Unequal Accomplices
**Bandit camp**
(a few hours before the dead started their assault on Aldmoor.)
“Thanks again, doc, you really are the best.”
Two men were facing each other in a tent. One of them was seated on a shabby, filthy bed, while the other sat on a simple wooden stool. The man with blood bespeckled bed whore a faithful, naive grin on his face as the other man on the stool fastened a bandage around the other’s arm. His work now done, the man on the stool dons a slight smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and pushes his thick glasses up while saying,
“Aww, don’t mention it, I just like to help.”
The doctor began to shily scratch the back of his head. Rustling his raven black locks.
“It can’t hurt to be thankful,” my mother always said… I think. But now that I think about it, isn’t it a bit quiet?”
“Well, they must just be tired, right? I bet you are also tired, right? Why don’t you go into your tent and sleep a bit?”
“I bet they are working too much, which isn’t good for you, as my mother has always said. Thanks again, doc, for always stitching us back together and… stuff.”
“Yes, yes, no trouble, just go to bed. Tomorrow is a big day.”
“Hm! Totally doc got to give it my all tomorrow like my mother always says.”
The Patient left the tent, and the smile on the doctor’s face was replaced by a tired frown, and a shady-looking man revealed himself from a dark corner of the tent.
“Finally, the last one won’t be missed. This Land is truly full of imbeciles.”
The newcomer made his disdain evident by wrinkling his nose like he was looking at a dung hill. He had well-defined cheekbones and long, knife-like ears peeking through his almost golden blond hair. His deep green eyes always looked like everyone was beneath him.
The raven-haired doctor turned towards the elf, long used to the other tirades about the uncultured, and casually asked, like others would for the weather,
“How long until the poison kicks in?” he asked, turning away from the elven man, who was now staring through the tent flaps into the deep, dark night.
The elf took out a small black bottle not bigger than a walnut and began to throw it up and down in his hand.
“Just one more hour and they are all dead. Then we won’t have to worry about any of them telling the church. How is it on your end, Gram?”
“Good. Though I do wonder why you insisted that we had to wait for their reinforcements, Kethryl. The last of the remaining bodies has just passed the tunnel. Everything should be ready for tomorrow.”
As usual, the Kethryl didn’t want to answer as to why he had purposefully delayed the operation until Rosedorn’s reinforcement made it here. Well, unless one counts’it will be more fun’ as a valid reason.
“And you think your puppets can do it?”
Gram glares at the elf’s doubtful expression before declaring, determined,
“They will be enough. The army I have raised is four times as big as Aldmoor’s entire population. I will just raise the Bandits and mercenaries, and we are good to go.”
Kethryl raised an eyebrow. The elf’s most arrogant facial expression that he could muster.
“Really? Well, it doesn’t really matter, I suppose I get what I want either way. Though the same may not apply to you...”
Kethryl hadn’t even finished his sentence when Gram had already grabbed him by the collar, shaking him around, and even easily lifting him into the air.
“You dare go back on our trade?”
Veins were pulsating on Gram’s forehead as sweat ran down Kethryl’s.
“By the heavens, no, I just wanted to remind you that I had you promise me you would take the city, and in return, I would bring back your daughters and wife’s souls.”
Implanting the souls of the dogs inside them indeed stopped them from decomposing, but now, after three years, there was nothing left of Gram’s beloved dogs. Now they were just obedient puppets.
Frustrated, Gram let go of the elf.
“Don’t suddenly play with me, Elf!”
And with that, Gram storms into the night. So he couldn’t hear the elf’s last words.
“Suddenly, he? Hehehe, I have always been playing you, Gram.”