He was keeping watch. It was an important job.
The others were in the general store, looting. That was also an important job. Those who work must eat. And they'd all been putting in time lately.
It was quiet. And kind of boring.
He kept having to remind himself that he wasn't watching for the guard. If he happened to see them, they wouldn't be jogging over with their clubs, shouting "What do you think you're doing?" They'd be sort of stumbling slowly and moaning.
So it took him by surprise when he did see a guard coming at a pretty brisk pace, and hardly moaning at all.
The man was leading his little group of humans toward the store. And the dead, he was leading them here too. It quickly became apparent that he was leading quite a few of them.
Trebuchet sneered at the man, which did not make his face look appreciably different, and the man didn't seem to care. And though he (still) didn't look it, he was actually pleased. Yeah, part of him thought the guy was a right prick for leading the zombies here, never mind his instinctual reaction to the uniform, but at the same time, his arrival heralded an end to the boredom. So he helped herd the mewling pinkskins into the building.
They quickly got to barricading the exits, but he just waited at the door with his spear and started working himself into the battle-fury. He could see the dead men slowly approaching in the dark. The seconds dragged on into an eternity, a feral grin spreading wider on his face with each step they took.
He could hear the preacher shouting on the roof, but he was barely cognizant of it. The first of the enemy line came in reach of his spear and he gleefully drove the implement into its side.
It...ignored him. It stumbled off to the side and just...lay down dead. He stared around, bewildered, and saw the rest of them doing the same.
Well, there was another line advancing, so he picked up his weapon and tried again. Same result.
As the blood pounding in his ears began to fade, he realized the priest was still shouting. That was probably important.
Godbotherers. Take the fun out of everything.
So he ran upstairs to stab something. He'd decide what exactly he was going to stab on the way.
When he got there, though, everyone was whispering nervously. Someone stopped him and told him to be quiet.
He glared back at them. Then he slowly turned and very quietly thrust his spear down from the window through the length of a zombie. He drew it back up slowly, with a wet sucking noise, but still very quietly, he felt. Then he turned back and stared pointedly. But quietly.
After that he was left with his thoughts, which were wordless and vague. Things happened around him, but he didn't pay much attention, until he suddenly noticed one of the elves casting glances his way. That one was, if anything, even more elvish than the others, and Trebuchet's opinion of that hardly needed to be stated.
After going around whispering to the others for a while, while Trebuchet's annoyance slowly mounted, the elf finally came and explained himself. Apparently, the orc was infected, explained the elf, pointing to his arm. Like the ones outside. The zombies.
He let that sink in for a moment. Then he looked at his arm. He had to admit it had looked better.
He thought about the zombies. They were pitiful creatures. They had died, but by denying that and standing back up they had lost their honor, their fight, their will.
The solution could hardly be more obvious. Cut off the arm, he said.
They deliberated about this in hushed tones for a while. He waited patiently for them to realize the inevitability of it.
In a perverse way, he looked forward to it. Many orcs did not consider one to have come of age until maimed somehow. This was more than necessary. It was essential.
Soon, he was handing over his cleaver and presenting his arm. Shortly thereafter, he descended into unconsciousness.
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