40 Liberation II

Farsian soon found his target, in a small swarm of zombies he could see the torches of the villagers burning bright against the darkness of the night.

"So you managed to survive until now?" Farsian muttered to himself.

As he was currently not engaged in any combat he took his time to look at the situation from afar, there were about 20-50 villagers inside that one tavern. They had barricaded themselves with spikes and wooden boards in front of the windows. Not a single zombie had managed to get past the defensive barricade, although that was probably due to Farsian distracting the majority of them.

"Doesn't look too good for them. They could probably hold out for another hour before they break." Farsian deducted as he watched the villagers poke the zombies through the gaps in the defense.

On the other side, the villagers had a desperate fight against death itself. What made them lose their minds was that some of the corpses were familiar faces that they knew! This was just too much for many of the people that were defending and they needed to rest for a while before they could rejoin the defense.

"Hey, did you notice that there are more zombies than before?" A man who was on the front said as he poked a zombie in the head. The zombie did not die immediately, only after the one next to him stabbed at the same spot did the zombie actually die.

"Focus! Why are you saying such things? Do you wish for us to be drowned in endless waves of these things?" The other guy reproached him as he actually came to the same conclusion.

What ever luck they had previously was now gone and they would soon be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers.

"No, that's not what I was trying to say." The other guy tried to defend himself.

"WRAAARGH!" A man behind them suddenly started screaming, a wound on his arm was dripping with puss.

"Shit! He went berserk put him down!" The barkeeper shouted as he saw this happening, without the slightest bit of hesitation he cut the mans throat with a kitchen knife.

Blood sprinkled everywhere and the woman and children started to sob and cry as they saw the man get killed in front of their eyes.

"We need to be careful, that was already the fifth capable man that died from such a small wound!

Be careful not to be scratched or bitten, if you see someone get wounded tell me immediately." The barkeeper yelled at everyone inside.

"Hehehe, why don't you give up?" A voice sounded from outside the barricade.

"Wha-Who are you!" The barkeeper shouted back, his voice slightly hoarse from the shouting.

"Me? I'm just a minion of the great overlord that lives in the northern reaches. We are lacking recourses so we decided to rob you guys thereof." The voice resounded once again.

"Damn Hell spawns can't you just leave us alone? What do we have to offer that would be of use to your great lord?" The barkeeper tried to persuade them to leave, he feared that they would not hold on for much longer.

"What you have? Hehehe! Well for one you have some flesh on your bones. Also this place apparently holds tactical value in our expansion plans. Honestly I don't even care why we are attacking you, I only want that juicy flesh of yours." At this moment sounds of someone licking their lips with great delight came from outside the barricades.

"You want some of this?!" The barkeeper hit his own belly as he shouted and thrusted a random spear that he picked up from the ground through the barricades.

"HAHA! You missed!" The ridicule of the voice was clearly audible as another five zombies appeared out of the darkness to replace the one that had been killed just a second ago.

"Keep defending, the esteemed lord will surely be back any moment!" The barkeeper turned around and shouted at the people defending.

Farsian was their only hope, somehow the barkeeper could tell that Farsian was alive.

Or he was simply making things up so as to not lose all hope…

Farsian was silently observing things from the shadows, when he felt that a good moment had come he revealed himself to the zombies and the villagers.

"Huh? Who goes there?!" One of the guarding villagers said as he saw a shadow come closer towards the light.

"It's me can you let me inside?" Farsian replied as his face got lighted by a torch.

"Oh it's you, I saw you run in the zombie horde. I would never have thought, that you are still alive."

"Who is it?" The tavernkeeper said as he came to the barricade.

"Long time no see." Farsian said with an ambient smile.

"Your lordship, you survived?!" The barkeeper said full of astonishment.

"Your lordship?" The guard asked full of disbelieve.

"I never said I was a lord." Farsian replied to the doubtful looks of the guard.

"Don't deny it, only a lord trained in all kinds of weapons could possibly survive such an ordeal." The barkeeper protested.

"Well if you gonna put it that way." The guard slowly showed a sign of understanding.

"Did you come back to save us?" He asked Farsian with big blue eyes.

"Well, I could. But you guys would have to follow my every command!" Farsian said.

The guard and the barkeeper both nodded vigorously.

"Then let's make preparations and a plan to drive these nasty things back to where they came from." Farsian said with a smile.

Things were progressing smoothly, by the morning of the next day they had successfully created a plan to fight back.

Farsian would take the leading role and they would first draw the zombies into a series of traps and then charge them with their full force.

They had also sneaked some of the more capable men outside that would then attack from all sides.

It wasn't exactly the best plan but it was at least something that they could come to terms with.

The next morning Farsian was awoken by a nice little girl, he had seen her once when he had checked into the tavern. He couldn't remember her features clearly but there was no other girl of her age present at that time so it couldn't be someone else.

"What are you doing here?" Farsian asked as he saw the little girl rummage through his stuff.

"Wha-No I'm doing nothing, nothing at all." The girl lied and turned slightly red, which looked rather cute on her.

"Were you trying to steal from me?" Farsian asked.

"No, I was just trying to look if there were any zombies in your room. Maybe they sneaked in or something like that." The girl became even redder.

"Uh, ok. Just make sure to not disturb my sleep again the next time." Farsian chuckled, he had started similar to her so why not cut her some slack?

"Here for you and your watch full eyes." Farsian threw her a gold coin. This was more than enough to last a few weeks if not months.

"Thank you very much!" The girl exclaimed in surprise. A big smile that covered from ear to ear could be seen as the little girl skipped away happily.

"Well that could have gone worse." Farsian looked at the daggers that were lying next to his bed, one of his hands firmly gripped a hilt.

Farsian then decided to act on their plan and started preparing.

It was breakfast time when he finished.

"Why not take a meal before we go to battle?" Farsian said to himself. He could eat normal food everyday when he wished to, but it didn't have any benefit for him to do so. He could go for week without any food at all, and besides blood nothing really helped him grow stronger.

He would have to train like a mortal in order to stay in shape, or simply rest for a small eternity in some coffin. But neither of these two seemed very appealing to him right now.

After going down and having breakfast, he and his men started to gather at the barricades.

There was no zombie in sight.

"Did they notice something?" The barkeeper said as he looked about.

"No they shouldn't have." Farsian replied.

He was growing more and more agitated. When he couldn't take it any longer he went outside and started searching the area.

"You guys wait here I'll lure them here." Farsian said to the others.

After he went about for half an hour he finally found out what was happening. All the zombies were piling on top of each other in order to reach the rooftop where he had deposited the elder zombie the last night.

"Well that is something new." Farsian said as he marvelled at the spectacle.

"No more to the left! What are you doing?! THE OTHER LEFT!!!" The elder zombie screamed on the rooftop.

With how things were going right now it would be at least another half an hour untill they got him down there. Farsian couldn't wait that long and climbed up the house onto the roof.

"You again!" The elder zombie cursed at him.

"You still haven't gotten down yet?" Farsian asked in surprise. Obviously the zombies were as stupid as a loaf of bread, maybe even worse.