is someone chasing you?"
Ghoul didn't reply, still chanting apologies.
Slowly, the hands left his throat, and the other outsider knelt in front of Ghoul. "Hey, you're an insider, aren't you?" they said in surprise as they took in the uniform
"Aah... N-no..." Ghoul slowly opened his eyes, and they promptly widened in surprise. "Staghorn?!"
"Huh? Do I know you, kid?" the brawny redheaded man asked in confusion, blinking. Ghoul hastily brushed his bangs out of his eyes. The man's face split into a grin as he bellowed, "Hanningworth!"
"Been a while, huh...?" Ghoul smiled shyly.
When he was ten years old, Ghoul had stumbled upon a small village hidden in a mountain-range. The village-people were plagued by sickness, but welcomed him all the same. Staghorn had been the one who shared housing with Ghoul for the duration of his stay, one of the village-leaders.
"Been a while?! Seven years! That's, like, almost a decade, kid! Lord, you've changed so much! You're so freaking tall now, and your hair is fucking long!" Staghorn declared loudly, still grinning.
"Um... What're you doing out here...?" Ghoul murmured.
Staghorn's cheerful face fell a bit. "About a year after you left, the few survivors left in the village weren't faring too well. We were forced to burn everything to the ground and become nomads. And about a year after that, the Titan-numbers went down so drastically we've been able to rest better during the night. Like, actual rest."
"Because they're all inside Wall Maria." Ghoul realized.
"Yeah, about that. What the hell is with the insider shit you're wearing?"
"Oh... Staghorn, two years after I left you— Five years ago— the Titans broke through Wall Maria in the south."
"... No way..."
Ghoul nodded grimly. "I had been passing by, and snuck in out of curiosity. I found and saved a young insider girl who I've been living with inside the first wall for the past five years. Not too long ago, one of the military-branches picked us up, and we became cadets for them. That's why I'm out here, Stag— My friends and the rest of our force are trapped on top of the wall. We've got wounded and there're too many Titans on the inside for us to get our supplies or to reach the horses and escape. We need help, bad."
Staghorn was quiet, biting his lip. Like Ghoul, he wasn't the type to turn his back on a person in need, but he and his little group were starting to struggle themselves. As their leader, he had to prioritize— His close friends, so close they were practically family, or strangers he had yet to even lay eyes on?
"If you can't, I understand... But I'll have to get back soon, or I'll be accused of being a deserter." Ghoul said understandingly. Quickly finding his knife near where he and his old friend crouched, he picked it up and got ready to leave.
"Slow down, kid. Maybe we can work something out. How many of you guys are there?"
Ghoul paused, blinked, and tilted his head back in thought. "... Close to sixty, maybe seventy, with at least fifteen wounded." he estimated.
Staghorn whistled in surprise. He'd been expecting a much smaller number— A number like twenty, or, most preferably, ten. But a force of such size would have some clean water on hand, right? That was what his group needed right now. Not much, but some. They had a child with them, who was starting to get sick. Until she recovered, Staghorn and the others didn't feel comfortable giving her anything but the cleanest water they could get their hands on.
"Alright, Hanningworth. Come back to my camp with me, and we can discuss the deal I'm thinking of with my numbers. After that, we'll go see about your end."
Ghoul nodded, saying, "But quickly, please..."
Back on top of the wall, people were starting to get scared.
Ghoul had vanished without a word, and that was a rather ominous sign. They were starting to get worried that maybe he was in fact a secret Titan-shifter like the MPs had feared, and had gone to round up enough less intelligent brutes to finish them off.
As someone voiced that thought, Theresa snarled, lunging for them. Levi just barely caught her by the scruff of her neck.
"Look!" he snarled, pulling her close. She spat furiously, struggling against him. "Right now all we can do is speculate, so don't get pissed off for a scared mind jumping to conclusions!"
"... There's smoke." Mikasa said quietly as everyone continued to panic.
"Huh?" asked Jean, the only one to hear her. The ravenette pointed, repeating her observation. "... Could that be why Ghoul's gone?"
"Maybe. If he saw, perhaps he went to investigate... or get help." the Shigangina-girl murmured thoughtfully.
Jean gulped, staring at the faint pillar. Was Ghoul down there, negotiating for a resource or protection? Did he just forget to tell anyone his intentions?
Down below, Ghoul and Staghorn were leaping from tree to tree, heading for the wall.
The agreement on the outsiders' end hadn't been hard to reach. In exchange for a few days' worth of clean water for one person, they'd offer their services. Staghorn's party was hanging behind, waiting for the decision with their sickly young Meredith.
"That's all, though?" Ghoul yelled, grabbing onto an overhead branch and swinging nimbly forward.
"We aren't the type to take advantage of people in need or a kind host! Just give us water and we'll see what we can do!" Staghorn called back, springing forward like a cat as he kept up perfectly with the quick Ghoul.
"Right! When we get there, I'll go up and bring down a superior or two for negotiations! But I'm probably gonna get an earful for running off again, so I may be a while, 'kay?"
Staghorn guffawed heartily at Ghoul's words. The boy had left them with nothing but a hastily scrawled thank-you note in the dirt after staying for several weeks, and it appeared that he'd made a habit of vanishing-acts. Ghoul t'ch-ed at the laughter a few feet behind, to the right and below him.
In just a few more minutes, Ghoul had scared the soldiers atop the wall by suddenly hurtling over the top, landing on his hands and knees in their midst as his hair fell in a veil about him.
"Where the hell where you?!" Theresa screeched, pitching herself onto the shadowy boy.
"Negotiating." he replied simply, standing up. A light sheen of sweat coated his face, and his breath was heavy, confusing many of the people there.
"The people with the fire." Mikasa guessed. Everyone else but Jean looked confused.
Ghoul nodded, turning to Erwin. "I ran into a group of my fellows. Coincidentally, I know them— Townsfolk from the village I stayed a while at when I was ten. Staghorn, the leader, is waiting at the base of the wall to speak with you and negotiate his party's potentially helping us out of this fix." he said clearly, calmly and flatly.
Silence fell, a light breeze touching the crowd of soldiers. Erwin looked a little startled.
"Morning is coming, Erwin. Staghorn can help, but he has his own group to think of. If I'm too long in coming back, I told him to assume the answer was no and return to his people. They don't want much in exchange for their service, and they're good people. When I first met them, their town was affected by a plague, but they still took me in despite their hardships. If you want to accept, I'd advise you to do so fast, before dawn breaks and we're swamped on both sides rather than one." Ghoul urged when no one spoke.
Erwin blinked, as if coming out of a trance. The commander exchanged a look with Levi, who shrugged.
"Very well, Ghoul. Take me to your friend." he ordered.
Nodding, Ghoul walked to the edge of the wall and jumped off. Erwin followed after him.
When both had landed on the ground, Ghoul approached the trees nearby and whistled. After a moment, a reply came, and the brawny redhead emerged. Erwin blinked in surprise, having expected a rather scrawny man with a darting gaze and twitchy manner, not a hulk with an air of cheer and confidence.
"Staghorn, this is Commander Erwin Smith of the Survey Corp. Erwin, this is my old friend Staghorn, the man who put me up seven years ago and the leader of the party." Ghoul introduced as Staghorn drew close.
"Nice to meet you, Smith." Staghorn greeted with a smile and a nod.
"Likewise." Erwin nodded, offering his hand. Staghorn accepted with a firm grip. "Ghoul says that your party is willing to aid ours."
Staghorn didn't answer, looking at Ghoul in confusion. "Blimey, Hanningworth, how'd'ya get saddled with such an eerie name?"
"Long story. Some other time." the teen muttered.
Shrugging, Staghorn turned back to Erwin, one hand on his hip. "Yeah. Your numbers may be kinda large for comfort, but with how few Titans we've been having since your wall was busted, that shouldn't be too big a problem. So we can help the best we can."
"What exactly do you want in exchange?"
"Water."
Before Erwin could ask why, Ghoul jumped in, saying, "Their littlest survivor, Meredith, is sick, and they're having trouble finding clean water to give her until she gets better. I told Staghorn that we do carry some water, and he and his party agreed that in exchange for all the water we can spare for her, they'll help us out."
"What's wrong with her?" Erwin frowned. He couldn't have his soldiers getting sick with a new plague...
"Just a touch of stomach flu. But while you insiders have your doctors, we have a higher mortality rate for common cold out here." Staghorn explained.
Erwin touched a finger to his lips, thinking.
How did they need help? Could the outsiders help, and did they have the water to spare? Either way, morning was coming soon...