Ch. 43

"Glenn's dead." Abraham was floored by the statement. Simple and yet so heavy.

When Sam and Beth had returned he had ordered all of the fighting personnel of the foundry to meet in the warehouse where Eugene had been making the bullets. All fifty-five of the fighters had gathered, and Sam stood in front of them, taking in their confused and nervous gazes.

Merle and Beth stood beside Sam, as did a few of the men that had accompanied Sam when he had first begun attacking the Saviors.

"I've been planning for a while. Thinking on how to properly go about it. I fought them for a long while, and me and my guys did good. But then we needed help, so we brought all of you here. All of you that are tired of living like rats, that want to escape the squalor that the Saviors force on you, and that your leaders don't want to fight against." There were a few nods of agreement as well as confirming murmurs. Abraham glanced around the room nervously, fearful of what might happen. "They're weak. Most of your leaders are weak and don't want to take proper risks. In this world, that's all there is, risks. As a wise man once said, Nowadays you breathe and you risk your life. You don't have a choice. The only thing you can choose is what you're risking it for. And I've decided what I'm risking my life for. I'm risking my life so I won't ever have to live under the boot of a man like Negan. I'm risking my life so I can be free from the control of weak leaders, and I am risking my life, because in the face of a man like Negan you can only fight and risk death, or live on your fucking knees, and I for one won't bloody do that!"

People began to shout out encouragement and Abraham found himself nodding along with Sam's speech.

"So, we're gonna fight, and we may very well bloody die, but we'll die on our feet rather than some of our leaders, servicing Negan and the rest of the Saviors. We'll fight because we aren't weak, or afraid. We'll fight because we fucking have to."

Cheers erupted from the crowd and Abraham smiled grimly. Sam told him how Rick refused to fight out of fear. But Sam was anything but afraid. The Saviors were in for a hell of a rude awakening.


"I want scouts to watch these roads and keep a record of the different people that they see coming and going from these roads. We'll have to get creative, the King sent a message back the other day, turns out they're not ready for war yet," Sam told Abraham, Merle, and Darrius, an original raider.

"We'll have to get creative," Darrius said. "Back in Afghanistan they used IED's, maybe we could rig a few together and take out some Saviors with them?"

"No," Abraham said. "Absolutely not. Sam, I lost more than a few friends to those fucking things, and there's no way I'm gonna let them be used."

"Come on Abraham it's war," Merle said.

"Shut up Merle. And calm down Abraham, we're not going to use them. It's too risky, we could hit Saviors, Kingdomers, hell maybe even some of our own people. We'll stick to ambushes, for now, controlled detonations hit and run stuff."

Darrius grumbled under his breath but nodded. "We could hit the convoys that come from this outpost. Hell, maybe even take out the outpost completely" Darrius put his finger to a place that had been marked as The Armory. "It's the people that collect from the Kingdom. If we damage them we could finally get the Kingdom to support us, plus, there's some rumors."

"Oh?" Sam raised an eyebrow and looked over at him.

"M2 Browning Heavy Machine Guns," Darrius said. Abraham whistled and Merle smiled.

"Oh, those'll come in handy," Merle said. "We could mount them on cars, use one to defend the base."

"You know if they keep any other weapons there?" Sam asked Darrius.

"From what I heard when I made drops it was mostly small arms, nothing too heavy besides the M2's."

"It'll sure make our lives easier," Sam said.

"We have a problem though," Merle said. "There's a whole lot of killing that needs to be done, which means we need a whole lot of bullets. We have plenty for now, but we need Eugene to get going on his bullet factory if we're gonna come out on top of all of this."

"Rory should be back soon. The spring he went to's out of radio range, but it should have enough sulfur for us. And with it, we'll have enough bullets to wipe out the Saviors."


The drive was longer than Rory would have liked. The two cars that he had taken with him were speeding down the highway. Rory kept his head down, observing the map, making sure that the convoy was going down the proper road.

There had been a fallen tree on the normal route so Rory had to take a longer one, but he was confident that he and the rest of his volunteers would get there safely.

"Rory," Damien said from the driver seat. "Got a quick question for you."

"Shoot."

"You think we have a chance?"

"I think so," Rory said, setting the map down. "I mean, with all the shit we're hauling we could make a shitload of bullets. We just need to—"

A burst of fire enveloped the front of the car and Rory felt his seatbelt hold him back as his body lurched forward. He saw glass shatter and closed his eyes just as the car began to flip.

Rory's ear began to ring and he felt the car thud and the rotten smell of sulfur rose into the air. The dulled noise, a side effect of his ringing ears, made it harder for Rory to distinguish what was happening. There were several pops and screams, Rory thought it was gunfire. He brought a hand to his face and wiped away a small amount of blood as well as a piece of glass that was cutting into his eyebrow.

"Rory," he could hear a faint voice calling his name. But it was muffled and distorted. "Rory, can you hear me?"

The ringing began to lessen and as Rory opened his eyes he saw that the windshield had shattered and a small fire was a lit in the engine block.

"Fuck!" Rory said as he reached for his seatbelt, but then he felt a sharp pain envelop his entire body. "Fuck!"

"Rory!" Rory looked to his right and saw Damien in his seat. "Rory, get out, the cars gonna blow."

"What about the others?' Rory looked behind him and saw that several of the backseats were empty while some had dead bodies. "Shit!"

"The other car's fine, they're fighting. Go!"

"What about you?"

Damien moved his hands and showed a large piece of glass piercing his gut. "I'm fucked. It's deep and I wouldn't even be able to make it five steps. Now fucking go!"

"No," Rory said.

"No time for heroics. I'm dead, now fucking go!" Rory hesitated, but with the smell of gas and sound of gunfire, he forced himself to unbuckle.

"I'm sorry," Rory said.

Damien smiled as he saw Rory unbuckle himself and begin climbing out of the car. "Rory! I'll see you in Valhalla!" Rory raised an eyebrow but smiled and scrambled out of the car. "I always wanted to say that."

Gunfire peppered the area around Rory as he ran to the car where the other survivors had regrouped and began returning fire. The car Rory had been in finally exploded and the smoke began to rise into the air as Rory stumbled into cover.

"Catch me up!" Rory said to the nearest person.

"Your car got him and we started taking fire from the left side of the road. We only have twelve of us left!" The man peeked his head out and began firing into the trees.

"I need a rifle, radio and a map!" Rory said. The men quickly handed him a map and radio, but unfortunately, all the rifles were begin used. Rory quickly scanned the map and tried to find the place where he and his men were.

He calculated the location trying to remember any road sign that he had seen before the ambush. He could remember Jackson Creek and, Bellpine, but those were the only signs he could remember, but he couldn't remember how far away they were.

"Shit! Pull into the trees, we need to get away from all the gunfire," one of the men said.

"Right, everyone, into the trees!" Rory said, picking up the map and shoving it into his pocket. "Use the smoke from the first car as cover! Get to the trees!"

The men scrambled and Rory felt blood falling down his face. He ran a hand down the side of his head and felt fresh blood and stinging.

"Shit. Stop!" Rory knelt down and looked at the foundry on the map as well as the circle that went thirty miles around the foundry itself.

"Are we in radio range?" A member, Jack, asked as he scanned the trees.

"Maybe," Rory turned the radio on and clicked the transmit button. "Hello! Foundry does anyone read me? This is Rory, come in!"

Static was their response as they listened. Rory looked back down to the map and where the edge of the circle stood. He saw small words on the map and managed to make one out, Bellpine. One of the last signs he had seen was Bellpine and it was just outside of the circle.

"Rory hold still," there was a click and Rory turned and saw Jack holding a knife over a lighter. "You're bleeding from your head and we don't have time for stitches."

"Fuck that," Rory said moving his hand from the radio to his bleeding head.

"Rory this is all we can do. If we don't you'll bleed too much and we won't be able to move.

Rory looked at the knife and then moved his hand to look at it. It was covered in blood and he could feel the soaked sleeve of his shirt from the oozing cut on his head.

"Fuck! Fine, but give me something to bite down on." They handed him a stick and quickly wrapped it in a rag. Rory laid on the ground and put the stick in his mouth, then nodded to Jack.

The steel hissed as it made contact with Rory's skin and the boy felt air rise out of his lungs and turn into screams as he tried to process the pain.

"I hear something!" there was a shout in the distance and the others tried to shut Rory up. But as the knife was pulled back seared skin stuck to the blade and the smell of smoked meat went into the air.

"Fuck," Rory screamed. The throbbing in his head rang out in his ears. But he had a job to do. He had to get his people out. "Fuck, give me the map, and the lighter."

The men did as instructed and Rory looked down examining the map. If they ran west they would eventually get into the range of the bases radios. They just had to get there.

Rory flicked the lighter open and held the map to it, letting it catch fire.

"Help me up, they'll be here soon. We need to go west, get in range of the radios" His men did so and Rory limped behind them watching the back of them, listening to the Saviors shout out to run into the woods and look for Rory and his group.

There was a snap and then Rory heard a crack and then a tree splintered next to him. More and more snaps came from the woods followed by cracks as bullets were fired into the woods and bullets implanted themselves into trees and the dirt around Rory and his group.

"Does anyone copy! This is Rory does anyone copy?" Rory screamed into his radio as he ran, the blood loss making his head swim. "Come on!"

"Shit!" Rory saw one of his men go down and then limped over to him fast as he could. The man had a bullet in his back and wasn't moving. Rory rolled him onto his back and saw that he was dead.

Rory cursed and grabbed the man's rifle, repeating what Damien had told him before he had before he forced him to leave the car. "See you in Valhalla."

More gunfire was sprayed into the woods and Rory repeated his call on the radio. He limped through and could feel his mind beginning to slip as his legs got heavier and heavier. His breathing got ragged and he fell to his knees. The crash and then cauterizing the wound on his face, coupled with blood loss spelled bad news for Rory.

"Help!" Rory screamed into the radio. "Help!"

More gunfire came from the forest and Rory began crawling forward his finger pressed down on the button transmitting everything as he moved forward.

"I'm not dying here," Rory began to chant. "Not dying here. Not dying here. Not dying here."

"Come on!" the footsteps of the Saviors were close now and Rory reached for the knife on his belt. Sam had always said that it was best to die fighting than begging or crying. "Over here!"

"Fuck. I won't die." Rory said as he tried to get to his feet, only to stumble and fall to the ground.

There was a rustling in the bushes behind him and Rory only had enough time to glance behind and see an armed man emerging before he turned around and tried to crawl faster.

"Well now," the man laughed before whistling the infamous long two noted Savior whistle. "Found one of 'em, boys!"

More men came out and Rory brought his knife under his body so they couldn't see it. He moved slowly still hoping not to stab himself as he crawled.

"Who's this? He hit?"

"Nah, I think he's one of the ones in the wreck. Yeah, we learned a thing or two from those months of you hitting us. Turns out the whole waiting for a target, boring as shit as it might be, is very fucking effective." Rory continued to crawl and hold his finger on the radio. "Where you think you're going? You're friends still out there? Or they leave you behind as bait?"

Rory continued crawling, and he could feel the annoyance of the Savior at the lack of reaction.

"Check him for any information," the Savior ordered. One of the men walked to Rory and grabbed him by the back and flipped him over.

Rory quickly thrust his arm out and stabbed the Savior and twisted the knife.

"Shit!" The lead Savior shouted as he raised his gun.

"Put it down!" Bodies rushed out of the trees and surrounded the Saviors, guns raised and fingers on the triggers.

Rory looked around and saw that his men had come to him. He smiled and laughed a bit in relief.

"Where you there the whole time?" Rory asked.

"We had to make sure this was all of them," Jack said. "What's the play, boss?"

Rory pulled his knife out of the Savior that had grabbed him and looked over to the Saviors. The man that stood front and center eyed Rory hostilely had dropped his gun with the rest of his men. Rory raised his knife and asked their leader what his name was.

"The names Justin shitbag."

Rory rolled his eyes. "Grab their guns. If Negan trusts this guy to run an ambush, they he must be worth something, right?"


Cars pulled into the neighborhood that Rory and his crew had taken cover in. The captured Saviors were handcuffed together and formed a long chain with their arms. There were fifteen in total. Rory smiled, he and eleven men had managed to capture a large force. Not much larger, granted, but larger. Still, it was mostly due to overconfidence and Rory being used as bait, without his knowledge.

Sam was the first one out of the car and made his way into the house. He smiled at seeing Rory alive, as well as most of his men, but then the smile slowly disappeared when he saw the Saviors.

"What the fuck is this?" Sam asked.

"We figured they could give us some info."

"What'd I say about prisoners?" Sam snapped.

"We can use them, Sam."

"Wait, I know you," one of the Saviors said looking at Sam. "You were with those people from Alexandria."

Sam glared at Rory as he looked at the Savior. "So what?"

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

Sam smiled. "Fighting you. That's what we're all doing here. Bag their heads. Rory wants to play Warden. I'll let him, for now. The sulfur?"

"We lost half of it," Rory said. "I'll have Jack show you where the last of it is. We were ambushed on I-39. Our men's bodies are there too."

"We'll get 'em, bury them," Sam said softly. "As for the Saviors, like I said. We'll jail 'em for now, but you're in charge of them. If one of them steps out of line then you're the one that kills them."


AN: Iknow it isn't the best but life has been a bit of a bitch to me lately. I was going to originally kill Rory, but then I decided against it since I have a bit of a plan for him after hashing out some details for later on. Sorry for taking so long by the way. School has been crazy and I haven't been super focused as of late. Anyway, I hope you guys liked the chapter, also! If the See you in Valhalla seemed a bit out of place, it's because I recently read a book about German pilots in WWII and I wanted to incorporate a pilot's last words into the story. Please review! ~Pacco1