Ascended

They were starting to gather.

I’d been expecting four or five Humans, but there were already more than twenty people gathered at the northern end of the city wall. They were stacking axes, giant saws with grips on either end, and coils of ropes on the dock.

Hugh walked down the dock toward us as we got to the wall. The tall man looked worried as he glanced between Fyga and myself.

“Are you the only ones coming?” He moved to the side of the dock to let a group of men with armloads of tools walk past.

“The others are finishing lunch.” I raised an eyebrow. “I thought it was just going to be a few people.”

“Oh.” He looked up the dock at the gathering crowd. “Mayor Huddiner didn’t know when we’d get another chance since our Wranglers were on the ships.” Hugh squeezed his hands together. “Will this be okay?” He motioned at a group that was coming up the road towards us. “I can turn the rest back if we need to.”

“It should be fine.” I looked at Fyga, then back to the big man. “We should be able to tell if Zombies are coming long before they get close.” I started estimating. “How are you going to get everyone out without having the boats on standby?”

“Everyone here can swim.” Hugh looked down at the cold water below us. “It’s not ideal, but if you can give us enough of a head start, the Zombies won’t chase us into the water.” He motioned at the dock. “And not everyone will be going with us. We will keep teams here at the shore and dock to get the wood into the city.”

I was wondering how they’d planned on getting the trees back inside without a gate, though that explanation didn’t really answer anything. There was a part of me that was interested in watching them, but as far as I needed to be away from them, I probably wasn’t going to get much of a chance to.

“Master Val is planning on patrolling the southwest side.” I nodded at the boat that was coming over to the dock. “Fyga and I will be watching the northwest. Could you have someone show us where you plan on working so we can start setting up a perimeter?” The way his eyes lit up made me uncomfortable. “People don’t need to head out until after Master Val has had a chance to clear her area.”

“Oh.” Hugh’s face darkened a little. He looked around, then headed back to the end of the dock. “Jesson!”

Fyga and I followed after him. An average sized middle-aged blonde man with bright green eyes looked away from where he’d been telling the others how to stack stuff.

“Jesson.” Hugh motioned at me. “Master Byler needs me to take him to the logging site so he can clear it.” He twirled his finger in front of him. “Get the boys ready to go, but don’t leave until Master Val gives the all clear.”

“Yes sir!” The blonde man grunted as he looked behind us. “Gary! What have I told you about running with blades?!” He shook his head. “You’ll have to excuse me. I have to go stop Gary from killing himself.”

I watched him go down the dock and begin to chew out a teen that was carrying an armload of axes. Instead of the heads all facing one way, it looked like he had thrown them all into a pile, then scooped them up in his arms.

“He’s a good kid, but he’s got more energy than he does brains.” Hugh shook his head as he motioned for one of the fishing boats to come get us. “Kid’ll be lucky if he lives long enough to get married.” He chuckled. “Or unlucky enough.” The tall man’s face straightened when he realized I wasn’t laughing.

Fyga smirked, but I didn’t understand what about it that was supposed to be funny.

“You’re taking us out there?” I chose to ignore his comment. “I thought you were a bodyguard, not a manual labor kind of guy.”

“You don’t have to be one or the other.” Hugh climbed in the boat as soon as it touched the dock. “We’re one of the larger cities around, but we’re still small enough that it’s a good thing to do more than one thing.”

“Makes sense.” Even back at the island, while there were apprentices that like to specialize in things like cooking or tending the gardens, the Masters made sure that we could do any of the various chores if needed.

“Let’s head out.” Hugh sat down in the boat, so we could get in. “Huddiner wants us to work until nightfall if we can.”

It was already past noon, so we didn’t have many hours to go. That might have been why they were trying to send so many people out. While it might help them a lot if they were able to work for a few days with us protecting them, there was no end to things that could be done with us watching over the Humans while they were outside the safety of the walls. If we stayed until they finished all their projects, we’d never leave.

I just hoped what they got done today would be helpful enough to last them until the next Bokor group came through that had time to spare.