Dead men walking, some are dancing
The first time Alicia had defied the Assembly, even her allies had been taken aback.
“I will not lead my team into the broken bridge.” She’d announced, setting her foot down. She hadn’t relented nor had she been willing to compromise, and so she had been benched.
Oh, they hadn’t stripped her of her rank or her authority, that would have been foolish. But the team had set off at dawn and they’d done so without her.
“Pray they come back.” Alicia had told the Assembly. “Pray they do.”
She hadn’t finished her threat and she’d left the room shortly after, having gone over the logistics of seizing control of the settlement twice with Izitayel’s help and deciding against it. She didn’t have enough allies, she’d have to kill way too many people. It would have destroyed the settlement and that was something she couldn’t afford.
The team hadn’t come back from their supply run. There had been no communication and no traces, and the settlement had agreed to wait another day before sending a search and rescue team. It had been the second foolish decision they’d taken that week, so for the second time in seventy hours Alicia had overtly defied the will of the settlement. If she had stayed, the wary looks and the general discomfort would have ended in blood, and Alicia knew full well that it wouldn’t be hers.
Three warriors had followed her lead, half a team that set off at dawn under a cloak of secrecy and was now incurring in treason in hopes of saving six lives. Three warriors that were now whispering among themselves as the shadows of their would-be enemies, all of them already dead and walking, approached from three different angles.
That was going to be quite the battle.
She’d chosen her favorite sword, a bastard blade she could wield one-handed when she needed to add Hellfire to the mix, and the armor she’d brought when she’d first arrived to the settlement. It was chainmail and leather, light enough to allow her the fast fighting style she favored and with a distinct viking feeling she loved. Her men, on the other hand, wore the mix of plate and pre-apocalypse body armor that the settlement could offer. They hadn’t been given permission to take it, but Alicia wasn’t one to do things by halves and so she’d forced the door open and urged her warriors to be quick about it. They’d also taken spears and two crossbows, and hopefully that would be enough to defend against the incoming zombies.
Truth be told, she’d chosen the grounds for the battle as well as she’d been able to. They couldn’t be attacked from behind and the presence of so many walking corpses meant that they were near the area where the lost team either was hiding or had been taken prisoner.
So Alicia grinned, the blood-lust making her heart flutter. She’d hold on in human form for a while in order to take care of those who had followed her, but before the night came she’d have a good chance to go into battle form, she knew it.
Black Court Apocalypse AU
@lostintimenoutoftouch