Chapter Text
“Don’t worry Hawk, I know it was Rickenberger that screwed up.” Colonel Kreese managed a slight smile, although his disappointment over the failure of the mission clear. He had called Hawk into his office soon after they’d arrived back. Only Lieutenant Lawrence had seen him first. Hawk was expecting to be berated over the botched poisoning at least, if not the fact that they’d all basically run away from the Miyagi Estate with their tails between their legs. Apparently Lieutenant Lawrence had had some kind of intense stare down with Lieutenant LaRusso, but he’d backed down when presented with proof of the attempted poisoning. The only person to actually fight for the honour of their regiment had been Miguel, who had faced off against Mr. Robert Keene.
It was quite the fight, apparently. From what Hawk heard Miguel had won but then agreed to leave at Miss LaRusso’s emotional demand.
Hawk had missed all of the excitement because he’d been out in the moonlight letting Demetri fill his head with nonsense.
Miguel had ranted the entire way back to base about how of course they hadn’t tried to poison the general – that was a coward’s move! Lieutenant Lawrence had been uncharacteristically quiet, as had most others. Mr. Douglas Rickenberger had grumbled a bit over how the Miyagi fighters had wanted to arrest him after finding him in the kitchen. He kept insisting he was just trying to grab some dessert early. He was a bad liar, but Miguel was too set in his ideals to notice right then and nobody else was talking.
Hawk felt like a fool for believing he’d been the only one entrusted with the ‘special secret mission’.
“You do, sir?”
“Of course. It was my mistake to trust him with this. You would have handled it fine, I’m sure, if he didn’t botch the job first. It’s just that so much can happen on the road, I wanted to improve our odds of success.”
“Of course, sir.” Hawk agreed, standing frozen in parade rest before his commander’s desk. Despite the colonel's insistence that he was not angry with Hawk, this meeting had a markedly different tone from their previous meeting when Hawk had been invited to sit by the fire.
“It’s not that I thought you might not be up to the task, you know that right?” Hawk… wasn’t sure how to answer that. Was he being set up to agree and then have the colonel blow up at him? Or did it look weak that he hadn’t agreed right away? Or would it seem arrogant to agree right away?
Did he actually believe that at all?
“I shouldn’t have doubled up with Rickenberger, but what’s done is done. Some cards have been revealed I didn’t plan on revealing. That means our timetable has to move up. Things are about to get… intense. Do you think you can handle that, Hawk?”
“Yes sir.” Hawk said the words he knew he needed to say, although he was not sure they were true.
“Good, good. Because I’m a bit concerned that not everyone will be able to. How did Lieutenant Lawrence react to what happened at the Miyagi Estate?”
“I wasn’t in the room.” Hawk didn’t understand why he was being asked this. Surely the colonel wasn’t implying that the lieutenant was anything less than devoted to the cause?
“How was he on the trip back, then?”
“…Quiet.”
“Interesting…”
“Colonel, sir, the lieutenant isn’t –“ Hawk wasn't sure whether he was trying to ask a question or offer some defense of Lieutenant Lawrence.
“He’s gotten a bit sensitive as of late. It’s probably just that his son has chosen to align with Miyagi. Nothing for you to worry about.” Colonel Kreese explained dismissively while cutting the end of a new cigar. “I just want to make sure he doesn’t falter, either against the dead or against our living enemies.”
Colonel Kreese had always been clear about that – that the Miyagi Regiment were the enemies, the same as the dead were. Others might say ‘rivals’ and think the colonel was just exaggerating, but Hawk knew he wasn’t. That’s why he had attacked even Demetri when he learned he had become an enemy.
That’s why it was ridiculous that when Demetri asked if he hated him now he hadn’t been able to say he did.
“Go, get some rest. If you see Mr. Diaz tell him I’d like to talk to him too.”
“Sir.” Hawk turned to excuse himself from the colonel’s office, but he didn’t make it far.
“Oh, and Hawk? What happened to your share of poison?” Hawk froze with his hand on the doorknob. If things had happened the way Colonel Kreese seemed to assume – that Hawk hadn’t made his own assassination attempt because Rickenberger had tried first and been caught – then he would still have the pouch of poison. There was no way to explain not having it anymore without either lying about what had happened to it or coming clean about his own plan to arrange a fight between the colonel and General Miyagi.
He had told himself over and over that the colonel would like his plan, that he’d been as reluctant about the poison as Hawk had been because it was cowardly. But he didn’t seem regretful about it at all now. And he had sent a backup assassin. It seemed like the colonel had, in fact, been all-in on the poisoning. Hawk had just wanted to believe he wasn’t.
“The old man is obsessed with this stupid little tree, so I thought 'why waste good poison?' I fed it to the plant on the way out.” Hawk spoke confidently, injecting just the right amount of sneer. He was practiced at putting on this front, although he didn’t usually think of it that way.
The colonel laughed. “Well, that’d upset the little bastard anyways. Nice work Hawk.”
Normally Hawk would be thrilled to get that kind of validation from one of his superiors, but something about it felt empty this time and he didn’t think it was because of the slight lie about the timing of the planticide.
He went back to his bunk in the room he shared with Miguel to find his friend pacing.
“What did he say? The poison was a lie, right?”
“He wants to talk to you next.” Hawk sat heavily down on his bed.
“Did he say anything about the poison at all?” Hawk didn’t know what to make of the situation or what he was feeling about it. The colonel’s mention of a timetable was slowly filling him with dread. He didn’t answer Miguel right away, not until he heard him opening the door to leave.
“Wait, Miguel. The poison. It was real.” Telling him, against the colonel’s original order for secrecy, was a split-second decision. He remembered what the colonel had said about some people not being ready for what had to happen next, and he had a feeling that if Miguel went into his meeting angry or shocked about the poison that would put him in the ‘not ready’ category in Colonel Kreese’s mind. He didn’t know what that would mean, but he’d rather Miguel not find out.
“What?” Miguel stepped away from the door and took a step towards him.
“I was ordered to poison the general. I didn’t do it, but it seems like Mr. Rickenberger had the same orders.”
“Did everyone know except me?!”
“No, it was a secret! Only I knew. And apparently Rickenberger.”
“The colonel hid this from Lieutenant Lawrence? You hid it from us?”
“I had orders, okay? The colonel wanted it to be a secret.”
“Because it goes against everything the lieutenant’s ever taught us!”
“Colonel Kreese said he needed Miyagi out of the picture and that the coward wouldn’t face him honourably, so there was no choice.”
“Sometimes I think Colonel Kreese is full of shit.” Miguel huffed out, closing the door hard as he left for his own meeting. Hopefully he got a handle on himself before he reached the colonel.
Hawk flopped backwards onto his bed and tried to will his heart to stop pounding. On one hand he couldn’t believe Miguel would say that about the colonel! He was their leader. He was the man who had created the Cobras, the man who’d given them purpose.
The Kreese Regiment had given him a life. He didn’t have anything outside of this. Except…
Demetri’s hands, warm around his in the chill of the spring evening. Sincere dark eyes telling him they could face the future together. Memories of the best part of the life he’d left behind and the promise of a future where he got to keep that and also build so much more…
Ridiculous. What kind of weak dream was that? He didn’t need it.
He’d been about to tell Demetri ‘no’.
But there’d been no reason he couldn’t shout it as he left. Why hadn’t he? Why had he been so sad? It was like Demetri was taunting him with things he couldn’t have.
They were enemies and he wouldn’t want to marry Demetri even if they weren’t. Right?
This was stupid. He shouldn’t waste any more thought on it.
If Demetri had asked him before all this, though. Back when he couldn’t imagine a future that didn’t have his dearest friend in it. Back when things much less vicious than zombies were constantly intimidating him and Demetri’s sharp wit and comforting presence were the only things that could make him smile. Back when he sometimes looked at his friend rambling away and completely blanked on what he was saying because he was busy watching the way his eyes lit up while he talked… if Demetri had asked him then…
Well, it was for the best that he hadn’t.
-
Things were a bit hectic in the days after the Kreese Regiment left the estate. They couldn’t be sure there wasn’t still poison hidden somewhere so a lot of food had had to be thrown away – a waste at any time, but especially in times like these where trampling zombies were a common threat to crops. They didn’t know this wasn’t a poison you could absorb through contact, either, so the entire estate had needed a good scrubbing. Good thing training in the Miyagi Regiment was already basically chores a good portion of the time.
“General Miyagi is alright?” Demetri had asked Sam that night after Eli had left. He honestly did care about the general, but his voice still came out hollow.
“Yes. He always had his suspicions that Kreese would use this to try something, but peace was worth the risk to him. He was already on guard, and then one of those snakes killed the bonsai in the back garden! It wilted so fast he knew it had to be poison, so he’d been watching. He caught one of them trying to sprinkle something on his dessert before they brought it out.”
“Sam, Eli wasn’t the one –“
“I know that, Demetri. But for all we know they were all in on it.”
Eli had been worried about a choice he had to make. He’d been talking about taking someone out.
He said he’d made a call.
Demetri didn’t want to believe he’d been part of it. He knew the Kreese Regiment had him thinking things like intimidating people into supporting Duke Silver and attacking old friends randomly at parties was just a show of ‘strength’, but cold pre-meditated poisoning was something else. His heart said Eli would never. His head knew that was how he’d felt about Eli attacking him, once.
He wanted to hear what Eli had to say on the matter, but it wasn’t as if he could simply write him a letter or walk over to his house and ask. He had no idea when he would see him again, or what the circumstances would be when he did.
He wondered if Eli would give him his answer then.
It was ridiculous of him to be thinking of Eli as Schrodinger's fiancé, as if he had said either yes or no and Demetri simply didn't know which. Eli had not answered at all, and that meant 'no' until further notice. That’s how Demetri felt, though. Like somewhere out there there on some muddy battlefield there was a young man who may or may not be his betrothed. It didn’t make Demetri worry about him any more than he had before, it just added to the frustration of it because if the answer was ‘yes’ that meant that whatever Eli might be facing they should be facing together.
He wished he’d chased after him.
After a few days of scrubbing and a few more of rest, Demetri was again partnered with Sam and sent out on patrol. Sam was clearly still shaken by the near assassination of the general. This wasn’t an attack on a leader for her, it was an attack on her family. She and Mr. Keene had wanted to arrest the offender, a Mr. Douglas Rickenberger, and hold him in their custody until he could be transported to a prison, but the Cobras in the room had objected strongly to that.
Mr. Diaz had apparently been the most offended by the accusation, and the most willing to fight when he felt his regiment was being disrespected. From what Demetri had heard even Lieutenant Lawrence had backed down when he realized what had happened. Mr. Diaz's actions also seemed to be a source of stress for Sam, who had previously considered him a friend.
“He probably didn’t know, if he got that offended about the idea.” Demetri said to Sam one night before they went to their own rooms at an inn.
“He could have been faking it.”
“Did he seem like the type to do something like that?”
“No.” Sam shook her head. “I didn’t think so, anyways. What of your Mr. Moskowitz? Do you think he knew?”
“Right now Eli is both the person I know best and a stranger I’ve never met at the same time.” Demetri forced a light tone, like he was joking. Sam smiled indulgently like she didn’t buy his joviality, but wasn’t going to call him on it.
“I know I stopped you that night, but for what it’s worth I do hope he comes back to you."
“I’ve said all I can to him. All my metaphorical cards are on the table. It’s his move now.”
Demetri and Sam were on the road through the summer. Demetri kept hoping they’d run into Eli, but they never did.
-
Hawk spent the week after they returned from the Miyagi Estate waiting for something big, and potentially bad, to happen. For Colonel Kreese to realize Hawk had misled him about the poison. For some update on whatever plan of the colonel’s involved a ‘timetable’. For an escalation in their conflict with the Miyagi Regiment – would the enemy regiment not retaliate? The entire Kreese Regiment would be on their doorstep by the end of the week ready to settle things for good if a Miyagi fighter had tried to assassinate the colonel.
No enemies showed up looking for a fight, however, and the colonel seemed to be pretending the incident at the Miyagi Estate had never happened. Rickenberger’s failure was punished only with extra chores. Miguel seemed to calm down. Things were bizarrely normal by the time he and Miguel were set out on patrols again.
It wasn’t until he and Miguel had been on the road for a couple of weeks that everything fell apart.
They’d just taken down a small horde of 10 or so zombies. Which would have been considered a mid-sized horde only a year ago. At first not everyone who died got back up again, but it seemed like more and more were as time went on.
That day they had managed to take the zombies down before they reached the little town in their path, but they hadn’t saved the farmhouse they’d hit first. Failure always made Hawk feel useless, and that was compounded even more these days with his more secret failures lurking in the back of his mind. He had finally come to the conclusion that it had been weak of him to back out of poisoning Miyagi. It was true that poison was a less-than ideal way to deal with foes, that it could even be seen as cowardly, but his commander wouldn’t have chosen that method if it wasn’t necessary. He’d let his head be clouded by his conversation with Demetri, by Demetri telling him he wasn't mindless and wouldn't kill needlessly. Unless he chose to be someone who would. He hadn't wanted to be that, but why would he ever choose to be the Eli that Demetri seemed to want back?
Not that Demetri had seemed to want everything to go back to exactly how it had been… But then, his other secret failing was going to speak with him that night at all. If he’d just ignored him and gone back to his room he wouldn’t have an unanswered question eating away at him every moment he wasn’t sufficiently distracted.
After putting down the zombie herd Hawk and Miguel were hosted at a residence in the village. It wasn’t a grand mansion this time, just a loft above a shop the owner wasn’t using. Not every assignment was glamourous.
When Lieutenant Lawrence first stepped in Hawk had known something was wrong most obviously because he was bleeding through a poorly tied bandage. Miguel had quickly dug out some bandages they had on hand while Hawk started boiling water. Aside from the wound, however, it felt like a bad omen that they were seeing the lieutenant at all. He wasn’t supposed to be patrolling with them, he was supposed to be training the newest batch of recruits back at Silver Manor.
Back in the days when Hawk had signed on new fighters were plucked here and there from rescued towns, as Hawk had been, but these days the colonel was more actively recruiting and the new trainees were a real class rather than just a couple new recruits.
Something must have happened at base to make the lieutenant leave his post.
“Is it just this one cut?” Miguel asked as he sat the lieutenant down in a chair by the fire.
“Yeah. I thought the bastard might’ve poisoned me too, but I don’t think I’d have made it here if he did.”
“Did you get anyone else out?”
Miguel didn’t seem to need to ask the lieutenant what had happened. It seemed like he knew.
Lieutenant Lawrence shook his head. “Couldn’t convince any of them to come. Some of the new kids looked like they were thinking about it, but that was the best I could do before I had to fight him.”
“Who did you fight?” Hawk asked, puzzled, as he removed the boiling water from the fireplace and placed it where Miguel could reach.
“You didn’t tell him yet?” Johnny looked at Miguel with confusion. His friend forced a shrug.
“He’s sort of dug in since the poison incident.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Okay, listen, Hawk. You told me Kreese secretly asked you to poison Miyagi, right? You see how twisted that is, don’t you?” Miguel kept his voice steady and reasonable.
“The colonel said he’d rather fight him, but that the old man wouldn’t accept his challenge.”
“So? The Miyagi fighters – they’re our rivals, sure, but it’s not them we’re at war with. Fighting the dead comes first, and if we take out the leader of another regiment that means we’re less capable of that.”
“Are you seriously spouting Miyagi unity crap right now?” Hawk couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“No, I mean – we have to keep our eyes on the real threat, is all. Plus, he had you carrying that burden all by yourself. I know it must have been weighing on you. You were down about something the whole trip there. I thought it was just about seeing your old friend again, but it’s because of what Kreese asked you to do, right?” Miguel was trying to be understanding. Part of Hawk appreciated that.
But he had been wrong to feel that way. He should have just done what he was told without overthinking it so much. Everything would be simpler then.
“He used you, kid. He used me like that too when I was a bit younger than you.” The lieutenant spoke up, clearly having some difficulty speaking with his wound. Miguel went back to cleaning and re-dressing it. “I thought he was a real hero back then. Wanted to be just like him. Wanted him to be proud of me, I guess. I never knew my father and…”
The lieutenant shook his head and made a dismissive gesture with his hand that earned a dirty look from Miguel, who needed him to stay still while he was re-bandaging him.
“Never mind, you don’t need to know all that. Point is, I get how easy it is to fall for his whole strongman ‘leader we need’ thing. But he turned on me once and he’ll turn on you. I joined up with the Cobras again when the zombies started coming because it was a real threat, you know? Not one he invented. And he was taking it so seriously. I thought he’d changed. Then I saw what Rickenberger did at the Miyagi place, and Miguel told me what he put you up to.”
“You told him?” Hawk looked accusingly at his friend even though he should have known he would. Miguel told the lieutenant everything.
“It was important information for all of us.” Miguel defended.
“And you… did you fight the colonel!?”
“Well, he wasn’t going to just let me go.” The lieutenant shrugged.
“Of course not.” If Lieutenant Lawrence was really betraying their commander then why would the colonel simply let him walk free? What if he turned against them? “More Cobras will probably be right behind you.”
He’d been traveling with an injury and Colonel Kreese had known the route he and Miguel were supposed to patrol. It would only make sense to assume the lieutenant would meet up with Miguel, who was known to essentially be his own right hand.
“Eh, I lost’em.”
“But they know where –“
“No they don’t.” Miguel interjected sheepishly. “I’ve been in charge of the map and, well, this area needs protection too.”
“You led us off course… the both of you planned this?”
“I was going to tell you earlier but I thought the reasoning would sound better coming from Lieutenant Lawrence.”
“So, what, you two are betraying the colonel and you think I am too?” Hawk laughed sharply. “Are you going to go join old man Miyagi?”
“The plan was to strike out on our own.” The lieutenant leaned heavily back in his chair as Miguel finished his work.
Standing from where he’d been crouched by Lieutenant Lawrence, Miguel faced Hawk with what Hawk had learned was his diplomatic face. “You should come with us. I couldn’t talk about it back at base, but I’m hoping you’ll see why now. You know Kreese is planning something and you know it’s no good. You don’t want to be part of it, and you don’t have to be.”
“People really need to stop telling me who I am.” Hawk growled. Even though he did know the colonel was planning something big. Even though he was dreading it. He just had to trust that it was all for the good of the country and the glory of the regiment. He couldn’t leave. Who would he be without the Kreese Regiment, where would he –
“You could go to your friend, if not with us. The fighter with the Miyagi Regiment. I saw you dancing together. He’s important to you –“
“Shut up!” Hawk seethed. Miguel made it sound so simple, but he couldn’t just walk away. “You two can plot whatever treachery you like. I won’t be a part of it, and the Kreese Regiment will be ready to deal with you.”
Hawk stormed out, slamming the door behind him. He wondered later, as he was trying to figure out exactly what part of the country Miguel had misled him to, if he should have tried to fight them. They’d have deserved it.
But they were the people who had inspired Hawk to start this new life, and the ones he’d relied on most at the start of it…
Well, that just made their treachery all the worse.
Hawk made his way back to base to report about the betrayal of Johnathan Lawrence and Miguel Diaz. When he arrived everything was not in chaos, as he might have expected so soon after the colonel’s most trusted lieutenant suddenly turned on him. The new recruits were still training in the yard, being overseen by the colonel himself, on the morning when Hawk arrived back.
“Hawk. You’re alone, so I take it Mr. Lawrence managed to turn Mr. Diaz against us too?”
“Yes sir.”
“But not you?”
“No sir, never.”
Colonel Kreese laughed in a pleased sort of way. “I think you're ready to take on a bit more around here.”
Two days later Hawk was still waiting for new orders – a new area to patrol, maybe a new partner – when the colonel again called him into his office. He praised him, told him about how they’d need more people to step up as leaders with the lieutenant gone, and informed him he’d be meeting Duke Silver soon. Apparently the duke was coming to personally see the new recruits sworn into the Cobras this time. Both he and the colonel would make speeches, and Hawk was one of the fighters they wanted standing at the front with them.
It was everything Hawk would have been ecstatic to hear not long ago, everything he’d thought he wanted. He tried his best to be pleased.
The actual ceremony was soon after that. It hadn’t been nearly this big a deal when Hawk went through it. Lieutenant Lawrence had held a cup in front of him while he pledged his loyalty with the Cobra oath and bled himself a little bit. It wasn’t that flashy a thing. Just a sort of performance you went through to hammer in the importance of the choice you were making, not much different from accepting a diploma and having a teacher move the tassel on your cap to the other side.
He supposed they were adding a bit more pomp now because there were so many recruits in the new class.
More confusingly, almost all of the rest of the regiment had been called back for the ceremony as well. They probably didn't have anyone out on patrol.
Outside, a summer storm was raging – all howling wind and booming thunder. The new class of recruits all lined up in the banquet hall of Silver Manor in front of a stage that had been built at one end. The rest of the regiment stood in rows behind them. Colonel Kreese was waiting for him at the front of the room and handed him the chalice Lieutenant Lawrence had once used to collect his blood. He would be in charge of collecting from the new class.
That part was familiar. The glass ball on a pedestal on the stage was not, and neither was the exceedingly tall, long haired, man in the dark cape. Hawk assumed him to be his lordship Duke Silver, however, from the aristocratic quality of his posture.
There was a second stranger on the stage too, and something about this stranger made Hawk deeply uncomfortable for no discernable reason. He was nondescript, if anything. But there was just a feeling Hawk got while looking at him like he was staring into the mouth of a tiger. Colonel Kreese briefly introduced him as Lieutenant Barnes, a personal guard to the duke who served as a courier between them at times, before they began.
First, Colonel Kreese spoke. He was every bit as inspiring as he had been that first day Hawk had heard him speak. He spoke of conquering enemies, of changing the nation. He spoke of overcoming all obstacles and becoming a pillar of strength that knew no doubt, no humility, no weakness at all.
“Now that you can fight, you will learn to charge forward. You will face our enemies and you will show no mercy. It is through your strength that we will put an end to the misguided pacifism of General Miyagi and his ilk. It is through your vitality that we will see this nation brought to its knees. The weak will know their place in our new order, and soon we will spread that order across the world.”
He didn’t say a single word about fighting zombies, and something about the word ‘vitality’ didn’t sit right with Hawk, but the content of the speech was only worrying when he thought about it and it was so easy not to think about it when the highlights were that he was being promised strength and a world where he was untouchable.
It was time then for the ceremony. Duke Silver stepped forward to lead the oath, the same one Hawk had taken years ago.
“I pledge my strength, my spirit, and my very life to the cause of the serpent. With this blood shall I be bound.”
Hawk went to each recruit one-by-one as they cut their fingers and bled into his chalice. With each he visited, the dread that had been building in his stomach became harder and harder to ignore.
At the end of the line he met a recruit who was smaller than all the others in the room. Hawk knew he was probably only two or three years younger than himself, but to his eyes the slight blond boy was a child.
“I pledge my strength, my spirit, and, um, can I ask a question?” The boy looked up at Hawk, ceremonial dagger (they hadn’t used anything that fancy when Hawk had done this, but it seemed like the colonel was trying to make a grand impression right now) pointed at his own finger but not making contact.
“What’s the hold up?” Colonel Kreese called from the stage. “Is there a problem?”
“He says he has a question first.” Hawk stepped back so their superiors could see the boy.
“Hah, well that’s a new one. I didn’t know you were bringing me a batch of thinkers Johnny!” His lordship Duke Silver grinned and clutched the colonel's shoulder in a way that spoke volumes about their shared history. There was nothing of a nobleman interacting with someone of lower birth in the way he grinned at Colonel Kreese.
“Come on then, boy, ask your question.”
“I read this article earlier this week that said your lordship had these dinner parties where you killed all kinds of animals in front of your guests. I don’t mean any offense, it just had these quotes from –“
“So what’s your question little guy?” The duke continued to smile like he’d been presented with his favourite meal.
“Just… is it true, sir?”
“Sure is! I used to throw some pretty fun parties, and I was dabbling in some other fun stuff too at the time. Figured I’d share. There’s nothing quite like the look on a debutante’s face when you splatter goat blood all down the front of her dress.”
So, perhaps his lordship Duke Silver was a tad… unhinged. That didn’t change anything.
“But why?” The boy continued to stare up at their commander and patron, baffled. Hawk wished there was a way to tell him to shut up without calling attention to himself. He didn’t think this line of questioning would lead anywhere good for the boy.
“I have my hobbies. I’ll tell you all about them later. Now why don’t you finish your oath, eh boyo?” Nothing about the duke’s manner had changed, but there still seemed to be a kind of dangerous atmosphere growing around him.
“I…”
“Now, Bert.” Colonel Kreese commanded more firmly.
“It’s just…” The boy, Bert, hesitated again.
“Arrest him.” Hawk had never seen the colonel look so cold, and yet the chill in his eyes was still familiar. Like it had been hiding there the whole time and Hawk just hadn’t been willing to see it.
Bert looked at Hawk helplessly, but Hawk couldn’t think of anything to do but grab him and lead him out of the room and down into a makeshift dungeon in the old servant’s quarters.
“What happens now?” Bert asked as Hawk shoved him inside his cell.
“I have no idea.” Hawk answered honestly and tried not to imagine the answer. Even just a week ago he would have said ‘you’ll just have to leave’, but now he wasn’t sure.
This was Lieutenant Lawrence’s fault for probably filling the recruit’s heads with garbage about the general on the way out. Or Demetri’s for publishing those things he’d alluded to at Christmas. It was Bert’s fault for questioning, or for not just leaving that morning if he had doubts. It wasn’t Hawk’s fault. So why did he feel so guilty locking the cell door?
When Hawk arrived back in the banquet hall his lordship was in the middle of his own speech, holding up the chalice Hawk had handed off before he left. He made eye contact with Hawk as he entered the room and seemed to wait for him to take his place on the stage next to Lieutenant Barnes before continuing.
“Now, boys and girls, how’d you like to see a magic trick?” Duke Silver proceeded to pour the gathered drops of blood over the glass orb. Rather than dripping down in whatever pattern gravity willed, the blood shifted to form a perfect round skin over the orb before turning into a black shell and crumbling away. The orb glowed for a moment as the crust fell off and all the candles in the room seemed to flicker.
Everyone was confused for a moment, and then there was a horrible groaning sound. It was coming from outside. Duke Silver nodded to Barnes and he went to pull a rope on one end of the room. The curtain lining the west side of the room was pulled back to reveal a room-length window. The courtyard outside was full of zombies.
The dead groaned and reached, but did not advance. Hawk and several of the more experienced fighters reached for their weapons, but the colonel shook his head and indicated with a gesture for Duke Silver to continue.
“I’ve learned to control the zombies. Isn’t that fantastic?” The duke threw his hands out in a ‘tada!’ gesture. “I know it’s been a long fight for all of you, and Johnny here thought you deserved to see the fruits of your efforts. The dead never have to be a threat to any of you again. Great news, right?”
His lordship looked around the room as if expecting applause. And it came, after a moment. At first everyone seemed confused, but slowly it dawned on them what this meant. Duke Silver had essentially solved the zombie crisis.
But then, why had Colonel Kreese just pushed for so many new recruits? If zombies could be tamed that should mean they needed less fighters, right?
“One of the challenges facing us is through, but there is still a great battle ahead!” Colonel Kreese took center stage again. “While we have fought the dead – while we have risked our lives for the people of this nation – some have not appreciated it. Some have been led astray by the teachings of our enemies. This crisis will not truly be over until those enemies have been defeated. Permanently.”
All of the fighters who had been with the Kreese Regiment for any period of time cheered loudly at this, and all of the newer fighters joined in quickly enough. Hawk shouted and clapped as he knew was expected of him. Only because he knew it was expected of him.
It was dawning on him that, somewhere along the line, he may have made a huge mistake.